Paul does not just want to oppose Putin, and the Russian invasion, he also wants to support the Ukrainian government, and the NATO imperialists that stand behind it. That is because he has adopted the Stalinist position of the 1920's, and later 1930's, of the Popular Front, which subordinates the interests of the working-class to the interests of the ruling class, and its state, which is seen as the only means of actually defeating fascism. Rejecting the Marxist position of an independent working-class, and workers' militia, Paul makes no bones about that, arguing that its only Ukrainian government tanks, and so on, that could offer protection, as though a workers militia could not itself utilise tanks and the latest military equipment. If the rag-tag militia of the Afghan Mujahedin can do that, an advanced, European industrial proletariat certainly can. The Bolshevik Red Guards, in 1917, put a halt to the advance of Kornilov and his regular troops, and acted to carry through the revolution, in the face of opposition from 18 imperialist armies.
As I have set out previously, this is simply an extension of the argument Paul put forward for tactics inside the Labour Party, which suggested that the Left should form a Popular Front with the “Centre”, to support Starmer, so as to oppose the Right. That is the same line that the soft left put in the 1980's, in support of backing Kinnock, and for the Left to simply keep its head down and stay quiet. It was disastrous then, and so was going to be predictably disastrous when repeated now.
Starmer, as could be expected, had no interest in allying with Paul or the Left, even on a watered down soft-left agenda, and embarked, straight away, on a scorched earth policy of attacking the Left, and all of the party rank and file, expelling members, and closing down party organisations in a bureaucratic cleansing of any opposition, reminiscent of the 1980's and 90's. It was the same process, though, obviously, without the bloodshed, that had resulted from the application of the Popular Front strategy in China in the 1920's, and Spain in the 1930's. Paul responded, predictably, not by expressing any kind of mia culpa, for his, inevitably failed strategy, but by moving even further to the Right, in pursuit of Starmer, and the ephemeral centre.
But, a consideration of fascism, particularly as manifest in the 1920's and 30's, shows how insane the approach of Paul is. Fascism was successful in Italy in the 1920's, in Germany and in Spain, in the 1930's, precisely because the ruling class, at that time, needed fascism as an adjunct to its state to put down revolutionary working-class movements. So, the idea that you can, then, form an alliance with the ruling class against fascism, when that ruling class has called it into being in the first place, is deluded to the degree of insanity.
Let's assume that such an alliance, as it causes workers to subordinate their interests to those of the bourgeoisie, leads the bourgeoisie to pull back from the brink, and turn away from the fascists. The situation is temporarily assuaged, as capital goes about its business extracting more profits from a subordinated proletariat. But, the whole point is that, in these conditions, the very reality that led to workers raising wages, and so on, which, in turn, squeezed profits, creating a crisis for capital, simply emerges again, and in intensified form.
The rise in wages was not some inexplicable phenomenon, but was due to the phase of the long wave cycle, a period of extensive accumulation, during which the demand for labour rises faster than the increase in the social working day, meaning absolute surplus value cannot increase, and relative surplus value is reduced as wages rise. The bourgeoisie must again attempt to slap down the workers, and, in conditions where the workers are now stronger than ever, the only means by which the ruling class can do that is via a violent attack on the organised workers by the state, and paramilitary gangs.
That is what happened with the Popular Front in France, for example, in the 1930's. You can delude yourself that fascism is merely something that arises from thin air, as a result of these ideas simply entering the heads of certain individuals in society, but, the whole point of Marx's materialist analysis is to show that ideas are a function of material conditions, and it is because those material conditions change, that shifts in ideas arise. The material basis of fascism is entirely discernible on the basis of a Marxist class analysis, and the reason why it is enabled to succeed at some times and not at others is equally discernible by it.
Fascist ideas are always present within the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, as it rails against the organised working-class that squeezes it from one side, and against the bourgeoisie which squeezes it from the other. It coincides with its desire to forcibly turn the clock of social development backwards to the time at which it was small private capital, and rampant individualism that dominated, and with the fact that, as an heterogeneous class, it knows what it is against, but cannot agree on what it is for, requiring a strong, charismatic leader to impose unity upon it. But, it can never dominate unless the ruling class needs it, and, then, as soon as it has succeeded, all of its “anti-capitalist”, petty-bourgeois ambitions have to be vanquished, as they conflict with the needs of the ruling class.
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