Stalin adopted a Bordigist position!?!?!?!?!

I was reading up some stuff about united fronts and found this from the ICT:

For the Communist Left, the adoption of the united front marks a turning point in the history of the working class. It is one of the factors which distinguish us all from the Trotskyist currents today. In Italy, the Left still controlled the party so they came up with the idea of proclaiming a “united front from below” and even tried to persuade other parties to adopt this interpretation. The idea was that communists would cooperate with socialist workers at the factory level but not with their parties.

But later on when I searched "United front from below" on google to find out more it turns out that most of the links to go to pages talking about the tactics of the Stalinised comintern during the third period. This is the MIA for example:

Trotsky’s call was directed at the leaders of the Communist Party, who instead of seeking a united front with the socialists, were denouncing the socialists as “social fascists.”

While intended to achieve the class-unity which was necessary to defeat fascism, as Trotsky saw it, the united front did not include the parties ceasing criticism of one another. In fact, in order to get the best policy, it was essential that the two parties continued to criticise each other and compete for the loyalty of the workers.

Further, the united front was to be formed by a public agreement between the leaders of the two parties, who thereby recognised each other’s legitimacy, even while disagreeing with each other. This differs from the idea of a ‘Red United Front from Below’ put forward by Stalin, which meant denouncing the leaders of the opposing party as ‘social fascists’ but calling upon those who supported the social democrats to form a united front ‘behind the backs’ of their own leaders, ‘from below’.

What do you guys think of this?

I've read some Bordiga here and there, and from what I can gather the "Bordigists" (although they don't like to give themselves any sort of label) were not terribly interested in trying to really reach out to any party. I don't think they would even be interested in trying to sabotage or engage in any sort of contact with other tendencies. But as I'm still the midst of reading his English works, I can't say this for certain.

Stalin certainly would have wanted to do this in order to monopolize his control of other factions and their supporters, whereas Bordiga I don't think would. He's sort of an ultra-Leninist sans the cult of personality. There's a lot of him I don't understand.

Stalin certainly would have wanted to do this in order to monopolize his control of other factions and their supporters, whereas Bordiga I don't think would. He's sort of an ultra-Leninist sans the cult of personality. There's a lot of him I don't understand.

Bordiga initially comes across like that, but there was a lot more to his politics too. certainly on the party question he was very wrong. I think he is worth persisting with though.

You might find this article interesting background reading.

Devrim

There are superficial similarities between the position of Stalin in the Third Period and the position of the Italian left in the early 20s. However, they come from entirely different directions. If I recall rightly, for the Stalinists denouncing the 'social fascists' of social democracy was tied up with Russian foreign policy and was actually an expression of a kind of de facto alliance with the far right and thus with German militarism. It was abruptly changed a few years later when Russian imperialism shifted towards an alliance with France and the democratic powers, and began calling for the Popular Fronts. In any case any Stalinist 'alliance' with social democratic workers 'from below' would not have been a way of advancing working class unity, but of widening the possible influence of the Stalinist parties and their capacity to control the working class 'from above'. The Italian left was arguing from a proletarian perspective - for them the 'united front from below' meant no alliance with the socialist parties which were seen essentially as parties of the enemy, but concrete unity in action with workers who were still members of or influenced by the social democratic party, in strikes, demonstrations, etc. I think using the term 'united front from below' was still a kind of concession to the Comintern line but the basic starting point and concern was still proletarian.

If Alf wants to discuss Realpolitik, then he's quite wrong. In the sphere of Soviet foreign policy, Stalin and co. didn't really want to see a strong Germany, so how could they see a right-militarist Germany as some sort of bulwark against Western imperialism? Generals and military planners plan to fight the last war, so trench warfare with Germany and Poland was more likely than a rapid ground advance by Britain and France.

The so-called "alliance with the far right" or, more precisely, the failure to differentiate the left-nationalists (and thus the growing working-class component of the Nazi movement) from the Hitlerites, could be cynically seen as an attempt to play the various sides within Germany against one another to keep Germany indecisive or slightly pro-Soviet on foreign policy.

This Realpolitik against Germany being a Western military power would surface once more at the onset of the Cold War, with Stalin preferring a united but neutral Germany.

My understanding is that there were phases in which the USSR definitely considered the option of an alliance with Germany, which was seen as a fellow pariah. This was certainly involved in the Rappallo treaty of 1922, and in the nationalist turn of the KPD in 1923 - the so-called Schlagter line when fascists were seen as expressions of the national liberation struggle against Versailles and against French imperialism in particular, which was in the process of occupying the Ruhr. I would need to go back into this period, but I am not at all sure that the USSR had abandoned this option by 1929, when the 'Third Period' line was put forward.