I'm confused

Why does this group exist when the policies enacted at the time were obviously wrong? This is probably the worst politics ever taken by a communist party, it ignored the threat of fascism to the workers movement and (as we see in greece) ended up pitting the KPD against the SPD instead of against the Nazis, who were capitalism's last vestige of hope. If both parties assaulted fascism, we would of had no WW2 and the KPD could of kept growing and eventually overtaken the SPD, as the trend was working by 1930 with the KPD growing and the SPD losing members and votes to both the Nazis and the KPD.

Have you looked up the "Democratic Front" yet? Trotsky's writings were a capitulation in the face of the SPD's Democratic Front antics.

YES I know what a Democratic Front is! It includes bourgeois capitalist parties to go against bourgeois fascism.

A United Front includes two socialist parties whose politics are gained from workers support going against Fascism which wants to get rid of any vestige of democracy. It's a fucking no brainer what the answer is going to be, no democracy or chance for Communism AT ALL or a temporary alliance with a left party with a mass workers membership against a beast that will kill everybody. I would reject any coalition with bourgeois socialists at any point except for the point where Fascism or another extreme reactionary force are at hand.

The october revolution was made possible with United Fronts with Bourgeois Socialists against the Czarist army, so what makes the German exriance any different? Why should different politics be chosen at the climax of the world revolution?

No, not quite. Democratic Front /= Popular Front. The Democratic Front is just the mainstream.

[Read: The SPD didn't want to work with the KPD.]

Why does this group exist when the policies enacted at the time were obviously wrong? This is probably the worst politics ever taken by a communist party, it ignored the threat of fascism to the workers movement and (as we see in greece) ended up pitting the KPD against the SPD instead of against the Nazis, who were capitalism's last vestige of hope. If both parties assaulted fascism, we would of had no WW2 and the KPD could of kept growing and eventually overtaken the SPD, as the trend was working by 1930 with the KPD growing and the SPD losing members and votes to both the Nazis and the KPD.

The KPD wouldn't have ended ever overtaking the SPD if it filled that policy. First of all it's debatable over whether pursuing a class collaborationist policy with the SPD would even work in the first place, and if it did, it would push the KPD down the road to reformism anyway. Far from being the worst policies that existed, refusing to work with Social-Democrats was probably one of the few periods of Sanity of the era. The KPD was increasing membership, but only incrementally. Nowhere near the numbers that could have allowed them to stand up to the Nazis. I would agree, however, that their prioritizing the SPD for attack was pretty dumb though.

But then Trotsky's front wasn't a united front, if that how you define it as Social-Democrats aren't socialists, they're bourgeois capitalists. Any form of coalition with bourgeois parties is a huge no-no. Hopefully you are aware that. Engels wrote on this matter, as did Kautsky.

The power of the state is everywhere an organ of class rule. The class antagonisms between the workers and the possessing class are so great that the proletariat can never share governmental power with any possessing class. The possessing class will always demand, and its interests will force it to demand, that the power of the state shall be used to hold the proletariat down. On the other hand the proletariat will always demand that any government in which their own party possesses power, shall use the power of the state to assist it in its battle against capital. Consequent) every government based upon a coalition of capitalist and working class parties is foredoomed to disruption.

A proletarian party which shares power with a capitalist party in any government must share the blame for any acts of subjection of the working class. It thereby invites the hostility of its own supporters, and this in turn causes its capitalist allies to lose confidence and makes any progressive action impossible. No such arrangement can bring any strength to the working class. No capitalist party will permit it do so. It can only compromise a proletarian party- and confuse and split the working class.

It's also worth mentioning that it was coalitionism that led to the rise of fascism in the first place and the failure f the international socialist movement(well, it was one contributing factor of several).

But then Trotsky's front wasn't a united front, if that how you define it as Social-Democrats aren't socialists, they're bourgeois capitalists. Any form of coalition with bourgeois parties is a huge no-no. Hopefully you are aware that. Engels wrote on this matter, as did Kautsky.

The power of the state is everywhere an organ of class rule. The class antagonisms between the workers and the possessing class are so great that the proletariat can never share governmental power with any possessing class. The possessing class will always demand, and its interests will force it to demand, that the power of the state shall be used to hold the proletariat down. On the other hand the proletariat will always demand that any government in which their own party possesses power, shall use the power of the state to assist it in its battle against capital. Consequent) every government based upon a coalition of capitalist and working class parties is foredoomed to disruption.

A proletarian party which shares power with a capitalist party in any government must share the blame for any acts of subjection of the working class. It thereby invites the hostility of its own supporters, and this in turn causes its capitalist allies to lose confidence and makes any progressive action impossible. No such arrangement can bring any strength to the working class. No capitalist party will permit it do so. It can only compromise a proletarian party- and confuse and split the working class.

It's also worth mentioning that it was coalitionism that led to the rise of fascism in the first place and the failure f the international socialist movement(well, it was one contributing factor of several). The SPD was comprised of virulent anti-communists and the murderers of Karl and Rosa. No one in their right mind would work with them. They are just as poisonous to the workers' class interests as the Nazis. Fascism represents a serious threat that should be combatted head on, but it should be a proletarian initiative. The idea that social-democrats can in any way represent a progressive force in the context of the struggle for socialism is a fundamental distortion of the Marxist understanding of class analysis.

Since United Front really just seems to be a permutation of the popular front, it seems like we need a new word to describe unity between genuinely proletarian organizations. A good majority of social democratic parties are discounted from this. Just because a party has a base of workers doesn't make it proletarian. Most large parties in capitalists states will have a base of workers, even fascists on occasion. If Communists were truly in a position to make gains following a class collaborationist policy with bourgeois social-democrats, if they hadn't been tamed through reformism by then they'd be cracked down upon. seems like you need to read the history of the SPD a bit.

a united front was worked out with the mensheviks, who were also bourgeois socialists, in russia as the white army rose, so how is that different than Germany? The only difference is that KPD was pulling the same ultra left, sectarian bullshit that KKE is doing in greece. Their stance was obviously wrong as well since it allowed fascism to rise without basically any opposition. It doesn't take a genious to know that the mutual goals between the SPD (who aren't capitalists, they were bourgeois socialists, and were the 1st workers party in existance) and the KPD, namely defending workers organizations and the victories by the workers movement, were more similar than the KPD and the fucking Nazis, whom KPD actively marched with against the SPD. look at greece, whose worse, PASOK or Golden Dawn? Who presents more of a threat, a decaying social democrat party or fascists, the capitalist godsends who were the only thing between barbarism or socialism? Once the united front won, KPD would be the obvious leadership.

And 1930 needed a wholly different outlook than the 1920s. I even consider the actions from 1928-1930 as correct, however fascism needs to be stopped as soon as it starts gaining 7 million votes in the reichstag. how would a struggle against fascism mean reformism? fascism was where the big german capitalists put their faith in, so defeating that beast and Hitler would mean defeating the last bastion of capitalism. There would be nothing to reform about if the fascists were beaten, that in itself would be the revolution. however everybody here is ignoring completely how the russian revolution worked. The SPD needed the KPD at 1930, so there would have been no grounds for demanding any kind of reformism if those opportunist leaders wanted to stay alive.

Looks like we have our first actual Third Periodist in the Learning forum, who actually might know about the anti-communist "democratic front" antics the SPD engaged in with mainstream lib and con parties.

The (post WW1) SPD has always been a traitorous party. The thing is that once a worker party gives in to class collaborationist policies it turns against proletarian interests. "Fight Social-Fascism!"

Wow you guys are making me re-join this group seriously to reply.

The mensheviks were as class collaborationist as the SPD, and just as bad, applauding, and enabling the Czarist police to arrest, imprison, and often straight up kill every bolshevik or revolutionary they could find. I don't even have to start on the SR's and their reactionary history. Lenin and Trotsky joined in a united front against them against Czarist reaction, freeing the bolshevik party and allowing for the revolution to grow with no organized reaction against it, for the time being. What's the difference.

BTW there is nothing in common with Social Dems and Nazis other than their dislike for communists, but they still have to defend trade unions, social programs, and other working class demands, simply not the demand for revolution, or anything other than "reforms." That's why they're called reformists, not reactionaries.

Well you're not really using an accurate definition of reformism. Reformism is an ideology that holds capitalism can be gradually reformed into socialism. The policy of the SPD, by the 1930's certainly, was about as far from this as you could be. Keynesianism is by definition liberalism; it does not seek to reform capitalism into socialism, merely make capitalism more tolerable. This is the ultimate difference that separates a social-democrat from a liberal, and by and large most of the groups that you support via a "united front" are liberals, not reformists.

The Nazis and Social Democrats have something strongly in common: They were both the chief prop of the bourgeoisie in its struggle to defend capitalism from collapse in the first half of the twentieth century.

The menshevik and sr government propped up capitalism in Russia and the bolsheviks allied with them against Kornilov. And the bolsheviks were leading the workers republic from that point on.