The Ukrainian social-patriots, and the USC apply no such revolutionary perspective, because their position is one of class collaboration and social imperialism, not revolutionary defeatism. It is the Menshevist position adopted by Stalin, not the revolutionary position of Marx, Engels, Liebknecht, Luxemburg, Lenin and Trotsky.
Even after the coup of Chiang Kai Shek, in April 1927, and slaughter of thousands of Chinese communists, Stalin declared that this same policy of the Popular Front, was the only correct one. Trotsky quotes the report of Tang Pin Shan, to the Seventh Plenum of the ECCI on what this policy of the Popular Front actually looked like.
“Since the establishment of the national government in Canton last July, which is nominally a government of the left wing, the power has actually been in the hands of the right wing ... The movement of the workers and peasants cannot develop to its full breadth as a result of various obstacles. After the March putsch a military dictatorship of the centre [that is, Chiang Kai-shek] was established, while the political power remained as before in the hands of the right wing. The whole political power, which should properly [!] have belonged to the left wing, is finally lost.” (p 29-30)
Nor could this account be discounted as being that of some Trotskyist opponent of Stalin. Tang was a vociferous anti-Trotskyist, who, as Minister of Agriculture, took seriously Stalin's instructions on restraining the agrarian movement, for fear it would scare off the bourgeoisie of the KMT.
Trotsky notes,
“As Communist minister of agriculture, he took the field against a peasants' uprising at the command of an armed detachment. He subsequently deserted the Communist party entirely, and the last known political act was contained in the announcement of his efforts to create an anti-Communist party under his own leadership.” (Note*, p 29)
In Ukraine, of course, its not a question of “the Left” should have power but losing it, but of “the Left” never being near having power, and voluntarily, and eagerly, subordinating themselves to the power of the Right! And, that is true outside Ukraine too, with “the Left” eagerly goading the Right, in the form of Biden, Sunak and so on, into further acts of escalation, just as they did over lockdowns, and sections of them did over Brexit and so on. As with Stalin, and his arming and support of the murderous reactionaries of the KMT, the USC declares this to be the only correct line. Trotsky quotes Tang further,
“... We sacrificed the interests of the workers and peasants in practice ... After lengthy negotiations with us, the government did not as much as promulgate a trade-union law ... The government did not accept the demands of the peasantry, which we presented to it in the name of various social organizations. When conflicts arose between the large landowners and the poor peasants, the government always took the side of the former.” (p 30)
Of course, in Ukraine, there are no such negotiations, or possibility of negotiations with the right-wing, Zelensky government, whose attacks on Ukrainian workers cannot be effectively opposed by a “Left” that has totally subordinated itself to it, and even pronounces that this corrupt, reactionary government, the Ukrainian state and imperialism “defends workers interests”!
“Such are, the political relations that received the pompous title of the “bloc of four classes”. Such “blocs” abound in the revolutionary as well as the parliamentary history of bourgeois countries: the big bourgeoisie leads the petty-bourgeois democrats, the phrase-mongers of the national united front, behind it, and the latter, in turn, confuse the workers and drag them along behind the bourgeoisie. When the proletarian “tail”, despite the efforts of the petty-bourgeois phrase-mongers, begins to stir too violently, the bourgeoisie orders its generals to stamp on it. Then the opportunists observe with an air of profundity that the bourgeoisie has “betrayed” the national cause.” (p 31)
In the 96 years since Trotsky wrote that, it has happened numerous more times, including, now, in Ukraine.
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