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The discussion also overlooks the SocDem betrayals of the left in the run up to WWI and the aftermath. They supported their national imperial projects over class solidarity with the global proletariat. The Communists were reluctant to form alliances with the SocDems because of very recent and very serious betrayals. Or that course of the…
The discussion also overlooks the SocDem betrayals of the left in the run up to WWI and the aftermath. They supported their national imperial projects over class solidarity with the global proletariat. The Communists were reluctant to form alliances with the SocDems because of very recent and very serious betrayals. Or that course of the West might have been very different but for the coup against Henry Wallace in 1944 or the assassinations of the 1950s/1960s.
Or the course of the global South outside of the 15% garden. Somehow these peoples keep going back to socialist and communist movements and politicians even as previous generations get mowed down or corrupted. It's because life sucks for the vast majority under liberalism and the right's solution always ends up with more austerity, privatization, and open Fascism. This is about the strongest indicator that a Marxist social dialectic towards left revolution is an accurate assessment of social development.
Well, I can't cover everything in 5000 words, but yes of course there was a great deal of bitterness on both sides from historical incidents such as Ebert's use of the Freikorps to suppress the Communists. But irrespective of "fault" there were divisions within the Left that crippled for most of the twentieth century.
My point wasn't regarding "fault" but rationality. Given SocDem's history of betrayals, the Communists had very good reasons to be very wary of any alliance with them. I would argue that their decision may well have been the correct one strategically - most of the European resistance movements were Communist led and they came out of WWII in a very strong position to win it all. What they didn't count on was the counterrevolutionary force within the Allied forces headed by the Anglo-American deep state to immediately recruit Nazis and Mafioso to fight them and isolate them from the USSR.
There were certainly mistakes along the way, but I would argue that the main source of division came from SocDems and "moderates" who always sided with the bourgeoisie when it mattered, and the Communist left's naivete about being able to peaceably change a ruthless imperialist capitalist system that had no problems killing millions in colonies and shooting strikers at home. Yes, they were willing to make some concessions to the "left" and proletariat while Communism remained a visible alternative, but note how quickly NATO/EU turned on third way countries like Yugoslavia, Syria, and Iraq as soon as the Berlin Wall fell.
If we look at the "left" systems that persisted - Communist China, DPRK, Stalinist USSR, Cuba, early Yugoslavia - they were indeed paranoid and ruthless to the point of being counterproductive. But they persisted and arguably thrive (China practically doubling life expectancy and achieving near universal literacy under Mao) even under the extreme embargoes by the West. Meanwhile the softer and more accommodating leftism of Arbenez and Mossadegh were easily destroyed by Western chicanery. And defeat meant hundreds of thousands or millions dead and impoverishment and terror for majority of the population.
The "problems of the left" of being divided, being simultaneously ineffective but authoritarian... may well have more to do with the rightist actions against it, than an inherent weakness in the ideology. I think its greatest weakness lies in misunderstanding the ruthlessness and power of its rightist enemy and thinking it could come to a peaceful accommodation with the right.
> the SocDem betrayals of the left in the run up to WWI and the aftermath. They supported their national imperial projects over class solidarity
Here you imply that "national-traitors" is the only kind who can claim being Left.
You consider any idea of "national-socialism" be non-Left by definition. And only "international-socialism" be the Left.
I am not so sure.
Especially if to accept Aurelien's criterion of "diffusing power as close to ordinary people as possible" goal/dream.
But if you do, if you consider only Bolshevik/USSR to be Left, then this seems to leave Left nowhere to exist. USSR became free cow to milk and then failed, leaving behind the burgeoning nationalistic provinces and eaten out internasionalisted host it parasited upon. Not a very convincing "vision of future" to sell to voters.
And China was USA's proxy and willing spearhed to slay USSR, if you would then consider it as a "city on a hill" of "class solidarity" for XXI Left to dream of, then equally should be Ukraine, Israel and other USA proxies.