The Road Less Travelled: The History of Red Action

[Joe Reilly]

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.

Maybe it does. Maybe it does in your experience. But it was definitely not the case with the analysis that led to the creation of the iWCA.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

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.

Point 1 is true, but of dubious significance if those "networks" were employed in the furtherance of the same strategy.

Point 2 ignores the actual experience of the IWCA, which was that people one town over were just as unlikely to notice or embrace or repeat the IWCA's strategy as people at the other end of the country. Which is to say it never happened. And we don't even have to limit ourselves to the IWCA's experience - it's an inbuilt problem with very localised, community based work which is a recurrent issue for every organisation that tries it. To give another example, here in Ireland, the Workers and Unemployed Action Group built a very solid base in one town. They typically get over 40% of the vote in it. However, it took them 20 years to develop a small base in the next small town over. Spreading this kind of base building is extremely difficult and the record is that it simply doesn't happen "organically" in the way we might hope.

Point 3 is fair enough, but would be partly set off by a likely larger number of attempts at local base building. And in any case would at best slow the process down. Nobody has yet come up with a way to create new activists committed to this kind of work, through this kind of work, faster than this kind of work wears the existing ones out. The previously mentioned WUAG kept itself going through the extreme long term dedication of a very small number of individuals, who are now getting on a bit. Should a couple of them leave or drop out they'd be in real trouble and even the heightened profile they've gained through council and Dail representation hasn't enabled them to grow. The Irish SP gets around the issue by continually recruiting people from outside this kind of work. But none of these organisations, nor any others, anywhere that I'm aware of have solved the basic problem of "activist reproduction".

Point 4 is again true, but probably not to the extent that we might hope and almost certainly not with the degree of impact that we might hope. Thirty local councillors rather than three, for instance, simply wouldn't make much odds in this regard. A slightly higher profile isn't a magic bullet (for anyone, including TUSC which seems to think that some extra profile and exposure would make a big difference), and while you can have a "critical mass" effect, I'd suggest that the IWCA wasn't just short of the mass needed to potentially get lucky in that regard it was orders of magnitude too small.

Points 5 and 6 just lead to more questions: what lessons exactly can be learned from the IWCA's actual experience, now that it's methods have been tried repeatedly and led to the same result each time? In what ways do "the tactics and the strategies" need to be reassessed and "developed"? As I've pointed out repeatedly, discussions of these questions with IWCA supporters usually just lead to more and more strident restatements of the IWCA's initial views and claims, as if there had been no attempts to put them into practice and absolutely no lessons learned.

Finally, while I agree with you that the IWCA could have done a better job of attracting interest and involvement from more people on the wider left, it bears repeating that it was never likely to be possible that much larger numbers could have been involved. Existing left activists are generally harder to "recruit" to any organisation or strategy than new people simply because they are generally already unusually strongly committed to their own ideas and strategies. This is why Spartish strategies of exposing the revolutionary pretensions of their rivals before winning over their activists never work. Conversely, it's why "let's unite the left" fluffiness doesn't work. Gathering forces out of the existing left for a different strategy or organisation in more than small numbers is a fools errand.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Point 1 is true, but of dubious significance if those "networks" were employed in the furtherance of the same strategy.

Point 2 ignores the actual experience of the IWCA, which was that people one town over were just as unlikely to notice or embrace or repeat the IWCA's strategy as people at the other end of the country. Which is to say it never happened. And we don't even have to limit ourselves to the IWCA's experience - it's an inbuilt problem with very localised, community based work which is a recurrent issue for every organisation that tries it. To give another example, here in Ireland, the Workers and Unemployed Action Group built a very solid base in one town. They typically get over 40% of the vote in it. However, it took them 20 years to develop a small base in the next small town over. Spreading this kind of base building is extremely difficult and the record is that it simply doesn't happen "organically" in the way we might hope.

Point 3 is fair enough, but would be partly set off by a likely larger number of attempts at local base building. And in any case would at best slow the process down. Nobody has yet come up with a way to create new activists committed to this kind of work, through this kind of work, faster than this kind of work wears the existing ones out. The previously mentioned WUAG kept itself going through the extreme long term dedication of a very small number of individuals, who are now getting on a bit. Should a couple of them leave or drop out they'd be in real trouble and even the heightened profile they've gained through council and Dail representation hasn't enabled them to grow. The Irish SP gets around the issue by continually recruiting people from outside this kind of work. But none of these organisations, nor any others, anywhere that I'm aware of have solved the basic problem of "activist reproduction".

Point 4 is again true, but probably not to the extent that we might hope and almost certainly not with the degree of impact that we might hope. Thirty local councillors rather than three, for instance, simply wouldn't make much odds in this regard. A slightly higher profile isn't a magic bullet (for anyone, including TUSC which seems to think that some extra profile and exposure would make a big difference), and while you can have a "critical mass" effect, I'd suggest that the IWCA wasn't just short of the mass needed to potentially get lucky in that regard it was orders of magnitude too small.

Points 5 and 6 just lead to more questions: what lessons exactly can be learned from the IWCA's actual experience, now that it's methods have been tried repeatedly and led to the same result each time? In what ways do "the tactics and the strategies" need to be reassessed and "developed"? As I've pointed out repeatedly, discussions of these questions with IWCA supporters usually just lead to more and more strident restatements of the IWCA's initial views and claims, as if there had been no attempts to put them into practice and absolutely no lessons learned.

Finally, while I agree with you that the IWCA could have done a better job of attracting interest and involvement from more people on the wider left, it bears repeating that it was never likely to be possible that much larger numbers could have been involved. Existing left activists are generally harder to "recruit" to any organisation or strategy than new people simply because they are generally already unusually strongly committed to their own ideas and strategies. This is why Spartish strategies of exposing the revolutionary pretensions of their rivals before winning over their activists never work. Conversely, it's why "let's unite the left" fluffiness doesn't work. Gathering forces out of the existing left for a different strategy or organisation in more than small numbers is a fools errand.

So points 1,3,4,5 & 6 are all valid and point 2 is dismissed on the rather circular grounds that it won't happen because it can't happen (I realise I'm paraphrasing). All of which jars with your roundly dismissive conclusions.

I appreciate that you've rowed back a long way from your starting position; it's just a shame you seem unable to follow the logic of the path you're on.

Oh and the 'Spart' name calling...really?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[SpineyNorman]

So points 1,3,4,5 & 6 are all valid and point 2 is dismissed on the rather circular grounds that it won't happen because it can't happen (I realise I'm paraphrasing). All of which jars with your roundly dismissive conclusions.

I appreciate that you've rowed back a long way from your starting position; it's just a shame you seem unable to follow the logic of the path you're on.

Oh and the 'Spart' name calling...really?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

I don't think he was calling you sparts - just using them as an example of one of the reasons why trying to recruit from the existing left isn't very effective.

I'm another one who would like to see a sober assessment of the IWCA in terms of both its successes and its failure to spread, not because I'm anti-IWCA but because IMO they've probably got closer to finding the answers than any other left group in my lifetime and I'm sure there's important lessons to be learned.

 

[Joe Reilly]

I don't think he was calling you sparts - just using them as an example of one of the reasons why trying to recruit from the existing left isn't very effective.

For the record the IWCA never tried or expected to recruit from the existing left. And never did. With, one or two exceptions, the only people that ever put their shoulder to the wheel for any length of time came directly from the estates in which the IWCA was active.

 

[Pickman's model]

For the record the IWCA never tried or expected to recruit from the existing left. And never did. With, one or two exceptions, the only people that ever put their shoulder to the wheel for any length of time came directly from the estates in which the IWCA was active.

i seem to recall a sticker campaign round the mid-90s - can't recall the year - something along the lines of 'hate the tories, can't bring yourself to vote labour? join the iwca' which i most remember seeing outside the acton arms in hackney.

 

[chilango]

For the record the IWCA never tried or expected to recruit from the existing left. And never did. With, one or two exceptions, the only people that ever put their shoulder to the wheel for any length of time came directly from the estates in which the IWCA was active.

i seem to recall a sticker campaign round the mid-90s - can't recall the year - something along the lines of 'hate the tories, can't bring yourself to vote labour? join the iwca' which i most remember seeing outside the acton arms in hackney.

I'm fairly sure I recall seeing an A5 flyer in the mid 90s for the proposed IWCA project being passed around "the left". My vague memories even have the ACF and RCG being listed on it as supporters.

I'm happy to be corrected on that though as my memory of a 20 year old leaflet isn't exactly a rigorous source!

 

[Pickman's model]

I'm fairly sure I recall seeing an A5 flyer in the mid 90s for the proposed IWCA project being passed around "the left". My vague memories even have the ACF and RCG being listed on it as supporters.

I'm happy to be corrected on that though as my memory of a 20 year old leaflet isn't exactly a rigorous source!

To give a couple of examples, many of us are involved in anti-JSA groups. In my local group in Nottingham, we have consistantly put the case against the CPSA unions view that the 3-strikes tactic is anti-worker, and proved its effectiveness by putting it into action. We are also looking with interest at the IWCA’s initiative in setting up a community group in Nottingham neighbourhood. It is vitally important that we investigate all avenues for encouraging a culture of resistance.

http://www.afed.org.uk/online/bookfa97.html

 

[Pickman's model]

I'm fairly sure I recall seeing an A5 flyer in the mid 90s for the proposed IWCA project being passed around "the left". My vague memories even have the ACF and RCG being listed on it as supporters.

I'm happy to be corrected on that though as my memory of a 20 year old leaflet isn't exactly a rigorous source!

first paragraph here http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/misc//MISC0014.pdf

i see the iwca state there that a number of groups (of which ra presumably only one) came together to form the er iwca

 

[Nigel Irritable]

So points 1,3,4,5 & 6 are all valid and point 2 is dismissed on the rather circular grounds that it won't happen because it can't happen (I realise I'm paraphrasing). All of which jars with your roundly dismissive conclusions.

I appreciate that you've rowed back a long way from your starting position; it's just a shame you seem unable to the follow the logic of the path you're on.

Oh and the 'Spart' name calling...really?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

I'm not rowing back at all. I'm saying that while most of the points you raise are true in the sense that having larger numbers of people to start out with would have these effects, these effects cannot fix the core problems with the IWCA's strategy. (1) An inability to spread beyond the initial area and (2) an inability to sustain work in the initial area once the initial core group of activists start to fall away. These aren't just problems with the IWCA in general, they were problems with each and every IWCA project and they are problem which the organisations which carry out somewhat similar work here in Ireland run into in exactly the same way. Attracting more people from the existing left to any new organisation or strategy is very difficult, but even assuming that this could have been done much more effectively than experience suggests it can be done, this does not circumvent the two central issues. I do give you credit for being pretty much the first IWCA supporter I've seen attempt to address these problems rather than simply restating the original IWCA argument as if the IWCA hadn't tried and died already, mind you.

I have no idea why you think I called you or anyone else a Spart, by the way.

 

[Joe Reilly]

first paragraph here http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/misc//MISC0014.pdf

i see the iwca state there that a number of groups (of which ra presumably only one) came together to form the er iwca

You are correct. There were open discussion among a number of groups about the viability of the analysis and strategy in the mid-1990's. Some of them lasted just about long enough to sponsor the launch. And that, as they say, was that. With that avenue (the anti-Labour Left exhausted) the operational orientation was exclusively toward working class communities. Sure, supporters of the strategy defended it (given that it was being attacked long before the IWCA ever stood a candidate) it would be remiss of them not to do so.

The odd optimist, may have felt that the example of good practice might seep over (if only out of self-interest, enlightened or otherwise) into the strategies of the various left coalitions tipping their toe in electoral waters. But when they declared 'we have nothing to learn from the IWCA' - as it turned out 'nothing' should have been in block caps and underscored. It's not often they keep promises but they have kept that one.

 

[Joe Reilly]

I'm not rowing back at all. I'm saying that while most of the points you raise are true in the sense that having larger numbers of people to start out with would have these effects, these effects cannot fix the core problems with the IWCA's strategy. (1) An inability to spread beyond the initial area and (2) an inability to sustain work in the initial area once the initial core group of activists start to fall away.

I'm sure we've been through all this before haven't we Nigel? Many times in fact. Presumably, you are working on the principle that if you repeat something often enough it will become accepted as fact?



(1) In oxford, what would become the IWCA flagship project began in one ward, migrated into a neighbouring one, then onto Churchill ward, a good distance away. Initial spade work in Barton ward showed promise, while county council elections taking in a different demographic were also contested. Along the way the IWCA came within a whisker on more than one occasion to the roster of 4 cllrs spread across three wards.

So much then for the theory of an inability to spread beyond the 'initial area'.

(2) Nothing more than wishful thinking on your part. Again Oxford offers a useful example having been the pilot scheme that stood most candidates, (mostly as a result of elections coming in 2 rather than 4 years cycles). Not only did the area of influence spread as illustrated above, but of all of the candidates that stood for the IWCA in that time, a mere two were from the 'core initial group'.
Of the four IWCA councillors, all but one, were recruited from the estates.

Sort of makes tatters of your comforting 'falling away of members' being inevitable, theory.

The real reason the IWCA was outgunned in Oxford, was not because of any inherent flaw as would like to believe, but because the much loved 'Labour Movement' of Trotskyist mythology, massed as many as could from the South East Region (which includes Oxford Uni) to deliver the fatal blow.
They failed. But not by much.
Incidentally, should you doubt it, this was common knowledge. (On this forum a Green Party cllr stated it was 'their absolute priority' ).

Why was the IWCA, Labour's priority? Because they were frit. Because they unlike, the conservative Left recognise, the strategy has - a universal application. It was the same reason other mainstream parties including the Tories collaborated with them. In Islington in 2006 the leader of the Lib Dems was literally on the shoulder of a leading Labour candidate in the wards being contested by the IWCA cheering him on, for the same reason. At the count, as the results each and every tally for the IWCA candidate drew gasps and then boos from the Labour worthies, (3000 in total) for the same reason.
For them it was seen as a mutinous challenge to the status quo; a strategy that needed relatively few resources to deliver the type of electoral cutting edge that had eluded the entire Trot left for half a century.

Of course they felt vulnerable. What's your excuse?

 

[Pickman's model]

i seem to recall a sticker campaign round the mid-90s - can't recall the year - something along the lines of 'hate the tories, can't bring yourself to vote labour? join the iwca' which i most remember seeing outside the acton arms in hackney.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Perhaps the hating Labour thing proved a bit of a stumbling block.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[Red Storm]

https://afaarchive.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/the-icwa.pdf

Early IWCA leaflet ^^

AFA, Communist Action Group, Colin Roach Centre, Open Polemic, Partisan, Red Action, RCG and Socialist Parent are listed as initial sponsors.

Other bits: http://antifascistarchive.org/tag/independent-working-class-association/

 

[chilango]

Yeah. Rings a few bells. Seems an odd assortment of groups now. Seemed it then too!

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

RCG lol

 

[Nigel]

Will the IWCA be supporting TUSC candidates in their old stomping grounds and areas of success such as East Oxford; Blackbird/Greater Leys, Hackney, Birmingham etc or is there a diametric difference of politics and strategy ?

 

[Nigel]

RCG lol

Compared to Communist Action Group, Revolutionary Communist Group's politics are pretty sound.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Was intrigued to find the source of a certain "trendy lefty" graphic over the weekend courtesy of Tim Well's ranting poetry blog Stand Up And Spit.

 

[framed]

Was intrigued to find the source of a certain "trendy lefty" graphic over the weekend courtesy of Tim Well's ranting poetry blog Stand Up And Spit.

View attachment 70524

You sure that Wells didn't steal it from RA? Whe was that poetry anthology published?

I'm pretty sure that I know the RA 'artist' that drew the original in the early 1990's so maybe he is owed royalties, or at least a late acknowldegement?

If the original aint ours, nobody's used it better than RA so far.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

You sure that Wells didn't steal it from RA? Whe was that poetry anthology published?

I'm pretty sure that I know the RA 'artist' that drew the original in the early 1990's so maybe he is owed royalties, or at least a late acknowldegement?

If the original aint ours, nobody's used it better than RA so far.

Well you might be right, bit I figured the Wells one was the original because it was in colour and I always saw the RA one in black and white... happy to stand corrected if wrong!

(Looks like the book came out in 1985 btw)

 

[framed]

Well you might be right, bit I figured the Wells one was the original because it was in colour and I always saw the RA one in black and white... happy to stand corrected if wrong!

(Looks like the book came out in 1985 btw)

If was '85 then our 'artist' stole it! I wouldn't be surprised, but there ye go, I actually thought it was one of ours.

Btw, We're not at home, RA is dead, defunct and left this mortal coil, if anyone shows up looking for payback.

 

[miktheword]

If was '85 then our 'artist' stole it! I wouldn't be surprised, but there ye go, I actually thought it was one of ours.



Btw, We're not at home, RA is dead, defunct and left this mortal coil, if anyone shows up looking for payback.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c1/Natlamp73.jpg


variations go back further I think

but context is all . the caricatures struck a chord


http://www.urban75.net/forums/attachments/ra-t-shirt_3-jpg.16011/

 

[Fozzie Bear]

This looks good and will be of interest to a few people here I think

 

[gawkrodger]

if anyone can't get a copy of it give me a shout

 

[Fozzie Bear]

There's a link to it in the blog entry (his personal site, not the journal site)

 

[tony.c]

if anyone can't get a copy of it give me a shout

Link: http://www.academia.edu/14914611/Fo...itics_-_The_Cases_of_Class_War_and_Red_Action

 

[chilango]

Thanks for that. A good, if generally familiar, read.

 

[treelover]

They failed. But not by much.
Incidentally, should you doubt it, this was common knowledge. (On this forum a Green Party cllr stated it was 'their absolute priority' ).

Could you expand on this?

Oh, you did!