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cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/10554311
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this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2026
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No shade to the Panthers but idk if I would consider them the most successful in US history. Surely the CP organizers in the CIO and the broader Popular Front were much more successful.
Still "tankies" though - probably even more so than the Panthers.
The cp organisers in the cio sold out the proletariat to support the US's war for hegemony over the capitalist bloc in exchange for some table scraps for (primarily white) american workers. And then they got macarthy'd for their troubles. Less successful at building a communist revolution than the panthers imo; they fumbled a potentially revolutionary moment, whereas the panthers did probably the best anyone could hope for in a non-revolutionary period
That's certainly an interesting way to frame WW2. I'm sure the communists (including those in the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, etc.) at the time saw it quite differently. They saw aligning with non-fascist capitalists as a necessary evil to win the war of total enslavement/extermination the Nazi and Japanese empires were waging on the world. Should the CPUSA have opposed the war?
I'd agree the American Communists (and the USSR) fucked up badly after the fact though.
In Vietnam, we (western Allies) helped put the French back in power after the Vietnamese had almost kicked the Japanese out
In China, we backed anti-communists (and to a less extent the communists) while we took Japan (and helped quash communist resistance to the emperor there!), its island colonies and half of Korea (where we also crushed revolution and installed a puppet government). After the war, we continued backing the anti-communists in China, and we continue backing them to this day from our island bases in Japan and Taiwan.
The Soviet Union did repeatedly request western support or alliance against fascism. The directives from Moscow—in the 20s early 30s "social democrats are the left wing of fascism"; from around 33 to Molotov-Ribbentrop "unite with the social democrats and left liberals against fascism"; from 39 to Barbarossa again "social democrats are the left wing of fascism"; and from Barbarossa to the end of the war again "unite with the liberals"—are a large part of why the cpusa took their positions.
The Soviet leadership thought these diplomatic maneuverings were necessary to preserve soviet power. I dont think they were "wrong" in the sense that "if i were in their position without the benefit of like 80 years' hindsight i'd do better." But viewed from the present with the benefit of hindsight, imo the molotovribbentrop pact and the calls to unite behind bourgeois governments were bad decisions that ultimately strengthened imperialisms chains. I think the ussr shoulda kept the "fash and socdems and liberals are all bourgeois enemies" stance throughout the whole period instead of zigzagging.
Like to start with, the Nazis were a paper tiger at first, that only grew big because people (French and Brits 1933-38, Soviets 1938-41) got scared and gave it fangs and claws. If the soviets hadnt made the pact with the nazis, they wouldnt have been able to wage their war across europe nearly as well, much less Barbarossa (Barbarossa was largely supplied by stockpiled soviet fuel). They would have sputtered out and fallen on their own, because their economy (like Italy and Japan's) were in crisis and only held together by plunder, or tried to invade with far, far less resources from no soviet trade.
It also becomes very obvious, viewing western diplomatic records, that they had no real intention of intervening unless it looked like the soviets were winning and they needed to step in to prevent the spread of communism. Thats why they kept to Africa and Italy at first, despite Stalin's repeated requests for them to open a second front against the Germans.
As Stalin stops making those requests as much or as desperately, is when they actually sent boots on the ground, bc if they didnt, the soviets would have occupied all of Germany and at minimum Greece, Italy and France would have communist revolutions. Stalin, for his part, honouring his alliance with the bourgeois states, called for the french, greek and italian communists to abandon their revolution and join with the liberal government. The greeks refused; and British soldiers shot them.
My view is that neither of these alliances (except the lendlease) benefited the USSR or the world in the long run, and they were fully unnecessary for the USSR (or other communist movements) to win the war (again, except possibly the lendlease, but even that is debated by the people that study it). The soviets would have been better served to take a strong "revolution" stance from like 1935 and support domestic armed resistance to fascism from 1939 onwards than to sell oil and other raw materials to the nazis.
But again, if I were there in Moscow in august 1939 or June 1941 or whenever with limited information idk what i'd think
Wrt CPUSA they should have at minimum absolutely opposed any annexationist goals and pushed for greater economic and military support for both the ussr and to armed resistance to fascism (and should have pushed this support to be entirely rather than only partially free), including anticolonial resistance to the vichy french government in their colonies. They should have used strikes, protests, etc, to push the USA to do more, or expose the gaps between their rhetoric of liberation and policy of domination to agitate and pull more into the movement. Instead they wholeheartedly ate up and supported the governments propaganda about the US being a force for good and actively opposed workers' job actions in favour of supporting the war effort and kickstarting the modern military industrial complex and giving the US global hegemony and a fig leaf of democracy.
The Soviet Union started industrializing in 1929 with the first 5-year plan, and since that moment until the Great Patriotic War, the country grew at astonishing rates of 10-15% GDP per year through industrial output. Every single year they could get of truce was absolutely necessary to fight the industrialized fascist monster in the west. Delaying the war by whichever means possible was the correct decision with all the hindsight in the world, and it may very well have saved Europe from Fascism
And without Soviet oil and other materials, the nazis wouldnt have been in nearly as strong a position in 1940, much less 1941. They gained much more from the pact than the soviets. Without it, their invasion would have faltered much sooner bc the war wasnt just delayed it was made worse and harder.
The german war machine was actively supplied and german communists handed over, their eastern border could be left underguarded while they attacked west and the entire international communist movement was directed to suspend antifascist propaganda, etcetc instead of spending two years supporting polish, czechoslovak, french, italian, etc, resistances to fascism.
This made the reorientation back to antifascism in 41 difficult and less effective, bc many of the most committed and principaled antifascists had left their parties in disgust over endorsing MR.
USSR didn't expect France to fold so quickly and assumed that the war on the Western Front would be long and costly.
Again, as ive emphasised repeatedly:
Again, I understand why, with limited info, the soviets would be cautious etc given the fall of france, it made the germans look very scary. The point isnt "the soviet leadership were incompetent" it is "modern communists should study history and learn from their miscalculations using the much broader base of knowledge available so we dont similarly overestimate fascisms power and underestimate revolutionary power"
With this historical knowledge, the fall of france turns out to be 1) partially the soviets fault (bc they supplied and fueled the nazi war machine) and 2) more caused by the unwillingness of the french elites to risk a revolution than by the strength of the german army
What lesson can we gain from a sober analysis of ww2? That 1) fascism is indeed capitalism in crisis and always looks much stronger than it actually is, to the point that without expansion it will rapidly collapse under its contradictions (and would have collapsed faster if the soviets had supported antifascism instead of the nazis for the first two years of the war when the germans were most isolated) and 2) that liberal democracies, bourgeois states, cannot be trusted to fight fascism bc they fear revolution more; if the war gets too intense, they will surrender to the fascists instead of risking revolution
The reason for French defeat was about 90% incompetence of Allied generals, who managed to send most of the Anglo-French forces straight into the trap in Belgium. The fear of the revolution started influencing their decisions later, when it was already the choice between capitulation and continuing the war from the colonies.
Nah the fear of revolution and preference for fascism was there from the beginning, particularly bc the socialist movement in france was so strong (strong enough that the early 30s attempt at domestic fascism was thwarted).
Some examples i have offhand from Bambery's book on ww2:
I could also point to the french, british, etc, position on the spanish civil war being "its better for us if franco wins" but thats more circumstantial and i feel i've given enough evidence anyways
I was referring exclusively to the post-September 1939 part. In fact, pre-war fear of revolution of Britain and France and their unwillingness to commit to cooperation with USSR was one of the reasons, why USSR wanted to delay fighting Germany. USSR wanted to avoid being alone against Germany and even feared worse scenario with Germany getting direct support from other capitalist powers.
We seem to be repeating ourselves at this point, but reposting from what ive said in this chain:
Only new things i have to add to this is that looking back from 2026, the conflict between nazi, french, british and american imperialism was inevitable and that MR in no way reduced the chance of western support of the Nazis (e.g. the near declaration of war against the ussr in 1940 described in the previous reply)
If the Soviets haven't made the pact, then they would've run a very real risk of fighting a two front war with Germany and Japan. The Soviets were already at war with Japan when the nonaggression pact was signed between the Soviet Union and Germany. Similarly, the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact with Japan right before Operation Barbarossa, which once again saved the Soviet Union from fighting a two front war.
I don't think it's a miscalculation at all for the Soviet Union to do everything in its power to prevent the opening of two fronts at the opposite ends of the country.
The issue is that (again with hindsight), the "expand into the ussr" faction of japanese leadership had already been solidly defeated by 1939 by the "expand in China" and "expand in SEA" factions, so there was no possibility of the border skirmishes expanding to a full second front. And Japan already running into overextension problems and the limits of their production by 41. So again, while I get why the soviets made the choices they did at the time, with hindsight it seems like the wrong choice imo
The Communist Party originally viewed WW2 as an imperial war of agression, not unlike WW1, but then eventually changed perspective and viewed it as a global anti-fascist war, and that the Communist Party ought to back the US war effort. This was to align with the position of the Comintern
Arguably, this was a flaw in the Third International's Popular Front strategy. It led the Communist Part to ally with more hegemonic liberal parties and organizations, rather than with strictly with other working class organizations (as the Trotskyist United Front proposed).
The Comintern's strategy made sense in the global south, where the national bourgeois in colonized countries had aligning interests with the proletarian parties. But in the imperial core, it led to class collaboration and liberalism. The strategy wasn't as universal as the Comintern thought, and the Trotskyist line might've actually made more sense in the US
(Rare trot W? Disscuss!).
Trotsky and his earlier supporters get way too much hate imo. Probably because a lot of modern trot orgs suck so the dislike gets applied retroactively.
The soviet union would have benefited imeasurably if the interpersonal conflicts between trotsky and stalin had been managed better (rip lenin, rip sverdlov) and not blown up into an open intraparty factionalist conflict with all the fuckery that entailed
Wrt popular vs united front, imo the issue was that rather than allying with liberals to build the communist movement by pulling in their progressive elements, they worked under the liberals to support the goals and efforts of the liberal governments
was that a foregone conclusion though? I would argue that the CPUSA ended up working under the liberals, because it was an imperial core country that they were dogmatically applying Comintern strategy to. The conditions were simply very different, compared to say China, where the national Bourgeoisie were weaker, and more easily led by a working class party.
As i understand it, instead of saying "we hate fascism—which is the inevitable result of capitalism etc and thats why while we support and endorse more aid to the ussr in their struggle we do not support American/Canadian/British/etc governments aims or policies in this war and must continue and deepen our struggle against our bourgeois and their fascist policies and will work with liberals (not parties, people) on this" the cpusa said "uncritical support for the USA and international liberal bourgeois states, the great allies of the USSR in the struggle against fascism."
The former position would prevent them from working under the liberals imo, as in, communists would still be a minority, but they would not be uncritically supporting their bourgeois states and opposing labour action.