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Pro-Trump “socialists” channel the history of “Third Period Communism”

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Sawant Stein Team unity“We have the power to take an historic stand and defeat this war mongering Senator Harris…. To win this election [the Democrats] need this city [Dearborn], they need this state [Michigan]. We need to deny them those votes….” (cheers and applause.) So spoke “socialist” leader Kshama Sawant in a speech on Oct. 6 for her fellow “left” Trump/Putin supporter Jill Stein. Sawant’s statement received general applause.

Sawant was followed by Jill Stein. Like Sawant, Stein spoke hardly a word about Trump, MAGA, and fascism. They express a form of thought that is common on the left today including among the “socialist” left.

Sawant also spoke of the need to “punish Kamala Harris…” Who will really be “punished” will be millions of immigrants, millions of other people of color, millions of women, millions of lgbtq+ people, millions of disabled people, animal and plant species on the brink of extinction, and Planet Earth in general if Sawant, Jill Stein and their ilk achieve their goal, which as Sawant made clear is to put Trump in the White House.

Flip flopping and delusions of grandeur

Kshama Sawant (l) with Pramila Jayapal (r). Sawant didn’t always denounce all Democrats.Kshama Sawant (l) with Pramila Jayapal (r). Sawant didn’t always denounce all Democrats.There in Dearborn, Sawant called for a workers’ party that will be “a disturber of the political peace, not a cog in the machinery of the ruling class.” But when she was on the Seattle City Council, she collaborated with the “progressive” Democrats and was eager to cozy up to Democrats like U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal and Bernie Sanders. Also, as is true today, she had hardly a word of criticism for the union bureaucracy.

Now, in her new role and with the shift in the political winds, she has changed her tune: Towards the end of her 22 minute speech, Sawant said “Workers Strike Back [her group] is calling for a mass organizing conference in Seattle next February…” In other words, once they have helped achieve their goal of putting Trump/Vance in the White House, the little sect “Workers Strike Back” will be propelled into a “mass” party and will lead the working class forward. Not a single thought to what sort of repression will ensue under their desired goal of a Trump/Vance administration. By their silence on the issue, they are saying “we are not worried about Trump/Vance. We will be able to proceed as always, and after Trump/Vance comes us.”

“Third period Communism”

There is a history to this form of thinking. It was known as “third period Communism”. That was the approach of Stalin and his bureaucratized “Communist international” starting in 1928 and for several years thereafter. The main arena for this strategy of Stalin’s was in Germany. Like all historical analogies there are similarities and differences. Two of the most glaring differences were: 

  1. Germany was in the throes of an economic crisis, first with runaway inflation and then with a massive depression that ruined millions of small businesses and threw millions of workers out onto the streets. 
  2. Germany had two mass working class parties. One – the smaller one – was the supposedly revolutionary German Communist Party (the KPD), and the larger one was the reformist German Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Exactly because of these two differences, important wings of the German capitalist class threw their weight behind fascism in the form of the Nazis. The position of the KPD was the following: In this “third period” the working class would move to revolution because in a period of crisis capitalism offered nothing but fascism. Therefore, those who sought to maintain the democratic form of rule of capitalism were actually helping the rise of fascism. The Social Democrats (SPD) based themselves upon the continued existence of capitalist democracy, so they were helping the rise of fascism. Therefore, they were “social fascists” and were an enemy equal to the Nazis – in fact an even greater enemy. Rather than seek to unite with the workers who supported the SPD in order to fight fascism, the KPD attacked SPD events. We support a united front against the Nazis, they said, but it must be a “united front from below”, a united front without the SPD leadership.

This position amounted to demanding that workers – and the majority of workers at that – abandon the leadership that they recognize before the KPD is willing to work with them to defeat fascism. The best reporter of and commentator on these events at that time was Leon Trotsky, and it’s worth reading what he wrote. (On a personal note: These writings of Trotsky were the first writings of his that I ever read. I was a young union activist at that time and for some reason these writings really appealed to me; they really spoke to my experiences. It was based on this that I started reading further.) Trotsky branded that mode of thought as issuing the working class an ultimatum or “ultimatism”. He explained that it was “an attempt to rape the working class after failing to convince it: workers, unless you accept the leadership of [the KPD], we will not permit you to establish the united front. The bitterest foe could not devise a more unsound position than the one in which the leaders of the party place themselves. That is the surest way to ruin.” The subsequent history proved Trotsky right about that.

The SPD’s compromisism and the KPD’s sectarianism opened the way for Hitler to come to power.The SPD’s compromisism and the KPD’s sectarianism opened the way for Hitler to come to power.Trotsky reported further: “On October 14, 1931, Remmele, one of the three official leaders of the Communist Party, said in the Reichstag, ‘Herr Brüning [the conservative German politician] has put it very plainly: ‘once they [the fascists] are in power, then the united front of the proletariat will be established and it will make a clean sweep of everything. (Violent applause from the Communists)’ Brüning’s scaring the bourgeoisie and the Social Democracy with such a perspective… safeguards his sovereignty. [In other words, Brüning was trying to scare his fellow capitalist politicians into keeping Hitler out of power.] Remmele’s solacing the workers with such a perspective is infamous: he thus prepares the way for Hitler’s domination, for this perspective in its entirety is false to the core and bears witness to an utter misunderstanding of mass psychology and of the dialectics of revolutionary struggle. Should the proletariat of Germany, before whose eyes the development of events now proceeds openly, permit fascism to come into power, i.e., should it evince a most fatal blindness and passivity, then there are no reasons whatever for the assumption that after the fascists are in power, this same proletariat will shake off its passivity immediately and ‘make a clean sweep.’ ”

Aren’t Sawant and her ilk implying exactly that? They are implying that once Trump comes to power then the working class will rise up and “make a clean sweep”, behind the leadership of Workers Fight Back, which will be transformed overnight into a mass working class party. And not any sort of such party, a revolutionary party at that! 

U.S. “already fascist”

Some say we are already living under fascism. This means we have already been defeated before the real battle has even gotten underway. While sounding very “revolutionary”, you cannot have a more defeatist attitude than that. This is not new. Again, to quote Trotsky: “One need only glance at the list of workers’ organizations [that exist] to assert, fascism has not conquered yet in Germany.” He continued: “the empty and rotten talk of the Stalinist bureaucracy about Brüning [the conservative bourgeois German chancellor from 1930-32] and Hitler being one and the same thing. ‘You are muddling!’ we say in answer. ‘You muddle disgracefully because you are afraid of the difficulties that lie ahead, because you are terrified by the great problems that lie ahead; you throw in the sponge before the fighting is begun, you proclaim that we have already suffered defeat. You are lying!’ The working class is split; it is weakened by the reformists and disoriented by the vacillations of its own vanguard, but it is not annihilated yet, its forces are not yet exhausted. No.”

The Democrats and Republicans are the same in this period means there is no difference between bourgeois democracy and white supremacist authoritarianism.The Democrats and Republicans are the same in this period means there is no difference between bourgeois democracy and white supremacist authoritarianism.

Brüning equals Hitler and Harris equals Trump: There are some differences between these two equations, but the logic and the conclusions are nearly identical.

Different from Germany in the 1930s

The main difference lies in the differences that were already pointed out: First, the US is not in the death throes of an enormous economic crisis and second there are no mass working class parties in the US. In Germany, the fact that these conditions did exist meant that major wings of the German capitalist class threw their weight – including major finances – behind German fascism. Today, the US capitalist class has no need for actual fascism. In fact, they don’t even need to replace the democratic form of rule with far right, populist authoritarianism. What MAGA lacks is a mass, organized personally controlled fascist militia like the Nazi SA was. There are tens of millions of far right potential fascists who are armed to the teeth. It can’t be ruled out that they could be organized into a private army like the SS. But it hasn’t happened yet. The closest MAGA has is a few groups like the Proud Boys, and their numbers don’t begin to compare to the SS.That is why, in my opinion, while MAGA has links with fascism, overall it is not a fully fascist movement and if Trump/Vance get into the White House they will not necessarily institute full fascist rule which would include mass concentration camps imprisoning not just a few million but tens of millions. Without a mass fascist army, MAGA would not be able to totally crush the unions. None of this can be ruled out, but neither is it certain.

Further, the main wings of the U.S. capitalist class support Harris and the Democrats. The main ones who support Trump are what could be called the “lumpen capitalists” who think nothing about the needs of US capitalism as a whole; they think only of themselves. Along with them are some capitalists who know nothing about the history of workers’ struggle in the U.S. and see no obstacle in their path.

Left sectarians ignore need for united front against MAGA

Trotsky advocated a united working class struggle against fascism. Sawant and her allies – including the alleged revolutionary Claudia de la Cruz and reformists like Jill Stein and Cornel West – completely ignore the struggle against the fascist-connected Trump/Vance and the MAGA movement. In effect, they take the same position as did the KPD, which dismissed the catastrophe that the Nazis were going to bring on German workers and the oppressed. Slaughter the disabled, the Roma (“Gypsies”), LGBTQ+ people, leftists, and Jews? Totally crush all workers organizations, including the unions? The KPD didn’t even consider this outcome.

Yesterday Sawant & Co. were perfectly willing to link up with “progressive” Democrats while today they prefer Trump to the Democrats. It was similar – in reverse order – for Stalin, who first ignored the threat of German fascism and later was willing to link up with Hitler himself: In 1939, representatives of Hitler and Stalin signed a friendship pact, the “Molotov-

Stalin and Hitler’s foreign minister Joseph von RibbentropStalin and Hitler’s foreign minister Joseph von Ribbentrop

Ribbentrop Pact.” That pact put Stalin’s seal of approval on Hitler’s plan to invade Poland. Following it, Stalin’s representative Molotov said that “fascism is a matter of taste.” Stalin sent back to Germany those Anti-Nazi refugees who were living in the Soviet Union. The pact was ended when, much to the shock of Stalin, the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. Then Stalin and his international representatives turned on a dime, denounced the Nazis, and joined forces with the anti-Hitler capitalists.

Again, there are huge differences, but there is also a similar “non aggression” pact between the left sectarians and opportunists and Trump/MAGA. Jill Stein and Claudia de la Cruz ignore the threat of Trump/MAGA, while Cornel West depended on the Republicans to get on the ballot and he actually supports Ron De Santis. Others on the left like “Workers Strike Back” and similar groups and individuals are doing absolutely nothing to help organize resistance to the attacks that Trump and MAGA are preparing. These attacks will come regardless of the outcome of the election. These “lefts” must figure that their irrelevance to US politics, and their helping Trump get elected (which Sawant openly says is her goal), means that Trump will ignore them and instead will only attack oppressed groups plus Democrats like Adam Schiff, who is one of Trump’s foremost targets.

Israel/Palestine and “diplomacy”

It’s true that the politicians will not save us, but this doesn’t mean we can “reject elections” because the consequences of the elections will not reject us.It’s true that the politicians will not save us, but this doesn’t mean we can “reject elections” because the consequences of the elections will not reject us.Even on the issue of Israel’s genocidal war against Palestine, what is their foremost candidate’s position? Jill Stein calls for “diplomacy”, which can only mean negotiations among the states involved. That means Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Assad, and so on. In other words, let these jackals come together to peacefully decide how to divide up the body which is Palestine. Hamas and Hezbollah could not play a role independent from the Islamic Republic of Iran in such negotiations. These “lefts” have not a word of criticism of that position. They have no alternative. They also ignore the fact that many in Gaza prefer Harris to Trump. And in any case, they are just hiding behind this issue to conceal the fact that they think it’s a principle at all times and in all situations to never support any Democrat… except when it’s opportune to ignore that “principle”, such as when Bernie Sanders was running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016.

Ukraine and real internationalism

Devastation of Ukraine carried out by Putin’s invasion. Sawant and Stein propose a full victory for this invasion.Devastation of Ukraine carried out by Putin’s invasion. Sawant and Stein propose a full victory for this invasion.All these groups also apologize for or in some cases directly support the fascist-connected Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. They all call for the conditions which will enable a victory for that invasion.

Conclusion

Part of the reason for these betrayals of socialism lies in the historical theoretical weakness of the working class movement in the U.S. Another part lies simply in money. Through such billionaires as Neville Roy Singham and other agents of Putin. Khameini, and Assad, tens of millions of dollars are flowing to the “left” apologists for Putin, Khameini, Assad, and Xi. This enables the recipients to offer meeting spaces like “the People’s Forum” in New York and also to pay staff and spread disinformation. 

It is a condemnation of US capitalist democracy, and first and foremost the union leadership as well as the “left” NGOs, that the only alternative to white supremacist and bigoted populist authoritarianism is a capitalist politician that supports Israel’s genocidal policies, a politician who has turned even further right in order to woo middle of the road Republicans. But that is the situation with which history presents us. It will be far easier to organize to stop US support for Israeli genocide, far easier to organize an independent working class movement under the capitalist-controlled Democrats than under the fascist-connected Republicans. Those like Sawant and Stein who advocate a Trump victory dismiss the working class and the oppressed and our role in history.

Just at the time that capitalism is entering a deep global crisis, just when sectarian divisions within the working class increase, just when far right populist authoritarianism and even outright fascism are on the march, meaning just at the time when working class socialism and international working class solidarity are needed more than ever since the 1930s – exactly now the socialist movement is dominated by opportunists and sectarians. An entirely new socialist movement will have to be built from the ground up. It will be built on the basis of a renewed uprising of at least a sector of the working class and working class youth. The present sectarian “socialist” remnants may try to parasitically attach themselves to a renewed movement. In fact they belong in the dustbin of history.

Further reading