Workers Power
20th February 2007, 22:41
Here is what I've come to realize in the last few days.
Just calling yourself a communist and selling a paper and going to picket lines to show support isn't the way to win struggles.
Rather, arguing for more militant strategies is - let me show you an example of how this will work in practice.
Locally there has been a campaign to save the local hospital. It had some good sized demos (Town of 150,000 people, 3000 or so of them on each demo). The campaign has declined in size and momentum, even though it managed to get a councilor (who is part of the CWI elected last year). The campaign is going nowhere and nowhere fast, and activists from non communist organisations who really care about this issue are getting quite desperate (one, who is a 60 year old woman married to a vicar, suggesting she walked around the town naked in order to gain publicity for the cause). The responce of those in communist organisations present (including IST (SWP), CWI (SP) and Spiked! (former RCP)) was to argue for building for another demo this time in Sheffield (a city about 20 miles away) and building for another election. Sadly I was part of this. This just shows how conservative communist organisations can be. The next meeting, on the 6th of March, I shall argue that we need to put on and build for a public meeting with speakers who are the strikes from the NHS in Manchester to speak about the the benefits of striking as they did at the national Keep Our NHS Public conference (that was totally undemocratic as voting on strategies was not allowed!). This will be done by leafleting at hospitals especially aiming at staff. The ultimate aim of the meeting is to get a committee of rank and file hospital staff organized to start a strike. Even if this does not happen, it will show people what communists argue for and will draw people away from reformism.
If I wasn't thinking about leaving the IST (SWP) and looking at it's faults I would never have thought of it. I've already got the backing of a comrade in the CWI (SP). I'm now quite sure I'm joining the L5I (WP) tomorrow. It was them who sowed the seeds of doubt in my mind by arguing various policies such as getting Unite against Fascism to leaflet for the conference against Islamophobia - something which seems obvious for it to do to me, but something the IST (SWP) argued against and even tried to get them thrown out of UAF for.
Just calling yourself a communist and selling a paper and going to picket lines to show support isn't the way to win struggles.
Rather, arguing for more militant strategies is - let me show you an example of how this will work in practice.
Locally there has been a campaign to save the local hospital. It had some good sized demos (Town of 150,000 people, 3000 or so of them on each demo). The campaign has declined in size and momentum, even though it managed to get a councilor (who is part of the CWI elected last year). The campaign is going nowhere and nowhere fast, and activists from non communist organisations who really care about this issue are getting quite desperate (one, who is a 60 year old woman married to a vicar, suggesting she walked around the town naked in order to gain publicity for the cause). The responce of those in communist organisations present (including IST (SWP), CWI (SP) and Spiked! (former RCP)) was to argue for building for another demo this time in Sheffield (a city about 20 miles away) and building for another election. Sadly I was part of this. This just shows how conservative communist organisations can be. The next meeting, on the 6th of March, I shall argue that we need to put on and build for a public meeting with speakers who are the strikes from the NHS in Manchester to speak about the the benefits of striking as they did at the national Keep Our NHS Public conference (that was totally undemocratic as voting on strategies was not allowed!). This will be done by leafleting at hospitals especially aiming at staff. The ultimate aim of the meeting is to get a committee of rank and file hospital staff organized to start a strike. Even if this does not happen, it will show people what communists argue for and will draw people away from reformism.
If I wasn't thinking about leaving the IST (SWP) and looking at it's faults I would never have thought of it. I've already got the backing of a comrade in the CWI (SP). I'm now quite sure I'm joining the L5I (WP) tomorrow. It was them who sowed the seeds of doubt in my mind by arguing various policies such as getting Unite against Fascism to leaflet for the conference against Islamophobia - something which seems obvious for it to do to me, but something the IST (SWP) argued against and even tried to get them thrown out of UAF for.