Although the 1930s saw the consolidation of Stalin’s personal power, the bureaucratic regime was not a stable phenomenon. Bonapartism by its very nature is a regime of social crisis. Stalin became obsessed with internal security and therefore attempted to establish ‘normal’ diplomatic relations with the capitalist powers. After 1933, Stalin hoped to establish closer relations with Hitler’s Germany. “Of course, we are far from being enthusiastic about the fascist regime in Germany,” stated Stalin. “But fascism is not the issue here, if only for the reason that fascism in Italy, for example, has not prevented the USSR from establishing the best relations with that country.” But after being rebuffed by Hitler, and alarmed by the rapid rearmament of Germany that was taking place, Stalin began searching for other allies. He quickly joined the League of Nations, which had been previously denounced as a ‘thieves’ kitchen” by Lenin. In order to counter the military threat, the Comintern was called upon to promote ‘collective security’. This was part and parcel of a sharp change in policy announced at the Seventh Congress of the Comintern in 1935: the policy of Popular Frontism. In 1943, as a further gesture to the imperialist allies, Stalin dissolved the Comintern altogether.
The policy of Popular Frontism was based upon alliances between workers’ parties and bourgeois parties. This was entirely alien to the method of Lenin and Marx, who always insisted on a policy of class independence. The notion that it is possible to arrive at an agreement between the working class and the so-called democratic wing of the bourgeoisie is false to the core. This type of ‘unity’ is like the unity between horse and rider! It overlooks the class conflict between wage labour and capital. The policy of the capitalists, whether the Liberal or Conservative variety, is always dictated by their economic interests. In times of crisis, the bourgeois may try to lean on the labour leaders in order to keep the workers under control, only to kick them in the teeth once they have served their purpose.
The Popular Front was merely the resurrection of the old ‘Lib-Lab’ policy of class collaboration, which was implacably criticised by Marx, and still more so by Lenin, who all his life fought against illusions in the liberal bourgeoisie. While, under certain conditions, it might be permissible to enter into episodic blocs with the liberals for practical purposes, all history shows that programmatic blocs with the liberals end in disaster. In the writings of Marx and Engels, and especially those of Lenin, the liberal bourgeoisie was always portrayed as a cowardly and reactionary class, incapable of carrying through the tasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution.
The counter-revolutionary nature of the bourgeoisie was already understood and explained by Marx and Engels in 1848-49, in writings such as Revolution and counter-revolution in Germany. In 1904, in his book Results and Prospects Trotsky pointed out that the bourgeoisie in backward, semi-feudal, countries like tsarist Russia had arrived on the stage of history too late to carry out its historical mission. Tied to the banks on the one hand, and linked by a thousand threads to the landowning class and imperialism on the other, the bourgeoisie was organically incapable of fighting against the monarchy and feudalism. The capitalists invested in land, and the landowners in industry. They formed a reactionary bloc against progress. No matter what differences might exist between them (and the Russian liberals did clash with the autocracy frequently, up to 1905-06), they would always close ranks when threatened with a movement of the revolutionary workers and peasants. The whole thrust of Lenin’s argument was that democracy in Russia would not be brought about by the liberals, but only by the revolutionary unity of the proletariat and poor peasants against the liberals, as well as the autocracy. This was shown to be correct in 1905-06, when the liberals sold out the revolution and did a deal with the autocracy at the expense of the workers and peasants.
Even in the period when Lenin did not believe that there could be a socialist revolution in Russia before Western Europe, he was always implacably hostile to deals or alliances with the bourgeois (except for episodic blocs on secondary issues). The idea of any kind of programmatic bloc with the liberals was an anathema to him. He knew that they would inevitably betray the struggle. A fact which has been amply borne out, not only by the experience of the Russian Revolution, but by the role of the national bourgeoisie in the colonial revolution in the entire period following the Second World War. The idea of entry into a coalition government with the liberal bourgeoisie was not the policy of Lenin, but the Mensheviks. Opposition to this policy constituted the central point of difference between Bolshevism and Menshevism from 1904 onwards. It reached its clearest expression in the Provisional Government of 1917.
This Provisional Government was a classic example of a popular front, in which the ruling class, through its ‘left’ representatives (Kerensky), leans on the leaders of the workers’ organisations in a coalition, in order to head off a revolution. Behind the facade of the popular front, the reaction regroups its forces, and prepares a counter-stroke. Once the masses have been demoralised by the experience of Popular Frontism, which, having left the basic system of exploitation untouched, passes from reforms to counter-reforms. Lenin subjected the Menshevik and SR leaders to a withering criticism for entering the Provisional Government, demanding a break with the ten capitalist ministers and the formation of an independent workers’ government based on the soviets. This was the basis upon which the October Revolution was prepared.
In essence, the policy now adopted by the Comintern in 1935 was, to quote Trotsky, “a malicious caricature of Menshevism”. The Popular Front governments formed in France and Spain allegedly to prevent the danger of fascism, had the opposite effect. Under conditions of extreme economic and social crisis, only the overthrow of landlordism and capitalism, and a radical transformation of society could show the way out. The alliance with the bourgeoisie (or, more correctly, with the shadow of the bourgeoisie) was a recipe for disaster. In every case, under the pressure of big business and the liberal allies, the living standards of the workers, peasants and middle class were cut. The promises of reform were soon turned into their opposite, preparing the ground for reaction. The most terrible example was what happened in Spain.