“United Front Against Fascism”: Misleading Masses Since 19
Don’t Vote – Organize for Communist Revolution!
LOS ANGELES (USA), October 1— Nobody in the discussion group wanted to talk about last night’s Trump-Biden “debate.” But Ryan had a question.
“The Prison-Industrial Complex is an agency of institutionalized white nationalism,” he said. “Biden condemns people fighting that. The Green New Deal – he said it wasn’t part of his platform, and officially it is. How are the left-wingers in the Democratic Party going to react?”
“Is there a high-level agreement to make sure Biden wins?” Carlota asked rhetorically. “Is this a real fight or just a show? They all agree on capitalism. Did they let Trump play it [the debate] like that? Were Republican operatives in on the fix?”
“Biden advocated and legislated for the oppression of people of color, poor people,” said Carlo. “During the Obama-Biden administration, there were similar atrocities in more insidious form. He is OK with locking up Black and Brown people.”
“So is Harris,” Marcia added.
Susana wondered why Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Angela Davis jumped on board with Biden. Is there any difference between their messaging vs “Vote Blue [Democratic] No Matter Who?”
“As things sharpen, liberals are either coopted or radicalized.” Someone brought up a point discussed earlier. “AOC & Bernie helped write the Democratic Party platform. They’re clearly coopted. Never really radicals.”
But what about Davis? Carlota thought she had been coopted into a comfortable lifestyle by her success as a bright, attractive college professor and media star.
Marcia disagreed. Even before Davis got “comfortable” and even after she left the Communist Party USA, her political line reflected the “United Front Against Fascism” policies of the 20th century communist movement after 1935.
This wasn’t the ill-fated “popular front” line of “uniting the left.” The Communist International called on workers to ally with “liberal capitalists” like Roosevelt and Churchill. “Churchill, whose policies caused the 1943 Bengal famine that killed more than three million people!” Marcia sputtered.
She explained that the Communist Party – USA, put the brakes on class struggle and anti-racist action during World War II in the name of “helping the war effort.” It even disbanded itself. In 1964 it backed LBJ against Goldwater for president. Later, it helped de-radicalize the Black Panther Party by enmeshing it in liberal “support.” That’s about when Angela Davis came in. The politics of the “Communist” Party corrupted her outlook well before she was ever rich or famous.
The “United Front Against Fascism” was a deadly mistake from the start. It’s even deadlier now, with capitalism in an even deeper crisis and preparing for yet another world war. A minority in the CP argued in 1935 that the way to defeat fascism was socialist revolution. The International Communist Workers’ Party has updated their position: to defeat fascism, mobilize masses for communism.
The discussion group concluded that Biden’s campaign wrongly suggests that Trump is an aberration. That the US should now “go back to the way we used to do things.” That is, massive numbers of people deported or in ICE prisons, with minimum-wage jobs, no health insurance, etc.
Carlo pointed out that neoliberalism is not generating the same fervor for Biden as it did for Obama. Carlota mentioned that membership in the National African American Gunowners Association has increased 400% in the last two years.
The electoral onslaught makes it harder (for now) to engage liberals in discussion of a revolutionary communist future. But there are others like us, especially young people, who are more open than before.
“Can I invite a friend to our next meeting?” Ryan asked. Of course! Discussions like these help us advance the and broaden the struggle for communism.
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