Diarmuid Flood is a People Before Profit and RISE member. He is an editor of Rupture Magazine. 
Aron Keane is a People Before Profit member and an editor with Horizon Magazine.

In his recent article on rednetwork.net, Red Network member László Molnárfi has made the case for the socialist left to adopt a strategy of “pragmatic prioritisation”, which would see them ‘defer’ campaigning on contested and controversial issues until they have enough ‘political capital’.¹ There’s a lot to take issue with in the article as a whole, but in the interest of clarity, we intend to focus specifically on the argument below. We have abridged the quote for readability:

“We cannot be for “everything good, and for nothing bad!” in equal measure. To be for everything is to be for nothing. Social reality places the demand upon us to campaign on what works. As per dialectical materialism, society cannot be mechanistically put into ‘motion’ by activism; it is already in ‘motion’, at which point we can intervene in it. This ‘motion’ is either on the ground, in people’s attitudes, or it has already been activated and found political expression. In both cases, intervention is possible. 

To organise on commonly-held demands is ‘independent mass action’ which will drag the entirety of society to the left. Revolutionary realpolitik demands this sort of compromise. It does not demand to abandon principles, however. The truth is that there are demands which are of the utmost importance but around which a mass movement cannot be built, for instance trans rights. It is only through deferring trans rights for now until we hold political capital built around other demands that we can wield our future power for this specific minority. ‘Deferring’ does not mean take out of the programme; ‘deferring’ in this sense is meant merely to illuminate that it makes little sense to mobilise around this issue, even if non-landing attempts are made to bridge it with the broader struggle, in the sense of ‘Trans rights are workers’ rights!’. And then: ‘Migrants’ rights are workers’ rights!’ and ‘Traveller rights are workers’ rights!’ and ‘Animal rights’ are workers rights!’ and so on and so forth leads back to the same ant mill of progressivism where everything has to be tackled at once and pragmatic prioritisation is disavowed.

Trans rights cannot be used as a focus for mobilisation, but the party can still produce articles, hold talks, do fundraisers and so on. This is because there is little chance of any sort of mass movement that will enable us to pass the much-needed legislation on trans healthcare.”

In our view, this strategy points in a deeply opportunist direction and will lead the socialist left down the blind alley of class-reductionist economism.

Molnárfi argues that the objective situation (or ‘social reality’ as he says) forces us to campaign on ‘what works’. He defines this as campaigning on ‘commonly-held demands’ which will then ‘drag the entirety of society to the left’. As part of this, he argues that socialists should ‘defer’ unpopular issues until enough ‘political capital’ is gained. Then and only then can socialists use this influence to advocate for contested demands and social minorities. He cites trans rights as an issue that we need to defer until a later point.

While Molnárfi states that contested demands should continue to form part of a socialist programme, he says we should deprioritise them in our public agitation and campaigning efforts. In effect, this means retaining such positions on paper while deliberately avoiding open advocacy for them due to their unpopularity or controversial nature. Molnárfi states this is in line with an approach of ‘pragmatic prioritisation’. 

What’s Popular?

As a starting point, we would like to focus on Molnárfi ‘s point about campaigning only on “commonly-held demands.”

We, of course, take no issue with campaigning on issues that are already broadly supported. We agree that this is vital. This kind of campaigning and agitation is carried out every week by the socialist left and by PBP, which Molnárfi singles out for criticism. This month alone, PBP is engaged in national campaigns on education supports, housing, and Irish neutrality. At a branch level, these issues are combined with community campaigns for resources and local amenities. Like most PBP members, we are both in branches which prioritise this kind of activism. So, there is no fear of checking off Molnárfi’s requirement of campaigning on what’s popular.

In addition to these ‘popular’ campaigns, there is also activity on issues that Molnárfi would likely view as more contentious, such as antiracism, gender-based violence, and LGBTQ rights. The same activists agitating for ‘commonly-held demands’ are also active on these more contested issues on a regular basis. Molnárfi contends that ‘social reality’ dictates that we should sideline the agitation on these contested issues until the socialist left has enough influence to force through currently unpopular demands. He argues that these issues can’t be a useful focus for campaigning and alludes that campaigning for them would undermine our ability to build an influential pole in society. 

Divide and Rule

When considering this argument, we can’t ignore the context (or ‘social reality’) in which Molnárfi is writing.

In recent years, sections of the capitalist class – represented internationally by the likes of Reform in Britain, Trump in the US, Le Pen in France, and the international right-wing media and social media network – are implementing a strategy of divide and rule by targeting trans people, migrants, and racial minorities. They have created a narrative that these social groups are a threat to working-class communities, families, children, and women. They have convinced working people worldwide that the artificial scarcity of capitalism is an unavoidable reality and that these groups are in direct competition for resources. A widespread panic has been created around gender norms and ‘traditional values’ to reinforce social hierarchies and scapegoat trans people. In Ireland, we have seen a similar phenomenon in the growth of the far right.

In response, Molnárfi does not call on socialists to oppose this divide-and-rule strategy, to agitate and campaign against it. Instead, we should bend our programme and agitation around it by ‘deferring’ our activity on these questions. Instead of connecting our advocacy for ‘commonly-held demands’ with those contested demands that oppose this ruling class agenda, we are to defer unpopular issues to another day. Instead of building a party that addresses and campaigns on the popular and the contested, we are to narrow our focus to the popular. 

If followed to its logical conclusion, this approach would have us accept the capitalist class’ constructed division of the working class as insurmountable and allow it to set in. Instead of emphasising the objective interest of working-class people (of all genders, ethnicities, sexual orientations, etc.) in opposing this strategy and uniting for the socialist transformation of society, Molnárfi alludes to the idea that the ‘social reality’ makes this impossible.

Molnárfi counterposes this ‘pragmatic prioritisation’ with a strawman strategy that seeks to address everything and, in doing so, addresses nothing. We should be clear – we accept the obvious point that the socialist left has limited time and resources and needs a strategic approach. There is a natural pull toward a frenetic approach in a party like People Before Profit, which aims to engage with a wide range of communities and struggles across the country. We accept that resources need to be considered and divided when it comes to campaigning and agitation. Naturally, at a branch level, community campaigning will often correctly take priority when it comes to resources and focus. However, we believe the notion that this necessitates dropping or ‘deferring’ contested issues is wrong and, worse, self-defeating in the medium to long term. 

A core part of Molnárfi’s argument is that through campaigning for ‘commonly-held’ demands, we can gain the authority, respect, and, in his words, ‘political capital’ to make the case for social minorities and contested demands. This is building on sand. If you stay quiet on contested issues – like antiracism, migration, or trans rights – these issues will not go away. Trans people, racial minorities, and migrants will continue to be targeted. Those facing oppression will continue to resist those attacks whether we join with them or not. The capitalist class and their far-right lackeys will continue to make them a hinge issue in society. Their rhetoric will continue to spread, but now, without the socialist left openly fighting alongside them, it will spread at an even faster rate. 

Moreover, just because we stop campaigning for these issues does not mean that we will stop being pressured to abandon our principles and tail reactionary sentiments as they gain influence. Our politics will still be used by the far right to marginalise us. The same pressure that comes from campaigning on issues of oppression – to bend to reactionary positions, to abandon ‘contested’ issues – will continue. 

You Reap What You Sow

Politics is not just what you say or what’s in your programme; it’s also what you do. Socialist parties are composed of activists who have a particular view and focus on a range of issues. With this comes a desire to campaign on the issues that they are affected by or invested in. Priorities can, of course, be set but a party that operates and recruits based solely on ‘popular organising’, while deliberately sidelining ‘contested issues’ like antiracism and gendered oppression, will reproduce that narrow focus within its ranks. This leads to two possible outcomes: 

Firstly, as the party grows and continues to “defer” these questions, its existing members and those it recruits will place less emphasis on marginal or contested demands and issues. New members will not be trained to agitate on both popular demands and contested issues. This process creates a breathing ground for opportunist pressures and reactionary politics. The leadership may react by succumbing to rank-and-file pressure to drop marginal demands and social oppression from its programme or, if the organisation is genuinely democratic, be replaced.

Secondly, the leadership of these parties can seek to bureaucratically preserve their on-paper commitment to unpopular and contentious positions in the face of a rank-and-file that is primarily focused on popular issues. This dynamic necessitates a top-down structure and is the same at play in the plethora of sects already existing on the Irish left. 

So, the options Molnárfi leaves on the table are a party that drops its commitment to standing with the oppressed and marginalised or yet another narrow “revolutionary” sect. The alternative, a socialist party with an emancipatory programme that challenges exploitation and oppression openly in all its forms, is not given as an option. That, of course, wouldn’t be, in Molnárfi’s terms, “revolutionary realpolitik.”

On top of all this, by refusing to actively campaign around so-called “unpopular” demands of trans rights, migrant justice, and antiracism, the left risks alienating significant radicalising sections of the working class. Worse still, Molnárfi seems to counterpose these sections to the rest of the working class.² History shows that those who face the sharp edge of oppression and exploitation are often the first to rise and fight. Think of the Jewish cadre who formed the backbone of the Russian revolutionary movement.³ Today, it is often those from exploited or oppressed minority populations who are among the most willing to challenge the state. Molnárfi overlooks this layer actively struggling against their oppression when pointing towards “advanced workers”; perhaps they do not fit well enough into his ideal of what it means to be working class.

These people are not an insignificant section of society and the working class is not an imagined homogeneous bloc. It is diverse and its members face a mix of exploitation and oppression under capitalism. ‘Deferring’ the oppression of trans people, migrants, or racial minorities from the organising priorities of the left means cutting ourselves off from a significant section of a future working-class coalition.

Dead-End Economism

That the [socialist] ideal should [be] the tribune of the people, who is able to react to every manifestation of tyranny and oppression, no matter where it appears, no matter what stratum or class of the people it affects; who is able to generalise all these manifestations and produce a single picture of… capitalist exploitation; who is able to take advantage of every event, however small, in order to set forth before all his socialist convictions and his democratic demands, in order to clarify for all and everyone the world-historic significance of the struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat.⁴

Vladimir Lenin, What is to be Done (1901)

Rather than taking on the task of organising all those suffering oppression and connecting them with the struggle for ‘commonly-held’ demands, Molnárfi says what we need is “left-populism around core issues of cost-of-living, housing and wages, as well as Palestine.” Palestine is, of course, only included because it is currently popular enough to meet his qualification criteria.

Clearly, pushing for a reduction in the cost of living, campaigning for housing, and fighting for better pay is crucial to mobilising working-class communities and building a working-class movement. But these dynamics in of themselves do not point the way towards the socialist transformation of society. Capitalism is incredibly adaptable and can adjust itself to even hard-won economic concessions.

What we need is a multi-faceted, diverse, mass working-class party capable of leading the charge against the current system. A party that takes “each and every manifestation of abuse of power and oppression” and unites the working class. This necessitates building a genuine universalist class consciousness that actively opposes any division. As Lenin put it:

“The awareness of the [working] class is not genuine political awareness if the workers are not taught to respond to each and every occurrence of abuse of power and oppression, violence and malfeasance, no matter which class is affected;” ⁵

But maybe Lenin just wasn’t pragmatic; maybe, instead, the Bolsheviks should have simply reduced their opposition to oppression to a footnote in their programme.

Downstream, this approach of avoiding divisive issues in the name of building the largest “political constituency” (however illusory that constituency may be) will lead to broader opportunism and political degradation. Today, trans rights and immigration are the dividing factors; tomorrow, it might be imperialism, the environment, or the private ownership of society’s wealth and resources. Should that day come, I suppose we’ll just keep retreating back to our narrowing set of popular issues. 

This level of political collapse isn’t without precedent. The most obvious example is the once-revolutionary Socialist Party of Germany voting for war credits at the outbreak of WW1 under massive pressure from their working-class base and in fear of dividing it.⁶ Closer to home, we have the example of the Labour Party “of Connolly” refusing to defend the 1916 Rising.⁷

The obvious point here is that socialist ideas are currently marginal and unpopular. Socialist demands are currently marginal and unpopular. If you are advocating a strategy that primarily deals with the popular, then you are pointing away from the crucial task of building a movement for socialism and a party capable of fighting for it. 

A Socialist Approach

Molnárfi tells us that “As per dialectical materialism, society cannot be mechanistically put into ‘motion’ by activism; it is already in ‘motion’, at which point we can intervene in it.”

Precisely because society is already in motion, shaped by contradictions and crises, it is our task to intervene in that motion not just where it is comfortable but where it is necessary. Consciousness is uneven; parts of the working class will be more advanced on some issues than others. But that unevenness is not fixed. It can shift. As Marx stated, ‘the point is to change it’. ‘Commonly-held’ attitudes do not fall out of the sky; they are shaped by the current conjuncture and the dominant ideas of the day. But socialists do have a role to play. What is unpopular today can be made popular tomorrow. Repealing the 8th wasn’t just won off the back of a single referendum but decades of political campaigning. Gay marriage didn’t just fall into our lap; committed activists campaigned on the question for years. Both of these issues had resounding support in the most hard-pressed communities. Right now, we are seeing big protests in Britain for trans rights. This might not have majority support now but these campaigns are part of building that majority.

The role of revolutionaries is not to wait for contested struggles to become popular but to fight to generalise them by linking to a broader programme and strategy for the socialist transformation of society. If we want to achieve socialist change, we need to fight for a mass party of the working class rooted in communities across the 32-Counties. This necessitates taking these issues head-on, not ‘deferring’ them to the future. The struggle for a Socialist Republic based on the emancipation of all is currently unpopular, but with the far right on the rise and the planet on fire, we can’t wait for a pragmatic time to start fighting for it. 

“Moral – Don’t be “practical” in politics. To be practical in that sense, means that you have schooled yourself to think along the lines and in the grooves which those who rob you would desire you to think.” ⁸

James Connolly, Socialism Made Easy (1909)

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1. Molnárfi, László. “The Machinic Enslavment of Programmatic Nihilism.” Red Theory. June 7, 2025. https://rednetwork.net/red-theory/2025/06/the-machinic-enslavement-of-programmatic-nihilism/. ↩︎
2. This counterposing can be seen in the quote from the article under discussion: “it is the truth that this power also lies with those who have never heard of what a pronoun is, who have questions about migration and who think it is funny to touch the breasts of Molly Malone.”
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3. Rosenberg, David. “The Ideals of the Jewish Labor Bund Have Outlived Nazi Genocide.” Jacobin. July 27, 2022. https://jacobin.com/2022/06/jewish-labor-bund-nazi-genocide-wwii-labor-migration-anti-zionism. ↩︎
4. Lenin, Vladimir I. 1901. What Is to Be Done? Marxists.Org. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/iii.htm. ↩︎
5. Lenin,Vladimir I. 1901. What Is to Be Done? Translated by Lars T. Lih. Haymarket Books. ↩︎
6. Mix, Andreas . “The “Burgfrieden” 1914.” Lebendiges Museum Online. September 1, 2014. https://www.dhm.de/lemo/kapitel/erster-weltkrieg/innenpolitik/burgfrieden. ↩︎
7. “Trade Unionism and the 1916 Easter Rising.” National Print Museum. May 16, 2022. https://www.nationalprintmuseum.ie/trade-unionism-and-the-1916-easter-rising/. ↩︎
8. Connolly, James. 1909. Socialism Made Easy. Marxists.Org. https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1909/sme-la/sme2.htm. ↩︎