Socialists Must Stand In Elections If You Want To Build A Base

I’ve lost count of the amount of election campaigns I’ve been involved in. During the local elections last year I had blood in my shoes from canvassing. But it’s worth it to get to talk to thousands of working class people at their doors.

There are two mistaken attitudes revolutionary socialists can take to elections - the first is to conflate standing in elections with electoralism. Electoralism is where you subordinate everything to getting votes.

But if socialists abstain from elections you remain marginalised before and during elections, when the majority of people are discussing electoral alternatives. Socialists need to intervene in that political ferment and use the opportunity to stir up struggle and outline our views.

Most of the smaller groups on the far left in Ireland take an ultra left stance when it comes to elections. They simply abstain. They don’t understand that elections can be linked to class struggle and raising class consciousness.

When your group is small knocking on every door in an area will quickly give you an indication where working class people are at. Without that information you’re probing in the dark.

An election campaign tests your level of organisation, the commitment of your activists and the level of support you can muster in an area. If we don’t stand a representative then someone who will definitely misrepresent workers will stand.

Fear of standing in elections is a fear of taking a lead. And far from being radical it simply offers council seats to other forces, seats that we could have used to be what James Connolly called “disturbers of the political peace!”

The Dáil may be undemocratic, with real power in the hands of the unelected state bureaucracy, but we can say that from the platform of the Dáil.

The other mistaken approach to elections is to canvas but play down your politics and avoid talking about socialism. Some of the larger groups on the far left do this - they don’t connect the fight on today’s issues to the need for a revolution that puts working class people in the driving seat.

Elections offer you the chance to organise as you go from door to door - for example the local elections in 2014 were an opportunity to encourage resistance to water meter installation and build for the major protests that followed.

I used the local elections to build support for the idea of compulsory purchase of vacant homes in Dublin Mid West. My motion to CPO all vacant homes in the area but pressure is needed on council management to force them to deliver on this.

You also pick up case work on the doors - this is where working class and poor people ask for help with an issue. You can use this work to group cases together and organise people to protest against their landlord, the councils or the government.

You act as a socialist “shop steward” for the area.

But the left needs to use this canvassing to talk deeper politics. Familiarity with our arguments only comes from regular conversations on the doors. There’s no way to avoid this hard work if you want to develop roots.

It’s also an opportunity to take on divisive ideas and win people back from both government and far right narratives. During the last election campaign we patiently debated with people who’d been pulled to the right. That has an impact that discussions on social media can never have.

The Red Network fights both mistaken strategies - the ultra left and the opportunist. We see elections as an opportunity to talk to our class about the issues of the day, to urge them to fight, to organise and to convince them that today’s fight needs to follow through until our class holds political power.

If you agree then join us.