The Chinese Revolution and The Theses of Comrade Stalin - Part 33 of 47

Trotsky sets out seven conditions necessary for that.

1. acknowledging that sacrificing the interests of workers and peasants, in the hope of retaining the bourgeoisie had been disastrous
   
   
2. rejecting subordination of the Communist Party and its programme to those of its allies
   
   
3. to set out, in clear terms, the basis of any tactical alliance
   
   
4. to set the limits of the alliance and make them known to all
   
   
5. for full freedom of criticism by the CP of its allies and to be vigilant over them, on the basis of their opposing class interests, which would transform them into enemies
   
   
6. to make any alliance with the petty-bourgeoisie one with the petty-bourgeois mass, not with their leaders
   
   
7. “finally, to rely only upon ourselves, upon our own organization, arms and power.” (p 55)

Here, is also, the basis of the difference between the Popular Front and United Front. Not only is a Popular Front a diplomatic/parliamentary bloc with the bourgeoisie/petty-bourgeoisie, but it is also a bloc with their party leaders/representatives, not the masses. The United Front is an alliance between the revolutionary and reformist workers, who seek unity in action.

“Only by observing these conditions will a really revolutionary bloc of the Communist Party with the Guomindang become possible, not a bloc of the leaders, which vacillates and is subject to contingencies, but a bloc based upon all the oppressed masses of the city and country under the political hegemony of the proletarian vanguard.” (p 55)

That had also not been the case with the ARC, which set the conditions for the betrayal of the General Strike by the TUC leaders.

“In England, as in China, the line was directed towards a rapprochement with the “solid” leaders, based on personal relations, on diplomatic combinations, while renouncing in practice the deepening of the abyss between the revolutionary or leftward-developing masses and the traitorous leaders.” (p 56)

The Stalinists chased after the TUC leaders in the same way they did after Chiang Kai Shek, which allowed both to dictate terms to the CP for their continued alliance. It subordinated the TUC to these bourgeois leaders, and disarmed the workers.

“At the April 1927 meeting of the Anglo-Russian Unity Committee in Berlin, which took place after the betrayal of the British strikes by the English section of the Committee, Tomsky and the other representatives of the Russian trade unions not only proclaimed the 'hearty accord' and 'unanimity' of the Committee, but in the resolution adopted they acknowledged the General Council of the Trade Unions as the 'only representative' of the British workers and pledged themselves to 'non-interference' in the affairs of the British trade union movement.” (Note *, p 56)

This kind of diplomatic relation in the international labour movement underpinned the Second International, also, thereby, facilitating the division into competing national parties that lined up behind their respective ruling classes in the run up to WWI. An insistence on such neutrality and non-interference is common to the position of opportunists and centrists, as with Pivert's attack on Trotsky's analysis and critique of the French Popular Front.

“They are tantamount to a condemnation and a flat betrayal of the trade-union minority, all of whose activity is directed against the traitors whom we have recognized as the sole representatives of the English working class. Finally, the solemn proclamation of “non-interference” signifies our capitulation in principle to the national narrowness of the labour movement in its most backward and most conservative form.” (p 56-7)

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