Can I ask how they justify both these things? If they see themselves as the vanguard needed to educate the masses, why would they care about elections? The CP did well in the interwar period by having a single LCC councillor - Bob Darke - and using him to shout about things a lot, at least drawing (bourgeois) attention to problems.

SWSS is not seperate in the sense of enjoying any genuine political autonomy. The party tries to assign full time organisers to each major HEI to provide direction. Because students are even more prone however to drop out than other cadres I guess it makes some sense to organise seperately so that splits and controversy does not damage the mainstream party. SWSS organisers also aim to talent spot and develop particularly receptive people into committed revolutionaries. The SWP is a ‘vanguardist’ party that sees itself as the praetorian guard of the workers. Such elitist mentality is part of the reason why they focus such effort on recruiting middle class students by organising in HEI’s rather than on the shopfloor (the ‘workers’ it transpires have depressingly little interest in proletarian revolution vis a vis basic bread and butter improvements).