Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

things the swp got right

Random said:
It's true that they jumped on it primarily because the SWP CC saw that it was going to be 'the' campaign issue for the years to come, and did eventually try to stop people going beyond marches and petitions. But SWP members put tonnes of work into building protests, especially in the earlier years, and without them it's unlikely the anti-war protests would have been nearly so big. You can see how much even high up SWPers threw themselves into it in that lots of the leading anti war SWPers have now actually left the SWP to focus on this kind of stuff - so when it came to 'building the party' it seems the SWP CC couldn't even get their own local leaders to see this as the main priority.
Click to expand...

Because it wasn't.
 
They seem to give the BNP a lot of press and publicity, although I guess that wasn't actually their plan so whether they got it "right" or not is probably open to debate.
 
Bakunin said:
I'd acknowledge that the rank and file of the SWP put in a lot of effort, but their being entirely beholeden to the CC for whatever the party line was at the time was a disaster for the anti-war movement as far as I can see.

Repeatedly marching from A to B, again and again and again, seemed to be pretty much all the strategy the SWP CC could come up with, that and the direct actions seemed to be the thing that would have done more damage to the State's ambitions. What Feb 15 proved for me, and I was there, is that a simple A to B march is not going to stop anything. If a march of that size is ignored then what's the point?



I don't see any of those round here.

Perhaps you'd care to clarify who you're referring to.
Click to expand...
a million people were won to demonstrating their opposition to the war by marching. What forms of direct action do you think a million people could have been won to?
 
MC5 said:
A more progressive idea that needs to be thought about now, rather than taking the 'culturally backwards' step off smashing the whole state structure by appointees?
Click to expand...

You think the time is right to talk about killing bossess and other assasinations?
 
ResistanceMP3 said:
a million people were won to demonstrating their opposition to the war by marching. What forms of direct action do you think a million people could have been won to?
Click to expand...

I didn't say that a million people could have been won to direct action. But you're evaded (as usual) answering a rather important question that needs to be answered which is, where are all those people now?

They can't have been won to the (declining) ranks of the SWP, can they?

Thay haven't been won to direct action either, although, having been heavily involved with direct action, it's often a very good idea on purely practical grounds, that it's often done by small groups of people.

So, where are this myriad of people that the activities of the SWP who, as most people acknowledge, like to claim leadership of the anti-war movement, have supposedly 'won' over?

Well?
 
Marginally less useless than most of the other left groups. Thats why they are the most hated group on the liberal left.
 
off the top of my head : when I was in SWP ( late 80s/ early 90's ) , they :

  • called for the overthrow of apartheid via a workers revolution and warned of the dangers of an ANC dominated 'bourgeois / nationalist' / compromised solution .
  • called for the release of the Bmham 6 / Guildford 4 on the grounds they were innocent.

    but also :
  • could not make up their minds whatsover re: Iran vs Iraq war
  • rejected the idea of a non payment based anti poll tax campign on the grounds it was passive individualism .
didnt like me shouting "grass " at Steve Mcnally everytime after Trafalgar square

kicked me out for being a feckless adventurist fool more interested in escstasy than the struggle ( fair do's tbh )
 
They successfully gave me some anti-tory stickers in ilford town centre when i was about 12.
 
cantsin said:
off the top of my head : when I was in SWP ( late 80s/ early 90's ) , they :

  • called for the overthrow of apartheid via a workers revolution and warned of the dangers of an ANC dominated 'bourgeois / nationalist' / compromised solution .
  • called for the release of the Bmham 6 / Guildford 4 on the grounds they were innocent.

    but also :
  • could not make up their minds whatsover re: Iran vs Iraq war
  • rejected the idea of a non payment based anti poll tax campign on the grounds it was passive individualism .
didnt like me shouting "grass " at Steve Mcnally everytime after Trafalgar square

kicked me out for being a feckless adventurist fool more interested in escstasy than the struggle ( fair do's tbh )
Click to expand...

acually Callinicos argued that aparthied could not be overthrown withoutr a workers revolution, that meant that when the the deklerk/ anc settlement occurred they were compoletely wrong footed (and the SA SWP franchise went through multiple splits as they attempted to apply a completely outdated and wrong perpective.
as far as can remember in the 1980s the swp were stalwarts for the Iranians especially after the US sent battleships into the gulf.
In those days Saddam was a fascist stooge of western imperialism
 
Yep, i meanrt Iran above :o - the key was when the US started selling arms to Iran appaarently, which make a global nonsense of Neither washington nor....makes me think, when did they eveer actually back that slogan in reality?
 
butchersapron said:
They called for victory for Iran.

Macnally was in the miltant, not SWP.
Click to expand...

I know, give the SWP credit , grassing wasnt one of their issues,it was juts considered 'divisive / ultra leftist' to shout at Mcnally all the time, especially as it was mainly beered up anarchos doing so at the time.
 
Bakunin said:
But you're evaded (as usual) answering a rather important question that needs to be answered which is, where are all those people now?

They can't have been won to the (declining) ranks of the SWP, can they?
So, where are this myriad of people that the activities of the SWP who, as most people acknowledge, like to claim leadership of the anti-war movement, have supposedly 'won' over?

Well?
Click to expand...
They have gone back to doing, what they do when they are not involved in mass activity. I don't know what you think I'm evading. Do you want an admission the swp has been unable to produce from those one million people any kind of social movement? This is patently true.

The only thing that was won, was that instead of doing nothing, people opposed the war. In my opinion the only real form of direct action that could have stopped the war, was a general strike. >>>>>>>>>>>
Bakunin said:
Thay haven't been won to direct action either, although, having been heavily involved with direct action, it's often a very good idea on purely practical grounds, that it's often done by small groups of people.
Click to expand...
in my opinion, small groups unaccountable to, and acting on behalf of the working class, is elitist and undemocratic.

Bakunin said:
I didn't say that a million people could have been won to direct action.
Click to expand...
so what are you saying the coalition should have done?
 
In what way is the SWP accountable to the w/c?

(actually, all these swp threads are giving me flashbacks, i think it's back to (mostly) ignoring them)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

editor
King's Army - homophobic right wing religious group march through Soho
2 3 4 5 6
Replies
162
Views
4K
Pickman's model
Pickman's model
ska invita
A new united right in Britain.
2 3 4
Replies
117
Views
4K
ska invita
ska invita
Cloo
  • Poll Poll
If Reform got into government, would they make it four whole years?
Replies
13
Views
652
Rebecca Riot
Rebecca Riot
brogdale
The far-right's "Raise the colours" campaign, part 2
7 8 9 10 11
Replies
314
Views
10K
keybored
keybored
S
How should the non-party political left respond to the rise of the far right?
3 4 5 6 7
Replies
188
Views
8K
smokedout
S
Back
Top Bottom