united front. united front is a central guide to socialist activity.
The united tront was developed by Lenin and Trotsky in response to the situation in Europe after the Russian Tevotton. The revolutionary wave which followed the First World War rapidly receded.
The new mass communist parties, like those which emerged in France, existing social democratic parties, could not conquer power immediately.
Tactics
In this situation the leadership of the new Communist International, founded on the initiative of the Bolsheviks in 1919, argued that communist tactics had to be posed in a new way.
macg social democratic Warmes existedl where the labour movement was dominated by reformism, the first task of communists was to win mass influence. Outside of a revolutionary period, this meant engaging in the day-to-day struggles of the working class, which generally had partial economic and reformist demands.
The Communist International reasoned that only a small vanguard could be won to communism through propaganda -the masses would only • begin break from reformism through their own experience of the betrayals of reformist leaders.
This meant that communists had to fight alongside reformist vorkers in every partial an imited struggle, while explair ing that the final victory of working class demands could only come through the destruction of capitalism - socialist ravo lion. As Trotsky put it, the task of communists Was to 'share the struggle, but not the illusions' of reformist workers.
Underlying the tactic of the united front was the understanding that to win leadership NO TACTIC has been so controversial among Marxists as the Some who claim to be Marxists (like the RCP today) write off the existing labour movement, and insist the only way forward is to make propaganda, sell newspapers and journals, and recruit to Marxist organisations. But for Socialist Outlook supporters, the communists had to recompose and renovate the existing labour movement; and that meant competing and contesting with the reformist leaders over the allegiance of the working class This in turn implied en couraging and supporting every move to the left, rather than passively denouncing it as impure and 'inadequate'. Trotsky in particular fought to urge the small Marxist ganisations of the 1930s, when the Communist International had been conquered by Stalinism, to turn towards every manifestation of opposition to the right wing leaders in the unions and mass working class parties. Militant * The communist leaders who elaborated the united front approach did not regard it as a trick or manoeuvre to win over the base of the social democrats. Rather it served a dual purpose, on the one hand responding to the need for the maximum unity of the working class in struggle, and at the same time creating the preconditions for winning over' the most militant and determined retormist workers. To carry through the united front the method of making demands on the reformist leaders was developed. Trotsky described this process as 'dragging the reformists from their asylums'. It meant instead of just criticising the social democratic leaders, proposing concrete campaigns and demands to them, to test out their willingness to fight in practice. The Communist International under Stalin broke with the united front most spectacularly Become a Socialist Outlook during the 'third period' (1928 34). It was declared that social democracy had gone over to fascism and was now 'social fascist' - the main enemy of the workers.
The third period 'storm in the streets' policy was most drastically applied in Germany. As the Nazis got stronger the Communist Party concentrated its fire the social democrats. Often Nazis and communists collaborated in smashing up social democratic meetings.
Stalin
This had a two effects. The leadership of the social democratic SPD isolated the communists by blaming them for working class disunity. This of course was hypocritical be cause the SPD leaders didn't want unity either; but the communists gave them a perfect get-out.
At the same time, the fight against the Nazis was severely damaged. Only in a few localities did communists and Hitler rode to power in 1933 by exploiting divisions in the powerful German workers' movement and non-communist left against the right wing workers leaderships. mid-1920s when the munist Party built the Minority Movement in the unions and the National Left Wing Move ment in the Labour Party.
Both won support from hundreds of thousands of workers, but were closed down by the CP as it followed Stalin's orders and turned towards 'third period' ultra-leftism.
United Left In today's conditions the united front has to be posed in a new way. Mass revolutionary parties no longer exist; direct proposals from small revolutionary groups to reformist leaders lack credibility.
Moreover, social democracy itself has changed. In the 1920s and '30s reformist leaders claimed to be fighting for socialism, albeit by piecemeal and gradual methods.
For social democratic leaders cause of their formal adherence to many of Trotsky's ideas, political currents like the SWP and Militant tendency pay lip-service to the united front.
Propagandism
But in practice their activity is often guided not by the strategic guide of fighting to advance the objective interests of the working class and op pressed, nor of maximising the impact of left opposition to right wing leaders, but of simpthe needs of selling more papers and recruiting more memoers.
Sectarian abstentionism and propagandism is generally the esult. A genuine united fron policy today must stress the need to build the maximum unity in support of struggles, and the maximum unity of the left, in support of class struggle policies, within the labour movement.
Far too often in recent years we have seen the Militant and SWP determined to take over
This was most successfully mid-19 20s Biteen due the