CWI and Labour

[Devrim]

Why did the Socialist Party (CWI) leave the Labour party?
When exactly did it happen?
What was it that made Labour different then than it had been ten years earlier?
Devrim

[Louis Pio]

What was it that made Labour different then than it had been ten years earlier?

Very good question, I've never seen any indeepth analysis of it. More or less I think it was a logical consequence of the "open turn", having effectively split from Labour by running independent candidates they had to follow the logic and declare themselves a independent party, first ditching the name Militant and later the name Labour Militant (I think they called themselves for a short period). Making the theoretical excuses along the way, which is why I find they present politics to be quite "mudled". I even heard senior members (that is some of the few people still left from the Militant days) say they would go back if Labour turns left, this would of course be quite hard since they educated their young people in a totally different tradition.

The rest of the answers you can see in in the wikipedia article on Militant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militant_tendency) under the paragraf "open turn"

[Tower of Bebel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21, 2007 06:33 pm
I even heard senior members (that is some of the few people still left from the Militant days) say they would go back if Labour turns left, this would of course be quite hard since they educated their young people in a totally different tradition.
Turn back to Labour? Labour turns left?

Why would Labour turn left? The fall of the Soviet Union was the beginning of another ideological campaign of the bourgeoisie ("communism is dead", you know). The so called labour parties also supported this campaign and finally lost their support amongst the workers. Before this process was completed the CWI stept out of these parties (in many countries they would have been thrown out anyway, like in Belgium where the CWI still workerd withing the sections of the Young Socialists, but the BSP finally removed most marxists and reformed the Young Socialist by 1995)). The workers were also leaving the Labour parties. Belgium is again a fine example. The only 'labour party' (in this case: the party with the most support during elections from the workers) is the neo-fascist party of Vlaams Belang (reaching between 24% and 30% during the last elections while the Socialist Party only had 12%).

(edit)

Marxism withing Labour and the "Open turn" (http://www.marxist.net/openturn/index.html).
The collaps of Stalinism (http://www.marxist.net/stalinism/).

[Louis Pio]

Why would Labour turn left? Now that's a silly question if their ever was one, the same thing was said by different groups against the Militant tendency back in the days. "Labour was dead", "empty", "the working class would never turn there again" etc etc etc. So that someone from a group claiming to follow the tradition of Militant says the same is a bit funny as I see it.

Growing radicalisation will of course first manifest itself in the unions and later will have to find a political expression besides that. And let's be frank, is the Socialist Party or RESPECT for that matter were they will turn? Do you honestly think that? Or do you think they will join your campaign for building a Labour Party Mark 2? It's hard for people to get through in the Labour Party, John McDonnels campaign showed that, however it also showed the potential. But it's even harder to build a new Labour Party from scratc as your campaigns aim is.

Indeed Belgium is a good example, as you might know a marxist candidate got a third of the vote in the last leadership election of the flemish socialist party, once again showing the potential. His campaign even forced the rightwing to adopt more radical language if they would have any chance of winning.

Btw I have seen the CWI things on the open turn, what I still lack is a throughough marxists analysis of when Labour changed and how Labour at the time of the turn (or now) is different from the Labour of the 60'ies or 70'ies. It's still a workers party with a bourgious leadership as I see it, but please enlighten me.

Yes the Soviet Union fell and that of course had a big impact, but CWI's perspectives back then were as we know totally wrong (the red 90'ies you know, the famous words of Taaffe). One could get the idea that the open turn actually helped strenhgtening Blair and his cliques grip on the Labour Party. And it didn't even sthrengten SP since membership dropped from around 8000 in the last days of Millitant, to a very lower number. This drop was partially (and mostly) caused by theoretical confusion as I see it.

[Tower of Bebel]

Indeed Belgium is a good example, as you might know a marxist candidate got a third of the vote in the last leadership election of the flemish socialist party, once again showing the potential. His campaign even forced the rightwing to adopt more radical language if they would have any chance of winning.

Don't be too optimistic. The real potential is less then 33%. You should look for more detailed information on the elections. You will for instance notice that although it were very important elections (the first time someone from the party's left wing -not seen as a communist btw.- became a serious threat) a rediculous low percentage of votes were cast. Even worse is the fact that many members of the right wing voted for the left wing as a result of the defeat suffered during the elections of 2007. Most of them were no workers of course, and they will never support a marxist programm.

The Belgian section of the CWI supported Erik of course.

I will try to answer on some other remarks you made later :) .

[Tower of Bebel]

Growing radicalisation will of course first manifest itself in the unions and later will have to find a political expression besides that. And let's be frank, is the Socialist Party or RESPECT for that matter were they will turn? Do you honestly think that? Or do you think they will join your campaign for building a Labour Party Mark 2? It's hard for people to get through in the Labour Party, John McDonnels campaign showed that, however it also showed the potential. But it's even harder to build a new Labour Party from scratc as your campaigns aim is.

Radicalisation of class struggle will make workers turn their heads towards the traditional left of the bourgeoisie, that's is obvious (although it will not occure everywere), but why do you think it will last long enough to change social-democracy into a new workers' party?
Social-democracy is fully integrated in bourgeois democracy and it ignores class struggle. It is afraid of class struggle! It will continiously betray the workers and will create another split between the workers and social-democracy.

It is indeed hard to build another worker's party from scratch, it is something I've also noticed in Belgium. But there is the fine example of Germany and Holland were new parties on the left get massive support (WASG-Die Linke and SP) these days.

[Keyser]

Why did the Socialist Party (CWI) leave the Labour party?

Under the leadership of the former Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock (1983-1992) the Militant Tendency (the orginial group that the SP originated from) faced a campaign of intimidation as Kinnock tried to expel the far-left elements of the Labour Party and move the party towards a more centrist ideological stance. It was Kinnocks changes to the Labour Party that paved the way for 'New' Labour and Tony Blair. The Militant Tendency was one of many groups and individuals who were either expelled or forced to choose between loyalty to their socialist ideals or the Labour Party leadership.


When exactly did it happen?

The Militant Tendency left the Labour Party in 1992. From 1992-1997 they were called Militant Labour. In 1997 they changed their name to the Socialist Party.


What was it that made Labour different then than it had been ten years earlier?

In my own opinion nothing, as I oppose entryism as a tactic and I am rather unsure how small Trotskyist outfits like Militant could ever take over the Labour Party for socialism.

However they, along with other 'left' Labour individuals and groups will say differently.

[redarmyfaction38]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21, 2007 06:29 am
Why did the Socialist Party (CWI) leave the Labour party?
When exactly did it happen?
What was it that made Labour different then than it had been ten years earlier?
Devrim
militant (the socialist party) was expelled from the labour party, it didn't leave it.
't'was the victim of a witchunt in order to make the "labour party" more "acceptable" to gullible that believed the shit printed in the national press and give a clear run to the "reformers" within the labour party that turned it from a reformist party into a capitalist party.
they weren't the only ones expelled, by the way, supporters of the "soft left" "workers herald"? were also expelled, as was anybody that objected to the star chamber trials of militant or its supporters!
reeked of stalinism.
if you're a trot, you're an enemy of the party.
you were seen reading militant, therefore you must be a stinking trot and should be expelled from the party.
't'was ok to read "socialist worker" though!?!
you had to be there, realy.

[redarmyfaction38]

Originally posted by Anarchism [email protected] 22, 2007 06:15 pm

Why did the Socialist Party (CWI) leave the Labour party?

Under the leadership of the former Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock (1983-1992) the Militant Tendency (the orginial group that the SP originated from) faced a campaign of intimidation as Kinnock tried to expel the far-left elements of the Labour Party and move the party towards a more centrist ideological stance. It was Kinnocks changes to the Labour Party that paved the way for 'New' Labour and Tony Blair. The Militant Tendency was one of many groups and individuals who were either expelled or forced to choose between loyalty to their socialist ideals or the Labour Party leadership.


When exactly did it happen?

The Militant Tendency left the Labour Party in 1992. From 1992-1997 they were called Militant Labour. In 1997 they changed their name to the Socialist Party.


What was it that made Labour different then than it had been ten years earlier?

In my own opinion nothing, as I oppose entryism as a tactic and I am rather unsure how small Trotskyist outfits like Militant could ever take over the Labour Party for socialism.

However they, along with other 'left' Labour individuals and groups will say differently.
a rather good analysis i think, up to a point :)
as a sometime trotskyist, i would like to point out, that entrism was working quite well and probably still is in the labour party.
as a former member of militant, i can say quite honestly, that taking over the labour party was never thought of as acheivable, any socialist, will tell you, quite rightly, that the labour party was first and foremost, a reformist party.
the aim of militant was torecruit from within the labour party, the best, most active members to the cause of revolutionary socialism.
it gained unprecented success and support in liverpool and amongst "young socialists" at a time when the labour leadership was hiding behind the "parapets".
the tactics were right for the times.
today, those tactics seem naive, given the political nature of "new labour".
the "socialist party" seems to have moved on, unlike the swp or respect, it has, quite happily encouraged its members and supporters to work with activists outside of its own perspective.
it has sought to build alliances within the "labour movement" regardless of supposed political differences, in order to push forward a radical socialisit agenda.
true to form, for a genuine "trotskyist" party, it finds itself siding with "anarchists" and "federalists"! in order to push for the formation of an all encompassing radically left workers party.
some of its election material has been astoundingly honest!
"vote for us" it won't change anything, you have to do that, for example.

imho, it really is time for a new workers party, but i don't think that the "socialist party", the "socialist party of great britain", the IWW, the anarchist federation, workers power or the rest are gonna present it to us workers.
they've put it on the line, we have a campaign, you have to make it reality.

[Louis Pio]

A small remark, I will return to other points made later when I have time. But alot of you are pushing forward a very big myth.

If we look at realitites only a very very very (times infinity almost ;) ) small part of the Militant membership were expelled from Labour, so well it was indeed a conscious break.
The majority centred around Peter Taaffe had the idea that they would now become the new massparty, 8000 is alot I'll give you that, however in comparison to the british population it is still sectsize.
Peter Taaffe especially was putting forward a perspective saying that it would be the "red 90'ies", being in Labour held them back and that they would "grow by leap and bounds" now they were outside of Labour.

However realities paint a different picture looking back, SP is nowhere near the size of Militant, I don't know their real size but I think we all know their real membership is lower than the 2000 I have heard them claim (had around 450 at their recent school, I think their membership is around there, some people didn't attend while some attending were not members etc.)
The big office Militant had in the centre of London were sold for a few bucks, only a few years later the guy bying it made millions on that deal.
As an old Militant comrade said to me "fuck, I've put several month's wages in that building and then they sell it for peanuts".
All in all in my oppinion the SP leadership has made a big turd and placed it on top of Militants legacy, they have thrown everything away and for that I will never forgive them, worst thing is they never even analyzed the big mistakes they made.
All the open turn did was to disillusionize big layers of workingclass Militants and that I think will be Taaffes legacy.

Their new project in England is to build some sort of new Labour Party, they don't really want it to be revolutionary, they just want a Labour Party they can work in free of the rightwing. And that about says it, I think everybody knows that if this Labour Party version 2 were to succed the rightwing would be there also.

Anyway let's discuss entrism later, have to go now.

[redarmyfaction38]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24, 2007 03:53 am
A small remark, I will return to other points made later when I have time. But alot of you are pushing forward a very big myth.

If we look at realitites only a very very very (times infinity almost ;) ) small part of the Militant membership were expelled from Labour, so well it was indeed a conscious break.
The majority centred around Peter Taaffe had the idea that they would now become the new massparty, 8000 is alot I'll give you that, however in comparison to the british population it is still sectsize.
Peter Taaffe especially was putting forward a perspective saying that it would be the "red 90'ies", being in Labour held them back and that they would "grow by leap and bounds" now they were outside of Labour.

However realities paint a different picture looking back, SP is nowhere near the size of Militant, I don't know their real size but I think we all know their real membership is lower than the 2000 I have heard them claim (had around 450 at their recent school, I think their membership is around there, some people didn't attend while some attending were not members etc.)
The big office Militant had in the centre of London were sold for a few bucks, only a few years later the guy bying it made millions on that deal.
As an old Militant comrade said to me "fuck, I've put several month's wages in that building and then they sell it for peanuts".
All in all in my oppinion the SP leadership has made a big turd and placed it on top of Militants legacy, they have thrown everything away and for that I will never forgive them, worst thing is they never even analyzed the big mistakes they made.
All the open turn did was to disillusionize big layers of workingclass Militants and that I think will be Taaffes legacy.

Their new project in England is to build some sort of new Labour Party, they don't really want it to be revolutionary, they just want a Labour Party they can work in free of the rightwing. And that about says it, I think everybody knows that if this Labour Party version 2 were to succed the rightwing would be there also.

Anyway let's discuss entrism later, have to go now.
wow! actually, at its height, militants membership was more like 40,000.
however, that was then and this is now.
i'm a socialist party supporter, rather than member, i decided, after the collapse of miltant, the expulsion of all socialists from the labour paty and various other events, that being a member of a party tended to narrow your thinking rather than expandit.
i loved being in militant, it was truly a "party of the working class", the radical working class, to be sure, but it was definately working class.
the socialist party, has, imo, adopted some of the "pc" policies of the "liberal left" and is weaker for it, however it does still produce a transitional programme that should appeal to us workers when the crisis hits.
i don't think the socialist thinks or wants to be in the position militant found itself; standing alone, not just against the capitalist govt. but against its earstwhile allies on the liberal left.

[Zurdito]

As far as I know they (Militant Tendency) were kicked out by Kinnock in 1992.

Labour then ceased to be a bourgeois-workers party, presumably because Militant Tendecy WAS the working class. :P

[Devrim]

Originally posted by redarmyfaction38+--> (redarmyfaction38)wow! actually, at its height, militants membership was more like 40,000.[/b]

This is just nonsense.


Originally posted by [email protected]
militant (the socialist party) was expelled from the labour party, it didn't leave it.
't'was the victim of a witchunt in order to make the "labour party" more "acceptable" to gullible that believed the shit printed in the national press and give a clear run to the "reformers" within the labour party that turned it from a reformist party into a capitalist party.
they weren't the only ones expelled, by the way, supporters of the "soft left" "workers herald"? were also expelled, as was anybody that objected to the star chamber trials of militant or its supporters!
reeked of stalinism.
if you're a trot, you're an enemy of the party.
you were seen reading militant, therefore you must be a stinking trot and should be expelled from the party.
't'was ok to read "socialist worker" though!?!
you had to be there, realy.

Actually, I was there (in the UK, not the Militant) at the time that Kinnock was witch hunting them. I imagine from your comments about 40,000 that you weren't. It seemed to me more like this:


Teis
If we look at realitites only a very very very (times infinity almost ;) ) small part of the Militant membership were expelled from Labour so well it was indeed a conscious break.

...And the reason for this conscious break is something that we still don't have an answer to.

Devrim

[redarmyfaction38]

Originally posted by Devrim+November 26, 2007 06:08 pm--> (Devrim @ November 26, 2007 06:08 pm)
Originally posted by redarmyfaction38+--> (redarmyfaction38)wow! actually, at its height, militants membership was more like 40,000.[/b]

This is just nonsense.


[email protected]
militant (the socialist party) was expelled from the labour party, it didn't leave it.
't'was the victim of a witchunt in order to make the "labour party" more "acceptable" to gullible that believed the shit printed in the national press and give a clear run to the "reformers" within the labour party that turned it from a reformist party into a capitalist party.
they weren't the only ones expelled, by the way, supporters of the "soft left" "workers herald"? were also expelled, as was anybody that objected to the star chamber trials of militant or its supporters!
reeked of stalinism.
if you're a trot, you're an enemy of the party.
you were seen reading militant, therefore you must be a stinking trot and should be expelled from the party.
't'was ok to read "socialist worker" though!?!
you had to be there, realy.

Actually, I was there (in the UK, not the Militant) at the time that Kinnock was witch hunting them. I imagine from your comments about 40,000 that you weren't. It seemed to me more like this:


Teis
If we look at realitites only a very very very (times infinity almost ;) ) small part of the Militant membership were expelled from Labour so well it was indeed a conscious break.

...And the reason for this conscious break is something that we still don't have an answer to.

Devrim [/b]
i was there mate, i was a fully paid up member. as i recall, up to the embarassing episode, whereby, a quite reasonable tactic, of issuing redundancy notices, in order to gain govt. funding for the last 3 months of the financial year, in order to avoid cutting services or JOBS because of the deficit budget, was seized upon by our erstwhile "allies" in the trade unions, swp and labour left as an excuse to save their careers and political standing, at a time when they were regularly being exposed as out of touch with the working class and their membership in general.
40,000 members, might have been paper sales, i dunno, long time ago now.
but what does stick clearly in my memory was the nature of the membership of militant, working class to the core, no bullshit, no "minority groups"! we were socialists, we didn't give a shit about your "ethnic background", your "sexuality", your "gender orientation" etc. etc., all we cared about was whose side you were on.

again, i will state, quite clearly, there was no "conscious break" from labour, miltant turned cartwheels to avoid being expelled,even at a time, when a section of its membership was looking to form the "socialist party".

there was a split in the party, rather bthan a "conscious break", i remember beibg at a demo against "poll tax prisoners" or it could have been jailed miners, it all tends to merge into one, and having a copy of "the socialist" thrust in my face and asking a comrade "who are they?".
his reply, "they are us, but outside of the party".
make what you will of that comrade.

[Louis Pio]

Sorry for not replying about Belgium again, but seriously get a grip some of the people that keep saying Militant as a whole was expelled, Millitant was never expelled as an organisation, Ted Grant, Alan Woods and the rest of the editorial board was expelled in 1983 (maybe Taaffe also?), later other leading comrades were expelled. But as a whole Militant were not expelled and the bulk of membership were still in LP!
So now we settled that I would like SP members to point out the fundamental difference between now and then.
In my oppinion you never did, all you did was to wreck 40 years of work by loosing all the cadres when you started up yet another party, everybody knew the Militant, most don't know SP since you were even so stupid as to ditch the name.
How the fuck can an organisation go from 8000 to nothing without that organisation making a serious analysis of it?
Militant had 250 fulltimers (more than labour) that was also lost along with the centre, all this paints a picture of an incompetent leadership, a leadership which to this day still runs SP and CWI. I guess that's why they have resorted to tailending IMT in Pakistan And Venezuela among others, quite a shame since you actually have good comrades in some parts of the world

redarmyfaction38 I would suggest you study the sources from back then, it seems you weren't so involved in the internal politics at the time.

[Axel1917]

All in all in my oppinion the SP leadership has made a big turd and placed it on top of Militants legacy, they have thrown everything away and for that I will never forgive them, worst thing is they never even analyzed the big mistakes they made.

Made a big turd and placed it on top? Comrade, this is a strange way of putting things (I don't mean that to be offensive. I just never expect to such things in detailed analysis. :D )


Sorry for not replying about Belgium again, but seriously get a grip some of the people that keep saying Militant as a whole was expelled, Millitant was never expelled as an organisation, Ted Grant, Alan Woods and the rest of the editorial board was expelled in 1983 (maybe Taaffe also?), later other leading comrades were expelled. But as a whole Militant were not expelled and the bulk of membership were still in LP!
So now we settled that I would like SP members to point out the fundamental difference between now and then.
In my oppinion you never did, all you did was to wreck 40 years of work by loosing all the cadres when you started up yet another party, everybody knew the Militant, most don't know SP since you were even so stupid as to ditch the name.
How the fuck can an organisation go from 8000 to nothing without that organisation making a serious analysis of it?
Militant had 250 fulltimers (more than labour) that was also lost along with the centre, all this paints a picture of an incompetent leadership, a leadership which to this day still runs SP and CWI. I guess that's why they have resorted to tailending IMT in Pakistan And Venezuela among others, quite a shame since you actually have good comrades in some parts of the world.

I don't know about over there in Denmark or other parts of Europe, but the CWI members I have seen in the USA are alright. I think we can eventually win their best ones over to the IMT with patience. ;)

In addition to tailending in Venezuela, they also made a 180 degree turn on that issue as well, going from claiming that there was no revolution going on there (I was invited to join the CWI in early or mid 2005, but I was following marxist.com for some time as well, and I looked around at both of them for some time. I was really turned away from the CWI by their sectarian articles on Venezuela at the time. That was probably the last straw for me while I was looking through their stuff.) to their current tailending.

When they expelled us, they essentially stated that we would fade into oblivion. That has not happened. We are getting stronger, and we can see that they are scared of us, proven by the fact that they decided to publish a "critical review" of Reason in Revolt 12 years after it was published! They are definitely afraid of us- you don't spend that kind of time and money publishing a book against someone you do not consider to be a threat! The bourgeoisie certainly do not do it! The CWI have nothing in Venezuela, they have nothing in Pakistan, where things are heating up, and every attempt to make an alternative to Labour has failed miserably. One day, CWI members are going to start wondering why they are marching in the rearguard while the IMT, with a "senile old man" as a key member, is marching in the vanguard. It is one thing to expel members and call yourselves the "mass party." It is quite another to bury the method of Marxism.

I am not going to mention names (no, he does not post on revleft if any of you are wondering.), but we do have an ex-CWI member that did join the WIL (I think he was involved with them for a decade.), and I hope to meet him and hear his experiences.

The main thing that separates the IMT from the CWI and the rest of the left is our approach to the traditional workers' organizations, which history has proven time and time again to be the place where the workers turn when they start shifting to the left. The postwar boom had its effects, with virtually none of the left being able to keep its bearings due to the effect. They repeat lines of classical Marxist works, but they do not know the method or the history. When there is a defeat of the working class, they tend to empty out of the traditional organizations, eliminating a check on the bureaucrats. This makes Marxists working in the organization isolated and makes it harder to spread Marxist ideas. A lot of people falsely conclude that something is wrong with the organization, and they just proclaim themselves to be the "mass revolutionary party," waiting for the workers to come to them. The resurgence of the class struggle in Latin America and Pakistan have proven the IMT to be correct, with the workers orienting to the PPP, PRD, forming the PSUV (the CWI have adopted a "wait and see" approach to the PSUV. :rolleyes: ), etc.

[Guest1]

Teis and Axel have covered the open turn pretty well. Something to note is that the Taafites actually sold the party on the open turn as a "building up" of open party work, while continuing to work in the labour party. Then they ran a candidate in an election against labour. Here's a couple of important documents:

Majority Resolution on Walton (http://www.marxist.com/ourhistory/maj_resn_walton.htm)
Minority Resolution Proposed by Ted Grant and Rob Sewell (http://www.marxist.com/ourhistory/min_resn_walton.htm)

And this is good too:
Forty years ago the Militant was launched: How the Militant was Built – and How it was Destroyed (http://www.marxist.com/ourhistory/militant40yrs.htm)