Fascism puts Left foot forward 5778

ferdie

On the contrary, the liberal, J S Mill for example was very worried about the idening of the franchise and the terrible implications he saw in it of "mob rule".

The liberal reformers were successful largely because the ruling clbuttes as a whole feared workers uprisings. The liberals' high point was 1848, and they demonstrated conclusively all over Europe that when push came to shove, they were on the side of the established order. organisations were needed to advance the condition of the working mbuttes, and all though the politics of these organisations was an eclectic mix of trade unionism, liberalism and socialism they posed a big enough threat to the system outside of parliament to convince wide swathes of conservatives that some concessions ought to be made.

While the ruling clbuttes put down the Paris Commune with extreme violence in 1871, the spectacle of insurgent workers seizing the capital of France, and the fear of what might happen if a new round of disturbances broke out bothered them immensely. Marx's words from the Manifesto, "Let the ruling clbuttes tremble at a Communist revolution" which seemed to be hollow bluster in 1849 seemed much more threatening in 1871.

The result of all this was that throughout Europe, the liberal parties became defunct as organisations to be replaced by parties, that with differing levels of enthusiasm, embraced Marxism.

Consider the resolution of the Basle Conference in Switzerland in 1912, which represented the considered view of all the Social Democratic Labour Parties on what at the time, seemed like the impending danger of war. The delegates pledged that it was:

"the duty of the working clbuttes and their parliamentary representatives ... to exert every effort in order to prevent the outbreak of the war."

Should the war break out anyway, the socialists agreed to an international strategy where each party would:

"utilize the economic and political crisis created by the war to hasten the downfall of capitalist clbutt rule."

This was the essence of a strategy that became known as "revolutionary defeatism". It became Lenin's policy after he broke with Kautsky and Bebel (who had written the above position and broken ranks in August 1914 when it counted). It remains the canon for all Marxists.

No ferdie, it wasn't the liberals who won these things. These things were won by militant socialists.

Fran