[Marxism] The CP and Today's Popluar Front; Socialst Worker 7/22/05

[Amaral1871@xxxxxxx]

The CP adapts to the right...againBy Paul DâAmato | July 22, 2005 | Page 13

THE COMMUNIST Party (CP) at its recent convention in Chicago reaffirmed its 
support for the Democratic Party.

âThe Bush administration is a right-wing authoritarian regime,â explained 
CP 
national chair Sam Webb in his opening remarks, âand broad sections of the 
labor movement--center forces, social democrats, Democrats, social reformists, 
liberals, even some Republicans--are opposing its policies and battling 
capitalist globalization as well.

âDonât we have to unite with them,â he concluded, âin fighting policies 
of 
the Bush administration?â

Webb cited as a key political goal âTaking back Congress in 2006,â by which 
he clearly did not mean running CP candidates for Congress but securing a 
Democratic majority.

Though the party today is a shadow of its size and influence in the 1930s, 
its political outlook remains virtually unchanged since the CP adopted its â
popular frontâ strategy in 1935. âThe main enemy of the people of America 
today,â 
then-CP leader Earl Browder announced at a May 20, 1936 meeting in Madison 
Square Garden, âis the Republican-Liberty League-Hearst combination. We must 
place as the center of our work in the election campaign the need for combating 
this reactionary bloc and defeating its plans in 1936.â

The âpeopleâs frontâ had its origins in Stalinâs desire to cement 
alliances 
with various capitalist states against the threat of Hitlerâs Germany.

The parties were instructed to make an about-turn after the rise of Hitler. 
>From denouncing all social democrats and reformists as âsocial fascists,â 
>in 
some cases worse than fascism itself, the Communist Parties now swung around to 
make completely uncritical alliances not only with reformist workersâ parties 
but with middle-class and bourgeois parties.

In the U.S., this took the form of the âdemocratic front,â that is, 
uncritical support for Roosevelt and the Democratic Party. The CP declared that 
forces 
âwithin and aroundâ the Democratic Party were a key component of the 
Peopleâ
s Front in the U.S.

According to CP leader Gene Dennis, this âdemocratic frontâ included not 
only of workers and middle-class people but also âimportant sections of the 
upper 
middle class and certain liberal sections of the bourgeoisie.â

Browder was worried that open CP support would actually cost Roosevelt 
support, so he was given broad leeway to determine how best to back him. Hence 
the 
CP called for a âdefeat of reaction,â rather than openly campaigning for 
Roosevelt.

As for this âdemocratic front,â the CP was happy to play the hunting dog. 
CP 
leader Clarence Hathaway explained in 1938, though the CP âwill not be 
admitted into this progressive force,â the party should âsupport the 
progressive 
movement, not demanding the admittance of our party, not making this a 
condition 
for our support of the democratic forces, but showing by our activity in the 
campaign, by our energetic support for the progressive candidates, that our 
Party is a constructive force entitled to entrance.â

Thus, the CPâs own rationale for the âdemocratic frontâ openly proclaimed 
the need for the party to completely subordinate itself to the Democratic 
Party, 
to which it had to âprove itself.â

>From this point on, aside from a brief interlude when the party did another 
about-face during the Hitler-Stalin pact and briefly returned to a formal 
policy of opposition to Roosevelt, it consistently attacked any attempt to 
build 
any third party outside the Democrats as playing into the hands of 
âreaction.â

The CP denounced left-wing critics of Roosevelt as âagents of fascism.â 
During the war, the CP became a fervent cheerleader of the U.S. war effort, 
even 
going so far as agreeing with the unionsâ no-strike pledge and supporting the 
internment of 120,000 people of Japanese descent, calling it âa necessary war 
measure.â

The logic of the popular front was to adapt rightward, and the same logic is 
on display today. The partyâs magazine, Political Affairs, recently published 
an article entitled âGay Marriage: Too Much, Too Early.â It would be 
farcical 
if it werenât so tragic.




    

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