[POLITICAL me rugh Parti The 'United Front' is…]

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POLITICAL me rugh Parti The 'United Front' is a term possibly more often used and less often understood than almost any other among left wing groups in Britain and internationally.

It has recently been stretched, for instance, to absurd lengths in order to include the uncritical support given by the Workers Revolutionary Party to that anticommunist, pro-Islamic bonapartist despot Colonel Gaddati of Libya.

More common, however, is the bewildering array of propaganda blocs between small left groups, in which all those concerned agree to drop offending aspects of their programme in the name of "unity" and each of which lays fraudulent claim to be a "united front"

Of course neither concept has really anything to do with the tactic of the united front as it was adopted by the Third and Fourth Congresses of the Communist International.

DIRECTION The Russian revolution of October 1917 was successful because a revolutionary situation had occurred under conditions where a Marxist leadership existed capable of politically directing the struggles of Russian workers, soldiers and peasants for the overthrow of capitalism But Russia was not the only country in which similar revolutionary crises took place at that time.

In Germany, Hungary, and Bulgaria enormous revolutionary struggles shook capitalist rule to lIs foundations. But in each case the working class was unable to take the final step to power because there was no equivalent of the Bolshevik party in those countries to give conscious political leadership. Instead, social democratic parties, remaining strong, were able to head off the militancy of the working class.

HOLD

in other countri too, even newly forme ahle BY JOHN social democratic parties retained a political hold over a substantial section of the working class.

As the wave of post 1917 revolutions began to ebb, the problem to be confronted by the Communist International was how to win workers away from these reactionary leaders.

At the same time, with employers launching all-round attacks on the living standards of the working class as a whole, united action was needed to defend even the most elementary conditions.

EXPOSE

It was in this situation that the Third Congress of the Comintern recognised that the task of the Communist Parties was now to go beyond their initial role of denouncing the social democrats and stating the basic principles of revolutionary socialism-which in the new conditions amounted to little more than propaganda work.

It was necessary to devise a tactic to expose the social democratic leaders in practice before the eyes of their mass membership, while at the same time advancing a programme which would show workers the need for a Communist Party. This was the basis of the united front policy. As Trotsky said:

"With the third congress, it is realised that the post-war revolutionary ferment is over ... The turn is taken to winning the masses, using the united front, that is, organising the masses on a of transitional demands."

The Theses on Tactics adopted at the Third Congress made the overall view of the 'united front' even clearer:

"Communist Parties can develop only in struggle. Even the smallest Communist Parties should not restrict themselves to mere propaganda and agitation. They must form the spearhead of all proletarian mass organisations, showing the backward vacillating masses, by putting forward practical proposals for struggle, by urging the struggle for all the daily needs of the proletariat, how the struggle should be waeed. and thus exposing to the all non-communist parties. Only by placing themselves at the head of the practical struggles of the proletariat, only by promoting those struggles, can they really win over large masses of the proletariat to the fight for the dictatorship [of the proletariat]."

The Comintern spelled out the difference in approach and in programme between the CPs and the reformist parties.

"The Communist Parties do not put forward any minimum programme to strengthen and improve the tottering structure of capitalism. The destruction of that structure remains their guiding aim and their immediate mission. But to carry out this mission the Communist parties must put forward demands whose fulfilment is an immediate and urgent working class need, and they must fight for these demands in mass struggle, regardless of whether they are compatible with the profit economy of the capitalist class or not ... If the demands correspond to the vital needs of broad proletarian masses and if the masses feel that they cannot exist unless these demands are met, then the struggle for these demands will become the starting point of the struggle for power."

The call for unity in action aimed at the social democratic and centrist leaders by the Communist Parties was therefore from the very beginning linked to a conception of a programme which would stand in stark apposition to the reformists' own programme, but which would win popular support within the working class ranks of these parties.

Only in this way could such a call create conditions for these leaders to be exposed if they failed to accept.

To demand that social democrats act jointly with Communists on a programme so advanced that neither social democratic workers nor their leaders would accept it would be to achieve nothing.

JOINT ACTION

But to demand joint action in which the CPs meekly dropped their own demands and endorsed the reformist programme would neither expose the reformist leaders or politically advance the working class-it would simply cut away the political independence of the CPs.

The danger of this opportunist being adopted by CPs seeking to implement the united front tactic was recognised and in December 1921 the Comintern Executive issued a series of 'Directives on the United Front', which included stringent conditions, insisting on:

... the absolute independence of every communist party which enters into an agreement with the parties of the Second [reformist] and the Two-and-a-half" [Centrist] Internationals, its complete freedom to put forward its own views and to criticise the opponents of Communism. While accepting a basis for action, Communists must retain the unconditional right and the possibility of expressing their opinion of the policy of all working class organisations without exception, not only before and after action has been taken but also, if necessary, during its course. In no circumstances can these rights be surrendered."

At the same time the Directives made it clear that the tactic in the form of public proposals for joint action was only really of relevance to the mass C.Ps.

Not only would a proposal for joint action from a tiny group of communists to a mass social demo. cratic party seem absurd, but the ability to capitalise on a refusal by the reformists to carry out joint actions depended upon an ability to communicate this to the masses.

'Whenever the offer of a joint struggle is rejected by OLI opponents the masses must be informed of this and this learn who are the real destroyers of the workers' united front... In either case it is essential to capture the attention of the broad working masses to interest them in all stage: of the struggle for the revolutionary united front.

UNITED Where parties lacked a sufficien: basis of working class support however, the Fourth Congress made it clear that the united front tactic did not apply, though clearly wha remained entirely valid was the concept of demands on which the small Com munist Parties could fight te establish a leading position working class struggles.

It was this problem of on' ratine small numbers of for

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SOCIALISI PRESS, H'ednesday 28 September 1977 was ruled out and reformist parties were denounced as 'social fascist.

This 'left-wing' perversion of the 'united front led to the victory of