Respect/ SWP in decline?

[mk12]

Rebel: Is it true that, in that article, Lindsey German mentions the word "socialism"? Shurely not?

 

[rebel warrior]

Rebel: Is it true that, in that article, Lindsey German mentions the word "socialism"?

'The biggest lesson is that there is big audience for socialism and radical ideas. It also showed the way to counter the BNP. You’re not going to counter the Nazis just by saying, ‘Vote for someone else.’ The BNP didn’t stand in Newham or Tower Hamlets. But you can’t address the problems people have over housing, transport, pensions, schools, and wider questions like the war, without offering an alternative.'

It appears so...

Things seem to be going well in Newham at the moment for Respect...

 

[articul8]

'The biggest lesson is that there is big audience for socialism and radical ideas. It also showed the way to counter the BNP. You’re not going to counter the Nazis just by saying, ‘Vote for someone else.’ The BNP didn’t stand in Newham or Tower Hamlets. But you can’t address the problems people have over housing, transport, pensions, schools, and wider questions like the war, without offering an alternative.'

It appears so...

Things seem to be going well in Newham at the moment for Respect...

Where have Respect done consistently well in an area you would expect the BNP to succeed?

 

[neprimerimye]

Is it time for the annual SWP Split Imminent thread?

The SWP will not split.

In order to split political differences must be aired within the organisation and that will never be permitted in the SWP.

At best there may be tiny splinters thrown off but even that is unlikely.

 

[rebel warrior]

Where have Respect done consistently well in an area you would expect the BNP to succeed?

Respect beat the BNP in Sheffield and in the vote for London Mayor, to name but two examples...

 

[articul8]

But the London mayoral constituency is mostly inner London - where (outside of a few isolated estates) the BNP have found things much harder going than in the early 90's.

Move even slightly outside of this territory (say move from Tower Hamlets out to Epping Forest) - and you start to disappear completely.

The same is true in the North. You do OK in heavily muslim dominated wards in some towns. But would you go head-to-head with the BNP in Burnley? I doubt it

 

[Pilgrim]

The SWP will not split.

In order to split political differences must be aired within the organisation and that will never be permitted in the SWP.

At best there may be tiny splinters thrown off but even that is unlikely.

IIRC, internal factions are banned within the SWP for that very reason.

And those who do show open dissent with the leadership line have often been expelled before they could build a following.

 

[mk12]

The SWP will not split.

In order to split political differences must be aired within the organisation and that will never be permitted in the SWP.

At best there may be tiny splinters thrown off but even that is unlikely.

Pre-conference bulletins have had critical contributions to them.

 

[Random]

Pre-conference bulletins have had critical contributions to them.

Says a future 'tiny splinter'

 

[Chuck Wilson]

well perhaps you could elaborate why you think there are more pros than cons, if that is the case. I don't know whether I am academically gifted enough to properly explain why I think the SWP membership has fallen, instead of risen from its 10,000 high. The real story as far as I'm concerned goes right back to the poll tax riots. Having said that, I will be very surprised to read that John Rees believes that the SWP has done any other than make big sacrifices to the Socialist Alliance and respect United front, that will in the long-term benefit the whole of the left. (could you give a link to the article please)


frats rmp3

PS. Seeing as though Chuck was so interested in this topic, I'm surprised he hasn't come back yet.

I will.In time!

 

[Chuck Wilson]

IIRC, internal factions are banned within the SWP for that very reason.

And those who do show open dissent with the leadership line have often been expelled before they could build a following.

Did you not consider ever forming an external faction ?

 

[Pilgrim]

Did you not consider ever forming an external faction ?

I can see it now.

A room full of people, sat in a circle, wearing Palestinian scarves and holding newspapers.

Suddenly one of them rises to his feet and utters the immortal words:

"Hello. My name's XXXXXXX, and I'm a recovering Swappie."

Cue a round of applause and a group hug all round.

 

[neprimerimye]

Pre-conference bulletins have had critical contributions to them.

Sure they have and will continue to do so. But nothing of substance. Nothing that suggests an alternative political perspective other than in the most partial halting fashion. The nearest to open disagreement in recent years was John Molyneux half hearted criticisms of Respect and pressure would seem to have been brought to bear on him to fall into line hence his article in SR in which he in essence recanted his criticisms in a manner I for one found craven.

The IB's are supposed to be a vehicle for discussion in a three month pre-conference discussion period or at least that is what they were once intended to be. but that is a joke given that conference is now in January making access to IB's and district meetings far from easy given the season.

Even if one can access these materials easily debate is circumscribed. Thus the first IB contains a series of articles which are all authoered by the CC or members of the apparatus which set the limits of debate. Subsequent debate then takes the form of how to implement the line already laid down.

Now I cannot be certain but if the constitution of the SWP used to contain a provision for the formation of factions during the three month pre-conference period. Given that the first knowledge most comrades have of that period is the arrival of the first IB this in itself reduces the opportunity to seek co-thinkers for any faction by an entire month. In fact no faction has actuall been formed within the SWP since the old Republican Faction in 1980 or 81. Simply because in practice it is impossible even if the political will exists for such a grouping.

Now comrade contrast this to the practice of the Bolsheviks or to the historical record of British Trotskyism in its early days or for that matter to the International Socialists prior to 1975. Now for all their faults these movements and groups valued internal democracy and discussion because they knew it was a valuable tool in the eeducation of class fighters.

 

[mutley]

Sure they have and will continue to do so. But nothing of substance. Nothing that suggests an alternative political perspective other than in the most partial halting fashion. The nearest to open disagreement in recent years was John Molyneux half hearted criticisms of Respect and pressure would seem to have been brought to bear on him to fall into line hence his article in SR in which he in essence recanted his criticisms in a manner I for one found craven.

The IB's are supposed to be a vehicle for discussion in a three month pre-conference discussion period or at least that is what they were once intended to be. but that is a joke given that conference is now in January making access to IB's and district meetings far from easy given the season.

Even if one can access these materials easily debate is circumscribed. Thus the first IB contains a series of articles which are all authoered by the CC or members of the apparatus which set the limits of debate. Subsequent debate then takes the form of how to implement the line already laid down.

Now I cannot be certain but if the constitution of the SWP used to contain a provision for the formation of factions during the three month pre-conference period. Given that the first knowledge most comrades have of that period is the arrival of the first IB this in itself reduces the opportunity to seek co-thinkers for any faction by an entire month. In fact no faction has actuall been formed within the SWP since the old Republican Faction in 1980 or 81. Simply because in practice it is impossible even if the political will exists for such a grouping.

Now comrade contrast this to the practice of the Bolsheviks or to the historical record of British Trotskyism in its early days or for that matter to the International Socialists prior to 1975. Now for all their faults these movements and groups valued internal democracy and discussion because they knew it was a valuable tool in the eeducation of class fighters.

Bollocks the notice of the conference was in party notes at the start of the three months, as was the dates for the IB's. The second IB has got a bunch of different takes on what is happening at the moment, which i'm sure will make their way on-line shortly via the usual outlets.

And the stuff about 'if one can access the IB's' is similarly bollocks. You just have to, like, go to the branch meeting. I've never had the slightest problem getting hold of any of the IB's, and any member can put forward any proposition or call for a faction in it.

As for this 'oh it's so undemocratic having it in Jan' ffs! Most people have a few short days off at Xmas! Maybe some take longer but not most people I know.

Soz comrades but the vast bulk of members agree with the course we're taking. And yes i'm afraid there's been broad agreement since the end of the miners strike about perspectives. With hindsight around wrong positions at times:in the early nineties we were too optimistic, but not as much as, for example, those in the eighties who argued that the miners went back to work undefeated. I remember Militant supporters in the town i was in used to take the piss and tell us we were all too depressed cos we thought the miners had lost.

 

[neprimerimye]

Bollocks the notice of the conference was in party notes at the start of the three months, as was the dates for the IB's. The second IB has got a bunch of different takes on what is happening at the moment, which i'm sure will make their way on-line shortly via the usual outlets.

And the stuff about 'if one can access the IB's' is similarly bollocks. You just have to, like, go to the branch meeting. I've never had the slightest problem getting hold of any of the IB's, and any member can put forward any proposition or call for a faction in it.

As for this 'oh it's so undemocratic having it in Jan' ffs! Most people have a few short days off at Xmas! Maybe some take longer but not most people I know.

Soz comrades but the vast bulk of members agree with the course we're taking. And yes i'm afraid there's been broad agreement since the end of the miners strike about perspectives. With hindsight around wrong positions at times:in the early nineties we were too optimistic.

And how many comrades actually receive Party Notes each week? In many branches very few indeed I suspect. Given that many party members are actually inactive and rarely if ever attend meetings this rather makes a mockery of your statement that IB's are easy to obtain. It also makes a hollow mockery of the SWP claims to be a Leninist organisation given that Leninism presupposes an active and informed membership.

Certainly most SWP members are in broad agreement with the perspectives put forward by the self appointed and self perpetuating CC if only because those not agreeing have a tendency to leave the organisation. Sometimes because they flaut the organisations discipline as a result of outright renegacy as with Martin John only recently and sometimes because they can no longer stomach the current perspective towards ever deeper liquidationism within Respect as with certain Birmingham based comrades in the recent past.

What is noteworthy in both these cases is that the comrades concerned made no attempt to use the groups structures to change the course of the organisation. All concerned were of course long standing SWP members despite which they had no conception or understanding of how a genuinely democratic revolutionary group might function never having experienced such a thing.

 

[BarryB]

'The biggest lesson is that there is big audience for socialism and radical ideas. It also showed the way to counter the BNP. You’re not going to counter the Nazis just by saying, ‘Vote for someone else.’ The BNP didn’t stand in Newham or Tower Hamlets. But you can’t address the problems people have over housing, transport, pensions, schools, and wider questions like the war, without offering an alternative.'

It appears so...

Things seem to be going well in Newham at the moment for Respect...

The Respect article refers to Abdul Karim Sheikh BEM as a Labour councillor who has gone over to Respect. But as has been pointed out in the "Rats gowing TOWARDS a sinking ship" thread he is shown on the Newham council website as an Independent councillor. No doubt he was a Labour councillor but how long has it been since he left the Labour Party?

BarryB

 

[Grandma Death]

They claimed 10,000 in the early 90s. (I remember getting a very excited letter from a Social Worker telling me that. I think it was in 92.)

Yep I was a member then......and I remember that figure.

 

[BarryB]

But the London mayoral constituency is mostly inner London - where (outside of a few isolated estates) the BNP have found things much harder going than in the early 90's.

Move even slightly outside of this territory (say move from Tower Hamlets out to Epping Forest) - and you start to disappear completely.

The same is true in the North. You do OK in heavily muslim dominated wards in some towns. But would you go head-to-head with the BNP in Burnley? I doubt it

You probably dont even have to go into Essex to see that Respect hardly exists in whole swathes of east London. Areas I mean like Dagenham, Romford, Hornchurch and Chingford. Not sure about Ilford. In Hackney loads of Respect/SWP members but they hardly register as being active in local politics.

Talking about Essex this is the result of yesterdays by election in Grays Riverside ward:

Lab 575
Con 348
BNP 340
LD 92

BarryB

 

[mutley]

And how many comrades actually receive Party Notes each week? In many branches very few indeed I suspect. Given that many party members are actually inactive and rarely if ever attend meetings this rather makes a mockery of your statement that IB's are easy to obtain. It also makes a hollow mockery of the SWP claims to be a Leninist organisation given that Leninism presupposes an active and informed membership.

So you are arguing that a leninist organisation is remiss in not providing opportunities for inactive members who don't attend meetings to take part in decision-making in a full manner? What are you advocating Leninism by postal vote?
And party notes in bloody easy to get, it used to be sent to all those with a branch position, and would then be copied to bring to meetings. Now you don't even have to attend meetings, it's all TOO easy to get it by e-mail. And I've many a time dropped off the IB to inactive members.

Certainly most SWP members are in broad agreement with the perspectives put forward by the self appointed and self perpetuating CC if only because those not agreeing have a tendency to leave the organisation. Sometimes because they flaut the organisations discipline as a result of outright renegacy as with Martin John only recently and sometimes because they can no longer stomach the current perspective towards ever deeper liquidationism within Respect as with certain Birmingham based comrades in the recent past.

What is noteworthy in both these cases is that the comrades concerned made no attempt to use the groups structures to change the course of the organisation. All concerned were of course long standing SWP members despite which they had no conception or understanding of how a genuinely democratic revolutionary group might function never having experienced such a thing.

Actually the comrades that disagreed with the actions of the party in Brum did use the party strucures, I well remember a meeting where we had a full and frank discussion of the issues, and where four comrades argued that we'd fucked up in stw. Two subsequently left. The other two have continued to argue and carry out a slightly different perspective in a united front to the rest of us, although arguably we have moved more towards their position.

The point is, the comrades did argue the case inside the party, two ended up throwing their toys out of the pram and leaving. Some of the political positions that one of then has since argued about Islam shows me that the disagreement was far deeper than just 'democracy in united fronts' or whatever.

 

[BarryB]

Talking about Essex this is the result of yesterdays by election in Grays Riverside ward:

Lab 575
Con 348
BNP 340
LD 92

BarryB

The other election result in Thurrock yesterday is:

Homsteads ward

Lab 661
Con 534
Lib Dem 220
BNP 150

23.2% turnout. Lab gain from Cons.

BarryB

 

[TremulousTetra]

I will.In time!

well pm when you do, otherwise I will probably miss it mate.

fraternal greetings comrade, ResistanceMP3

 

[treelover]

Clare Williams (see earlier posts) was clearly a key SWP player: this was at one of the key planning meetings of the ESF in Paris imo, it shows the sort of behaviour people have to put up with from the Fundis of the SWP before they begin their rightwards trajectory to Nu-Labour, political oblivion, etc...

Annoyed by those who had dared to oppose the SWP’s agenda, Claire Williams wound up the meeting in the most patronising fashion. She lamented the fact that so many people had travelled to London only to have their time wasted by argument. We should have been happily exchanging tips about how to get as many people as possible booked up on the ESF train (which will leave from Victoria station either on the evening of November 12 or the morning of November 13).http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/494/esf.html

 

[neprimerimye]

So you are arguing that a leninist organisation is remiss in not providing opportunities for inactive members who don't attend meetings to take part in decision-making in a full manner? What are you advocating Leninism by postal vote?

And party notes in bloody easy to get, it used to be sent to all those with a branch position, and would then be copied to bring to meetings. Now you don't even have to attend meetings, it's all TOO easy to get it by e-mail. And I've many a time dropped off the IB to inactive members.

Actually the comrades that disagreed with the actions of the party in Brum did use the party strucures, I well remember a meeting where we had a full and frank discussion of the issues, and where four comrades argued that we'd fucked up in stw. Two subsequently left. The other two have continued to argue and carry out a slightly different perspective in a united front to the rest of us, although arguably we have moved more towards their position.

The point is, the comrades did argue the case inside the party, two ended up throwing their toys out of the pram and leaving. Some of the political positions that one of then has since argued about Islam shows me that the disagreement was far deeper than just 'democracy in united fronts' or whatever.

To be precise I was not arguing anything in regard to a Leninist party the SWP however does. But if you wish I can make some points regarding Leninism and the SWP.

To start no Leninist party would by its very nature contain a layer of inactive members in the way the SWP. In fact this practice was not normal in the early period of the SWP itself when annual purges of the membership would be carried out by branch committees who would go through membership roles and drop those members considered to be not only inactive but unlikely to return to active membership. A perfectly normal and very sensible procedure in my opinion and mandated by the statutes of the Comintern.

Surely if we re discussing a Leninist party, as the SWP continues to style itself for no reason i can understand, it is mandatory that the membership act according to democratically arrived at positions and follow the discipline of the relevant party organisations? Which presupposes a similar method on the oart of the organisations leadership. But this is not how the SWP members acted during the recent fiasco in the PCS is it? Lets be clear the leadership failed to act in a supervisiory capacity as is their duty and both the comrades in senior union positions failed to act according to the positions of the SWP. While Martin John would have been subject to immediate expulsion by any self respecting revolutionary organisation the fact is that it was the leadership of the group which was as much at fault. Apart from the heathrow dispute, to which the entire socialist left was external, this was the most important development in the working class movement this year and the SWP failed the class at every step of the way despite holding a formally correct position of opposition to concessions.

As for events in Birmingham I genuinely feel that the format of the whole affair was quite wrong to start with. One of the departing comrades has now adopted positions that are quite wrong on Islam, that is true, but how much of this reaction is due to repugnance at the liquidationism into populism the art of the SWP? At the core of the dispute, in my opinion, is the failure of many SWPers to even understand what a united front policy is and the confusion generated by repeated fruitless turns this way and that. This being the consequence of the groups failure to properly educate the membership along the lines of a democratically agreed upon program or if you wish set of political positions. Small wonder that good long serving comrades become confused by symptoms of degeneration when they are unable to develop a critique of the course of their own party as a result of its lack of a genuinely democratic internal culture.

PS I believe that three comrades left not two? Or does the inactive partner of one not count?

 

[Fisher_Gate]

To be precise I was not arguing anything in regard to a Leninist party the SWP however does. But if you wish I can make some points regarding Leninism and the SWP.

To start no Leninist party would by its very nature contain a layer of inactive members in the way the SWP. In fact this practice was not normal in the early period of the SWP itself when annual purges of the membership would be carried out by branch committees who would go through membership roles and drop those members considered to be not only inactive but unlikely to return to active membership. A perfectly normal and very sensible procedure in my opinion and mandated by the statutes of the Comintern.

Surely if we re discussing a Leninist party, as the SWP continues to style itself for no reason i can understand, it is mandatory that the membership act according to democratically arrived at positions and follow the discipline of the relevant party organisations? Which presupposes a similar method on the oart of the organisations leadership. But this is not how the SWP members acted during the recent fiasco in the PCS is it? Lets be clear the leadership failed to act in a supervisiory capacity as is their duty and both the comrades in senior union positions failed to act according to the positions of the SWP. While Martin John would have been subject to immediate expulsion by any self respecting revolutionary organisation the fact is that it was the leadership of the group which was as much at fault. Apart from the heathrow dispute, to which the entire socialist left was external, this was the most important development in the working class movement this year and the SWP failed the class at every step of the way despite holding a formally correct position of opposition to concessions.

As for events in Birmingham I genuinely feel that the format of the whole affair was quite wrong to start with. One of the departing comrades has now adopted positions that are quite wrong on Islam, that is true, but how much of this reaction is due to repugnance at the liquidationism into populism the art of the SWP? At the core of the dispute, in my opinion, is the failure of many SWPers to even understand what a united front policy is and the confusion generated by repeated fruitless turns this way and that. This being the consequence of the groups failure to properly educate the membership along the lines of a democratically agreed upon program or if you wish set of political positions. Small wonder that good long serving comrades become confused by symptoms of degeneration when they are unable to develop a critique of the course of their own party as a result of its lack of a genuinely democratic internal culture.

PS I believe that three comrades left not two? Or does the inactive partner of one not count?

I agree with the critique that the SWP does not have a "genuinely democratic internal culture", but I remain sceptical about some of the claims of "Leninism" meaning "iron" party discipline. Lenin won the Bolsheviks to the seizure of power in 1917, but let us not forget that the minority went public in their opposition to it (Central Committee members Zinoviev and Kamenev), while Trotsky only joined them during this period having opposed the Bolshevik line. Events later showed that they had the wrong analysis, but they were not counter-revolutionaries and were dealt with politically rather than bureaucratically.

It was only with the degeneration of the Comintern in the 1920s and the rise of Stalinism that "Leninism" began to be used synonymously with the banning of factions and the right to speak out against the majority party line. Trotsky only supporting the reduction in internal democracy within the CPSU as a temporary measure during a period of intense war. Cliff's claims to "Leninism" are based on a highly partial analysis of that period.

A far superior position to Cliff's and most of the other self-proclaimed "Leninist" sects is found in the contemporary analysis of the Fourth International ('United Secretariat' for the pedants, though to my mind the claims of the other pretenders to the title are laughable). The resolutions of the 1979 and 1985 world congresses set out a clear understanding of the role of internal dissent in the revolutionary party and its relationship to the class struggle.

Documents of the FI : World Congress Decisions : 12th World Congress - 1985
The Dictatorship of the proletariat and socialist democracy
http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/article.php3?id_article=921

Lenin, Trotsky, other Bolsheviks, and later the Left Opposition, far from favouring it, tried to fight the rise of the bureaucracy. The weakening of the proletarian vanguard and not the "Leninist theory of the party" made that fight unsuccessful. One can argue that some measures taken by the Bolsheviks before Lenin’s death - like the temporary banning of factions at the Tenth Party Congress - might have contributed to that weakening.

"Banning opposition parties leads to banning factions; banning factions leads to a ban on thinking otherwise than the infallible leader. The police-like monolithism of the party was followed by bureaucratic impunity which in turn because the source of all kinds of demoralisation and corruption." (Trotsky, Revolution Betrayed.)

...


In order to prevent any abuse of power by a vanguard party leading the working class under the dictatorship of the proletariat, the following principles are adhered to by the Fourth International:

a) Fullest internal democracy of the party itself, with full rights for organising tendencies and a refusal to ban factions and possibilities of public debates between them before party congresses.

b) Broadest possible links and interpenetration between the party and the working class itself. A revolutionary workers’ vanguard party can only efficiently lead the working class under the dictatorship of the proletariat if it simultaneously enjoys the political confidence of the majority of the workers and organises in its ranks the great majority of the vanguard workers.

c) Strict suppression of any material privileges for party cadres or leaders. No party leader, full-timer or member elected in any leading position of the workers state, its economy or its other social institutions, should receive a higher wage than the average wage of a skilled worker.

d) No political or ideological monopoly of the vanguard party in or control over political or cultural activities. Adherence to the multi-party principle.

e) Strict separation of the party apparatus from the state apparatus.

f) Real integration of the party in a revolutionary international and acceptance of international comradely criticism by revolutionary organisations of other countries. No control of the international by any party or parties in power in given workers state(s).

 

[mutley]

In reply to neprimerimye,

No we're not going to go through the membership with a fine tooth comb and expell the inactive members, but we're not going to set up a membership or organisational structure that panders to them either.

Martin John left the party the day before the meeting where he might have been suspended, and he was told firmly before the pcs exec meeting what the swp's position was and what was expected of him. Short of taking close family members hostage i'm not sure what else could have been done. Tho' i'm sure someone out there knows different.

I thought two left, didn't know the person that i think ur referring to was a member.. (dutch person i take it?)

 

[neprimerimye]

In reply to neprimerimye,

No we're not going to go through the membership with a fine tooth comb and expell the inactive members, but we're not going to set up a membership or organisational structure that panders to them either.

Martin John left the party the day before the meeting where he might have been suspended, and he was told firmly before the pcs exec meeting what the swp's position was and what was expected of him. Short of taking close family members hostage i'm not sure what else could have been done. Tho' i'm sure someone out there knows different.

I thought two left, didn't know the person that i think ur referring to was a member.. (dutch person i take it?)

1/ So despite proclaiming the SWP to be a Leninist org you are not going to enforce Leninist norms of membership. It follows that the organisation as a whole is not Leninist.

2/ Frankly I was shocked at Martin John's disgusting treachery. I always thought that he was a serious quite determined unionist and despite his marked egoism a committed and convinced SWPer. The thing about this affair is not that two SWPers voted for a settlement that includes concessions for as we know sometimes concessions must be made to avoid a losing fight and worse concessions. (That is how the SPEW justify their position after all). The point here is that in this very important union that has in its ranks a sizeable number of the SWP's trade unionists the groups work was characterised by being completely amateurish.

Only months before a suspended strike action on the same issue was called off with both John and Bond voting with the majority. Now as a matter of principle i would argue that the decision to call off strike action was the members and not to be made by any committee. In my view revolutionaries would have sought to use the question of calling off the action as an opportunity to educate the membership about the issues concerned. That did not happen and as far as I can ascertain the SWP leadership did not then or later discuss with John and Bond how they voted. In short the leadership, chiefly the trade union organiser, failed in their duty of supervision of their members and failed therefore to lead.

Had such a policy been carried out not only might the fiasco of the later vote been avoided but, more importantly, the membership of the union would have been prepared for struggle at a later date and the SWP would have won deserved respect. As it is your organisation has emerged one member short and looking like novices with no trade union experience. It is of course possible that even a regularly constituted fraction with a democraticaly elected leadership might have gotten things wrong even in consultation with the leadership of the party and indeed mistakes are always going to be made. But in a group consisting of an informed active membership with a healthy political internal life errors such as this would I suspect be unthinkable.

3/ I'm led to believe that a partner of the comrade still in Brum left. It's a very unimportant point.

 

[neprimerimye]

I agree with the critique that the SWP does not have a "genuinely democratic internal culture", but I remain sceptical about some of the claims of "Leninism" meaning "iron" party discipline. Lenin won the Bolsheviks to the seizure of power in 1917, but let us not forget that the minority went public in their opposition to it (Central Committee members Zinoviev and Kamenev), while Trotsky only joined them during this period having opposed the Bolshevik line. Events later showed that they had the wrong analysis, but they were not counter-revolutionaries and were dealt with politically rather than bureaucratically.

It was only with the degeneration of the Comintern in the 1920s and the rise of Stalinism that "Leninism" began to be used synonymously with the banning of factions and the right to speak out against the majority party line. Trotsky only supporting the reduction in internal democracy within the CPSU as a temporary measure during a period of intense war. Cliff's claims to "Leninism" are based on a highly partial analysis of that period.

A far superior position to Cliff's and most of the other self-proclaimed "Leninist" sects is found in the contemporary analysis of the Fourth International ('United Secretariat' for the pedants, though to my mind the claims of the other pretenders to the title are laughable). The resolutions of the 1979 and 1985 world congresses set out a clear understanding of the role of internal dissent in the revolutionary party and its relationship to the class struggle.

Well this is moving a bit far from the subject of this thread so I’ll be brief.

1/ Leninism is a myth. Leninism as distinct from the theories and practice of Lenin in his lifetime was invented by Zinoviev and sadly Trotsky was forced to portray the Left Opposition as the ‘Leninist’ faction in order to combat the right and centre. With the result that the real living thought of Lenin has all too often been read through the distorting lens of Zinoviev’s rotten semi-Kautskyite distortions.

2/ Zinoviev and Kamenev should have been expelled for their role in 1917. They were scabs.

3/ Any reading of Cliff on Lenin or Leninism is problematic. First you must say which Cliff you are discussing. Although his view did not change much on the formal level there are distinct differences between his reading of Lenin prior to the biography and after. The differences in his practice of party building before and after say 1974 are rather more dramatic. Frankly I prefer the earlier less ‘Leninist’ Cliff.

4/ The various theses of the disUnited Sectarians are known to me. I do not care for them. As the theses of a mass international party they might have some functionality but as the guiding organisational concepts of a heterogeneous collection of sects united only by the fictive conceit that they are The Fourth International they are completely and utterly useless.

 

[Fisher_Gate]

Well this is moving a bit far from the subject of this thread so I’ll be brief.

1/ Leninism is a myth. Leninism as distinct from the theories and practice of Lenin in his lifetime was invented by Zinoviev and sadly Trotsky was forced to portray the Left Opposition as the ‘Leninist’ faction in order to combat the right and centre. With the result that the real living thought of Lenin has all too often been read through the distorting lens of Zinoviev’s rotten semi-Kautskyite distortions.

2/ Zinoviev and Kamenev should have been expelled for their role in 1917. They were scabs.

3/ Any reading of Cliff on Lenin or Leninism is problematic. First you must say which Cliff you are discussing. Although his view did not change much on the formal level there are distinct differences between his reading of Lenin prior to the biography and after. The differences in his practice of party building before and after say 1974 are rather more dramatic. Frankly I prefer the earlier less ‘Leninist’ Cliff.

4/ The various theses of the disUnited Sectarians are known to me. I do not care for them. As the theses of a mass international party they might have some functionality but as the guiding organisational concepts of a heterogeneous collection of sects united only by the fictive conceit that they are The Fourth International they are completely and utterly useless.

Since the subject of the thread is the politics of the SWP, and one of the distinctive features of them is their undemocratic party structure I don't see it as a bit far.

1) I agree with you about the myth of "Leninism" - certainly the SWP's approach is a caricature. One of the mistakes of the trotskyists was to characterise themselves as "Bolshevik-Leninists".

2) Yes, Lenin called for the expulsion of Zinoviev and Kamenev as scabs though he didnt' win it; they later resigned of their own accord (shades of Martin John?) in another act of scabbing. But Lenin also pointed out:

In a large party like ours, notwithstanding the proletarian and revolutionary line of our policy, it was inevitable that individual comrades should have proved to be insufficiently staunch and firm in the struggle against the enemies of the people.

(emphasis added)

Nov 1917
From V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1964
Vol. 26, p 304

The innevitability of this raises the question of not just how and when you expel people, but how a revolutionary party can be built with people who are not revolutionary.

3) Cliff may have been more "preferable" and tolerant pre-1974, but there were downsides - his group "scabbed" during the Korean War and when the troops went into Ireland.

4) There is no reason why the principles that should govern the politics of a mass international shouldn't also apply in a non-revolutionary stage when the revolutionary forces are mainly at the level of propaganda groups.

 

[mutley]

Well this is moving a bit far from the subject of this thread so I’ll be brief.

1/ Leninism is a myth. Leninism as distinct from the theories and practice of Lenin in his lifetime was invented by Zinoviev and sadly Trotsky was forced to portray the Left Opposition as the ‘Leninist’ faction in order to combat the right and centre. With the result that the real living thought of Lenin has all too often been read through the distorting lens of Zinoviev’s rotten semi-Kautskyite distortions.

2/ Zinoviev and Kamenev should have been expelled for their role in 1917. They were scabs.

3/ Any reading of Cliff on Lenin or Leninism is problematic. First you must say which Cliff you are discussing. Although his view did not change much on the formal level there are distinct differences between his reading of Lenin prior to the biography and after. The differences in his practice of party building before and after say 1974 are rather more dramatic. Frankly I prefer the earlier less ‘Leninist’ Cliff.

4/ The various theses of the disUnited Sectarians are known to me. I do not care for them. As the theses of a mass international party they might have some functionality but as the guiding organisational concepts of a heterogeneous collection of sects united only by the fictive conceit that they are The Fourth International they are completely and utterly useless.

Er, why did you decide to start using the term 'leninism' in this discussion then? (post 75 above contrasting the swp with what a 'leninist' organisation would do)

Who left in Brum is indeed unimportant, but, again, you brought it up then quibbled about 2 or 3 leaving.

On the PCS, it's well known and obvious that there's a tension between the pull from the bureaucracy and the pull from the party when ur high up in a union. If ur trying to work with a 'left' leader like Serwotka then the contradiction is even worse. I think it's pretty desperate to argue that what happened is symptomatic of some deep malaise, somehow connected to the questions of who gets the IB's and whether the peolple who write stuff for them are under some mystical cc mind control.

 

[darren redparty]

The argument between fisher and mutley et al. hinges on the true inheritors of the mantle of leninism. and whether the SWP should properly be described as leninist.
This of course misses the point- Leninism is the problem!
as the militant wing of social democracy, leninism shares with its older cousin the same elitist and condisending view of the class, in which popular frontism as well as vanguardism are equally valid as both hold the intelligence and self organising ability of the working class in contempt.
may I bring this article to u75ers attention as it draws out the argument better than I;
http://redstarcommando.blogspot.com/2005/10/renegade-kautsky-and-his-disciple.html