anarchists who joined the SWP

[bolshiebhoy]

To be totally frrank though BB, from my experience i don't think that you're at all representative of the general SWP membership in terms of wider political education and understanding of the perspectives of other radcal approaches. I rarely find a current SWPer under 30 who appears to have had any poltical education at all - they've usually not even read the bookmarks attempts at popular versions of their own politics and history, and certainly not the originals, never mind the original source of those approaches they 'know' that they're supposed to be hostile to. And i do hear from older SWPers that they also feel that since the early 90s there has been a total collapse of internal political education.

Well there has surely been a shift in emphasis away from sitting in day schools on the permanent arms economy and instead getting stuck into building Respect etc. And no bad thing either. The main reason we did so much study in the 80's and early 90's was because there was so little real movement to relate to in the outside world (massive simplification I know!). Even in my day there was always a certain division of labour among people in a branch with some emphasising political education more than others. Unavoidable I think. But then again one thing I do find a bit odd is how quickly people can become 'cadre' wihtout really understanding the core politics of marxism. Then again from what people say about certain periods in the old IS that is something that has happened before. No doubt this worry makes me a conservative committee man but there you are.

By the same token though, i know a lot of long term SP members who also don't know the first thing about marxism or radical history, and when you try to bring it up they just want to talk anout the last unison course they've been on. An yes, some of the anarchists are worse than both of these - 'hey man, anarchism means no rules, so don't try and stop me kicking this phone box in'

It may have changed but in my experience the comrades in the Militant, while often great people and incredibly committed were also some of the most ignorant 'marxists' I've ever met. And maybe it's just me but of the anarchists I've known they've either been complete loons or very, very well read and articulate folks. There's not much in the middle which I guess makes a kind of sense!

So Callinicos' whole familyare aristo commies then? What did they do with the land?

LOL. Not sure but I always found him a bit odd if obviuosly very gifted. For some strange reason my mum fancied him...must have been his mind

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Well there has surely been a shift in emphasis away from sitting in day schools on the permanent arms economy and instead getting stuck into building Respect etc. And no bad thing either. The main reason we did so much study in the 80's and early 90's was because there was so little real movement to relate to in the outside world (massive simplification I know!).

Falkland/Malvinas war, miners strike, Britain's war in Ireland, anti-fascism and the poll tax...yep not a lot going on!

Louis Mac

 

[scawenb]

I never joined the SWP but I am a Leninist but I was orginally very drawn to anarchism. In political action I have always found myself practically much closer to the anarchist than the SWP. Those revolutionaries I look to William Morris, Slyvia Pankhurst, Tom Mann leaned far closer to Anarchists.

But I soon rejected anarchism because of its lack of effective organisation and its unrealistic aim at jumping straight to communism - which I could be convinced was possible.

I think there is a lot more in common between Anarchism and Leninism than either would like to admit. In fact Stalin's own essay on Anarchism though opposed does see it a part of the socialist trend unlike the Reformists. There were also anarchists who praised Lenin and the Bolsheviks for the October Revolution. But it is at that point that the stategies for bringing about socialism diverged most strongly.

Under capitalism their aims are quiet similar and in the long-run their aim of communism is the same - it just the messy bit in the middle that forces people to choose between them.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Falkland/Malvinas war, miners strike, Britain's war in Ireland, anti-fascism and the poll tax...yep not a lot going on!

Louis Mac

How dare you say there was no downturn! Cliff is god.

 

[Wilf]

One slightly amusing fact, was that one of the members of the leadership most loved by urban 75 anarchists was a politically late developer, and prior to his involvement in the SWP he was an anarchist. His name was a Mr Alex Callinicos.

Hmmm.. he must have been a pretty young/brief anarchist. He's been appearing on flyers and posters as an swp speakers since the late 1970s.

 

[scawenb]

Falkland/Malvinas war, miners strike, Britain's war in Ireland, anti-fascism and the poll tax...yep not a lot going on!

There were also some miner scuffles and a bit of misunderstanding between black youth and the police across our cities, there was a mass campaign against Apartheid in South Africa, campaigns against deportations, mass unemployment, and lots of issues around civil liberties, privatisation, women and gay people's rights, environmentalism, solidarity with Latin America, the list of unimportant and inconsequential issues goes on.

Perhaps the SWP just wasn't looking very hard?

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Christ how did we get from anarchism and cliffites to a debate on the downturn thesis? I'm not one to run from a debate but I'm gonna resist the bait to derail this thread by getting into that territory. What is beyond dispute, and was the point that was relevant to the discussion about political education (on anarchism inter alia), is that the downturn theory led to a belief that the the SWP should concentrate its work on basic propaganda and the educational development of it's membership.

 

[BAKU9]

when I was recruited....

That about somes it up....

 

[mk12]

...major part of the attraction was the theory of state cap and the fact that here you had a group that were worked out marxists but totally rejected any defence of 'actualy existing socialism'. That appealed to my anarchist leanings.

Same here. I think the SWP's politics are more 'libertarian' than other Trot groups. For example, the most SWPers I know largely reject Lenin's 'What is to be done?', as Cliff did and other leading members (Harman). Other Trotskyist groups still believe in everything Lenin said in that book.

The SWP also gets criticised for being 'spontaneist' (?) as well, because of their rejection of WITBD. Not a bad thing if you ask me.

 

[Sorry.]

Same here. I think the SWP's politics are more 'libertarian' than other Trot groups. For example, the most SWPers I know largely reject Lenin's 'What is to be done?', as Cliff did and other leading members (Harman). Other Trotskyist groups still believe in everything Lenin said in that book.

The SWP also gets criticised for being 'spontaneist' (?) as well, because of their rejection of WITBD. Not a bad thing if you ask me.

I'd say that the SWP are theoretically closest to the Lenin of state and rev, but certainly don't behave like it...

 

[bolshiebhoy]

That about somes it up....

Well if I said joined it would make it sound like I had a blinding revelation. Bollox to that. They convinced me and worked hard at it, why shouldn't I give the two lads the credit

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Same here. I think the SWP's politics are more 'libertarian' than other Trot groups. For example, the most SWPers I know largely reject Lenin's 'What is to be done?', as Cliff did and other leading members (Harman). Other Trotskyist groups still believe in everything Lenin said in that book.

The SWP also gets criticised for being 'spontaneist' (?) as well, because of their rejection of WITBD. Not a bad thing if you ask me.

Mmm. Not so sure mattkidd12. In Ch.4 of his 'Building ther Party' Cliff does a number of things. Yes one of those is attack Lenin for being too mechanical about how spontaneous struggles lead to socialist ideas. Although even here he says how Lenin was bending the stick and rightly so against the pure trades unionists. But most of the chapter is spent defending witbd against a host of other criticisms. Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water here mate.

 

[mk12]

But Cliff accepts that Lenin 'admitted' that he was slightly wrong in WITBD, something that not all Leninists want to accept.

As Lenin admitted,

"The basic mistake made by those who now criticize WITBD is to treat the pamphlet apart from its connection with the concrete historical situation of a definite, and now long past, period in the development of our Party"

 

[BAKU9]

Well if I said joined it would make it sound like I had a blinding revelation. Bollox to that. They convinced me and worked hard at it, why shouldn't I give the two lads the credit

Yeah mate...they weren't them two BNP'ers were they?

 

[bolshiebhoy]

But Cliff accepts that Lenin 'admitted' that he was slightly wrong in WITBD, something that not all Leninists want to accept.

Fair enough and I take the point about other Trots who make a fetish of that mistake.

On the other hand, in the 80's the overwhelming emphasis in the party was build, build, build very much in line with witbd. Indeed old Duncan quoted the book without any hint of criticism in his 1984 article on propaganda and agitation:

For the most part socialists in Britain are not talking to thousands or tens of thousands. We are talking to small numbers of people, usually trying to win them through general socialist politics, rather than on the basis of mass agitation. So what we are arguing is basically propaganda.

Course he goes on to say it should be concrete or realistic propaganda not abstract. But it was hard not to feel when I joined in 86 and sitting in educationals week after week discussing 'Building the Party' that we weren't very much in the spirit of witbd. For better or worse!

 

[mk12]

In terms of the need to a build a party, I guess the similarities between the SWP and WITBD are obvious. I am more interested in the theoretical concepts behind WITBD, such as 'trade union consciousness' and consciousness coming from 'without'. I don't think the SWP really believes that is the case.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

I am more interested in the theoretical concepts behind WITBD, such as 'trade union consciousness' and consciousness coming from 'without'. I don't think the SWP really believes that is the case.

That particular passage - a quote from Kautsky, partially undermined by Lenin's own footnotes - has been rejected by the Socialist Party and its predecessors for decades. We still regard What Is To Be Done as an important document however, because there is a great deal more to it than that.

 

[audiotech]

There were also some miner scuffles and a bit of misunderstanding between black youth and the police across our cities, there was a mass campaign against Apartheid in South Africa, campaigns against deportations, mass unemployment, and lots of issues around civil liberties, privatisation, women and gay people's rights, environmentalism, solidarity with Latin America, the list of unimportant and inconsequential issues goes on.

Perhaps the SWP just wasn't looking very hard?

I was involved in the lot during that period (as well as local disputes) as an SWP member. I didn't riot though.

 

[scawenb]

I was involved in the lot during that period (as well as local disputes) as an SWP member. I didn't riot though.

I was responding to the early claim by present-day SWPer that "the main reason we did so much study in the 80's and early 90's was because there was so little real movement to relate to in the outside world "

Though actually the riots/uprisings of the 1980s were described by the SWP as the lumpen proletariat and effectively told to join their union!

 

[audiotech]

Though actually the riots/uprisings of the 1980s were described by the SWP as the lumpen proletariat and effectively told to join their union!

Don't talk bollocks.

 

[mutley]

I was responding to the early claim by present-day SWPer that "the main reason we did so much study in the 80's and early 90's was because there was so little real movement to relate to in the outside world "

I joined in '86, and there really was very little going on until the 'new mood' (remember that?) around nhs workers protesting, and the clause 28 campaign kicked off in '88. Of course 2 years is a long time when ur 20. Now it just shoots past. But me and most of my mates, who all joined in the wake of the experience of the miners strike, read bloody loads, with encouragement.

And i did indeed join from @ism. Read everything i could find about Spain and used to sell Black Flag on campus. I was never happy about the @ist explanation for the Spanish defeat, then read Felix Morrows 'Revolution and counter-revolution in Spain'. (he was an American Trot). After another 6 months of chewing it over i realised i couldn't argue with what he was saying, although it took the experience of the Wapping dispute, where i totally disagreed with what all the anarchists were saying ('attack TNT lorries') and agreed with the swp ('build mass pickets') before i finally jumped ship. I was in the Direct Action Movement for a while. Don't know if that's 'serious' enough to count but i bloody meant it (ie being an anarchist) at the time.

I can still remember being on a bus, thinking about Spain and Morrows book, and then realising - 'fuck, the bloody trots are right'. Felt gutted. Got over it though.

Also went to a WRP meeting (barking mad) and looked at the militant (who refused to admit the miners stike had ended in defeat... which seems even madder now than it did then).

 

[mk12]

Felix Morrows 'Revolution and counter-revolution in Spain'. (he was an American Trot).

Butchers isn't a fan, I seem to remember.

 

[roger rosewall]

Though actually the riots/uprisings of the 1980s were described by the SWP as the lumpen proletariat and effectively told to join their union!

Not so in fact the analysis of the SWP was that the riots were a response by urban youth to racism and unemployment. The point was made however that a riot can explode and be all over leaving nothing behind it in twenty-four hours. This was contrasted to the solidity of the trade union movement. It was suggested that those youth who fought the police needed to become a part of the workers movement if society was to be revolutionised. It was fuirther suggested that the unions needed such revolting youth so to speak.

Today of course the SWP might suggest that the problem is Islamophobia and the asnwer lies in electing councilors and MPs. Times change and so do organisations. Not always for the better.

 

[TremulousTetra]

Well if U75@ are typical @, I can't say I'm suprised people think the SWP don't explain @ positions well, because neither do U75@. In my 2 years on here U75 @ have only freely defined what they're against. I can count on 1 hand the number of things I've learned U75 @ are for/about, and they had to be extracted like teeth. U75 @ never ever try to explain @ to us lesser mortals.

Rmp3

 

[Herbert Read]

Inspired by the urban 75 anarchists claims, I went down to Marxism 2005 with a question. I asked around, and found there was quite a number of comrades in the SWP, who had once been anarchists. I don't claim it was at all a scientific poll, but still it does suggest that, yes people do leave the SWP and join the anarchist, but people do also go in in the opposite direction.

One slightly amusing fact, was that one of the members of the leadership most loved by urban 75 anarchists was a politically late developer, and prior to his involvement in the SWP he was an anarchist. His name was a Mr Alex Callinicos.

Just because he did not tidy his bedroom once when his mum told him does not make him na anarchist!

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Just because he did not tidy his bedroom once when his mum told him does not make him na anarchist!

I did like mutley's definiton: selling black flag on campus and reading about spain...bless.

Louis Mac

 

[Chuck Wilson]

But Cliff accepts that Lenin 'admitted' that he was slightly wrong in WITBD, something that not all Leninists want to accept.

As Lenin admitted,

I forget where it was published but when Cliffs first book on Lenin came out a review said it was written in a style similar to Jesus writing a book on John the Baptist.

 

[butchersapron]

That sounds like a Higgins special to me.

 

[Chuck Wilson]

That sounds like a Higgins special to me.

He wrote a short but succinct piece called What is to be done with Lenin , which makes some very valid points about the fetishism of the Russian form of revolutionary organisation by the British left.

 

[butchersapron]

I think i saw that in What Next? Ah yes, here it is:

http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Newint/Lenin.html