Early SWP/IST (UK)

[The Idler]

Was early SWP/IST any different to today's SWP?

[Sam_b]

I'll happily give you an answer, but you need to be more specific.

Firstly, how 'early' are we talking about? From the SWP's founding in 1977, or before that, as the International Socialists? Even before that, as the Socialist Review Group?

Secondly, different in regards to what? Forces, positions, strategy?

[The Idler]

As International Socialists and positions.

[Mather]

Didn't the SWP adopt luxemburgism at one point, I think in the late 1960s?

[Sam_b]

Thirteen words total still makes the subject matter far too broad, Idler, but I'll try and give as best an overview as I can.

Due to the size of the Socialist Review Group, the predecessor of the IS, we originally adopted an entryist position in the Labour Party, as a means of spreading our ideas and to build our forces, and this continued into the early years of the International Socialists before scrapping the tactic by the late 1960s. These years also saw a turn towards further Trade Union work and much more activity outside of Labour, for example, within the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign.

Of course, we kept up our tradition of anti-imperialist support throughout this time, and we were noted for having a stance of unconditional critical support for the IRA, differing from today as we have now recognised within Ireland that an armed campaign is not pushing forward the goal of a united Ireland. It should be noted, however, that during the battle of the Bogside we in fact opposed the slogan of 'Troops Out', arguing that this left nationalist communities vulnerable.

In general, the IS years can be characterised by a shift towards industrial organisation and a refining of our beliefs of state capitalism, deflected permananent revolution and the permanent arms economy.



Didn't the SWP adopt luxemburgism at one point, I think in the late 1960s?


The IS did not ever 'adopt' Luxemburgism in the sense that it went against the theories of Cliff and our positions, nor did it ever 'adopt' it in the sense that other political tendencies have, ie fully and unconditionally. As early as 1959 Cliff had written essays on Luxemburg, which you can find on the Marxist Internet Archive, and we have always held up the political legacy of her without adopting and supporting all of her positions. Any adoption of practices was not of the expense of discrediting the theories of Trotsky or Cliff.

Any other questions, please ask. Sorry this is brief but I've just got up (:lol:) and I didn't really have much rationale to go with. The Wiki is actually alright on this subject, but misses stuff out sometimes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Socialist_Workers_Party_(Britain)

[The Idler]

Just saw this on Counterfire (http://counterfire.org/index.php/theory/54-anti-capitalism/4612-international-socialists-in-the-1960s).

[Bonobo1917]

I think there has been a shift in organisational sense. Until 1968, IS (and before that, Socialist Review Group) operated along basically federal lines, even while upholding the idea of a revolutionary party in a basically, but relativiely libertarian, Leninist sense. During and after 1968, IS shifted in a more centralist direction, introducing democratic centralism in the organisation itself (after stormy debate and several conferences within a year). Tony Cliff, in "On Democratic Centralism", to be fount through marxists.org, argued for this shift.

It started much more to try to operate as a (rather small) vanguard party. In the Seventies, this development (not a healthy one, in my opinion, but that is another matter) continued, and led to the name change to SWP. Cliff's book, "Building the Party", (to be found on marxists.org) It is part 1 of his Lenin books, and can be seen as a kind of theoretical argument for this kind of shift; it was, indirectly, as much about the IS as Cliff thought they should work as it was about the Bolsheviks...

[The Ungovernable Farce]

I'd agree with much of what Bonobo says. The early IS had a much higher proportion of relatively libertarian people like Peter Sedgwick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sedgwick) and David Widgery (http://www.gillatt.org/widgery/index.htm). I think a lot of that tradition got squeezed out with the turn to "democratic centralism" and the SWP.