We Need A United Front More Than Ever

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It has often been said but it has rarely been put into motion - communists, socialists and all other members of the greater labour movement need to get down to business and form a broad left-wing alliance. 

We first need grassroots action within our communities, to talk about national issues locally and act on local issues nationally. Campaigns such as Toothless in England have done just this and managed to cut through the political partisan divide as it is focused on a particular problem that affects all of us. 

When people see the positive actions communists and socialists are taking in their communities and on a national level, their media-fueled fears about socialism are almost immediately dispelled. They are dispelled because their actions stand in stark contrast to the mythologised versions of communists constructed and described by cold war era propaganda. More importantly, they are dispelled because you are doing the right thing for your community.

When you're on a march, demonstration, rally or a protest and standing in solidarity with other workers, all of that identity politics and culture war nonsense perpetuated by the commentariat, politicians and media simply melts away. Why? Because you're there in class solidarity and class is the predominant division in society, the division from which all others emerge. Everyone there is there for the same reason you are and you stand shoulder to shoulder as comrades. You're tackling issues that cut through the aforementioned divides and expose them for what they are - a weaponised means to prevent collective action, unity and solidarity.

It's interesting and educational to talk about the historical circumstances of the USSR, for example, whether certain events were true or not, but that's all it is - talk. No one outside of socialist and communist parties cares about such things. Why should they? Talking about these things does nothing to address the current material circumstances we all face! 

All of Marxism and all the time spent reading theory has invariably led me to what I now believe to be an inevitable realisation: Theory is but the vehicle that drives us toward taking action.

And what we need is action!

Because if it's not me who does so, then who?

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