[Marxism] Popular Front

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis Proyect :
Charles, I don't see much point in trying to persuade people that the CP was
correct in backing FDR 65 years ago or so. Even if I agreed with that, which
I don't, it is almost of academic interest. We are faced with a situation
today in which the CP, one of the larger groups on the left, STILL ADVOCATES
an orientation to the DP.

^^^^^^
CB: I think I was probably responding to someone who is trying to persuade
people that the CP was _in_correct in backing FDR 65 years ago. We can be
pretty sure that I didn't just out of the blue start trying to persuade this
list that the CP's Popular Front was correct tactic 65 years ago.  I think
this started this time in a discussion of Browder, which I didn't start.

The criticism of the CP today is almost always tied into a long term theory
which includes criticizing the CP 65 years ago for supporting  FDR. On this
thread, Mark Lause then extended that grand theory to include criticizing
radicals from the 1820's for joining with the Democrats.

So...it is not I who initiated discussion of radicals from 65 to 185 years
ago to discuss the Democrats and Communists of 2005. I merely responded to
others' discussion.

^^^^^

 This is a party that bears about
as much relationship to the New Deal as I do to Brad Pitt. Bill Clinton said
that "we are all Eisenhower Republicans". His wife advocates escalating the
war in Iraq. They voted for John Roberts for the Supreme Court. They
presided over the dismantling ADFC, which left poor Black women and their
children in deep distress. They allowed big corporations to deepen their
assault on the environment. Despite all this, the CP attacks
initiatives to the left, like the Nader campaign. This is not a
revolutionary outlook. I think that the CP has done some good things in its
past, things to be proud of, but this continuing relationship to the DP is
harmful to our movement. It is a ball-and-chain on the class struggle.

^^^^^
CB: I don't mind critiques like this, (although similar bad things could be
said about the DP in the 1930's, like it was the Party of the Dixicrats).
What I don't like is grand theories which attempt to make a longterm
denunciation of the CP _today_ tied up with criticism of the Popular Front
of the 1930's; and then on this thread, ties the criticism of the Pop Front
to class collaboration with Democrats in the 1820's.

In other words, I reject the theory that the CP's positions today are part
of a 65 to 185 year old pattern of class collaboration, a notion fairly
regularly put forth around here and elsewhere.

Also, rarely (never ?) do I see an overall strategy spelledout on how
radicals will build a movement today completely outside the DP.  There is an
obligation to project in more detail exactly how the anti-DP mass movement
will be developed.


________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism