Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 08:50:50 -0500 (EST)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Fascism and "lesser evil" politics


Louis:

Gary's report on the role of the 2nd International in the rise of Hitler was 
not just elegant thinking, but elegant prose.

Hugh Rodwell's reply was also extremely astute. However, I do not share 
his belief that the Fourth International was an appropriate 
counter-measure to the failure of the Third.

Gary has made an important contribution to the discussion since it is 
particularly relevant to the way the left functions today in face of 
growing reaction.

The tendency is for most leftists to support the lesser-evil. In the 
United States, this means a vote for Clinton instead of Dole. Of course, 
bourgeois politics has been shifting rightward ever since the Carter 
admininstration, so the "lesser evil" we choose turns out to be pretty 
rotten.

Let us leave aside for a moment the question of whether fascism is an 
immediate threat. We are still confronted with the problem of how to 
advance the interests of the working-class.

In the 1930s, Trotsky advocated a united-front. How do we translate this 
into the context of politics today. Do we try to set up a meeting between 
Gus Hall and Bogdan Denitch? Do we try to coalesce the Trotskyites into a 
common front, all 600 of them?

My interpretation of the lessons of the united front is filtered through 
the experience of the Vietnam antiwar movement. This 
extraparliamentary movement united people in *action* against 
imperialist war. The organizations and individuals in most instances were 
not drawn from the working-class battalions of heavy industry.

This led "orthodox" Trotskyites to accuse the antiwar movement of being a 
popular front. They would spot Ted Kennedy or some other liberal on the 
platform of a peace rally and invoke all the ghosts of the Spanish Civil War.

The 20s and 30s are an important era to study if you are interested in 
revolutionary politics, but such study must be conducted in a dialectical 
manner otherwise you end up in a totally muddled and sectarian dead-end.


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