The History of the SWP?
- Thread starter tbaldwin
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dennisr
the acceptable face
MC5 said:
If true, it was a 'shambles' the SWP/ANL mark 2 leadership were happy to play a role in preparing. Maybe they should have questioned thier leaders about this? They changed the date two or three times (initially not wanting to recognise that YRE and Militant still had a major influence over the mobilisation of a significent section of the anti-bnp movement I suppose). Despite that the YRE and Militants bent the stick to accomodate (in the interests of genuine unity against a genuine enemy). Then at the organising meeting a couple of days beforehand they refused to countanance stewarding. the YRE and Militants decided to organise thier own for thier own section despite this and ended up defending the front of the entire demo for a long while and entirely on thier own. Without that action - hundreds of other folk would have been much more severely attacked than they were (All a bit like a re-run of Lewisham years before if my friends memory serves correctly. For a 'shambles' it managed to mobilise the thousands that got the publicity needed to eventually get the BNP hq shut down - many thousands more than the previous 20+ seperatly organised, and somewhat pointless, demonstrations of a few hundred - the reason the Militants done thier damndest to push for a United movement
As one of the Militant folk who had to defend and move to safety that old fella - the holocaust survivor (the one the ANL always role out for such events) after he was unceromoniously dumped to fend for himself in the middle of the first horse charge the irony of the SWP members jibe about a 'shambles' is not lost on me.
And that was just one event ... unfortunately i could not list, publicly, most of the other events here but, what i would say is any sectarian lack of trust of working with the SWP on anti-facsist activity - on my part, personally - has come from many years of attempting to work with them practically and the resulting experiences. That is also true, or at least the verbal, from many of the other groups and individuals I have worked jointly with.
audiotech
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dennisr said:
Well I don't accept your last part. It's disappointing that you feel like that.
The fella's name is Leon Greenman and was seen after the march with Julie Waterson who had been battered on the head by the police and was holding up her blood splattered t-shirt. I think you're being unfair to say that Leon was "unceromoniously dumped to fend for himself in the middle of the first horse charge".
I tend to go with Searchlights version of events who in the cold light of day suggested that the whole thing had been a staged set-up by those in power and the organisors had fallen for it.
neprimerimye
Well-Known Member
dennisr said:
Dennis to the best of my knowledge the Militant tendency did not join or support the ANL mk 1. I personally never saw any supporters of The Militant at ANL meetings or activities in south east Wales nor have I heard of similar in any area of the country. For that matter I have never seen any photographic evidence of such activity yet there is a plentiful record as to the involvement of the SWP and indeed other smaller groups.
That said supporters of The Militant were present at some of the largest anti-fascist mobilisations in the 1970's usually in their guise as the LPYS of course. This was certaily the case in Cardiff but always apart from the ANL even if that body was the body organising the mobilsation in question.
Your suggestion that supporters of the Militant took the brunt of the police attacks at Lewisham is at variance from all the other testimony I have read or heard over the years. Certainly your comrades were there on the day but played a role no more prominent than anybody else.
dennisr
the acceptable face
MC5 said:
Thats right, Leon Greenman. The thing was the rest of us had to go on getting battered while Waterson done a publicity speech which completely ignored the unity nature of the event.
added: maybe that too harsh, basiclly everyone in his wee group ran - he was left standing there - we had to get him out of the way - surely, the people that got him to go along should have ensured he had folk specifically set aside to look after him?
But yes, i think searchlights version has some truth. Wether the organisers 'fell for it' is another matter - on the Militants part, they were fully aware that this would be a show of strength by the state. The ANL marchers were clearly not prepared for this in any way - let alone done serious work in the schools, colleges and local workplaces. At least, the end result was a visible level of opposition and publicity that led eventually to closure.
As far as working with the SWP - yes, its a sad conclusion to have to draw and personal - not any given party line, far from it. It even leads to some SP members not accepting thier own leaderships attempts at building unified work on occasion and voting with thier feet by simply not being were needed. Unfortunately after getting stuck in enough tight scrapes due to misinformation or lack of promised support you stop asking or trying.
neprimerimye
Well-Known Member
dennisr said:
From what I gather Lewisham and the Unity Demo had nothing in common. However I was not present at the former and will therefore only comment on the latter.
First off I was in the SWP at the time of the Unit demo and down here we did most of the work to mobilise for it. There was however no attempt by either the SWP or Militant to work together so a bit of sectarianism, if you like, on both sides.
Once we were on the march itself my gut feeling was that we were about to get fucked up big time as there was no way to retreat that being blocked by the police and no way to get out by side roads or over the high fencing to the left of the road. Stewards by the way we saw in abundance but with different jackets on which was confusing.
Being some way back from the head of the march we only learnt what was happening at the front as reports filtered back. After a time and against the will of my fulltimer I made my way as near as possible to the front - going over the gardens which were clerer than the road - to find out what was really going on. Due to the crush of bodies i couldn't get too close so i then went back to my contingent.
While going back and forth I did notice that some of the stewards acted in a very poor fashion passing out conflicting advice which generally acted to demoralise people. Others acted very well. I'm pretty sure that the stewards acting like wallies were from both the Militant and SWP btw. On a side note I also noticed one contingent of about twenty, led by Martin Chapman later an SWP fulltimer in S Wales, moving away from the fighting as fast as possible.
After passing the site of the fighting we dispersed across the field at which point there were renewed attacks by the police on the tail of the march. There were a number of comrades, affiliation unknown to me, defending the stragglers so i joined in with that for some time. After crossing the field my impression was of demoralisation which was redoubled as, at least once that I saw, people were arrested simply waiting to find friends and transport home.
OK thats what I saw and did that day. For what its worth I agee with Dennis that the behaviour of the ANL/SWP leadership, in the first instance Julie Waterson, was disgusting. That she was continued as a fulltmer for years afterwards is disgusting. That day contributed to a number of my friends leaving the SWP and, in a way, to my own more acrimonious departure. Should we have complained or at least asked what the score was within the group? Well we did ask the fulltimer and he asked the hierarchs. Anything more was not possible given the undemocratic regime and partinost to use the Russian term.
neprimerimye
Well-Known Member
MC5 said:
Yes it was a set up. Anyone there could see it.
But the point is that revolutionaries should not fall for such traps. And the person who bears the responsibility for falling for the police horseshit that day is Julie Waterson.
Revolutionaries never trust the police but that dreadful person did. And afterwards was made a hero because her own stupidity got her a bang on the head. Didn't knock any sense into her.
dennisr
the acceptable face
neprimerimye said:
You may be right about the 1970s - certainly, the Militants continued to 'organise seperately but march together' and had plenty of critisisms of some aspects of the approach of the ANL. Maybe i should have said 'were a significant part of ANL mobilisations'. Much later, the Miltitants had serious internal discussions and some disagreement about the level of involvement with AFA as that grew in significance.
As for Lewisham - this actually came from a chat with an old friend, who was there at the time, in response to my own defence of that aspect of the ANL - its role in organising the likes of Lewisham. I was surprised to find out such different version of events. So yes, its an opinion, based on second-hand views - but views i trust from experience. I would have been knee-high to a grasshopper at the time.
I imagine it would have been a contingent under the banner of the LPYS and Labour party though. His view was that due to the way that section had organised itself - heavily stewarded and tightly disciplined - it was able to hold together as a block and therefore came in for special attention from the law. added: and was able to hold the road..
dennisr
the acceptable face
neprimerimye said:
A lot of that account rings true to me. The Militant/YRE stewards were the lot at the front with the daft hard hats on. We held that side road open - stopping a number of charges as they attempted to block every single exit off so those behind could filter out. All this while also getting pelted with bricks falling short from dickheads at the back (as usual...). A small unit had to go and have a few sharp words with some of those pillocks. Later, the bibs and hats were discarded as we retreated at the back of the demo up the road. By this time police snatch squads were moving in along all the side roads due to the 'angry young men' giving them the excuse (as if they needed much...) before the final pullout (hence the rapid dropping of bibs and hats which would hae marked the stewards out for attention...)
The field at the end was something else - like a set piece from the civil war as a the coppers formed lines!!! - trying ot get folk to pull back at the end (for thier own sakes...) was also difficult - they were, understandably, angry. No discapline those young-uns
dennisr
the acceptable face
MC5 said:
One other thing the reinforces that viewpoint. The way the entire media corps was prepositioned at thier vantage point overlooking the blocked off turning point in the road the demo had to go down if it was to go near the bnp hq.
This was a set-piece attack by the police planned well in advance. Defensive organisation and serious stewarding should have also been planned in advance.
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
JHE said:
I seemed to remember it was a local CP front that actually called the march - along with the local bishop, Mervyn Stockwood Bishop of Southwark, I think. The point was they wanted people to disperse at the end of the march but the left (of all descriptions) went to stop the fascists, but found their way obstructed by the police. I was there that day and not in any group. The ANL was formed later that autumn, though Rock Against Racism had existed since 1976.
neprimerimye
Well-Known Member
dennisr said:
Quite so the positioning of the media was much remarked on during the journey back home and long after. The main lessons I draw from that horrid day are that those responsible for an action, in this case the name of Julie Waterson comes first as cheif steward, should carry the buck for the success or failure of the action. In other words she should have been sacked there and then. Second that the SWP leadership can and do lie to protect their organisations percieved interests.
With regard to the Unity Demo in particular I'm under the impression, this may not be accurate of course, that none of the stewards physically viewed the agreed route prior to accepting it. It had of course to be agred with the police in advance as do all major demos according to our very undemocratic laws on protest. That represents an act of gross negligence on the part of all the stewards both SWP and Militant.
Given that the march was built as a MASS protest march, that is to say a peacefull demo, real stewarding in the sense of phycial defence should not have been needed. That it was is due to the failure of the stewards discussed above. But it is a real problem in some situations although it should not be fetishised. for example around the same time we, the SWP/ANL, leafletted a major estate with a known BNP presence. The local AFA, Workers Power led, insisted on the need for stewards whichwe ignored. Some ignored it as they were and are naive others of us because we knew the area and considered the theat of phyical attack non-existant. We were right btw.
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