Life after the SWP?
- Thread starter chilango
- Start date
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
What argument? You haven't said what you are for, or against.
bolshiebhoy
socialism leinster drink
You actually scare me by saying that. HIs grasp of historical materialism is nill. His stance on the palestinian war against rome was semi-anarchist at best. John Rose understood that.
His broadending of the constitution is for one reason only, the end of cliffisim. Didnn't you read Harman's reply? Fair enough if you're one of the gullible ones but the guy is not a leninist, never was, never could be. I thought you were but maybe I'm wrong. Dont be mk12.
Davidson is a false massiah.
bolshiebhoy
socialism leinster drink
For gods sake mate, not that its worth a pssing war but in the 80s we were the intelectuals and the millies were dim. But then as Duncan Hallas proudly said to me one night, we were proud that we didn't understand the french that the img spoketo us in the sixties. It's not about being the brightest which seems to be your point with uberdog. Who cares? From the prespective you come from you're arguing against yourself because marxism is about a party and you don't have one, not a proper one any way.
bolshiebhoy
socialism leinster drink
Wishful thiking pal.
bolshiebhoy
socialism leinster drink
I have a huge problem with stupidity like this. Which is that I grew up politically thinking Rees was a huge figure. Somebody with a grasp of marxism. And so did you pal. Your attempt to belittle him now belittles you. If he writes something against the cc i will read it. I have done and disagree with his overall point but if you can dismiss him in the way you are then you're not worthy of mention. And you haven't read Harman matey cause he at least knows the man's worth. Christ on a stick we all spilt blood together building this party, and even if Rees is Wrong he's not to be dismissed the way you are trying to.
..
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
The LCR and FI have always gone for quality over quantity - they see their organisations as 'cadre organisations', not 'the-smallest-mass-party-in-the-world' type.
The SWP membership is a revolving door with a group of people (usually students) on their way in, and another group passing them by on their way out - you should know that, you were in both positions once. The LCR is a much more stable organisation with a bigger periphery, shown by the fact that they are less than a quarter of the activists for the ACP.
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
I was responding to Belboid. I simply don't agree about the intellectual level of organisations in the 1980s, but I'm mainly talking about the early eighties, with the growth of Bennism and the run up to the miners' strike - maybe your perception is different from a different period and time. The SWP were pretty irrelevant once they closed down the ANL and sat out Bennism. They missed the first quarter of the miners' strike due to their sectarianism too. Militant hadn't expanded as rapidly as they were to do following the Liverpool events and they had been working hard to differentiate themselves from Benn.
But more worringly your claim about lack of party is a very dangerous one - "My party, right or wrong" is a slippery slope to stalinism. Marxism is about leadership of the working class, and there will always be leaders outside the ranks of the marxist party. A key task of the marxist party is about how to relate to them. On that issue, the SWP do not have a clue and never have.
liampreston
Spend time, not money
But...no, it is true.
From the construction and demolition of the Socialist Alliance, through Respect, and now it seems just hacking at itself, the SWP has not been able to stick an anchor in the ground. I joined this forum at a time of great enthusiasm for the SA. They had just saved their deposit in the Preston by-election, the general election was coming up, and with no other credible socialist party, this was the great chance...
And now here we all are. Older, a bit fatter, I'm still in the LibDems, and the SWP are still talking amongst themselves. Respect came...and went...and I get the impression that for the first time in years there is no "next step". Nobody on this thread is talking about Left List as the next front to take the SWP to the next election.
I wasn't dismissing him, to me he's quite clearly an extremely able and talented, but flawed, individual (as are galloway and salma Yaqoob in different ways). And I was making an observation about the effect his latest writing is having on comrades that i know, which is not a lot. Oh and 'cliffism' isn't a term that i think counts for much.
The real questions are what comes out of the democratic commission, or special conference, and how to best respond to the recession. On the last, I know some comrades are, again, showing an ability to relate to workers and put an argument for a fight which gets a real resonance. Unfortunately its not an argument that's being acted on by any groups of workers.
To Liam: the swp is in a very weak position where electroral interventions are concerned, but there's more (a lot more) to politics than that.
liampreston
Spend time, not money
I take that point, absolutely.
Udo Erasmus
Well-Known Member
Just a point of order. You seem to be confusing two different members of the SWP: Neil Davidson, Scottish based activist who writes a lot on Scotland, Alasdair MacIntyre & the enlightenment with Neil Faulkner, author, archaologist and activist based in St Albans, who writes on ancient history, involved in some radical archaeology projects & Time Team on TV.
It was Neil Faulkner not Neil Davidson who had a polemic with John Rose on the Jewish Revolt.
I would suggest that Neil Davidson's project points towards critiquing the SWP turn in the late '70s and organisational forms, his quoting of Peter Sedgwick (who opposed that turn & was on the libertarian wing of the IS) suggests that he sees the SWP as a false turn and wants to return to a less top heavy organisation. What is healthy is that Davidson is demanding an honest debate and accounting from whatever perspective of the last 30 years of the SWPs attempt to build a mass revolutionary organisation.
For what it's worth, my own personal opinion, is that the top-heavy internal regime, caricature of democratic centralism has been a disaster for both the SWP and the wider left. The SWP (that in its 60s incarnation had a reputation for one of the most intellectually open, creative & relaxed internal regimes) probably has the least open and democratic regime of any leninist party in Europe.
What is needed in this period is a mass libertarian marxist organisation.
"mass libertarian marxist organisation"
A what?
Forgive me if I think that sounds a bit of an oxymoron at least "in this period"
That is not to say that such a thing could never exist, or will never. It just seems a very long way away at the moment, especially in Britain. Plus, it would probably only be likely to exist if it explicitly did not style itself as either "libertarian" or "Marxist"
(these now being two words that elicit a Pavlovian reaction of distrust and suspicion, if not outright anger or dislike in most of the likely target group.....only eclipsed in the unpopularity stakes by the words "anarchist" or "Trotskyist")
Also, unfortunately at the current time, anything with any chance of becoming "mass" would likely be swarmed over and devoured by the sectules in the manner of those scarab beetles devouring tomb desecrators in the film The Mummy, before you could utter the words entryists! or opportunists!. Sorry for my cynicism, it is just the result of observing 20 or 30 years of what has passed for left politics in the UK
A what?
Forgive me if I think that sounds a bit of an oxymoron at least "in this period"
That is not to say that such a thing could never exist, or will never. It just seems a very long way away at the moment, especially in Britain. Plus, it would probably only be likely to exist if it explicitly did not style itself as either "libertarian" or "Marxist"
(these now being two words that elicit a Pavlovian reaction of distrust and suspicion, if not outright anger or dislike in most of the likely target group.....only eclipsed in the unpopularity stakes by the words "anarchist" or "Trotskyist")Also, unfortunately at the current time, anything with any chance of becoming "mass" would likely be swarmed over and devoured by the sectules in the manner of those scarab beetles devouring tomb desecrators in the film The Mummy, before you could utter the words entryists! or opportunists!. Sorry for my cynicism, it is just the result of observing 20 or 30 years of what has passed for left politics in the UK
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
It couldn't exist based on trotskyist or leninist politics (announced or not) either. Them being explicitly anti-libertarian approaches. Time to jump udo - do you wish to remain a trotskyist or do you wish to remain a libertarian marxist?
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
So why join the Liberal Democrats? And even more bizarely become their secretary?
JHE
.
Really? Whose blood did you spill?
Let's be accurate here. You spilt beer, toasting people who spilt blood.
Spion
I hear ya
Indeed. The addition of the 'libertarian' bit is a vague and nonsensical affectation"mass libertarian marxist organisation"
A what?
liampreston
Spend time, not money
I was agreeing with his view that there is more to the SWP than electoral politics; I am not dismissing electoral politics completely....
barney_pig
Po-cha-na-quar-hip
audiotech
wav, aiff, mp3, ogg, flac
Not personally, but I was an active member of the SWP at the time. Putting posters up about Blair Peach being murdered by the SPG and wanted posters of the then home secretary Willie Whitelaw.
I know people who were expelled too and none lost any blood. In fact some have gone on and prospered.
Udo Erasmus
Well-Known Member
I know people who spilt blood for Respect. A leading city trade unionist was out putting election leaflets through people's doors & a dog sprang up on the otherside and bit his fingers. He later reported to the NC of Respect, I have spilt blood for this organisation.
liampreston
Spend time, not money
You've not been a Liberal Democrat until you've had a dog (and in one case, a cat, I recall) attack you when leafleting....
bolshiebhoy
socialism leinster drink
That's an awful comparison to make surely. But the fact you make it says a lot about the thinking in the party right now.
I don't care about able and talented people in the abstract, I do care about able and talented people who've been committed to the project of building the swp for manys a year when people like me had fallen by the way side. Yes I think he's gone native, and in some ways German more so. But to a) compare him to a slug like GG or b) describe him as a delusional patient is quite simply wrong, sorry comrade.
Lenin had the good grace to defend Levi while he attacked him and quite rightly attacked him. Nobody in the current conflict is of the same class as either man. But they could at least could try to emulate that style. Not too much to ask.
It's not rocket science. Rees and German have succumbed to the pressures of reformist politics but they are redeemable if they're not subjected to stupid abuse of the nature you're inclining to. I had hoped that the tone of the prof's and Harman's replies meant there was room for brining these people back into the fold. But if their politness is just a front for a level of vitriol at the grassroots that's going to force them out of marxist politics then that will be huge shame.
kavenism
Progressive misanthrope
Having read through all the verbiage in the latest bulletin I think anyone can see between the lines that the people involved can't stand each other and that communication has pretty much broken down on the CC. I far as I'm concerned that makes them a busted flush and the whole lot of them should be deselected from the slate. A year of fresh blood in the snakes head might just be the shake up the organisation needs.
JHE
.
Kav, it's no good talking as if they were all at each other's throats. It's not like that at all. Most of the CC has it in for JR. He is the scapegoat. His enemies have not even decided to get rid of Lindsey Kraut, though no doubt relations are bad between her and her mate's enemies.
The bulk of the membership, loyal little Social Workers that they are, will vote and think as they are told by the CC. The sun used to shine out of JR's arse. (In fact, it once shone out of GG's and Salmonella's arses too!) Now JR is bad. The CC knows best.
It all has a nostalgically Soviet feel to it, though without the Gulag, thankfully. Mutley's mutterings about JR's mental health are creepily reminiscent of the use of mental hospitals in the the Soviet Union in the days of Brezhnev.
The bulk of the membership, loyal little Social Workers that they are, will vote and think as they are told by the CC. The sun used to shine out of JR's arse. (In fact, it once shone out of GG's and Salmonella's arses too!) Now JR is bad. The CC knows best.
It all has a nostalgically Soviet feel to it, though without the Gulag, thankfully. Mutley's mutterings about JR's mental health are creepily reminiscent of the use of mental hospitals in the the Soviet Union in the days of Brezhnev.
Bakunin
I am Noodle's bitch.
And also not especially pleasant for some mental health patients either, I fancy, especially those who read these boards and of which I happen to be one. It's bad enough dealing with that sort of ignorant and casual prejudice from the general public, but from supposedly more enlightened and tolerant folk it's quite depressing really. I've noticed a slight tendency towards that from a few folk in these parts, with words like 'nutter' and so on being bandied about like confetti.
Anyway, if I were Mutley (and the rest of the SWP CC) I'd be inclined to rate Rees a little more highly in terms of his potential to cause damage to already faltering SWP. Remember, Rees being a former member of the CC and de facto leader of the failed RESPECT project, that he'll know all the skeletons in the closet and where all the bodies are buried. If he were to start, politically speaking, wandering about ringing a bell and shouting 'bring out your dead' then it could be extremely damaging indeed, if not the final nail in the SWP's coffin.
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
Das Uberdog
remembers the alamo
lol
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
Which is when it ( the SWP to be) was at one of its most dynamic periods. The other being the Right To Work , ANL mark 1 period.
The revo left groups will survive , preserved in the aspic of 1917/1968 ,albeit smaller and more and more pushed to the margins even further from the working class. The SWP isn't going to collapse and disappear allowing some imagined non Bolshevik tradition to flourish. In that sense the SWP isn't the problem its the failure of the non Bolshevik left to actually put its time and effort into a pro working class project, a sort of left wing BNP.
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