Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
Permaban
Permanent exile to Siberia.
Permaban
To the Arctic death camps of KolymaPermanent exile to Siberia.
I was going to recommend the following to glitch hiker on Kronstadt
As a wildly promiscuous user of forums, I have been putting it about on Libcom recently and have uploaded a few pieces on the remarkably wretched Workers Revolutionary Party and its implosion in the mid-80s
Christ, I knew the WRP had some grim history with middle eastern regimes, but don't think I'd known the bit about the WRP voting to approve of the execution of a guy who'd been a visitor to a conference they organised, that's pretty fucking horrific.As a wildly promiscuous user of forums, I have been putting it about on Libcom recently and have uploaded a few pieces on the remarkably wretched Workers Revolutionary Party and its implosion in the mid-80s:
57th Variety Act - Robin Blick
Few people have noted the spectacular split in the Workers' Revolutionary Party as more than a diverting entertainment. We invited two ex-members of the WRP's forerunner, the Socialist Labour League, to comment on the show. Below, Robin Blick casts an experienced eye backstage, while Ken Weller...libcom.org
WRP: The Party's Over – Ken Weller
Solidarity member Ken Weller reviews the new Workers Revoutionary Party chorus line and finds it parading the same feet of clay.libcom.org
Revolution betrayed - the Workers Revolutionary Party and Iraq
Two articles from Solidarity on corruption in the Workers Revolutionary Party and its links with Saddam Hussein and other Middle Eastern governments.libcom.org
Christ, I knew the WRP had some grim history with middle eastern regimes, but don't think I'd known the bit about the WRP voting to approve of the execution of a guy who'd been a visitor to a conference they organised, that's pretty fucking horrific.
Anarchists were long before referring to it as state capitalism, before Tony Cliff latched onto it.Just read the introduction. Very interesting. I don't disagree with the political analysis, putting Kronstadt in the context of the systematic suppression of independent workers and peasants organisations and the growth of a repressive state. I'm less sure about the insistence this was state capitalism. I have no training in economics but this seems to be a way of getting around the idea that "socialism" (in some form or other) can go badly wrong. The only state capitalist theory (in relation to the Soviet Union and later eastern Europe) I'm familiar with is Tony Cliff's and I think it's less than convincing.
As a wildly promiscuous user of forums, I have been putting it about on Libcom recently and have uploaded a few pieces on the remarkably wretched Workers Revolutionary Party and its implosion in the mid-80s
Anarchists were long before referring to it as state capitalism, before Tony Cliff latched onto it.
Corin and Venessa?I'm half expecting someone to join the thread and say, "I was a member of the WRP for 10 years and it was just fine. Maybe the vote endorsing the executions was a mistake but Gerry Healy was a good person really, the girls just loved him."
Well I used to know a bus driver in Croydon who had been in the Socialist Labour League ( a fore-runner of the WRP), a whole bunch of people in Oxford who were in the libertarian socialist Solidarity (originally a spin-off from the SLL) and a couple of people in the Workers Socialist League (a split from the WRP). They were all nice people. Oh yes, and a bloke in the first shared-house I lived in who slept in the garage. He was in the WRP for a while too.I'm half expecting someone to join the thread and say, "I was a member of the WRP for 10 years and it was just fine. Maybe the vote endorsing the executions was a mistake but Gerry Healy was a good person really, the girls just loved him."
Well I used to know a bus driver in Croydon who had been in the Socialist Labour League ( a fore-runner of the WRP), a whole bunch of people in Oxford who were in the libertarian socialist Solidarity (originally a spin-off from the SLL) and a couple of people in the Workers Socialist League (a split from the WRP). They were all nice people. Oh yes, and a bloke in the first shared-house I lived in who slept in the garage. He was in the WRP for a while too.
I only encountered Pirani once (apart from the trial) and he seemed nice enough, though as youth organiser he can't have been unaware of Healy's behaviour.
Cliff had a theory ( wrote a book about it) , I'm aware that anarchists sometimes referred to the USSR as state capitalist but aside from a label was there a theoretical justification ever written?Anarchists were long before referring to it as state capitalism, before Tony Cliff latched onto it.
The WRP had a number of decent trade unionists at one time who worked hard in the unions. You just had to avoid the more barmy side to them and keep off the the subject of Trotsky's death mask or the coming British military coup if you ended up in the pub with them.Well I used to know a bus driver in Croydon who had been in the Socialist Labour League ( a fore-runner of the WRP), a whole bunch of people in Oxford who were in the libertarian socialist Solidarity (originally a spin-off from the SLL) and a couple of people in the Workers Socialist League (a split from the WRP). They were all nice people. Oh yes, and a bloke in the first shared-house I lived in who slept in the garage. He was in the WRP for a while too.
I have met Simon Pirani a few times (and like and have plenty of time for him btw) and he is very critical of himself and the WRP and those years, and he's got some very interesting, self-critical, and reflective things to say about it.
I only have two recollections of Pirani, both positive. One is the court case described above where he got a real result. My friend could have gone to prison if found guilty, he got off because of Pirani. I'd come across him a few weeks earlier at a WRP public meeting. I think he spoke (among others). At the end he ran up to me and a couple of friends, smiley and enthusiastic, with a few newspapers. Someone had a word in his ear and hauled him away. Somehow the WRP elders had figured out we were members of other left groups (I was in the IS, the others were in the IMG) and didn't want him to be contaminated. Kind of ridiculous because I would have talked to him. Not his fault at all though.
I hardly ever came across the WRP, they kept themselves away from the other Trot groups. My first real contact with Healyites was with the Workers Party, Royston Raging Bull's late seventies split, a Jehovah's Witness style group which went door to door with a poorly produced newsletter. They were deluded (as were we all) but not particularly unpleasant.
He does this website and writing on it now People and Nature
Ah , Royston lived in Stockport but I never ever came across him in any campaign or dispute thereI only have two recollections of Pirani, both positive. One is the court case described above where he got a real result. My friend could have gone to prison if found guilty, he got off because of Pirani. I'd come across him a few weeks earlier at a WRP public meeting. I think he spoke (among others). At the end he ran up to me and a couple of friends, smiley and enthusiastic, with a few newspapers. Someone had a word in his ear and hauled him away. Somehow the WRP elders had figured out we were members of other left groups (I was in the IS, the others were in the IMG) and didn't want him to be contaminated. Kind of ridiculous because I would have talked to him. Not his fault at all though.
I hardly ever came across the WRP, they kept themselves away from the other Trot groups. My first real contact with Healyites was with the Workers Party, Royston Raging Bull's late seventies split, a Jehovah's Witness style group which went door to door with a poorly produced newsletter. They were deluded (as were we all) but not particularly unpleasant.
This is Simon Pirani's account of the break up of the WRP - chilling stuff. Make of it what you will. The Break Up of the WRP
Yeah, Angry Workers have published a few things by ex-WRPers
Edited- cba
There were umpteen descriptions of 'state capitalism' before 1917 ever happened. Engels described a version back in Socialism, Scientific and Utopian, preceding Bakunin's notion that state socialism inevitably means state capitalism. The anarchist descriptions of the USSR mostly follow Bakunin, with some added specificity.Anarchists were long before referring to it as state capitalism, before Tony Cliff latched onto it.
Is this related to the distinction between the Italian and the German-Dutch lot?The anarchists (and to a large extent Raya Dunayeskaya, whose version of SC is also massively important and influential on the SWP's version) described SC overwhelmingly by means of the relations of production - crudely, the existence of bosses and workers - rather than the nature of, I'm really not sure how to put this, but of the laws of capital itself - the investment in capital itself, how the law of value operated. This may seem esoteric, or even pedantic, but it is central in what distinguishes capitalism from a similar but different oppressive society (as it is useful to distinguish between fascist regimes and reactionary ones, like Spain and Argentina).
Is it a massive distinction? Maybe not. The relations of production are the central aspect for working-class activists, but those more precise details guide us as to how we can oppose the existing order and just what it is that we need to change.