POLL
O un't collec For the SWP united campaigns are subordinate to 'building the party mont collect SOLE FAX da has always been hopelessly idealistic: no mass party has ever been built in this way.
The key to the development of a revolutionary party in Britain has always been the possibility of a substantial left-right politicalsplit within the existing mass organisations of the working class, and for this reason marxists have always been obliged to follow and find ways to intervene in struggles within them.
Strategy The question of the united front is not just a matter of a serious orientation to the mass organisations of the working class. It also involves the attitude marxists adopt to the mass campaigns which arise in period of capitalist crisis, and to the movements for the self-organisation of the oppressed.
Too often on the ar left campaigns like that against the poll tax, anti-cuts struggles and antiracist movements, are seen simply as an arena for paper sales and recruitment.
The priority of building united campaigns on the basis of mass action is, for organisations like the SWP, completely subordinate to building the party'. Serious and experienced working class militants are rapidly repelled by this kind of sectarian propagandism.
Of course. marxists should seek to win new forces through ropaganda. But ifthat become he sole objective of their ac tivity they end up counterpos ing their own interests to those of advancing working class struggle.
Factionalism Too often inside the unions, for example, serious attempts to build unity of the militant left to wage a fight to defeat the right wing are disrupted by petty or"Of course, marxists should seek to win new forces through propaganda. But if that becomes the sole objective of their activity they end up counterposing their own interests to one by one through propagan those of the working class"
PHOTO: John Harris MAKE THE ToR ganisational warfare of far left groups.
The scandalous failure to build a viable Broad Left in NALGO, ( where the left is strong, is entirely due to the disruptive factionalism of the SWP and Militant. These examples show that the problem of democracy goes beyond the internal regimes of far left groups; sectarian factionalism extends disrupting workers' democracy in the labour move ment itself.
That sections of the far left have this weakness on the basic question of democracy is a terrible indictment. Workers' democracy is a vital question in the struggle against the right wing in the unions and the Labour Party, against Kinnock and new realism.
Once the far left becomes tainted with with manipulative and bureaucratic practices then it repels an important part of its potential audience, and begins to surrender the moral high ground in the fight against the right wing.
Liberation
movements A fundamental factor in the the contemporary fight for socialism is the emergence of movements and currents fighting for theself- organisation and liberation of those specially op pressed under capitalism - the women's movement, liberation movements. the lesbian and gay movement and the movement of people with dis abilities.
These movements pose a challenge to the whole labour movement, and to the far left in particular. The fight for socialism requires a strategicalliance between the labour movement and these move ments of the oppressed.
Socialists then have a dual task; to champion the self-or-