Revolutionary Communist Group

[TopCat]

It was a 24hour picket - they were bound to learn a lot of South African songs and in winter I'm sure the bouncing in the early hours was more necessary than revolutionary.

I'm sure their fighting skills are not the best - they are not really big enough for a military wing! But in my experience they are very good a defending anyone involved in their events when they get nicked unlike a lot of the left who never think to find out which cop shop people are taken to after a demo and going down there to put pressure for their quick release. They also picketted courts very noisily when people are charged. Which i think should be standart practice as it is often the new people on a demo who get arrested and are left on their own.

The ridiculous fuss they caused at the police station I was locked up in was (according to my solicitor) directly related to my charge being affray and not breach of the peace.

They did have quite a few fit women I recollect, not as many as the RCG but they were in a different class to the women of the WRP, who really had really been whacked with the ugly stick.

 

[The39thStep]

The ridiculous fuss they caused at the police station I was locked up in was (according to my solicitor) directly related to my charge being affray and not breach of the peace.

They did have quite a few fit women I recollect, not as many as the RCG but they were in a different class to the women of the WRP, who really had really been whacked with the ugly stick.

Good to see anarchism leading the way on sexism

 

[durruti02]

It was a 24hour picket - they were bound to learn a lot of South African songs and in winter I'm sure the bouncing in the early hours was more necessary than revolutionary.

I'm sure their fighting skills are not the best - they are not really big enough for a military wing! But in my experience they are very good a defending anyone involved in their events when they get nicked unlike a lot of the left who never think to find out which cop shop people are taken to after a demo and going down there to put pressure for their quick release. They also picketted courts very noisily when people are charged. Which i think should be standart practice as it is often the new people on a demo who get arrested and are left on their own.

typical leftist alienated activity .. i think it comes down to being scared of real w/c people frankly

 

[scawenb]

I think you are right about the CofL group being expelled, though I don't know on what grounds. The real reason, I suspect, is simply that they didn't toe the line. The CP was strong in the AA movement. The RCG, though it had abandoned Trottery as a doctrine (and had become what Trots call 'Stalinist' - ie, they gave up on Old Man Trot's dogmas and sided with the 'socialist' regimes around the world), kept to the Trot habits of running stunts and not doing what they were told by the CPGB or the SACP or Moscow or anyone else, except Comrade Yaffe, of course.

I think the break was over the AAM sole support for the ANC but not the PAC or Black Consciousness Movement and City Groups support for David Kitson. I think I've got copies of the CPGB papers from the time.

As far as I know the RCG is one of the few groups to have ever moved from Trotskyism to Stalinism - though it was with the background of the IS/SWP's mad State Capitalist argument and I don't know anything about the 'Right Opposition' which the RCG came out of and how Trotsyite they were (the IS/SWP never actually claims to be Trotskist as a label).

 

[durruti02]

scaweb you appear to be a sympathiser? yet you accept they were 'stalinist'??

 

[scawenb]

scaweb you appear to be a sympathiser? yet you accept they were 'stalinist'??

It was the previous post which called the Stalinist.

They would definitely becalled "tankies" by their previous Trotskyist friends as they even rejested the deformed workers states of the 4th Leaguers. Certaining in the mid-70s they were in a close debate with the CPGB and its splits and looked back to the CPGB of the Third Period with more in common with Pankhurst than Luxemberg.

In a way they shared a view of the socialist countries with the CP, of activism with the Trotskyists, of liberation movements with the Maoists and anti-parliamentarianism with the Anarchist. They made alliances with each of these at some times and were bitter enemies at other times.

 

[scawenb]

scaweb you appear to be a sympathiser? yet you accept they were 'stalinist'??

It was the previous post which called the Stalinist.

They would definitely becalled "tankies" by their previous Trotskyist friends as they even rejested the deformed workers states of the 4th Leaguers. Certaining in the mid-70s they were in a close debate with the CPGB and its splits and looked back to the CPGB of the Third Period with more in common with Pankhurst than Luxemberg.

In a way they shared a view of the socialist countries with the CP, of activism with the Trotskyists, of liberation movements with the Maoists and anti-parliamentarianism with the Anarchist. They made alliances with each of these at some times and were bitter enemies at other times.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

In a way they shared a view of the socialist countries with the CP, of activism with the Trotskyists, of liberation movements with the Maoists and anti-parliamentarianism with the Anarchist. They made alliances with each of these at some times and were bitter enemies at other times.

You could have summarised this accurately by just saying that they were and are confused.

They are shouty wankers with a hankering for the firm smack of Stalinist discipline basically.

 

[Haller]

It think it was the City of London AA Group. Presumably the group in the City was the easiest branch in London to take over.

City of London AA Group didn't previously exist, so wasn't taken over by the RCG.

 

[The39thStep]

It was the previous post which called the Stalinist.

They would definitely becalled "tankies" by their previous Trotskyist friends as they even rejested the deformed workers states of the 4th Leaguers. Certaining in the mid-70s they were in a close debate with the CPGB and its splits and looked back to the CPGB of the Third Period with more in common with Pankhurst than Luxemberg.

In a way they shared a view of the socialist countries with the CP, of activism with the Trotskyists, of liberation movements with the Maoists and anti-parliamentarianism with the Anarchist. They made alliances with each of these at some times and were bitter enemies at other times.

and the class base of the Lib Dems

 

[JHE]

I'm told people in the RCG have 'party names'. That sounds more fun than the boring old Lib Dems.

 

[durruti02]

I'm told people in the RCG have 'party names'. That sounds more fun than the boring old Lib Dems.

they had culty communal houses too back then

 

[The39thStep]

The IMG did as well.

 

[audiotech]

Squats?

 

[scawenb]

I'm told people in the RCG have 'party names'. That sounds more fun than the boring old Lib Dems.

lots on the left did have false names partly for security, partly as journalistic practice, partly to make them seem larger, partly to disguise background and partly because everyone else was doing it.

 

[scawenb]

You could have summarised this accurately by just saying that they were and are confused.

I don't think it was a confusion but a rejection of Trotskyist theory due to the fact that they had never actually succeed in doing anything - not even enough to be able to be seen to fail. The Socialist Countries and the national liberation movements had a least done something and any political act will raise serious political problems and dissicult choices. But the Trotskyist left sat in their priveledged position at the heart of the imperialist countries and offered criticism and patronistic advice from a failed movement to a movement which was making great advances.

However, on what to do here in Britain they did share tactics with those it disagreed with on wider theoretical issues. From prisons to palestine and from anti-deportation to anti-fascism it has always shared at lot practically with anarchists.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

The Socialist Countries

The what?

 

[tim]

The what?

he means the deformed workers' states

 

[JHE]

lots on the left did have false names partly for security...

Party names are OK, but I want party hats, party games and party tricks, too. Otherwise, I won't be party to it.

 

[JHE]

he means the deformed workers' states

Differently shaped workers' states, please.

 

[Fisher_Gate]

lots on the left did have false names partly for security, partly as journalistic practice, partly to make them seem larger, partly to disguise background and partly because everyone else was doing it.

The IMG did it originally entirely for security reasons, and accelerated it because they thought they were going to be banned by the state, particularly after the Red Lion Square events in 1974, where the IMG were singled out. They didn't want a membership list to fall directly into state hands though undoubtedly the state already had an extensive list of members collected through spies and covert monitoring.

It was not as paranoid at the time as it may seem now: the IMG's sister party, the Ligue Communiste, was banned by the French State in 1972, and at the congresses and meetings of the Fourth International a miraculously large Wallonian section suddenly appeared, before it was reformed as the LCR. The SLL/WRP were convinced there was going to be a military coup with the army taking over and all lefties rounded up. Storing ammunition at their training centre in Derbyshire may have been a slight over-reaction though .

By the 1980s it was because of Labour Party activity.

The names themselves tended to vary between dead labour movement or working class leaders [though never the "four great heroes" - MELT (work it out!)] so one of the central leaders was a certain Comrade Clynes, there was a comrade Winstanley I recall ... while some younger members would come up with more amusing names - one document was written by the ingredients of a ratatouille: comrades O'Bergine, Courgette, et all.

 

[Fisher_Gate]

...But the Trotskyist left sat in their priveledged position at the heart of the imperialist countries and offered criticism and patronistic advice from a failed movement to a movement which was making great advances.
...

Presumbably that's why some of the biggest trotskyist organisations after the second world war were in places like Bolivia, Sri Lanka and Argentina? And why the countries that had the highest standard of living in the period of the long boom, the USA and Japan, had some of the smallest trotskyist organisations (proportional to population)?

 

[Fedayn]

The names themselves tended to vary between dead labour movement or working class leaders [though never the "four great heroes" - MELT (work it out!)] so one of the central leaders was a certain Comrade Clynes, there was a comrade Winstanley I recall ... while some younger members would come up with more amusing names - one document was written by the ingredients of a ratatouille: comrades O'Bergine, Courgette, et all.

The South African CP had a leading member name of Frances Meli. MELI was an acronym for Marx Englels Lenin Institute.

 

[belboid]

Melsor was a popular Russian mae for a while,i believe - Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, October Revolution!

 

[scawenb]

Presumbably that's why some of the biggest trotskyist organisations after the second world war were in places like Bolivia, Sri Lanka and Argentina? And why the countries that had the highest standard of living in the period of the long boom, the USA and Japan, had some of the smallest trotskyist organisations (proportional to population)?

I was talking about the Trotskyist left in Britain - particularly the IS/SWP. The tradition the RCG came out of and was reacting against.

Though the Trotskyists in Bolivia, Sri Lanka and Argentina didn't exactly provide good models.

 

[durruti02]

Differently shaped workers' states, please.

for party hats and differrently formed workers states

 

[scawenb]

It is a bit of pot calling the kettle black for people on the internet to criticise people for using false names! I'm not really called Scawen Blunt and mnay people have a whole host of false names on-line.

 

[belboid]

The tradition the RCG came out of and was reacting against.

even tho they were just as much in a 'priveledged position at the heart of the imperialist countries', and came from the same social millieu as thosethey were criticsing.

But, they were okay, cos they were uncritical cheerleaders for stalinists and petty-bourgeois national liberationists.

 

[cantsin]

Both states run by populist annd popular presidents both of whom have held referenda to abolish presidential term limits. In one case the RCG thinks this is jolly good and in the other jolly bad.

As to the FARC they're hardly the purest of revolutionaruies around are they? They like their cut of the drugs trade, are keen on kidnapping and have done their fair share of killing of civillians.

that's truly feeble...so both states have had referenda re: pres term = they're the same...brilliant analysis

 

[scawenb]

even tho they were just as much in a 'priveledged position at the heart of the imperialist countries', and came from the same social millieu as thosethey were criticsing.

One they were a Group not a "Party" (another difference with most of the rest of the left) and a party would contain more from less-priveleged positions and different social millieus. Secondly, The argument is used to explain the material basis for the gap between what the Left say and how they work in practice - it doesn't stop them breaking from the priveledged position and hopefully that will happen.