Talk:United front

Bad quality...

The author of the original article seems as much interested in creating the article in order to criticize the practice as anything, AFAIC. IMO a proper article would go into more (IMO much more) detail of this political strategy; and any valid criticism would end up in the usual place -- i.e. at the bottom of the page.

Requires a major rewrite.

The section on Henry F Ward (deleted) and his opposition to the Soviet Union had nothing to do with the United Front.

Article Re-Write

I've completely rewritten the article to more clearly distinguish a united front from other communist tactics. If anyone would like to revert to the old version of the article, perhaps we should discuss it on this page. metzerly 04:36, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Another rewrite

I did some substantial rewriting on this article recently, which I've (reasonably enough) been asked to explain.

I originally edited it back in 2005. Before that it consisted of eight lines of introduction, some of it not actually relevant to the united front, followed by a similarly sized chunk which was actually about the Communist Party's policy in 1930s America (which was really the popular front period, and not relevant to this article). My edit back then increased the intro (putting in some broad brush history and clarifying the concept as developed by Leon Trotsky), but did not remove irrelevant material or structure/reference the article particularly well. This was entirely due to my lack of experience and audacity.

When I looked at it again a couple of weeks ago, the irrelevant material had been removed but there were still a number of problems:

• The introduction did not really describe in an encyclopaedic way the united front as elaborated by the Comintern (which I think is the subject this article must address). For instance, the united front, in its classical form, did not operate through "labor unions" as the article suggested, but through an alliance of political organisations and unions drawn together in common struggle. The most obvious example is the Germany Communists from 1922-1923.
• The history section was much better, but the style of writing did not sound at all encyclopaedic to me. It did not quite capture the broad historical trend in a clear way.
• The article did not cite any references or sources.

I addressed these by:

• Rewriting the introduction setting out what I felt were the key characteristics of the united front as theorised by the third and fourth congresses of the Comintern and by Leon Trotsky. (I added a bit right at the end of the intro about the SWP-UK, just to show it's not simply a historic argument. I hope this doesn't distort the article, but I'm not really familiar enough with other contemporary examples of the united front around the world. Perhaps this could be added to and moved to a new section on contemporary united fronts if this can be done in a neutral way.)
• Rewriting the history section, hopefully keeping the spirit of what was previously written there. (I've tried to keep the latter part neutral, but others might like to add something on the Stalinist position.)
• I've added the references I had to hand. The links to Leon Trotsky's writings are particularly important, because they are the clearest exposition of what a united front is. If there are other sources I hope others will add them.

Hope that provides a basis for a better article. Piquant (talk) 13:57, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Once more on the united front

A couple of anonymous users added substantial chunks to the article. There were two problems that I've tried to address:

First, most of the new material was not in style or correctly referenced, repeated existing content and so on. I've fixed this by cutting back the introduction of the article, where most of the new content was added, and moving the new quotes, explanation and so on into the history section, where I think it belongs. I've tried to integrate this as best I can and think that the article is improved as a result of the additions.

Second, much of the new material refers (directly or indirectly) to a fairly obscure left-wing debate about whether the united front is merely a "tactic" or whether it is a "strategy" as well. I'm not sure the article is the best place to have this debate. (There are other articles on this question.) Most of the Comintern quotes refer to the "united front tactic" (although other writings refer to the "policy" of the united front). I've left those quotes in tact and the introduction refers to the Comintern's "united front tactic". I've removed the "external link" to the article that seems to have inflamed this debate, and which I had added earlier. (It's still there as one of the references.)

(For what it's worth, my view is that to restrict strategy to mean simply the "revolutionary seizure of power by workers" removes an important level of analysis—the particular way in which a set of tactics are drawn together in a given time and place to move the working class towards the seizure of power—which is something I'd prefer to call strategy. But I don't think the wikipedia article on the united front should say this, as it's probably a minority view...)

Piquant (talk) 17:24, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

"The these argued"

"The these argued" is ungrammatical. Bayle Shanks (talk) 20:00, 5 November 2008 (UTC)