2023-09-14 13:58:12
Popular Front governments, that is, class alliance governments, have a long history. The first government of this type was the one that took place in Russia between May and October 1917. But the discussion within the international labor movement about class alliance versus class independence is even older. Therefore, to understand the development of the Popular Unity and the hegemonic strategy in the Chilean left from the second half of the 1930s onwards, centered on the program of a bourgeois-democratic revolution, where the proletariat and the popular classes must act in alliance with democratic sectors of the bourgeoisie, we must seek their historical bases in the political development of the national and world labor movement.
By Roberto Monares
The First Great War promoted by the great imperialist powers divided the proletariat, putting the European working class behind their national bourgeoisies. The Socialist International (the Second International)1 and their parties are divided based on the resolution to support each of the governments involved in the war. The social democratic parties enter into crisis with the emergence of an imperialist era, of fierce capitalism, war and revolutions, going from defending the class independence of the labor movement to applying the class alliance through support for their imperialist governments.
Lenin, in 1915, described this process: “The political content of opportunism and social-chauvinism is the same: class collaboration, renunciation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, renunciation of revolutionary actions, or unreserved recognition of bourgeois legality, lack of confidence in the proletariat, confidence in the bourgeoisie.”2. It is about collaboration between the fundamental classes in capitalism, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. This mutual collaboration is aimed at obtaining social reforms without proposing a break with private ownership of the means of production. The social democratic parties, with the German party at the head, will abandon their objectives for socialism. They only talked about socialism on holidays.
This division between revolutionaries and reformists is reflected in Chile. At the beginning of the 20th century, the expression of social democratic politics is in the program of the Democratic Party and its majority leadership led by the lawyer Malaquías Concha. In 1912 Luis Emilio Recabarren broke with that party, giving rise to the first workers’ party in the country, the Socialist Workers’ Party (POS).
OfThe independent proletariat to the founding of the CPCh.
The Chilean working class, since the end of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, was characterized by its methods of combat and its own tools of independent struggle. In 1890, the first general strike in the history of the country took place, known as the “big strike” of Tarapacá, Antofagasta and Valparaíso, with the nitrate proletariat at the head. This tendency towards explosive methods of the Chilean proletariat was deepened at the beginning of the 20th century. The movement
1 The Second International was founded in 1889, after the division of the First International, where Marx and Engels participated. The Second International, until the beginning of the 20th century, was the main articulation between parties that defended the flag of socialism. It was broken after the First World War by the division between internationalist revolutionaries and reformists who supported their national bourgeoisies. After the victory of the Russian Revolution, the Third International, or Communist International, will be founded.
2 Socialism and WarLenin, 1915. Available at: https://www.marxists.org/espanol/lenin/obras/1910s/1915sogu.htm
#Chilean #Popular #Front #strategy #class #collaboration