SWP expulsions and squabbles

[cesare]

Why would I want to do that?

I posted that before you explained about the scene as a package.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

it would have to find them first before they could get round to whipping them.


*It says something when an SPGBer can take the piss out of another party's lack of activism.

I suspect they have slightly more activists than you.

 

[articul8]

A long piece by "Kevin Crane" on Tom Walker's blog:
http://rethinkingtheleft.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/is-interventionism-finished.html

Describes the SWP national centre as a self-contained city-state like the Vatican

 

[imposs1904]

I suspect they have slightly more activists than you.

but not as many as they should have. Even when I canvassed for Labour in the '97 they seemed thin on the ground locally. And, christ, that was '97.

 

[butchersapron]

Who is Crane? CK?

 

[Pickman's model]

A long piece by "Kevin Crane" on Tom Walker's blog:
http://rethinkingtheleft.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/is-interventionism-finished.html

Describes the SWP national centre as a self-contained city-state like the Vatican

The vatican is not a city-state.

 

[butchersapron]

That piece is straight from the DO, given its repetition of their documents aim to be:

bringing revolutionary theory to mass working-class organisation.

 

[butchersapron]

This is madness:

The SWP's organisational structures have been through several stages of change since the turn of the millennium. In 2001, it was beginning a process of major reorganisation. The SWP had managed to get ahead of the curve of the new mass movements that were emerging against neoliberalism (variously the anti-globalisation, or anti-capitalist movement as we fought for it to be known) and imperialism (the mass anti-war movement). The CC took some very difficult and controversial decisions to gamble on the success of these movements, one of the most far-reaching of which was forcing the branches, with their routinised meetings and attendances of dozens, to break up and form smaller, more local groups, orientated on getting active in local anti-war groups and hosting “Marxist Forum” meetings about anti-capitalist ideas. Anyone who claims this did not serve a purpose either doesn't know or doesn't remember any better: the party gained a profile it had previously not enjoyed, even greater than the high-tide of the Anti Nazi League, and earned massive respect as the driving force behind building the anti-war demos, the biggest street protest movement in British history. I think it says something about the state of the party now that the ten year anniversary of this time merited no mention at all at this year’s conference.

 

[butchersapron]

This is the first ever mention of Cliff on this board.

 

[butchersapron]

This is also madness but telling madness:

Respect was a break from this, using the mass appeal and energy of the anti-war movement to persuade left-wing voters to switch away from Labour. The idea was not simply to get a few votes here and there; it was to undermine the dominance of Labour over the working-class by using the one issue that divided it from the class, the ‘War on Terror’.

This KC is an idiot.

 

[two sheds]

This is the first ever mention of Cliff on this board.

Interesting post - I gave it a Like which should confuse the person posting it.

 

[butchersapron]

What does this even mean? I know that it sounds like the author thinks criticisms should sound like, but what does it mean?

Members who were in small branches that struggled to connect with the new movements

What are the new movements? Is this like bolshies "the movements" and just meaning centrist wish-washy groups that you can pick people off from? What does connect mean? Emotionally? Do stuff with? Get taken over? What?

 

[butchersapron]

But that tide went out – Respect and the anti-war movement peaked in 2005 and then began to suffer serious setbacks following the resignation of Tony Blair in 2007.

Why did that tide go out? Anyone half competent CC loyalist should be able to tear this apart.

 

[butchersapron]

Sorry to keep doing this, but this stuff is appalling - and it's the opposition!:

A CC that had lost touch severely with the bulk of the membership felt unable, even unwilling, to go to them with difficulties they were having with other forces in Respect in 2006 before the crisis became unmanageable,

It's not Relate ffs, they didn't got to them because the party is not set up for them to go to them, its not set up for popular participation, it's set up to keep participation within tightly circumscribed limits set by the CC. There is no need and never has been to 'go to them' beyond the annual slate election stitch up. This was not a passing one-off that events forced on the poor CC ffs.

 

[sihhi]

Someone from the USA unconnected to the goings on making a point about the SWP approach to the internet:

http://polizeros.com/2013/01/29/is-...d:+PoliticsInTheZeros+(Politics+in+the+Zeros)

Is Leninism Dead by Alex Callinicos in Socialist Review is a nigh-on perfect example of the muddled, archaic thinking too prevalent on the hard left. It’s preachy, dull, boring to read, looks continually to the past for ideas, resolutely doesn’t get the internet or social media, and includes this gem of confusion.

'One thing the entire business has reminded us of is the dark side of the Internet. Enormously liberating though the net is, it has long been known that it allows salacious gossip to be spread and perpetuated – unless the victim has the money and the lawyers to stop it. Unlike celebrities, small revolutionary organisations don’t have these resources, and their principles stop them from trying to settle political arguments in the bourgeois courts.'

This is, of course, rubbish. The Internet allows small players to publicize themselves and refute rumors quickly and easily. A few tweets to the right people on Twitter can lead to rumors being stopped fast. But doing this does require understanding how the net works, something Callinicos and Socialist Review clearly do not. In an almost comical example of this, the article doesn’t allow comments. You have to email the editor instead. How quaint. How backwards. This also clearly demonstrates one of the biggest problems of current Marxism and Leninism, especially when it comes to the little baby revolutionary party groupuscules. You are expected to listen as they enlighten you to the truth they received when Lenin spoke to them through the burning bush. They don’t want feedback. They aren’t interested in your thoughts. They preach, you absorb. Any questions? And then they wonder why fewer and fewer are listening to them. Socialism still has lots of good ideas. But many of its zealots are so wedded to the past they can’t see, much less work towards change in the present.

I'm not a fan of twitter but Callinicos - given that he is on it - could at least try to answer sensible questions on it from other posters. Otherwise what the hell is it for? becoming something like 'a photo of my mates on every protest I go to' (easy police surveillance).

 

[articul8]

Socialist Alliance candidacies usually struggled to get out of the Official Monster-Raving Loony league of votes.

This is very empirically dodgy. For a start, they saved a deposit in a Westminster by-election (Preston, 2000/01?)which is beyond what the Lib Dems can achieve most of the time these days. Just after the SA split, we ran a Socialist candidate in a white working class estate in Preston and got 20% of the vote which we were mildly disappointed with. But considering this was more than TUSC polled in the whole of central manchester against the backdrop of austerity.

Where it's results were properly shit it was normally SWP types who were the candidates! It was fucked from the time they blocked its federal structure and insisted they controlled it.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

This is the first ever mention of Cliff on this board.

Well the board had only been going about 2 years when that was posted. Why re-visit it now?

 

[sihhi]

Why did that tide go out? Anyone half competent CC loyalist should be able to tear this apart.

This is pretty damning though - the monopolisation - by a bureucratised London-based clique - of its national newspaper that carefully filters all challenging correspondence to it.

"Bureaucracy, sadly, is self-justifying: there are fifteen people, more or less, paid to produce and distribute the party’s publications, and this tends to outclass any debate about the role of those publications in political activity. There is team of people building and promoting meetings on behalf of the membership and there are even people solely gathering money. These teams exist and, naturally, have to justify their existence, so they are continually forced to act as substitutionists for activity that, in a party of leaders, one should really hope would be done by lay members. And, as branches have become less and less central to SWP members’ lives over the years and played less and less of an organisational role, it has become progressively ever more detached and bastardised from its roots."

 

[butchersapron]

Well the board had only been going about 2 years when that was posted. Why re-visit it now?

Why have you posted that?

 

[butchersapron]

This is pretty damning though - the monopolisation - by a bureucratised London-based clique - of its national newspaper that carefully filters all challenging correspondence to it.

"Bureaucracy, sadly, is self-justifying: there are fifteen people, more or less, paid to produce and distribute the party’s publications, and this tends to outclass any debate about the role of those publications in political activity. There is team of people building and promoting meetings on behalf of the membership and there are even people solely gathering money. These teams exist and, naturally, have to justify their existence, so they are continually forced to act as substitutionists for activity that, in a party of leaders, one should really hope would be done by lay members. And, as branches have become less and less central to SWP members’ lives over the years and played less and less of an organisational role, it has become progressively ever more detached and bastardised from its roots."

Potemkin party.

Don't lift the rock up, there's no creepy crawlies, there is...nothing.

 

[sihhi]

Where it's results were properly shit it was normally SWP types who were the candidates! It was fucked from the time they blocked its federal structure and insisted they controlled it.

Not quite true Paul Foot got just under 13% in Hackney mayorals.

 

[killer b]

This is very empirically dodgy. For a start, they saved a deposit in a Westminster by-election (Preston, 2000/01?)which is beyond what the Lib Dems can achieve most of the time these days. Just after the SA split, we ran a Socialist candidate in a white working class estate in Preston and got 20% of the vote which we were mildly disappointed with. But considering this was more than TUSC polled in the whole of central manchester against the backdrop of austerity.

Where it's results were properly shit it was normally SWP types who were the candidates! It was fucked from the time they blocked its federal structure and insisted they controlled it.

erm the preston results you quote were swappie candidates...

 

[belboid]

Not quite true Paul Foot got just under 13% in Hackney mayorals.

not to mention the first elected SA councillor being. mmm, from the SWP.

 

[butchersapron]

Madness, utter bubble self-delusion:

Our fear with the Comrade Delta affair was always primarily that it would cut us off from the class and the mass movements, but the very act of resisting that has shown that we can reach out to them

 

[sihhi]

Potemkin party.

Don't lift the rock up, there's no creepy crawlies, there is...nothing.

I'm going to mention again the SWP full-timer (paid to educate other members and pass on the memory of "the class" to other weaker liberals in local campaigns) who had never heard of Red Action or what happened at ANL Carnival 2.

 

[killer b]

Madness, utter bubble self-delusion:

if they reached out to my class, i'd call the fucking police.

 

[butchersapron]

I'm going to mention again the SWP full-timer (paid to educate other members and pass on the memory of "the class" to other weaker liberals in local campaigns) who had never heard of Red Action or what happened at ANL Carnival 2.

Don't know what to say anymore, i have similar stories of the full-timer that we met whilst we were smuggling in food and drink to the occupying students in 2010...

 

[articul8]

erm the preston results you quote were swappie candidates...

no, the by-election wasn't (Terry Cartwright, ex-Labour Ind) - and nor was the local election (Ex-Labour Ind/SP) - true that Lavelette did well in between but that was on very much an anti-war/communalist appeal a la Galloway

 

[killer b]

oh yeah, i were looking at the wrong dates.

 

[belboid]

I'm going to mention again the SWP full-timer (paid to educate other members and pass on the memory of "the class" to other weaker liberals in local campaigns) who had never heard of Red Action or what happened at ANL Carnival 2.

you sure he didnt, or if he just said he didnt? I know some (eg Nigel, north london organiser in the nineties) who would say they didnt know anything about other left groups, or earlier IS splits, just because they didnt think rthey should be discussing such things with 'ordinary' members.