Trotsky's critique of Popular Frontism: Is it applicable for us?

Original article via trotsky.net:

The term Popular Front (or People's Front) was coined in the 1930s and referred to an alliance of the workers' parties (Communist and Socialist) with so-called "progressive" bourgeois parties (Liberals, Republicans, Radicals, etc.). The two classic examples of this were in France and Spain. In 1931 and again in 1936, the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) joined a coalition with bourgeois parties. The same happened in France in 1936. the Communist parties were also part of these Popular Fronts. Both the Communist and Socialist party leaderships played a treacherous role in holding back the revolutionary movement of the working class. This prepared the ground for the victory of reaction. In Spain it lead to the terrible defeat at the hands of Franco.

The introductory piece here is quite interesting as a history piece. Now, the name of Trotsky will automatically have some turn off immediately, or immediately critique this entry for all of Trotksy's failings. All well and good. For those willing to soldier on, I think that there are things to be learned from what the article says.

I think what the article says is applicable to the current political situation in the US. The analogy, of course, isn't perfect. There aren't any strong leftist or workers parties here in the US. However, it seems that some think that what Obama is trying to do is form a national consensus, formed of the great middle that supposedly exists in American politics, thus bypassing both the left and the right. This consensus, I suppose, would then reign in the rapacious nature of the capitalists while keeping the US safe from the extremes of the left. Say what you will, it would be a grand vision (if, as I think it is, greatly flawed) should it come to pass.

I'm of the opinion Obama's thrown the left to the curb. If indications from his cabinet appointments are any indicator, he did so gladly. And why not? The left, right now, has nowhere else to go other than the Democratic Party. Obama's got them, if only out of fear of electing more Republicans. So, let's take the left out of the equation.

For this grand vision to work, Obama must keep the centrist Democrats. Once again, at least for now, the other choice is too frightening to contemplate, so they'll be with him. I tend to think the same with centrist Republicans (what few there may actually be). For now, that gives him an electoral majority, but a frail one at best. If he is seen to have failed economically, those centrist Republicans and some centrist Democrats could be persuaded to vote for the Republicans out of fear of an even worse economy. What Obama has to do, if this consensus is to last longer than his term(s) in office, is to get another part of the Republican party to join him.

The section that he is aiming at, of course, is the business/corporate/financial/ capitalist section. Surprise, surprise. We see this in the fact that he's pretty much put the economy in the hands of the financiers already. We also see this in the 'stimulus' package, with the heavy reliance on tax cuts in the Senate's compromise bill (current as of this weekend).



Which gets us to the point I think Trotsky was trying to make for those on the left: The business/corporate/financial/capitalist sect is out for itself, period. Right now, at least a few are throwing in with the Democrats simply because the Democrats hold the reigns of power in Washington. Should the political winds shift, they'll go right back to their home base of the Republican Party. Which, in our system, is a perfectly reasonable thing for them to do.



So, will this consensus work? If things go even reasonably well for Obama, certainly for him. He has a winning coalition, and the memory of W is probably enough to allow him to be elected a second time. But what about for the rest of the consensus? If the business/corporate/financial/ capitalist sect leaves, the consensus is shattered (and I think they would take with them the centrists Republicans and a fair chunk of centrists Democrats).



So, is the consensus worth pursuing? I'm sure it depends upon where you fall in the political spectrum. It will be interesting to see if it can actually form, and then equally worth seeing how long it could hold together.

The Rise and Fall of the Communist International

Original article, by Ted Grant (originally written June 1943), via Socialist Appeal (UK):

The Third International has been officially buried. In the most undignified and contemptible fashion it would be possible to conceive, it has passed off the stage of history. Hurriedly and without consultation with all the adhering parties, not to speak of the rank and file throughout the world, without any democratic discussion and decision, as the result of the pressure of American imperialism, Stalin has perfidiously abandoned the Comintern.

This article is quite interesting as a history piece, and well worth the read. For those of us who have not been brought up on socialist history, it's revealing as far as how a major international organization can fall. More to the point, it shows how the forces of international capitalism can corrupt that which is directly opposed to it.

It is in this last point that a lesson might be learned for today's political and economic situation. Above all else, the forces of capitalism are out for themselves. The failure of today's casino capitalism due to the greed and lack of ethics of it's practitioners is evidence of this. The voracious appetite of the capitalists for bailout funds (particularly those funds which have no oversight strings attached) is evidence of this. These actions have shown the flaw in 'trickle down economics' for all to see: No capitalist can be trusted to trickle down money to the masses as their goal is to vacuum up all money for themselves.

The lessons of the Third International's fall also include that you can't work with those who are beholden to international capitalism. Political inertia is a powerful weapon: Political inertia which is slowed by the gum of political donations by said international capitalism is almost difficult to defeat. This is what we face here in the US. Bailouts for the capitalists get voted out as if the tribute from the people is a right for those who have helped to collapse our system: A pittance aimed at supporting those people can't find it's way out of Congress without a protracted battle (if even then).

One of the points Grant makes in the article is that for a brief moment there seemed to be an opportunity for the working class to take over the governments of most of Europe. Now, you may not be looking forward to a socialist revolution. You may even find such an idea to be an anathema to whatever your political beliefs may be. So be it, but I think that it is clear that a break from our current political and economic systems (even if what we end up is some form of capitalism) seems to be needed. This break will not come from our ruling classes. They are beholden, to a great extent, to the money which comes from the very system they are (perhaps) trying to reform. It is up to the great masses who are being plundered to change said system.

The question is are WE willing to do so? And if we try, will we be willing to learn from failures of organizations such as the Third International? Our economic, and probably political, futures depend upon the answer.

Wither Wall Street

Original article, by Ralph Nader, via nader.org:

Soon after the passage in 1999 of the Clinton-Rubin-Summers-P. Graham deregulation of the financial industry, I boarded a US Air flight to Boston and discovered none other than then-Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers a few seats away. He was speaking loudly and constantly on his cell phone. When the plane took off he invited me to sit by him and talk.

That's the same Lawrence Summers who's heading Obama's National Economic Council. Makes me queasy, needless to say. Let's see what Ralph and Lawrence had to talk about:

After reviewing the contents of this Citibank-friendly new law called the Financial Modernization Act—I asked him: “Do you think the big banks have too much power?”

He paused for a few seconds and replied: “Not Yet.” Intrigued by his two word answer, I noted the rejection of modest pro-consumer provisions, adding that now that the banks had had their round, wasn’t it time for the consumers to have their own round soon?

Lawrence said yes, set up a meeting, and nothing came of it. Surprise, surprise. Well, what did you expect?

The rest is unfolding, tragic history. The law abolished the Glass-Steagall Act which separated commercial banking from investment banking. This opened the floodgates for unwise mergers, acquisitions and other unregulated risky financial instruments. Laced with limitless greed, casino capitalism ran wild, tanking economies here and abroad.

Read the rest of the article. Let your blood boil for a moment, then sit back and realize that the geniuses who got us in this mess are who Obama's counting on getting us out of the mess.

Well, them and his bipartisan Republican friends.

Ralph even throws in a book recommendation: “Why Wall Street Can’t Be Fixed and How to Replace It: Agenda For a New Economy” by long-time corporate critic, David C. Korten. Perhaps someone in the administration will read it. We're running out of time, and the foxes are in the hen house.

A Shift Toward Worker Power?

Original article, by Allan Nairn and subtitled The Time is Ripe to Tip the System, Now, via Dissidentvoice:

In bad situations, people lower their standards for what it is that constitutes good news.

It's like trading in one warmongering neoliberal president who can't string together more than one or two words without messing up what he's said with a smooth talking warmongering neoliberal president. At least we won't worry about him mispronouncing so many words! Of course, this is what we've come to.

There’s a very sick man with a withered arm, but it hasn’t been amputated, contrary to what a garbled and panic-inducing report had indicated.

Similarly, a boy has been coughing for three months, but a TB test says it isn’t TB.

Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? Well...you made it through, didn't you? So dry those eyes and stand strong for the country.

And in Cambodia, The New York Times just visited a dump city and used the existence of this particular hell to argue against labor standards on the grounds that if people would only work more cheaply, that would create more jobs for, say, dump dwellers, on the neoliberal assumption that capitalists don’t currently have enough desperate, oppressed, potential workers to choose from (See Nicholas D. Kristof, “Where Sweatshops Are a Dream,” The New York Times, January 14, 2009).

The key is to fight these vultures at every step. Make them struggle as you struggle. Don't feed them trillions of dollars so that they can continue to feast on the carcass of the US (or whatever country you may be in). Be sure they will do their best to make you suffer. It's time to return the favor.

Very poor people can indeed be delighted when what we call a sweatshop
comes to town (see my posting of Nov. 8, 2007, “Duduk
— Duduk, Ngobrol - Ngobrol. Sitting Around Talking, in Indonesia.”), but
what the Times misses is that they would be even more delighted if it paid them
better wages, didn’t rape and fondle the female workers, didn’t spray them with
toxics, etc.

Our debt based economy has failed. The choice for the capitalists is to leave the US in ever greater droves, or to begin to hire folks at a decent pay rate with decent benefits. GM is about to invest $1 billion in it's operations in Brazil, even while holding it's hands out for bailout cash from the US government. This should tell us what they're planning.

When workers are weak, it is indeed true that cutting labor standards can get more factories built. But by that Times/Davos/Burma-junta logic of job creation, you should also abolish the minimum wage, permit prostitution, even permit human bondage/ slavery, since each of those steps would indeed — under weak-worker conditions — induce the creation of new jobs. (Inconsistently, the Times editorially does support the minimum wage, and that Times writer has, as it happens, crusaded against poor-country prostitution.)

The sad point right now is that workers are weak. The society bought into the illusion that our debt based economy presented. As long as it seemed everybody could be rich, which lasted about as long as the housing bubble, it was painted that workers were actually doing well. Tell that to the long term unemployed and underemployed. The capitalists had it good in that there were segments of the economy that were doing well plus they had a pool of workers who were desperate enough to take any job, even if it meant busting a union to get one. Now, perhaps, the pool of unemployed is so great that there's a good chance that the balance has shifted toward worker unity.

A better job-creation solution is to change the power balance and make workers strong, in which case capital is the one that has to take bad news as good, adjust their expectations downward, and realize that if they want to put their capital to work they’ll have to pay people enough to, say, eat well.

Read the rest of the article. Nairn points out that one of Obama's chief economic gurus, Lawrence Summers, has written something that should make everybody to the left of, say, Ronald Reagan hurl:

Sad but true, US economic policy is now shaped by the man, Prof. Lawrence
Summers, who wrote the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics entry on “Unemployment” and observed — to the great pleasure of Bush Jr.’s advisers – that: “If unemployment insurance were eliminated, the unemployment rate would drop...
Another cause of long-term unemployment is unionization . . .” (Lawrence H.
Summers, “Unemployment,” The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, 2008).

Is Obama a friend of the working class? Will his neoliberal and investment banker advisers be able to persuade him not to be? All of this and more should be obvious as the economic picture continues to deteriorate. It's time for workers to stand up for themselves and their fellow workers. Perhaps, once again, they will.