Left conversion

[RD2003]

Oh yeah, as someone who's spent a fair bit of time working in those kinds of jobs I'm very much aware of that - I think trying to keep union organisation going in the places where it's still recognised is worthwhile, it's what most of my energy goes into, but I'm very aware that it's not what most of the economy looks like. When working at those sorts of places I always had vague dreams/aspirations of getting something going but it turns out that whatever set of skills and traits you need to start organising from scratch in a totally unorganised workplace seems to be beyond me.
But that is also why I think the counter-examples are so important, things like the organising that went on at Deliveroo, the construction rank-and-file, and any attempts at organising at places like Amazon - it's going to be extremely hard and an uphill struggle, but it needs to happen. And without wanting to be too Pollyanna (I suppose someone needs to be the Spongebob to your Squidward?) there's strikes organised through the GMB at both Amazon and Asda sites this month, so there is stuff happening somewhere.

It definitely takes bottle to get something started, and, I suspect, nothing much to lose on the part of those who do it.

 

[GroovySunday]

It's necessary, when talking about workplace organising, to remember just how hard it is nowadays, especially in the private sector. For example, Mrs RD has worked for years, on the admin side, for a firm which has the right to join a trade union written into everybody's employment contract, while refusing to recognise unions in practice. Everybody moans about conditions on a daily basis, especially those who work in the warehouse, but whenever a dispute arises none of them will stick their necks out. She doesn't blame them as she understands their predicament. These are people who have to bring up families, run a car, pay for holidays etc etc on a wage way below what the national average is said to be, with new starters and temporary workers paid little more than the minimum wage. And even jobs like that aren't plentiful in the area, especially for somebody who might have been sacked from their previous one for being 'a troublemaker.'

Nobody has ever tried to get colleagues unionised in all the time she's been there. One young woman who got into a dispute with management was a very rare example of somebody who was actually in a union as an individual member, but it counted for nothing in the end and they got rid of her. This is what happens up and down the country now.

When people mention workplace organising these days they're basically talking about the public sector.

The problem now, aside from anti-union legislation and the prevalence of reformist unions that fail to take effective action/strikes, seems to be that capitalism appears to have successfully restructured the workplace to make it almost impossible to organise workers effectively. Staff turnover in alot of places is very high, they've increased the number of supervisors (AKA grasses/snitches) and they've invested in new technology to monitor workers movements at every step. Plus alot of work is just pure bullshit. And alot of workers these days have no real leverage over the wider economy.

 

[GroovySunday]

We all ought to begin at the beginning and define what we mean by "left".

For me, this is good at explaining what the Left is and what the alternative to it and the right needs to be, though I'd say it needs updating :

The revolutionary alternative to left-wing politics

Subversion's critique of the radical left as being merely the state capitalist left wing of capital, as opposed to a revolutionary working class force.

libcom.org

 

[PTK]

For me, this is good at explaining what the Left is and what the alternative to it and the right needs to be, though I'd say it needs updating :

The revolutionary alternative to left-wing politics

Subversion's critique of the radical left as being merely the state capitalist left wing of capital, as opposed to a revolutionary working class force.

libcom.org

"This is why the Left has not failed. Its aim was never more than to save capitalism by disguising it as something it was not"

I did not realise that that was my aim for the past 50 years.

 

[RD2003]

The problem now, aside from anti-union legislation and the prevalence of reformist unions that fail to take effective action/strikes, seems to be that capitalism appears to have successfully restructured the workplace to make it almost impossible to organise workers effectively. Staff turnover in alot of places is very high, they've increased the number of supervisors (AKA grasses/snitches) and they've invested in new technology to monitor workers movements at every step. Plus alot of work is just pure bullshit. And alot of workers these days have no real leverage over the wider economy.

In the situation I described even a 'reformist union' (not that there are any others on offer) would be a massive improvement and source of protection. I remember my granddad (ex-CP, blacklisted in the 1930s in the building trade) warning me to never forget that a right-wing union is always better than no union

You're right about the restructuring and staff turnover. A lot of those in the warehouse only stick it for a few months due to dire conditions-working in the freezing cold, being landed with demands they do overtime at a moment's notice and so on), but they are easily replaced by others desperate to have some money coming in. And so it goes on.

Also what you say about snitches. Over 20-plus years Mrs RD has noticed a deliberately cultivated atmosphere of paranoia and low-level fear in the clerical departments she's worked in. People get mysteriously sacked and nobody dares mention them anymore, and basically nobody questions anything when it comes to the erosion of employee rights. People feels they're under constant surveillance by cameras throughout, and everybody knows that their internet activity is closely monitored. Etc etc. Management thinks it makes up for all this with the occasional £500 staff bonus, or paying for a round of drinks for everybody at the Christmas 'do.'

 

[hitmouse]

And, I suppose, another point to bear in mind is that a lot of the conditions we're facing now were faced, in worse form, by those in the 19th and early 20th centuries who originally built the union movement. So there are precedents for people managing to achieve things against an incredibly hostile environment. Still, rather them than me though.

 

[RD2003]

And, I suppose, another point to bear in mind is that a lot of the conditions we're facing now were faced, in worse form, by those in the 19th and early 20th centuries who originally built the union movement. So there are precedents for people managing to achieve things against an incredibly hostile environment. Still, rather them than me though.

That really was a situation where a majority might have felt they had nothing to lose (except for their chains...)

Now even those in the worst jobs generally have a worthwhile life outside the workplace that they need to be able to pay for.

 

[Humberto]

Always think this is the obsession with emulation coming out, the pointless desire to have a voice in the media because the Right already has a load of them. Means anyone can get elevated to prominence, no matter how venal and self serving, because 'look, they're on telly/YouTube saying the thing'. Something which trad. media has always loved because it means they can distill any movement, no matter how dynamic, down to a Owen Jones, or a George Galloway, or a Ash Sarkar who can be promoted and dismissed as a set narrative dictates. Self-defeating for the Left too, as a whole it contains huge amounts of lived, educated and practical experience which could be manifested as a widespread, open form of information creation and dissemination. But instead there's Novara News where the people may (or may not) be likeable but they're also entirely subject to an industry which is inherently hostile.

Ash Sarkar is a sharp operator. She's taken pure shit for it too.

I mean it's just unnecessary,

 

[redsquirrel]

Who are of course the very people who when it suits them will talk left to the working class but in reality tolerate any old shite providing they get elected and parrot a couple of Blairite/Thatcherite slogans about reforming this or modernising this. Normally chat about defending democracy and western values but never own their own history of genocide and plunder and end up supporting or installing any old regime that benefits their trade or tailing Israel, the USA and the EU.

Indeed. And I thing its worth remembering that for the crap 'anti-imperialism', factionalism, silly slogans etc of the non-Labour left, it is not the one contributing to the foreign policy of supporting Israel or Saudi Arabia, etc. Nor are the non-Labour left the people who are making council workers redundant, outsourcing facilities to the private sectors or having chummy lunch meetings with the CBI.

Just like how, for how big it was, Corbynism left virtually nothing of value behind, but at the same time, I reckon I probably do know more good union reps who came through Corbynism than I do anarchist ones, or indeed non-anarchist but also non-vanguardist and non-Labourist IWCA-flavoured revolutionary socialist ones or whatever.

Interesting. Sadly I don't know any unions reps that came onboard as a result of Corbyn. Plenty of Corbyn supporters, but they were there before.
And while I know more Labour-inclined union reps than anarchist/socialist ones, as a % of members/activists I'd guess there are far more anarchist, trot, socialist, etc reps than Labour ones.
Again I'd not denying a lot of the crapness of 'the left', but I see people, even those in the fucking SWP, putting in huge amounts of (unpaid) work and solidarity., while people who I know to be Labour members walk past them on picket lines.

 

[_Russ_]

I'll try again later on a real keyboard

 

[YouSir]

Ash Sarkar is a sharp operator. She's taken pure shit for it too.

I mean it's just unnecessary,

I've nothing against her, I just don't think getting selected as token Lefty for the odd TV slot should be the extent of Leftist media presence.

 

[Bus Honeygun]

Genuine question.

Why do people like the Communist League etc bother? Do they genuinely think that their support will rise, or is it just to get them out of the house?

When I was more politically active 30 odd years ago, the first stage of disillusionment came when I realised that for so many of my fellow activists being involved in left groups was their hobby and social life.

For some it was a chance to be a big fish in a small pond, safe from any real responsibilities or big and difficult decision-making. For others, trips to demos at weekends were like away games for football fans, with the buzz of some friction with the police or rival groups and a few beers afterwards.

It often struck me that amongst a group of people who apparently wanted to build a collectivist society where everyone shared the same principles and goals, the two groups many of them despised most were ordinary people (in real-life rather than the imaginary workers in books and pamphlets) and others who shared similar but not identical views.

If anything, it's even more the case now, with an added twist of conspiraloonery thanks to the internet.

 

[hitmouse]

Interesting. Sadly I don't know any unions reps that came onboard as a result of Corbyn. Plenty of Corbyn supporters, but they were there before.
And while I know more Labour-inclined union reps than anarchist/socialist ones, as a % of members/activists I'd guess there are far more anarchist, trot, socialist, etc reps than Labour ones.
Again I'd not denying a lot of the crapness of 'the left', but I see people, even those in the fucking SWP, putting in huge amounts of (unpaid) work and solidarity., while people who I know to be Labour members walk past them on picket lines.

Hmmm, I was thinking on reflection I might have to walk that statement back a bit and say that of the people who decent work who I think of as having come through Corbynism, a fair proportion of them did serve their apprencticeships in the trot groups first, I suppose "ex-member of a trot group" might be the biggest single commonality.
An anecdote I'd been vaguely thinking about is that recently I had a conversation with our former branch chair, where I mentioned how I sometimes feel like I'd missed out on "the good old days" because from stories I've heard it sounds like even in the 2000s/early 2010s being involved in a union was a bit wilder and more exciting than it is now (although I'd walk that back a bit as well after 2022 and 2023). He said "yeah, but it was horrible as well, you'd have branch meetings turning into these big rows between the SWP and the SP and the anarchists", and I thought that was an interesting point - I think we're still recognisably a "left" branch by any standards, we're not all sensible moderates now or anything, so what does it mean that there's been that change?
Think there is maybe a related point to consider about how the difference between an anarchist who's not a member of an anarchist organisation, a trot who's not a member of a trot group, and a left-social democrat who has no realistic prospect of seeing a left government any time soon is perhaps smaller than those labels might suggest?

 

[PTK]

An anecdote.

There is a party called the New Communist Party, which was formed in 1977 as a result of a pro-USSR split from the Communist Party of Great Britain (the real one, not the tiny “Weekly Worker” lot of today) , which had moved away from a slavish pro-Moscow line.

The Republic of Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, so in January 1991 the USA, UK, and other states went to war. There was a round-the-clock protest outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square in London, which I attended one day. I was in my thirties, and I got talking to a man of about 18 or 20 who described himself as an anarchist. He told me that he had been talking to a middle-aged woman from the NCP, who had attended the protest. He had been astonished that she had said to him, just before she departed, “At the end of the day, we’re all on the same side.” That is how many ordinary members, and ex-members, of groups on the left feel.

These days, we are living in the ruins. Zero-hour contracts, precarious employment, public services and social security devastated, class consciousness and political organisation at a pitiful level.

In 1945, there were two Communist MPs (albeit of the Stalinist variety). In the 1980s, there were three ostensibly Trotskyist MPs (albeit of the “Militant” variety).

The Communist Party had 20,000 members when I was becoming politically active in the early 1970s. The organised working class in this country was strong enough to force a Conservative government to release pickets from Pentonville prison. Coalminers had two successful strikes in two years, the second of which forced a Conservative Prime Minister to call a General Election, which his party lost.

There were once numerous left-wing travelling theatre groups, that you could hire to perform a play about an aspect of capitalism in your local trade union hall. There were left-wing bookshops in many towns. There were flourishing trades union councils in most towns.

Far-right parties were not in government in countries in mainland Europe, there was no such thing as Islamist mass movements and anti-imperialist movements were ostensibly left-wing

I know that there has always been a tendency for older people to witter on about “the good old days”, but I think that by any objective measure it is true to say that in Britain and the rest of the world left-wing movements were much larger, and the working class stronger strategically, in the 1960s and early 1970s. In France in 1968, in Italy in 1969, and in Portugal in 1974-75 there seemed to be the possibility of revolution. Even in Britain, it did not seem stupid to think that there could be a revolution.

 

[hitmouse]

The Communist Party had 20,000 members when I was becoming politically active in the early 1970s. The organised working class in this country was strong enough to force a Conservative government to release pickets from Pentonville prison. Coalminers had two successful strikes in two years, the second of which forced a Conservative Prime Minister to call a General Election, which his party lost.

In passing, I've heard the Pentonville dockers mentioned a few times recently, in reference to this new minimum service levels stuff, since if you're looking for examples of successful resistance to legal attacks on unions, that seems like a glowing example to emulate. Obviously, just invoking the spirit of the Pentonville dockers wouldn't be enough to recreate those conditions, but it might serve as a marker of a good direction to move in. But rather than choosing that as their model, the TUC have decided to go with a march through Cheltenham, to remind people of how the 1984 ban on trade unions at GCHQ was eventually overturned 13 years later once the Blair government got in. Real inspiring stuff!

 

[PTK]

But rather than choosing that as their model, the TUC have decided to go with a march through Cheltenham, to remind people of how the 1984 ban on trade unions at GCHQ was eventually overturned 13 years later once the Blair government got in. Real inspiring stuff!

I did not know that! That is genuinely funny.

Perhaps the TUC General Secretary should purchase a piece of cardboard, and write a stiff letter to the Prime Minister.

 

[Serge Forward]

---

An anecdote.

There is a party called the New Communist Party, which was formed in 1977 as a result of a pro-USSR split from the Communist Party of Great Britain (the real one, not the tiny “Weekly Worker” lot of today) , which had moved away from a slavish pro-Moscow line.

The Republic of Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, so in January 1991 the USA, UK, and other states went to war. There was a round-the-clock protest outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square in London, which I attended one day. I was in my thirties, and I got talking to a man of about 18 or 20 who described himself as an anarchist. He told me that he had been talking to a middle-aged woman from the NCP, who had attended the protest. He had been astonished that she had said to him, just before she departed, “At the end of the day, we’re all on the same side.” That is how many ordinary members, and ex-members, of groups on the left feel.

These days, we are living in the ruins. Zero-hour contracts, precarious employment, public services and social security devastated, class consciousness and political organisation at a pitiful level.

In 1945, there were two Communist MPs (albeit of the Stalinist variety). In the 1980s, there were three ostensibly Trotskyist MPs (albeit of the “Militant” variety).

The Communist Party had 20,000 members when I was becoming politically active in the early 1970s. The organised working class in this country was strong enough to force a Conservative government to release pickets from Pentonville prison. Coalminers had two successful strikes in two years, the second of which forced a Conservative Prime Minister to call a General Election, which his party lost.

There were once numerous left-wing travelling theatre groups, that you could hire to perform a play about an aspect of capitalism in your local trade union hall. There were left-wing bookshops in many towns. There were flourishing trades union councils in most towns.

Far-right parties were not in government in countries in mainland Europe, there was no such thing as Islamist mass movements and anti-imperialist movements were ostensibly left-wing

I know that there has always been a tendency for older people to witter on about “the good old days”, but I think that by any objective measure it is true to say that in Britain and the rest of the world left-wing movements were much larger, and the working class stronger strategically, in the 1960s and early 1970s. In France in 1968, in Italy in 1969, and in Portugal in 1974-75 there seemed to be the possibility of revolution. Even in Britain, it did not seem stupid to think that there could be a revolution.

In different decades I had a couple of NCP acquaintances who were very nice people, despite their daft politics. One of them (possibly the same middle aged woman) frequently told me we were all on the same side. She simply believed that all the stories about Stalin and the Soviet Union were just made up US propaganda.

It was indeed a different world though. I remember in the mid 1970s, rolling up for my first day at work when I was 16. I bought a random newspaper on the way in. As I didn't know any better back then, I stupidly picked up a copy of the Sun. Everyone ripped the piss out of me and called me a daft bugger for bringing that Tory shite into work.

 

[Gramsci]

Going to the OP.

"The left is rubbish. How do we make it better"

One of the things Ive found heartening about going on the recent demos in support of Palestinians in Gaza is that the majority of the demo are not the "usual suspects".

I was at the demo last Saturday taking photos of the placards people made themselves.

A lot of thought had been put into the home made placards.

Whole families with children turned up.

More home made placards than the usual suspects. This has been the case on all the demos for Gaza

So if the division is between "our class" and the "left" in all the recent demos on Gaza Ive been to our class/ ordinary people were in the majority. Who are quite capable of voicing their own opinions.

Imo the well attended demos are a sign of hope. And a surprise to me

 

[Smokeandsteam]

I mean, I hate to be in the position of defending the trot groupings here, but I suppose a) it's not like those 20,000 people would suddenly appear out of nowhere, their joining said groups would be a reflection of a situation where that many people were already looking for ways to fight capitalism and so on, which would already be a good thing and b) as fun as it is to slag the trot groups off, it's not like everything they do is 100% useless and counterproductive all the time, if 1% of those people then got involved as union reps, or in local tenants associations or whatever, I suspect we'd probably be in a better position than we are now.
Just like how, for how big it was, Corbynism left virtually nothing of value behind, but at the same time, I reckon I probably do know more good union reps who came through Corbynism than I do anarchist ones, or indeed non-anarchist but also non-vanguardist and non-Labourist IWCA-flavoured revolutionary socialist ones or whatever.
On the big question, I think a lot of us are agreed about the diagnosis, so the question is what to do about it I suppose? I feel like successful organising at Amazon, or in the gig economy, wouldn't automatically replicate the 1970s NUM or whatever, but it would be a much better foundation to build a project on than anything we have now. And I reckon housing is also a big area outside of work where there's a lot of potential for class organisation that doesn't have to be built around specific ideological lines.
I dunno, Notes From Below are much too PhDish, and Angry Workers are utterly tiny and don't seem to have got very far compared to where they started out from, but I have to give both of them respect as being groups who at least try to understand the shape of the working class today and use that question as the starting point, rather than preconceived recipes.

1. I don’t agree that an upsurge of cobweb left membership would be a good thing per se. Put another way ‘the left was rubbish’ to quote the OP when those groups were doing better than they are now.

In part answer to the OP therefore, it’s clear that any genuine attempt to restore our side must be ground in a break with many of the past practices and views of the left, and also a conscious rejection of its consistent failure to reach out to the working class and to work with working class communities to encourage self-organisation, confidence and to begin to intervene in the dominant culture.

2. I’m not convinced either that Corbyn produced a new layer of union stewards in great numbers. Certainly in my Branch the backbone was active before Corbyn, the newer stewards are mainly those interested in equality/casework rather than anyone who cut their teeth in Corbynism/momentum. Accept it might be different in the public sector.

3. On your final point, that’s a much more difficult question. But yes, this must be part of it:

the shape of the working class today and use that question as the starting point, rather than preconceived recipes.

 

[Humberto]

Essentialy you are asking where progress starts and stops.

Like the battles of the future are mapped out. A failing system, natural decline and crises.

Human endevour can overcome it, but everything we have as a society depends on human labour.

In our local battle it's the TORIES. No plan, no skills for the future. No society.

The only hope is society. It's not good to be rich if you are a detriment, Thatcher and Cameron are wrong for all enternity.

These aren't fully human people in terms of where they have any significance or influence.

They don't plan for the next year. They respect nothing but selfishness. The system has changed.

Experience, track-record honesty aren't worth shit any more.

You can't run a country or civilisation like this.

You ain't working hard enough and you aren't trying hard enough to make it.

Try twice as hard and double it and you are getting right. You are coasting of your forbearers and insulting them and us.

Society is going to shit. The leaders being fools sees to that.

People are supercilious bellends now I don't mind saying.

Nobody will step up to the plate any more. No one will put a neighbour before their advantage.

 

[hitmouse]

1. I don’t agree that an upsurge of cobweb left membership would be a good thing per se. Put another way ‘the left was rubbish’ to quote the OP when those groups were doing better than they are now.

In part answer to the OP therefore, it’s clear that any genuine attempt to restore our side must be ground in a break with many of the past practices and views of the left, and also a conscious rejection of its consistent failure to reach out to the working class and to work with working class communities to encourage self-organisation, confidence and to begin to intervene in the dominant culture.

Coming back to this: on that point, I suppose it's less that an upsurge of membership in the left groups would inherently be a good thing, but more that I can only imagine it happening as a result of some other factor, which might well be a good thing. Also, I suppose it's easier and simpler to treat the cobweb left as if they're just all useless all the time, but actually those past practices are a mix of useless, actively counterproductive, and things that actually do need doing, all sort of bound up together. So I imagine an increased membership of those groups would probably have some positive effects along with increasing the amount of junk? Probably not worth spending too much time on though, can't imagine it's that likely to happen either way.

2. I’m not convinced either that Corbyn produced a new layer of union stewards in great numbers. Certainly in my Branch the backbone was active before Corbyn, the newer stewards are mainly those interested in equality/casework rather than anyone who cut their teeth in Corbynism/momentum. Accept it might be different in the public sector.

To expand on this a bit: I agree that there's not a huge number of union stewards (or similar, I was sort of using that as shorthand for "people doing actually useful practical organising" but obviously you can do one without the other) who came out of Corbynism, I was more trying to sound a note of humility for those of us who were always "outside and against" Corbynism by remembering that nothing that we've done has worked better either. So, from an anarchist pov, I was using "I think I know more ex-Corbynist stewards than I do anarchist ones"; for people who aren't Labourites or anarchists, that might not be a very interesting comparison, but I think the point stands, both that Corbynism didn't leave a huge amount of useful infrastructure or... anything really behind, but also that nothing any of its critics have tried instead seems to have worked much better.

Going back to RD2's point above about the lack of organisation in the private sector, for a long time I would've pointed to the IWW (and indeed SolFed to some extent) as being one of the more sensible, less shit bits of the left in that they at least have a sense of the problem and try to make organising in sectors like hospitality, where loads of people work but there's virtually no unionisation, a priority. But then, in 2024, you can ask what the IWW have achieved over the past decade or two, and I dunno what the answer would be. Obviously the likes of UVW/IWGB/CAIWU are a bit of a different question. Anyway, not 100% sure where I'm going with this, other than just to be very aware that we're all in glass houses here to some extent.

As it happens, was just reading Tronti today, and most of it's very heavy going but there are occasional gems, this bit felt very relevant:

From these parties' point of view, the conclusion drawn is that the working class does not even exist anymore; the working class, however, has concluded that its parties no longer exist. In the parties' estimation, the working-class point of view has failed, and the workers think the same of the party.

And that's his judgement on the PCI and PSI of the 1960s, which for all their flaws completely piss all over the British CP at its height, let alone any other British left groups.

 

[The39thStep]

"My humble role over the past decade has been to hew out the political, cultural and intellectual space for a new sort of politics to flourish in . One that starts from the fact that the forward march of labour has been halted. Not only do we need a new revolutionary left but also a new working class and that is only possible by a very complicated process that is way over the heads of most people.

The history of cheadlehighstreet has shown us that it is possible to create a space where by the relationship of revolutionary politics to the working class can be redrawn and rethought. In that pilot, we tested out the theory that it is not the working class that makes history but the revolutionary left itself. In fact what we found is that it is possible for the revolutionary left to makes its own history, one that is independent of the working class; the looting of the Spar shop at Gleneagles, the International Brigade for Iraq, the introduction of text messaging for threats to the workers movement, Skateboarder Against the War, the Girls Aloud b side on Kronstadt and the Lindsey German cook book for example. And in making that history, in circumstances entirely of its own choosing, a new working class has been born . One that is fit for the script and does what it is supposed to do not just in theory but in practice.

The emergence of Workers Girder is proof that not only is another world possible but possibly we are in another world.

Comrades it is not the end of history it is simply extra time."

Barry Mainwaring

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Move heaven and earth to defend the life of chairman Barry and fight for the onward march of Mainwaring Thought.

For open polemic and revolutionary unity - Louis MacNeice

 

[PTK]

1. I don’t agree that an upsurge of cobweb left membership would be a good thing per se. Put another way ‘the left was rubbish’ to quote the OP when those groups were doing better than they are now.

The working class was in a stronger position when the groups of the left were doing better. The strength of the left groups was a reflection of the strength of the working class.

 

[PTK]

Move heaven and earth to defend the life of chairman Barry and fight for the onward march of Mainwaring Thought.

For open polemic and revolutionary unity - Louis MacNeice

Down with the revisionist Barry-ites and all their running dogs!

Hold high the red banner of Marxism-Leninism-Bertism!
Long Live Chairman Bert! (and regards to his family).

 

[Serge Forward]

The working class was in a stronger position when the groups of the left were doing better. The strength of the left groups was a reflection of the strength of the working class.

Aye, both reformist and revolutionary groups from Labour left and electoralist Trots to class struggle anarchists and council communists will fare better when the working class is more active, organised, has a level of political education and is relatively conscious as a class. And when those conditions don't exist, there's a greater chance of substituting the left/revolutionary group for the class, as well as a higher focus on single issue politics, identity and liberal talking points.

But then, we've had over 40 years of relentless de-education, mystification and disempowerment by the ruling class and its mouthpieces. Is it any wonder the left is so shite?

 

[PTK]

Aye, both reformist and revolutionary groups from Labour left and electoralist Trots to class struggle anarchists and council communists will fare better when the working class is more active, organised, has a level of political education and is relatively conscious as a class. And when those conditions don't exist, there's a greater chance of substituting the left/revolutionary group for the class, as well as a higher focus on single issue politics, identity and liberal talking points.

But then, we've had over 40 years of relentless de-education, mystification and disempowerment by the ruling class and its mouthpieces. Is it any wonder the left is so shite?

Well put
When people on the left say that the left is shite, it is as though they are implying that they themselves are not part of the left, that they are wonderful politically.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Well put
When people on the left say that the left is shite, it is as though they are implying that they themselves are not part of the left, that they are wonderful politically.

Well it could be, or it could just be people responding to the question asked by the OP:

“The left is rubbish. How do we make it better?

 

[PTK]

Well it could be, or it could just be people responding to the question asked by the OP:

“The left is rubbish. How do we make it better?

I was referring to statements often made outside of this thread.