Why is there a lack of non-Leninist/Trotskyist Socialist parties in Britain?

[bellyscratch]

The only one I know of is SPGB and its pretty small and, well, doesn't seem to have the best politics from what I know. Is there any others?

Yet there's SWP, SPEW, RCPB, RCG, ISG, WP, NCPB, AWL etc etc all label themselves as either Trotskyist, Leninist or Marxist-Leninist.

At the same time there are many people who have left some of these parties because of lack of democracy in them, so why hasn't more Libertarian Marxist group come about and gained a following?

Just want to know peoples views on this.

[scarletghoul]

Yeah I dont understand either, and its very annoying from a libertarian communist perspective
What is the point in havin about 40 differant leninist parties?

[MikeSC]

We used to have a prominent syndicalist movement- but the trade unions getting to close to the Labour party (which used to be Fabian gradualist... in other words, just enough socialism to save the rich from the poor...) kind of pushed out other worker's movements.

The Labour Party: A Marxist History by Tony Cliff is a good read.

[Jack]

Same case in the US, we have the SLP (DeLeonist), New Union Party (DeLeonist), and Peace and Freedom Party (Hippie-ists).

Most non leninist socialists are ultra-left.

[bellyscratch]

I don't think non-Leninist groups have any interest in forming political parties that participate in elections and hope to be elected in the bourgeois parliaments and governments.

The non-Leninists mostly oppose Leninism/Bolshevism on the basis that it is opportunistic in that its top brass often become priests of statecraft instead of working for workers' self management.

Or else, why do they oppose Leninism and why should they form political parties?

Political parties don't have to contest in bourgeois elections, so non-Leninists can still be apart of political parties just for organisational purposes and also be more decentralized.

[Dimentio]

Yeah I dont understand either, and its very annoying from a libertarian communist perspective
What is the point in havin about 40 differant leninist parties?

Marxist-leninists own on one thing, and that is to organise themselves. One thing which Lenin deserves admiration of is in terms of creating a form of party which is able to attract radicals. But there are problems with that form of organisation as well.

[Devrim]

The only one I know of is SPGB and its pretty small and, well, doesn't seem to have the best politics from what I know. Is there any others?

I would imagine that the SPGB is bigger than the majority of the organisations that you mentioned (SWP excepted).

A complete (though maybe out of date) list of left organisation in the UK can be found here. (http://www.broadleft.org/gb.htm)

Devrim

[ZeroNowhere]

Same case in the US, we have the SLP (DeLeonist), New Union Party (DeLeonist), and Peace and Freedom Party (Hippie-ists).

Most non leninist socialists are ultra-left.
We're ultra-left as fuck. \m/arx


The only one I know of is SPGB and its pretty small and, well, doesn't seem to have the best politics from what I know. Is there any others?
They have very awesome politics. Still, don't know of any competitors there, really. There used to be the SLP (UK), but they eventually ceased to exist due to being from birth a pretty small Party, and presumably boredom with the bullshit that the SPGB came out with against them in their failed attempt to start a feud.


I don't think non-Leninist groups have any interest in forming political parties that participate in elections and hope to be elected in the bourgeois parliaments and governments.
Because they have been reading too many bourgeois books and get too many bourgeois super-profits, and therefore live better bourgeois lives in their bourgeois houses, rather than wanting the best for bourgeois earth like the bourgeois proletariat of the third world, and therefore can't become true bourgeois communists. They also condone bourgeois industry.


Political parties don't have to contest in bourgeois elections, so non-Leninists can still be apart of political parties just for organisational purposes and also be more decentralized.
I don't think there are any that avoid bourgeois websites and bourgeois newspapers, though they are generally quite consistent in avoiding bourgeois imposing of bourgeois concepts over bourgeois reality, as well as bourgeois nonsense.


At the same time there are many people who have left some of these parties because of lack of democracy in them, so why hasn't more Libertarian Marxist group come about and gained a following?
Because the SPGB is a democratic Marxist group?

[InTheMatterOfBoots]

At the same time there are many people who have left some of these parties because of lack of democracy in them, so why hasn't more Libertarian Marxist group come about and gained a following?


It's largely historical. I'd say it started with the CPGB, the largest Marxist party the UK has had (which was Stalinist through most of its lifetime) and developed from there.

[The Idler]

There's a few new ones, Liberty&Solidarity (http://libertyandsolidarity.org/), The Commune (http://thecommune.wordpress.com/) and then there's SolFed (http://solfed.org.uk/).

[InTheMatterOfBoots]

There's a few new ones, Liberty&Solidarity (http://libertyandsolidarity.org/), The Commune (http://thecommune.wordpress.com/) and then there's SolFed (http://solfed.org.uk/).

Solfed aren't new lol! They are the English section of the IWA. I'd be very wary of The Commune. From what I have seen a lot of their libertarian credentials only run skin-deep.

[bellyscratch]

It just seems to be that 1) there are far too many parties/organisations on the left and 2) the left is dominated by Leninist parties.

Liberty & Solidarity look quite interesting and, from my point of view, seems like a step in the right direction.

Do people think that there is going to be a blurring of the gap between Marxists and Anarchists?

[ZeroNowhere]

Do people think that there is going to be a blurring of the gap between Marxists and Anarchists?
Again, SPGB. Though I would say that there wasn't one, but anyways.

[Pogue]

There is certainly no shortage of socialist parties, but most parties would be Leninist/Trotskyist because it fits into their tradition of having a party, obviously. We have the SPGB which are more lbiertarian left I believe, i.e. with roots in 'Impossibilism' or something similar, which is or is linked to De Leonism. We have alot of Trotskyist/Leninist groups because they have historically in the present day split alot, and I suppose Leninism and thus Trotskyism is the main form of non-anarchist communism (Maoism isn't big in the UK, and theres not much left communist influence either, and then you have anarchists, who have alot of groups too). Theres not really many non lenin/Trotsky groups there could be really. We've always had quite a 'strong' tradition of trotskyism over here, as a challenge to the Communist Party which followed the Kremlin for most of its existence until more recently it became Eurocommunist.

I think its mainly because following the loss of support for the 'Moscow-line' Leninist Communist Party of Great Britain most left opposition to Stalinism/everything that came afterwards gathered around trotskyist groups whereas on the continent reformist Eurocommunism became prevalent instead, which was basically social democracy but with an end goal of communism, such as with what the CPB are like today (although they're different because they departed from traditional Marx-Leninism much later than the European parties, and they actually continued as a party in the tradition of 'Lenin' to some extent, i.e. they still pay homage, see next bit), i.e. reformists with social democratic rhetoric who see a 'revolution' through the ballot box because "Britain does not need a revolution". This is outlined in Britain's Road to Socialism: http://www.communist-party.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=250&Itemid=13. Its basically the Eurocommunist line, its like radical social democracy believing in parliamentary gains elading to communism.

So essentially I'd put it down to the fact that most anti-Kremlin types gathered around Trotskyist groups and anarchism and also because generally theres never been much De-Leonism, Luxemburgism (except a few admirers in the SWP) in the UK.

[ZeroNowhere]

We have the SPGB which are more lbiertarian left I believe, i.e. with roots in 'Impossibilism' or something similar, which is or is linked to De Leonism.
They are fellow dividers by zero, though they aren't De Leonist (and have made up a load of shit to attempt to justify this, mainly due to the SLP(UK) being the only other major non-Leninist Party in the UK back in the day). Still, they are awesome.

[Pogue]

They are fellow dividers by zero, though they aren't De Leonist (and have made up a load of shit to attempt to justify this, mainly due to the SLP(UK) being the only other major non-Leninist Party in the UK back in the day). Still, they are awesome.

They're referred to over here as the 'SPGB - Small Party of Good Boys' by some people. :lol:

[robbo203]

They are fellow dividers by zero, though they aren't De Leonist (and have made up a load of shit to attempt to justify this, mainly due to the SLP(UK) being the only other major non-Leninist Party in the UK back in the day). Still, they are awesome.


I think you need to be aware that there was a split in the SPGB a few years back with two of the London branches, representing the more dogmatic tendency within the party, setting up a rival party (ridiculously called the reconstituted SPGB) publishing a journal called Socialist Studies. I vaguely recall a dispute between the two organisations over an artilce in the Socialist Standard which referred to the SLP as "our political cousins" and was generally highly sympathetic towards the SLP.

[The Idler]

Solfed aren't new lol! They are the English section of the IWA. I'd be very wary of The Commune. From what I have seen a lot of their libertarian credentials only run skin-deep.
Perhaps I didn't make this clear, but I know SolFed aren't new, but the other two are.

They are fellow dividers by zero, though they aren't De Leonist (and have made up a load of shit to attempt to justify this, mainly due to the SLP(UK) being the only other major non-Leninist Party in the UK back in the day). Still, they are awesome.
Sounds quite interesting, I'd like to learn more about why the SPGB don't consider themselves DeLeonist.

I think you need to be aware that there was a split in the SPGB a few years back with two of the London branches, representing the more dogmatic tendency within the party, setting up a rival party (ridiculously called the reconstituted SPGB) publishing a journal called Socialist Studies. I vaguely recall a dispute between the two organisations over an artilce in the Socialist Standard which referred to the SLP as "our political cousins" and was generally highly sympathetic towards the SLP.
I hope the SPEW don't split, or else we may be subjected to Reconstituted SPEW.:laugh:

[ZeroNowhere]

I think you need to be aware that there was a split in the SPGB a few years back with two of the London branches, representing the more dogmatic tendency within the party, setting up a rival party (ridiculously called the reconstituted SPGB) publishing a journal called Socialist Studies. I vaguely recall a dispute between the two organisations over an artilce in the Socialist Standard which referred to the SLP as "our political cousins" and was generally highly sympathetic towards the SLP.
To be honest, I do vaguely recall most of this crap being from 'Socialist Studies' rather than the Standard, it was the name that must have confused me. Also that some of the crap wasn't really that original, seeing from quotes like this, "The SLP position led logically to Anarchism, for if politics was a shadow and a reflex only, as they claimed, and if the real power lay in the industrialfield, why bother with shadows, and why not go in for the substance of economic action. And that is just what happened." (Socialist Standard, 1930), "De Leon's anarchistic utterance that the emancipation of the workers must be achieved by workers "Through an economic organisation of the working class without affiliation with any political party"" (quoting Clausen, Socialist Standard, 1931), their, um, charming obituary for De Leon, their seemingly blatant attempt (http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/archive/slp(1969).pdf) to attack the SLPUK, and the article on SIUs about how SIUs apparently stress economic organization as being more essential than political organization or some crap (or, hell, the entire article on SIUs. Ugh). Still, thanks for the history lesson, I was not aware of that split. Do you know when the article on the SLP was made? It sounds interesting.
Though, to be fair, they could do far, far worse. The ICC is proof of this (their criticism of the SPGB was crap too).


Sounds quite interesting, I'd like to learn more about why the SPGB don't consider themselves DeLeonist.
Well, firstly, labour credits (though I wouldn't count that as being a necessary element of De Leonism, see Frank Girard, for example), secondly, SIUs (I'd say that their article on it is a load of bullshit, but here (http://www.worldsocialism.org/articles/socialist_industrial_unions.php)).

[Magdalen]

They're referred to over here as the 'SPGB - Small Party of Good Boys' by some people. :lol:

The only SPGB member I've ever met was a man in his late 80s who used to live next door to my grandmother. From what I've heard about them he was probably in the youth wing.

[robbo203]

[QUOTE=ZeroNowhere;1425564]To be honest, I do vaguely recall most of this crap being from 'Socialist Studies' rather than the Standard, it was the name that must have confused me. Also that some of the crap wasn't really that original, seeing from quotes like this, "The SLP position led logically to Anarchism, for if politics was a shadow and a reflex only, as they claimed, and if the real power lay in the industrialfield, why bother with shadows, and why not go in for the substance of economic action. And that is just what happened." (Socialist Standard, 1930), "De Leon's anarchistic utterance that the emancipation of the workers must be achieved by workers "Through an economic organisation of the working class without affiliation with any political party"" (quoting Clausen, Socialist Standard, 1931), their, um, charming obituary for De Leon, their seemingly blatant attempt (http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/archive/slp(1969).pdf) to attack the SLPUK, and the article on SIUs about how SIUs apparently stress economic organization as being more essential than political organization or some crap (or, hell, the entire article on SIUs. Ugh). Still, thanks for the history lesson, I was not aware of that split. Do you know when the article on the SLP was made? It sounds interesting.
QUOTE]

Yes I think you are probably right. It is the Socialist Studies group rather than the actual SPGB who would probably be the source of such comments. While the SPGB does disagree with the SLP primarily on the question of labour vouchers I think it would be fair to see that it recognises the latter as part of the "thin red line". There is an excellent book on the SPGB which I would highly recommend you get hold which is interesting also for its discussion of political and economic theories. I think it has something on the relationship between the SPGB and the SLP

Perrin, David A. (2000). The Socialist Party of Great Britain: Politics, Economics and Britain's Oldest Socialist Party. Wrexham: Bridge Books. pp. 33–35, 38. ISBN 1-872424-80-5 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/1872424805).