I don't see why not.
...and then of course beyond that you have the groups' deep and vindicated distrust of the union bureaucracy and the Labour Party, as a bourgeois workers party. I don't find Cliff's State Capitalist analysis particularly compelling which is why I would describe myself as sharing their strategy rather than necessarily all of their theoretical ideas. Hope that answers your question.
I tend to think of it as an attempt to follow the course Lenin set forth in 'What is to be done'. They were an agitation group (who favoured rallies and strikes as their setting for dialogue) as opposed to a propagandist approach where the majority of the theory is divulged through writing. The IS were militants in the sense that they thought the vanguard party should be where the struggle is, which is of the course the work place. The SWP always had a reputation for activism. Essentially I find common ground with their industrial agitation strategy and their view that workers power rests in the work place, industrial action demonstrates the latent power of the workers, building solidarity increases the likelihood of victory, victories breed confidence, and confidence is the prerequisite for growth in working class political consciousness....
1986 saw the defeat of the miners' strike and the culmination of the "downturn". From that point on I believe that the party suffered a collapse of confidence in the class struggle in Britain and as a result took a Eurocommunist-esque deviation into fighting battles other than the class struggle. The Anti-Nazi League and Stop the War, while admirable side-projects, became the rasion d'etre of the post-86 SWP. The disorientation and disillusion of this period lead to the fracturing of the group into a variety of splits and splinter groups, the inevitable marginalisation of the SWP as a serious revolutionary party and, essentially, the collapse of the organisation into a small, scattered, anti-democratic sect centred around a cabal of theorists and academics with little or no experience of struggle. I don't hold to everything Tony Cliff or the other SI members stood for but on the matters I think most important, i.e - revolutionary strategy, I find myself in strong agreement.
Your posts on the vanguard party are freaking amazing man !!! 10/10
Hey, just wanted to let you know that I've really enjoyed your posts in the value thread, the Corbyn thread, the Sanders thread...pretty much everywhere. I never thought I'd agree with a Spart so much
I always get them confused with the ICL-FI which one calls itself the sparts '._. .
http://www.bolshevik.org/ These lads right?
Are you a member of ICL-FI??
alienation from society and community and the alleged solutions, queer negativity
Banned
Benned
Billy Bragg groupie
General Secretary
Disorientated Revolutionary