I’ve been thinking about the third period a lot lately, specifically the end of the third period and the dawn of united fronts. Looking at the state of the left in the west, it seems like things have become fragmented to a point that even the best of us are confused about who to support or which orgs to join. What I’ve been thinking is that we ought to form a united front between all the various communist groups in any given country, but in my case specifically America. I don’t think we should work with liberals of any stripe at this moment, but I do think we should be able to let subtle differences between party lines fall by the wayside. This would allow us to spread our ideas a bit more broadly and represent ourselves at protests as a larger communist group. I think the ultimate goal would be something like the SED or the PSUV, but even something as light as an agreement to work together would be a huge step forward organizationally. I’m curious to know what your thoughts on the matter are.
I don’t have time right now to get really detailed, but basically united fronts are good and useful for specific actions. A party joining a coalition with liberals and potentially other “leftists” could be important for more mobilization, broader reach on some items, etc. It’s been incredibly useful in organizing anti-police actions across the US since George Floyd’s murder.
However, being completely dependent on these united fronts dilutes the party message if nothing is done about it, and could lead to further deradicalization. A party should use the fronts to further class consciousness if possible but not rely on them. An issue with CPUSA’s liberalization really coming in strong in the 1950s had part in their obsession with these sort of coalitions, where they were hesitant to do anything that could “challenge the masses.” Very clearly the wrong tactic.
I highly recommend reading “Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder for some good insights into tactics the Bolsheviks used. It’s a great retrospective on what worked and why. Lenin’s position is that it is necessary to work with other groups without losing focus of what you’re trying to achieve in the process. These are alliances of convenience, and they should be upheld only as long as the interests align.
Pragmatism is key for success, and having a fractured and bickering left is not a great situation to be in. The right is well organized right now, and it’s ultimately funded by the billionaires. Koch brothers, FOX, Facebook, etc. All of them are recruiting and growing right wing networks. I think everybody on the left needs to recognize that as the primary and immediate threat.
The issue of United Fronts and Popular Fronts is really only an thorny theoretical problem for the advanced capitalist countries, aka the first world.
Why is the PSUV popular? It isn’t because they are some sort of broad united front of different “left” groups, it’s because they openly tell the Spanish-speaking Mestizo population that the borders separating them in Latin America are imaginary lines drawn up by imperialists. Marxism-Leninism, or anything even approaching it, is always nationalism in third world countries, and Venezuela is no different. Chavez made this crystal clear on a number of occasions, for example, this speech in Cuba:
“When I had the enormous but pleasant surprise of being met at the José Martí International Airport by Fidel himself, I said to him, “I don’t deserve this honour, I hope that I shall deserve it one day in the months and years to come”. I say the same thing to you, dear fellow Cubano-Latin Americans: One day we hope to come to Cuba to offer our help, to offer each other mutual support in a Latin American revolutionary project, steeped as we have been for centuries in the idea of a Hispanic-American, Latin-American, Caribbean continent integrated into the single nation that we are.”
Marxism-Leninism works in third-world countries because they able to transcend political boundaries that are all but impossible to do in the advanced capitalist countries (and not simply for ideological reasons). Imagine if the vast majority of communists, Nazis, and social-democrats were all in the same party in Germany, and you have something very close to the PSUV. This isn’t to attack the PSUV at all, but this is why people in third-world countries have latched onto Marxism-Leninism in the first place. Ho Chi Minh even wrote openly about it in his short essay The Path Which Led Me to Leninism. To quote it:
I raised this question – the most important in my opinion – in a meeting. Some comrades answered: It is the Third, not the Second International. And a comrade gave me Lenin’s ‘Thesis on the national and colonial questions’ published by l’Humanité to read.
There were political terms difficult to understand in this thesis. But by dint of reading it again and again, finally I could grasp the main part of it. What emotion, enthusiasm, clear-sightedness and confidence it instilled into me! I was overjoyed to tears. Though sitting alone in my room, I shouted out aloud as if addressing large crowds: ‘Dear martyrs compatriots! This is what we need, this is the path to our liberation!’
The same pattern follows all communist revolutions, though it is more obscured and hidden in the Russian revolution itself. Tell a right-winger to choose which social-democrat to shoot in 1917, and they’re going to point the guns at the Kerenskyists.
The question of United Fronts and Popular Fronts can generally be reduced to a military question. If you are firing bullets at the government, basically anyone willing to also do this should get a place in the Front. If you don’t have an army, then anyone willing to actually help you build an army should be in the Front. Anything else is essentially trying to paper over differences between reform and revolution, and if this something you want to do, you’re going to have a real bad time.
