SWP SPLIT (Ireland)

[Coggeh]

The Socialist Workers Party has split. There has been some speculation on Indymedia and elsewhere that the SWP was having internal difficulties in Belfast. The dust has now settled, and the bulk of their Belfast organisation is now outside of the party.

For the rest of the article : http://www.indymedia.ie/article/94807


Also it should be noted on that theirs ongoing rows with the future probably of a split in Britain over leadership conflicts.


Ready...steady...Start sectarian shit-slinging contest !:thumbup1:

[Sam_b]

but I should also point out that this split in the Irish SWP is not directly connected to the ongoing rows and expulsions in the British SWP.

Across the Irish Sea, the SWP is in the middle of a factional struggle between the existing leadership headed up by Alex Callinicos and Martin Smith and the former, now ousted, leadership headed up by John Rees and Lindsey German. The existing leadership have begun clamping down on the minority, expelling or suspending a few of their supporters in an apparent attempt to goad the whole minority faction into doing something rash.


The first sentence is absolutely correct, however the rest of this part is entirely false: the idea of a "factional struggle" has been hammed up to farcical hights by the likes of the Weekly Worker and so on. The only people that want a split in the SWP are as usual, those on the outside of the organisation so they can gloat about their so-called 'correct line'.

[ls]

Hopefully something good will come out of this.

[Sam_b]

Point well and truly made.

[Kassad]

Disappointing to hear. Though I find the Socialist Workers Party's line to be misinformed and frankly, horrendous on some levels, they seem to be one of the most active and largest actual socialist groups in the United Kingdom, so it's a shame to see a split over petty squabbles. Keep up the struggle.

[Coggeh]

Edited. Made a vague statement .See kassads quote .

[ls]

One question:

Any splits in any left organisations are bad? Do you all believe that, honestly? They can NEVER be positive?

[Kassad]

There is nothing good about a leftist organisation splitting.

I mean, I guess. It's nothing positive that we should all hope for, but they're definitely necessary at times. That's how my party was founded, from a necessary split in a leftist organization.

[Coggeh]

One question:

Any splits in any left organisations are bad? Do you all believe that, honestly? They can NEVER be positive?
Depends if Respect split in england and people finally came to their senses and booted george galloway into a thrash can ... then ya , that'd be good .

It depends on the type of split , if a large group of people split from a leftist organisation for ideological reasons (Sinn fein members joining more left wing groups in Ireland) then of course thats good , or if the left in labour split to real left wing organisations then ya . But when revolutionary organsations split over petit squables (because of poor communication or internal democracy etc) like in this case it shows the left to be disorganised , fragile and weak . There is no victory to be had here for other leftist groups as it won't be seen as the SWP being weak to ordinary people but rather the entire spectrum of the far left , the Socialist party IMO may gain a few members but in the context of building a mass workers party this might well be a minor blow.

[RHIZOMES]

There is nothing good about a leftist organisation splitting.

The IST affiliate in NZ, the Socialist Worker, had a completely justified split last year, between a reformist faction (http://www.ram.org.nz/) and a revolutionary faction (http://socialistaotearoa.blogspot.com/).

[ls]

:p Don't you think your split from the ILP founding your organisation was positive?

I mean, you could probably classify the old ILP as 'socialist', even more-so than you could say old labour over water were 'socialist', so yes I think it is a weird position you are holding here to be sure. A left split that means the creation of a progressive organisation is something to be celebrated imo - whether from harder reformists or more 'revolutionary' an organisation. The clarification of two organisations' positions and action as opposed to the disjointed inaction of one bulk organisation is better.

[Coggeh]

The IST affiliate in NZ, the Socialist Worker, had a completely justified split last year, between a reformist faction (http://www.ram.org.nz/) and a revolutionary faction (http://socialistaotearoa.blogspot.com/).
Ya , i edited that post , see above post for some explanation on what i meant i guess.

[Andropov]

Odd.
I heard of divisions within the SWP but I thought it was between the People Before Profit Alliance and the SWP?
Does anybody know why Belfast has split from the rest of the SWP?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Thanks for that Coggeh, but splitting is the only thing us Marxists (and especially us Trots) are good at.

And I know what I (partially) blame for this...:rolleyes:

[Forward Union]

I was hoping it was a split over something interesting.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

By the way, has anyone got a link to the split in New Zealand, and why it happened?

[redasheville]

I mean, I guess. It's nothing positive that we should all hope for, but they're definitely necessary at times. That's how my party was founded, from a necessary split in a leftist organization.

If it was so necessary, then why is it such a big secret?

[Sam_b]

Its not a big secret at all. The PSL split from WWP (rightly, in my opinion) because the latter took much more of a sectarian view in working with broad working-class organisations and groups.

[Kassad]

If it was so necessary, then why is it such a big secret?

Stop while you're still ahead. We still greatly respect the leaders and members of Workers World Party and respect their upholding of the traditions of Sam Marcy, but due to issues of democratic centralism and disagreements, we split. There is literally nothing positive that would come from a massive back-and-forth between our two parties that would definitely arise from the reasons of the split being made public.

[redasheville]

Stop while you're still ahead. We still greatly respect the leaders and members of Workers World Party and respect their upholding of the traditions of Sam Marcy, but due to issues of democratic centralism and disagreements, we split. There is literally nothing positive that would come from a massive back-and-forth between our two parties that would definitely arise from the reasons of the split being made public.

But can't the positions be made clear, and then just move on? Reasons for splits are made public all the time (internal debates were made public by the Bolshevik party), and this doesn't mean that there has to be a big "back and forth". Shouldn't your supporters know the differences between the two parties (that I assume still exist)?

[Kassad]

But can't the positions be made clear, and then just move on? Reasons for splits are made public all the time (internal debates were made public by the Bolshevik party), and this doesn't mean that there has to be a big "back and forth". Shouldn't your supporters know the differences between the two parties (that I assume still exist)?

Not really, since the differences in tactics, methods and activity are very apparent. When I went to join a party, it came down between Workers World Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation and I have my reasons for the one I chose. The differences are not hidden, but the tensions due to the split are pretty high at times and we've decided to keep a mutual respect between us. If party members disputed this internally and decide to go a different route, I'd understand, but in truth, it really isn't anyone's business but ours.

[redasheville]

Not really, since the differences in tactics, methods and activity are very apparent. When I went to join a party, it came down between Workers World Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation and I have my reasons for the one I chose. The differences are not hidden, but the tensions due to the split are pretty high at times and we've decided to keep a mutual respect between us. If party members disputed this internally and decide to go a different route, I'd understand, but in truth, it really isn't anyone's business but ours.

They're not apparent to me (other than the McKinney support, though I always assumed that was the result of WWP's relative weakness compared to PSL), though that is probably because there is like...maybe one or two members of WWP in San Francisco, so I have really only seen PSL in action.

I'd disagree that the BASIC POLITICAL issues (as opposed to sensitive internal discussion documents, which of course are not intended for public consumption) underlying a split are "no one's business" when it comes to organizations that are contending for leadership in mass movements. I think as much transparency as possible is important for building democratic movements. I know that it is your party's position to not discuss the split publicly, and I of course respect you for standing with your organization's decision, so I will not belabor the point.

[Yehuda Stern]

If party members disputed this internally and decide to go a different route, I'd understand, but in truth, it really isn't anyone's business but ours.

This can only make sense if you consider your party's politics to be its business and nobody else's. If you want to win over working class people, you need to be honest with them about the reasons you split. To be completely honest, as a neutral observer, I find absolutely no difference between the WWP and the PSL, whether in theory or practice.

[PRC-UTE]

The way to find out the difference between two parties is to meet both and work with them. There's no point to constantly going over disputes. No party would win over the working masses by releasing statements about why they split. It would just feed the pathetic eejits who are always after gossiping.

I admire their discipline and the manner in which they've respectfully dealt with the other party.

[BOZG]

By the way, has anyone got a link to the split in New Zealand, and why it happened?

There was some debate and friction between the NZ section and the IST leadership about two years ago after the NZ Central Committee released the following two statements:

May Day statement by Central Committee (http://unityaotearoa.blogspot.com/2007/05/may-day-statement-by-central-committee.html)

Second Statement on Venezuela (http://unityaotearoa.blogspot.com/2007/07/second-statement-on-venezuelan.html)

I think this might have been part of the origins of the split though maybe Arizona Bay could fill us in some more. Having looked at the two blogs he posted above, some of the Central Committee members seemed to have stayed with the IST (and are involved in this RAM group) while at least one of the signatories appears to be involved with Socialist Aotearoa, if the Joe mentioned on Socialist Aotearoa is Joe Carolan (which I think it is).

[Honggweilo]

I mean, I guess. It's nothing positive that we should all hope for, but they're definitely necessary at times. That's how my party was founded, from a necessary split in a leftist organization.
dialectics! nom nom nom!

[RHIZOMES]

I think this might have been part of the origins of the split though maybe Arizona Bay could fill us in some more.

And that I will. This is what I sent to BOZG about the New Zealand Socialist Worker/Socialist Aotearoa split, from my understanding as someone on the Auckland left (however it will be biased somewhat and won't be able to tell all of the details, since I am a part of a different group I'm reporting purely from what I heard and my own POV, it's a bit unavoidable):

The reason for the split is that Socialist Worker created this reformist RESPECT-esque "broad coalition" for local body elections called RAM (Wiki page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residents_Action_Movement), website (http://www.ram.org.nz/)) in 2003, which everyone including was all dandy for, but then they decided to run as a poliitical party in 2008 and were going on about "neither left nor right" and watered down their far leftist politics to the extreme, appealing to lots of crappy NZ nationalism and never mentioning class at all. (I know someone from the SW who became so disillusioned from how liberal and wishy-washy they became she became an anarchist. :lol::lol:) They basically turned into a left social democrat party, and while the entire idea from the founding was reformist, it went to a ridiculous extreme when they were building up for the elections and many of their members had quite funny ideas (Like the 20 year old co-leader Oliver Woods (http://aucklandcentral.blogspot.com/) who can talk about the NZ ruling class and then praise Robert Muldoon/Keith Holyoake in the same sentence, and is now working in some bourgeois entreprenuerial job in Singapore). So around early 2008 a disgruntled faction sort of formed around Joe Carolan, and they split off to form Socialist Aotearoa. Their politics are a bit weak (from my subjective sectarian viewpoint), and they're moving away from an explicitly Cliffite position, many of their members identify as anarchists and environmentalists, and they have a tendency to downplay the complicity of centre-left parties in NZ capitalism and imperialism by raraing on about resisting fictitious National-ACT "juntas" (and leaving out the Maori Party's complicity in the rightist government).

So yeah that's the most I know about it, while I did hear a lot of the gossip since I'm on the Auckland left (where SW is mostly based) I'm not like a super insider. Here are some some other useful links that may help you in understanding: The WP sent out an open letter to them when they formed, which you can read here (http://workersparty.org.nz/resources/open-letter-to-socialist-aotearoa-may-2008/) (which they ignored). Here's the posts NZ's (much
more erudite) version of Redwatch has on SW and RAM: http://newzeal.blogspot.com/search?q=Residents+action+movement

And here's how SA described RAM:

http://socialistaotearoa.blogspot.com/2008/09/nz-elections-dont-just-vote-get-active.html


In contrast, the revolutionaries of Socialist Worker have made a coalition with some people from various other backgrounds to form the Residents Action Movement (http://ram.org.nz/), around a set of ten commandments that include free public transport and abolishing GST off food. However, this "broad left" does not include many outside the orbit of SW, in particular militants in the union movement, and there are also concerns about how "broad" broad is, with leading figures claiming the party is neither Left nor Right, or that it admires the economic nationalist politics of other NZ politicians, etc.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Thanks to you both.