Slates, Factions, and the British SWP

[Binh]

Slates, Factions, and the British SWP

by Pham Binh
http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=4268



The British Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is in the midst of another internal crisis (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/online-only/swp-cc-counter-attack). Four members were expelled on questionable grounds (http://www.davidosler.com/2012/12/statement-of-swp-democratic-opposition/) and now there are two factions, the Democratic Opposition (http://cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/online-only/socialist-workers-party-faction-declared) and the Democratic Centralism (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/online-only/another-faction-forms-in-the-swp) faction (hopefully Richard Seymour (http://www.leninology.com/) is among them), both of whom are defending the four. The recent formation of the Democratic Centralism faction by a minority on the Central Committee is particularly significant as it could have sufficient support at the conference to overturn the expulsions.


The underlying issue in the dispute is the SWP’s internal regime, specifically how it elects its Central Committee (CC). Like almost all Trotskyist groups, the SWP uses what is best described as a closed slate system. A slate system means a ticket of names is voted on as a single bloc. In and of itself, there is nothing untoward or undemocratic about a slate system (http://johnriddell.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/a-dialogue-on-the-characteristics-of-revolutionary-groups/). However, in the living context of the SWP, it is untoward and undemocratic. From a rank-and-file members’ perspective, any attempt to hold a single CC member accountable by removing them would require coming up with an entirely new leadership, usually upwards of a dozen people, since existing CC members will decline nomination as part of a rival slate (hence why the system is “closed”). Leading cadre outside the CC are usually appointed to their positions by the CC, so the likelihood of them accepting a position on an opposition slate is close to zero. Inevitably, the CC puts forward itself (sometimes with a few personnel changes) as a slate for re-election at the SWP’s annual convention. All of these factors acting in concert ensure that the CC’s slate is the only one convention delegates vote on in an open show of hands, aye or nay. Only once (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/825/subtext-and-loyal-opposition) in the SWP’s history has there been a competitive election for the CC between slates at a party convention.



http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/events/terror/cc-1917.jpg
Elected as individuals via a secret ballot, not as a slate.


A one-slate party is no more democratic than a one-party state, and the closed slate system is not how Lenin and the Bolsheviks elected their CC. Tony Cliff noted (http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1989/trotsky1/13-july.html#p4) in his Trotsky: Towards October 1879-1917 the following vote totals for the CC of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party elected by the sixth party congress (http://links.org.au/node/2874) held in summer of 1917:
“The names of the four members of the central committee receiving the most votes are read aloud: Lenin – 133 votes out of 134. Zinoviev 132, Kamenev 131, and Trotsky 131. (Loud applause)”
Here, we see that the party was led not by a politically homogeneous slate but by its most popular and outstanding figures whose differences with one other throughout 1917 in the middle of the revolution are well known (although not well understood (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/843/the-ironic-triumph-of-old-bolshevism)) and need not be repeated here. The point here is twofold:


The method of electing a CC used by Lenin and the Bolsheviks is nothing like that used by the SWP (and the whole of the International Socialist Tendency, including the American International Socialist Organization).
This discrepancy has significant political ramifications for party life and practice. The closed slate system prioritizes political homogeneity and creates a leadership team that agrees on just about everything while a secret ballot for individuals prioritizes popularity with the rank and file and creates a leadership team marked by vibrant debates precisely because they do not agree on all issues all the time.

Lenin explicitly rejected (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/7thcong/16.htm) the notion that the party’s leadership should be of one viewpoint or tendency at the 1918 party congress held to debate party policy on the controversial Brest-Litovsk treaty:
“Lomov very cleverly referred to my speech in which I demanded that the Central Committee should be capable of pursuing a uniform line. This does not mean that all those in the Central Committee should be of one and the same opinion. To hold that view would be to go towards a split.”
(He was arguing against the Left Communists’ decision to boycott the CC and won; the congress passed a resolution affirming (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/7thcong/17.htm) the right of individual CC members to dissent publicly with the CC and Left Communists Bukharin and Uritsky were elected to a 15-member CC along with eight alternates by a secret ballot.)




Without the SWP’s founder Tony Cliff to manage and resolve divisive disputes at the top, the party fractured and entered into a terminal decline within a decade of his passing. The closed slate system’s structural inability to properly regulate political differences among members of the CC played a major role in shaping the way the SWP shipwrecked itself in 2007-2010 when its political mistakes within RESPECT accumulated, leading to a series of painful debacles and waves of resignations/expulsions of long-time cadre. The CC made one of its members, John Rees, the scapegoat for all its errors and missteps as a collective leadership body and he was excluded (http://www.socialistworker.org.uk/art.php?id=16846) from the CC slate at the party’s annual conference in 2009. Eventually, he and his co-thinkers split from the SWP and created Counterfire (http://www.counterfire.org/). CC member Chris Bambery (http://www.socialistunity.com/chris-bambury-resigns-from-swp/) followed suit in 2011 and created Scotland’s International Socialist Group (http://internationalsocialist.org.uk/).


Today, the United Kingdom has three competing groups based on Tony Cliff’s politics. An organization that claimed 10,000 members in the early 1990s has been reduced to three small rumps. For revolutionaries, the SWP’s difficulties are no cause for joy, although its competitors undoubtedly salivate at the prospect of grabbing the party’s market share by recruiting the politically inexperienced to their particular shibboleths.


This crisis is an opportunity for all those involved to go back to the drawing board, re-think their political assumptions, study Lenin and the Bolsheviks more closely and critically, reject what does not work, and forge a new left not hidebound by ridiculous rules, tradition for tradition’s sake, and the recruit-recruiters (http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=1003) model that has failed to stop the austerity steamroller.

[Q]

Good article overall, just one question:


Without the SWP’s founder Tony Cliff to manage and resolve divisive disputes at the top, the party fractured and entered into a terminal decline within a decade of his passing.

Are you suggesting that the SWP should get a new god-leader for life?

Also, let me use the opportunity to refer again (already did in the other topic on this subject (http://www.revleft.com/vb/swp-conference-crazy-t177024/index.html), post #71) to Pat Byrne's The Origin of the ‘Slate System’ (http://www.karlmarx.net/topics/democratic-centralism-1/theoriginofthe%E2%80%98slatesystem%E2%80%99) for more background info on this.

[China studen]

SWP is a reactionary Trotskyist organization.

[IrishWorker]

This election process sounds like a complete joke tbh.

At the IRSPs yearly Ard Feish each delegate is given a secret ballot everyone writes down 12 names. Submits their ballot for counting by randomly selected members of the party. The top 12 names form the new National Executive, a simple and democratic way to elect a leadership.

[Die Neue Zeit]

This election process sounds like a complete joke tbh.

At the IRSPs yearly Ard Feish each delegate is given a secret ballot everyone writes down 12 names. Submits their ballot for counting by randomly selected members of the party. The top 12 names form the new National Executive, a simple and democratic way to elect a leadership.

Hmmm, why not just do a direct random balloting of the secret ballots?

Anyway, the slate system is inherently "undemocratic." The worst-case scenario is presented here, but even the best-case scenario based on abstract qualifications (x-number of candidates with so-and-so qualifications) is "aristocratic."

[Lord Hargreaves]

Are you suggesting that the SWP should get a new god-leader for life?

No, he is saying there should be reform of the slate system. Cliff held the leadership together despite the structural problems within the CC, but now he is dead those structural problems need addressing. What article did you read?

[Lord Hargreaves]

SWP is a reactionary Trotskyist organization.

cheers for your helpful comment :rolleyes:

[Q]

No, he is saying there should be reform of the slate system. Cliff held the leadership together despite the structural problems within the CC, but now he is dead those structural problems need addressing. What article did you read?

I think Pham is more than capable to speak for himself about what he did or didn't intend to say.

I was just asking him because it seemed a glaring contradiction with the rest of what he's saying.

[blake 3:17]

@Q -- With Cliff's death I think there was a break in continuity, similar to what's happened to other revolutionary currents with leaders who were active Marxists before and during the Second World War. I'd be very suspicious of anyone who rushes to be assume leadership of a revolutionary group or movement, but there are very genuine leaders who do emerge relatively organically.

[Art Vandelay]

I see no advantages of this 'slate system' other than, perhaps, from the paradigm of party bureaucratic who are looking to keep their jobs. The SWP is a lost cause as far as I'm concerned.

[Futility Personified]

I hope i'm not alone in hoping the SWP will collapse, then the SPEW will collapse, and from those 2 groups the majority of the old leaders are put aside and a new generation are going to unite us all and establish this legitimate workers party people have been harping on about for yonks?

[Art Vandelay]

I hope i'm not alone in hoping the SWP will collapse, then the SPEW will collapse, and from those 2 groups the majority of the old leaders are put aside and a new generation are going to unite us all and establish this legitimate workers party people have been harping on about for yonks?

Unless they become disillusioned with the left.

[Futility Personified]

Becoming disillusioned with the left I think is part and parcel of the current status quo. Selling newspapers is not what most people think destroying capitalism is about. To be fair I know little about the SWP, but the SP always go on about how they changed the poll tax absolutely fucking years ago. Imho it's Judean People's Front and People's Front of Judea. Rather a new group formed and unified the 2 essentially similar orgs than this long slow decline and rivalry of the true left.

[Art Vandelay]

Becoming disillusioned with the left I think is part and parcel of the current status quo. Selling newspapers is not what most people think destroying capitalism is about. To be fair I know little about the SWP, but the SP always go on about how they changed the poll tax absolutely fucking years ago. Imho it's Judean People's Front and People's Front of Judea. Rather a new group formed and unified the 2 essentially similar orgs than this long slow decline and rivalry of the true left.

Not to drag this off topic, but what are these exactly?

[Q]

Not to drag this off topic, but what are these exactly?

Dude, seriously!

gb_qHP7VaZE

Know your classics ;)

[Art Vandelay]

Dude, seriously!

gb_qHP7VaZE

Know your classics ;)

:laugh:

It has honestly been so long since I've watched any Monty Python, let alone Life of Brian, it did not ring a bell.

[Sam_b]

I disagree with the assertion above that it was somehow Tony Cliff who 'held the SWP together' in some sort of Tito-like sense which is conveyed. This is a simplistic analysis of the party, particularly during the downturns that we witnessed in the 1980s. Tony Cliff was no more the 'God' figure of the SWP as, say, Taaffe is in the SPEW. Indeed, I would argue that Martin Smith was in fact more of a self-appointed and assigned 'leader' as Cliff ever was. At the point in which the comrade is referencing 'holding' the SWP together, I would in fact point to a much better developed cadre and stronger (at least in the theoretical sense) CC, at that point in time I feel was probably good for the organisation (of course this may be controversial, and as I was born in 1988 I was not in the party for obvious reasons).

By saying that Cliff was the unifying factor of the SWP severely diminishes from the very real reasons the party is collapsing now rather than then. Indeed, the way the party is set up in the sense there is a national committee, a Scottish steering committee, a CC and so on looks and can be quite a good method of organising; the point however is that in practice this is not how the organisation operates any more and is exceptionally top-heavy on CC power - which is essential during these stages as the CC grimly hangs on for dear life. To simplify things into just being Cliff vs No Cliff takes away from the real degeneration in the party which in my view has been ongoing for a number of years now.

To be brief on a couple of points, I disagree with the SPEW's analysis of the poll tax but believe the SWP got it wrong. Problems have arisen in the party because on many occasions the CC do not admit that mistakes were made and built from them. Getting a tactical error wrong is not the be-all and end-all or the death knell of an organisation per se, but mistakes can mount up if they are not rectified.

The reason for the slate system is so in theory there is no individual responsibility but a collective one. In practice this is not the case and the CC have never practised what they have preached (a classic example is the shocking behaviour towards Chris Bambery and others when the CC have felt threatened).

I also still strongly believe in paper sales as a tactic, but of course it also is not the be-all and end-all of an organisation.

[Ostrinski]

I wonder if the ISO has said anything on the matter.

[The Idler]

When members of the IS tradition talk about admitting mistakes, they all too often mean admitting them to members, but not the wider working-class. Its this lack of accountability that marks organisations out as sects not parties.

As for degeneration in the SWP going on for a number of years, well Jim Higgins published More Years for the Locust in 1997 tracing the degeneration well back into Cliff's tenure. Would this be an timescale you'd share?

[Sam_b]

Would this be an timescale you'd share?

I would not, considering I was a member from 2005-2011. I also think the idea of Cliff and just Cliff having a 'tenure' is disingenuous and would imply a certain level of power of which one person simply did not have. The SWP under Cliff was not a cult. The SWP under Martin Smith became a cult.

[Sam_b]

Actually, I think I should qualify that statement somewhat. For me personally I feel we should view this certain level of 'degeneration' in the context of the election of a Tory Government and the most savage attacks on the working class since Thatcher or even before, which in itself is a localised part of the wider financial and austerity crisis. We argued that, particularly in light of the rising amount of strikes and class-conscious activity, particularly with the March anti-cuts TUC demonstration; that the SWP had no strategy for helping to organise the class to fight back, to intensify the resistance and to develop politically as an organisation. The SWP was poorly equipped in the run-up and commencement of this. The only strategy was that of the CC to make sure the boat wasn't rocked, that internal criticism wasn't dealt with in a satisfactory way (see Neil Davidson's IB contribution in the run up to conference 2010) and to churn out bodies rather than activists and thinkers. It is this when I refer to a degeneration, and rather than point to something abstract I offer you this as something that as a member I saw.

[blake 3:17]

@ Q and 9mm -- I just shared that video with a bunch of longtime lefty friends -- thanks -- just realized I neglected a couple of Maoist and anarchist friends.


When members of the IS tradition talk about admitting mistakes, they all too often mean admitting them to members, but not the wider working-class. Its this lack of accountability that marks organisations out as sects not parties.

I don't think it makes much sense to dwell on leadership mistakes. It really depends on the scale of the organization. Given its size, it's not possible for a group like the SWP or any smaller or not much much bigger, to not be a sect. There are important socialist activists and intellectuals who want desperately to break with the foolishness of sectarian BS but don't have a mass organization to affilate with and see a need for independent socialist organization.


As for degeneration in the SWP going on for a number of years, well Jim Higgins published More Years for the Locust in 1997 tracing the degeneration well back into Cliff's tenure. Would this be an timescale you'd share?

I'd date the decline of the British (and American for that matter) SWP to the mid 70s.

In quickly looking up the Employers Offensive of the 1970s, one of the first documents I came across Tony Cliff's The Employers’ Offensive:
productivity deals and how to fight them

http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1970/offensive/index.htm

[Hit The North]

I'd date the decline of the British (and American for that matter) SWP to the mid 70s.



Do you mean at the moment the IS became the SWP? If so, how are you defining the concept of 'decline'?

[Sam_b]

The SWP was founded in 1977.

[blake 3:17]

Do you mean at the moment the IS became the SWP? If so, how are you defining the concept of 'decline'?

The organization started to find itself in a moderate decline, in terms of popular support and sympathy, and made itself more "Leninist" or "Bolshevik" as a response. Certainly the British SWP accomplished far more for many years, than the American SWP (the Barnes group).

[Hit The North]

The organization started to find itself in a moderate decline, in terms of popular support and sympathy, and made itself more "Leninist" or "Bolshevik" as a response. Certainly the British SWP accomplished far more for many years, than the American SWP (the Barnes group).

Nevertheless, the SWP's biggest success (the ANL) and its largest growth spurt lay before it. Now there may be a case for arguing for a decline in its political theory (which is Higgins' case against the SWP) but in terms of it fulfilling its agenda as an interventionist activist party it was in rude health after the mid 70s.

[Art Vandelay]

Was the SWP the largest revolutionary party in the UK? I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to leftist orgs yet.

[The Idler]

Nevertheless, the SWP's biggest success (the ANL) and its largest growth spurt lay before it. Now there may be a case for arguing for a decline in its political theory (which is Higgins' case against the SWP) but in terms of it fulfilling its agenda as an interventionist activist party it was in rude health after the mid 70s.
I thought the official "membership" figures peaked at 10,000 sometime in the 1990s.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I wonder if the ISO has said anything on the matter.


We've discussed it a lot and are about to have our own convention - so in a way it's good timing because at least we can really discuss everything involved.


When members of the IS tradition talk about admitting mistakes, they all too often mean admitting them to members, but not the wider working-class. Its this lack of accountability that marks organisations out as sects not parties.

I'm not sure if this was in responce to Lvov's question about the ISO, but although we are part of that traddition, our group was kicked out of the IST. So we are discussing this more than with other issues that happen with left groups because of our tradditions and past organizational relationship, but as a general rule we don't make a habbit of talking about splits and problems with left groups unless there is some issue with it impacting a wider movement - like splits in radical groups that cause splits in activist coalitions or whatnot.

But I fail to see what "accountability" means here. Surely the SWP leadership needs to account for things because this has become a huge issue not just for them but for the british left in general, but why would other groups with similar politics? It seems like that's a bit of political "guit-by-association" - muslems aren't dennouncing Islamic terrorism enough! Maybe I'm missing how state-capitalism theory leads to rape scandals. Or how slates cause beurocratic problems like this uniquely because I can point to numerous examples of organizations with other kinds of organizing methods who have had similar problems and implosions. Even non-organized groups and coalitions of people in activism can have cliques that self-servingly try and protect themselves. Conversly, to blame this as some inevitable result of their organizing methods, would mean that any sucess the SWP had must also be attributed solely to these organizing methods.

If the accusations are true, it seems like the problem is a breakdown/breech of organizational principles and democracy, certaintly. But from my limited experience with the SWP, it seems to me that this is actually a symptom of a larger problem, not the cause. I think what some of the other comrades have been saying about the SWP's inability to soberly assess itself and tendency then to try and "not rock the boat" and just keep things together makes some sense. Organizations historically do not deal well with decline of this sort, and I think that has a lot to do with the increasing problems with the SWP over the last decade and a half or so.


I thought the official "membership" figures peaked at 10,000 sometime in the 1990s.And I'm not sure that it ever official went down from that figure even though I think materially it did - and if that's true it backs up the idea that the leadership was unable or unwilling to deal with stagnation or some decline.

[Manic Impressive]

Was the SWP the largest revolutionary party in the UK? I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to leftist orgs yet.
It was the largest left wing party other than the labour party. I recently saw someone estimate their membership at 2,500, before that I thought it was 4,000 they claimed 7,500. SPEW is in 2nd place with about 1,500 they claim more. The numbers are of course rough estimates I doubt many know the exact figures if at all.

[BOZG]

It was the largest left wing party other than the labour party. I recently saw someone estimate their membership at 2,500, before that I thought it was 4,000 they claimed 7,500. SPEW is in 2nd place with about 1,500 they claim more. The numbers are of course rough estimates I doubt many know the exact figures if at all.

It has bounced up and down over the past few years. I think at the time of Mark Thomas' resignation (2 years ago?) he raised a criticism of how it had gone down to 6,500 from 8,000 and 10,000 before that with no explanation of how or why. The latest IBs painted a more positive picture suggesting growth to 7,500 but only circa 32% pay membership fees which is where the 2,500 figure comes from and which seems to be what most non-SWPers consider to be a more realistic reflection of their active membership. The discrepancy comes from the very loose basis of membership in the SWP - basically anyone who says yes is a member without them paying fees or becoming active at all. I read somewhere that such people stay on the books for as long as two years.

[Manic Impressive]

Did you ever see the expose that anarchist did? He joined the SWP 10 times without resigning :p

[BOZG]

It has bounced up and down over the past few years. I think at the time of Mark Thomas' resignation (2 years ago?) he raised a criticism of how it had gone down to 6,500 from 8,000 and 10,000 before that with no explanation of how or why. The latest IBs painted a more positive picture suggesting growth to 7,500 but only circa 32% pay membership fees which is where the 2,500 figure comes from and which seems to be what most non-SWPers consider to be a more realistic reflection of their active membership. The discrepancy comes from the very loose basis of membership in the SWP - basically anyone who says yes is a member without them paying fees or becoming active at all. I read somewhere that such people stay on the books for as long as two years.

I haven't but I'm not surprised at all.

I was told by an SP comrade from England a few years back that a friend of theirs had joined SWSS during freshers week, had gone to one and was promptly asked to consider being a full timer.

In Ireland I've seen them take on people as full timers after very short periods of time even where there should be very clear doubts over their suitability (even allowing for the ability of people to develop) while their most "senior" member in Ireland basically tried to get some random person who spoke from the floor at one of their public meetings to agree to stand for election under their People Before Profit front.

If this is their attitude to leadership positions, one can only imagine how lax membership acceptance is.

[Art Vandelay]

Did you ever see the expose that anarchist did? He joined the SWP 10 times without resigning :p

Is there any article about this?

[Manic Impressive]

I did look for it earlier but gave up. I believe it was originally posted on Libcom but it's been re-posted here..... at least once..... probably by me..... at some point. Sorry not much help I'll try again.

edit: Still no joy I'm afraid just trawled libcom looking. perhaps someone else will remember it

[Art Vandelay]

I did look for it earlier but gave up. I believe it was originally posted on Libcom but it's been re-posted here..... at least once..... probably by me..... at some point. Sorry not much help I'll try again.

No worries ratty.

[Hit The North]

Did you ever see the expose that anarchist did? He joined the SWP 10 times without resigning :p

I guess, as an anarchist, he had a lot of time on his hands :rolleyes:

[Art Vandelay]

I guess, as an anarchist, he had a lot of time on his hands :rolleyes:

If the SWP is making claims about its membership size and claiming to be the largest Marxist party in the UK, then they should be keeping accurate track of things and not allow the same person to join over and over. I wouldn't even think that would be that difficult and its not like you'd need to devote many people or resources to that task.

[Hit The North]

You make it sound like the SWP go around publicly announcing their membership figures to all and sundry. Most figures I've seen have been in internal documents and these claims are usually with the caveat that registered members are not necessarily all active.

Now whether this intrepid anarchist social scientist exists or not, who can tell? It's probably made up. But if s/he did sign up 10 times and it was to the same branch secretary, then that secretary obviously needs to sort out their face recognition skills, or the anarchist should stop using disguises. If, on the other hand, the anarchist purposely went to different branches to pull off this hoax, then her/his commitment to their twisted plan is to be commended. And what does it prove, anyway? That if you're daft enough or have too much time on your hands you can fool the SWP. Or do you think that this happens a lot and loads of people are filling in multiple membership forms for the lolz and this explains the SWP's membership figures? Hey, maybe instead of having 2,500 members, it's just one loan anarchist who has joined 2,500 times and the CC are just too dumb to notice when only that guy turns up to conference?

[Art Vandelay]

You make it sound like the SWP go around publicly announcing their membership figures to all and sundry. Most figures I've seen have been in internal documents and these claims are usually with the caveat that registered members are not necessarily all active.

Being from Canada, I honestly have no idea how the SWP runs.


Now whether this intrepid anarchist social scientist exists or not, who can tell? It's probably made up. But if s/he did sign up 10 times and it was to the same branch secretary, then that secretary obviously needs to sort out their face recognition skills, or the anarchist should stop using disguises. If, on the other hand, the anarchist purposely went to different branches to pull off this hoax, then her/his commitment to their twisted plan is to be commended. And what does it prove, anyway? That if you're daft enough or have too much time on your hands you can fool the SWP. Or do you think that this happens a lot and loads of people are filling in multiple membership forms for the lolz and this explains the SWP's membership figures? Hey, maybe instead of having 2,500 members, it's just one loan anarchist who has joined 2,500 times and the CC are just too dumb to notice when only that guy turns up to conference?

These are good points.

[The Idler]

We've discussed it a lot and are about to have our own convention - so in a way it's good timing because at least we can really discuss everything involved.



I'm not sure if this was in responce to Lvov's question about the ISO, but although we are part of that traddition, our group was kicked out of the IST. So we are discussing this more than with other issues that happen with left groups because of our tradditions and past organizational relationship, but as a general rule we don't make a habbit of talking about splits and problems with left groups unless there is some issue with it impacting a wider movement - like splits in radical groups that cause splits in activist coalitions or whatnot.

But I fail to see what "accountability" means here. Surely the SWP leadership needs to account for things because this has become a huge issue not just for them but for the british left in general, but why would other groups with similar politics? It seems like that's a bit of political "guit-by-association" - muslems aren't dennouncing Islamic terrorism enough! Maybe I'm missing how state-capitalism theory leads to rape scandals. Or how slates cause beurocratic problems like this uniquely because I can point to numerous examples of organizations with other kinds of organizing methods who have had similar problems and implosions. Even non-organized groups and coalitions of people in activism can have cliques that self-servingly try and protect themselves. Conversly, to blame this as some inevitable result of their organizing methods, would mean that any sucess the SWP had must also be attributed solely to these organizing methods.

If the accusations are true, it seems like the problem is a breakdown/breech of organizational principles and democracy, certaintly. But from my limited experience with the SWP, it seems to me that this is actually a symptom of a larger problem, not the cause. I think what some of the other comrades have been saying about the SWP's inability to soberly assess itself and tendency then to try and "not rock the boat" and just keep things together makes some sense. Organizations historically do not deal well with decline of this sort, and I think that has a lot to do with the increasing problems with the SWP over the last decade and a half or so.

And I'm not sure that it ever official went down from that figure even though I think materially it did - and if that's true it backs up the idea that the leadership was unable or unwilling to deal with stagnation or some decline.
What I'm saying is necessary is honest accounting and transparency. Its not guilt by association, its saying that theory and practice are inseparable. An organisation campaigning for an egalitarian society that is organised along inegalitarian lines itself is a contradiction.

The SWP do publically claim at recruitment rallies that they are the largest organisation of its kind in Britain. What information can be gleaned from their membership figures (in spite of their efforts to conceal them) is that they're not a great deal larger paid active membership than SPEW or CPB.

What about registers of interest being kept on as "members" for two years? Perhaps a more rigorous membership selection is in order? Like in summer of 2004, when two Manchester students who were BNP members were promoted by SWSS to leading activists in Stop the War and Respect?

What about the national organiser rolling around on the ground trying to wrestle the ticket off an attendee at Marxism 2007? What about SWP invasion stunt disrupting the Unite the union negotiations with British Airways in May 2010? What about the steward threatening to "rip the head off" leafleteers at Marxism 2010? What about the Right to Work march in Birmingham in October 2010 where SWP stewards complained to police about anarchists being on the demo? All incidents affect workers not in the SWP, but there is no recourse.

Of course, allegations of the nature of those facing the SWP, or even cliques that try and serve their own interests, can arise in any organisation. However it is the fundamental organisational nature of the SWP and the IS tradition that is hostile to questions of wider transparency and a tendency to gerrymander accountability.

You can rebuild it - but the house will fall down if you use the same foundations.

[Binh]

No, he is saying there should be reform of the slate system. Cliff held the leadership together despite the structural problems within the CC, but now he is dead those structural problems need addressing. What article did you read?

Co-sign.

This thread has some great comments, but the IST comrades' facile and simplistic explanations lead me to believe that whatever SWP dissident rump that leaves the current party will be in for a very rough ride.

My follow-up pieces for those who are interested:

"How Not to Handle a Rape Allegation: the Case of the SWP":
www.thenorthstar.info/?p=4522

"'Leninism' Meets the 21st Century":
www.thenorthstar.info/?p=4691

[Jimmie Higgins]

What I'm saying is necessary is honest accounting and transparency. Its not guilt by association, its saying that theory and practice are inseparable. An organisation campaigning for an egalitarian society that is organised along inegalitarian lines itself is a contradiction.A "sect" that is a small organization based on a rough framework of agreement has no need for "accountablilty" to anyone but the organization and members and any allies in movements or unions who may be impacted because of coalition-type work. What you are calling for is accountability and transparancy to other sects on the left who disagree with the program and framework of that group. It's a very silly demand to make.

In this case, I do think the SWP, because of the nature of their disfunction and the public attention it's caused, have to answer, but in general as a voluntary membership organization why should they have to answer to competing groups about their activities, internal debates, and so on? In fact if such a thing were to happen, I think it would have a dampening effect on internal debates because anytime someone in a debate, say about George Galloway, came up then even decisions and opinions not in the end adopted by the group would be ridiculed by competitng sects with a more sectarian orientation.

If there was a huge worker's movement and the SWP had a lot of wider influence, then they would necissarily need to be more accountable to wider layers of people. But frankly, I think this "accountability" argument when made abstractly is making impossible demands on an organization in order to try and insinuate that they systmically have something to hide.

I can judge the RCP or US SWP or any other group based on their political positions. If I agreed with those positions and wanted to join, then it would be fair to demand to know the inner-workings and decision-making procedures for that group.


The SWP do publically claim at recruitment rallies that they are the largest organisation of its kind in Britain. What information can be gleaned from their membership figures (in spite of their efforts to conceal them) is that they're not a great deal larger paid active membership than SPEW or CPB.I don't understand what you are saying here - litterally, the sentance structure confused me. Their paid organizers are the same in quantity as for other (smaller) groups -- Is that what you are saying? If so, I don't see the relevance to your argument. I suspect that they have been in denial about membership and organizational losses, which the leadership may have tried to obscure from members, but I don't see where the number of paid organizers fits in. Were you arguing that their membership levels aren't as high as they say and that the lack of extra paid organizers is evidence of this?


What about registers of interest being kept on as "members" for two years? Perhaps a more rigorous membership selection is in order? Like in summer of 2004, when two Manchester students who were BNP members were promoted by SWSS to leading activists in Stop the War and Respect?I'm not familiar with this. The SWP supported two open BNP members in a coalition?


What about the national organiser rolling around on the ground trying to wrestle the ticket off an attendee at Marxism 2007?Again, what's the story and what's the relevance. Some organizer just pounced on someone for no reason? Or was it some guy who was trying to get in and dennounce the group and they told him he wasn't welcome. The ISO had a conference last year and some of Bribarts people (the ones who did a video sting on ACORN) bought tickets online and showed up with video cameras and then were told they were unwelcome and would have the ticket refunded. They made a stink, said we were undemocratic and when our own members physically blocked the entrance to prevent them from barging in, the right wingers dennouced our "anti-democratic" tactics and accused out members, standing with arms folded in the right-winger's own video images, of trying to push them down the stairs.

In Occupy many similar things happened when activists and radicals had to deal with tea-partiers and even some hostile leftists. It goes with the territory when people have to rely on themselves to provide security.


What about SWP invasion stunt disrupting the Unite the union negotiations with British Airways in May 2010? What about the steward threatening to "rip the head off" leafleteers at Marxism 2010? What about the Right to Work march in Birmingham in October 2010 where SWP stewards complained to police about anarchists being on the demo? All incidents affect workers not in the SWP, but there is no recourse.Ahh, ok I see the point. So all this is the result of the slate system? No other group or organization has ever done things like this without slates? Because I can introduce you to some thugish anarchists who treated me the same... where's the accountability!

What about the accountability of other Left groups to the SWP? Where's the recorse when sectarians leaflet outside of SWP events or disrupting public events or meetings with some pre-written dennouncement? Where's the accountability!?

I'm sorry to be sarcastic, but I honestly don't see the obsession with the SWP being accountable to non-members and non-allies. I don't expect the SPARTS or Bob Avakian to be accountable to me. I only expect them to present their political positions and I would expect that if they do so I can respectfully express my own positions.

The SWP has to be accountable to their members and THAT is what I see as the main problem here and what seems to have been lacking, not their lack of accountability to the CPGB or whatever!


You can rebuild it - but the house will fall down if you use the same foundations.Sure but the disagreement here is over what is the problem. You seem to think that it's some kind of lack of accountability to hostile left groups with little or no practical involvement or cooperation with the SWP. I think there are internal problems in the SWP that led to breeches in internal democracy and eventually this apparent implosion. The political connection in my view stems from a conception of struggle and the historical period adopted in the group that didn't play out and the refusal or inability to deal with that.

If you agree that there is no magic organizational form (as far as fully preventing the potential for cliques or self-serving behavior) and any group from a informal anarchist circle to a CP-type organization has this risk, then you need to make a stronger argument as to why specifically it's this "hostility" to external accountability for debates and so on is the sole cause that will inevitably lead to these kinds of breeches.

There are organizational changes that I think the SWP needs(ed) to make, there are organizational changes and changes in practice in my own organization that have been made since leaving the IST and others that are ongoing. I think the question of factions is important and although I fully support the practice of preventing permanent factions in small activist organizations, when there is wider class movements and radical groups begin to have a more mass character, some kind of grouping along political lines within larger revolutionary groups is probably unavoidable and organizationally, there should be some procedure and room for this that both allows this to develop openly (rather than de-facto factions which are problematic just like de-facto leaderships in Occupy... the leadership and the faction are not the problem inherently, just the denial of their existance). I don't think the SWP was really that kind of group in that position and I don't think changing the way they related to factions as an organization would have "fixed" the more underlying frustration and problems (That I think are related to organizational stagnation), but having the underlying debates behind the potential factions out in the open within the organization could have forced the SWP to deal with some of their problems before it got to this point.

But again, how would external accountability to other political groups who don't support building the SWP's poltics have done?

[Lord Hargreaves]

"'Leninism' Meets the 21st Century":
www.thenorthstar.info/?p=4691

It's good to see Richard Seymour et al taking a stand on this, and I think the analysis that the break up of the SWP will be bad for the left - at least in the short run - is probably correct.

But I don't see any realistic alternative. Like you say Binh, the crisis shows how anachronistic and not fit-for-purpose the SWP's party structure and internal culture is. It isn't salvageable.

[BOZG]

I don't understand what you are saying here - litterally, the sentance structure confused me. Their paid organizers are the same in quantity as for other (smaller) groups -- Is that what you are saying? If so, I don't see the relevance to your argument. I suspect that they have been in denial about membership and organizational losses, which the leadership may have tried to obscure from members, but I don't see where the number of paid organizers fits in. Were you arguing that their membership levels aren't as high as they say and that the lack of extra paid organizers is evidence of this?

Pretty sure he means members rather than full time organisers. The 32% payment rate completely undermines the SWP's claims about their membership levels if logic is applied, something which clearly isn't done when the SWP do their math.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Slates, Factions, and the British SWP

The underlying issue in the dispute is the SWP’s internal regime, specifically how it elects its Central Committee (CC). Like almost all Trotskyist groups, the SWP uses what is best described as a closed slate system. A slate system means a ticket of names is voted on as a single bloc. In and of itself, there is nothing untoward or undemocratic about a slate system (http://johnriddell.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/a-dialogue-on-the-characteristics-of-revolutionary-groups/). However, in the living context of the SWP, it is untoward and undemocratic. From a rank-and-file members’ perspective, any attempt to hold a single CC member accountable by removing them would require coming up with an entirely new leadership, usually upwards of a dozen people, since existing CC members will decline nomination as part of a rival slate (hence why the system is “closed”). Leading cadre outside the CC are usually appointed to their positions by the CC, so the likelihood of them accepting a position on an opposition slate is close to zero. Inevitably, the CC puts forward itself (sometimes with a few personnel changes) as a slate for re-election at the SWP’s annual convention. All of these factors acting in concert ensure that the CC’s slate is the only one convention delegates vote on in an open show of hands, aye or nay. Only once (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/825/subtext-and-loyal-opposition) in the SWP’s history has there been a competitive election for the CC between slates at a party convention.

A one-slate party is no more democratic than a one-party state, and the closed slate system is not how Lenin and the Bolsheviks elected their CC. Tony Cliff noted (http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1989/trotsky1/13-july.html#p4) in his Trotsky: Towards October 1879-1917 the following vote totals for the CC of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party elected by the sixth party congress (http://links.org.au/node/2874) held in summer of 1917:

“The names of the four members of the central committee receiving the most votes are read aloud: Lenin – 133 votes out of 134. Zinoviev 132, Kamenev 131, and Trotsky 131. (Loud applause)”
Here, we see that the party was led not by a politically homogeneous slate but by its most popular and outstanding figures whose differences with one other throughout 1917 in the middle of the revolution are well known (although not well understood (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/843/the-ironic-triumph-of-old-bolshevism)) and need not be repeated here. The point here is twofold:


The method of electing a CC used by Lenin and the Bolsheviks is nothing like that used by the SWP (and the whole of the International Socialist Tendency, including the American International Socialist Organization).
This discrepancy has significant political ramifications for party life and practice. The closed slate system prioritizes political homogeneity and creates a leadership team that agrees on just about everything while a secret ballot for individuals prioritizes popularity with the rank and file and creates a leadership team marked by vibrant debates precisely because they do not agree on all issues all the time.
Lenin explicitly rejected (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/7thcong/16.htm) the notion that the party’s leadership should be of one viewpoint or tendency at the 1918 party congress held to debate party policy on the controversial Brest-Litovsk treaty:

“Lomov very cleverly referred to my speech in which I demanded that the Central Committee should be capable of pursuing a uniform line. This does not mean that all those in the Central Committee should be of one and the same opinion. To hold that view would be to go towards a split.”
(He was arguing against the Left Communists’ decision to boycott the CC and won; the congress passed a resolution affirming (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/7thcong/17.htm) the right of individual CC members to dissent publicly with the CC and Left Communists Bukharin and Uritsky were elected to a 15-member CC along with eight alternates by a secret ballot.)


Without the SWP’s founder Tony Cliff to manage and resolve divisive disputes at the top, the party fractured and entered into a terminal decline within a decade of his passing. The closed slate system’s structural inability to properly regulate political differences among members of the CC played a major role in shaping the way the SWP shipwrecked itself in 2007-2010 when its political mistakes within RESPECT accumulated, leading to a series of painful debacles and waves of resignations/expulsions of long-time cadre. The CC made one of its members, John Rees, the scapegoat for all its errors and missteps as a collective leadership body and he was excluded (http://www.socialistworker.org.uk/art.php?id=16846) from the CC slate at the party’s annual conference in 2009. Eventually, he and his co-thinkers split from the SWP and created Counterfire (http://www.counterfire.org/). CC member Chris Bambery (http://www.socialistunity.com/chris-bambury-resigns-from-swp/) followed suit in 2011 and created Scotland’s International Socialist Group (http://internationalsocialist.org.uk/).

Today, the United Kingdom has three competing groups based on Tony Cliff’s politics. An organization that claimed 10,000 members in the early 1990s has been reduced to three small rumps. For revolutionaries, the SWP’s difficulties are no cause for joy, although its competitors undoubtedly salivate at the prospect of grabbing the party’s market share by recruiting the politically inexperienced to their particular shibboleths.

This crisis is an opportunity for all those involved to go back to the drawing board, re-think their political assumptions, study Lenin and the Bolsheviks more closely and critically, reject what does not work, and forge a new left not hidebound by ridiculous rules, tradition for tradition’s sake, and the recruit-recruiters (http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=1003) model that has failed to stop the austerity steamroller.

As for the question of slates, part of the arguement in favor of them in praxis-oriented groups (as opposed to general membership groups), is to elect a group who can work together... i.e the political homogony as you describe it. (one of the other reasons is to prevent "personalism" and opportunism within the group.) But the "homogony" is really "political agreement" in this case, so that an action-oriented group can remain outwardly focused and not become insular and absorbed by indecision because there are unresolved issues.

For example there was a faction fight in a group with this kind of structure where one faction thought the 2008 economic crisis signaled a new downturn whereas others viewed it as a disruption in capitalist social stability which opened up new fissures and possibilities for organizing. To have both views at the same time in a small action-oriented group would mean paralysis and confusion at that organizational level and although the factions remained in the same slate, half were arguing for an insular approach and the other half were arguing for relating to more protests and so on and the result was that neither approach was ever fully persued. It was only eventually settled by a membership vote between two slates each representing one of the viewpoints. Regardless of which direction was taken, by having a united perspective on the crisis, it's possible then to assess if that viewpoint was correct or not after trying it out, that slate is then more accountable to the membership because people making the decisions are responcible and can't say it was so-and-so's idea.

Your argument above also contains at least two major straw-men. First in that this "agreement" goes beyond the practical needs:


creates a leadership team that agrees on just about everything while a secret ballot for individuals prioritizes popularity with the rank and file and creates a leadership team marked by vibrant debates precisely because they do not agree on all issues all the time.

At least in my experience this has not been the case in the US. For example there are CC members who disagree with the "state-capitalist" analysis of the USSR and have overlapping but different and distinct views. These members are perfectly able to carry out the organizationally agreed view while also holding their own viewpoint and knowing they will need to convince the entire organization if they want it to become an organizational position.

The second major straw-man is the conflation of a voluntary party BASED on a relatively homogonous perspective and either a mass revolutionary party representing a large chunk of pro-revolutionaries or a revolutionary government! The SWP and to a greater extrent the ISO do not represent the non-existant worker's movement and large swaths of revolutionaries - let alone an entrire revolutionary population! The function of most "sect" groups (which I don't use derrogitivly, just to point out the obvious that all radical groups currently are basically little affinity organizations or affinity non-organizations) is to try and uphold a SPECIFIC understanding and views of how workers might begin to organize more effectivly. As such even the most top-down and undemocratic CP are NOT the same as a "one-party state" because they are still voluntary organizations. A one party state impacts all those no matter what their support or non-support of that state, a leading group in a larger revolutionary movement will probably have much more influence beyond specific struggle and their own supporters, but a revolutionary group today with thousands of members is only held together by agreement of the members themselves - if the party is wrong or corrupt, then there are other organizations and parties exisrting or that can be built.

Frankly comparing the SWP to the Bolsheviks in 1917 - let alone 1918! - is historically absurd. The SWP is one of many groups with various viewpoints in non-revolutionary times. The Bolsheviks were always part of a larger social-democratic movement and in 1917 were one of a handful of large pro-revolutionary forces in a time of working class insurgancy and revolution! So the tasks are completely different and the SWP is trying to promote the kinds of politics and movements it thinks will help create a working class force whereas the Bolsheviks were trying to relate to that existing class force. All revolutionary left-groups with a "bottom-up" perspective can agree with the SWP and vica-versa on these very basic points, but not on how to go about achieving this and that's why there are different groups persuing different strategies and having different explainations. In a revolution, the political questions are much more complicated, but also in a way simplified because the question becomes not how to build a radical movement in the absense of one, but how an insurgent working class can take power and so among broader layers of pro-revolutionaries there can be a general agreement and direction even while there are differences because the essential question becomes worker's power or not - one side or the other and at that point it's best that all those on the side of worker's power cooperate, even if they don't formally become one group.




This thread has some great comments, but the IST comrades' facile and simplistic explanations lead me to believe that whatever SWP dissident rump that leaves the current party will be in for a very rough ride.

I suppose by this you mean Sam B and me - being direct and specific if you want to criticize other posters would be more helpful and less disrespectful. The irony though if this was directed at us is that we're both in groups who were kicked out or left the IST and have had our own criticisms of SWP's practice and their leadership long before this - they are just different criticisms than yours.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Pretty sure he means members rather than full time organisers. The 32% payment rate completely undermines the SWP's claims about their membership levels if logic is applied, something which clearly isn't done when the SWP do their math.OK, thanks for clearing that up - that makes sense and I agree with the general criticism made about membership levels (I have no solid information on this myself, just annecdotal things from UK comrades) though I think that the disfunction comes out of lack of internal "accountability" to and among members, not abstract "accountability" to other radical groups.

[The Idler]

A "sect" that is a small organization based on a rough framework of agreement has no need for "accountablilty" to anyone but the organization and members and any allies in movements or unions who may be impacted because of coalition-type work. What you are calling for is accountability and transparancy to other sects on the left who disagree with the program and framework of that group. It's a very silly demand to make.

In this case, I do think the SWP, because of the nature of their disfunction and the public attention it's caused, have to answer, but in general as a voluntary membership organization why should they have to answer to competing groups about their activities, internal debates, and so on? In fact if such a thing were to happen, I think it would have a dampening effect on internal debates because anytime someone in a debate, say about George Galloway, came up then even decisions and opinions not in the end adopted by the group would be ridiculed by competitng sects with a more sectarian orientation.

If there was a huge worker's movement and the SWP had a lot of wider influence, then they would necissarily need to be more accountable to wider layers of people. But frankly, I think this "accountability" argument when made abstractly is making impossible demands on an organization in order to try and insinuate that they systmically have something to hide.

I can judge the RCP or US SWP or any other group based on their political positions. If I agreed with those positions and wanted to join, then it would be fair to demand to know the inner-workings and decision-making procedures for that group.

I don't understand what you are saying here - litterally, the sentance structure confused me. Their paid organizers are the same in quantity as for other (smaller) groups -- Is that what you are saying? If so, I don't see the relevance to your argument. I suspect that they have been in denial about membership and organizational losses, which the leadership may have tried to obscure from members, but I don't see where the number of paid organizers fits in. Were you arguing that their membership levels aren't as high as they say and that the lack of extra paid organizers is evidence of this?

I'm not familiar with this. The SWP supported two open BNP members in a coalition?

Again, what's the story and what's the relevance. Some organizer just pounced on someone for no reason? Or was it some guy who was trying to get in and dennounce the group and they told him he wasn't welcome. The ISO had a conference last year and some of Bribarts people (the ones who did a video sting on ACORN) bought tickets online and showed up with video cameras and then were told they were unwelcome and would have the ticket refunded. They made a stink, said we were undemocratic and when our own members physically blocked the entrance to prevent them from barging in, the right wingers dennouced our "anti-democratic" tactics and accused out members, standing with arms folded in the right-winger's own video images, of trying to push them down the stairs.

In Occupy many similar things happened when activists and radicals had to deal with tea-partiers and even some hostile leftists. It goes with the territory when people have to rely on themselves to provide security.

Ahh, ok I see the point. So all this is the result of the slate system? No other group or organization has ever done things like this without slates? Because I can introduce you to some thugish anarchists who treated me the same... where's the accountability!

What about the accountability of other Left groups to the SWP? Where's the recorse when sectarians leaflet outside of SWP events or disrupting public events or meetings with some pre-written dennouncement? Where's the accountability!?

I'm sorry to be sarcastic, but I honestly don't see the obsession with the SWP being accountable to non-members and non-allies. I don't expect the SPARTS or Bob Avakian to be accountable to me. I only expect them to present their political positions and I would expect that if they do so I can respectfully express my own positions.

The SWP has to be accountable to their members and THAT is what I see as the main problem here and what seems to have been lacking, not their lack of accountability to the CPGB or whatever!

Sure but the disagreement here is over what is the problem. You seem to think that it's some kind of lack of accountability to hostile left groups with little or no practical involvement or cooperation with the SWP. I think there are internal problems in the SWP that led to breeches in internal democracy and eventually this apparent implosion. The political connection in my view stems from a conception of struggle and the historical period adopted in the group that didn't play out and the refusal or inability to deal with that.

If you agree that there is no magic organizational form (as far as fully preventing the potential for cliques or self-serving behavior) and any group from a informal anarchist circle to a CP-type organization has this risk, then you need to make a stronger argument as to why specifically it's this "hostility" to external accountability for debates and so on is the sole cause that will inevitably lead to these kinds of breeches.

There are organizational changes that I think the SWP needs(ed) to make, there are organizational changes and changes in practice in my own organization that have been made since leaving the IST and others that are ongoing. I think the question of factions is important and although I fully support the practice of preventing permanent factions in small activist organizations, when there is wider class movements and radical groups begin to have a more mass character, some kind of grouping along political lines within larger revolutionary groups is probably unavoidable and organizationally, there should be some procedure and room for this that both allows this to develop openly (rather than de-facto factions which are problematic just like de-facto leaderships in Occupy... the leadership and the faction are not the problem inherently, just the denial of their existance). I don't think the SWP was really that kind of group in that position and I don't think changing the way they related to factions as an organization would have "fixed" the more underlying frustration and problems (That I think are related to organizational stagnation), but having the underlying debates behind the potential factions out in the open within the organization could have forced the SWP to deal with some of their problems before it got to this point.

But again, how would external accountability to other political groups who don't support building the SWP's poltics have done?
Accountability and transparency is because the party serves the class not other left-wing sects. It is precisely their activities, "internal" debates and policies they should answer for. The incidents alleged against a member of the CC are not the SWP's fault, this is a strawman (although there probably shouldn't have been a standing ovation), its the way it was handled that is damning of their internal organisation.

It is because they claim not merely to be a voluntary membership organisation, they claim the mantle of the revolutionary party that this accountability is important. Don't shy away from ridicule or external disagreement. The idea that it is "my party, right or wrong" is classic statement of a closed-community. When the party exists to serve to emancipate the whole class, this is just wrong. The party is not making voluntary agreements with political positions, the party is claiming these politics are in the interest of the whole class. The idea that this is impossible or should be attempted when they're bigger is ridiculous.

The lack of awareness of the incidents mentioned confirms the closed-community culture. Or maybe its because the incidents are reported in the publications of competing sects and they're just more sectarian so they can be dismissed?

The point about membership is a rebuttal to Hit the North's statement that the SWP do not make public claims about membership. They do, and their lax membership policy leads directly to incidents such as BNP infiltration. I should have clarified paid-up active members (not full-timers).

The only reports of both of the incidents at Marxism festivals reported aggression originating from the SWP organisers. The fact of thuggery in anarchists such as Class War confirms a similar lack of accountability only this time arising from the tyranny of structurelessness. Although I'm confident if you took a complaint to the two biggest anarchist orgs in the UK, Afed and Solfed they would take it more seriously than the SWP.

The disruption of the British Airways negotiations with ACAS in May 2010 is one of the better examples. But the choice of organisational form is not between old-CPGB and anarchist structurelessness. Occupy made a lot of good points about organisational form that the IS tradition could learn from.