From Trotsky to Respect. An History of the SWP

[Fisher_Gate]

I think 'storm' is an exaggeration. But I think to use that term was a mistake. If she'd said 'conservative' I'd be happier, and id agree with the point.

Happy now?

Now I really am off for that curry.

Ask muslims what they think being called 'extremist' in the current context in britain means. It usually means 'terrorist' or supporting terrorism.

And it would be a bit ironic had she used the term 'conservative' to describe those supporting Gallowasy - given that the only muslim from Respect who has joined the Conservatives was an SWP councillor. Do you not think?

Words have meaning.

 

[mutley]

Ask muslims what they think being called 'extremist' in the current context in britain means. It usually means 'terrorist' or supporting terrorism.

And it would be a bit ironic had she used the term 'conservative' to describe those supporting Gallowasy - given that the only muslim from Respect who has joined the Conservatives was an SWP councillor. Do you not think?

Words have meaning.

Your first point is exactly why I think 'extremist' was the wrong word. And it would indeed have been ironic but true nonetheless imo. That's not to say that all the RR supporting Muslims are socially conservative, but the organisation certainly seems to be settling into a tradition of, shall we say, frequent use of religous discourses by its visible members. Eg blasphemous embryology research, creationism, Priest as candidate in Birmingham etc.

I've heard, though i can't confirm, that one candidate round my way who stood as a non-hijab wearing Muslim women last time has now donned the hijab for her leaflet photos. Of course, if this is a genuine shift in belief by her then its her right, but I find it impossible to imagine the process happening in the other direction (eg Hijab wearing RR candidate takes off hijab and remains a candidate next time). I also don't believe for one second that it was her idea. In Birmingham RR it's all about the votes. Nowt else.

Birmingham RR have a website which has the other candidates leaflets on. But not this one. Someone's not proud of it.

 

[Groucho]

Visibility on a march isn't just about paper sellers. It can be selling other publications, handing out leaflets, carrying banners, forming party or associated contingents, carrying those SWP flag things, whatever. You know this, so I can only conclude that you were being a bit disingenuous.

I'm well aware that party members will be on marches doing other things too - marching with their unions or whatever. But frankly if a group has 100 people visibly connected to the organisation, while I'll well believe that it has that again or twice that again on the march, once you start getting past those kind of numbers you start seriously stretching credibility.

Yes, I am aware that the SP groups all its members into a contingent behind the SP party banner. The SWP by contrast divide resources between those selling papers and handing out recruitment literature and those who go as part of a union branch contingent or campaign contingent. Rarely do we see SP PCS members on the PCS contingent for e.g.

It is a different way of operating. The last time I recall a distinct SWP contingent on a demo was in the 80s. If we only had a 1,000 or so members across the UK then I suspect we would want to concentrate on maximising a visible party presence. Instead we can rest assured that there will be SWP members selling papers on every coach and who will be very much part of the contingents they come with.

Nonetheless our visible presence is still many times greater than that of the SP or any other leftist group.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Yes, I am aware that the SP groups all its members into a contingent behind the SP party banner.

No, in fact it doesn't. But between paper sellers, magazine sellers, leafleters, people in party contingents, people running stalls and people on other assorted party duties and so on, that would certainly account for a significant proportion of the members on any given march.

And frankly, I don't believe that the SWP only has a twentieth or a tenth or any similar proportion of its active members on such duties. Half I'd believe. Even a third although that stretches credibility. But the idea that there are nine or nineteen SWP activists on a march, doing nothing visibly connected to the SWP for every one who is actually doing some party work... well that's the same kind of self-deluding shit that led Cliffite to claim the SWP had 18,000 members or Alex Callinicos to claim that it has 7,000. It may comfort the faithful to imagine that they are surrounded by an invisible army of believers, but these "members" have as much substance as angels.

The SWP has, in my view, at the absolute most 2,000 people who are in any recognisable sense activists. That's not bad going giving difficult conditions (although it would be terrible going if you actually believed all that "best time ever to be a socialist", "1930s in slow motion" drivel). That means that they are still the largest group on the far left, but not by nearly as much as they sometimes like to imagine.

For another example of similar self-delusion, see Das Uberdog's post in the other thread on the same subject (the one where I'm actually defending the SWP!). He claims that there are 280 SWP members in Lancashire and 140 in Preston. But then he says that perhaps half of these "members" pay a sub. So now we are down to 140 in Lancashire or 70 in Preston. And then half again of these of these are actually active... so we are down to 70 in Lancashire and 35 in Preston. So by his own admission only half of the supposed "members" pay a sub and only a fraction of that half are actually "active" in any meaningful sense. Now even leaving aside the fact that Fisher Gate - someone who for some years worked closely with the SWP in Preston and Lancashire - seems to think that even the 70/35 figure is way too large, this whole process shows an organisation deluding itself. In what sense are most of these 280 people "members" of anything?

 

[JHE]

Islamo-Trot theology

It may comfort the faithful to imagine that they are surrounded by an invisible army of believers, but these "members" have as much substance as angels.

Q: How many Social Workers can dance on the head of a pin?
A: None. Dancing is haram. If you oppose a ban on dancing, you must be Ray Cyst.

 

[Groucho]

No, in fact it doesn't. But between paper sellers, magazine sellers, leafleters, people in party contingents, people running stalls and people on other assorted party duties and so on, that would certainly account for a significant proportion of the members on any given march.

And frankly, I don't believe that the SWP only has a twentieth or a tenth or any similar proportion of its active members on such duties. Half I'd believe. Even a third although that stretches credibility. But the idea that there are nine or nineteen SWP activists on a march, doing nothing visibly connected to the SWP for every one who is actually doing some party work... well that's the same kind of self-deluding shit that led Cliffite to claim the SWP had 18,000 members or Alex Callinicos to claim that it has 7,000. It may comfort the faithful to imagine that they are surrounded by an invisible army of believers, but these "members" have as much substance as angels.

The SWP has, in my view, at the absolute most 2,000 people who are in any recognisable sense activists. That's not bad going giving difficult conditions (although it would be terrible going if you actually believed all that "best time ever to be a socialist", "1930s in slow motion" drivel). That means that they are still the largest group on the far left.

The SWP never claimed 18000 members.

Yes, I think there were more than 100 obviously visible SWP members on the march in question. Yes, I think the visible members selling the paper, on the stalls etc were significantly less than half of the members on the march. BTW there were 1,000s of SWP placards on the march but some of these are carried by non-members and members also carry Stop the War and Left List placards, and union banners etc. Yes, I think there were plenty of SWP members not on the march.

In terms of estimating SWP membership levels you need to take into account the level of activity and organisational structure that the party maintains.

The HQ. The full time party organisers. The weekly paper, monthly magazine and quarterly theoretical journal. The bookshop, book publishing and distribution, the website.

You need to take into account the united front organisations that SWP members play a leading role in nationaly and locally. Including:

The Stop the War Coalition

Defend Council Housing

Unite Against Fascism

Love Music Hate Racism

Respect/Left List

Organising for Fighting Unions

Campaign Against Climate Change

No2ID

You need to take into account the trade union positions, mainly at a grassroots level, and union rank and file structures maintained often by SWP members.

I am sure that a party membership of 2000 would not be able to sustain that level of activity on so many arenas, either financially or in terms of activists.

 

[Bakunin]

The SWP never claimed 18000 members.

Yes, I think there were more than 100 obviously visible SWP members on the march in question. Yes, I think the visible members selling the paper, on the stalls etc were significantly less than half of the members on the march. BTW there were 1,000s of SWP placards on the march but some of these are carried by non-members and members also carry Stop the War and Left List placards, and union banners etc. Yes, I think there were plenty of SWP members not on the march.

In terms of estimating SWP membership levels you need to take into account the level of activity and organisational structure that the party maintains.

The HQ. The full time party organisers. The weekly paper, monthly magazine and quarterly theoretical journal. The bookshop, book publishing and distribution, the website.

You need to take into account the united front organisations that SWP members play a leading role in nationaly and locally. Including:

The Stop the War Coalition

Defend Council Housing

Unite Against Fascism

Love Music Hate Racism

Respect/Left List

Organising for Fighting Unions

Campaign Against Climate Change

No2ID

You need to take into account the trade union positions, mainly at a grassroots level, and union rank and file structures maintained often by SWP members.

I am sure that a party membership of 2000 would not be able to sustain that level of activity on so many arenas, either financially or in terms of activists.

That would depend, surely, on what sort of support they have from occasionally active folk, non-members and how many different hats these people are wearing at various times. When I was in the SWP it was pretty much standard for our local branch to have many of the usual suspects going from one meeting to another to another ad nauseum, and at one point I was attending 3 or 4 meetings a week for various things as an SWP member and doing paper sales as well.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

The SWP never claimed 18000 members.

No but it has falsely claimed at various points 10,000 then 8,000 and now 6,800 or whatever. It might as well be 18,000 or 180,000 for all that such figures represent. Cliffite was the unfortunate true believer who solemnly informed us all that the SWP had 18,000 members.

Yes, I think there were more than 100 obviously visible SWP members on the march in question. Yes, I think the visible members selling the paper, on the stalls etc were significantly less than half of the members on the march.

"Significantly less" is meaninglessly vague. Are you saying between a third and a half (which I would find credible) or between a tenth or a twentieth (which only the kind of people who also believe in invisible guardian angels would find credible)?

BTW there were 1,000s of SWP placards on the march but some of these are carried by non-members

We are both aware that given money and printing and facilities, it only takes a couple of dozen people to hand out huge numbers of placards to non-members. Given that nobody is disputing that the SWP can muster a few bob and a few dozen members, I'm not sure why you are throwing this in.

In terms of estimating SWP membership levels you need to take into account the level of activity and organisational structure that the party maintains.

I take exactly that into account. The Irish SP is a much smaller organisation than the British SWP or the British SP. Yet we have two reasonably large party offices, a bundle of full time organisers, a paper, a magazine and a larger website than the British SWP. Our small organisation also carries a burden of mass work which I suspect would make members of any British socialist organisation blink - forming the core of the anti-water charges movement in the North, leading many of the most significant strikes and industrial action and so on. Yet we do this with an activist membership in the low hundreds.

To give a much more extreme example, the WRP maintained a huge full time apparatus, a daily newspaper, a network of "training" colleges, bookshops, various offices and endless party front organisations. And when the split came it became apparent that they had perhaps 1,500 members. There would be nothing at all remarkable about an organisation of 2,000 or less activists maintaining the activity levels and apparatus of the current SWP, even assuming that they aren't WRP style crazies. Of the "united front" and front organisations you list, few of these require any really significant investment of time or resources - they are wheeled in and out as they become useful and do not require hundreds of activists devoting their primary attention to them week in and week out and, what's more, they mostly also involve some other punters who can shoulder necessary work.

The Stop the War Coalition was the only exception in that it certainly did need a huge amount of effort when it was at or near its peak (much less now of course) and the stretch of doing that seriously damaged the SWP's own internal functioning. A useful point of comparison would the anti-bin tax campaign in Dublin, which the SP formed the core of, and which at one point was organising dozens of mass direct actions a day for weeks on end, while simultaneously organising the leafleting of hundreds of thousands of homes, postering, mass meetings and so on. This was a more extreme sustained burst of activity than anything the anti-war movement managed in either Britain or Ireland and its core was a much, much smaller organisation.

 

[Das Uberdog]

The vast majority of members I know weren't doing owt but marching on the last STW demo. You're quite simply qrong if you think we mobilise everyone we've got to do jobs all the time.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

The vast majority of members I know weren't doing owt but marching on the last STW demo. You're quite simply qrong if you think we mobilise everyone we've got to do jobs all the time.

It's just as well that I don't think that then, isn't it? If you read back over the thread you will find that I have pointed out repeatedly that I am quite willing to believe that many - even a majority - of members of a party on a march may have absolutely no visible connection to the party concerned.

What I'm not willing to believe is that any party has ten or twenty "invisible" members for every one marching in party or affiliated contingents, carrying banners, carrying flags, leafleting, selling papers, selling magazines, running stalls and doing other forms of party work. That's self deluding rubbish - but to be fair, you didn't personally claim anything like that. In fact your estimate of the number of actual activists in your region fits reasonably with my national estimate - a subset of half of the claimed number of "members".

 

[audiotech]

I misnamed the thread.

Should have been:

From Nought to Some Thousands. A History of the SWP Membership Figures.