On Fri, Oct 4, 2024 at 07:05 PM, I wrote: > > IMO support for any left-centre party in an advanced capitalist country is > pre-eminently and always a tactical question, and involves multiple > considerations, among them: > > a) Is there a mass or even a small mass anticapitalist party which is > drawing workers away from these parties? > > b) Does the other major party to their right represent a real threat to > the historic democratic rights and social gains won by the working class? > > c) Is the party backed by the labour movement? > > d) Is there an organized left wing in the party opposed to the party > leadership and direction? > >
For those still interested in pursuing the discussion, my answers would be as follows wth respect to my electoral preferences in Britain, France, Germany, and the US. *Britain* I would have *abstained* in the election which brought Starmer’s Labour to power. There is no mass or small mass anticapitalist party to the left of Labour which is drawing workers away from it, and no major party to its right which would have threatened the historic democratic rights and social gains won by the working class - each of which would have compelled me to act otherwise I might have cast a throwaway vote for the CPGB, the SWP or another far left party as a gesture of solidarity with activists I might have befriended in the course of other extraparliamentary campaigns. If the Corbyn wing had not been expelled from the party, I would have joined and worked with it to elect a Labour government. *France* The Socialist Party and its smaller satellite allies have collapsed and Le Pen’s Front National represents a threat to the democratic rights and social gains of the French working class. In the absence of a better alternative, I would join and vote for Melanchon’s *La France Insoumise* , a small mass party which seems to be the major beneficiary of workers abandoning the SP and its allied parties and moving to the left. *Germany* The same is true of Germany where the governing "traffic light coalition” of the SPD, Greens, and FDP is haemorrhaging support to the far right AfD and to lesser extent *Sahra Wagenknecht’s small mass party* on the left. As in France, in the absence of a better alternative, I would join and vote for her eponymously named party which seems to be the major beneficiary of workers abandoning the SPD and its junior partners and moving to the left. *The US* Present conditions in the US favour the *Democrats* over the Republicans on all four counts: 1. The MAGA Republicans to the right of the DP do represent a graver threat than before to the historic democratic rights and social gains won by the working class, 2. There is no mass or even a small mass anticapitalist party which is drawing workers away from the Democrats, 3. In the absence of such, the trade unions and their federations necessarily look to the DP for support, and 4. There is an organized left in the DP which includes a number of Marxist tendencies. I would join it for the same reasons this liberal Zionist left the DSA: https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/quit-dsa-gaza-israel/ I expect and welcome friendly criticism. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#32781): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/32781 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/108895176/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
