Scenarios where socialists ought to support liberals? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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As either the transitional stage to communism or legitimate socio-economic ends in its own right.
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#14404520
This is a pretty simple question. I want to hear from socialists, a list of historical instances in which circumstances have evolved in such a way that the best choice that socialists could have made at the time, was to support establishment liberals- which is to say, the status quo.

When have the avenues of rebellion against the present order turned out to be so awful that it would be better to let the establishment win over them, and try again for new avenues later?
#14404576
I suppose I would need more context to decide, it would depend on what the more advanced form was up to in the area and what the less advanced form had planned.

If it was just very reactionary and wanted to bring back slavery or some such nonsense I would oppose it.
#14404586
I'm just trying to get you to understand why some people end up supporting the so-called 'neoconservatives', along with other forms of establishment liberals. It's because it is possible to actually arrive at that conclusion from a good reading of Marxism, under certain circumstances.

If you put aside emotion and force of habit, you should be able to see scenarios where you can provisionally support those kinds of people.
#14404621
I can think of a whole lot of situations when it's correct for Marxists to temporarily and circumstantially ally (never really align, the struggle for hegemony never ends) with liberals against a greater threat or even more reactionary forces (like clerical reaction, neofeudal regimes, reactionary autocracies, genocidal regimes or foreign imperialist occupation, situations where the more progressive sectors of the national bourgeoisie and the working masses have a clear shared interest of getting rid of them other motherfuckers), but not a single one where Liberals should be supported when they are the statu quo.

There is no greater threat to the European working masses than the class enemy that's destroying our living standards, pauperizing us through cheap firing and mass austerity and building a counterrevolutionary mass surveillance police state. Russian crony capitalism isn't particularly agreeable, but it certainly doesn't justify aligning with those responsible of the austericide wrought on the European working class. The main goal is and should be the destruction of the class and ideological enemy at home, not cooperating with them for the sake of a bourgeois imperialist agenda abroad.
Last edited by KlassWar on 13 May 2014 10:45, edited 2 times in total.
#14404836
Rei Murasame wrote:How about cases where a less advanced form of liberalism is battling against a more advanced form of liberalism?


What does this even mean? I assume by advanced you mean progressive in the Marxist sense, originally I suppose they would support the more advanced one, but since Lenin this has changed. There is no more 'progressive' capitalism/liberalism, we are in its highest phase (which is around the time 'establishment liberal' became a thing). Basically because all feudal barriers to the market have been smashed and proletarianization of the peasantry is underway (and now, completed pretty much).

Additionally, all post-1917 communist support for progressive 'establishment' tendencies (there still was some), such as for the Emir of Afghanistan and Mustafar Kemal, was pretty much limited to non-liberals in the third world.

By the way, how does this relate if at all to Japan in the late 19th century, which if I recall you once described as liberal in some aspect, if I'm not mistaken? Is it less advanced?

edit: Just realized this is about Russia. What Klasswar said. Russian state-capitalism > European neo-liberalism (spearheaded by nazis occupying the Communist Party headquarters, it's a nice incentive for us)
#14404841
Any situation in which it materially benefits the working class as a whole, I suppose. Stalin (yes, poor example I know) teaming up with the Western Allies? While perhaps not a resounding victory for the working class, still permissible I suppose. Although, Rei I'm sure believes the opposite.
#14405090
A few things to put out there:

1. Any alliance with any element of liberals must be a United Front, as Lenin understood it. This is to say:

The Fourth Congress of the Comintern (1922) wrote:One of the most important tasks of the Communist Parties is to organise resistance to international fascism. They must be at the head of the working class in the fight against the fascist gangs, must be extremely active in setting up united fronts on the question and must make use of illegal methods of organization...

There is consequently an obvious need for the united front tactic. The slogan of the Third Congress, “To the masses”, is now more relevant than ever. The struggle to establish a proletarian united front in a whole series of countries is only. just beginning. And only now have we begun to overcome all the difficulties associated with this tactic. The best example is France, where the course of events has won over even those who not so long ago had opposed this tactic on principle. The Communist International requires that all Communist Parties and groups adhere strictly to the united front tactic, because in the present period it is the only way of guiding Communists in the right direction, towards winning the majority of workers.

At present the reformists need a split, while the Communists are interested in uniting all the forces of the working class against capital.

Using the united front tactic means that the Communist vanguard is at the forefront of the day to day struggle of the broad masses for their most vital interests. For the sake of this struggle Communists are even prepared to negotiate with the scab leaders of the social democrats and the Amsterdam International. Any attempt by the Second International to interpret the united front as an organisational fusion of all the ‘workers’ parties’ must of course be categorically repudiated. The attempts of the Second International to absorb workers’ organisations further to the left and call this a united front (the ‘fusion’ of the social democrats and Independents in Germany [in 1922]) in fact simply provide yet another opportunity for the social-democratic leaders to betray new masses of workers to the bourgeoisie.

The existence of independent Communist Parties and their complete freedom of action in relation to the bourgeoisie and counter-revolutionary social democracy is the most important historical achievement of the proletariat, and one which the Communists will in no circumstances renounce. Only the Communist Parties stand for the overall interests of the whole proletariat.

In the same way the united front tactic has nothing to do with the so-called ‘electoral combinations’ of leaders in pursuit of one or another parliamentary aim.

The united front tactic is simply an initiative whereby the Communists propose to join with all workers belonging to other parties and groups and all unaligned workers in a common struggle to defend the immediate, basic interests of the working class against the bourgeoisie. Every action, for even the most trivial everyday demand, can lead to revolutionary awareness and revolutionary education; it is the experience of struggle that will convince workers of the inevitability of revolution and the historic importance of Communism.

It is particularly important when using the united front tactic to achieve not just agitational but also organisational results. Every opportunity must be used to establish organisational footholds among the working masses themselves (factory committees, supervisory commissions made up of workers from all the different parties and unaligned workers, action committees, etc.).

The main aim of the united front tactic is to unify the working masses through agitation and organisation. The real success of the united front tactic depends on a movement “from below”, from the rank-and-file of the working masses. Nevertheless, there are circumstances in which Communists must not refuse to have talks with the leaders of the hostile workers’ parties, providing the masses are always kept fully informed of the course of these talks. During negotiations with these leaders the independence of the Communist Party and its agitation must not be circumscribed.

Obviously, the united front tactic has to be applied differently in different countries, according to the concrete conditions. Still, where the objective conditions in the most important countries are ripe for a socialist transformation, and where the social-democratic parties with their counter-revolutionary leaders are deliberately seeking to split the working class, the united front tactic will be of decisive importance for the whole epoch.

ow, more than ever, the strictest international discipline is necessary, both within the Communist International and in each of its separate sections, in order to carry out the united front tactic at the international level and in each individual country...

...The Fourth Congress categorically demands that all sections and all members keep strictly to this tactic, which will bring results only if it is unanimously and systematically carried out not only in word but also in deed.


Stalin, of course, ignored this and went to the Third Period where he was actively attacking anyone not loyal enough to Moscow, and then again threw the United Front aside in order to make deals with bourgeois governments (like Spain, most notably) against socialists in order to create a, "Popular Front," which was much more in tune with Real Politiking. This being said, I think like the Third Period nonsense that Stalin had to throw away because it so clearly didn't work—the Popular Front must be thrown away by every stripe of Marxist as a complete and utter failure, and we must return to the United Front of Lenin (and later Trotsky).

This is to say that an alliance with the liberals, in this case, must be led by the workers. It cannot be a policy that works with party brass in, say, the Labour or Democratic Parties, that claims to be tied to the workers. It must be a movement of the workers that would be part of the Labour or Democratic Parties (in an abstract example) that were struggling against some specific and necessary thing on behalf of their class. For instance, had Thatcher moved the military in to crush Manchester's City Council and barricades have gone up to protect the city; or if there had been an armed movement against the Supreme Court declaring Florida's election over and Bush in charge (or some other wacky situation); and in each of these cases had the people organized and risen up, then the socialists should have certainly have supported this—even if the masses themselves were on the surface defending a bourgeois apparatus (even if controlled by the Militant Tendency in the case of Manchester).

These are more contemporary examples I realize, but they address the very real issues at the time that were the fascists marching; and before this, the Russian Civil War making strange bedfellows; and before this the soldiers in WWI returning home and finding opposition to imperialism; and before this the Russian Revolution. In each of these cases (and countless more) there was a certain united action of the working class, even if the working class was not always politically aware of their revolutionary action. This, I hope I'm clear about, the socialists should and do support.

2. In an action against imperialism, it is almost always progressive to side against the imperialist, even if it's scum rising against the imperialist.

Trotsky wrote:The coercive imperialism of advanced nations is able to exist only because backward nations, oppressed nationalities, colonial and semicolonial countries, remain on our planet. The struggle of the oppressed peoples for national unification and national independence is doubly progressive because, on the one side, this prepares more favorable conditions for their own development, while, on the other side, this deals blows to imperialism. That, in particular, is the reason why, in the struggle between a civilized, imperialist, democratic republic and a backward, barbaric monarchy in a colonial country, the socialists are completely on the side of the oppressed country notwithstanding its monarchy and against the oppressor country notwithstanding its “democracy.”

Imperialism camouflages its own peculiar aims – seizure of colonies, markets, sources of raw material, spheres of influence – with such ideas as “safeguarding peace against the aggressors,” “defense of the fatherland,” “defense of democracy,” etc. These ideas are false through and through. It is the duty of every socialist not to support them but, on the contrary, to unmask them before the people. “The question of which group delivered the first military blow or first declare war,” wrote Lenin in March 1915, “has no importance whatever in determining the tactics of socialists. Phrases about the defense of the fatherland, repelling invasion by the enemy, conducting a defensive war, etc., are on both sides a complete deception of the people.”


Now, it has been pointed out—accurately—by my comrades in this thread and the Bolsheviks above, that this is not always something that's easy to do. On SE, for instance, I supported the people rising against Gaddafi, while others saw Gaddafi as a symbol against imperialism. Especially at the time, the movement was not clear. The imperialist powers had been using Gaddafi for a variety of things. One of the main opposition groups against Gaddafi was aided by NATO. Whom does one support?

Information is the most important thing, and we shouldn't be afraid to admit it when we don't have enough information. Regardless, as a rule, we will always oppose imperialism; it's just not always easy sometimes to see who is opposing it and when to support or not to do so.
#14408494
Ofcourse, the fundamentals of socialism and liberalism are a bit different. Socialists want to empower the workers while liberalism tends to move into the direction of growing prosperity/gdp. They might support similar policies sometimes (free healthcare, education etc) but again the end goals are different. In this regard i simpathise more with liberals because 'empowering the working class' is a vague goal.
#14423621
JohnRawls wrote:Ofcourse, the fundamentals of socialism and liberalism are a bit different. Socialists want to empower the workers while liberalism tends to move into the direction of growing prosperity/gdp. They might support similar policies sometimes (free healthcare, education etc) but again the end goals are different. In this regard i simpathise more with liberals because 'empowering the working class' is a vague goal.


I don't see the goal of socialism as seeking to empower the working class so much as to eliminate a class based society where workers or producers are separated from capital.

Ultimately, socialists could ally with liberals to make capitalism more livable for workers, the marginalized, and the poor. However, the aim of socialism will ultimately be revolutionary, in terms of transcending capitalism to socialism.
#14424523
First off liberalism and socialism are not necessarily mutually exclusive. There is such a thing as liberal socialism. And I feel that a Marxist may form common cause, under some circumstances, with such parties. As Karl Marx wrote in the Communist Manifesto, [url] The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement. In France, the Communists ally with the Social-Democrats(1) against the conservative and radical bourgeoisie, reserving, however, the right to take up a critical position in regard to phases and illusions traditionally handed down from the great Revolution.

In Switzerland, they support the Radicals, without losing sight of the fact that this party consists of antagonistic elements, partly of Democratic Socialists, in the French sense, partly of radical bourgeois.

In Poland, they support the party that insists on an agrarian revolution as the prime condition for national emancipation, that party which fomented the insurrection of Cracow in 1846.

In Germany, they fight with the bourgeoisie whenever it acts in a revolutionary way, against the absolute monarchy, the feudal squirearchy, and the petty bourgeoisie.

But they never cease, for a single instant, to instill into the working class the clearest possible recognition of the hostile antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat, in order that the German workers may straightway use, as so many weapons against the bourgeoisie, the social and political conditions that the bourgeoisie must necessarily introduce along with its supremacy, and in order that, after the fall of the reactionary classes in Germany, the fight against the bourgeoisie itself may immediately begin...n short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.

In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time.

Finally, they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries[/url]-https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch04.htm
#14424546
Rei pretty much just described the Communist Party USA since 1986.
The Democratic Socialists of America was arguably to the left of the CPUSA in the 2000 elections when on their website they told their members to decide for themselves whether or not to vote for Gore or Nader (even though if you think about it they were still both liberals). The CPUSA's natl. site focused on bashing only Republicans whereas the websites of their two biggest districts, (northern?) California and New York, explicitly endorsed Gore.

The Immortal Goon wrote:Any alliance with any element of liberals must be a United Front, as Lenin understood it.

Trots have always told me that the United Front was strictly an alliance of socialists. Especially Communists and Social Democrats.
Stalin's Popular Front was the one that included "bourgeois liberals". And of course after Operation Barbarossa, the National Front in which anyone and everyone opposed to the Axis was "progressive".

I don't know if these fronts included anti-capitalist anarchists. Spain gives the impression that they were, but that was possibly more an alliance between the anarchists and the PF rather than the anarchs actually being in the PF themselves. An alliance that was obviously broken in May, 1937.
#14424573
Gletkin wrote:Trots have always told me that the United Front was strictly an alliance of socialists. Especially Communists and Social Democrats.


I, at least, don't read it like that:

Trotsky wrote:If we were able simply to unite the working masses around our own banner or around our practical immediate slogans, and skip over reformist organizations, whether party or trade union, that would of course be the best thing in the world. But then the very question of the united front would not exist in its present form.

The question arises from this, that certain very important sections of the working class belong to reformist organizations or support them. Their present experience is still insufficient to enable them to break with the reformist organizations and join us. It may be precisely after engaging in those mass activities, which are on the order of the day, that a major change will take place in this connection. That is just what we are striving for. But that is not how matters stand at present. Today the organized portion of the working class is broken up into three formations.

One of them, the Communist, strives toward the social revolution and precisely because of this supports concurrently every movement, however partial, of the toilers against the exploiters and against the bourgeois state.

Another grouping, the reformist, strives toward conciliation with the bourgeoisie. But in order not to lose their influence over the workers reformists are compelled, against the innermost desires of their own leaders, to support the partial movements of the exploited against the exploiters.

Finally, there is a third grouping, the centrist, which constantly vacillates between the other two, and which has no independent significance.

The circumstances thus make wholly possible joint action on a whole number of vital issues between the workers united in these three respective organizations and the unorganized masses adhering to them.

The Communists, as has been said, must not oppose such actions but on the contrary must also assume the initiative for them, precisely for the reason that the greater is the mass drawn into the movement, the higher its self-confidence rises, all the more self-confident will that mass movement be and all the more resolutely will it be capable of marching forward, however modest may be the initial slogans of struggle. And this means that the growth of the mass aspects of the movement tends to radicalize it, and creates much more favourable conditions for the slogans, methods of struggle, and, in general, the leading role of the Communist Party.

The reformists dread the revolutionary potential of the mass movement; their beloved arena is the parliamentary tribune, the trade-union bureaux, the arbitration boards, the ministerial antechambers.

On the contrary, we are, apart from all other considerations, interested in dragging the reformists from their asylums and placing them alongside ourselves before the eyes of the struggling masses. With a correct tactic we stand only to gain from this. A Communist who doubts or fears this resembles a swimmer who has approved the theses on the best method of swimming but dares not plunge into the water.

6) Unity of front consequently presupposes our readiness, within certain limits and on specific issues, to correlate in practice our actions with those of reformist organizations, to the extent to which the latter still express today the will of important sections of the embattled proletariat.

But, after all, didn’t we split with them? Yes, because we disagree with them on fundamental questions of the working-class movement.


Stalin's Popular Front was the one that included "bourgeois liberals". And of course after Operation Barbarossa, the National Front in which anyone and everyone opposed to the Axis was "progressive".


Agreed, but the point—as I understand it—that should be underlined is bourgeois liberals. That is to say, in the sense of the class. The Stalinists had no problem at all snuggling up with the bourgeois wherever they stood. The Lenin (and later Trotsky) line was to side with the proletarian liberals and show one's self to be the leader in their reforms.

I don't know if these fronts included anti-capitalist anarchists.


My impression is that the United Front did include anarchists, but that the anarchists rarely ended up participating in it because the United Front is innately a revolutionary action, whereas the anarchists tended to shirk the authority that is needed for revolution:

Trotsky wrote:No one could have prevented the Anarchists after the conquest of power from establishing the sort of regime they deem necessary, assuming, of course, that their program is realizable. But the Anarchist leaders themselves lost faith in it. They hid from power not because they are against “every kind of dictatorship” – in actuality, grumbling and whining, they supported and still support the dictatorship of Stalin-Negrin – but because they completely lost their principles and courage, if they ever had any. They were afraid of everything: “isolation,” “involvement,” “fascism.” They were afraid of France and England. More than anything these phrasemongers feared the revolutionary masses.

The renunciation of the conquest of power inevitably throws every workers’ organization into the swamp of reformism and turns it into a toy of the bourgeoisie; it cannot be otherwise in view of the class structure of society. In opposing the goal, the conquest of power, the Anarchists could not in the end fail to oppose the means, the revolution. The leaders of the CNT and FAI not only helped the bourgeoisie hold on to the shadow of power in July 1936; they also helped it to reestablish bit by bit what it had lost at one stroke. In May 1937, they sabotaged the uprising of the workers and thereby saved the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Thus anarchism, which wished merely to be anti-political, proved in reality to be anti-revolutionary and in the more critical moments – counter-revolutionary.

...The record of the POUM is not much better. In the point of theory, it tried, to be sure, to base itself on the formula of permanent revolution (that is why the Stalinists called the POUMists Trotskyists). But the revolution is not satisfied with theoretical avowals. Instead of mobilizing the masses against the reformist leaders, including the Anarchists, the POUM tried to convince these gentlemen of the superiorities of socialism over capitalism. This tuning fork gave the pitch to all the articles and speeches of the POUM leaders. In order not to quarrel with the Anarchist leaders, they did not form their own nuclei inside the CNT, and in general did not conduct any kind of work there. To avoid sharp conflicts, they did not carry on revolutionary work in the republican army. They built instead “their own” trade unions and “their own” militia, which guarded “their own” institutions or occupied “their own” section of the front.


But that's my read anyway.
#14427180
First off liberalism and socialism are not necessarily mutually exclusive.




Liberation of the working class while fucking over the working class! Liberal "communism" is just the left wing of liberalism. You might as well talk about a sober Scotsman.

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