This short article asks the genuine question is it time for a new popular front formation to defend democracy and fight fascism, however, in the current concrete environment by necessity it would need to be different from 90 years ago, and so, how?
The popular front concept was a communist strategy in the 1930’s and became Comintern policy in 1935 following the election of Georgi Dimitrov as General Secretary and significantly the USSR’s mutual defence treaty with France signed in 1934 to defend against the threat of Nazi Germany and fascism more generally. The popular front approach basically said that while capitalism was still the ultimate enemy it recognised that capitalism came in varying forms and that fascism was the vilest most barbaric and reactionary form of its rule and should be most necessarily opposed even through alliances with bourgeois democracy and social democratic parties. This played out internationally but also locally in countries through Communist Parties working together with social democratic parties, unions, republican parties and other anti-fascist forces. The immediate focus was not the overthrow of capitalism but the defence of democratic rights and defeat of fascism. It was a tactical response to the demands of a very concrete and deadly situation.
As Dimitrov put it:
But when the scattered proletarian detachments, at the initiative of the Communists, join hands for the struggle against the common enemy, when the working class, marching as a unit, begins to act together with the peasantry, the lower middle classes and all democratic elements … a force arises which can offer determined resistance to fascism, prevent it from coming to power in countries of bourgeois democracy and overthrow its barbarous rule where it is already established … While the split in the ranks of the working class, the absence of unity between them and the other strata of the working people, pave the way to power for fascism, the unity of the proletarian ranks and the formation of the People’s Front ensure victory for democracy over fascism, defend peace against fascist incendiaries of war, and in the long run pave the way for the victory of labor over capital. – G Dimitrov
Today the threat of fascism is very real once again. Workers are divided and far-right, ultra nationalist, racist, fascist and conspiratorial ideas are spreading even more division and confusion within our class. Technology has significantly enhanced both the spread of lies and misinformation but also increased the very real precariousness of decent jobs. Capital is significantly more mobile and the power of labour significantly harder to effectively organise and mobilise. Our lives (houses, pensions, jobs, incomes) are much more financialised and subject to events we have little or no control over. Unions are weaker than before and left political parties more fragmented and losing ground in our class. Money from billionaires, and some States, is being pumped into right-wing groups and media. The climate breakdown, and ecological crisis more generally, is happening and there is a serious existential risk to the human species. Immigration from south to north will increase as a result over the coming years. Genocide of the Palestinian people is right in front of our eyes every single day and the left is incapable of stopping it. The US is desperately fighting to maintain global hegemony and a uni-polar world flagrantly ignoring international law, the UN and ICJ when it suits it but imposing them on others when its convenient. The US continues to encircle and threaten China and appears to be on a war path only this time if a world war broke out there are 12,500 nuclear war heads divided between 9 countries of which Russia and the US have most and China in third. Mutually assured destruction would be an almost certainty.
Considering these factors and new situation, different from 90 years ago, there is an argument to say that this time a Popular Front needs to be more explicitly eco-socialist and anti-capitalist because of the existential risks faced. So, this front would seek to pull together left-wing and environmental groups under one programme here in Ireland to maximise our ability to win the hearts and minds of our class, and of those people most concerned and affected by environmental destruction and war. Individual groups are currently losing this battle and time does not afford us the luxury of a fight to merely defend democratic rights.
Should the Communist Party seek to achieve such a front here in Ireland?
Written in Socialist Voice by Nicola Lawlor on 12th March 2024
New Outlook Publishers has numerous works on the following subject, three examples being:
The United Front – Georgy Dimitrov
“An excellent collection of speeches and articles by the General Secretary of the Communist International, Georgi Dimitrov, on the United Front and the fight against fascism and war. This selection of Dimitrov’s speeches and articles is essential to understanding the United Front policy of the Communist International and the true character of fascism. This book is essential in modern times with the growth in many countries of the militant forces of fascism and fascist rhetoric. A must read for all those truly interested in the final defeat of fascism.”
The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International – Georgy Dimitrov
“Georgi Dimitrov was a Communist, Prime Minister of Bulgaria, head of the Communist International from 1935 to 1943 and close friend and comrade of Joseph Stalin.
Dimitrov’s analysis lays bare Fascism as the natural progression of imperialism in periods of crisis of capital. In this important work, Dimitrov discusses the class character of vicious assault on working class people and the revolutionary movement. Being a leader during the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, he studied in great detail the development of Fascism as the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital. As we once again resist the rising tide of Fascism, Dimitrov’s analysis is as important today as it was in 1935.”
The People’s Front – Earl Browder
“Originally released two and a half years after the great Seventh Congress of the Comintern formulated the People’s Front tactic as the central task of the Communist Parties in the capitalist world. During this period the Communist Party of the United States has advanced in every field the slogan for a broad anti-fascist People’s Front. To demonstrate the vital need of the tactic, to test its efficacy in the day-to-day welding together of the American working class and progressive forces, with the Communist Party as the stimulating and uniting element, this book serves as the full, authentic guide.
We contend for democratic rights today with the full knowledge and emphasis that in this precise period in history the struggle for democracy is penetrated with revolutionary meaning. As monopoly capital becomes increasingly the promoter of counter-revolutionary fascism and deserts even the pretense of democracy, moving aggressively against the democratic forces in every land, the people’s struggle for democracy becomes progressively the struggle against capitalism.`” Worker Editorial Note: Earl Browder did good in his life, and also bad. Browder’s positive or constructive contributions to the Communist movement can be studied.