What's the Spartacist League up to these days?

[PTK]

In my head I thought I vaguely remembered some nonsense where either Corbyn or someone within Labour was attacked as antisemitic for reading/recommending that book, but looked it up and turns out I got mixed up, it wasn't Labour party stuff at all but an incident during those years where a particularly dim set of Tommy Robinson/Trump fanboys tried to storm Bookmarks and were convinced they'd found proof that Bookmarks/"the left" must be antisemitic because they were selling the Leon book.

Never read it myself, but it gets a glowing review from butchers in that thread.

Anyway, if anyone's keen for more of this stuff, the Militant website is really pretty impressive in its mix of very oldskool Trotskyism, lots of Cuba, and then a lot of full-on Zionism. Suppose it's easy to compare to the AWL but I don't remember them ever being quite this full-on:

The Militant – A socialist newsweekly published in the interests of working people

themilitant.com

The CL is too small to have its own paper, so it sells The Militant, the paper of the SWP of the US, in Britain: One good thing about that paper is that it is bi-lingual. It is in Spanish and English.

 

[PTK]

View attachment 409306

I reckon that this is a photographic representation of a rally in France.

The closely-packed group standing and holding clenched fists aloft was the signifier. Revolutionary solidarity was the signified. Now, though, the sign itself has become a commodity, so what do the signifiers signify?

 

[PTK]

It all stems from one of the strangest minds in the history of the international far-left, that of Jack Barnes, long-time unchallenged US SWP vozhd. It's all very weird, as he must have some way of justifying having created what is possibly the most pointless and apparently deluded collection of sects ever, especially as he is clearly very intelligent and in possession of a lot of ability. Came across this recently: https://swphistory.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/a-winters-tale.pdf

Why is this collection of sects the most pointless?

 

[PTK]

It all stems from one of the strangest minds in the history of the international far-left, that of Jack Barnes, long-time unchallenged US SWP vozhd. It's all very weird, as he must have some way of justifying having created what is possibly the most pointless and apparently deluded collection of sects ever, especially as he is clearly very intelligent and in possession of a lot of ability. Came across this recently: https://swphistory.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/a-winters-tale.pdf

A more reaedable version of the article

A Winter’s Tale Told in Memoirs

THIS ESSAY IS dedicated to the memory of George Breitman (1916-86), who taught me never to take anyone’s word for it. THE SOCIALIST WORKERS (SWP), now a curious sidebar in the history of radi…

againstthecurrent.org

 

[Fozzie Bear]

I reckon that this is a photographic representation of a rally in France.

The closely-packed group standing and holding clenched fists aloft was the signifier. Revolutionary solidarity was the signified. Now, though, the sign itself has become a commodity, so what do the signifiers signify?

It's a bit early in the morning for Baudrillard, my man. But yes.

 

[Idris2002]

It all stems from one of the strangest minds in the history of the international far-left, that of Jack Barnes, long-time unchallenged US SWP vozhd. It's all very weird, as he must have some way of justifying having created what is possibly the most pointless and apparently deluded collection of sects ever, especially as he is clearly very intelligent and in possession of a lot of ability. Came across this recently: https://swphistory.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/a-winters-tale.pdf

Surely this Barnes guy must have been a fed?

"All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, so I can COIN all me TELPRO."

 

[RD2003]

Why is this collection of sects the most pointless?

Well, when you read that article, everything Barnes smashed up the party for came to nothing, and, by most accounts, all they seem to have left is a collection of ageing individuals across the world who take their orders directly from New York, whether they're applicable to their own situation or not. Seemingly, as you've noted, they're not even allowed their own papers, or else lost so many members that it became unviable.

Maybe eccentric is a better word, although I still can't see their point.

 

[charlie mowbray]

Brian Grogan, a head honcho in the International Marxist GRoup, became a lreader of the Communist League. Whilst in the IMG he had boasted of chanting “Allah Akhbar” on a demonstration in Tehran, justifying it on the grounds that it meant the people were stronger than the Shah’s army. Every time I saw him on a picket or demo, I used to shout "Allah Akhbar" at him. It worked every time, and he always performed a Rumpelstiltskin stamping of foot hissy fit. I wonder if he's still in the CL, believe he is. Pathfinder Books was located for a while at the top end of Brick Lane.

 

[PTK]

Brian Grogan, a head honcho in the International Marxist GRoup, became a lreader of the Communist League. Whilst in the IMG he had boasted of chanting “Allah Akhbar” on a demonstration in Tehran, justifying it on the grounds that it meant the people were stronger than the Shah’s army. Every time I saw him on a picket or demo, I used to shout "Allah Akhbar" at him. It worked every time, and he always performed a Rumpelstiltskin stamping of foot hissy fit. I wonder if he's still in the CL, believe he is. Pathfinder Books was located for a while at the top end of Brick Lane.

I visited the Pathfinder bookshop at the top of Brick Lane about 20 years ago, with a friend of mine. We were both in our 40s, but a woman with a very middle class accent spoke to us as though we were teenagers.

 

[RD2003]

I visited the Pathfinder bookshop at the top of Brick Lane about 20 years ago, with a friend of mine. We were both in our 40s, but a woman with a very middle class accent spoke to us as though we were teenagers.

They're basically another pseudo-religious sect with all the answers to the human predicament, bringing enlightenment to the masses. What else are they going to do but speak to you like innocents who have to be led into the light?

 

[RD2003]

Apparently they still do door-to-door paper sales on working class estates here. Fair play, but I can imagine how it would be trying to raise interest in a paper produced on another continent with loads of stuff about revolutionary Cuba, how Israel is a victimised nation, and the current dispute involving meat-packers on the outskirts of Chicago. Maybe somebody can find meaning in what others would find soul destroying.

 

[PTK]

Apparently they still do door-to-door paper sales on working class estates here. Fair play, but I can imagine how it would be trying to raise interest in a paper produced on another continent with loads of stuff about revolutionary Cuba, how Israel is a victimised nation, and the current dispute involving meat-packers on the outskirts of Chicago. Maybe somebody can find meaning in what others would find soul destroying.

The Communist League once knocked on my door. They were on an expedition to my town, and I live near the station.

They gave a leaflet about their campaign for mayor in Manchester, although I live about 200 miles from that city. I bought a copy of their paper. The main thing they went on about was the defence of immigrants.

This was in 2017. They were not as patronising as the woman in the bookshop, or (I have just remembered) the woman on their stall (perhaps the same woman) in Trafalgar Square after an anti-war demo about ten years before.

I told them that I had been a member of the Spartacist League some decades before, and they criticised the SL for being violent – which is completely untrue.

I think that I may have been the only person in town who had heard of them. Later that year they stood against Corbyn, and achieved their glorious seven votes.

 

[PTK]

"The truth is that the trade unions are weaker and more discredited than before last year’s strike wave."
says the current Workers Hammer.

A rather odd cartoon.

Cold winter of reaction​

 

[Dom Traynor]

Apparently they still do door-to-door paper sales on working class estates here. Fair play, but I can imagine how it would be trying to raise interest in a paper produced on another continent with loads of stuff about revolutionary Cuba, how Israel is a victimised nation, and the current dispute involving meat-packers on the outskirts of Chicago. Maybe somebody can find meaning in what others would find soul destroying.

In Auckland NZ they still have a bookshop and two members one of whom often runs for mayor. They do turn up to picket lines quite a lot and quietly show support while talking to me (an awful reformist union bureaucrat) not talking to the workers and then cycling off. They're nice people and it just seems like a strange hobby. I used to live round the corner from their bookshop and never saw it open.

 

[PTK]

Do you ever see the International Bolshevik Tendency?

 

[Idris2002]

In Auckland NZ they still have a bookshop and two members one of whom often runs for mayor. They do turn up to picket lines quite a lot and quietly show support while talking to me (an awful reformist union bureaucrat) not talking to the workers and then cycling off. They're nice people and it just seems like a strange hobby. I used to live round the corner from their bookshop and never saw it open.

Never came across that one when I was in Auckland, but the British Israelites had a shop there that was never open either (but they did have a window display purporting to show Elizabeth Windsor's descent from King Solomon).

 

[kenny g]

Never came across that one when I was in Auckland, but the British Israelites had a shop there that was never open either (but they did have a window display purporting to show Elizabeth Windsor's descent from King Solomon).

One can imagine NZ being the cushiest MI6 posting in existence monitoring a few closed shops and then suddenly the mosque shootings occured.

 

[Dom Traynor]

Never came across that one when I was in Auckland, but the British Israelites had a shop there that was never open either (but they did have a window display purporting to show Elizabeth Windsor's descent from King Solomon).

Fuck when was that? I need to find it.

 

[Dom Traynor]

One can imagine NZ being the cushiest MI6 posting in existence monitoring a few closed shops and then suddenly the mosque shootings occured.

Yes people were very complacent about the far right here, as the local far right were 20 fuckwits in the National Front and a far right Māori church led by a grifting ex bike gang leader.

 

[Idris2002]

Fuck when was that? I need to find it.t

This was in 2008 - I was in Mount Eden, but I don't think it was there.

 

[petee]

Do you ever see the International Bolshevik Tendency?

i used to buy 1917, it was value for money anyway (64 pp for $1, iirc.).

 

[PTK]

i used to buy 1917, it was value for money anyway (64 pp for $1, iirc.).

The trouble with 1917 was that it was so infrequent that you were in danger of buying the same issue twice, as I did once.

 

[nastyned]

The trouble with 1917 was that it was so infrequent that you were in danger of buying the same issue twice, as I did once.

But are you an imp or a nimp?

 

[PTK]

But are you an imp or a nimp?

I would have to say thay I am an imp, if by imp you mean someone who thinks that the Russian Federation can be called imperialist. Was this the issue over which the IBT split? I cannot remember.

 

[hitmouse]

The trouble with 1917 was that it was so infrequent that you were in danger of buying the same issue twice, as I did once.

That feels like it should be a proverb. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't buy the same issue of 1917 twice.

 

[PTK]

That feels like it should be a proverb. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't buy the same issue of 1917 twice.

The ancient Greek philosopher whose name escapes me said that you could not step into the same river twice, and on that basis we can say that there can never be two identical copies of 1917.

 

[The39thStep]

The ancient Greek philosopher whose name escapes me said that you could not step into the same river twice, and on that basis we can say that there can never be two identical copies of 1917.

In more than one way

 

[PTK]

You could knock me down with a feather: the Sparts have applied to join TUSC, and plan on standing a candidate in the General Election.

Farcical Labour Party mark two - Weekly Worker

Tusc’s February 3 convention was, by any objective assessment, an abject failure. Most of the organisations represented amount to no more than political dust, reports Carla Roberts

weeklyworker.co.uk

 

[nastyned]

I would have to say thay I am an imp, if by imp you mean someone who thinks that the Russian Federation can be called imperialist. Was this the issue over which the IBT split? I cannot remember.

Yes, if I remember rightly the long standing internal fissure that eventually lead to the split in the IBT was, of course, the most important issue facing the world proletariat: whether Russia's de facto annexation of South Ossetia was imperialist.

 

[hitmouse]

As someone who knows more about this stuff than can possibly be healthy, I always find it reassuring to learn that there are other people who have more knowledge of it than I've ever acquired. Although I suppose I've learned that particular fact now, will have to try to forget as quickly as possible.