Renton's remarks reinforce what many must know to be true. i'm not sure exactly when the process of delivering the swp's political structures into the hands of the intimidators began, but my experience suggests it was some considerable time ago (i became an ex member in the early 1990s).
i remember thinking that some of those who dominated the machine would actually be quite dangerous people if they ever came to wield any authority in a not fully developed (and possibly struggling) workers state.
No doubt decent and humane individuals remain among the cadre, but , judging from the way this Delta issue has been handled, their 'clout' counts for little.
The cyborgs remain entrenched, and sadly, (to paraphrase a line from The Terminator), 'they absolutely will not stop - ever'.
The proto commissars were well entrenched in the party machine from the earliest days I'm afraid to say, redcogs . We had a full time organiser in Manchester in the early 1970's (IS days - the supposed "libertarian" phase) , Pete Robinson, who was a complete hippyish, cowardly, incompetent - but because he was one of Cliff's circle of uncritical party line grovellers, we just couldn't get rid of the bugger ! Despite his overwhelming uselessness and supreme laziness , the IS sent him as the key liaison man to work with the PRP/BR Party in Portugal for a year during the 1974 revolutionary period ! Even in the halcyon early 70's days of IS, so many of the IS/SWP fulltimers were such arrogant unpleasant people at a personal level - far too many not being hairy arsed workers but arrogant ex public schoolboys , bringing with them so much of their inbred class personality and attitudinal "baggage" .
I knew then fulltimer Simon Turner enough to be on gossiping terms in the late 1970's. Simon was an OK bloke , had been a big NUS player. I remember him, in a boozy moment, lamenting the extraordinarily aggressive, macho, culture at IS headquarters at Cottons Gardens, The culture required , he sadly said, that every fulltimer never showed any doubt about anything, never gave an inch ----- concede you might have no strong opinion on any particular issue and you would be seen as a weak petty bourgeois. A bit like those dreadful "corporate cultures" in Big Business - where no matter how basically trivial the product, every employee is expected to be a fanatically loyal zombie - eg the corporate mantra constantly mouthed by senior execs in the Disney corporation ... "ANYTHING FOR THE MOUSE !"
Mind you in hindsight one does wonder how many were also employed by the Special Demonstration Squad, given what we now know of the extraordinary levels of infiltration the state has employed in the most innocuous groups over the years - eg, a long term police infiltrator in the "Radical Clowns" group FFS ! It's possible that lots of the IS/SWP core people were long term state agents all along. (after all how many "normal" people can afford to work for next to nothing as a party fulltimer for years - without either a toff's private income, or a very committed working partner, or a full time salary from the state ?) Just look at Roger Rosewell's career - Industrial Organiser, on the CC for decades - and definitely an agent all along ! There was always that joke that by the 1970's the US Communist Party Central Committee was ENTIRELY composed of agents from the various agencies - but all unknown to each other !
I always remember the report back from the comrades expelled for "Squadism" in late 1981/ early 82, who had perhaps foolishly decided to bother to
appeal their case to the Control Commission. On requesting the right to speak in their defence the, even then, crazed stalinoid apparatchnik, Lindsey German, apparently screamed " You have no right to speak at this meeting ... we wouldn't give the National Front the right to speak ! " Errr Right... Lovely stuff - so motivating for guys who had spent years risking everything to defend these shitemeisters from the NF . Imagine if these scum had had some real power !
