The Road Less Travelled: The History of Red Action

[chilango]

I guess my own experience, through circumstance and necessity has Ben in more atomised and transient communities with easy/cheap housing access etc.

But Spanky Longhorn I'd agree with you on the rest.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

So has mine in terms of where I live and yet you still get to know your neighbours, organise stuff etc

One of the issues for radical politics is that quite often the needs that they self identify can be quite easily be dealt with by the local mainstream councillors, businesses, council services etc

 

[butchersapron]

So has mine in terms of where I live and yet you still get to know your neighbours, organise stuff etc

One of the issues for radical politics is that quite often the needs that they self identify can be quite easily be dealt with by the local mainstream councillors, businesses, council services etc

Most of the stuff that were our (now privatised) issues are nothing to do with councils any more.The idea that they are is a real thing though. Councillors cannot deal with what residents think they can.

 

[chilango]

Most of the stuff that were our (now privatised) issues are nothing to do with councils any more.The idea that they are is a real thing though. Councillors cannot deal with what residents think they can.

...though my local councillors are busy pretending to!

 

[chilango]

So has mine in terms of where I live and yet you still get to know your neighbours, organise stuff etc

...and then they move.

Or you move.

In the two years I've been living here. My immediate neighbours (the houses either side of ours) have stayed the same. But two doors down has had three separate lots in. The two houses immediately across the road have both changed hands at least twice.

It's a pattern repeated down the road, and on nearby streets. One street I once counted the for sale/to let signs on - 60% were on the market .

I myself have moved 23 times in the 20 or so years of my adult life. An extreme example perhaps, but transience is commonplace and expected.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

...and then they move.

Or you move.

In the two years I've been living here. My immediate neighbours (the houses either side of ours) have stayed the same. But two doors down has had three separate lots in. The two houses immediately across the road have both changed hands at least twice.

It's a pattern repeated down the road, and on nearby streets. One street I once counted the for sale/to let signs on - 60% were on the market .

I myself have moved 23 times in the 20 or so years of my adult life. An extreme example perhaps, but transience is commonplace and expected.

I've moved house about 6 times in 7 years, I stand by what I say though

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Most of the stuff that were our (now privatised) issues are nothing to do with councils any more.The idea that they are is a real thing though. Councillors cannot deal with what residents think they can.

They can with the tiny stuff I was referring to - allotments and street parties etc, and if they can't Sainsburys or Morrissons will give you a grant for a street party (they can't deal with the bigger stuff no, but by the time they and their constituents discover that...)

 

[butchersapron]

They can with the tiny stuff I was referring to - allotments and street parties etc, and if they can't Sainsburys or Morrissons will give you a grant for a street party (they can't deal with the bigger stuff no, but by the time they and their constituents discover that...)

But people still work on the mental basis that local councils did this, provided that - that they should do this - that's where or power comes in? That's why the small stuff is already connected to the big stuff. We already know we own all this .

 

[chilango]

I've moved house about 6 times in 7 years, I stand by what I say though

The communities that I've experienced (visiting though, not living in) the strongest sense of community, and the most community organising (and in exactly the sort of things you mention - street parties, allotments, sports clubs and leisure groups etc.) have been staunchly Middle class areas where residents live for decades and are secure in their housing and emoyment status.

It does make a difference.

Not an impossible obstacle, but a tangible difference nonetheless.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

The communities that I've experienced (visiting though, not living in) the strongest sense of community, and the most community organising (and in exactly the sort of things you mention - street parties, allotments, sports clubs and leisure groups etc.) have been staunchly Middle class areas where residents live for decades and are secure in their housing and emoyment status.

It does make a difference.

Not an impossible obstacle, but a tangible difference nonetheless.

The vast majority of house owners are what we would describe as working class though

 

[butchersapron]

The communities that I've experienced (visiting though, not living in) the strongest sense of community, and the most community organising (and in exactly the sort of things you mention - street parties, allotments, sports clubs and leisure groups etc.) have been staunchly Middle class areas where residents live for decades and are secure in their housing and emoyment status.

It does make a difference.

Not an impossible obstacle, but a tangible difference nonetheless.

This house is going up in value.

My rent is fucking what? But i'm guaranteed work here for 20 years.

I'm paying 150 quid a week. But i have a degree and massive cultural capital. I'm never taking home more then 150 quid

Internal difference about stuff really important. This is where relative privilege should be used.

edit:the stuff in italics are imagined conversations, not me

 

[chilango]

This house is going up in value.

My rent is fucking what? But i'm guaranteed work here for 20 years.

I'm paying 150 quid a week. But i have a degree and massive cultural capital. I'm never taking home more then 150 quid

Internal difference about stuff really important. This is where relative privilege should be used.

edit:the stuff in italics are imagined conversations, not me

Can you expand on this?

 

[butchersapron]

Can you expand on this?

Middle class people/communities not in crisis. Different crisis.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

As a supporter of the IWCA - both as an organisation and a strategy - this is my take on the above. I'm sure others are quite capable of providing their own account.

With the collapse of the post-war social democratic consensus, and the emergence of New Labour committed to neo-liberalism, the Labour Party was (and still is) dead as a vehicle for working class political representation (let alone anything more radical); therefore something different - a new organisation - was and still is needed.

With the defeat of the miners and the NUM, the body of anti-working class industrial relations legislation and the widespread reorganisation of work itself, the workplace as a site for effecting political change no longer exists; that is why the miners and the NUM had to be defeated. But the need for collective protection, representation and advocacy at work still does; therefore unions continue to be needed.

In these circumstances, a small organisation such as the IWCA, would seem to have made the right call, i.e. organise where people live in their communities - the place where they have little or no collective voice across the whole of their lives - rather than the workplace -somewhere which by turns may not actually exist, be temporary, be precarious or even already organised.

This is not the same as saying that IWCA activists did not involve themselves in trade union activity (and taking the IWCA's politics into that activity); they did...just not as IWCA activists and not as an organisation.

So as a small exemplary organisation - that is an organisation whose purpose was to provide an experimental example of how and what to do - the IWCA targeted the identification, the promotion and the realisation of working class interests at a community level, alongside a direct attack on the Labour Party who laid claim to/relied on the lie that they were pro-working class...only they use the language of 'ordinary people' or 'hard working families'.

Given the resources at the IWCA's disposal and the small c political conservatism of virtually all those on the left who could have developed the experiment, I think the IWCA did alright. In Oxford it helped a community change some things for the better. Wherever it was active it gave Labour a fright. And it did both of these things in a consistently progressive manner. Indeed it strikes me that something similar will need to be tried again, if reactionary alternatives to the exclusion of the working class, are to be resisted.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

Your explanation of the IWCAs preference for community over workplace seems to me to veer towards making a virtue of a necessity. Which is to say, it was perfectly rational for the IWCA to concentrate their small resources in one field and that doesn't really need a somewhat sweeping theoretical justification.

More generally, I note that you reach the conclusion that something like the IWCA will have to be tried again, without attempting a serious explanation of its failure the first time around.

 

[Joe Reilly]

Your explanation of the IWCAs preference for community over workplace seems to me to veer towards making a virtue of a necessity. Which is to say, it was perfectly rational for the IWCA to concentrate their small resources in one field and that doesn't really need a somewhat sweeping theoretical justification.

Now that's a good one: 'the strategy was implemented in advance of the theory'. but if that was the case, where did the strategy come from?

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Your explanation of the IWCAs preference for community over workplace seems to me to veer towards making a virtue of a necessity. Which is to say, it was perfectly rational for the IWCA to concentrate their small resources in one field and that doesn't really need a somewhat sweeping theoretical justification.

More generally, I note that you reach the conclusion that something like the IWCA will have to be tried again, without attempting a serious explanation of its failure the first time around.

It was recognising two realities only one of which had to do with the size of the organisation available for the task. The other much much more important one was the massive restructuring of the economy; not some 'sweeping theoretical justification' but the transformation of the economy (and all the political, legal, social and cultural changes that were used to facilitate it and were produced by it).

I would see the failure of the IWCA 'first time around', as being down to an inability of the Association to talk to those who claim to be on the side of the working class in a way that convinced enough of them of the need for change, and an inability of those self same people to appreciate the need for change.

Cheers - Louis Macneice

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Now that's a good one: 'the strategy was implemented in advance of the theory'. but if that was the case, where did the strategy come from?

For what it's worth my memory of the IWCA is one where the reality on the ground was looked at (and for the vast majority of those involved it was lived). Ways of making sense of those circumstances were thought through and discussed (that's the theory) and practices to respond to those circumstances (both short and long term) were then devised (that's the strategy and tactics). It was impressively thoughtful, radical and practical...it is just that sort of radical, smart and doable approach that is still needed.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[Smokeandsteam]

I would see the failure of the IWCA 'first time around', as being down to an inability of the Association to talk to those who claim to be on the side of the working class in a way that convinced enough of them of the need for change, and an inability of those self same people to appreciate the need for change.

Cheers - Louis Macneice

Given his involvement in the (Irish) SP Nigel might be able to share his insight on the inability of those professing to be on the side of the working class to appreciate the need for change to the current 'left' losing formula or to develop a model that has any resonance/relevance whatsoever?

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Given his involvement in the (Irish) SP Nigel might be able to share his insight on the inability of those professing to be on the side of the working class to appreciate the need for change to the current 'left' losing formula or to develop a model that has any resonance/relevance whatsoever?

As someone who many many years ago was in Militant, I have a big soft spot for the SP. However, they still seem to want to cling onto the ideological life jacket of Trotskysim, in an age and a place so different from Trotskyism's birth place.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[Smokeandsteam]

As someone who many many years ago was in Militant, I have a big soft spot for the SP. However, they still seem to want to cling onto the ideological life jacket of Trotskysim, in an age and a place so different from Trotskyism's birth place.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

Someone once said doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.

To be fair to the Militant/SP they've always had a different membership composition to other 'left' outfits and took some of their projects seriously but the bottom line (democratic centralism, party building obsession, flitting from issue to issue, expecting the working class to accept the left as it finds it and not the other way round etc) means that those looking to make sense of things are best looking elsewhere.

 

[Joe Reilly]

It was recognising two realities only one of which had to do with the size of the organisation available for the task. The other much much more important one was the massive restructuring of the economy; not some 'sweeping theoretical justification' but the transformation of the economy (and all the political, legal, social and cultural changes that were used to facilitate it and were produced by it).

I would see the failure of the IWCA 'first time around', as being down to an inability of the Association to talk to those who claim to be on the side of the working class in a way that convinced enough of them of the need for change, and an inability of those self same people to appreciate the need for change.

Cheers - Louis Macneice

Ever since the IWCA set out it's stall, the response (if you could call it that) of the conservative left has been a study in denial, misrepresentation and (in the wider sense) self-sabotage; a glance at the current political trajectory suggests it will not be the IWCA [strategy] that pays the ultimate price for this ostrich-level head-burying.

 

[The39thStep]

Given his involvement in the (Irish) SP Nigel might be able to share his insight on the inability of those professing to be on the side of the working class to appreciate the need for change to the current 'left' losing formula or to develop a model that has any resonance/relevance whatsoever?

It's always onwards and upwards with our Nige .

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Now that's a good one: 'the strategy was implemented in advance of the theory'. but if that was the case, where did the strategy come from?

That's a presumably deliberate misinterpretation of my comment, but it does accidentally describe the process through which much theory is developed in many circumstances - ie as post hoc rationalisations.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

I would see the failure of the IWCA 'first time around', as being down to an inability of the Association to talk to those who claim to be on the side of the working class in a way that convinced enough of them of the need for change, and an inability of those self same people to appreciate the need for change.

Cheers - Louis Macneice

Highly entertaining. The failure of the IWCA and it's strategy wasn't the fault of the IWCA's strategy, nor the fault of those who tried it and failed, nor indeed the fault of those who were unable to persuade others of its merits. It was the fault of those who had nothing to do with it. That's exactly the same logic adopted by the more bizarre sectarian groups for the failure of their own politics and organisational strategies - our ideas are right despite our repeated failures! Everything is the fault of those who didn't adopt them! Therefore we don't need to reassess our views in light of their failures, we just need to repeat them!

It's also a wonderful example of having your cake and eating it too. The rest of the left are irrelevant, pointless, utterly marginal, dying, set in their ways... But your strategy failed because of these allegedly irrelevant people. You lot would rightly respond with ridicule to any other left grouplet wheeling out that sort of argument.

In fact, any strategy which relies on converting large numbers of existing leftists who don't share it is fucked from the start, whether that strategy is otherwise good bad or indifferent. And even if it somehow did win over a large portion of that relatively small pool, the IWCA strategy would still have run into the same basic problems: an inability to spread intensive local work to the next area over and ultimately an inability to maintain the same level of work in the starting area as people slowly get tired out. It would just have run into that same problem in more places.

 

[Pickman's model]

In fact, any strategy which relies on converting large numbers of existing leftists who don't share it is fucked from the start, whether that strategy is otherwise good bad or indifferent.

no, it isn't. the conversion may be a strategic aim, and it would be the tactical and fwoabw operational methods which might be found wanting rather than the strategy itself.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Given his involvement in the (Irish) SP Nigel might be able to share his insight on the inability of those professing to be on the side of the working class to appreciate the need for change to the current 'left' losing formula or to develop a model that has any resonance/relevance whatsoever?

I'd start by suggesting that some of the things you later mark out as terrible features of the "current 'left' losing formula" are some key reasons for the longevity of the Irish SP relative to the IWCA.*

In particular the "party building obsession", but also its wider political views which it doesn't try to pretend are merely the views of the working class itself. "Sell the paper and recruit, unveil the revolutionary programme!" sect building is easy to ridicule.** And rightly so, but it seems to me that a serious attitude to organisation building is absolutely central in sustaining and spreading any strategy and that it is often the relatively "abstract" political ideas which bring in active recruits rather than passive votes. We've had some fairly serious reverses over the last few years, including getting wiped out in the Dail at one point, and there have been long periods when careful community work simply doesn't get much response and no issue seems to have much traction. It's the party building and the wider politics that have allowed the organisation to struggle on and live to fight another day.

I think that this can be combined with an approach that is mostly focused on community activism of various sorts. And one which centres on taking up issues in a serious way, rather than just flitting from issue to issue (although knowing when to give up on something and move on is also importance).

*There are other reasons too, of course, including a less hostile election system.

**My core disagreement with the IWCA is that they throw the baby out with the bath water. I don't disagree with them about the bath water.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Highly entertaining. The failure of the IWCA and it's strategy wasn't the fault of the IWCA's strategy, nor the fault of those who tried it and failed, nor indeed the fault of those who were unable to persuade others of its merits. It was the fault of those who had nothing to do with it. That's exactly the same logic adopted by the more bizarre sectarian groups for the failure of their own politics and organisational strategies - our ideas are right despite our repeated failures! Everything is the fault of those who didn't adopt them! Therefore we don't need to reassess our views in light of their failures, we just need to repeat them!

It's also a wonderful example of having your cake and eating it too. The rest of the left are irrelevant, pointless, utterly marginal, dying, set in their ways... But your strategy failed because of these allegedly irrelevant people. You lot would rightly respond with ridicule to any other left grouplet wheeling out that sort of argument.

In fact, any strategy which relies on converting large numbers of existing leftists who don't share it is fucked from the start, whether that strategy is otherwise good bad or indifferent. And even if it somehow did win over a large portion of that relatively small pool, the IWCA strategy would still have run into the same basic problems: an inability to spread intensive local work to the next area over and ultimately an inability to maintain the same level of work in the starting area as people slowly get tired out. It would just have run into that same problem in more places.

Highly entertaining it may be but what follows is your invention (so well doe for keeping yourself entertained), but it is not what I wrote.

Cheers - Louis Macneice

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Highly entertaining it may be but what follows is your invention (so well doe for keeping yourself entertained), but it is not what I wrote.

Cheers - Louis Macneice

Sorry, you magnanimously shared the blame between those who didn't adopt the IWCA's strategy and those who failed to convince them to adopt it. While of course noting no faults or limitations whatsoever in the strategy itself and assuming that the result of others adopting it would have been success. So the clause "nor indeed the fault of those who were unable to persuade others of its merits" was unfair. You were willing to blame the IWCA for failing to make the rest of us understand the importance of its insights.

Perhaps you can explain why more people trying the same strategy that has had the same result in a dozen places would have resulted in an outcome other than the same result in more than a dozen places? I'm not just asking this to point out the applicability of pro-IWCA taunts about the rest of the left to the IWCA itself, now that it has tried and failed. I'm actually curious. How does "starting with more people" address the problem of an inability to spread from starting areas or the problem of local unsustainability?

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Sorry, you magnanimously shared the blame between those who didn't adopt the IWCA's strategy and those who failed to convince them to adopt it. While of course noting no faults or limitations whatsoever in the strategy itself and assuming that the result of others adopting it would have been success. So the clause "nor indeed the fault of those who were unable to persuade others of its merits" was unfair. You were willing to blame the IWCA for failing to make the rest of us understand the importance of its insights.

Perhaps you can explain why more people trying the same strategy that has had the same result in a dozen places would have resulted in an outcome other than the same result in more than a dozen places? I'm not just asking this to point out the applicability of pro-IWCA taunts about the rest of the left to the IWCA itself, now that it has tried and failed. I'm actually curious. How does "starting with more people" address the problem of an inability to spread from starting areas or the problem of local unsustainability?

Thanks for acknowledging your mistake, although I'm unclear why you choose to use to characterise my appreciation of the IWCA's failure with the rather snide adverb magnanimous. Or did you actually mean I was being 'generous in forgiving an insult or injury, free from petty resentfulness or vindictiveness'?

Anyway moving on: firstly, where are these dozen places?

Secondly, if the initial strategy had been more widely adopted then a number of things could have happened:

• networks of activists, supporters and (given the performance in Oxford) councillors could have been developed;
• more local examples of the strategy in practice would have been available - e.g. working class communities in NE could be more receptive to the experience of their neighbors rather than news from London or Oxford;
• some of the pressure on the existing activist may have been lessened with the IWCA applying its own pressure more widely;
• the profile of the strategy and the organisation would have been heightened;
• there would have been more lessons to be learnt from;
• there would have been more resources, time and experience to be brought to bear on developing the tactics and the strategy.

This is why the IWCA's failure to engage potential participants was in my view a real problem.

And finally, as for 'starting with more people'; well this could have had all the benefits outlined above. At the inception of the IWCA, for want of a better phrase the vast majority of the 'hard left', (dominated by democratic centralist models of vanguard party building), were probably unable to hear, engage with and help shape what was being proposed. I would hope that in the intervening period this situation has been substantially challenged.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[chilango]

Tell you what has changed. There aren't enough "hard left" activists remaining to make a difference either way to any new project.

What there are though are tens of thousands of people who've passed through the left (and to a lesser extent anarchist influenced activist scenes) who are no longer "politically active".

Whether the experience and skills of this group (I count myself as one of them) can be usefully engaged by any future project is open to question.