True scale of the organised left?

[RedKobra]

I'm feeling pretty disillusioned at the moment. Small as they may have been the news that Workers Power have folded and the AWL have recommended its members join Labour has left me feeling pretty deflated. Not that I had any particular loyalty or expectation in those groups, its more the general mood. The left in the UK is slowly unravelling and whatever your feelings about particular comrades, or particular parties and their methods with them disappears years of experience in organisation, protest, activism, agitation.etc

I realise Revleft is hardly the place you go to make yourself feel better, we seem far better at kicking lumps out of each other but does anyone want to have a go at assessing the situation as it stands? How many organs of class resistance do we have left and how many people can they mobilise at any given moment?

------

The SWP are rumoured to have dropped below a thousands members some time in 2013 and the general trend since has been down not up. The party quietly amaglamated a lot of their branches into regional hubs with even several of them now moribund. (Pat Stack & Neil Davidson being the primary sources for that info)

The Socialist Party of E&W allegedly has around 1500 although privately they are admitting they've lost a sizable number to Labour in recent weeks.

They make up the bulk of TUSC's membership.

Left Unity had, as of of last year, 2000 members. That was made up of the 50-100 members of Workers Power & the, maybe, 75-100 members of the AWL who have all left to join Labour. The 25-50 members of the now defunct International Socialist Network. Which, crudely, means they've lost between 150-250 members from that lot alone. They still have the 30-50 members of the CPGB (PCC) & the 30-50 members of Socialist Resistance.
We know from feedback from Labour during the leadership election that a fair few Left Unity people (even high profile ones) were applying to rejoin. Who knows what Left Unity's current membership is but its a fair bet that its nowhere near 2000.

[edit] Counterfire have a decent multimedia presence and use Stop the War as a publicity vehicle but my dealings with them (directly) suggests that they're actually a pretty small organisation.

The CPB is probably the other comparable party but I was told in my brief flirtation with them that they dropped below 100 members last year.

The other, ostensibly Marxist, groupings I doubt have more that 25 members each and so won't list.

Feel free to dispute my figures.

I won't bother estimating how large the Greens, Respect or the SPGB are because they're either reformist, not overly progressive, and or don't work with other groups as part of the movement.

What the bloody hell is happening to us?

You'd think with an enemy like Capitalism, resistance would be relatively straight forward. Instead we're withering away and Capitalism gets a free pass to screw the planet, the future and the 99.99999% of humanity not born with a rich daddy.

[PhoenixAsh]

Our means of organization and resistance are outdated. We have failed to adapt to the rapid changing nature in how society functions and processes information.

This doesn't mean we or our ideas are irrelevant but the way we operate is...

This means that traditional parties will disband because their membership base dwindles. This in turn means we lose voice and further effectiveness. And this means the bourgeoisie left will usurp a lot of these groups for lack of a viable alternative.

This however does not mean people aren't becoming increasingly radical but it does mean they will flock to groups and parties that seem to be more able to do something....anything really...

[RedKobra]

The reply button doesn't seem to be working, so to be clear, I'm responding to PhoenixAsh.

What groups should we flock to and what are they doing? Because I don't see it. I've spoken to Anarchists but their ideas about organisation seem as decrepit as ours (Marxists). I've also got no truck with this Autonomist claptrap espoused by people like Paul Mason (As good a journalist as he is). The argument being that Capitalism in its first form collectivised us (hence mass parties), but Capitalism in its current form (Neo-Liberalism) atomized us, so ergo we should fight as atomized proletarians. That seems like an invitation to get annihilated. Our power is our numbers, our solidarity, our power is our Labour and our ability to withhold it. Don't you agree?

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Maybe you should start working with the IWW and some Anarchist/Antifa orgs, start a noise band with 8 people, move to White Chapel and get a flat, eat hummus with them, burn down an Applebee's, start doing charity work, etc if you feel so disillusioned.

As for the exact scope, it's hard to say general I figure but you also have to think of the huge undercurrent of alienated workers feeling the treacherous weight of capital. I mean, in that respect we are huge and I feel class consciousness is slowly building again. At least in America.

[PhoenixAsh]

Let's be clear...what I said doesn't only count for non anarchist groups and movements. It is a general issue with the left.

I don't think we should flock to groups. But people tend to do this because we are social creatures & generally have a herd mentality...

Pe-existing groups and organisations with predefined dogma are perhaps not the only way to create mass movements. And this doesn't only go for the left. It is a visible general development where people simply don't become members of groups as much as they did. Traditional forms of organising and socialising in general become more obsolete.

Grass root; organic organisation etc are viable alternatives.

[Art Vandelay]

Revolutionary politics isn't some faux highschool popularity contest. Give me a cadre of 50 dedicated militants united around a common program, over 1000 disparate individuals any day. For Marxists, it all boils down to one question - and it isn't membership size - program, program, program.

[olahsenor]

Scandalous situations brought down several Right wing governments in Asia and Latin America. All we need is a 'spark' as a trigger point. Left wing governments like those of Portugal, France and Venezuela were brought about by corruption, which I refer to as the 'spark' that revolutionized these countries. Do not lose hope.

[The Feral Underclass]

I'm feeling pretty disillusioned at the moment. Small as they may have been the news that Workers Power have folded and the AWL have recommended its members join Labour has left me feeling pretty deflated. Not that I had any particular loyalty or expectation in those groups, its more the general mood. The left in the UK is slowly unravelling and whatever your feelings about particular comrades, or particular parties and their methods with them disappears years of experience in organisation, protest, activism, agitation.etc

I realise Revleft is hardly the place you go to make yourself feel better, we seem far better at kicking lumps out of each other but does anyone want to have a go at assessing the situation as it stands? How many organs of class resistance do we have left and how many people can they mobilise at any given moment?

------

The SWP are rumoured to have dropped below a thousands members some time in 2013 and the general trend since has been down not up. The party quietly amaglamated a lot of their branches into regional hubs with even several of them now moribund. (Pat Stack & Neil Davidson being the primary sources for that info)

The Socialist Party of E&W allegedly has around 1500 although privately they are admitting they've lost a sizable number to Labour in recent weeks.

They make up the bulk of TUSC's membership.

Left Unity had, as of of last year, 2000 members. That was made up of the 50-100 members of Workers Power & the, maybe, 75-100 members of the AWL who have all left to join Labour. The 25-50 members of the now defunct International Socialist Network. Which, crudely, means they've lost between 150-250 members from that lot alone. They still have the 30-50 members of the CPGB (PCC) & the 30-50 members of Socialist Resistance.
We know from feedback from Labour during the leadership election that a fair few Left Unity people (even high profile ones) were applying to rejoin. Who knows what Left Unity's current membership is but its a fair bet that its nowhere near 2000.

[edit] Counterfire have a decent multimedia presence and use Stop the War as a publicity vehicle but my dealings with them (directly) suggests that they're actually a pretty small organisation.

The CPB is probably the other comparable party but I was told in my brief flirtation with them that they dropped below 100 members last year.

The other, ostensibly Marxist, groupings I doubt have more that 25 members each and so won't list.

Feel free to dispute my figures.

I won't bother estimating how large the Greens, Respect or the SPGB are because they're either reformist, not overly progressive, and or don't work with other groups as part of the movement.

What the bloody hell is happening to us?

You'd think with an enemy like Capitalism, resistance would be relatively straight forward. Instead we're withering away and Capitalism gets a free pass to screw the planet, the future and the 99.99999% of humanity not born with a rich daddy.

Have you not considered that you might be looking for something that doesn't exist? It seems like you've not even considered that the whole framework by which you imagine success is wrong. All of these organisations that you list are anachronisms. Why are you so certain that they should be successful in the first place?

[Q]

This is nothing new really, just a further dwindling down of a dwindling situation that has been going on for the last 30 years or so. As has been said before, the far left hasn't been particularly capable to adapt to current circumstances.

That the SPEW is saying that they're back to 1500 members is news to me. For many years they claimed 2000 members, or close to it, while in reality it was more like half of that. With that logic in mind, I suppose they're back to the 500 to 750 members area. This is again nothing surprising: if you have been propagating for a Labour Party mark 2 for all of your existence, why wouldn't you move to the real thing when it has a leftwing leadership again? In the UK the far left, overall, hasn't been capable of dealing with the only (bourgeois) working class force left, which is Labour. Now that Labour is moving to the left again, this problem becomes too hard to ignore.

Ironically, for years I looked to the far left in the UK in awe, as it was so much bigger and better organised than in the Netherlands, even if it was utterly splintered and infighting and pretty much incapable of achieving anything durable. Now the grass is looking a lot greener on this side of the pond as the SP is making up its own mind of how it'll develop further for the next decade as the leadership change is going on and where a radical trade union activist is expected to be elected chair later this month. This is all opening up potential for communists and we are publishing our own draft programme for the SP very soon, which is intended to become a common ground for leftwing party members to rally around.

Maybe something similar could be done in the Labour party? Forget the activism, it is ultimately useless and a drain on your time and energy. Focus on high politics, win Labour members for your politics, conquer position of power and transform that party.

[olahsenor]

The fruits of the efforts of organized Left: minimum wage law, 8-hour working day, Social Security, Overtime pay, universal healthcare, free education for elementary and secondary school, wrongful dismissal laws, non-discrimination laws based on politics, sex, sexual orientation, race, status, Bill of Rights, etc., right to strike, rights to collective bargaining, etc. and other benefits which we did not anticipate because some are resigned to defeatism.

[RedKobra]

Revolurionary politics isn't some faux highschool popularity contest. Give me a cadre of 50 dedicated militants united around a common program, over 1000 disparate individuals any day. For Marxists, it all boils down to one question - and it isn't membership size - program, program, program.

You've completely missed the point. I'm not arguing a mass party line, which is the only way your response would make sense. I'm opining the fact that what little remained of the revolutionary movement in Britain seems to be crumbling. The situation in the SWP, for example, is a lot, lot worse than they're letting on or people imagine and Whatever your view of their politics internal and external they are often, in the UK, a visible and active first point of contact for many people who are investigating left politics. They are also an extremely militant protest group that has drawn attention to important issues. I'll say it again because I know someone will come back with "err, SWP are shit init" but there is currently sod all to replace them. We're facing a situation where to the left of the Labour party there is a vacuum, in terms of propaganda, agitation, protest, radicalisation and organisation. That, it shouldn't take a brain surgeon to work out, is not good.

[RedKobra]

The fruits of the efforts of organized Left: minimum wage law, 8-hour working day, Social Security, Overtime pay, universal healthcare, free education for elementary and secondary school, wrongful dismissal laws, non-discrimination laws based on politics, sex, sexual orientation, race, status, Bill of Rights, etc., right to strike, rights to collective bargaining, etc. and other benefits which we did not anticipate because some are resigned to defeatism.

Defeatism? Move along. Pick a fight with someone else, I am not in the mood.

[RedKobra]

This is nothing new really, just a further dwindling down of a dwindling situation that has been going on for the last 30 years or so. As has been said before, the far left hasn't been particularly capable to adapt to current circumstances.

That the SPEW is saying that they're back to 1500 members is news to me. For many years they claimed 2000 members, or close to it, while in reality it was more like half of that. With that logic in mind, I suppose they're back to the 500 to 750 members area. This is again nothing surprising: if you have been propagating for a Labour Party mark 2 for all of your existence, why wouldn't you move to the real thing when it has a leftwing leadership again? In the UK the far left, overall, hasn't been capable of dealing with the only (bourgeois) working class force left, which is Labour. Now that Labour is moving to the left again, this problem becomes too hard to ignore.

Ironically, for years I looked to the far left in the UK in awe, as it was so much bigger and better organised than in the Netherlands, even if it was utterly splintered and infighting and pretty much incapable of achieving anything durable. Now the grass is looking a lot greener on this side of the pond as the SP is making up its own mind of how it'll develop further for the next decade as the leadership change is going on and where a radical trade union activist is expected to be elected chair later this month. This is all opening up potential for communists and we are publishing our own draft programme for the SP very soon, which is intended to become a common ground for leftwing party members to rally around.

Maybe something similar could be done in the Labour party? Forget the activism, it is ultimately useless and a drain on your time and energy. Focus on high politics, win Labour members for your politics, conquer position of power and transform that party.

I have been involved with the Labour party quite extensively and there are massive structural problems that are just not being talked about. Maybe city CLP's are alive and well, if completely powerless but across the country as a whole the infrastructure of Labour democracy is totally dead. There are hardly any organic links left between the grass roots of the Trade Union movement and the Labour party. All contact seems to go on at the top level. Trust me, I've seen it with my own eyes. The Labour party has lots of members (well, relatively) and a bureaucracy but very little in-between. That's all assuming we take the line that you can radicalise the Labour party which having moved in those circles I'm far from convinced of.

[RedKobra]

Have you not considered that you might be looking for something that doesn't exist? It seems like you've not even considered that the whole framework by which you imagine success is wrong. All of these organisations that you list are anachronisms. Why are you so certain that they should be successful in the first place?

You're an Anarchist, I'm a structuralist, so we're not going to agree on that. I am not au fait with the entire corpus of Anarchist thought but I'm not convinced by what I've read which seems to coalesce around the idea of spontaneous revolutionary activity and, basically, in all regards, hoping for the best. I take the bourgeoisie, the bourgeois state and the working class as being concrete parts of a system that must be disassembled structurally not in a one-night-bonfire. That just won't get the job done. To do it properly you need organisation and discipline.

[Art Vandelay]

You've completely missed the point. I'm not arguing a mass party line, which is the only way your response would make sense. I'm opining the fact that what little remained of the revolutionary movement in Britain seems to be crumbling. The situation in the SWP, for example, is a lot, lot worse than they're letting on or people imagine and Whatever your view of their politics internal and external they are often, in the UK, a visible and active first point of contact for many people who are investigating left politics. They are also an extremely militant protest group that has drawn attention to important issues. I'll say it again because I know someone will come back with "err, SWP are shit init" but there is currently sod all to replace them. We're facing a situation where to the left of the Labour party there is a vacuum, in terms of propaganda, agitation, protest, radicalisation and organisation. That, it shouldn't take a brain surgeon to work out, is not good.

No, I really didn't miss the point. You stated that due to the fact that a couple of outfits with questionable politics have folded or appear to be disintegrating, you are feeling disillusioned. As far as your comments on the SWP are concerned, it showcases a fundamental misconception about the function it serves in the class struggle. Groups like the SWP are part of the problem and no, they are not an 'extremely militant protest group.' They essentially serve as capital's safety valve, sucking up leftward moving proletarians in an organization with ostensibly Marxist politics, then spitting them back out after a couple of years when they've become burned out. If the SWP disappears, I say good riddance, one less obstacle in the way of Marxists.

You weren't explicitly advocating a mass party line, but you're thought on the topic implicitly incorporates the logic of such a line. You asked two questions: (1) how many organs of class resistance do we have left? Most of the groups you listed did not represent proletarian class interests, but setting that aside, who cares? We seek to build one party, a proletarian vanguard, that's it. (2) How many people can they mobilize at a given moment? Not only is membership size secondary to programmatic considerations, but it's also not our job to mobilize the class.

Revolutionary politics isn't a numbers game, so I'm not sure why some self proclaimed Marxist parties floundering is getting you down, but I'd suggest reflecting on why that is the case and what that says about your political perspective.

There is a vacuum to the left of labor, sure, but we don't want to see it replaced by just any party. The fact that the SWP/SA/SPEW are disintegrating and leaving this vacuum is a good thing, the less fake Trotskyists in the way of my comrades and I, the better.

[The Feral Underclass]

You're an Anarchist

No I'm not.


I'm a structuralist

I don't think so...


I am not au fait with the entire corpus of Anarchist thought but I'm not convinced by what I've read which seems to coalesce around the idea of spontaneous revolutionary activity and, basically, in all regards, hoping for the best.

I am au fait with anarchist thought and this is not an accurate appraisal. In fact, it relies on very trite bourgeois stereotypes and prejudices.


I take the bourgeoisie, the bourgeois state and the working class as being concrete parts of a system that must be disassembled structurally not in a one-night-bonfire. That just won't get the job done. To do it properly you need organisation and discipline.

Then you are in agreement with pretty much the entire tradition of anarchism.

In any case, my post was not intended to suggest that you should look at anarchism. The anarchist movement fails in much the same way as the leftist movement does.

What I'm suggesting is that perhaps the reason you are having difficulty finding an answer to your problem is because you are approaching the question in the wrong way.

[RedKobra]

No, I really didn't miss the point. You stated that due to the fact that a couple of outfits with questionable politics have folded or appear to be disintegrating, you are feeling disillusioned. As far as your comments on the SWP are concerned, it showcases a fundamental misconception about the function it serves in the class struggle. Groups like the SWP are part of the problem and no, they are not an 'extremely militant protest group.' They essentially serve as capital's safety valve, sucking up leftward moving proletarians in an organization with ostensibly Marxist politics, then spitting them back out after a couple of years when they've become burned out. If the SWP disappears, I say good riddance, one less obstacle in the way of Marxists.

You weren't explicitly advocating a mass party line, but you're thought on the topic implicitly incorporates the logic of such a line. You asked two questions: (1) how many organs of class resistance do we have left? Most of the groups you listed did not represent proletarian class interests, but setting that aside, who cares? We seek to build one party, a proletarian vanguard, that's it. (2) How many people can they mobilize at a given moment? Not only is membership size secondary to programmatic considerations, but it's also not our job to mobilize the class.

Revolutionary politics isn't a numbers game, so I'm not sure why some self proclaimed Marxist parties floundering is getting you down, but I'd suggest reflecting on why that is the case and what that says about your political perspective.

There is a vacuum to the left of labor, sure, but we don't want to see it replaced by just any party. The fact that the SWP/SA/SPEW are disintegrating and leaving this vacuum is a good thing, the less fake Trotskyists in the way of my comrades and I, the better.

This reminds me of, the frankly damn right complacent, argument parties like the SWP made about the Soviet Union. Don't worry, they said. Its the Soviet Union that is holding us all back. When the Soviet Union disappears we'll enter a new golden era of revolutionary politics. What happened? You know what bloody well happened. Super-charged Neo-Liberalism is what happened. I'm not for a moment suggesting the world would be a better place if the Soviet Union still existed, what I am suggesting is that without someone keeping revolutionary ideas alive and networks open then the whole thing just dies. You can see it with Labour, more than thirty years of neglecting the union link and the CLP's and now its next to irreparable. The networks are dead. The experience cadre's are lost. What's left? techno-activists. Never meet. Never strike. Never organise. No power.

[Spectre of Spartacism]

This reminds me of, the frankly damn right complacent, argument parties like the SWP made about the Soviet Union. Don't worry, they said. Its the Soviet Union that is holding us all back. When the Soviet Union disappears we'll enter a new golden era of revolutionary politics. What happened? You know what bloody well happened. Super-charged Neo-Liberalism is what happened. I'm not for a moment suggesting the world would be a better place if the Soviet Union still existed, what I am suggesting is that without someone keeping revolutionary ideas alive and networks open then the whole thing just dies. You can see it with Labour, more than thirty years of neglecting the union link and the CLP's and now its next to irreparable. The networks are dead. The experience cadre's are lost. What's left? techno-activists. Never meet. Never strike. Never organise. No power.

The difference is that the SWP was wrong about the Soviet Union, whereas your interlocutor (at least in the abstract, if not the omitted specifics) is right about the primacy of program and the desirability of fewer pseudo-Marxists serving as an obstacle to building a proletarian group organized around a revolutionary program.

[d3crypt]

Where I live, the organized left consists of N/A. By this I mean there simply isn't one.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The numbers reported in the OP are inflated at best. If SPEW have more than a thousand members, I'm the secret love child of Gerry Healy and Vanessa Redgrave. For all of these groups, actual membership figures range from tens to low hundreds.

I also don't think the dissolution of WP is that surprising. My understanding is that, despite their best efforts, Workers' Power was always a deeply personal group, built around the core of the "Class of '75". Well, they've been at it for 40 years now, with nothing to show for their efforts. The old core cadre are probably tired and disillusioned, and there isn't enough new cadre to keep the group afloat. Besides, it's not clear there is anything to keep afloat. WP ditched Trotsky, Lenin and Marx in order to appeal to the anti-globalisation milieu, and now there's nothing really differentiating them from the Corbyn wing of the Labour Party.


This is nothing new really, just a further dwindling down of a dwindling situation that has been going on for the last 30 years or so. As has been said before, the far left hasn't been particularly capable to adapt to current circumstances.

That the SPEW is saying that they're back to 1500 members is news to me. For many years they claimed 2000 members, or close to it, while in reality it was more like half of that. With that logic in mind, I suppose they're back to the 500 to 750 members area. This is again nothing surprising: if you have been propagating for a Labour Party mark 2 for all of your existence, why wouldn't you move to the real thing when it has a leftwing leadership again? In the UK the far left, overall, hasn't been capable of dealing with the only (bourgeois) working class force left, which is Labour. Now that Labour is moving to the left again, this problem becomes too hard to ignore.

Ironically, for years I looked to the far left in the UK in awe, as it was so much bigger and better organised than in the Netherlands, even if it was utterly splintered and infighting and pretty much incapable of achieving anything durable. Now the grass is looking a lot greener on this side of the pond as the SP is making up its own mind of how it'll develop further for the next decade as the leadership change is going on and where a radical trade union activist is expected to be elected chair later this month. This is all opening up potential for communists and we are publishing our own draft programme for the SP very soon, which is intended to become a common ground for leftwing party members to rally around.

Maybe something similar could be done in the Labour party? Forget the activism, it is ultimately useless and a drain on your time and energy. Focus on high politics, win Labour members for your politics, conquer position of power and transform that party.

This would be funny if this weren't the single guiding thought of much of the ostensible British left; one might call it the defining disorder of that milieu. In particular, ever since Cannon and Pablo forced entryism on the reluctant British Trotskyists, they have been obsessed with Labour. Of all the groups in Britain that call themselves Trotskyists, only the Spartacist League/Britain and the Workers' Socialist League before they were taken over by Matgamna haven't or hadn't worked within Labour at some point. And I really had to reach for the second example. Even British Posadists worked in the Labour Party (all 20 of them).

[Црвена]

This reminds me of, the frankly damn right complacent, argument parties like the SWP made about the Soviet Union. Don't worry, they said. Its the Soviet Union that is holding us all back. When the Soviet Union disappears we'll enter a new golden era of revolutionary politics. What happened? You know what bloody well happened. Super-charged Neo-Liberalism is what happened. I'm not for a moment suggesting the world would be a better place if the Soviet Union still existed, what I am suggesting is that without someone keeping revolutionary ideas alive and networks open then the whole thing just dies. You can see it with Labour, more than thirty years of neglecting the union link and the CLP's and now its next to irreparable. The networks are dead. The experience cadre's are lost. What's left? techno-activists. Never meet. Never strike. Never organise. No power.

See, this would make sense if the leftist sects in existence did keep revolutionary ideas alive and networks open, but I don't think many of them can be said to do that. A lot of organisations which call themselves Marxist do not have proletarian politics, and while they exist all they do is foster misconceptions and distortions of Marxism and end up making no steps towards any goal that we would deem worth achieving. Simple as that.

I think 9mm hit the nail on the head with the comment about popularity (I was actually planning an article making this very argument) and as a member of Left Unity's Communist Platform and a CPGB(PCC) sympathiser & affiliate, it really doesn't bother me that some groups - most of which have awful politics in my opinion - are going through a rough patch. What bothers me more is that many so-called socialists in the UK seem to have a burning desire to either turn their party into a Corbynite echo chamber, as Left Unity are currently doing, or throw everything they have into supporting Labour as soon as someone who spouts social democratic rhetoric wins a leadership election. This is just a symptom of utter delusion and historical amnesia and shows how pathetic the left in the UK is, not because it has few members, but because it has few principles.

[Emmett Till]

Maybe you should start working with the IWW and some Anarchist/Antifa orgs, start a noise band with 8 people, move to White Chapel and get a flat, eat hummus with them, burn down an Applebee's, start doing charity work, etc if you feel so disillusioned...



A first rate list of things you should not do, either pointless or actively harmful. Thanks!

Seriously, most of the British Left have been orbiting around the Labour Party for generations. Pretty hard to do under Tony Blair, but now you have Corbyn at the helm. Most of the British left have politics no better than his, hell, hell he still chairs the British SWP's Stop The War Coalition front group last I heard.

And the other big group, with the appropriate acronym SPEW, profess a somewhat different species of reformist left labourism, to his left on some issues, to his right on others. So the decline of the bigger groups and disappearance of so much of the Brit left from the scene is understandable, appropriate and in the long run a good thing.

What is needed is a genuinely revolutionary Marxist, Leninist and Trotskyist organization. To the best of my knowledge, now that Workers Power has bit the dust, the pretty small British Spartacist group, numbering 25 or so is a good guess, is the only group left that can really even make the claim to be such.

http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wh/203/thirtyyears.html

[Q]

I have been involved with the Labour party quite extensively and there are massive structural problems that are just not being talked about. Maybe city CLP's are alive and well, if completely powerless but across the country as a whole the infrastructure of Labour democracy is totally dead. There are hardly any organic links left between the grass roots of the Trade Union movement and the Labour party. All contact seems to go on at the top level. Trust me, I've seen it with my own eyes. The Labour party has lots of members (well, relatively) and a bureaucracy but very little in-between. That's all assuming we take the line that you can radicalise the Labour party which having moved in those circles I'm far from convinced of.
I'm sure that after 20 years of Blairite rule, most local branches have been depleted of activity. What I'm proposing isn't an easy route or a shortcut. We can only transform anything if we're in it for the long haul. Now, I can understand if this brings up connotations of "deep entryism", as that is all you Brits seem to know about. But that would be a wrong approach. We need to organise in Labour as Marxists and aim to put Labour on Marxist foundations. This means developing an alternative programme for the party, organising whatever leftwing elements there are (I believe that the LRC would be a good starting point), win them to communist politics, win leading positions. What I'm not proposing is "entryism" as a parasitical strategy, aiming for your own little grouplet to grow. This has proven to be a dead end, time and again. This doesn't exclude independent organisation of course, as you would be facing bureaucratic whip at every junction, but this shouldn't be an aim in itself.

[The Idler]

I don't think the groups are much different in size from ten years ago, WP and AWL have just gone in for entryism.
If they were disappearing though, honestly, I would say good riddance, the cause of socialism is better off without the left and the futile activities of marching, trying to deceive workers with front groups, machievellian support for other groups, striking at all costs to try and achieve socialism, campaigning and shouting at fascists. When socialists were actually trying to achieve power and take it away from the ruling class (in the nineteenth century for example) however big a task that may seem, we were much better off before proto-Bolshevism spoiled the socialist movement in Britain.

[WideAwake]

You are right, there is the ultra-left, which is the real authentic left of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gramsci, Trotsky and the other founding fathers of communism (which is weak in economic resources) and then there is the fake-left (which is very rich, has a lot of money for media power, are supported by many progressive companies, like the socialist billionaires George Soros, and the owner of Virgin Airlines, Putin (who is rich and capitalist) and they are are the social-democrats, reformists, electoralists, welfare-capitalism left, Democracy Now, Bernie Sanders, Green Party, Counterpunch.org, The Socialist Party of USA, Socialist Alternative of Kshama Sawant, socialistworker.org, ISO, commondreams.org, salon.com, politico, David Pakman, The Russia Today News, Thom Hartmann, Michael Moore, Bill Maher, Rachel Madow, Cindy Sheehan, Oliver Stone, Alex Jones, Jessy Ventura, Redacted Tonight, Peter Lavelle, Erin Ade (The anorexic economist of RT), and the other anorexic girls of RT)

We all know here that the real deal, the only solution for poverty is a unity of all ultra-leftist parties of the world, a unity of all ultra-leftists parties of USA, a unity of all ultra-leftists parties of each country of the world. The problem is that ultra-leftist parties do not have enough economic resources. And since every thing in this world right now is so expensive (transportation, propaganda tools, and requires so much money for technology, for media power, the ultra-leftist parties, which are the real leftist parties, have been losing ground and being slowly destroyed and replaced by the fake-leftist parties. The best ultra-leftist thinkers of the world, will have to evolve into super-heroes, into superman, batman, spiderman, because the ultra-leftist parties are really the saviors, the messiahs of the world, they have the olympic task, of saving the world



Our means of organization and resistance are outdated. We have failed to adapt to the rapid changing nature in how society functions and processes information.

This doesn't mean we or our ideas are irrelevant but the way we operate is...

This means that traditional parties will disband because their membership base dwindles. This in turn means we lose voice and further effectiveness. And this means the bourgeoisie left will usurp a lot of these groups for lack of a viable alternative.

This however does not mean people aren't becoming increasingly radical but it does mean they will flock to groups and parties that seem to be more able to do something....anything really...

[Blake's Baby]

... Gramsci...

No thanks, he's one of yours.

As for the rest, luckily, the 'ultra-lefts' realise that it is the working class that will overthrow the current order of things, not a few politics nerds.

[Jolly Red Giant]

The situation in Ireland for left organisations has never been healthier since the foundation of the state.

There are two prominent groups on the far left - the Socialist Party (CWI) and the SWP. Both have grown significantly over the last couple of years.

The SWP established a broader formation called People Before Profit about ten years ago and it has gained something of a profile particularly on the southside of Dublin. Don't know the size - they have no base in my area and I don't come into contact with them. The SWP currently have 1 MP and about 12 councillors (there are a couple of other non-SWP PBP councillors)

Last year activists involved in the anti-water charges campaign launched the Anti-Austerity Alliance. The Socialist Party is affiliated to the AAA. The SP currently has 3 members of parliament and 9 councillors with a further 5 non-SP AAA councillors. Two of the SP members who are in parliament have won the last two by-elections that have taken place in Dublin on the back of campaigning work on opposing water charges. The AAA has grown rapidly over recent months. In my area there are more than 200 members (the SP has about 20 in my local branch). It is a vibrant campaigning organisation that has been built by activists who were never previously involved in political activity and who have rapidly gained political and organisational experience over the past few months.

The state are currently attempting to prosecute several AAA public representatives (and others) on a variety of charges related to anti-water charges protests.

As of today the parliamentary grouping of the AAA/PBP (they have a technical alliance for electoral purposes) are polling 9% in national opinion polls - up 2 points from the previous poll - and are polling 17% in Dublin - up 8 points from the previous poll.

There is the distinct prospect that the AAA/PBP will increase their parliamentary representation from the current 4 to possibly 10 (or more if the current momentum continues to develop). This would include seats in the second and third largest cities.

There is also the prospect of a wider cohort of left parliamentary candidates getting elected.

The left has been coming under sustained attack in recent weeks - not just from the state but from Sinn Fein and sections of the union bureaucracy - because the AAA has refused to join an electoral alliance with Sinn Fein (Sinn Fein are refusing to rule out coalition with pro-austerity parties). There is intense political debate underway in campaign groups and the national media over the populist approach of SF and the principled approach of the AAA. It is now unusual if at least one representative of the AAA/PBP is not on the national media on a daily basis - all three SP MPs were on different national radio talk shows today. It is also rare when there aren't articles attacking the AAA in the national and local print media.

Currently the AAA (and in a lesser profile way the PBP) is leading a nationwide boycott campaign against water charges - 52% of the population are boycotting this austerity tax. The AAA are also leading a campaign against evictions and homeless - more than 100 families are being evicted every months as landlords move to drive up rents. The AAA and homeless campaigners have engaged in a series of occupations of properties owned by the state owned NAMA (set up to bailout property developers after the crash). NAMA has been selling property at a knock-down price to property investment funds and developers who are then driving up prices to make a quick buck.

The general election in Ireland has to be held by April at the latest. The election will probably see the largest ever contingent of left-wing MPs in the history of the state. But more importantly - the election will see a political earthquake in terms of the decline in right-wing pro-austerity parties. The LP could very well be wiped out in the election (there is no Corbyn and no prospect of a Corbyn to save them). The government will take a big beating and there will be jockeying for position as they try and cobble together an unstable administration. The right-wing are currently trumpeting a 'recovery' in the economy - but it is a recovery for the rich - and working class people have begun to gain confidence and move into struggle.

[RedKobra]

The situation in Ireland for left organisations has never been healthier since the foundation of the state.

There are two prominent groups on the far left - the Socialist Party (CWI) and the SWP. Both have grown significantly over the last couple of years.

The SWP established a broader formation called People Before Profit about ten years ago and it has gained something of a profile particularly on the southside of Dublin. Don't know the size - they have no base in my area and I don't come into contact with them. The SWP currently have 1 MP and about 12 councillors (there are a couple of other non-SWP PBP councillors)

Last year activists involved in the anti-water charges campaign launched the Anti-Austerity Alliance. The Socialist Party is affiliated to the AAA. The SP currently has 3 members of parliament and 9 councillors with a further 5 non-SP AAA councillors. Two of the SP members who are in parliament have won the last two by-elections that have taken place in Dublin on the back of campaigning work on opposing water charges. The AAA has grown rapidly over recent months. In my area there are more than 200 members (the SP has about 20 in my local branch). It is a vibrant campaigning organisation that has been built by activists who were never previously involved in political activity and who have rapidly gained political and organisational experience over the past few months.

The state are currently attempting to prosecute several AAA public representatives (and others) on a variety of charges related to anti-water charges protests.

As of today the parliamentary grouping of the AAA/PBP (they have a technical alliance for electoral purposes) are polling 9% in national opinion polls - up 2 points from the previous poll - and are polling 17% in Dublin - up 8 points from the previous poll.

There is the distinct prospect that the AAA/PBP will increase their parliamentary representation from the current 4 to possibly 10 (or more if the current momentum continues to develop). This would include seats in the second and third largest cities.

There is also the prospect of a wider cohort of left parliamentary candidates getting elected.

The left has been coming under sustained attack in recent weeks - not just from the state but from Sinn Fein and sections of the union bureaucracy - because the AAA has refused to join an electoral alliance with Sinn Fein (Sinn Fein are refusing to rule out coalition with pro-austerity parties). There is intense political debate underway in campaign groups and the national media over the populist approach of SF and the principled approach of the AAA. It is now unusual if at least one representative of the AAA/PBP is not on the national media on a daily basis - all three SP MPs were on different national radio talk shows today. It is also rare when there aren't articles attacking the AAA in the national and local print media.

Currently the AAA (and in a lesser profile way the PBP) is leading a nationwide boycott campaign against water charges - 52% of the population are boycotting this austerity tax. The AAA are also leading a campaign against evictions and homeless - more than 100 families are being evicted every months as landlords move to drive up rents. The AAA and homeless campaigners have engaged in a series of occupations of properties owned by the state owned NAMA (set up to bailout property developers after the crash). NAMA has been selling property at a knock-down price to property investment funds and developers who are then driving up prices to make a quick buck.

The general election in Ireland has to be held by April at the latest. The election will probably see the largest ever contingent of left-wing MPs in the history of the state. But more importantly - the election will see a political earthquake in terms of the decline in right-wing pro-austerity parties. The LP could very well be wiped out in the election (there is no Corbyn and no prospect of a Corbyn to save them). The government will take a big beating and there will be jockeying for position as they try and cobble together an unstable administration. The right-wing are currently trumpeting a 'recovery' in the economy - but it is a recovery for the rich - and working class people have begun to gain confidence and move into struggle.

That's extremely heartening Jolly.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

OP: have you considered that the number of people who oppose capital today might not have decreased, it's just that the 20th Century Leninist tactics of much of the 'organised' left in Britain have been abandoned by those who politically lean left?

I think if you're putting your revolutionary ambitions in the hands of the likes of the SWP and CPGB (PCC) then you should only expect to be disappointed.

[The Idler]

You are right, there is the ultra-left, which is the real authentic left of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gramsci, Trotsky and the other founding fathers of communism (which is weak in economic resources) and then there is the fake-left (which is very rich, has a lot of money for media power, are supported by many progressive companies, like the socialist billionaires George Soros, and the owner of Virgin Airlines, Putin (who is rich and capitalist) and they are are the social-democrats, reformists, electoralists, welfare-capitalism left, Democracy Now, Bernie Sanders, Green Party, Counterpunch.org, The Socialist Party of USA, Socialist Alternative of Kshama Sawant, socialistworker.org, ISO, commondreams.org, salon.com, politico, David Pakman, The Russia Today News, Thom Hartmann, Michael Moore, Bill Maher, Rachel Madow, Cindy Sheehan, Oliver Stone, Alex Jones, Jessy Ventura, Redacted Tonight, Peter Lavelle, Erin Ade (The anorexic economist of RT), and the other anorexic girls of RT)

We all know here that the real deal, the only solution for poverty is a unity of all ultra-leftist parties of the world, a unity of all ultra-leftists parties of USA, a unity of all ultra-leftists parties of each country of the world. The problem is that ultra-leftist parties do not have enough economic resources. And since every thing in this world right now is so expensive (transportation, propaganda tools, and requires so much money for technology, for media power, the ultra-leftist parties, which are the real leftist parties, have been losing ground and being slowly destroyed and replaced by the fake-leftist parties. The best ultra-leftist thinkers of the world, will have to evolve into super-heroes, into superman, batman, spiderman, because the ultra-leftist parties are really the saviors, the messiahs of the world, they have the olympic task, of saving the world
Engels may have been a founding father of communism but he was not "weak in economic resources".
So please explain what differentiates the fake-left from the authentic left.
And I don't think the likes of Alex Jones or Jesse Ventura have ever described themselves as left-wing.
Also please realise the term "ultra-left" has always been used as a criticism by revolutionaries.
We do not need superheroes, saviours or messiahs to save the world. This is fascism, socialism argues the working-class will emancipate itself.

[WideAwake]

Yeah we do need ultra-leftist super-heroes to save this world, because most poor people hate communism. And I don't have the patience to wait for all poor people of this world, to join communist parties and support armed revolutions of communists against capitalist governments. The left that most poor people support is the social-democratic left (Siriza, Dilma Rousseuf, Bernie Sanders, The Green party, etc). Not the radical left



We do not need superheroes, saviours or messiahs to save the world. This is fascism, socialism argues the working-class will emancipate itself.

[WideAwake]

Saving people is not fascism, saving people is good, it is a humane heroic action.

We do not need superheroes, saviours or messiahs to save the world. This is fascism

[The Idler]

Okay I'm going to have to resort to quoting Wikipedia to demolish this idea that the poor working-class need saving by ultra-left supermen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man_theory

The Great Man theory is a 19th-century idea according to which history can be largely explained by the impact of "great men", or heroes: highly influential individuals who, due to either their personal charisma, intelligence, wisdom, or political skill utilized their power in a way that had a decisive historical impact. The theory was popularized in the 1840s by Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle. But in 1860 Herbert Spencer formulated a counter-argument that has remained influential throughout the 20th century to the present; Spencer said that such great men are the products of their societies, and that their actions would be impossible without the social conditions built before their lifetimes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-leftism

Used pejoratively, ultra-left generally criticizes positions, especially those the mainstream historical Marxist parties, that are adopted without taking notice of the current situation or of the consequences which would result from following a proposed course. The term is used to criticize leftist positions that, for example, overstate the tempo of events, propose initiatives that overestimate the current level of militancy, or which employ a highly militant tone in their propaganda.

[Црвена]

Saving people is not fascism, saving people is good, it is a humane heroic action.

I never thought I would actually see anyone arguing that the working-class need "saving." What, are they (we, we should be saying) so stupid and incapable of revolutionary consciousness that they need to be rescued by enlightened souls from the depths of their ignorance? This is the kind of elitism that causes dictatorships over, not of, the proletariat.

[The Idler]

I never thought I would actually see anyone arguing that the working-class need "saving." What, are they (we, we should be saying) so stupid and incapable of revolutionary consciousness that they need to be rescued by enlightened souls from the depths of their ignorance? This is the kind of elitism that causes dictatorships over, not of, the proletariat.
Even the Bolsheviks didn't see themselves as saving the working-class.

[The Feral Underclass]

What the fuck is an ultraleft superhero?

[Црвена]

Even the Bolsheviks didn't see themselves as saving the working-class.

I wasn't thinking of them, actually. I was thinking of Southeast Asia, where the propaganda of the Communist Parties often looked quite religious.

[The Idler]

What the fuck is an ultraleft superhero?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bc/Superman_in_Red_Son.png

[olahsenor]

SWP has the delusional impressions that USA or Canada or Britain is 'socialist' given that there is universal healthcare and nationalized Hydro in their own definition of socialism. But their intention is just to preserve the status quo and pit themselves against the Communist Parties of the respective countries and consider them as not befitting. That is why they criticized the Soviet Union.

[Emmett Till]

Yeah we do need ultra-leftist super-heroes to save this world, because most poor people hate communism. And I don't have the patience to wait for all poor people of this world, to join communist parties and support armed revolutions of communists against capitalist governments. The left that most poor people support is the social-democratic left (Siriza, Dilma Rousseuf, Bernie Sanders, The Green party, etc). Not the radical left

And what would the magic powers of these superpowers be? Could they leap tall buildings at a single bound? Or maybe they would be graduates of Hogwarts, eager to rescue us Muggles from the Lord Voldemorts of capitalism?

The most "practical" version of this conception was put forward by a once prominent Latin American Trotskyist named Juan Posadas. He many years ago suggested that UFO's were actually advance detachments from socialist civilizations from other solar systems, who would have to be socialist since only a socialist society could master the speed of light and interstellar travel.

He expected they would soon land to rescue us from capitalism. Or perhaps from the devastation left by the other thing he advocated, namely all out Soviet nuclear strikes on the USA to annihilate capitalism.

Er, I guess that could all work, sorta.

[Aslan]

We need money and military/political leadership. Unlike right-wingers, Leftists don't have billionaires or nations with deep pockets to supply them with the necessary tools for revolution. What would be good is a class-traitor capitalist to give us those resources; however that kind of good luck we don't have. We need to spread the word in real life by taking to the streets. Not just a 100 man protest, but a 100,000 man march.

[WideAwake]

I am an ultra-left superhero. And most workers and most poor people won't become communists. That's an ugly truth. If you have the patience to wait for poor americans to become communists and join communist parties you will get tired, because poor people won't become communists.

Get out of your virtual world, into the real world. The real world is the world where poor people won't ever join radical leftist parties



What the fuck is an ultraleft superhero?

[WideAwake]

Many people in revleft are too dogmatic, too orthodox marxists and live in a virtual world. They don't realize that without power, without money, they will never destroy capitalism

They also trust the poor people too much, most poor people are pieces of trash, self-absorbed, rude, mean and barbarian. And they need to be rescued from their own crazy behaviour. Most poor people, most oppressed americans do not want to get out of poverty with communism. But either thru working extra hours, or with illegal activities, or migrating to other countries.

If many radical leftists decide to wait for all poor people to join communist parties, that's their right and I respect that. But from my own point of view, the best smartest thinkers of the ultra-left of the whole world need to invent a new revolutionary system of saving the world from capitalism without having to wait for all poor people to become marxists



We need money and military/political leadership. Unlike right-wingers, Leftists don't have billionaires or nations with deep pockets to supply them with the necessary tools for revolution. What would be good is a class-traitor capitalist to give us those resources; however that kind of good luck we don't have. We need to spread the word in real life by taking to the streets. Not just a 100 man protest, but a 100,000 man march.

[Futility Personified]

Many people in revleft are too dogmatic, too orthodox marxists and live in a virtual world. They don't realize that without power, without money, they will never destroy capitalism

They also trust the poor people too much, most poor people are pieces of trash, self-absorbed, rude, mean and barbarian. And they need to be rescued from their own crazy behaviour

I don't have to listen to you. Your postcount is too low.

The second half is so ridiculous i'm 99% certain that it is ok to let the one-liner rule slide for this post.

[Counterculturalist]

Has anyone noticed that WideAwake is the same poster as AmilcarCabral and banned user MarxistWorld? All three have a tendency to post non-sequiturs, make constant reference to and lists of liberal/social democratic youtube channels, and quote after replying, and WA and AC shared the same MLK avatar...

[John Nada]

Has anyone noticed that WideAwake is the same poster as AmilcarCabral and banned user MarxistWorld? All three have a tendency to post non-sequiturs, make constant reference to and lists of liberal/social democratic youtube channels, and quote after replying, and WA and AC shared the same MLK avatar...I noticed that too. Wasn't AmilcarCabral a sockpuppet for MarxistTrotskyist, banned for antisemitism? Wasn't lurking that far back, but something like that.

[Blake's Baby]

...
Also please realise the term "ultra-left" has always been used as a criticism by revolutionaries...

Some of us have taken to it as something of a badge of honour. Much as Proudhon proclaimed himself to be an Anarchist. Much as Marx and Engels took on the term Communist. Previously, these had all been used as insults.

I'd say that 'ultra-left' was actually used as a criticism of revolutionaries.

[The Idler]

Some of us have taken to it as something of a badge of honour. Much as Proudhon proclaimed himself to be an Anarchist. Much as Marx and Engels took on the term Communist. Previously, these had all been used as insults.

I'd say that 'ultra-left' was actually used as a criticism of revolutionaries.
True. This is a good point.

[You]

Counterfire do have very small numbers...

[logfish111]

Many people in revleft are too dogmatic, too orthodox marxists and live in a virtual world. They don't realize that without power, without money, they will never destroy capitalism

They also trust the poor people too much, most poor people are pieces of trash, self-absorbed, rude, mean and barbarian. And they need to be rescued from their own crazy behaviour. Most poor people, most oppressed americans do not want to get out of poverty with communism. But either thru working extra hours, or with illegal activities, or migrating to other countries.

If many radical leftists decide to wait for all poor people to join communist parties, that's their right and I respect that. But from my own point of view, the best smartest thinkers of the ultra-left of the whole world need to invent a new revolutionary system of saving the world from capitalism without having to wait for all poor people to become marxists

Is this some kind of parody?