- The role of the united front tactic – Resistance Books online edition dated 2020.
Based on a talk presented to a Resistance leadership training school in Sydney on April 24-25, 1995 titled Mass Action, Alliances and the United Front Tactic.
The fundamental aim of the revolutionary Marxist party is to organise the socialist revolution. In order to realise this aim, the party must win the ideological and political allegiance of the overwhelming majority of the working class. This cannot be accomplished simply through propaganda alone. It is a general law of history that only through collective experiences of struggle, of action, can broad masses begin to free themselves from the domination of ruling class ideology and become receptive to revolutionary ideas.
In normal times, ruling class ideology dominates the consciousness of the masses not simply because the rulers’ have control over the means of ideological production (the church, the schools, the mass media, etc.), but also because of the normal conditions of life of the labouring classes. In daily life, the masses are fatigued and brutalised through exploitation and the alienation of labour, as well through a lack of genuine leisure time.
Even when they sympathise with the idea of socialism, as broad masses have in many countries – sympathies reflected in electoral support for parties which proclaim their allegiance to socialism – this does not mean that they are imbued with a revolutionary consciousness. The normal conditions of life of the broad masses, in which they are the passive victims of exploitation and oppression, tend to imbue them with the idea that revolt is impossible and useless, that their enemies are simply too powerful to be defeated.