Tag: Popular Front

United Fronts vs Popular Fronts

Below is a presentation given by a Consistent Democrats speaker at a Zoom forum on 29th September 2024. The whole discussion is available as a podcast here.

Anti-fascist demonstration in Paris, 1934.

This is a crucially important topic. The united front is a vital necessity for those struggling against any form of class exploitation or even extra-class oppression. It is something that communists always fight for as a matter of principle when we are involved in a class struggle. It is worth revisiting Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto when looking into the roots of this. In the passage titled ‘Proletarians and Communists’, they write:

“In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole?

“The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties. 

“They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. 

“They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement. 

“The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole. 

“The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.”

This is the essence of communist tactics in the united front. We are the firmest advocates of unity in action of working-class forces. We apply this tactic to mass trade unions, to parties that claim to stand for the interests of the working class, etc. We argue for unity in action of all forces that have an interest in a struggle, irrespective of particular political views. Operationally, the political views of those who involve themselves in a struggle ought to be irrelevant.

Rarely will a united front involve a single, discrete action. Usually, it involves a series of actions in pursuit of a particular objective. The objective might be ongoing – e.g. to organise regular demonstrations against the imperialist proxy war in Ukraine. I.e. IUAFS. We champion the rights of all those who involve themselves in such a struggle to argue their own views about the way it is conducted. The only restriction on that is practical – if we are involved in a life-or-death struggle/action right now, an outbreak of discussion during the action is likely to derail that action. But as soon as that action is carried out, there must be full freedom to criticise it, and the conduct of all involved in it, by all involved.

This is particularly relevant when we are talking about the participation in struggles of political formations that have some sort of class contradiction within them. For instance, bourgeois workers parties like the Labour Party. Which are likely to have elements in the leadership who are hostile to the aims of a particular struggle. For instance, the struggle against British troops in Ireland, or against the Iraq War. It was the Labour Party that sent British troops into Ireland in 1969. It was the Labour Party under Tony Blair that invaded Iraq. At the same time there are elements in the Labour Party, on its left-wing, who oppose these things, and might want to join in a united front against them. We welcome their participation and seek to encourage and deepen their involvement in the struggle. That is a key part of the non-sectarian, unity in action ethos of the united front, and our participation in it. The aim is that the bigger platform, with more diverse forces involved, will attract greater numbers of previously uninvolved masses to take part in the struggle.

But here is where freedom of criticism becomes absolutely crucial. The presence of left reformists and the like not only expands the scope of those likely to be drawn into a struggle. It also has the potential to undermine it. Because those from the reformist party that support the struggle also have party loyalties, to the party leadership that may well be the main antagonist of the struggle. They may not want to ‘burn their bridges’ within the party, or risk being thrown out of it. They may also have qualms about the radical tactics, the mass actions, necessary to really win the struggle and defeat their own party leadership. Or they may be in a party in opposition, that verbally supports the struggle, and yet has similar qualms about the actions necessary to win.

This is where freedom of criticism is crucial. Communist criticism. The communists must be free to expose these inadequacies of their bloc partners and allies to all those who have been drawn into the struggle. Sometimes at such a point, the reformists will take offence and violate the ethos of freedom of criticism. They will attempt to impose ‘discipline’ on the participants in a united front to stop such criticism. Then the continuation of the united front may become unprincipled, and it will be necessary for the communists to break it, to break this ‘discipline’ that the reformists attempt to impose, to expose such treachery to the objectives of the struggle.

There is nothing wrong with breaking with a united front, if there are sufficient reasons to do so. Such a break by the communists can become a living factor in itself, put increased political pressure on the more right-wing participants in the united front, and lead to the reestablishment of a united front later on a healthier basis. That would be a political defeat for the right wing.

Failure to do this in some ways brings us onto the topic of what a popular front is. A united front does not necessarily exclude all bourgeois elements. A united front to defend a political prisoner, or against an attack on gay rights, for instance, may attract a degree of bourgeois support. That is just fine, provided full freedom of criticism is maintained. It is what happens when it is not where the problem of popular frontism begins.

A particularly high level of united front may be a campaign to elect to office the candidates of a working- class party, even one with a partially bourgeois programme like the Labour Party. It may well be that communists will participate in such an election campaign, and seek to push the reformist party into power, so that its promises can be tested before the masses, to see whether it will really fight for them, or whether it will betray them in power. It is obvious that the communists will demand full freedom of criticism of the reformists both during the election and afterwards, which is particularly relevant when the party is indeed elected. This may well be the ideal situation for a substantial revolutionary organisation to begin to really grow. Such situations are ideal but have so far been quite rare.

But there are other situations where the reformists are not keen to be thrust into office alone. They either do not have enough support, and are looking for a shortcut, or are looking for an alibi to excuse whatever treachery they may do in power. This is a starting point of a popular front on the electoral, governmental level (there are also popular-frontist blocs possible on the non-electoral level – more on that shortly). The reformist, bourgeois workers party will run for office in a bloc with some kind of outright bourgeois party, (e.g., Liberal Democrats, Greens, etc). Or a smaller reformist party may try to hang on the coat-tails of a much larger bourgeois party, using the excuse that it needs to get ‘some’ degree of power, even though it does not have enough support to be elected outright. This is the politics of the DSA and Bernie Sanders etc in the US.

Our position is that we do not support such blocs. If a working-class party does not have enough support to win an election in their own name, that is tough. The masses need to gain more experience of the way the capitalist system works to propel them to support a working-class party next time. We don’t support opportunist blocs for government with bourgeois forces – to campaign for such blocs in elections is a breach of the principle of class independence.

It is possible, in some circumstances, when the reformist party does have enough support to take power but engages in rotten attempts at an agreement with bourgeois parties, for the masses to use their own independent electoral tactic to force the reformists to take power without their bourgeois bloc partners. This could happen when the masses refuse to vote for the reformists bloc partners as instructed, and vote only for the reformists, thus sabotaging the bloc. This happened in France in 1936, when Leon Blum, the leader of the SFIO, was forced to take office when the plan of the Popular Front was to put Daladier, the leader of the bourgeois Radical party, into office. That was truly a revolutionary event – as soon as Blum was forced to take office this way, his new government was greeting by the most enormous general strike in French history, to hold him to his promises. That was a truly exceptional situation, when a mass sabotage of a popular front gave birth to a revolutionary situation.

But the danger of a popular front in power, is that it gives the reformists an excuse to betray what they stand for. They tell the masses: “we would like to do more, but our coalition partners will not allow us to do so”. This erects a barrier to political radicalisation, as the masses can be fooled to accept this ‘logic’, and therefore become demoralised, creating the political space for a far-right attack on the workers movement itself, a rise of fascism, a military coup (like in Chile in 1973), or similar. So, we never support such blocs, better for the workers parties to be out of power than involved in such insidious class collaborationist blocs, which lay out a road to power for fascism.

There are also smaller scale popular front type bodies, that do not seek governmental power per se, but still play an insidious role in restricting the struggle against aspects of capitalist reaction. Formations like the Anti-Nazi League, for instance, which used the ideology of classless ‘anti-Nazism’ to fight the rise of the National Front in the late 1970s or Unite Against Fascism and Stand Up to Racism today. It should be remembered that the SWP led mass actions against the National Front, a large, growing and threatening fascist party in August 1977 in Lewisham and then Ladywood (3 days later). Thousands of left-wing and working-class people turned out and smashed NF marches off the streets. However, these demonstrations did not have the protection of trade union endorsement – and the organisers were left exposed. There was an element of substitutionism about these tactics. There was a massive witchhunt in the media against the SWP, who were equated with terrorists, after this, and it was mooted that they might be banned.

After this therefore they initiated the Anti-Nazi League. They had sponsors including the Labour Party, football managers like Brian Clough, the Young Liberals and their well-known anti-Apartheid Activist Peter Hain (who years later joined Labour and became a minister under Tony Blair). They appear to have tried and failed to get the sponsorship of the Federation of Conservative Students. More to the point was the effect that the Anti-Nazi League had on anti-fascist struggles. Their strategy was to jointly organise Carnivals with Rock Against Racism. RAR was a worthwhile endeavour in injecting anti-racist and left-wing politics into popular music.

But the problem was these Carnivals were also part of a search for respectability. Both of the two major Anti-Nazi League Carnivals were held a long way away from the prime areas where the National Front were mobilising, which in London at that time was the area around Brick Lane. The Carnivals were held in Victoria Park, Hackney in April, and Brockwell Park, Brixton in September. For the whole of that period, the NF were terrorising Brick Lane – it was the sharp end of their concentrated attack on the new Bengali communities that were forming up in the East End, particularly in Tower Hamlets and Newham.

So, there was a huge problem. On these occasions, the ANL/RAR managed to mobilise over 100,000 anti-fascists to go to Hackney and Brixton, while the NF was terrorising Brick Lane. They had the ability to swamp the NF and wreck their activities if they had wanted to. But respectability stopped them. The second ANL carnival was the first demonstration I ever went on. I was 17. The Spartacist League, to their credit, mass leafleted the Carnival goers earlier in the day asking them to go to Brick Lane and join the mobilisation against the fascists there, instead of singing and dancing about it. But with a bit of flexibility and initiative from the leadership, they could have done both. That they didn’t was an indictment of the SWP’s sinking into popular frontism in response to a witchhunt.

The ANL did not stop all serious protests against fascism. One important such battle was during the General Election in 1979 in Southall, when a large mobilisation of anti-fascists against an NF event was battered by the cops, resulting in the murder of Blair Peach, a local teacher and SWP member. But this was weaker than it could have been because of the ANL’s flaws. Maybe the cops would not have dared carry out such brutal attacks if the SWP has mobilised on a class basis over the previous two years, and sunk roots for this into the working-class movement.

And we see the fruits of this with subsequent popular frontist anti-Fascist campaigns that the SWP have initiated, like Unite Against Fascism, which had David Cameron as an endorser. Or Stand Up to Racism, which had insisted on including Zionists on its marches in some places, to demonstrate its opposition to ‘anti-Semitism’.This is not how the left should organise against fascism. Trotsky’s writing on the United Front against fascism in 1930s are exemplary. The SWP does not do this; it builds ‘respectable’ blocs with ruling class elements that resemble Stalinist popular front campaigns from that period.

French Election: Popular Frontists Outmanoeuvred Le Pen for Now. But the Danger Remains!

Lefitst social democrat Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Centrist bourgeois Emmanuel Macron, Far-Rightist Marine Le Pen

Joint Statement of LCFI and ClassConscious.org

President Emmanuel Macron’s gamble in calling new elections to the French National Assembly as an attempted means to counter the victory of the far right Rassemblement National – (RN) or National Rally, formerly the Front Nationale (National Front) of Marine Le Pen in the June European Election, has opened a new political situation. It was an act of desperation by Macron whose ‘centrist’ base of support has ebbed away due to his own vicious attacks on the working class over the last period, outrageously raising the pension age from 60 to 64 and ramming it through using emergency clauses in the constitution without a parliamentary vote. His warmongering in Ukraine, even earlier proposing to openly send French troops into battle against Russia, was almost designed to provoke war with Russia. Then there are his vain attempts to supress protests against the genocide in Gaza and his pandering to Zionist and French nativist Islamophobia and anti-migrant agitation. These things have completely discredited his regime and fuelled the growth of the far right in the seeming absence of a potent left movement.

So, after the shock of the Euro-Election, he dissolved the National Assembly. The first-round victory of Le Pen’s Party meant that the gamble appeared to have failed big time. But the New Popular Front (NPF), launched by the La France Insoumise (France Unbowed – LFI) party led by the left-wing social-democratic politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon, which included the Socialist Party, Communist Party and Greens, was galvanised by the rise of Le Pen’s party. It launched a campaign of tactical voting to keep Le Pen’s Party from getting a parliamentary majority. Supporters of the NPF and Macron’s Party systematically withdrew their candidates in constituencies where they came third in the first round with their bloc partner having gained second place. This class-collaborationist tactic by the half-formed NPF, itself a class collaborationist alliance, achieved a short-term tactical victory, which in some ways appeared superficially to vindicate Macron’s calling of a snap election. In terms of seats, the NPF came first, Macron’s Renaissance Party came second, with the far right in third place. In terms of seats, that is, though with nowhere near a parliamentary majority for any of them.

But in terms of votes, the RN came first more decisively in the second round than in the first. It increased its vote from 33.21% in the first round to 37.06% in the second round. Quite a considerable increase.  Which means that while the Popular Frontism of the left and Macron may by tactical voting have thwarted the RN in parliamentary terms, they strengthened Le Pen in terms of popular support. Which has not solved the problem therefore, it just postponed the decisive conflict until later. Indeed, far from being a great victory for Mélenchon either, the NPF’s vote fell from 28.21% in the first round to 25.80% in the second round. Whereas Macron’s Party gained marginally, going from 21.28% in the first round to 24.53% in the second round. 

In parliamentary terms, the result for now is deadlock. No bloc has anything like a majority. Macron, as president, is likely to be desperately trying to fit together a coalition for months. He may well not succeed, as despite the parliamentary arithmetic, actual popular votes and the social forces behind them put enormous pressure on members of the National Assembly. And if they don’t succeed, there could even be another election at some point. Le Pen could still benefit from this.

One of the main reasons for Marine Le Pen’s rise is her opposition to France’s support for NATO’s lost war against Russia in Ukraine. The French proletariat simply opposes being dragged like cannon fodder by imperialism into war. A minority of the ruling class sees the far right as a battering ram to push a more nationalist agenda at odds with the mainstream pro-EU ‘globalist’ trend that is deeply involved in the US-led proxy war in Ukraine. That wing is using verbal opposition to French involvement in Ukraine as a means to garner support from part of the working class, particularly in more provincial towns that are more conservative and less ethnically diverse than the biggest cities. As well as mobilising racist anti-migrant sentiment, which Macron had already adapted to to try to ‘disarm’ his far-right opponents by stealing their clothes.

Macron introduced new legislation limiting access to citizenship, rights to social benefits, and family reunification for migrants, as well as deportation for ‘immigrants’ if they commit crimes…. even if being convicted as an adult, they’ve been living in the country from childhood. The issue of work visas for irregular migrants has been curtailed. Overseas study visas are also restricted. It all sounds very much like the kind of laws introduced in Britain by the Tories and Brexiteers over the past decade, except that Macron is as pro-EU as any politician can be. It shows how the nationalist wing of the bourgeoisie, using the fascists as a battering ram, can induce its critics to pander to its racist-nationalist agenda. Migrants are attacked, Muslims are vilified, with the niqab banned in public spaces. In France, 50% of the prison population is Muslim, which is disproportionate as the Muslim population in France is approximately 10%..

The NPF’s circumstantial victory only postpones Le Pen’s victory because the NPF’s positions on the war in Ukraine are very close to Macron’s unpopular positions of increasing French support for Ukraine, sending more French weapons and military instructors to the war. By associating itself with imperialism in the Ukrainian War, the NPF plays the same geopolitical game as Macron, the game of pushing the proletariat politically into the arms of the “fascist-pacifist” extreme right. This is the NPF’s biggest crime at the moment. This crime, if not renounced and the opposite policy adopted and fought for by the workers parties involved, will pave the way for Le Pen’s rise to the French government. A disaster particularly for the sections of the working class with an immigrant origin.

This is at most a tactical defeat for Le Pen, but not a strategic one. The short-term tactic may even strengthen Le Pen strategically. She will be very dangerous in the 2027 Presidential Election, which may well be between her and Mélenchon, as Macron no longer inspires popular support. Mélenchon’s LFI party proposes some reasonable reforms, to restore pensions, raise wages and benefits, radically reverse austerity. It is also in theory hostile to NATO. On international questions Mélenchon is a mixed bag. On Ukraine, Mélenchon party condemned the Special Military Operation (SMO) that began in February 2022 as a so-called ‘invasion’ of Ukraine, echoing imperialist propaganda. Though he opposes the warmongering on a pacifist basis, in effect:

“’We stand for Ukraine’s restoring its territorial integrity. But it should be done politically, but not by means of military force,’ he said, adding that the idea of delivering strikes inside Russia is ‘absurd.’

https://tass.com/world/1814251?

There is no mention of the rights of the overwhelmingly Russian-speaking people of the Donbass in this. They voted against Ukraine’s ‘territorial integrity’ against a far-right regime in Kiev that began to supress their language rights in 2014. In this concept, territorial integrity overrides the democratic rights of the people who live in a state – hardly a socialist position. Though he did have a more sympathetic response to the separation of Crimea to join Russia in 2014, and he has called the Kiev regime ‘neo-Nazis’.

But at least on Syria he was quite supportive of the Russian intervention and hostile to Turkey’s intervention of the side of pro-imperialist mercenary jihadists. This may reflect an older pro-Russian position that is part of French bourgeois politics. He is rather like Jeremy Corbyn over Zionism and promises to recognize Palestine if LFI gains power. However, he is hostile to Iran – on the supposed grounds that Iran is seeking to destroy Israel in some bad way. A soft pro-Zionist position, it seems.

The Communist Party in France echo Macron’s denunciation of Russia, saying the intervention was a “criminal decision…” involving  “…aggression against the sovereignty of the people of Ukraine.” Though they make the usual calls for peace, negotiations, etc, they blame Russia for NATO’s aggressive expansion in the East. The Socialist Party is for the war drive. Its leader Faure was quoted as saying: “If we let Russia win, the risk we all run is to find ourselves in a situation where Russia will not stop.”

A joint statement of the Socialist Party and Greens is quoted by the Spectator as saying:

“‘Our line is clear: we support Ukraine, we support the delivery of arms, we support Ukraine’s membership of the European Union.”

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/frances-political-upheaval-is-bad-news-for-ukraine/

The ‘centre-left’ Place Publique, which is also part if the NPF, campaigns for ‘aid’ to Ukraine. The predominant policy in the NPF bloc is support for the same warmongering as Macron. And by his bloc with them, Mélenchon associates his party with this. While it has to be acknowledged that many in this bloc are driven by justified anti-fascist sentiment against the RN, at the same time the warmongering policy of most in the NPF over Ukraine is fuelling the growth in popular support of the same RN.

If is highly doubtful that Mélenchon will be able to keep together his NPF for the 2027 presidential election, and that he would be able to generate the popular support to seriously thwart Le Pen even if he did. That will also be a two-round election, and it’s not clear who would be able to combat Le Pen. What is clear is that class collaboration, though it practically blocked the RN from gaining a majority and the premiership now, also caused a decline in support for itself vis-à-vis Macron in the second round. Popular fronts historically were an obstacle to revolution including in French history, and elsewhere like Chile, and the precondition for Macron leading a real struggle against Le Pen for the popular vote is a break with class collaboration, with the petit bourgeois Greens, let alone Macron’s bourgeois neoliberal party who he effectively endorsed on the second round by using tactical voting in this manner.

The precondition for serious struggle against Le Pen’s party is a break with popular frontism. In the second round of a presidential election, there is no way to evade the popular vote. But a break with popular frontism in France means a break with reformism, as within a reformist framework, the French electoral system makes popular frontism a practical temptation whenever the question of power arises. It may be that there is some kind of surge toward LFI before 2027, but if it does not break decisively with Macron’s warmongering and this strongly pro-war popular front, Mélenchon would be at best a candidate for the role of Salvador Allende.

Popular fronts, whether with the Greens or Macron’s Renaissance, are a trap for the working class. We demand that Mélenchon, the Socialist Party and the Communist Party, break with Greens, refuse any political bloc with non-working-class forces, and fight too and nail against the war in Ukraine.  The key indicator of the deceptive nature of this popular front is its support for Biden/Macron’s proxy war in Ukraine. In breaking with popular frontism, and this filthy war, they would actually undermine some of the support for the RN.

We need a party that opposes the threat of imperialist war against Russia and China, that defends migrant workers tooth and nail against the far right and Macron alike, and which fights against all the neoliberal attacks on the working class. For workers defence guards to defend victims of fascist terrorism! Down with Macron’s war in Ukraine – defend Russia, the Donbass and Crimea against Macron and his Nazi friends! Down with Le Pen, break with the bourgeoisie, no Popular Fronts – for a government of all the workers parties, LFI, SP, CP, on an anti-capitalist programme!