The History of the SWP?
- Thread starter tbaldwin
- Start date
And I'd have to take issue with you on whether the core politics of the SWP have remained constant for 30 years. Certainly they've always been economist if that's what you mean and that's why its relatively straightforward to explain the political trajectory of the SWP by the economism, i.e. they adapt their politics to what they percieve to be the most left win element of bourgeois society, but of course that has changed a lot over 30 years.
So at one level they've been consistent, always tailist, but at another level, because what they are tailing has changed their politics have altered markedly over time. The SWP today really is a very different beast to that of 30 years ago.
Clearly its important to relate to people's consciousness but pegagogic adaptation is different from ditching political principles.
Funnily enough I'd say that what's left of WP are moving towards a similar method with their new workers party fetish. This essentially down plays the importance of the revolutionary programme to adapt organisationally to what they percieve as the "break from labour".
Interestingly on the Sukula's I'd say it was a vindication of the PR group's method. We raised the issue of section 9 in it, and held a nearly 200 strong conference on fighting section 9 in Manchester, which we won to a position of no immigration controls against the opposition of the SWP. So what influence did we gain for our politics - clearly a fair bit.
The old WP for their part did little to build for the Sukula campaign and at the conference itself produced an absurd leaflet which blathered on about the need for a new workers party - as a cure all panacea easy answer for everything, completely ignoring the central debate around the need to oppose all immigration controls. Mind you who cares about them really. So I apologise but as you can imagine it still plays on my mind a little.
It seems to me that the task of Marxists today is to undertake a thorough reassessment of the period since the collapse of stalinism and reorient ourselves accordingly, not suggest that everything we've done over the last two decades (or three) is correct, when clearly it isn't.
So at one level they've been consistent, always tailist, but at another level, because what they are tailing has changed their politics have altered markedly over time. The SWP today really is a very different beast to that of 30 years ago.
Clearly its important to relate to people's consciousness but pegagogic adaptation is different from ditching political principles.
Funnily enough I'd say that what's left of WP are moving towards a similar method with their new workers party fetish. This essentially down plays the importance of the revolutionary programme to adapt organisationally to what they percieve as the "break from labour".
Interestingly on the Sukula's I'd say it was a vindication of the PR group's method. We raised the issue of section 9 in it, and held a nearly 200 strong conference on fighting section 9 in Manchester, which we won to a position of no immigration controls against the opposition of the SWP. So what influence did we gain for our politics - clearly a fair bit.
The old WP for their part did little to build for the Sukula campaign and at the conference itself produced an absurd leaflet which blathered on about the need for a new workers party - as a cure all panacea easy answer for everything, completely ignoring the central debate around the need to oppose all immigration controls. Mind you who cares about them really. So I apologise but as you can imagine it still plays on my mind a little.
It seems to me that the task of Marxists today is to undertake a thorough reassessment of the period since the collapse of stalinism and reorient ourselves accordingly, not suggest that everything we've done over the last two decades (or three) is correct, when clearly it isn't.
Hence the important use of the word maintained. Where is the Militant today? - Hoping the "objective circumstances" might arise to "fill out" the campaign for a new workers party beyond the ranks of the SP.
The work in places like Bristol, East London, Manchester and notably Preston is directed at rebuilding grass roots organisation and confidence in Working Class communities. The fact that our vission of what Respect is about is not shared by 100% of Respect is unsuprising as is the fact that we in fact won the vote you are refering to. Respect as an alliance coming from the Anti-war movement was never going to be smooth despite cries of SWP dominance because it does involve genuinely wider Social forces. And now being the main opposition in East London brings a new set of problems as the SWP is not as strong as it would like to be nor is Respect as rooted as it should be. The fact remains that these were not unforseen problems and our perspective and tactics involves building a real base by proving that we can rebuild working class self organisation in these areas and deliver on the ground
The SWP's politcs are far from in Storage as going to Marxism would have shown you. We are in fact improving our cadre with regular member schools with a high level of theory and a real push around recomended reading. The IST has also started to develop new areas ot theory around questions such as a marxist theory of social movements - something I have not seen of the rest of the leninist left in the UK.
The work in places like Bristol, East London, Manchester and notably Preston is directed at rebuilding grass roots organisation and confidence in Working Class communities. The fact that our vission of what Respect is about is not shared by 100% of Respect is unsuprising as is the fact that we in fact won the vote you are refering to. Respect as an alliance coming from the Anti-war movement was never going to be smooth despite cries of SWP dominance because it does involve genuinely wider Social forces. And now being the main opposition in East London brings a new set of problems as the SWP is not as strong as it would like to be nor is Respect as rooted as it should be. The fact remains that these were not unforseen problems and our perspective and tactics involves building a real base by proving that we can rebuild working class self organisation in these areas and deliver on the ground
The SWP's politcs are far from in Storage as going to Marxism would have shown you. We are in fact improving our cadre with regular member schools with a high level of theory and a real push around recomended reading. The IST has also started to develop new areas ot theory around questions such as a marxist theory of social movements - something I have not seen of the rest of the leninist left in the UK.
dennisr
the acceptable face
levien said:
Represented by 26+ reps on trade union executives in the UK (more than any other 'leninist' grouping put together) but more importantly leading a number of key disputes and at many levels of the trade union movement. Leading members in many other community based campaigns - from housing to nhs. With representatives elected on a clear working class programme in the UK (Lewisham, Coventry, Hudderfield). Part of a genuine international organisation - the CWi - with elected representatives in Ireland (MP/TD), Australia, Germany, Sri Lanka. The most significent 'leninists' in countless countries with decades of experience in appaling conditions - from Nigeria to Kashmir to Kazachstan - where an organisation like yours is not even able to begin the tasks leninists actually have to carry out, IMO. With a history and experience of actually having led mass movments that achieved the results intended - from Liverpool to the Poll Tax.
Now that is still a very small dent - but a wee bit more significant than the throwaway snide sectarian comment you made, claims.
Fine,resort to self-delusion and distortions rather than honestly acknowledging the lived practice of other organisations you disagree with, stick to mindnumbing trite soundbites like a bourg. politician, but it will not show your organisation or your appraoch to 'debate' in any better light
fanciful said:
I wouldn’t say we’ve made no mistakes. We were clearly slow to reorganise the Party after the peak of the Anti-war movement and have paid a price for it. But that is beside the point.
What you miss when you brand the SWP as economist is the delicate questions of the relationship between class consciousness, confidence and combatively of the industrial struggle and the levels of political organisation. Because yes the SWP has repeatedly adapted and changed to fir the political situation posed by their interrelation in a way in which the rest of the left has not. This is only tailism if you forget the other side of the question which the SWP in my experience has never done (collectively at least – individuals and branches certainly have on occasion.) That is the question of the actuality of revolution. We have always used our influence to draw as many people into struggle at what we see as the key issue at any given time and argue to increase the level of politics by arguing a revolutionary Marxist perspective based on how to pull the movement forwards towards a genuinely revolutionary challenge. You fail to understand this because you reduce being a revolutionary down to abstract sloganeering and Lenin’s WITBD and the fetish of the revolutionary program.
Neither side of your split is relating to the genuine radicalisation against social democracy (you by abstention, WP by sectarianism towards Respect and volunteerist perspectives) and as so you can’t theorise your way out of isolation. Praxis init…
Ps. And if you are going to try and explain the post USSR economy you might have to start with the relooking at the relation of the USSR to the world economy.
Like the sell out of the PCS pensions dispute you mean? How about on the ground in the Unions - rebuilding rank and file organisation and fighting Unions? Respect and the SWP is helping pull together what will be the biggest meeting of its kind for ages in the "organising for fighting unions conference" to try and extend the increase resistance to neo-liberalism into the trade Union moment. A stratergy the recognises the need to work with the top in the Unions but to rebuild a fighting rank and file movement.dennisr said:
dennisr said:Maybe it could develop a genuine international organisation to go with the theory???
For a 5th international comrades! - non of that bollocks for us we're happy to remain a tendancy recognising our lack of mass organisations and working with others moving in the same direction.
dennisr
the acceptable face
levien said:
for the 50th time... (there is no point answering this lie again is there?...)
like I say, keep up the distortions, lies and call it 'working with others' - it remains self-delusion. The shame is the damage done in the eyes of many ordinary folks views of the entire left - those who get tarred with the same brush as your organisation.
The saddest thing about your illusion about 'working with others' is the actual history of destroying what you cannot control once you have found it impossible to ignore - the wee potential 'beginning' that the Socialist Alliance represented for example which managed to function for 4 years before the arrival of the SWP. The other side of the coin is the appaling sacrifice of any socialist or class programme in the desperate hope of an 'alliance' not a democratic alliance based on a genuine programme in common but based on pandering to the elements you are presently doing in respect - thats going to come back and choke you, you know that? Your poisonous approach will destroy your organisation long before the rest of the left.
dennisr
the acceptable face
levien said:For a 5th international comrades! - non of that bollocks for us we're happy to remain a tendancy recognising our lack of mass organisations and working with others moving in the same direction.
Aye ... because you have had to close down your international sections whenever they did not follow the UK SWPs latest line? Weird way to 'democraticly' build an international 'tendency' with those who where at some point "moving in the same direction" mate
levien - this is like shooting fish in a barrel - its becoming embarrassing.
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
dennisr said:
A metaphor involving the words "kettle", "pot" and "black" springs to mind ...
absolutely not, tailism means tailing the spontaneous consciousness of the working class i.e. refusing to fight for the revolutionary programme. That is the absolute epitome of the SWP's method.
It's a method repeated by WP in their use of the new workers party slogan, where they downgrade the struggle for a revolutionary party to that of a "new" "radical". "anti-racist" or whatever it may be party.
Ironically they accused the minority of "tailism" because we refused to downgrade the struggle for a revolutionary party to that of a "new" workers party. This was really absurd of course. They might have had a point if they wanted to call us sectarian but tailist really.... ;-)
I'd agree WPs sloganeering, their bluster and braggadaccio can come across as postering, but that's because they abandoned any attempt to actually analyse the world and use the revolutionary programme as a guide to action. Instead they assert that the world is in a "pre-revolutionary period" because the world economy is "stagnant."
The key point about the USSR and all the former Stalinist states is that because it was not a capitalist societies, because they were what the IMF for example call a "centrally planned economies," then the restoration of capitalism across the former workers states, gave a massive one off boost to world capitalism, which since the integration of these economies through the 1990s has lead to a sharp upswing in the world capitalist economy since the turn of the millenium.
The SWP exactly because of your state capitalist theory could never adequately analyse the effect of capitalist restoration, WP of course didn't have that excuse which makes their mistake even worse, but what is clear is that the understanding the class nature of these states prior to 1990 is absolutely essential to understanding contemporary globalisation.
You can read some of our attempts to develop such an understanding here:
http://www.permanentrevolution.net/Pages/factiondocuments.html
there will be more synthesised and rounded stuff coming out shortly.
It's a method repeated by WP in their use of the new workers party slogan, where they downgrade the struggle for a revolutionary party to that of a "new" "radical". "anti-racist" or whatever it may be party.
Ironically they accused the minority of "tailism" because we refused to downgrade the struggle for a revolutionary party to that of a "new" workers party. This was really absurd of course. They might have had a point if they wanted to call us sectarian but tailist really.... ;-)
I'd agree WPs sloganeering, their bluster and braggadaccio can come across as postering, but that's because they abandoned any attempt to actually analyse the world and use the revolutionary programme as a guide to action. Instead they assert that the world is in a "pre-revolutionary period" because the world economy is "stagnant."
The key point about the USSR and all the former Stalinist states is that because it was not a capitalist societies, because they were what the IMF for example call a "centrally planned economies," then the restoration of capitalism across the former workers states, gave a massive one off boost to world capitalism, which since the integration of these economies through the 1990s has lead to a sharp upswing in the world capitalist economy since the turn of the millenium.
The SWP exactly because of your state capitalist theory could never adequately analyse the effect of capitalist restoration, WP of course didn't have that excuse which makes their mistake even worse, but what is clear is that the understanding the class nature of these states prior to 1990 is absolutely essential to understanding contemporary globalisation.
You can read some of our attempts to develop such an understanding here:
http://www.permanentrevolution.net/Pages/factiondocuments.html
there will be more synthesised and rounded stuff coming out shortly.
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
tbaldwin said:
The Militant/SP are happy to work in any group that allows them absolute freedom to do whatever they like.
Historically, they have been unwilling to accept the collective agreement of any group in which they are in a minority. I don't think that is sufficient to be called "working with others".
They were happy in the Socialist Alliance when it did not do anything electorally and they could stand their own candidates under their own label without any reference to the Alliance. Once it was suggested that it should stand a collective slate of candidates in elections, they began the process of withdrawal by ignoring decisions over where to target standing and refusing to abide by democratic selection processes. They simply announced their own candidates and invited everyone else to endorse them.
poster342002
PROPER leftwing socialist
What 'genuine radicalisation against social democracy"? I really hadn't noticed there being one.levien said:
audiotech
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LLETSA said:
The British Movement was a British neo-Nazi group. It grew out of the National Socialist Movement which was founded by Colin Jordan in 1962, reconstituting itself as the British Movement in 1968. Under Jordan's leadership the BM campaigned on an openly neo-Nazi platform, with members wearing the swastika and picture of Adolf Hitler appearing on party literature. It published a number of journals including British Patriot and British Tidings.
Support for the British Movement grew at the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 80s when the National Front fragmented. It was particularly popular with the violent youth and racist skinhead element who had formerly supported the Front. A key part of its tactic for gaining both publicity and members was in formenting violence at football matches and music gigs.
Following a conviction for shoplifting women's underwear [
] (an incident which did not go down well with the Movement's violently homophobic membership) Jordan left the British Movement with leadership falling into the hands of Michael McLaughlin, a Liverpudlian former milkman, in 1975. McLaughlin would later clash with another leading member Ray Hill, who was later revealed to be a "mole" for the anti-fascist Searchlight magazine, and as a result about half of the membership followed Hill in joining the newly launched British National Party in 1982. The BM failed to recover from the split and McLaughlin announced its liquidation in September 1983.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Movement
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neprimerimye
Well-Known Member
MC5 said:
Chum the BM did not have 3,000 street hardened fighters. Please tell me of just one instance where they mobilised even hundreds of these street hardened fighters? Just one instance, one....
Look I was around at the time and took part in a few scraps with both NF and BM thugs. And both were a danger and had to be dealt with, not by waving lollipops either, but 3,000 hardened street fighters you're having a laugh.
If this claim is made by Dave Renton then his book ought to be pulped. Dave Renton no street hardened street fighter he.
Geoff Collier
Active Member
neprimerimye said:Chum the BM did not have 3,000 street hardened fighters. Please tell me of just one instance where they mobilised even hundreds of these street hardened fighters? Just one instance, one....
Look I was around at the time and took part in a few scraps with both NF and BM thugs. And both were a danger and had to be dealt with, not by waving lollipops either, but 3,000 hardened street fighters you're having a laugh.
If this claim is made by Dave Renton then his book ought to be pulped. Dave Renton no street hardened street fighter he.
I remember opposing two marches organised by the British Movement. The first in October 1980 was in Dewsbury but no march happened because there were only 23 of them. However the second one, in Paddington (possibly Spring 1981) was several hundred strong. I'd doubt that there were 3,000 BM cadre but their recruitment methods amongst skinheads may have produced a membership in that ball park.
geoff
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neprimerimye said:Chum the BM did not have 3,000 street hardened fighters. Please tell me of just one instance where they mobilised even hundreds of these street hardened fighters? Just one instance, one....
Look I was around at the time and took part in a few scraps with both NF and BM thugs. And both were a danger and had to be dealt with, not by waving lollipops either, but 3,000 hardened street fighters you're having a laugh.
If this claim is made by Dave Renton then his book ought to be pulped. Dave Renton no street hardened street fighter he.
ANL mk1 had more important things to do than wave "lollipops".
Info is from Searchlight February 1994.
The NF had probably 20,000 members in the late 1970's and there were probably 3,000 hardened street fighters in the British Movement, some of whom no doubt held joint membership.
Antifa in Britain describes it as "Once a dangerous street based organisation...,"
Also:
In the 12 years from 1967 to 1979 64,000 people passed through the ranks of the NF as paid-up members. Added to this is the fact that for more than 20 years nazi, fascist and racist groups distributed an average of four million items of hate material each year, with probably more than 20 million items in peak election years like 1974.
Btw, I'm not your "chum" you sectarian chump.
neprimerimye
Well-Known Member
MC5 said:
You can produce all the quotes you want but there weren't 3,000 street hardened fighters in the BM even if they could claim that many members. Many held dual membership with the NF and were anything but street hardened.
In fact I recall one such strreet hardened young man who having joined both groups was horrified to fnd muself being deluged with anti-semitic tracts. So much so that he passed over his entire stash of fascist literature and a list of known members of both groups to the local ANL. And I know this cos unlike you or Dave I just happened to be therre at the time.
Although I have to be fair and say that Dave Rentons notion of a street hardened fighter is probably a bit different to that of anybody who grew up in the backstreets or on a council estate. Not many street hardened fighters in public schools are there?
Now I repeat the question provide me with one proof that the BM had 3,000 street hardened fighters? Or stuff yer lollipop where the sun don't shine chummy.
fanciful said:
I agreed with you up until you said that the SWP are "economistic".
WRONG!!!!!
They are not ecomistic enough - they are middle class wankers.
If they were working class then they would believe in economism.
I always thought that the point of a Marxist-Leninist organisation was that tha members were a part of the working class economically.
Poor naive me.
All these rich fucking idiots like Alex Callinicos, et al, who think they are socialists.
If a millionaire like Callinicos can be a socialist, then why not the Queen?
The far-left in Britain are a fucking joke - they have no concept of proletarian solidarity and internationalism.
The BNP have a greater concept of the Marxist analysis than the freaks of the far-left - oddly enough I've heard it said that Thatcher was the greatest Marxist of her generation!!!
She understood the dynamics of the class struggle to a much greater depth than any of the freaks of the far-left!!!
neprimerimye said:
So, if I may clarify - your opinion is that the MI5 would be so stupid not to run agents in the largest far-left organisation of the last twenty years!!!!!!
Very interesting!
fanciful said:
The SWP aren't "economistic" - that's why there are so many rich middle class wankers in their ranks!
And by the way, Stalin died 53 years ago, if you haven't formulated a socialist theory by now - please fucking give up.
levien said:
if I'm not mistaken didn't Sue Bond - senior PCS member sell out the rank and file against the wishes of the SWP leadership?
Fisher_Gate said:
With respect, as far as I'm aware the only thing the Socialist Alliance did electorally was to get an SWP'er elected in Preston ( but surprise, surprise with a load of Muslim votes).
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