UAF march in Manchester

Reformism, the united front and anti-fascist strategy

Phil Tsappas has written an article looking at the state of reformism today and its implications for our united front work, and anti-fascism in particular. 

This absence of reformist partners, which aim to build resistance movements, has created difficulties for revolutionaries in trying to develop united front campaigns. The lack of activity from the Labour party has meant that united front work in Britain seems to have developed in two ways. Either the revolutionary party (the SWP) has had to play the role, usually filled by the reformists, of being the driving force inside broad united fronts. (The Stop the War Coalition was an impressive example of this, but a section of the leadership was then not willing to act independently inside of Stop the War as a revolutionary party.) Or there is another problem – the social forces involved in a campaign have been so weak that they are effectively a party front (eg Right to Work).

► Read “Reformism, the united front and anti-fascist strategy” here.

Note: This piece was published before rs21 was established as an independent organisation in January 2014. rs21 was founded by a group of people who had been in the opposition within the SWP and who left in response to its persistent mishandling of rape and sexual harassment allegations against a leading member.