SWP: The fight gets ugly

[Q]

The SWP drama continues (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/794/thefight.php)... A good article on the point of having democracy:


What does the SWP majority think democracy looks like?, asks James Turley

Last year, the dispute between the majority faction of the Socialist Workers Party central committee and John Rees and his allies erupted, and in the aftermath all manner of smaller complaints began to arise; questions about the political basis of Respect, the party regime and much more.

At the time, the CC feigned approval for the “upsurge in democracy” of the 2008 pre-conference period, all the while attempting to head it off from seriously threatening the basis of the leadership’s entrenchment. The CC even proposed the election of a cosy little ‘democracy commission’, which would pretend to consider improvements in SWP democracy, and produce recommendations for the CC to pretend to take seriously.

This year, Rees and co have upped their game somewhat - their intervention is more political (comparatively speaking), and more organised. They even have a formally constituted faction, which the SWP constitution generously allows for the duration of the three-month pre-conference discussion period. Yet this time it is clear the CC majority has lost its enthusiasm for democratic practice, and has been busily exerting its bureaucratic powers to further marginalise the Reesites. The fight has begun to get ugly.

Of course, this attitude is partly understandable - it seems that Rees is readying for life outside the SWP in the medium term; the ostensible political differences, though real, remain those of tactical nuance, which have become retrospectively elaborated, and the bitterness of the dispute is wholly disproportionate to them. Yet the CC have responded with suspensions and expulsions alongside evasive polemics. The method is tried and tested: turn to organisational means so as to avoid the outbreak of generalised political debate.

In the first stages of the dispute, the CC suspended the membership of two comrades from the School of Oriental and African Studies, James Meadway and Claire Solomon. These comrades had the temerity to organise a series of meetings on their own initiative, under the title ‘Mutiny’. This appears to be a characteristically SWPish venture, attempting to get various ‘new layers’ of an ‘anti-capitalist’ bent in a room with a few tent-pole speakers ... and a number of SWP comrades, of course.

Unfortunately for comrades Solomon and Meadway, they happened to carry out this admirable burst of initiative after throwing their lot in with Rees. Thus the ‘Mutiny’ meeting was ‘discovered’ by the party police to be an attempt to build a “parallel organisation”. And now a third Rees supporter has fallen foul of the machine - Alex Snowden, an activist in Tyneside, has been expelled for “factionalising” - a frankly bizarre charge, given that he belongs to an officially-permitted faction.

In a piece on his expulsion, which appears on the Socialist Unity blog, Snowden alleges that he had been the target of sustained harassment by some members locally. His complaint to the SWP disputes committee resulted somewhat perversely in his own suspension. The ‘evidence’ against him consisted of “two private emails between members”1.

The details of these sordid manoeuvres are paraded by the Reesites in the latest Pre-conference Bulletin (known as Internal Bulletin No2), which contains an entire section on current disputes committee cases. “We do not normally publish contributions about ongoing cases the disputes committee is dealing with,” begins the section intro. Nevertheless, “a faction has been declared and therefore we have decided to publish the complaints. The CC refutes the allegations and will respond to the complaints in IB No3 after the cases have been dealt with.”

There are three such complaints published: three comrades (identified only by their first names) weigh in to defend Snowden, and two others to defend the Mutiny project and the ‘SOAS Two’. The third complaint has not resulted in formal disciplinary action - Ady Cousins, who ran a pro-SWP website, Counterfire, was called before leaders Alex Callinicos and Martin Smith on the basis that Counterfire was raising ‘concerns’ over party discipline. He was ordered to shut it down immediately, along with all linked Twitter and YouTube accounts, and barred from starting any more websites without the express permission of the CC.

Cousins complied with all these requests, but the more disturbing thing for SWP oppositionists is that he too found himself confronted in the way of evidence with private emails he had sent. Also reprinted in IB No2 is a letter, signed by all the recipients of the offending email, denying any role in the leak. Comrade Cousins is concerned that his private communications have been “accessed illegally by a third party”.

This is a fairly sensational allegation and, while not wildly implausible, does not outweigh in the balance of probabilities a more prosaic leak from one of his 17 comrades, whatever their protestations. In any case, dirty tricks are in operation: either the CC has spies in the Left Platform camp (very likely), or they have engaged in some kind of black-ops operation hacking email accounts.

Or, their supporters might protest, the whole thing is an elaborate provocation by Rees supporters - yet the most obvious candidate for the charge of provocation is the CC itself. It certainly has an interest in Rees concluding his split before conference, which may this time see a highly charged debate (even if, as we have seen, a dispute over what appears to be relatively small differences), a debate that may shake its authority and would quite possibly bring to the surface many other, more important, political issues. The pattern of expulsions and suspensions - of secondary Rees allies (not nobodies in the party but not truly prominent figures either) - also points towards a cynical attempt to push Rees into jumping early. “Is this what democracy looks like?” the authors of one of the complaints rhetorically ask. Indeed.

Democracy

What do the majority think democracy looks like? A rather muddled picture is painted by John Molyneux in the current issue of International Socialism, the SWP’s theoretical quarterly.2 Molyneux is well known as a ‘loyal oppositionist’ - he has argued previously that the internal regime has a deleterious effect on the organisation as a whole. The comrade was also heavily involved in the democracy commission, and it seems he has been neutralised by the CC (who used complaints about the frustration of democracy as a weapon against Rees last year).

His article is long and, it is fair to say, meandering. The theoretical core of his argument, such as it is, is directed at the writings of Robert Michels, a sociologist and disciple of Max Weber. Michels was a supporter of the social democracy before World War I (and a fascist after it), and wrote an extensive analysis of the tendencies for leaderships to entrench themselves bureaucratically within political parties.

Michel’s argument was essentially that, the larger an organisation got, the more basic administration was needed to keep it going, and so the less it was possible for a direct democracy to obtain. Representative regimes were thus inevitable, and just as inevitably gave rise to a distinction between the representative and the represented. The former would tend to be the best and brightest, and the latter the ‘incompetent’. Between these two features, a permanent separation was unavoidable, and a democratic regime impossible.

Molyneux actually gives considerable ground to this reactionary position. Axiomatic for him is the position (whose ultimate source, paradoxically like much else in SWP orthodoxy, is Ernest Mandel) that isolation from the class struggle breeds sectarianism. Isolation, therefore, is the primary danger. The ‘Leninist’ vanguard party maintains the most democratic possible internal regime, but on the basis that membership is restricted to the most advanced and ‘serious’ activists, prepared to submit to discipline. This is “necessarily a minority of the class” - how to square the circle with avoiding isolation?

He uses an example from SWP history: “to have restricted the membership of the SWP [in the 1970s] to the criteria of commitment required by the Bolsheviks would, in our non-Bolshevik conditions, have reduced the party to the low hundreds at best and would anyway have been false ‘toy Bolshevism’, since such fanatical ‘revolutionaries’ would have lost the other key pillar of Leninism: the ability to ‘maintain the closest contact, and - if you wish - merge, in certain measure, with the broadest masses of the working people’ [the quotation is Lenin’s - JT]. Consequently circumstances obliged us to operate with a substantial proportion of members who were not sufficiently engaged to exercise democratic control over the party.”

We should not imagine the problem is completely unreal - the far left is in a disorganised and atomised state, and attracts as well as the hardest class fighters a fair cross-section of inexperienced activists, dilettantes and eccentrics. Many of these people are not suited to active political partisanship when they first come into contact with serious political organisations, and it is necessary to cultivate them outside the organisation before admitting them to membership.

In Molyneux’s example the SWP internalised this periphery. And its existence within the organisation actually functioned as a weapon for the apparatchiks against democratic norms. It alone wielded the right to decide who was or was not a legitimate source of political criticism. ‘Difficult’ oppositions could be decried as petty bourgeois dilettantes.

A more serious difficulty presents itself in the implied approach to cadre development. How exactly are we to harden these elements up to the point that they are allowed to vote at conferences? Molyneux says very little - but the communist approach must surely be to incorporate them into debates within the movement, to steel them in holding and defending political positions, and in self-critical reflection where necessary. To train people to intervene effectively in party life means throwing them into that culture.

This, needless to say, necessitates a vastly different culture to the one the SWP operates. Internal party debates - where genuine questions of security are not paramount - should take place openly, before the members, before the periphery and before the working class. They must become the property of the whole movement, so the party can become a serious pole of attraction within that movement.

Debate also has to be permanent. That, of course, means an end to the ridiculous limitation of serious party-wide discussion to the pre-conference period. It also means an end to the ban on permanent factions, which simply guillotines debates after a routine show of hands. Settling questions is a living political matter, not a formality, and may take one conference or 10.

Molyneux has a lot of nothing to say about permanent factions. They were disastrous for the International Marxist Group in the 1970s, apparently, but its co-thinkers in the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire maintained unity among a whole host of permanent factions (including, it should be noted, the French co-thinkers of the SWP). The comrade throws up his hands in defeat: the real question, he says, lies elsewhere.

The truth is that the IMG’s decline had nothing to do with ‘permanent factions’, and everything to do with the unprincipled politics of that organisation, coupled with the manipulative means employed by the ‘centre’ faction (one of the only truly permanent factions in the group) to best its rivals. The IMG was parasitic on various official left patrons; it was these that pulled the factions apart most decisively in the end.

It is these politics - or variants thereof - that inform both principal factions of the current SWP dispute. They are, in the long run, incompatible with principled and democratic unity. The suppression of permanent factions, in the end, achieves nothing - it just makes unprincipled politics harder to shift, and ensures that disputes tend towards damaging splits. The SWP remains very much on course for one of those.

Notes
www.socialistunity.com/?p=4885
International Socialism October: www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=586&issue=124

[Pogue]

Oh my god that was so boring! Who honestly cares about this shite! For fucks sake, theres a world to win, and people are bothering with this crap! Honestly...

[redasheville]

Oh my god that was so boring! Who honestly cares about this shite! For fucks sake, theres a world to win, and people are bothering with this crap! Honestly...

Yea I don't really understand why the British left (and to an extent the international left) is so obsessed with analyzing everything the SWP does under a microscope. There's a faction fight that will probably lead to some sort of split. Last I check, this is pretty common on the left.

[Q]

Yea I don't really understand why the British left (and to an extent the international left) is so obsessed with analyzing everything the SWP does under a microscope. There's a faction fight that will probably lead to some sort of split. Last I check, this is pretty common on the left.

Which is a problem.

[Yehuda Stern]

The faction fight is boring, but what it shows is interesting: it shows that the project of quickly building a "revolutionary party" through a mix of eclecticism, opportunism and a low theoretical level of the membership has failed once more. This is important for any leftist who is concerned about the ability of groups like the SWP to dupe the working class and win over its militants. To those who are only interested in swishing in their own dirty water, however, this clearly holds no interest.

[Sam_b]

I'm in the SWP and I couldn't care less about this trash either. Every year leading up to conference we hear of an 'SWP split', and every year the Weekly Worker and its fellow goons who have no real contact with the class are proven dead wrong - and if anything show up their lustful fetishism and desire for an SWP split.

The organisations on the left should be looking at their own camps before spreading lies and bile about others. Which organisation has no links whatsoever with the class? Which international tendency still has and still defends having a head screw in their ranks? All I know if that they are factions that Q continues to support.

[nuisance]

Which organisation has no links whatsoever with the class?
All of them.
:cool:

[Yehuda Stern]

I'm in the SWP and I couldn't care less about this trash either. Which just underlines the problem all the more. Most people don't come into the SWP to fight for their politics but to adjust partially to those of the leadership. The latter, of course, enjoys that situation because it produces a more docile membership.


Which organisation has no links whatsoever with the class?The real answer is what Edelweiss Pirate said - all of them, probably. But the links that do exist are characterized by economism and opportunism, including those of the SWP, and are at any rate contingent upon those organizations' momentary popularity rather than an ability to really lead the working class vanguard in a revolutionary manner.

[Sam_b]

Which just underlines the problem all the more. Most people don't come into the SWP to fight for their politics but to adjust partially to those of the leadership. The latter, of course, enjoys that situation because it produces a more docile membership.


I forgot you knew everything about the internal workings of the SWP.

[Q]

I forgot you knew everything about the internal workings of the SWP.

You're only underlining the point more instead of refuting it.

[KurtFF8]

The faction fight is boring, but what it shows is interesting: it shows that the project of quickly building a "revolutionary party" through a mix of eclecticism, opportunism and a low theoretical level of the membership has failed once more. This is important for any leftist who is concerned about the ability of groups like the SWP to dupe the working class and win over its militants. To those who are only interested in swishing in their own dirty water, however, this clearly holds no interest.

This is probably the first time I've agreed with you this much. Splits of this sort, while sometimes very specific due to historical and particular conditions of the groups, do also show the weakness of the organizations themselves.

We can't, of course, also just blame it all on the leftist organizations as we have to remember that the success or failure of the left isn't only in the hands of leftist activists and parties. But we do need to understand the failures that the organizations themselves make, and splits like this are a perfect "case study" in a way (not to reduce real problems of the left to abstract notions, but it's still important to understand)

[PRC-UTE]

it's time to start a petition calling on the weekly wanker gossip rag to disband.

I'm not a huge SWP fan, but the reasons they of all people criticise them are absurd. any active party with more than a handful of academics as members will have disagreements and "splits".

[Sam_b]

You're only underlining the point more instead of refuting it.

This is a losing battle from the start, becuase from the uotset your critique of the SWP fails on every level - you will not be satisfied with an answer. How do you propose we go about it? "There is a massive split looming in the SWP" "no there isn't" "yes there is, I read it on a blog". You will always be guessing and posting absurd claim after absurd claim to try and get information from inside an organisation you will (probably) never be a part of.

I guess i'm more amused at the fact you are paying more consideration to whats happeneing within the SWP than your own tendency or the class itself, and again i'm constantly amused at what posesses the CPGB to make such howlers like rescind any influence it may have on the postal strike by leading with an article on a supposed SWP split that neither postal workers nor SWP members actually care about. We don't care about it because we now what is going on within the party.

If anything i'd wager theres going to be more problems in the SPEW with the divided membership on having a screw as a member of the organsiation, but i'd rather concentrate on what is happening within the workin class movement rather than spending time speculating about other organisations on the left.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

it's time to start a petition calling on the weekly wanker gossip rag to disband.

I'm not a huge SWP fan, but the reasons they of all people criticise them are absurd. any active party with more than a handful of academics as members will have disagreements and "splits".
Ever thought it might be possible to have an active party where disagreements lead to actual debate and both sides clarifying their positions, not just splits where both sides take their toys and go home?

[PRC-UTE]

Ever thought it might be possible to have an active party where disagreements lead to actual debate and both sides clarifying their positions, not just splits where both sides take their toys and go home?

no, I never did. :lol:

[blake 3:17]

Thanks. I'll need to read it again but the Molyneux piece is quite good.

[Devrim]

Oh my god that was so boring! Who honestly cares about this shite! For fucks sake, theres a world to win, and people are bothering with this crap! Honestly...

I don't agree with the approach or politics of the 'Weekly Worker'. I do understand them though. Basically they are arguing for a regroupment of the left. They see the SWP as the biggest and most important left-wing organisation, so they polemicise against it. Lenin took a similar approach at times. For them that's why theese arguments are important. It isn't just a 'gossip rag'.

I find this approach much more worrying:


it's time to start a petition calling on the weekly wanker gossip rag to disband.

The attitude which calls for disenting voices to be silenced is much more problematic than criticism itself.


Every year leading up to conference we hear of an 'SWP split', and every year the Weekly Worker and its fellow goons who have no real contact with the class are proven dead wrong - and if anything show up their lustful fetishism and desire for an SWP split.


They do predict splits quite frequently. I think a lot of it is wish fullfilment. It remins me of a coment somebody made about us, "The ICC has predicted five of the last three crises".

One point that I picked up on in the article was this:


He [Molyneux] uses an example from SWP history: “to have restricted the membership of the SWP [in the 1970s] to the criteria of commitment required by the Bolsheviks would, in our non-Bolshevik conditions, have reduced the party to the low hundreds at best and would anyway have been false ‘toy Bolshevism’, since such fanatical ‘revolutionaries’ would have lost the other key pillar of Leninism: the ability to ‘maintain the closest contact, and - if you wish - merge, in certain measure, with the broadest masses of the working people’ [the quotation is Lenin’s - JT]. Consequently circumstances obliged us to operate with a substantial proportion of members who were not sufficiently engaged to exercise democratic control over the party.”

It is basically an admission that they recruit anyone and don't have democratic functioning.


Ever thought it might be possible to have an active party where disagreements lead to actual debate and both sides clarifying their positions, not just splits where both sides take their toys and go home?

I think it is. Sometimes splits do occur though. Sometimes they are neccesary and sometimes unfortunate.

Devrim

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Comrades will perhaps note that the article from the WW cites not one piece of evidence in support of its wild allegations -- a failing that will, as usual, only be of concern to non-sectarians.

But, we already know that the many sectarians who grace the threads of RevLeft are only too happy to swallow almost any rumour they hear or read about the SWP, which, if they had been directed at their own microscopic sectlet, they'd reject out of hand as "trolling" if they were reproduced here.

No, but any old rubbish can be paraded at RevLeft as 'objective fact' so long as it maligns the SWP.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Comrades will perhaps note that the article from the WW cites not one piece of evidence in support of its wild allegations -- a failing that will, as usual, only be of concern to non-sectarians.

Shouldn't this read "only be of concern to sectarians"?

I didn't know you had a legitimate concern for the CPGB. BTW, I didn't want to post this article because it would offend comrades like you, so instead I posted the rather informative article on Respect:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/respects-annual-conference-t123011/index.html

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

JR:


Shouldn't this read "only be of concern to sectarians"?

No, the wording is correct. Sectarians do not bother with evidence, as my post suggests. They prefer rumour.

[Revy]

It is true that the CPGB is often too heavy-handed in its criticisms. Perhaps too focused on parties like the SWP? Well, if the SWP is really the largest socialist party in Britain it makes one think that the goings on are important. Can you not handle criticism from outside as well as inside? How more sectarian can it be to expel members for stupid reasons?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Human Condition:


Can you not handle criticism from outside as well as inside?

Yes, but not sectarian point-scoring based on rumour.


How more sectarian can it be to expel members for stupid reasons?

But, you are again relying on rumour and innuendo.

[Revy]

I know you will immediately dismiss this because from it's a blog (where else would expelled SWP members air their views, The Guardian?), but anyway:

Monday, 23 November 2009
A Party to Win? Clare Solomon's expulsion from SWP (http://solomonsmindfield.blogspot.com/2009/11/party-to-win-clare-solomon-expulsion_23.html)

Read it. Her name is in the original Weekly Worker article as one of the expelled. She devoted much of her time and commitment to the SWP only to be suddenly and ruthlessly expelled for no good reason. What a shame.



Being expelled is upsetting to me not just because of any personal attachment to the party but because I understand the need for a coordinated attack on the ruling class and that this can only come from below. We need a strong organisation to be able to carry this out and we only get a strong organisation through constant debate, discussion, disagreement and, hopefully, democratic decision making. There needs to be debate in a revolutionary party to get clarity. The history of ideas is, afterall, the history of the clash of ideas.

[blake 3:17]

The SWP is probably the most important revolutionary party in the English speaking world. It's also terribly flawed. I'd skip the WW article and spend time on the Molyneux piece instead.

Edited to add: From Solomon's blog: "James has had his suspension lifted and is able to participate in party debates at conference although is not able to sell the paper, attend branch meetings, central London, Soas or otherwise." Is this going to lead the revolt in the SWP? Who wouldn't want to skip paper sales?

[Die Neue Zeit]

No, the wording is correct. Sectarians do not bother with evidence, as my post suggests. They prefer rumour.

Comrade, how can CPGB comrade Mike Macnair's personal attendance at the Respect conference earlier this month constitute a basis for "rumours" about that organization?

How can Tina Becker, Laurie McCauley, Nick Rogers, and Mark Fischer's respective personal attendances at the SPEW's Socialism 2009 event constitute a basis for "rumours" about that organization (four articles, one or two of which CWI comrade Q posted in the Trotskyist group as self-criticism)?

How can Peter Manson's personal attendances at Left-of-Labour project meetings (such as the recent RMT meeting) constitute a basis for "rumours" about that still-opportunist, tred-iunionisty-filled organization?

[Q]

Comrade, how can CPGB comrade Mike Macnair's personal attendance at the Respect conference earlier this month constitute a basis for "rumours" about that organization?

How can Tina Becker, Laurie McCauley, Nick Rogers, and Mark Fischer's respective personal attendances at the SPEW's Socialism 2009 event constitute a basis for "rumours" about that organization (four articles, one or two of which CWI comrade Q posted in the Trotskyist group as self-criticism)?

How can Peter Manson's personal attendances at Left-of-Labour project meetings (such as the recent RMT meeting) constitute a basis for "rumours" about that still-opportunist, tred-iunionisty-filled organization?

By playing the card of "rumors" you can avoid the discussion. It's a very obvious disqualification technique.

[Sam_b]

How can having no personage, no internal understanding, and no membership of the SWP not constitute a basis for 'rumours'?

[The Ungovernable Farce]

I nearly lol'd at the bit about the poor comrade who's been banned from selling papers. I saw the publicity for that Mutiny event, and thought it looked embarrassingly awful, but wouldn't have guessed it'd lead to all this fuss. Solomon's always been a very dedicated SWP activist, I think the SWP'll be shooting itself in the foot if it gets rid of her.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Q:


By playing the card of "rumors" you can avoid the discussion. It's a very obvious disqualification technique.

And spreading rumours is even worse.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

JR:


Comrade, how can CPGB comrade Mike Macnair's personal attendance at the Respect conference earlier this month constitute a basis for "rumours" about that organization?

How can Tina Becker, Laurie McCauley, Nick Rogers, and Mark Fischer's respective personal attendances at the SPEW's Socialism 2009 event constitute a basis for "rumours" about that organization (four articles, one or two of which CWI comrade Q posted in the Trotskyist group as self-criticism)?

How can Peter Manson's personal attendances at Left-of-Labour project meetings (such as the recent RMT meeting) constitute a basis for "rumours" about that still-opportunist, tred-iunionisty-filled organization?

What has any of this got to do with the rumours WW is spreading about the SWP?

Answer: nothing.

[Yehuda Stern]

I forgot you knew everything about the internal workings of the SWP.

Of course I don't know much about them myself - despite its constant protesting against "sectarianism," showcased in your resident troll's post in this thread, the SWP is in itself a sect which refuses to discuss its internal affairs even when such accusations are raised, saying only that people from the outside don't know and therefore can't have an opinion. Well, when you refuse to deny or refute allegations made, I'm forced to believe that they are correct.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

YS:

despite
its constant protesting against "sectarianism," showcased in your resident troll's post in this thread, the SWP is in itself a sect which refuses to discuss its internal affairs even when such accusations are raised, saying only that people from the outside don't know and therefore can't have an opinion. Well, when you refuse to deny or refute allegations made, I'm forced to believe that they are correct.

You are, as usual, long an assertion, short on proof when it comes to sectarian attacks on the SWP.

[PRC-UTE]

The attitude which calls for disenting voices to be silenced is much more problematic than criticism itself.


You make it sound as though the CPGB live under a repressive SWP regime. All they do is gossip and point fingers at the many groups far larger and more active than themselves... while plugging Kautsky. It's absurd.

Besides, I wasn't serious about starting a petition, it was a joke.

[Sam_b]

Well, when you refuse to deny or refute allegations made, I'm forced to believe that they are correct.

The point is that I will not discuss or argue about SWP internal affairs with somebody outside the party, why should I? This so-called 'fight', in reality discussion on taking our party forward, should be privvy for members only. The SWP don't poke their noses into other left organisations and gossip though paper articles.

[Q]

The point is that I will not discuss or argue about SWP internal affairs with somebody outside the party, why should I? This so-called 'fight', in reality discussion on taking our party forward, should be privvy for members only. The SWP don't poke their noses into other left organisations and gossip though paper articles.

The point was made nicely in a chat I had with someone: if you don't trust the class, why should the class trust you?

In my blog I extent on this:


Why is transparent debate important you ask? Why should we allow the world to see our "dirty linen", won't it "confuse" the working class? Well, because of these reasons:

Firstly to allow individual members to develop their ideas freely. You cannot develop your ideas, if you don't think about them in a critical fashion If you just accept ideas as they are, you are on the path of a follower, not a leader. An organisation made up of followers is a sect, not a rallying point for the masses of the working class. Related to this is the point of unity: people attach better to an organisation which has something to offer to them in regards of personal development, instead of just blindly following a set of ideas.
Secondly to counterbalance the centralism in the party. In parties with no transparent democracy, you have a followers base in one form or another. The leadership then automatically becomes the "brain" of the organisation. Once this is considered "normal", any different views apart from the leadership line is automatically a threat to the leadership line. The SWP is an extreme example of this. The Dutch SP is too. I'm part of the Dutch group "Offensief" and we just got kicked out of the party because we openly disagreed. In effect there is a monopoly on political discussion by the leadership. However, the views of a clique tend to degenerate over a period of time to become non-proletarian. The SWP's adventure with Respect comes to mind. So, proletarian politics can only happen among as wide a basis as possible.
Thirdly to become the political leadership of the workers movement. Having different views within one organisation is not "confusing" at all for workers. We shouldn't view workers as retards here. Often discussions within the organisation reflects the discussion within the wider working class to some degree. Providing an open platform for discussion makes you the center of the discussion, thus you become the political leadership of the workers movement, or at least the layers in which we have an influence. We should always be striving for the outmost influence as possible in this regard. Popularising the ideas of radical solutions.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Q:


if you don't trust the class, why should the class trust you?

What has this got to do with anything? You are not suggesting, I hope, that you and Yehuda here constitute 'the class' are you?

[redasheville]

Sectarians always accuse the organizations that they attack of "refusing to defend their positions" or "refusing to answer criticism" etc etc etc. as if there is some obligation to answer any criticism of some obscure sect nobody cares about.

[Q]

Q:



What has this got to do with anything? You are not suggesting, I hope, that you and Yehuda here constitute 'the class' are you?

Haha, no. I find it amazing that you can play so dumb on issues if it touches the SWP, while on other topics you show you have great insight.

Of course I'm referring to the more generalised culture of playing "good weather" all the time to the outside world, hide internal differences, suppress bad news. This has zero educational value politically for the class and is also a great cause for splits over disagreements.

[Yehuda Stern]

You are, as usual, long an assertion, short on proof when it comes to sectarian attacks on the SWP.

And you, as usual, are long on nonsense and short of answers - when it comes to anything, really.


The SWP don't poke their noses into other left organisations and gossip though paper articles.

And this modus vivendi that you have with other opportunists is very interesting, but I find no reason why I should respect it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

YS:


And you, as usual, are long on nonsense and short of answers - when it comes to anything, really.

Ok, try me out on dialectics, over in Philosophy, smarty pants. Let's see how well you do...

[Waits for YS to chicken out, yet again.]

But, even if you are right about me, when it comes to the SWP, you are still long on allegation, short on proof, and that's all that matters in this thread.

[blake 3:17]

Of course I'm referring to the more generalised culture of playing "good weather" all the time to the outside world, hide internal differences, suppress bad news. This has zero educational value politically for the class and is also a great cause for splits over disagreements.

As a 5 year old little buddy likes to sing, "there's something wrong in treetown, I don't know what it is, there's something wrong in treetown, I don't know what it is".

Q, I have little idea how we'd actually get along, but I really appreciate your basic approach. I hate it when things are totally effing up, and there's no meaningful discussion. The bureaucrats and liberals are totally reliant on indirectness, holding their bladders, and wrecking discussion.

[Die Neue Zeit]

while plugging Kautsky

We should have a Politics thread sometime on the CPGB's relationship with Kautskyan politics at some point. Perhaps more fruitful discussion can result from there than from allegations of gossip and *especially* accusations of "inactivity."

[Devrim]

You make it sound as though the CPGB live under a repressive SWP regime. All they do is gossip and point fingers at the many groups far larger and more active than themselves...

Ha, no I don't think they live under a repressive regime. I just don't think that people who criticise larger groups should be smeared as gossip-mongers. Of course the IRSP has never written about the politics of the much larger Sinn Fein, has it? If they were too, I am sure that it would be right to dismiss it as 'gossip and finger pointing'.


while plugging Kautsky. I don't think they plug him anywhere near the extent that Jacob does on here.


Besides, I wasn't serious about starting a petition, it was a joke.Yes, I realised that. It is not as if this sort of demand has never been raised in the workers movement though:


Lenin reacted very sharply. The usual vituperation followed. The views of the 'left' Communists were "a disgrace". "a complete renunciation of communism in practice", "a desertion to the camp of the petty bourgeoisie". (47) (http://libcom.org/library/bolsheviks-workers-control-solidarity-1918#47) The left were being "provoked by the Isuvs (Mensheviks) and other Judases of capitalism". A campaign was whipped up in Leningrad which compelled Kommunist to transfer publication to Moscow, where the paper reappeared first under the auspices of the Moscow Regional Organisation of the Party, later as the 'unofficial' mouth - piece of a group of comrades. After the appearance of the first issue of the paper a hastily convened Leningrad Party Conference produced a majority for Lenin and "demanded that the adherents of Kommunist cease their separate organisational existence".Devrim

[Devrim]

Sectarians always accuse the organizations that they attack of "refusing to defend their positions" or "refusing to answer criticism" etc etc etc. as if there is some obligation to answer any criticism of some obscure sect nobody cares about.

I don't think that an organisation is obliged to answer every criticism of it by a smaller group. Certainly the SWP couldn't be expected to fill the pages of Socialist Worker with these answers. I think it would be completely reasonable not to bother responding to them at all.

However, what is not in my opinion acceptable is to smear people as the SWP do. Deciding to ignore an organisation is one thing. It is valid to take a decision that the arguments they are putting forward don't have much resonance and you don't need to address them. It is a different thing altogether though to deal with arguments by smearing the source, just as you do here by calling them an 'obscure sect'.

Incidentally the group that later became the SWP had originally eight members. Should we refer to them as an 'obscure sect'?


The comrades who held the state capitalist position were either expelled by Gerry Healy, who took control of what was left of the RCP and formed the Socialist Labour League, or left it. To start with, we had eight members.

Devrim

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Devrim:


However, what is not in my opinion acceptable is to smear people as the SWP do.

It is no smear to accuse those who regularly pay attention to rumour and innuendo directed at the SWP as sectarians. It's a fact.


Should we refer to them as an 'obscure sect'?

Only if it is also correct to refer to Marx and Engels in, say, 1847 as belonging to an 'obscure sect'.

[Devrim]

It is no smear to accuse those who regularly pay attention to rumour and innuendo directed at the SWP as sectarians. It's a fact.

I don't think that the word 'sectarian' has any real meaning here accept somebody who listens to criticisms of the SWP. The majority of stuff that WW writes isn't 'rumour and innuendo' though. It is analysis and opinion. It may or may not be good analysis or worthwhile opinion, but that doesn't make it 'rumour and innuendo'. I haven't seen any of the actual factual statements that they have printed being contested. It leads me to suspect that they may well be true.


Only if it is also correct to refer to Marx and Engels in, say, 1847 as belonging to an 'obscure sect'.

I wouldn't, but then I am not calling groups 'obscure sects' in order to descredit them.

Devrim

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Devrim:


I don't think that the word 'sectarian' has any real meaning here accept somebody who listens to criticisms of the SWP. The majority of stuff that WW writes isn't 'rumour and innuendo' though. It is analysis and opinion. It may or may not be good analysis or worthwhile opinion, but that doesn't make it 'rumour and innuendo'. I haven't seen any of the actual factual statements that they have printed being contested. It leads me to suspect that they may well be true.

Fortunately, what you think does not count when it comes to what certain words mean.

And it is rumour and innuendo when it is not backed up by facts.


I wouldn't, but then I am not calling groups 'obscure sects' in order to descredit them.

Except, it is valid to call some groups 'obscure', if that is what they are, and a 'sect' if they act like one.

[redasheville]

I don't think that an organisation is obliged to answer every criticism of it by a smaller group. Certainly the SWP couldn't be expected to fill the pages of Socialist Worker with these answers. I think it would be completely reasonable not to bother responding to them at all.

However, what is not in my opinion acceptable is to smear people as the SWP do. Deciding to ignore an organisation is one thing. It is valid to take a decision that the arguments they are putting forward don't have much resonance and you don't need to address them. It is a different thing altogether though to deal with arguments by smearing the source, just as you do here by calling them an 'obscure sect'.

Incidentally the group that later became the SWP had originally eight members. Should we refer to them as an 'obscure sect'?



Devrim

I didn't call any specific organization an obscure sect. I don't live in England, and I really don't know how the CPGB works (nor do I really care). I was refering to the general phenomenon of sects whose raison d'etre is to constantly try to "expose and criticize" larger (and more active) left groups always complaining about how their criticisms are never answered.

Also, IMO, what constitutes a sect doesn't have to do with size but with the approach to the class struggle. Certainly there is a coerlation between being sectarian and being tiny, but pointing out that the IS started with 8 members doesn't mean they are or were a sect.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Q:


Haha, no. I find it amazing that you can play so dumb on issues if it touches the SWP, while on other topics you show you have great insight.

Translated this reads: "Rosa you show great insight over issues with which I agree."

You are human, after all -- at least, I hope so...

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Haha, no. I find it amazing that you can play so dumb on issues if it touches the SWP, while on other topics you show you have great insight.

Of course I'm referring to the more generalised culture of playing "good weather" all the time to the outside world, hide internal differences, suppress bad news. This has zero educational value politically for the class and is also a great cause for splits over disagreements.
It also means that when it becomes impossible to paper over the cracks, they need to make massive u-turns very quickly, leading to confusion and demoralisation for those inside inside the party (and lulz for those outside it). The way that Galloway went from being portrayed as an untouchable saint to the red-baiting maniac who destroyed Respect is a classic example of this.

[Devrim]

I didn't call any specific organization an obscure sect. I don't live in England, and I really don't know how the CPGB works (nor do I really care). I was refering to the general phenomenon of sects whose raison d'etre is to constantly try to "expose and criticize" larger (and more active) left groups always complaining about how their criticisms are never answered.

Oh, I would have assumed that you were talking about the CPGB considering it is a thread about their article, and if you were talking in general you would have used a plural instead of 'some obscure sect'.


Also, IMO, what constitutes a sect doesn't have to do with size but with the approach to the class struggle. Certainly there is a coerlation between being sectarian and being tiny, but pointing out that the IS started with 8 members doesn't mean they are or were a sect.

Well by your definition they would have been as they spent most of their time orientating themselves towards criticising the Healyities.

Devrim

[redasheville]

Oh, I would have assumed that you were talking about the CPGB considering it is a thread about their article, and if you were talking in general you would have used a plural instead of 'some obscure sect'.


Yea, OK.


Well by your definition they would have been as they spent most of their time orientating themselves towards criticising the Healyities.

Devrim

Wait, I'm confused. How does this make them a sect? How does it fit my definition?

[PRC-UTE]

Ha, no I don't think they live under a repressive regime. I just don't think that people who criticise larger groups should be smeared as gossip-mongers. Of course the IRSP has never written about the politics of the much larger Sinn Fein, has it? If they were too, I am sure that it would be right to dismiss it as 'gossip and finger pointing'.

oh aye, the IRSP does criticise SF often, but then most IRSP members do live under a regime in which SF is a coalition partner unfortunately. However I see your point.



I don't think they plug him anywhere near the extent that Jacob does on here.

True. I think it's just Macnair.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

How pathetic. Both the SWP and the CPGB lackey who posted this topic.

Well done to both of you on trying to prove the other wrong, you can look forward to a non-influential new years with the support of your many hundreds of comrades. Petty politicking at its best.

It is no wonder that people like myself refuse to have anything to do with these people; not because I am not committed, but what a farce for one to get involved. Moreover, a farce with no future.

The British left, in its current state, is an absolute disgrace to the workers of the world.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Dem Soc:


How pathetic. Both the SWP and the CPGB lackey who posted this topic.

Well done to both of you on trying to prove the other wrong, you can look forward to a non-influential new years with the support of your many hundreds of comrades. Petty politicking at its best.

How can you lump us in with those who spread unfounded rumour?


The British left, in its current state, is an absolute disgrace to the workers of the world.

I agree, but it's not much better elsewhere.

Here is part of the reason:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2009_02.htm

[Eddie Ford]

it's time to start a petition calling on the weekly wanker gossip rag to disband. ".

This surely hows that we are hitting the right spot! :laugh:

wcg,
Eddie Ford

[Eddie Ford]

Ever thought it might be possible to have an active party where disagreements lead to actual debate and both sides clarifying their positions, not just splits where both sides take their toys and go home?

No, of course he hasn't.:(

wcg,
Eddie Ford

[Eddie Ford]

I don't agree with the approach or politics of the 'Weekly Worker'. I do understand them though. Basically they are arguing for a regroupment of the left. They see the SWP as the biggest and most important left-wing organisation, so they polemicise against it. Lenin took a similar approach at times. For them that's why theese arguments are important. It isn't just a 'gossip rag'.

At last, the voice of Sanity! :thumbup1:

wcg,
Eddie Ford

[Eddie Ford]

I know you will immediately dismiss this because from it's a blog (where else would expelled SWP members air their views, The Guardian?), but anyway:
Read it. Her name is in the original Weekly Worker article as one of the expelled. She devoted much of her time and commitment to the SWP only to be suddenly and ruthlessly expelled for no good reason. What a shame.

Careful, otherwise you will be accused of spreading innuendo, gossip and rumour! The plain fact of the matter is that there are significant splits & fissures developing within the SWP, and not to notice it - or openly discuss it - is just stupid and ... dishonest.

Eddie Ford

[Eddie Ford]

By playing the card of "rumors" you can avoid the discussion. It's a very obvious disqualification technique.

The word for it is ... sectarianism. Pure and simple :(

wcg,
Eddie Ford

[Eddie Ford]

the SWP is in itself a sect which refuses to discuss its internal affairs even when such accusations are raised, saying only that people from the outside don't know and therefore can't have an opinion. Well, when you refuse to deny or refute allegations made, I'm forced to believe that they are correct.

:thumbup:

wcg,
Eddie Ford

[Eddie Ford]

Haha, no. I find it amazing that you can play so dumb on issues if it touches the SWP, while on other topics you show you have great insight.
Of course I'm referring to the more generalised culture of playing "good weather" all the time to the outside world, hide internal differences, suppress bad news. This has zero educational value politically for the class and is also a great cause for splits over disagreements.

Yes, Rosa is being obstinate ... in an bad sense.

wcg,
Eddie Ford

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Eddie F:


Yes, Rosa is being obstinate ... in an bad sense.

If 'obstinate' means rejecting gossip and innuendo I plead guilty.

If you have hard evidence, please post it.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Wait, I'm confused. How does this make them a sect? How does it fit my definition?
Let's look at your definition again:

I was refering to the general phenomenon of sects whose raison d'etre is to constantly try to "expose and criticize" larger (and more active) left groups always complaining about how their criticisms are never answered.

Also, IMO, what constitutes a sect doesn't have to do with size but with the approach to the class struggle. Certainly there is a coerlation between being sectarian and being tiny, but pointing out that the IS started with 8 members doesn't mean they are or were a sect.
And what Devrim said:


Well by your definition they would have been as they spent most of their time orientating themselves towards criticising the Healyities.

Devrim
Do you really not see the similarity between "constantly trying to "expose and criticise" larger left groups" and "spending most of their time orientating themselves towards criticising [another larger left group]"? Not that I think Devrim was actually saying that the early Socialist Review Group/IS was a sect, he was just pointing out that your definition of a sect is flawed.

Eddie Ford, have you seen the multi-quote button (the little + sign beneath each post)? If you just click on that every time you want to reply to a post and then hit "reply" when you get to the end of a thread, you can reply to them all at once instead of having to do one post for each, it's a lot easier.

[redasheville]

Let's look at your definition again:

And what Devrim said:

Do you really not see the similarity between "constantly trying to "expose and criticise" larger left groups" and "spending most of their time orientating themselves towards criticising [another larger left group]"? Not that I think Devrim was actually saying that the early Socialist Review Group/IS was a sect, he was just pointing out that your definition of a sect is flawed.


Haha, I said a sect has an erroneous view of the class struggle. I did not define a sect as an organization that spends time criticizing other organizations. I pointed out that there ARE sects who do nothing (or next to nothing) but criticize other organizations (hence their raison d'etre), which was not my "definition of a sect". You even quoted what I actually said constituted a sect, but apparently didn't bother to read it.

[redasheville]

Just so we're clear:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/hallas/works/1985/04/sectar.htm

[Devrim]

oh aye, the IRSP does criticise SF often, but then most IRSP members do live under a regime in which SF is a coalition partner unfortunately.

That's a fair point really. I suppose this isn't the place to question if most IRSP members actually live in the North Today, sort of like Manchester United supporters.;)

Devrim

[Devrim]

Not that I think Devrim was actually saying that the early Socialist Review Group/IS was a sect,

Your right, I certainly wasn't. I think that there is enough accusations of all socialists being 'mad' or 'sect like' from mainstream bourgeois opinion without us joining in with them as well.

Devrim