Our comrade, Elazar Friedman, will be back in town to celebrate his 85th birthday and discuss Trotsky’s theory of fascism. He will cover:
1.) The contribution of Clara Zetkin in 1923 addressed to the ECCI will be an important source that strongly influenced Trotsky. Reprising her elements of the newly evolved aspects of Fascism differing from previous right wing dictatorships will lay the foundation for Trotsky’s comprehensive model.
2.) Ernest Mandel in his intro to Trotsky’s Struggle Against Fascism in Germany posits 6 dynamically inter-related elements that compose Trotsky’s evolutionary model of Fascism. These will be summarized and compared to the models employed at the time by the Comintern and the KPD
Trotsky struggled might an main to apprise the working class movements in Germany of the deadly menace of Nazi Fascism and to correct the suicidal adventurist positions devolving from the Comintern such as SPD being the principal Social Fascist enemy and the distortions of Lenin’s position on United Front (ultimatist United Front from below) trying to bypass that most of the German working Class was in SPD led unions and organizational SPD -KPD United Front against Fascism were needed.
The Dimitrov speech in 1935 to the 7th Congress of the ECCI and his dialogue with Stalin criticizing the dictate on Social Fascism will be discussed and the flip flop to the opportunist class collaborationist Popular Fronts that paved the way to Fascist victory rather than stopping Fascism.