What was your first political organisation?
- Thread starter Nigel Irritable
- Start date
Really? Did the CWI expel it's scottish leadership 'of the time'?Nigel Irritable said:
This is a genuine question by the way I really don't know much about it. I apologise if my sniping was misplaced too. However, it would appear that the situation as you describe it violates one of the axioms of trotskyism*.
* axiom 1: the position of the organisation is equal to the position expressed by the leadership of the time.
RubberBuccaneer
Hedd Wyn
Anti-Nazi League
Followed by the Young Communist League
Then The Legion of the Cramped
Followed by the Young Communist League
Then The Legion of the Cramped
RubberBuccaneer said:
then Demented Are Go.
RubberBuccaneer
Hedd Wyn
james_walsh said:
err. yep
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
gurrier said:
Yes to the first question. No to the second.
After a discussion that went on for years, the majority of the Scottish group left the CWI - basically they felt that there wasn't much point staying in an organisation they had such political divergences from and that it was better to make a clean break. They formed the ISM. A minority of the Scottish group stayed with the CWI.
The "Scottish leadership of the time" refers to the leadership of the pre-split group, mostly composed of people who went with the ISM.
dennisr
the acceptable face
gurrier said:I know and care nothing about the CWI's history with the ISM/SSP. I am able to read closely enough to know an incredibly bad defence of the leadership 'rewriting history' when I see one though.
Gurrier - i was not 'defending' anyone - the CWIs leadership or the old scottish CWI leadership (what became the leadership of the ISM). Your crude preconceptions are colouring your view of my practice (to put it very politely).
I've never followed any leadership comfortably - much to your astonishment i am sure
- Because of a thorough-going debate throughout the CWi membership at the time i was able to draw my own conclusions which ran contrary to my personal feelings about the then scottish leadership (to repeat in different words what i said before). Trying to draw my own conclusions was not helped though by the confusion/lack of clarity of the arguements coming from the old scottish CWI leadership. In retrospect, I don't think they were clear in thier own minds about the ultimate course of thier then arguements. I suppose it is a lot easier to delude oneself that one is being 'critical' when one dosen't have to genuinely attempt to understand the arguements being put forward before opposing or supporting them. (this bit is aimed at your recent comments - this being polite stuff is not easy for me you know...)
As has already been said the full debate from the time is freely available - so much for "rewriting history" then...
Apologies again for misunderstanding you. Being an anarchist I naturally oppose both sides of this argument and would compare it to an argument between a group who advocated chopping off their feet and a group who advocated chopping off their hands. Hence, I have no interest in investigating the detailed arguments put forward by both sides. Furthermore, I find that reading anything by the CWI has the guaranteed effect of making me want to eat my own head.dennisr said:
Anyway, apologies again for the derail. As you were.
I joined the Socialist Alliance, first after reading about it. It seemed logical to join this organisation, as it brought together all the revolutionary leftist strands. Lavalette had recently won a seat in Preston too. There was no local activity for the SA round my way, because it was in it's dieing days.
- i can't remember that bit quoted being part of the discussion - would have made it all a wee bit more interesting...butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Didn't we all. Ad in the back of the NME?
Idris2002
Stay Alive in '25
butchersapron said:
I remember the ad. But this was years later, from an ad in Red Pepper.
I remember once in Books Upstairs choosing Irish Socialist (CPI paper)instead of Socialist Worker.
Perhaps if I'd chosen the latter, my life would have been very different. . .
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Nah, it *was* an officials breakway group...
No, they were the short-lived party which emerged out of the Workers Party (stalinists, ex official sinn fein) in Ireland in the early 1990's. They had 6 members of parliament, 5 of whom wanted to 'modernise' (ie ditch all the socialist stuff). The party refused to comply so they effectively expelled the membership and set up their own party called democratic left. They never really managed to find a new membership and merged with the labour party within a few years. Their ex-leadership now controls the Irish labour party and are currently purging any remaining vestigal socialists in the LP.sihhi said:Democratic Left-- the successors to the CPGB after the fall of the Soviet Union?
Did they have any supporters in Northern Ireland?
I'm principally refering to the Declan Bree debacle in Sligo. I think the very public way that Rabbite has conducted this witch hunt is intended to be a clear message to any of the old labour / cp types that they won't be tolerated.Idris2002 said:
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?search_text=declan+bree
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
gurrier said:
The split effectively killed Irish Stalinism, but of course the international context - the fall of the Eastern Bloc - may have been doing that anyway. At their peak, the WP had thousands of members, seven TDs, a higher vote than Labour in Dublin, the highest vote of any party in Waterford. Yet it has left few organisational traces. You still meet ex-Sticks in community campaigns though, and there are a few in the Socialist Party and of course that's essentially the background of the ISN. Nowadays on demonstrations even the remnants of the Communist Party look a bit more vibrant than the remnants of the Workers Party!
It's pretty surprising in a way that the parliamentary leadership couldn't take the membership with them, given how tightly controlled from the top the Workers Party was. The similar "modernisation" moves in Italy and Britain were much more succesful from the leaderships point of vew, holding on to the main party and the more conservative elements having to set up minority splits. I also gather that the split was a bit more politically messy than you might expect - some of the less left wing elements stayed with the WP out of loyalty while some of the more radical people actually went with DL, thinking that more democratic space would be available than in the WP monolith.
I sometimes wonder how much ongoing contact there was between the "modernising" elements in the Italian CP, Irish Workers Party and CPGB given that they all ended up using the same Democratic Left name.
The Bree thing is interesting, if only because it seems so unneccessary and vindictive. There is no organised left of any kind existing in the Irish Labour Party. Bree is an anachronism - the kind of vaguely Stalinist inflected Labour left that once upon a time the Irish and British Labour Parties were full of, but which is near-extinct as a species these days. The handful of remaining "lefts" in the Labour Party just aren't a threat to Rabbitte, so you have to wonder why he's even bothering to pick on them.
Idris2002
Stay Alive in '25
Because he can. And to keep the mainstream media onside like I said. There me be no remnants of the old left left, but that's hardly going to stop the Sudnay Independent mounting a mccarthyite witch hunt if they feel like it (have they done one on your lot, Nige?)
Rabitte probably fancies his chances of getting some nice shiny new labour type into a seat in Sligo/Leitrim.
What he's forgetting is that any Labour vote that went to Declan Bree was much more a personal vote for Bree himself, from Sligo voters who wouldn't know socialism from a hole in the wall, but like the cut of Bree's jib.
Rabitte probably fancies his chances of getting some nice shiny new labour type into a seat in Sligo/Leitrim.
What he's forgetting is that any Labour vote that went to Declan Bree was much more a personal vote for Bree himself, from Sligo voters who wouldn't know socialism from a hole in the wall, but like the cut of Bree's jib.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Idris2002 said:
Not yet.
There was elements of it during the coverage of the bin tax battles at the end of 2003, but they were surprisingly well behaved during the GAMA dispute.
The right wing media generally gives Joe Higgins positive if patronising coverage. He provides good copy and the only real difference of opinion in the Dail and basically we just aren't perceived as a threat. If the moment ever comes where there are a couple more SP TDs that would change rapidly.
Idris2002 said:
Yep, Labour were nowhere in that part of the country until they absorbed Bree's outfit. That said no Labour candidate has a hope in hell of winning a seat next time out. Bree has had his vote in the working class urban areas eaten into by the Provos, but he is still too scary for the wealthier vote Labour would like to fight with Fine Gael and the like over.
Presumably the Labour thinking is that they get a New Labour clone in place this time and position themselves to build a new vote for the longer term. Being seen to shaft Bree could put the cat amongst the pigeons though if he stands as an independent.
cathal marcs
Well-Known Member
Nigel Irritable said:
Didnt the stick in the 70s spend more that FF and FG in electioneering with the cash from numerous bank roberies?
Has anone got any figures how muck WP spent on elections during those days out of interest?
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