stagism, popular front

[Black Sheep]

Having read some trotsky stuff, he criticises the popular front of a bad caricature of the united front.Correct me if i'm wrong:

The PF consists of the workers, communists and liberal bourgeoisie, often implemented against situations of 'not normal' capitalism.I.e. foreign occupation, fascist regimes

The united front restricts the participants into communists and working class only.

So, questions:
1)What are the arguments for the PF?
Also, the stages theory claims that an underdeveloped country must first go through capitalism and ints advance, and from there the workers can act towards the socialist revolution.
If that is the case, why in so many countres the PF was utilized leading to democratic elections (aiming bourgeoisie state or a soc-dem governing party at best), where those countries where either occupied by fascists or at civil war with them.I.e. spain and greece, by the comintern-led communist parties.

2)Is a totalitarian capitalist regime 'improper' for the working class to start organizing and aiming for socialism immediately? Why does it have to aid the liberal bourgeoisie? Is a (as much as it can be) liberal state necessary for the workers' emancipation and why?

[Q]

Note, while Trotsky was against the popular front tactic, the Trotskyist movement is not always. Respect in the UK, which the SWP built and supported for years, comes to mind.

Trotsky's main objection is that the popular front undermines an independent class position for the workers movement and in fact binds them to the illusion of a liberal bourgeois programme, which is just hollow rhetoric as capitalism has no progressive function to play anymore in this day and age.

[Yehuda Stern]

1)What are the arguments for the PF?

Basically, that under the threat of fascism the workers must cooperate with the anti-fascist bourgeoisie because fascism is worse for the workers than a bourgeois republic. While the latter part is basically true, history shows that the bourgeoisie always betrays the anti-fascist struggle because it is more afraid of a socialist revolution than fascism.

I don't really understand what you mean in the part about the stage theory; can you explain again?


Is a totalitarian capitalist regime 'improper' for the working class to start organizing and aiming for socialism immediately? Why does it have to aid the liberal bourgeoisie? Is a (as much as it can be) liberal state necessary for the workers' emancipation and why?

It's not. Originally Marxists thought that capitalist states are ripe for a socialist revolution, whether or not they are democratic, but that countries that have not been through a democratic revolution would have to go through one before a socialist revolution. Trotsky put forward the theory of Permanent Revolution, which was confirmed in the Bolshevik Revolution, arguing that that was no longer the case, the workers would have to carry out the revolution and take care of both democratic and socialist tasks in the process.

[Black Sheep]

I don't really understand what you mean in the part about the stage theory; can you explain again?I meant if a non-democratic bourgeoisie state was capable of breeding a socialist revolution, as popular fronts always resulted in one (with legalized communist parties & syndicates, etc).


In a nutshell,i meant if a foreign occupation/totalitarian regime 'sent back the country into a somewhat pre-capitalist situation, from which a democratic revolution would have to be brought about (PF serves that) and from there 'normal capitalism' is restored, and socialists can start building the revolution. (which sounds ridiculous to me)

I m not explaining it properly, i hope you understand :blushing:

[Yehuda Stern]

I don't think a foreign occupation can bring back a country to a pre-capitalist state; at most, it can turn an imperialist country into a non-imperialist one. Czechoslovakia is an example of a country which went through that process (and the only one I can think of, to be honest).

The Stalinists in France in WWII did try to use that excuse to justify their class collaboration with the De Gaullists. But like Trotsky said, the role of Marxists is hardly to be the "nurse of the “victimized” gangsters of imperialism." Indeed, the CPs support allowed France to once more become an independent imperialist state, and continue the oppression of North Africa.