Worker and labour movements have been in a period of stagnation across the Global North, as the failures of neoliberal economics have propelled the rise of reactionary sentiment. While the far-right is dominating the political terrain of America and much of Europe, the Irish left has been comparatively successful. The period of mass movements, starting roughly from 2014 when the water charges protests broke out, was characterised by an upsurge in leftward sentiment among the general population and a cautious optimism among socialists across the island. Movements such as the marriage equality referendum and the repeal of the 8th Amendment were seen as an opportunity not just to fight for historic reforms but to recruit and radicalise among the working classes. Interventions within these movements were often led by revolutionary socialists, winning over many individuals to radical anti-capitalist politics. Even after this momentum dissipated, significant gains have not only been achieved but also defended.

While losing three electoral seats, People Before Profit-Solidarity managed to retain a 2% first preference vote in the 2024 general elections.¹ In the North, where sectarianism presents a difficult challenge for socialist organisations, People Before Profit (PBP) retained its seat in the 2022 Assembly Elections.² Smaller groups such as the Connolly Youth Movement and Revolutionary Communists of Ireland continue to recruit small numbers of radicalising youths. The worsening housing crisis has been met with some opposition, with a recent protest organised by the Community Action Tenants Union (CATU) bringing out a reported 6,000 people to the streets of Dublin.³ Groups such as ROSA and United Against Racism fight on the frontlines against racist and sexist injustice. Most urgently perhaps, the Irish Palestine solidarity movement still operates on a mass scale and has served as an entry point to left-wing politics for many. However, there are also significant problems. Trade union participation is decreasing sharply, especially among young people, with the estimated percentage of unionised workers being 22%.⁴ Many left independents and smaller parties have been wiped out, tenuously hold on to solitary seats, or continue to dwindle into irrelevance. While the far-right has not been able to capture the political landscape as successfully as its European counterparts, immigration has become a national talking point, with racist attacks becoming a more regular occurrence.

Although there has been a growing interest in soft left politics, the position of the socialist movement remains unclear. Despite increasingly difficult objective conditions, our movement has managed to retain its cultural importance. However, there is a question to be asked about the long-term trajectory. Even within PBP, the most significant force in the Irish socialist movement; while growth is steady, it is not exponential. Meaningful work is being carried out by dedicated activists in many organisations, but there are hard structural limits that come with our present circumstances. An inefficient division of labour, competition in recruitment, and sectarian manoeuvring, while not catastrophic, are detrimental if we aspire to present a credible mass alternative to bourgeois politics. There are questions to be asked about whether organising around fractured fiefdoms is the extent of our potential. It is in this context that there is a higher vision to aspire to. Within People Before Profit exist the building blocks for a mass socialist party. One that could serve as a space for the various forces on the Irish left to unite around a common political programme, a political programme that can unite socialists on the basis of struggle for essential political goals, rather than along limited ideological lines: a daunting prospect, but one which could propel our struggle into a new stage.

The Second International and Party Form

It’s important first to establish what a mass socialist party is, and why it is desirable in the first place. A concise and agreed-upon definition is hard to come by, as a mass socialist party is mainly defined by what it is not; neither a broad front nor a sect. I will characterise it broadly by a few key features, namely, subordination of leadership to the democratic will of party membership, independence from bourgeois forces, ideological pluralism and a programmatic commitment to the emancipation of the working class. 

A better approach to answer these questions is a historical analysis of the party form, from which we can excavate concrete examples of the mass party model. How did the historic mass workers’ parties form? How did they function? And what key lessons can we utilise today? Marx and Engels, inspired by the Chartists in England, understood the workers’ party as the form of organisation through which the workers’ movement could conquer power. In the preamble of the Programme of the French Workers’ Party, Marx stresses the party’s importance to the achievement of socialism, stating “that the collective appropriation can arise only from the revolutionary action of the productive class – or proletariat – organised in a distinct political party”.⁵ Unlike trade unions and similar organisations, the party acts as the vehicle for workers to fight for their class interest on the political terrain. In contrast to the French Proudhonists, Marx and Engels argued that the working classes themselves would not spontaneously grow socialist consciousness, but that there needed to be a merger of the socialists and the workers’ movement. The instrument of this merger must be the party, within which you could connect the workers’ “day-to-day interest” with a higher political purpose, that of socialism.⁶ This is the Marxist political roadmap as outlined in The Communist Manifesto and later developed by Karl Kautsky and V.I Lenin.

This roadmap was put into practice in the early Second International, particularly in Germany. The First International had dissolved in the wake of the Paris Commune’s bloody defeat, leaving a fractured workers’ movement and a proliferation of sects divided along ideological and geographical lines, a situation not unlike our own today.⁷ Two of these sects were the General Association of German Workers, headed by Ferdinand Lasalle, and the Social Democratic Workers’ Party, led by Wilhelm Liebknecht, later joined by August Bebel. The two organisations, despite springing from separate ideological currents, nonetheless merged into the Social Democratic Party (SPD) with the drafting of the Gotha programme. The SPD grew into what can truly be called a mass workers’ party, managing to become the biggest party in the Reichstag despite facing repression from the German state. At its height in 1912, it received “more than one-third of the national vote”.⁸ It operated athletic clubs, pubs, night schools and many newspapers. The model of the SPD was one that successfully spread throughout many European countries, resulting in a previously unseen popularity of socialist politics among the working class. The working class was attracted to these parties, particularly in Germany, as it saw them not as outside agitators but rather as their own party. The uniting of sects on a common political platform laid a solid foundation on which the merger between the socialist and the workers’ movement could be achieved. 

I want to draw out two key lessons from the Second International that remain relevant today. 

Firstly, if the socialists are fractured among themselves on ideological lines, how can we expect the workers’ movement not to be? Unity is not only crucial on ‘pragmatic’ grounds such as an effective division of labour, but on the grounds of unifying workers behind a socialist vision. As Mike Macnair argues, we must put unity before ideological differences.

“Because without the framework for united action among people who have political differences, you cannot organise a strike, you cannot form trade unions, credit unions or cooperatives. The working class objectively needs unity”⁹

Secondly, for this unity to be democratic and sustainable, the establishment of a mass party from pre-existing formations should be achieved through the democratic creation of a common political programme. Any mass party will naturally contain differences of opinion and different ideological strains. Co-existence of these factions necessitates uniting around a common goal, that being socialism. The programme must act as a series of demands and a roadmap to achieve this goal. It must also be communicated by the party as much as possible, achieving the merger of socialist ideas with the working-class movement. The programme must also not be treated as static, but rather as living and ever-evolving. The Gotha Programme was famously criticised by Marx and later replaced by the Erfurt Programme.¹⁰ This allows the organisation itself to reflect the character of its membership, ever evolving and more equipped to take on the task that it was set by history.

It was the decades of building and organising within the Second International mass parties that allowed communists to organise on a scale capable of posing an alternative to capitalism during the crisis of 1917–1923. It was this approach that created the conditions for both the failed German Revolution and, in Russia, the successful seizure of power by the Bolsheviks. The mass parties of the early Communist International, too, were built on splits from the Second International that acted initially as effective vehicles for the political self-organisation of the working class. 

Factionalism and Party Democracy

However, historical analysis also presents significant challenges to the long-term viability of the mass party model. One of these is, of course, the SPD’s eventual turn to reformism and the collapse of the Second International. Perhaps the lack of a unifying ideological current present within the parties of this period led to their retreat from socialism entirely. Another challenge to the mass party model is the Menshevik/Bolshevik split and the success of the October Revolution. The Bolshevik “Party of a new type”: a tightly disciplined vanguard organisation, supposedly distinct from the looser ‘mass parties’ of the Second International, is often cited as a historical repudiation of the mass party model and factionalism. Let us examine these cases one at a time.

In 1914, at the outbreak of the First World War, the SPD voted for war credits in the Reichstag, followed by most of the European social democratic parties.¹¹ This occurred despite the anti-war declarations of the Basel manifesto, published just two years earlier, and led to the collapse of the Second International. The analysis of those Bolsheviks, such as Lenin and Zinoniev, that this social chauvinism and capitulation to reactionary nationalism was an end result of growing reformism within the party, is entirely correct.¹² However, the argument that this is an inevitable consequence of the mass party model, despite being proclaimed by many, does not hold up to close examination. For a period of twenty-five years before the war, Germany underwent a period of social liberalisation and economic growth, largely due to its imperial efforts and the effective worker struggle. Not only did this grant many concessions for the German workers in the form of reforms, but it also solidified the position of many petit bourgeoisie and those in the labour aristocracy, who nonetheless made up a large percentage of the SPD vote.¹³ It is within this environment that reformism took over the party. Not only did the change within class composition of the German workers lead to opportunism, but the seeming improvement of material conditions through reform led to many SPD representatives and bureaucrats, such as Bernstein and Ebert, to effectively manoeuvre membership away from revolutionary ideas.

“Under the conditions of developing imperialism, when wages were rising, social legislation was conceded; and in the absence of violent class antagonisms, based on bitter strike struggles or ruthless repression, the reformists were able to speak convincingly of the possibility of improving conditions under the existing social order and to present that possibility as the road to socialism”¹⁴

Therefore, we can attribute this reformism not to a failure of the mass party model, but a failure of those within the SPD to understand and effectively argue against a vulgar economist understanding of society. It highlights the importance of focusing not just on economic but also on political demands and propagandising them to your mass base. It also highlights the importance of democracy within wider membership to counteract the reformist tendencies of the bureaucrats. Regardless of this, many, such as Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, split from the SPD after it supported the war, as they understood the party’s decision meant it could no longer serve the role of a mass socialist party. In contrast, the Bolsheviks were able to go against the trend of these European social democratic parties and seize the opportunity that the crisis of war presented to take power. 

The Bolshevik seizure of power, the most significant moment of socialist history, is presented as a refutation of the mass party model and a vindication of the “party of a new type”. Their success is attributed, among many things, to the split of the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, first at the Second Congress of the RSDLP and later materialising at the Prague Conference in 1912. However, this narrative, which was taken as a given by most Marxists-Leninists and Trotskyists of the 20th century, has in recent decades been questioned by many historians and Marxists, most notably Lars Lih. 

At the Second Congress of the RSDLP in 1903, the apparent split between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks began primarily due to a question of party democracy. The immediate dispute was about the size of the editorial board of the party’s newspaper “Iskra”, of which Lenin was a member: The Majority (Bolsheviks) voted to reduce the size of the board, the Minority (Mensheviks) responded by boycotting the decision and attempting to have it reversed. Lenin was unwilling to do this and resigned. However, his resignation was not motivated by the desire for a non-factional “party of a new type”, but due to his commitment to fulfilling the democratic will of the congress.¹⁵ 

This remains a consistent view of Lenin’s, that is often obscured by his calls for centralisation in What is to be Done?, which, taken in its historical context, can be viewed for what it is: an argument for a party based on national organisation. Whenever Lenin’s thoughts on organisation deviated from the German model, it was motivated by a need for security, operating under an absolutist Tsarist regime. Lenin upholds his commitment to democracy in his 1904 reply to Rosa Luxemburg’s article on One Step Forward, Two Steps Back:

“I am very grateful to Comrade Luxemburg for explaining the profound idea that slavish submission is very harmful to the Party, but I should like to know: does the comrade consider it normal for supposed party central institutions to be dominated by the minority of the Party Congress?”¹⁶

Lenin viewed the Bolsheviks not as a party in itself, but rather a faction within the RSDLP.¹⁷ This remains consistent even after the Prague conference of 1912, which is often cited as the origin of the Bolsheviks as a “Party of a new type”. The real issue at that conference was not Bolsheviks versus Mensheviks, but the divide between those who wanted to dissolve the underground party (“liquidationists”) and those who insisted on maintaining it (“partyists”), a conflict that crossed factional lines.¹⁸ While critics of this view may concede this, they argue, as Paul Le Blanc does, that “For all practical purposes, an independent Bolshevik party emerged from the Prague RSDLP conference of January 1912″,¹⁹ but this mainly reflects the perspective of Russian émigrés rather than how things worked on the ground.²⁰ Even in 1917, local organisations often still called themselves RSDLP (Bolsheviks), with “Bolshevik” marking their stance against support for the war. But this was not a clean factional split: internationalists from different currents, including Mensheviks and Trotskyists, were still treated by many party committees as part of the same organisation.²¹

However, it would be facetious to say that the Russian Social Democrats operated like a standard mass party of the Second International. They had differing strategies and contested elections against each other, sometimes along factional lines.²² The “party of a new type” narrative seems to flatten this incredibly complicated and contested period of history. It ascribes certain positions to Lenin, despite his own writings directly contradicting them. Even in 1920, in Left-Wing Communism, Lenin did not outright condemn the 2nd international party model, but rather criticised the European parties for not following its own doctrine.²³ The question of the “Menshevik/Bolshevik split” seems disconnected from today’s struggles, but has taken on deep importance within socialist circles, especially sects for whom it is the silver bullet against allowing factions. However, factions are an inevitability, perhaps a necessity of the mass party model. They serve an essential function of being able to co-exist within a large organisation and being able to win over other party members to particular positions or proposals, even if they broadly disagree with you ideologically. It is an overly simplistic prescription that rationalises the worst of sectarian, anti-democratic actions and unjustifiable splits within socialist organisations.

Failure of ULA and Importance of Programme

When discussing factions with those on the opposing side, there is an argument that does require examination. The argument goes as follows. Factionalism leads to disunity as faction members, when in opposition to a decision made by the party majority, do not act accordingly. Thus, the democratic will of the party as the highest authority is replaced by the will of the faction. On the surface, this is a compelling argument, as with no cohesive thread, groups with differing ideological commitments begin to view the party not as a unified whole, but rather as a temporary alliance, which one can recruit from and eventually take over, or discard when it is felt it is no longer needed. This is why it is important that any discussion or advocacy for factions must be presented alongside the need for a mass party model, unified by a democratically decided programme. Without a programme, any aspirations to extend our borders and reach any principled, lasting unity are naive. To understand why, let’s analyse an example of this kind of attempt at unity, the United Left Alliance.

The United Left Alliance (ULA) was formed as an electoral alliance by the Socialist Party (SP), PBP, Workers and Unemployed Action Group (WUAG) and left independents to contest the 2011 general elections.²⁴ It sprang up due to a rising momentum for left-leaning politics after the disastrous 2008 financial crisis. The relatively splintered nature of the Irish left put unity urgently on the table to effectively seize on such an opportunity. It not only had significant momentum with 300 people present for its launch and 5 Dáil seats at its founding.²⁵ However, it is perhaps this urgency and blinding optimism that meant that the ULA had fundamental flaws at its inception that ultimately unravelled the alliance in two years. Firstly, the ULA was an electoral alliance, not a party. Thus, the structure of the organisation was inherently anti-democratic. It was;

“organised as a three block alliance where each component had a veto. Even if a majority on the Steering Committee or at a national meeting voted in a particular way, a minority block could veto the development”²⁶

The veto power and its effects were, of course, predictable. The lack of any mechanism by which elected representatives could be accountable to the democratic will of the membership enabled the conservative forces to act with impunity. This bred resentment and antagonism between the different “factions”, the Mick Wallace controversy and Clare Daly’s defence of him, being the straw that broke the camel’s back.²⁷ If the ULA were organised into a party, as PBP proposed, this veto power would be done away with. So why did this not materialise? Apart from the conservative forces, the left-independents and WUAG, the Socialist Party also opposed the party proposal.²⁸ However, the SP’s opposition, while not justified in my view, came from an understandable fear and recognition of the second fundamental flaw of the ULA, a lack of a ‘principled socialist programme’.²⁹

The unwillingness to engage in the development of a coherent political programme came not only from the conservative forces, but also from PBP, which deemed it to be a waste of time compared to campaign work. Again, in hindsight, it is easy to see why this would blow up, as mentioned in section two. The reason the Social Democratic Party in Germany was able to merge two organisations with distinct ideological disagreements was the drafting of the Gotha programme. A common political platform around which both would enthusiastically unite, and crucially, meant that as long as you agreed to follow, you were free to your ideological persuasions. There was a healthy culture of debate and cross-sectional voting. In such an organisation, any attempts to suppress democratic measures in the name of protecting factional “independence” lose credibility among party members. However, the only thing that “united” the ULA was a milquetoast “programme” that had nothing to say about the state, democracy or even capitalism.³⁰ Perhaps most egregiously, there is no mention in the ULA manifesto of the national question. Therefore, a veto, an undemocratic structure, and a firm commitment to voting along ideological lines were felt to be necessary.

The ULA is a good case study of why the problems with “factionalism” are not in reality a problem of factions existing. Instead, they are problems that stem from undemocratic structures and culture and the absence of a unifying force that reaches across ideological strands; the programme.

Political maturity

The question of how the socialist movement can achieve unity is not one that can be solved through think-pieces and arguments alone. What is needed for our movement to push beyond its boundaries is the fostering of political maturity. I say this not to be snide, but as a reflection of our current conditions and how they developed. Many will reject calls for unity, no matter the political or historical argument. It is easy to understand why splits and sectarianism are so common on the left. The reality is a bit more surface-level than many would like to admit. Failure demoralises. Failure leads to resentment, to suspicion of those who do not share our ideological instincts. It crushes good faith engagement and conditions us to be territorial and dismissive. It has led to the situations we find ourselves in, islands of struggle cut off from each other, operating as if the others do not exist. While this is an understandable and relatable instinct, it has not served us well.

Just as in Europe, over one hundred years ago, it is time to take the question of unity seriously again. This entails having the political maturity to not shy away from confronting the barriers to unity. The Irish socialist left is not just divided ideologically, but also on critical political and strategic questions. We must openly debate these issues and then unify behind a democratically agreed-upon programme, leaving no room for ambiguity. Historically, the greatest obstacle to unity has been the National Question, and here, too, we need a political culture capable of decisive action. While people may hold opposing views, they must be able to unite in action. 

Developing such a culture demands that we accept temporary defeats on certain issues for the sake of a stronger, more united mass socialist party. We cannot keep believing that splits will provide us with a pure and correct politics. If our ideas cannot win a majority within a mass socialist party, they will not win out among the working class at large. We are all striving for the same end: the emancipation of the working class. Without shared, democratic unity, our ability to intervene on a mass scale and truly transform society will remain limited.

At our current trajectory, while it is possible that perhaps one party could achieve a hegemony of socialist ideas among the working class, it would be a difficult road.  Even among the two biggest socialist organisations in Ireland, the internal division of labour is not adequate. The saying “punching above your weight” is said proudly, and while it is, of course, admirable, it nonetheless signifies a problem. Practicality aside, I repeat my point from above. If we cannot unite, how can we expect our class to? PBP, I believe, is the best option to find this unity, but it contains issues that would need to be resolved to achieve this. While it is a pluralistic party containing different ideological strands, it became so through essentially spontaneous means. This lack of intentionality has created barriers to entry for outside groups, which could otherwise be persuaded of the need for a mass socialist party. The lack of a political programme presents the same problems as it did in the ULA, and does not facilitate mergers with other organisations. Democratic deficits and an imperfect culture of debate similarly disincentivise smaller groups to join the party. Most importantly, though, PBP, as the biggest organisation, has the admittedly difficult task of breaking the insular culture of the Irish left, a task it seems disinterested in. 

It is not surprising that there has been a spontaneous resurgence across the globe of a similar type of analysis I have tried to provide. It does seem increasingly accurate that the best path forward for the development of our movement is an attempt to build a mass socialist party. One that is built from different ideological currents brought together through a common political programme. One that is not economistic and understands the importance of a higher political goal and messaging. One that can comfortably house different tendencies and factions, allowing for an exchange of ideas and comradely debate. One in which democracy is respected and, above all, people have the political maturity to present an argument and not be afraid to lose. If we are afraid to lose, we will never take the necessary steps to win.

If you want to get in contact with a submission or a response to the above article reach out at [email protected]

1. “Election 2024 Results Hub.” Irish Times. https://www.irishtimes.com/election2024/results-hub/. ↩︎
2. Cain Web Service. https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/politics/election/2022nia/ra2022.htm. ↩︎
3. Roddy, Margaret. “Louth Representatives Join Crowd of 6,000 at All-island Housing Demonstration.” Irish Independent. July 8, 2025. https://www.independent.ie/regionals/louth/news/louth-representatives-join-crowd-of-6000-at-all-island-housing-demonstration/a206646165.html. ↩︎
4. Clifford, Beth. “Trade Union Membership Is Declining, and Young People Need to Be the Ones to Save It.” University Observer. April 22, 2025. https://universityobserver.ie/trade-union-membership-is-declining-and-young-people-need-to-be-the-ones-to-save-it/. ↩︎
5. Marx, Karl, and Jules Guesde. “The Programme of the Parti Ouvrier.” Marxists.Org. 1880. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/05/parti-ouvrier.htm. ↩︎
6. Lih, Lars T. 2008. Lenin Rediscovered: What Is to Be Done, in Context. Haymarket Books. ↩︎
7. Macnair, Mike. 2008. Revolutionary Strategy. Communist Party of Great Britain. ↩︎
8. Conradt, David P. “Social Democratic Party of Germany.” Britannica. August 27, 2025. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Social-Democratic-Party-of-Germany. ↩︎
9. Macnair, Mike. “Programme: Lessons of Erfurt.” Weekly Worker. October 5, 2025. https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/976/programme-lessons-of-erfurt/. ↩︎
10. Marx, Karl. “Critique of the Gotha Programme.” marxists.org. 1875. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/. ↩︎
11. Taber, Mike. 2021. Under the Socialist Banner: Resolutions of the Second International, 1889-1912. Haymarket Books. ↩︎
12. Lenin, V.I. “Socialism and War.” marxists.org. 1915. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/s-w/ch01.htm. ↩︎
13. Marks, Harry J. 1939. The Sources of Reformism in the Social Democratic Party of Germany, 1890-1914. The University of Chicago Press. ↩︎
14. Ibid. ↩︎
15. Draper, Hal. “The Myth of Lenin’s “Concept of The Party”.” marxists.org. 1990. https://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1990/myth/myth.htm#section5. ↩︎
16. Lenin, V.I. “Reply by N. Lenin to Rosa Luxemburg.” Marxists.Org. January 1, 1904. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1904/sep/15a.htm. ↩︎
17. Lih, Lars. “A Faction Is Not a Party.” Weekly Worker. May 2, 2012. https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/912/a-faction-is-not-a-party/. ↩︎
18. Ibid. ↩︎
19. Le Blanc, Paul. “Bolshevism and Party Building – Convergence and Questions.” Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal. May 5, 2012. https://links.org.au/paul-le-blanc-responds-lars-lih-bolshevism-and-party-building-convergence-and-questions. ↩︎
20. Lih, Lars. “A Faction Is Not a Party.” Weekly Worker. May 2, 2012. https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/912/a-faction-is-not-a-party/. ↩︎
21. Lih, Lars. “How Lenin’s Party Became (Bolshevik).” Weekly Worker. May 5, 2012. https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/914/how-lenins-party-became-bolshevik/. ↩︎
22. Ibid. ↩︎
23. Lih, Lars. “Bolshevism and Revolutionary Social Democracy.” Weekly Worker. May 16, 2012. https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/917/bolshevism-and-revolutionary-social-democracy/. ↩︎
24. Molyneux, John. “What Is People Before Profit?” Marxists.Org. March 1, 2022. https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/molyneux/2022/03/pbp.htm#f4. ↩︎
25. Ibid. ↩︎
26. Allen, Kieran. “Whatever Happened to the ULA?” Marxists.Org. June 1, 2013. https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/allen-k/2013/06/ula.htm. ↩︎
27. “The Socialist Party & the Political Position & Operation of the ULA.” Socialist Party. June 1, 2013. https://www.socialistparty.ie/2012/12/the-socialist-party-a-the-political-position-a-operation-of-the-ula/. ↩︎
28. Molyneux, John. “What Is People Before Profit?” Marxists.Org. March 1, 2022. https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/molyneux/2022/03/pbp.htm#f4 ↩︎
29. Allen, Kieran. “Whatever Happened to the ULA?” Marxists.Org. June 1, 2013. https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/allen-k/2013/06/ula.htm. ↩︎
30. “Programme of the United Left Alliance.” Archive.Org. November 18, 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20101209031923/http://www.unitedleftalliance.org/programme-of-the-united-left-alliance-building-a-real-political-alternative/. ↩︎