The search for working class unity

by Erna Bennett

A recent short letter to The Guardian, published under the title 
"Time for Unity", draws our attention once again to a question of the 
utmost importance. Working class unity is one of the most urgent problems 
of our time, and it calls for serious and thorough examination. The 
divisions which paralyse the left are not just tragic — they are 
historically devastating. But we cannot avoid asking, "with what forces can 
unity that will serve the interests of the working class be 
established?"

The comrade who writes to The Guardian fails to ask this question. 
Commenting on a recent article on the US-led NATO air raids on Yugoslavia 
published in the Australian Marxist Review1 which 
observed that many of the NATO states participating in that aggression have 
social democratic or labour governments and that their betrayal of the 
working class forfeits their role in history, he argues that the article 
fails to see a social democratic left developing. He cites as a hopeful 
sign of change the French and Italian Governments whose "hands were forced" 
by what he describes as "mass protests led by communists" to object to the 
daylight bombing of the bridges of Belgrade". He quotes this as an 
indication that social democracy is on the mend, or at least mendable. But 
if he wants to see change in the right direction he is looking in the wrong 
place.

Social democracy's leaders are the last from whom to expect any leftward 
shift. Neither the French nor the Italian Government, in their opposition 
to daylight bombing of bridges in Belgrade, seem to harbour any major moral 
or political scruple about bombing them at night — and from Italian bases 
which, with a single courageous decision, could have been closed to NATO 
bombing missions.

As for the "mass protests led by communists" to which he refers, it is a 
pity he was not aware of the massive continent-wide anti-war protests that 
swept of Europe during the US-NATO attacks — from their first day, and not 
belatedly after weeks of bombing. They were composed not only of communists 
but of broad, united, elements of the whole working class population 
— workers, teachers, students, housewives, public servants, shop 
assistants, professionals, intellectuals — communists and non-communists 
together, in demonstrations that were organised by communist and non- 
communist organisations, but not by social democrats.

Here was real and significant working class unity against the war, 
with much greater claim to our respect than any ambiguous left that might 
"develop, if not openly", as the writer to The Guardian puts it, 
among the rag-tag, bob-tail and thoroughly demoralised leadership of social 
democracy that, in the midst of an inhuman war, runs true to form by 
quibbling not whether, but how it should be fought.

Prior to one such anti-war protest, when bridges in numerous Italian cities 
were symbolically occupied by torch-bearing columns of the young and old, 
hundreds of thousands strong, in one town in which the Communist Party had 
once been powerful and greatly respected before it was dragged into the 
shameful morass of social democratic opportunism, the marchers gathered in 
Piazza della Pace (Peace Square), where party rooms of the once communist 
but now social democratic Party of the Democratic Left (PDS) are located. 
For all too brief a spell, as the demonstrators gathered, old comrades 
fraternised. But as the march moved off, the former comrades who had chosen 
to follow rather than renounce the social democratic path prepared for them 
by their opportunist leaders, slunk back into their party rooms where, who 
knows, perhaps they drowned their shame.

No! Social democracy, the chosen form of what Lenin described as "national-
liberal labour parties"2 is neither on the mend nor mendable.  
Whether in NATO, the EU, or Australia, by whatever name, new or old, it now 
chooses to make itself known, social democracy remains the class 
collaborationist force it always has been, its real character merely 
confirmed rather than denied by the few but slowly increasing number of its 
members who have the courage to move out and join ranks with a broad 
working class alliance that is struggling for change — beyond the 
comfortable boundaries of conformity.

The AMR article on Kosovo referred to much more substantial 
differences in the bosom of social democracy, as represented by the Labour 
and social democratic member states of the NATO alliance, than such simple 
matters as the time of day that is suitable for bombing civilian 
populations.

But none of them, that I know of, are such as to encourage much hope of 
their "return" to socialism, because social democrats — and the third 
section of the Communist Manifesto explained why 150 years ago — 
have never understood, never been able to understand, and probably never 
wanted to understand socialism as anything other than an invention of this 
or that enlightened mind.

Are we expected to believe that to criticise social democracy undermines 
left unity? Are we being asked to believe that social democracy is the 
voice of the working class?

But how many workers are social democrats? Lenin, reiterating a problem 
raised by Engels, asks a similar question.3 At best, a minority. 
Of those who vote for social democratic parties only a few are 
committed adherents. Most are only workers and citizens who, for want of 
better alternatives, or often — as in the case of the Australian Labor 
Party voters from a loyalty that spans generations, hope only, often 
desperately, that their vote will help realise at least a first step not 
towards socialism, but at least better working and living conditions — and 
are repeatedly disillusioned by betrayal.

Even if all who vote for social democratic parties and their 
candidates were, in fact, active members of the labour or social democratic 
movement, they amount, on an average that is almost monotonous, to about 50 
per cent of all voters. Many, if not most of the other 50 per cent, on 
average, give their vote to other, often conservative parties. Are we not 
to criticise these parties, either, so as not to estrange their 
working class supporters and so further undermine working class unity?

This, clearly, is not the way to working class unity. Our task in the 
search for unity is to demonstrate to the working class valid 
alternatives to social democratic and labour party opportunism and the 
arrogance of a ruling class with which, all too inevitably, social 
democracy has allied itself in a search for the sharing of political power. 
The alternatives that need to be presented demand not stirring, beautiful 
and empty words but very substantial deeds. All too often, pious calls for 
working class unity that overlook this necessity turn out to be part and 
parcel of the mindless baggage that comes with the adoption of compromising 
but easy options.

In 1875, the German Social Democratic Workers' Party was founded by the 
merging of the Marxist and social democratic wings of the German working 
class movement at the so-called unity congress at Gotha. Marx severely 
criticised its proposed program.4

His critique, contained in detailed notes sent to one of the Marxist 
"Eisenach" wing, caused "consternation" at the time, and it remained 
unpublished for many years because — it was believed "it would prevent 
unity". But the Gotha congress saw "working-class unity formalised". The 
party born of that fusion, weakened by the compromises out of which it was 
born, fell apart under the opportunistic and chauvinistic pressures of the 
First World War. When Marx's analysis of the Gotha program was eventually 
published, the revelation of its earlier suppression created a storm and 
that suppression was fiercely criticised. His devastating critique of the 
Gotha program demands our attention today.

In his 1891 preface to Marx's critique, Engels hoped that "the relentless 
vigour with which the proposed platform is analysed, and the inexorableness 
with which the results arrived at are pronounced and the platform's weak 
points exposed, all this can no longer offend now, after fifteen years." Is 
it possible that he was wrong? Is it possible, perhaps, that Marx's sharp 
and penetrating attack on the political opportunism of the social democrats 
and those who were prepared to compromise with them, and dress their 
loyalty to the working class in the plausible phrases of social democracy, 
still finds some who are offended — even after 125 years?

Times and conditions, of course, change and, in turn, impose changes on 
working class tactics and politics.

Led by its motley prophets, the Second International quickly collapsed in 
the face of the tide of chauvinism stirred up by the First World War. This, 
as Lenin observed, "was most strikingly expressed in the flagrant betrayal 
of convictions and the solemn resolutions of Stuttgart and Basle" to oppose 
imperialist war. The outcome, he adds, implies a "complete victory of 
opportunism [and] the transformation of social democratic parties into 
national-liberal labour parties." (loc.cit, p.218)

Still true to form in spite of the deep contradictions within the NATO 
imperialist alliance that have been exposed by the US-led attack on 
Yugoslavia, the bourgeois labour parties, when it comes to the crunch, 
yield to the bidding of their bourgeois masters. And so, too, clothed in 
the respectable dress of social democracy, former communist parties, once 
respected the world over, have joined the chorus of the abject.

But what about the united front, cry some — we need a united front. Yes, 
indeed we do, but waving Dimitrov's name like a little flag at a football 
match clarifies nothing and resolves nothing. Even here — no! particularly 
here — we need to be quite clear about what we mean by unity and a united 
front.

Let us look at what Dimitrov said. In the first place, he did not hesitate 
to criticise the social democratic parties.5 Neither did the 
delegates to the Congress of the Communist International at which he 
delivered his renowned unity appeal. He asks, were not social democrats in 
government in Germany, in Austria and in Spain? "Did the participation of 
social-democratic parties in the bourgeois governments of these countries 
prevent fascism from attacking the proletariat? It did not. It is as clear 
as daylight that the participation of social-democratic ministers in 
bourgeois governments is not a barrier to fascism."6

Again and again, in the rising tide of repression in Europe in the 1930s, 
communists made every effort to seek common ground with social democracy. 
Again and again, communists proposed to social democrats, reported Wilhelm 
Pieck to the Seventh Congress, "the establishment of a united front for the 
purpose of combatting the capitalist offensive". In 1933, 1934 and again in 
1935, "our proposals were rejected"7 and those social democrats 
who participated in meetings convened by the Communist Parties, including 
that at Amsterdam in 1932, were threatened with expulsion, as is 
increasingly happening today.

"What," he asks, "does the Second International want?" It still seeks to 
lead the masses to reformism, but "the situation in the capitalist 
countries ... shows that a new rise of reformism is impossible. It is true 
that in individual countries social-democratic parties may be able to 
strengthen themselves for a brief period ... but this would no longer be 
because the masses still cherish the illusion that this will lead to 
socialism, but because the masses do not feel strong enough to overthrow 
the rule of the bourgeoisie."8

Social democracy is in the throes of a profound crisis, the crisis of 
reformism, the end of an era. That it still survives at all is thanks to 
active support from the bourgeoisie — hence the apparently incongruous 
support of the bourgeois press for social democratic parties in 
parliamentary elections, and hence the extraordinary sight of a summit of 
EU and NATO heads of state in Florence last November, presided by the 
President of the United States, proclaiming themselves as "the new 
progressives".

In the capitalist countries, says Dimitov, most political parties, however 
heterogeneous, are reformist and are still under the influence of the 
bourgeoisie. Control remains in the hands of the agents of big capital. 
Nevertheless, we have a duty to approach all organisations that are 
under bourgeois influence and to try to win them — or their members — to 
the side of the working class. But, "our tactics must, under all 
circumstances, (the emphasis is Dimitrov's) be directed towards drawing 
[elements] among their members into the anti-fascist people's 
front."9

"Communists cannot, and must not for a moment," he declares, "abandon their 
own independent work of communist education, organisation and 
mobilisation of the masses, striving both for short-term and long-term 
agreements for joint action with the social-democratic parties, 
reformist trade unions and other workers' organisations", laying the chief 
stress on developing mass action locally, "to be carried out by 
local organisations through local agreements."10

"What," asks Dimitrov, "is and ought to be the basic content of the united 
front at the present stage?" And he answers, "the defence of the immediate 
economic and political interests of the working class."11

"Social-democratic government is an instrument of class collaboration with 
the bourgeoisie in the interests of preserving capitalist order, a united 
front government is an instrument of collaboration between a revolutionary 
vanguard of the proletariat and all other anti-fascist parties in the 
interests of the entire working population.... There is a radical 
difference between these two things."12 We must, he insists, 
recognise the difference between the two different camps of social 
democracy — between the reactionary camp, and the growing number of left 
social democratic workers who are becoming revolutionary.

Since the anti-fascist struggles of the 1930s and the 1940s and the epic, 
but immeasurably costly victories of popular broadly-based and generally 
communist-led resistance and liberation movements, a vast reserve of 
revolutionary experience has been accumulated, adding a new dimension to 
our knowledge.13 Socialism has been planted in many former 
colonies. Societies have been transformed beyond recognition under 
conditions in which a working class often barely yet existed and where a 
successful struggle was possible only through united popular alliances 
under communist leadership.

In eastern Europe and the Balkans, in Cuba, Chile, in many former colonies 
in Africa and Asia, in China, Vietnam and Afghanistan, popular unity was an 
essential element of revolutionary success just as lack of it was the seed 
of its defeat. In all these countries, as in Soviet Russia in the 1920s, 
imperialist intrigue and armed intervention have been used to break that 
unity and substitute popular power with compliant social democratic 
regimes.

Today, the confrontation with capitalism has assumed global dimensions, and 
is intensifying rather than diminishing. Working class and popular unity, 
with communist leadership, is important as never before — and, as the NATO 
attack on what is left of socialist Yugoslavia so starkly demonstrates, 
social democracy has displayed the extent of its hostility to socialism and 
its indifference to the interests of the working class by providing world 
imperialism with the brute force it needs to demolish, once again, 
socialism's hard-won achieve-ments.14

It is indeed time to study Dimitrov's United Front against Fascism and 
War seriously, as the comrade who writes to The Guardian says. 
But this can only be done successfully in serious and informed debate that 
draws on the more than a century of experience that is now available to us, 
and not in a superficial, casual or dogmatic way. On the basis of that long 
experience, the search for working class unity shares no common ground 
whatever with the opportunism of those who have repeatedly sold out those 
working class forces on whose loyalty they have relied to be carried to 
power, only to betray them, who will betray them again, and who have 
repeatedly shown themselves to be enemies and not friends. It must lead to 
common action not with the reformist leadership of social democracy, 
but with the revolutionary rank and file, whose working class vision will 
mature as their involvement in the struggle intensifies.


REFERENCES

1. "Where Do We Go From Kosovo?"
Australian Marxist Review, no. 41, 1999, pp.5-30.

2. Lenin, V.I. "The Collapse of the Second International".
Selected Works (12 vol. Edition), vol.5, p.218. London. Lawrence and Wishart. 1944.

3. Lenin, V.I. "Imperialism and the Split in Socialism".
Selected Works, vol.11, p.762. London. 1943.

4. Marx, K. "Critique of the Gotha Program".
In Political Writings, vol.3. The First International and After.
Harmondsworth, London, 1974. pp.339-359.

5. Dimitrov, G. "Report on the Working Class against Fascism and Reply to 
Discussion". In the Proceedings of the Seventh World Congress of the 
Communist International, 1935. London, 1936. pp.1-80 and 1-32 (numbered independently).

6. Ibid. pp.27, 28.

7. Pieck, W. Report on the Activities of the ECCI, 1935. London, 1936. pp.66, 67.

8. Ibid. p.66.

9. Dimitov, G. op.cit. p.33.

10. Dimitov, G. op.cit. p.29.

11. Dimitov, G. op.cit. p.28.

12. Dimitov, G. op.cit. p.61.

13. See, for example, Allende: "The Program of Unidad Popular" and "The 
Purpose of our Victory" in Chile's Path to Socialism, London, 1973; 
Amilcar Cabral, "Unity and Struggle", Nairobi, 1980; numerous works by 
Castro and Guevara, including Castro's "World Economic and Social Crisis" 
and Guevara's "Socialism and Man", inter alia; various studies on 
Afghanistan, including Gupta, "Afghanistan — Politics, Economics and 
Society"; Jagan, "The Caribbean Revolution"; Ho Chi Minh, "On Revolution", 
New York, 1967; Mina, "An Encounter with Fidel", Melbourne, 1991; Nkrumah, 
"Class Struggle in Africa", 1972; Shivji (ed) "The Silent Class Struggle", 
Dar es Salaam, 1974; and numerous other studies and analyses of the 
resistance and liberation struggles in Europe and the three Third World 
continents, to mention but a very small part of an immense literature.

14. Communist Party of Greece. Political Resolution of the
15th Congress. Athens, 1996, pp.6-8, 11-12 et passim.