A few things to put out there:
1. Any alliance with any element of liberals must be a
United Front, as Lenin understood it. This is to say:
The Fourth Congress of the Comintern (1922) wrote:One of the most important tasks of the Communist Parties is to organise resistance to international fascism. They must be at the head of the working class in the fight against the fascist gangs, must be extremely active in setting up united fronts on the question and must make use of illegal methods of organization...
There is consequently an obvious need for the united front tactic. The slogan of the Third Congress, “To the masses”, is now more relevant than ever. The struggle to establish a proletarian united front in a whole series of countries is only. just beginning. And only now have we begun to overcome all the difficulties associated with this tactic. The best example is France, where the course of events has won over even those who not so long ago had opposed this tactic on principle. The Communist International requires that all Communist Parties and groups adhere strictly to the united front tactic, because in the present period it is the only way of guiding Communists in the right direction, towards winning the majority of workers.
At present the reformists need a split, while the Communists are interested in uniting all the forces of the working class against capital.
Using the united front tactic means that the Communist vanguard is at the forefront of the day to day struggle of the broad masses for their most vital interests. For the sake of this struggle Communists are even prepared to negotiate with the scab leaders of the social democrats and the Amsterdam International. Any attempt by the Second International to interpret the united front as an organisational fusion of all the ‘workers’ parties’ must of course be categorically repudiated. The attempts of the Second International to absorb workers’ organisations further to the left and call this a united front (the ‘fusion’ of the social democrats and Independents in Germany [in 1922]) in fact simply provide yet another opportunity for the social-democratic leaders to betray new masses of workers to the bourgeoisie.
The existence of independent Communist Parties and their complete freedom of action in relation to the bourgeoisie and counter-revolutionary social democracy is the most important historical achievement of the proletariat, and one which the Communists will in no circumstances renounce. Only the Communist Parties stand for the overall interests of the whole proletariat.
In the same way the united front tactic has nothing to do with the so-called ‘electoral combinations’ of leaders in pursuit of one or another parliamentary aim.
The united front tactic is simply an initiative whereby the Communists propose to join with all workers belonging to other parties and groups and all unaligned workers in a common struggle to defend the immediate, basic interests of the working class against the bourgeoisie. Every action, for even the most trivial everyday demand, can lead to revolutionary awareness and revolutionary education; it is the experience of struggle that will convince workers of the inevitability of revolution and the historic importance of Communism.
It is particularly important when using the united front tactic to achieve not just agitational but also organisational results. Every opportunity must be used to establish organisational footholds among the working masses themselves (factory committees, supervisory commissions made up of workers from all the different parties and unaligned workers, action committees, etc.).
The main aim of the united front tactic is to unify the working masses through agitation and organisation. The real success of the united front tactic depends on a movement “from below”, from the rank-and-file of the working masses. Nevertheless, there are circumstances in which Communists must not refuse to have talks with the leaders of the hostile workers’ parties, providing the masses are always kept fully informed of the course of these talks. During negotiations with these leaders the independence of the Communist Party and its agitation must not be circumscribed.
Obviously, the united front tactic has to be applied differently in different countries, according to the concrete conditions. Still, where the objective conditions in the most important countries are ripe for a socialist transformation, and where the social-democratic parties with their counter-revolutionary leaders are deliberately seeking to split the working class, the united front tactic will be of decisive importance for the whole epoch.
ow, more than ever, the strictest international discipline is necessary, both within the Communist International and in each of its separate sections, in order to carry out the united front tactic at the international level and in each individual country...
...The Fourth Congress categorically demands that all sections and all members keep strictly to this tactic, which will bring results only if it is unanimously and systematically carried out not only in word but also in deed.
Stalin, of course, ignored this and went to the Third Period where he was actively attacking anyone not loyal enough to Moscow, and then again threw the United Front aside in order to make deals with bourgeois governments (like Spain, most notably) against socialists in order to create a, "Popular Front," which was much more in tune with Real Politiking. This being said, I think like the Third Period nonsense that Stalin had to throw away because it so clearly didn't work—the Popular Front must be thrown away by every stripe of Marxist as a complete and utter failure, and we must return to the United Front of Lenin (and later Trotsky).
This is to say that an alliance with the liberals, in this case, must be
led by the workers. It cannot be a policy that works with party brass in, say, the Labour or Democratic Parties, that claims to be tied to the workers. It must be a movement of the workers that would be part of the Labour or Democratic Parties (in an abstract example) that were struggling against some specific and necessary thing on behalf of their class. For instance, had Thatcher moved the military in to crush Manchester's City Council and barricades have gone up to protect the city; or if there had been an armed movement against the Supreme Court declaring Florida's election over and Bush in charge (or some other wacky situation); and in each of these cases had the people organized and risen up, then the socialists should have certainly have supported this—even if the masses themselves were on the surface defending a bourgeois apparatus (even if controlled by the Militant Tendency in the case of Manchester).
These are more contemporary examples I realize, but they address the very real issues at the time that were the fascists marching; and before this, the Russian Civil War making strange bedfellows; and before this the soldiers in WWI returning home and finding opposition to imperialism; and before this the Russian Revolution. In each of these cases (and countless more) there was a certain united action of the working class, even if the working class was not always politically aware of their revolutionary action. This, I hope I'm clear about, the socialists should and do support.
2. In an action against imperialism, it is almost always progressive to side against the imperialist, even if it's scum rising against the imperialist.
Trotsky wrote:The coercive imperialism of advanced nations is able to exist only because backward nations, oppressed nationalities, colonial and semicolonial countries, remain on our planet. The struggle of the oppressed peoples for national unification and national independence is doubly progressive because, on the one side, this prepares more favorable conditions for their own development, while, on the other side, this deals blows to imperialism. That, in particular, is the reason why, in the struggle between a civilized, imperialist, democratic republic and a backward, barbaric monarchy in a colonial country, the socialists are completely on the side of the oppressed country notwithstanding its monarchy and against the oppressor country notwithstanding its “democracy.”
Imperialism camouflages its own peculiar aims – seizure of colonies, markets, sources of raw material, spheres of influence – with such ideas as “safeguarding peace against the aggressors,” “defense of the fatherland,” “defense of democracy,” etc. These ideas are false through and through. It is the duty of every socialist not to support them but, on the contrary, to unmask them before the people. “The question of which group delivered the first military blow or first declare war,” wrote Lenin in March 1915, “has no importance whatever in determining the tactics of socialists. Phrases about the defense of the fatherland, repelling invasion by the enemy, conducting a defensive war, etc., are on both sides a complete deception of the people.”
Now, it has been pointed out—accurately—by my comrades in this thread and the Bolsheviks above, that this is not always something that's easy to do.
On SE, for instance, I supported the people rising against Gaddafi, while others saw Gaddafi as a symbol against imperialism. Especially at the time, the movement was not clear. The imperialist powers had been using Gaddafi for a variety of things. One of the main opposition groups against Gaddafi was aided by NATO. Whom does one support?
Information is the most important thing, and we shouldn't be afraid to admit it when we don't have enough information. Regardless, as a rule, we will always oppose imperialism; it's just not always easy sometimes to see who is opposing it and when to support or not to do so.
Alis Volat Propriis; Tiocfaidh ár lá; Proletarier Aller Länder, Vereinigt Euch!