National Bolshevism originated during a brief, disastrous moment in the 1920s when the German Communist Party attempted to appeal to working-class Nazi supporters with nationalist or even anti-semitic rhetoric. As Marxist historian Doug Enaa Greene shows, this shameful chapter still resonates today. Marxists should never be tempted to set aside our internationalism or anti-oppression principles in hopes of reaching the most backward workers.
During his lifetime, Karl Kautsky was such an influential theorist he was called the “Pope of Marxism” — but he was also famously branded “the renegade Kautsky” by Lenin for his betrayals of revolutionary socialism. In recent years there have been efforts to revive Kautskyism in order to justify reformism and electoralism. This approach is as wrong as it always was: Kautskyism remains a renegade socialism that is fundamentally opposed to revolution.
In recent years, the threat of Trotskyist entryism has served as a bogeyman for some members of the Democratic Socialists of America — and a stated goal for others. But the history of the French Turn reveals a strategy that is only viable for Trotskyist organizations under very specific conditions. It is always doomed to fail within the DSA, which is essentially an appendix of the capitalist and imperialist Democratic Party. This analysis has important implications for how we approach the united front and revolutionary regroupment.
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.