Using and Abusing "Militant Tendency" past and present

[The Idler]

The BBC reports (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/03/the_tories_buy_gordon_brown.html) that typing Gordon Brown brings up a sponsored link to the Conservative party website entitled "The New Militant Tendency. Read about Unite's stranglehold on Gordon Brown's Labour Party (http://www.conservatives.com/News/News_stories/2010/03/Charlie_Whelans_new_militant_tendency.aspx)". I was listening to a journalist from BBC Radio Merseyside speaking to a live politically aware audience a few weeks ago who said reminiscing about 1980s Liverpool "Heysel, Militant Tendency, Hillsborough, all terrible things". The audience was unmoved, seemingly taking this for granted.

Yet, in 1982 Labour got 54,000 votes in Liverpool, in 1983 77,000 votes, and in 1984 this soared to over 90,000. In 33 of the 34 contested seats Labour's vote increased. 20,000 demonstrated in support of Liverpool council's stand in December 1983.

How popular/unpopular were/are Militant Tendency among the general public? And how should leftists respond to this when trying to attract support. Simply ignoring it or dismissing it, would seem to be less effective than addressing its criticisms directly.

[vyborg]

The Militant tendency was a great organization. In Liverpool, in the 80s, the Militant controlled the Labour Party. At that time it was thre biggest and most influent revolutionaru organization in UK.
The parallell between The Militant and Unite is baseless. Tories as always, try to use some stupid information to embarasse right wing labour leaders.

[Jolly Red Giant]

The Militant tendency was a great organization.
vyborg - you really do look at this stuff through rose-tinted glasses.

The 'Militant Tendency' or it proper name - the CWI (and yes pre-IMT it was still called the CWI) did a tremendous amount of work in Liverpool - but it was not perfect (or great) it did make mistakes and there most definitely were weaknesses. It should be noted by IMT members like yourself that the IMT have virtually no support in Liverpool in the period leading up to the split in the CWI.


In Liverpool, in the 80s, the Militant controlled the Labour Party. At that time it was thre biggest and most influent revolutionaru organization in UK.
The Militant did not have complete control over the DLP and indeed made mistakes in organisational terms in subverting a lot of the work to the DLP. The reality is that the Militant should have split the DLP in Liverpool from the LP nationally when the Liverpool council battle was at its height and Kinnock had begun his attacks in it. By not doing so - something that Grant and Woods fought against - allowed Kinnock to use the LP apparatus to shaft the Liverpool council and remove the left from the DLP.


The parallell between The Militant and Unite is baseless. Tories as always, try to use some stupid information to embarasse right wing labour leaders.
I agree with this -

http://www.liverpool47.org/

[vyborg]

Where I wrote that Militant was perfect? I wrote and I repeat for sure that it was a great organization as the CWI was at that time.

[Jolly Red Giant]

I wrote and I repeat for sure that it was a great organization as the CWI was at that time.
Define what you mean by a 'great organisation'?

Were you a member of the CWI at the time and do you have direct knowledge of how great it was?

[vyborg]

Of couse I was. Great means with great leaders, the right strategy, many talented youngsters etc etc

[Jolly Red Giant]

Of couse I was.
I seriously doubt it


Great means with great leaders,
Derek Hatton


the right strategy,
Issuing the redundancy notices


many talented youngsters etc etc
Yes - unfortuantely most of whom are now inactive politically, in part due to the Militant placing too much emphasis on working within LP structures in Liverpool (one thing Hatton was actually right about).

[Forward Union]

The Militant tendency was probably the most successful Trotskyist initiative in British History. They did a lot of good work as well and had I been alive in Liverpool in that period I would have supported them.

However, they didn't have control over the labour party, simply the liverpool section of it, and that was quickly changed. The tactic it seemed could not go beyond what was already achieved.

As for the Unite comment now, well, it's laughable. If anything, Labour has a stranglehold on Unite. The Idea that a non-political, declining, financially troubled partnershp union with a questionable democracy can be seen as a "trotskyist" political infiltration is just a testament to the rediculousness of the tory position in this election. They are only ahead due to the collosal failure of the labour party itself, and not due to any positive characteristics of their own.

[lipmeister]

I won't reply to that hopeless sectarian Jolly Red Giant, but only with this, if Militant had left Labour in Liverpool earlier they would have destroyed years of work some years earlier and Militant would have never went on to be what it was in the late 80s.

As for Forward Union, while I agree with you, there is a really good candidate Jerry Hicks for general secretary, good left winger that got a good percentage last year. There are inner battles inside Unite and with this crisis of capitalism and the escalation of the class struggle Unite shift to the left. Maybe this year Jerry will be elected and that would mean a big victory for the left.

[Crux]

I won't reply to that hopeless sectarian Jolly Red Giant, but only with this, if Militant had left Labour in Liverpool earlier they would have destroyed years of work some years earlier and Militant would have never went on to be what it was in the late 80s.

:laugh: The present day Socialist Party in England and Wales, and International Socialists in Scotland, are far from "destroyed". That perspective was dogmatic nonsense 20 years ago and it still is. That you are unable to respond to any critique so also quite telling.

[Jolly Red Giant]

if Militant had left Labour in Liverpool earlier they would have destroyed years of work some years earlier and Militant would have never went on to be what it was in the late 80s.
The Militant was in decline by the late 80's - long before the split between the CWI and the IMT. Indeed it was the decline that was underway that prompted a review of the tactic of entryism and led to the open-turn. The Militant should have split the DLP from the LP as soon as Kinnock turned on the Liverpool Council as he had already done with the miners. Splitting the DLP from the LP would not have prevented the defeat - but could have maintain a significnatly greater number of the Merseyside organisation that lost 90% of its membership.


As for Forward Union, while I agree with you, there is a really good candidate Jerry Hicks for general secretary, good left winger that got a good percentage last year. There are inner battles inside Unite and with this crisis of capitalism and the escalation of the class struggle Unite shift to the left. Maybe this year Jerry will be elected and that would mean a big victory for the left.
If Hicks wins it would be interesting to see how he will reconcile his support for the right-wing LP when his membership is shifting to the left and away from the LP.

[MELT]

:laugh: The present day Socialist Party in England and Wales, and International Socialists in Scotland, are far from "destroyed". That perspective was dogmatic nonsense 20 years ago and it still is. That you are unable to respond to any critique so also quite telling.

Oh yes going from more than 4 000 members , massive influence and a household name to an obscure sect on the level (if not lower) of the SWP is a real victory!

[vyborg]

Derek Hatton a leader of the Militant? This is simply a non-sense.

Anyway when Taaffe, Mulhearn and others were marxists they defeated the impatience of some Mersey comrades. After some years, they succumbed to it.
I agree, anyway, that splitting in 1985 would have meant coming out with more comrades. They would have been lost after.

So the SPEW has nothing in Liverpool and this is The Militant's faults...a bit to easy...

[Jolly Red Giant]

Oh yes going from more than 4 000 members , massive influence and a household name to an obscure sect on the level (if not lower) of the SWP is a real victory!
How well have things been going for the IMT in Britain these days? How many members in comparison to when the IMT split in 1991? What influence do the IMT in any sphere of the labour movement?

In all honesty - to call an organisation that has a couple of thousand members, leading positions in several unions, councillors etc a 'sect' is fair enough. What would you call an organisation with a couple of hundred members, buried deep in the LP, suffering an internal faction fight, has absolutely no influence and loves to preach to others on the left that they are all 'sects' - what would you call them? (oh - I forgot - the one true marxists :thumbup1:)


Derek Hatton a leader of the Militant? This is simply a non-sense.
Derek Hatton was deputy leader of Liverpool City Council, was hugely popular among the Liverpool working class and was extremely capable at local politics - are you suggesting that he had absolutely no influence? Hatton's role led to the recruitment of significant numbers of working calls people in Liverpool to the Militant (especially youth).


Anyway when Taaffe, Mulhearn and others were marxists they defeated the impatience of some Mersey comrades. After some years, they succumbed to it.
Patent nonsense - There were regular discussions (rows) within the leadership of the Merseyside organisation and within the national leadership over what should happen in Liverpool - unfortunately too much reverence to Grant probably held sway initially - until it became patently obvious that the tactic had to change - something that is well documented by the CWI but systematically ignored in IMT litrature.


I agree, anyway, that splitting in 1985 would have meant coming out with more comrades. They would have been lost after.
that may well have happened - but the only evidence that we have is that by not splitting the DLP at the time - the Militant lost 90% of the Merseyside membership.


So the SPEW has nothing in Liverpool and this is The Militant's faults...a bit to easy...
The SPEW has a lot more in Liverpool than the IMT - the IMT never had anything in Liverpool - the fault was an adherence to an outdated tactic that the IMT regard as an absolute.

I find it ironic that the IMT claim the Militant was the pure and true Marxist organisation destroyed by the CWI. Of course only Grant and Woods had any influence in the Militant - Taaffe, Walsh, Doyle, Mulhern etc were merely gofors for the great leadership that knew the one true path.

[vyborg]

Hatton was a workers' leader of course as Heffer or Benn. He was not a Militant leader as you wrote..that's all...

I never wrote that in Militant Taaffe or others didnt count. Quite the contrary they were great comrades. With the right strategy and methods they demonstrated how good they were...

Was the militant perfect? fram from it. Was it a lot better and more significant for the class struggle than SPEW? of course it was

[Voloshinov]

Oh yes going from more than 4 000 members , massive influence and a household name to an obscure sect on the level (if not lower) of the SWP is a real victory!

The problem is to balance objective and subjective factors. How will you explain, for example, the stagnation in membership and influence of Socialist Appeal during the last two decades? It was inevitable that the latter half of the eighties and the first half of the nineties would be a bad period for revolutionary Marxism. Neither the tactic of the "open turn" or the full defence of positions won in the Labour party would give a significant boost to the organization on the short term. The objective conditions have had a negative impact on any Marxist organization in the world.

The question was how to survive this period and re-emerge after it strengthened. The answer to this question is posed much to much in general, abstract terms and too little with regard for specific national conditions. AW & TG initially supported the open turn (or rather independent candidates for a specific election), but were put off by its results, because the leadership presented it as a victory, while it was a major loss in their view. This prompted the sad event of the split, where one party favored "the open turn" and another one "digging in the labour parties". Most of the other sections suddenly were confronted with this discussion and had to split over the issue of tactics in BRITAIN. Today we often see the IMT and CWI work (together yet separate) in the same mass organizations, such as Die Linke. This makes it clear that the question of open turn, frontism, entryism or a combination of the three is a purely tactical question depending on the national/local context.

Of course, after two decennia of separate ways, the IMT and CWI have developed other organizational and political traditions and methods - although even these differ from country to country. Compare the (ex-)Spanish and the Swedish sections of the IMT for example, and you'll see a real difference in organizational culture and political tactics.

[vyborg]

In many aspects I agree with Voloshinov.
As for the fact that we work in the same organizations.
We had with experiences in Italy with mandelites (Bandiera Rossa) and PO followers (Progetto Comunista). Now outside Rifondazione in 4 or 5 different groups.

Notwithstandings all the differences and difficulties, for some years we managed to work together well...I think we should do the same in Die Linke or Synaspismos

[Voloshinov]

or Synaspismos

Shhh, they've dissolved themselves, remember? ;)

[vyborg]

Shhh, they've dissolved themselves, remember? ;)

I dont know the situation there in terms of repression of marxists. But after some smart guy published here everything, even about countries where you can be seriously damaged from the publication...I think the damage is there...

Even if someone doesnt agree with the IMT I think can understand that doing like this is not dddddd-emocratic nor rrrr-evolutionary, is only a prof of complete stupidity

[Jolly Red Giant]

Hatton was a workers' leader of course as Heffer or Benn. He was not a Militant leader as you wrote..that's all...
Hatton did play a leadership role in the Militant in Liverpool during the mid-1980's - there was no way he could be put in a position of deputy leader of the council without him being part of the Liverpool leadership. Indeed before he became deputy leader of the council he had been selected as a PPC in Liverpool.


I never wrote that in Militant Taaffe or others didnt count. Quite the contrary they were great comrades.
Up until the time they disagreed with Grant and Woods - then all of a sudden they became bad leaders.


With the right strategy and methods they demonstrated how good they were...
So as long as they followed the path of Grant and Woods ?


Was the militant perfect? fram from it.
Might be splitting words here but - 'Militant was great'

Was it a lot better and more significant for the class struggle than SPEW? of course it was[/QUOTE]
Of course the position and profile of the Militant in the 1980's had everything to do with the correct strategy of Grant and Woods and absolutely nothing to do with the political and social circumstances of the period.


In many aspects I agree with Voloshinov.
You may agree - but you continue to ignore the points Voloshinov is making when you address the issue of 'Militant was great'


I dont know the situation there in terms of repression of marxists.
From delusion to paranoia

[vyborg]

I leave some psychological characterization to others more qualified guys.

Anyway, lets' go back to serious business: the Militant in the 70s and 80s grew a lot because of objective situation but not for it only. it would be baseless economicism to say it.

The Militant did a lot of right things at the time. After the defeat of the miners a retrenchment was inevitable but it became a rout given the path choosen.

[Jolly Red Giant]

The Militant did a lot of right things at the time. After the defeat of the miners a retrenchment was inevitable but it became a rout given the path choosen.
After the defeat of the miners the Militant continued to pursue a path of entryism into the LP - the 'rout' occurred as a result of continued entryism - not because of the open-turn. Indeed the situation only began to be reversed as a result of the open turn. The IMT has gone the opposite direction. The CWI has been undergoing a period of growth - the IMT has been declining (and will decline further when they expel the rest of the factions/sections opposing Woods)

[vyborg]

The SPEW is a ghost vis a vis The Militant. And in 1991 they were the Militant in UK...
SA restarted anew in 1991, still they managed to go forward.
The problem in Uk is not how much you do open work or entrist work. You work where good people are...the problem is that the SPEW is now perfectly as the SWP or any other group.

I have to say the SWP and SWEP are less sectarian that, for instance, the argentinian PO, still the strategy is to build a new workers party. in the last 20 years any such attempt ended in tears..in Scotland, in Britain...but of course, if tomorrow the SPEW will build a mass workers party in Britain I would strongly suggest to any marxist to go there.

[Jolly Red Giant]

The SPEW is a ghost vis a vis The Militant. And in 1991 they were the Militant in UK...
SA restarted anew in 1991, still they managed to go forward.
Nonsense - the SA didn't start anew - it left the Militant with 400 members - how many does it have today?

Not alone that - the IMT took the entire Spanish section, the entire Pakistani section, the entire Danish section, Germans, Greeks, Dutch, Belgians, Latin America except for Chile etc etc. On an international basis at the time of the split in 1991 the IMT was almost as large as the CWI.



The problem in Uk is not how much you do open work or entrist work. You work where good people are...
And the LP is full of 'good' people !!!!


but of course, if tomorrow the SPEW will build a mass workers party in Britain I would strongly suggest to any marxist to go there.
As you ahve been repeatedly told - the CWI is not going to build a new workers party in Britain (to keep repeating it is to try and take a sectarian swipe at the CWI) - it is campaigning for one to be built - building a new party will occur as a result of class struggle - workers will not join the party of Blair and Brown to change anything.

[vyborg]

Nonsense - the SA didn't start anew - it left the Militant with 400 members - how many does it have today?

Not alone that - the IMT took the entire Spanish section, the entire Pakistani section, the entire Danish section, Germans, Greeks, Dutch, Belgians, Latin America except for Chile etc etc. On an international basis at the time of the split in 1991 the IMT was almost as large as the CWI.



And the LP is full of 'good' people !!!!


As you ahve been repeatedly told - the CWI is not going to build a new workers party in Britain (to keep repeating it is to try and take a sectarian swipe at the CWI) - it is campaigning for one to be built - building a new party will occur as a result of class struggle - workers will not join the party of Blair and Brown to change anything.

We are talking about UK. I dont know how many left the Militant, but I do know that SA started with less than 200. At the time the entire apparatus and the mighty of the Militant, that was not bad after all, was with Taaffe. Do you still have the big building of that period, the other offices etc? I think not.

neither you succeded, as the SWP with respect, to build a party. Trying is good but the strategic concept didnt worked so far.

In other countries the CWI is doing entry work, so in these countries a united front could be useful. I cannot analyse how good are the CWI comrades in the real world as in Italy they are not there

[Jolly Red Giant]

We are talking about UK. I dont know how many left the Militant, but I do know that SA started with less than 200.
And again I ask the question - how many does it have now???


At the time the entire apparatus and the mighty of the Militant, that was not bad after all, was with Taaffe.
What nonsense is this - the split with the IMT has a serious effect on the CWI - the loss of a couple of thousand members internationally is bound to have a serious effect - but to suggest that the IMT walked out with nothing is rubbish. In Britain alone they took four of the leading members, a significant number of people with important trade union positions and prior to the split had already secured offices, had plans for paper production and were raising finances and taking subs. The Spanish section with over 1,000 members were getting substantial funds from the Spanish Government through the students union they controlled etc. In terms of 'apparatus' the IMT has just as much if not more than the CWI.



neither you succeded, as the SWP with respect, to build a party. Trying is good but the strategic concept didnt worked so far.
Can't speak for the SWP, but the strategy of the CWI at the open turn was not to 'build a party' - if you are referring to a LP mark 2 - or even in respect of the CWI - we wouldn't be so arrogant.


In other countries the CWI is doing entry work, so in these countries a united front could be useful.
The CWI is not doing entry-work in the nature promoted by the IMT - we are organised openly as a faction / platform within the organisations where we work - and none of them are the old Social Democracies.

[Benghazi]

Comrade vyborg seems to have two personalities. On the “Definite splits in the IMT” thread he/she argues that the discussion there has too much “IMT bashing” and not political enough, while on this threat he tries to “bash” the CWI.

However, while genuine criticism and debate is welcome, vyborg is so anxious to attack that he forgets facts. Obviously, as he states in post 21, the defeat of the British miners in 1985 was a significant blow against the trade unions in Britain. However that did not prevent the Militant taking concrete steps to initiative and lead the mass movement of non-payment of the Poll Tax that both utterly defeated that measure and forced Thatcher to resign.

Then, in post 23, Vyborg writes “the SPEW is a ghost vis a vis The Militant”. Now obviously the 1990s was a difficult period as the collapse of Stalinism disorientated an entire layer of activists amid a storm of triumphalist capitalist propaganda. However, as Vyborg wishes in other threads, there could be a proper discussion of programme and tactics in the 1990s and in today’s changed situation.

As to the SPEW today being a “shadow” of the Militant, certainly it is currently smaller than Militant was at its peak, but it is growing. Significantly for the future the SPEW as a party and individual SPEW members have been key players in many of the recent industrial struggles in Britain. Furthermore SPEW comrades play a leading role in the National Shop Stewards Network and have elected national positions in a number of trade unions. If the SPEW was merely a “shadow” it is hard to explain why the right wing leadership of UNISON, Britain’s second biggest union, have spent so long trying to ban four SPEW members from their elected union positions, including one union national executive member.

[vyborg]

What nonsense is this - the split with the IMT has a serious effect on the CWI...

...The CWI is not doing entry-work in the nature promoted by the IMT - we are organised openly as a faction / platform within the organisations where we work - and none of them are the old Social Democracies.

I was discussing about the split on a world scale. In Uk it was minor, for sure.

As for the "open" organization. It is a concrete question not a dogma. In Rifondazione in 1994, they expelled people connected to Falce Martello. Now the things are very very different. The question is not if you declare yourself something. The problem is if you are something.

[Jolly Red Giant]

I was discussing about the split on a world scale. In Uk it was minor, for sure.


We are talking about UK.

Make up your mind please -

By the way - you still haven't answered the question on how many members the IMT has in Britain?


It is a concrete question not a dogma.
Can you please outline where on the planet that the IMT carry out work on an open basis as a distinct organisation (in contrast to being a 'tendency') ?

[vyborg]

Make up your mind please -

By the way - you still haven't answered the question on how many members the IMT has in Britain?


Can you please outline where on the planet that the IMT carry out work on an open basis as a distinct organisation (in contrast to being a 'tendency') ?

Come on..do not pretend to make a score on nothing...
I summarize for you...in UK the split was very thin....nonthelesse the comrades managed to start the work again. They didnt grow a lot, but for sure they dindt get back. On the contrary, the SPEW was the heir of a mighty force...

Where the IMT works as a group? in the US for example. Anyway, as I said, it is senseless to declare to be something. The problem is to be it.
You can declare yourself a party, an open party, an open group, whatever, but if you are not a party? What's the point? to have a website with "party" in it?

[Benghazi]

vyborg, it is difficult to take your arguments seriously. One minute you say that the SPEW is only a "shadow" of the Militant. Then, after a few facts about the SPEW's activities in workplaces and trade unions, you move on, do not even attempt to debate the point but simply say the SPEW's current position is because it "was the heir of a mighty force". This does not explain why the SPEW's workplace position has grown over the past years.
Really if you want to discuss seriously how to build support for Marxism then you have to move on from playing debating games at a computer terminal.

[vyborg]

That the SPEW is a lot weaker than The Militant is not in discussion.
it is growing in the last years in the unions? Good, but this is hardly a news, as this happens in many countries. And as the objective factors have their role too...it is too simplistic to link the growth even for some years to the tactic. Exactly as it would be simplistic to state that as SPEW is weaker than the Militant so automatically its tactics now are a mistake.

But as I explained more than once, there is no way out in discussion only. The only way to look if a strategy is viable and a common action possibile is to do it.
In Italy, for instance, the micro-section of the CWI simply follows what we do. I can understand them, we were in a similar position 15 years ago...anyway we work well inside Rifondazione with no problem whatsoever (for instance the speach of Veruggio at the last CGIL congress of Genoa was very good, I agree with it completely).

[Benghazi]

Vyborg, unfortunately you seem a little confused.

Earlier today, in post 25, you wrote:

“I cannot analyse how good are the CWI comrades in the real world as in Italy they are not there”

Then, a few hours later, in post 32, you write about the Italian “micro-section” of the CWI and that:

“the speech of Veruggio at the last CGIL congress of Genoa was very good, I agree with it completely”.

So with a few hours you can “analyse how good are the CWI comrades in the real world” and comment on it.

But I totally agree that the way forward is discussion and concrete experience in the class struggle.

By the way, just now news has come that SPEW comrade Martin Powell Davies has been elected by union members to the national executive of the National Union of Teachers, the largest teachers’ union in Britain.

[vyborg]

Compliment for the NUT.

As for the speach of Veruggio, this is good. Is it merit of the CWI? No..of course. It is merit of Veruggio, if any... (I mean, this was not based on some comprehensive strategy of the CWI)

Anyway, in the last 20 years in Italy we havent seen the CWI so how can I know how they really look like?

[Tower of Bebel]

The Militant earned its merits, but it made some mistakes too. When the Labour Party was defeated in 1987 many who governed the city afterwards had to aknowledge how much Militant did and had done for its inhabitants in such desperate times. And the fact that conservatives still see The Militant as dangerous proves this. Yet, in the long or middle term, the Militant was unable to build an effective, organized opposition within the worker's movement against Labourite and even Eurocommunist liquidationism. When the capitalist hammer struk Militant went down together with the rest of the politicized working class. The late 70's and 80's saw an upswing of working class action, but in the long term this was only a product of a general decline. The 'crisis' we saw in the Militant Labour/SPEW after the split mirrors this decline.

[vyborg]

Well of course you cannot separate your fate completely from that of your class. But I think that to use the short cut, the macig word of the "open turn" was far from the solution. Not because the group wouldnt have been more active in the open work. quite the contrary! but because of the theory behind the scottish, first, the international turn, after it.

[Edith Lemsipberg]

This discussion between committed members of CWI and IMT is interesting, because I have spent a lot of time reading on the web the old material about the old 1990s split and the various 'histories' that have been produced.
What appears to me is that the IMT is 'manufacturing' history. Obviously not outright, but slipping in an overemphasis here, an undermention in another place, a non-mention of something else. It all amounts to a 'changed history'.
I also note that the IMT does not publish all the documents from that time, where as the CWI does - is there some meaning in this?:blink:

[vyborg]

Yes, the IMT is made of very bad bad guys. I advise you to stay off from them.