ROBERT J. S. ROSS -- MARCH 28, 2016
http://prospect.org/article/not-chicago-1968-berlin-1932
Robert J. S. Ross is a Member of the Board of Directors and Vice President of the Sweatfree Purchasing Consortium.
Listen up Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporters, and pay close attention, those who think of themselves as being to Sanders’s left: History will judge us sternly if we fail this moment.
Earlier in 1932 Adolf Hitler’s Nazis had become the largest party in parliament, with about 37 percent of the popular vote. The Social Democrats (SPD) and Communists (KPD) together had about 36 percent of the vote, but were in fierce, mortal competition. The traditional German nationalists could not form a stable government without so they called new elections. Now, in November, Hitler lost seats and the combined vote of the SPD and the KPD was larger than his, as were their combined parliamentary seats. While the KPD was hostile to the Weimar arrangements, it nevertheless proposed to the SPD a common front against the early 1933 power grab by the Nazis. The hostility between the two working class parties with egalitarian visions was too deep.
The split that had created the Bolshevik-Menshevik divide in Russia and had divided the German working class parties over the Great War now prevented a united front against Hitler.
The Communists characterized the SPD as “social fascists”—no better than the Nazis. In a similar vein, leftist commentator Chris Hedges and others have recently written that Hillary Clinton is no better than Donald Trump: “Voting for Clinton and supporting the Democratic Party will not halt our descent into despotism.”
If left leaning activists are serious about their characterization of Trump as a fascist, a comparison recently made by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, then they better get serious about the problem of unity. It is all very well for Hedges to tell us to vote with our feet in the streets, but as the last century teaches us, the ability of authoritarians to resist popular movements is robust. After the election of November 1932, Hitler came into office as Germany’s largest party (though a minority). And while working class parties together neared a majority, they were two divided to oppose him. The center parties—ostensibly committed to constitutionalism—succumbed to a fear of Hitler’s retaliation and a fear of the left. They cooperated in the formation of a government that would ultimately eliminate them.
The German elections in March 1933 were held under repressive and violent conditions and the concentration camps were next.
There is some value in thinking about 1968. Unable to countenance support for the administration which had made war in Vietnam, I advocated a boycott of the Humphrey-Nixon contest, while friends in California and elsewhere chose Eldridge Cleaver over Humphrey. In the meantime, the law and order backlash against our demonstration tactics in Chicago also helped Nixon win a razor thin victory over Humphrey. What we got was more bombing in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and a shameful episode of presidential abuse of power.
REEFER TO:
"Bernie, Hillary, and the Ghost of Ernst Thalmann" -- HAROLD MEYERSON -- JULY 13, 2016
In campaigning for Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders will be making sure his voters don’t suffer from the blind spot that plagued Nazi-era Communist leader Ernst Thälmann, who argued that the Social Democrats posed a greater threat than Adolf Hitler.
http://prospect.org/article/bernie-hillary-and-ghost-ernst-thalmann
