I'm Considering Leaving The Swp And Joining Wp-l5i

[Workers Power]

Hello.

I'm considering leaving the SWP (IST) and joining Workers Power (League for 5th International). I'm looking for advice and comment and polemic on if this is a good idea or not.

There is not branch in my city, however the organisation is trying to recruit their and has local organisations close by with an very active membership.

My problem with the SWP is that we seem to tail the movement rather than arguing our politics within it. We also do not educate our members to anywhere near the standards WP/revolution (it's youth group) do in marxist theory.

Thoughts?

Relevant web links:

www.workerspower.com
www.swp.org.uk
www.fifthinternational.org
www.istendency.net

[Aurora]

Leaving the IST is a good idea but to be honest i dont think much of the 5th international either.

I would recommend the CWI (http://www.socialistworld.net/) have a look at our website and post what you think.

btw what part of the world are you from comrade?

[Forward Union]

It's entirely up to you. Normally I would suggest sticking to the group with a branch locally, as that's normally more practically beneficial. As opposed to trying to start an alternative.

But in the case of the SWP it's unlikely they do anything of any use anyway.

Basically it's hard for me to comment because I utterly detest both organisations, but to drag any political baggage into this thread would be, a waste of time.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

Anyone but the SWP, really. Unless you want to try and reform some of the existing organisations to be better, but it's a mammoth task.

-Alex

[Aurora]

Anyone but the SWP, really. Unless you want to try and reform some of the existing organisations to be better, but it's a mammoth task.

-Alex

What about the sparts :P

[Forward Union]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 09:26 pm
Anyone but the SWP, really. Unless you want to try and reform some of the existing organisations to be better, but it's a mammoth task.

-Alex
Well "anyone but the SWP" is normally a good policy, and so if anyone here considered joining them over starting their own group, I would do what I could to prevent that, and assist them in setting up something useful.

Unfortunatly Workers Power are pretty mad aswell, and have a lot of influence in the "Revolution" organisation. Which used to be pretty non-sectarian.

[Whitten]

Whats with all these sectarian organisations and parties that opperate completly ineffectivly over an entire country and get nothing done but argue with their rivals (often more than with the right-wing) and organise the occasional split? The revolutionary left wing is not in a position in the western world to be playing sectarian. A coalition of geographicly organised groups uniting the left in action as opposed to dividing it in semantics would allow us to actually get something done one day.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Not a good idea comrade; I am an SWP-ist, and I do not agree with you that we tail-end anyone.

Of course, if you want to be super-glued to an unchanging 'transitional programme', then that is up to you.

But then you will be tail-ending the 1930's.

[apathy maybe]

Personally I would say don't bother being a member of any party. If there is a group or party that actually does stuff that you consider useful (whatever that maybe) in your local area, then help out with them, if there is more then one, then either help them all out (which would probably take a lot of time) or pick the one that seems the most active. Even if you do only tend to help one group out, you can still go to other group's activities (actions, strikes, whatever).

So, stay friendly with everyone (except those who are arseholes to you first).
Help whichever group depending on what you like.
Give politics a break, you all want to smash capitalism, unless there is really detestable politics (such as homophobia or racism or something), it isn't worth talking about. What I mean by this is, sure talk theory or whatever, but put action first. The party shouldn't be there to discuss whether Trotsky was right or wrong, or if some split is right or wrong, it should be there to educate people as to what is wrong with capitalism.

Finally, don't be a Leninist. Be an anarchist, we have more fun :P.

[Workers Power]

What's wrong with WP though?

I'm not going to join CWI. There is a branch of SP locally and I will not join them. Their newspaper is reformist, it has also been at times very uncritical of Cuba.

The SWP has some good points to it, but I've been in one and a half years and not once has their been a local meeting on anything like: marxist economics, leninism, stalinist states, etc. I've signed up someone from my college in early November. I wasn't going to because he is a reformist, I was going to suggest he joined Respect - but my branch told me to get him to join so I did. He has not even been exposed to revolutionary ideas after being in the party for four months!

Have a read of the article on the back of this week's Weekly Worker: http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/660/stopwar.htm

That's one of the reasons I'm sick of the SWP. Yes, stop the war should unite people, but it should also be a place for people to debate ideas and strategies. The idea of winning people to the SWP by being the most active activists and then winning them to revolutionary ideas by keeping them in the party for a few years isn't going to work.

I joined the SWP personally not because of it's activity, but because it was a revolutionary organisation and one of it's members in a branch which is tiny and probably described by the leadership as 'stuck in the downturn' took time to argue out communist ideas with me.

I feel, with the level of politics that WP and it's youth group have, and the level of democracy in it's youth group (the WP members did not always vote as a block, and never seemed to vote as a block against everyone else - the only time they did vote as a block was when it was basically everyone vs one or two stalinists). The organisation also had very indepth political debates. Different WP members also put forward different slates, as well as non WP members, for the NC, and voted according to personal preference rather than as a block.

I also feel their paper is more useful, as rather than just being news it has a lot of analysis and I particularly like the 'Spotlight on Communist Policy' parts. These would be much more useful to sell to people than the Socialist Worker.

Locally their is someone who has joined the Revolution youth group and wants to be very active - they put themselves forward for it's NC and got selected on a few slates, including the winning one. This means there's a chance of getting an active Revolution branch going, and this will lead to a Workers Power branch. In the city near me (about a pop of 1 million) Revolution already has far far more young people than SWP, and I'd guess 75% of these will join WP.

[The Grey Blur]

I honestly have never come into contact with the WP, ever. I hear they are just as crazy/tiny as the Sparts though.

Good luck with the whole "anyone but the SWP" thing though, good call.

[fashbash]

The Socialist Party agree with Whitten. They're campaigning for a single working class party.

[Coggeh]

Originally posted by Workers [email protected] 19, 2007 05:32 pm
What's wrong with WP though?

I'm not going to join CWI. There is a branch of SP locally and I will not join them. Their newspaper is reformist, it has also been at times very uncritical of Cuba.


Swp are reformist , they present themselves as ultras but quake under the real issues , they support hezbollah , we support a workers unity .

The sp are very critical over Cuba , we say their should be more political freedom in Cuba but then again we would have some support for the castro regime (tho only to a degree)

[Whitten]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 05:43 pm
The Socialist Party agree with Whitten. They're campaigning for a single working class party.
I know and I'm lookig forward to the next CNWP confence in may (i think). I've never been a fan of trots but such theoretical debate shouldn't halt the movement, i'd rather a Socialist Britain led by a Trotskyite party than a capitalist one led by the New Conservatives.

[Workers Power]

Originally posted by Coggy+February 19, 2007 05:47 pm--> (Coggy @ February 19, 2007 05:47 pm)
Workers [email protected] 19, 2007 05:32 pm
What's wrong with WP though?

I'm not going to join CWI. There is a branch of SP locally and I will not join them. Their newspaper is reformist, it has also been at times very uncritical of Cuba.


Swp are reformist , they present themselves as ultras but quake under the real issues , they support hezbollah , we support a workers unity .

The sp are very critical over Cuba , we say their should be more political freedom in Cuba but then again we would have some support for the castro regime (tho only to a degree) [/b]
The SWP are centrist. So is the CWI. The CWI has also at one time called Burma and Syria workers states just because a lot of the economy was nationalised. That's almost like saying Britain in 1945 was a Workers State. The SWP only mentions revolutionary politics in Where We Stand and some of the older pamphlets that none of it's more modern branches seem to sell (I was lucky enough to join a branch that hadn't had any new members since when it was re-set up by the SWP members who lived locally. Most of their book stall was things like 'Why we need a revolutionary party', etc. In all other branches I've been to it's mostly books that are not even written by communists!

WP are not anything like the sparts. In Leeds they are a very active campaigning group (esp. anti-imperialism), and don't spend most of their time saying 'Free Mumia' like the Sparts seem to.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

WP:


The SWP has some good points to it, but I've been in one and a half years and not once has their been a local meeting on anything like: marxist economics, leninism, stalinist states, etc. I've signed up someone from my college in early November. I wasn't going to because he is a reformist, I was going to suggest he joined Respect - but my branch told me to get him to join so I did. He has not even been exposed to revolutionary ideas after being in the party for four months!

This is odd, since we used to have educationals all the time.

Did you go to Maxrism 2006 -- plenty of politics there!

Strikes me, from you say directly above, that you have a rather odd idea of the SWP.

Centrist, my foot!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Coggy:


they support hezbollah

Get this right: the SWP gives them critical support, but only in their anti-imperialist struggle.

And why you call the SWP 'reformist', I haven't a clue.

I suspect you haven't either.

[BOZG]

Originally posted by Permanent [email protected] 19, 2007 05:42 pm
I honestly have never come into contact with the WP, ever. I hear they are just as crazy/tiny as the Sparts though.
No, they're not as ultra-left as the Sparts and are probably a bit more transitional than them though they raised a number of extremely ultra-left points during our debate with them at the G8 in Scotland about the need to constantly hammer home violent revolution amongst working class people.



The CWI has also at one time called Burma and Syria workers states just because a lot of the economy was nationalised.

Could you give sources on that?



And why you call the SWP 'reformist', I haven't a clue.

Effective liquidation into RESPECT and other similar groups?
An effective refusal to raise difficult issues so as not to offend anyone?
Support for Social Partnership in Ireland?

[Workers Power]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 19, 2007 10:27 pm
Coggy:


they support hezbollah

Get this right: the SWP gives them critical support, but only in their anti-imperialist struggle.


True the SWP were critical of Hezbollah, especially politically. I think the WP and SWP positions on this are very similar.

[chebol]

Letters from afar...... (cringes at own self-consciously tacky intro...) ;)

It depends on your politics really. My advice would be to check out Socialist Resistance (although they are very small). Failing that, the Grantites and the CWI aren't entirely nuts....

It sounds like you have a problem with Cuba. While I suspect it's because of time being miseducated by the SWP and what they pass off as "analysis" and "marxism" under the cover of the term "State Capitalism", there is no reason to believe that everyone else is some kind of unmitigated Stalinist. Do some independent research on Cuba, and try and get a sense of not only the problems, but of the gains, and how they were *really* achieved.

Both the CWI and Grantites are critical of Cuba, but on a reasonably more rational and material basis than the SWP. I don't agree with most of their analysis, btw, but at least they try... SR has a better approach, but you'd best be prepared for a small group if you join them - at least for now.

Alternatively, move to Scotland.... The SSP beckons. :D

Regardless, I advise staying clear of the L5I. It's all well and good to educate your members in "marxist theory" to a "high level", but it matters not a dot if they fail to understand what that theory means.................

Another, and probably the most useful, approach is to work closely with a number of groups, especially those interested in left unity (CWI/ CNWP, Respect, SR, Socialist Alliance). Even if they are not active locally, you can get in contact with them and attempt some collaboration and discussion. Meanwhile, I would advise either finding someone willing to help you understand marxism, or teaching yourself (and there are plenty of people online here who are more than willing to give you their own interpretation of the thing, and help you along the way).

Just remember to keep active - one step forward in struggle is worth a dozen programs...

Good luck, whatever your choice.

[Xiao Banfa]

Good Idea. The SWP are far to tail-endist. They latch on to movements and try to inject as much "marxism"as possible.
They get really sectarian for it's own sake and they feel like the game is is being taken away from them if any other left groups start getting somewhere.

Having said that Socialist Worker in New Zealand, while I utterly disagree with their strategies,have decent comrades. And I'm sure thats the case with SW in Britain.

Join the CWI!

[Workers Power]

Went to first Workers Power (L5I) branch last night.

Apart from organising stuff, they had an educational discussing a chapter from a book about what happened to the fourth international - looking at how different groups had adopted strategies such as guerillaism and New Youth Vanguard and why these would fail because they ignored the working class. I probably learnt more from that one hour educational than from all the SWP branch meetings I've been to in the year or so I've been a member, and the comrades who had read the book before were really good at asking questions to those who had just read them - if only school education was like that. Also had a laugh at Healy in pub afterwards, but I must admit to doing that with someone from SWP before, but it's always a good sign.

[TC]

I have extensive personal experience with Workers Power (i know everyone in the organization, which is easy as they have 30 people, attend their conferences etc).

They are basically like the SWP but on a much much much smaller scale. The group is extraordinarily dogmatic around a very similar dogma as the SWP, they are strictly hierarchical and under the control of old SWP splitters, and they take a profoundly undemocratic role in controlling Revolution to exclusion of its rank and file members to the point of openly breaking the Revo constitution at the last conference (last weekend).

In fact, its almost better to be in the SWP because Workers Power operates a much stricter party dicipline and tends to be much more fanatically doctriniare than rank and file SWP members.


The worst thing is that young Workers Power members tend to have an extremely low level of political and marxist education, they just rarely know what they're talking about. Rather than self-education through independent research they tend to rely on the old trotskyist guys to 'educate' (indoctrinate) them as they see them as a "wealth of knowledge" lol. So basically you have people who promote an ideology that has very little to do with Marxism, Leninism or Trotskyism, but rather with a unique and generally rather metaphysical position fixated on their own platform. I think the SWP at some point accused them of being "platform fetishists", to me thats an excellent description.

That said, Workers Power organizes very good house parties, take lots and lots of drugs, and have lots of promiscuous sex, so if thats your scene they're good for it...personally i don't know why they don't play that point up in their official literature as its their primary means of recruitment and retention. Workers Power members are some of the most fun, entertaining and cool people on the left, its too bad that their politics suck and they don't do the reading :-p.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

WP:


Apart from organising stuff, they had an educational discussing a chapter from a book about what happened to the fourth international - looking at how different groups had adopted strategies such as guerillaism and New Youth Vanguard and why these would fail because they ignored the working class.

Whereas, the working class just ignore Workers Power.

And it sounds like you learnt some really useless stuff from them too.

As I said, back to the 1930's....

----------------------------------------------------------

Tragic Clown: nice description of WP and the SWP, except in my experience, going back over 25 years, the SWP is the most democratic group I know of on the far left -- not perfect, but the best I am aware of.

[Leo]

the SWP is the most democratic group I know of on the far left

Yeah, a nice way of saying that they take anyone who wants to join in without making any political distinction, whether they are Islamic fundamentalists, Stalinists etc. except, of course, for real communists but they don't want to join anyway.

[Xiao Banfa]

Rather than self-education through independent research they tend to rely on the old trotskyist guys to 'educate' (indoctrinate) them as they see them as a "wealth of knowledge" lol.

This sounds exactly like the SWP in NZ.

Although I think collective study sessions is the way to go in terms of party-centred education.


That said, Workers Power organizes very good house parties, take lots and lots of drugs, and have lots of promiscuous sex,

Socialising people into a party is just fucked and very messy.

Being a socialist millitant is like having a job it's not an substance-fuelled ego trip.

[Aurora]

That said, Workers Power organizes very good house parties, take lots and lots of drugs, and have lots of promiscuous sex,
Damn i wish they had a section here :lol:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Leo:


Yeah, a nice way of saying that they take anyone who wants to join in without making any political distinction, whether they are Islamic fundamentalists, Stalinists etc. except, of course, for real communists but they don't want to join anyway.

I think you should begin posts like this with a "Once upon a time..."; that would at least improve their accuracy.

[Leo]

I don't think I need to write "once upon a time" when it is still like that today.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Leo:


I don't think I need to write "once upon a time" when it is still like that today.

Nearly correct! Just leave out the "I don't think I need to write ... when it is still like that today", and you have it!