The Comintern’s united-front mandate forced the party into contradictory reform and revolution aims

Evidence

Browder’s leadership had positioned the party in support of the New Deal and Roosevelt’s administration under the presumption that American workers were not ready to confront the issue of socialism. In effect, the party pursued the contradictory aims of reform and revolution. This was in part a consequence, as Wilhelm Reich had pointed out with respect to the German Communist movement during the Weimar Republic, of failing to distinguish between the abstraction of class consciousness and its specific, historical form. Just as critically, however, the party was committed by the instructions of the Comintern to a united front with its class enemies. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1368

Categorization

• XREF: Wilhelm Reich’s critique of German communists ties to earlier Frankfurt School findings on authoritarian character and the party’s blindness to mass psychology. — connects to: The Comintern’s united front aimed to win a working-class majority — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 115; The united front from below contradicted the tactic’s premise of winning the working-class majority — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 117; Reformist union leadership can constitute a de facto second party against revolution. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2280