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What's the Spartacist League up to these days?

I think the death of their leader James Robertson is having its effects. We won't know what's going on in this secretive grouping for some time, but eventually Robertson's behaviour and control of the group will be revealed , including the frolics in the hot tub and "playroom", just as Gerry Healy's behaviour in the WRP was revealed.
 
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Don't know if it's been mentioned on here already, but the International Bolshevik Tendency, which split from the Sparts in the late 80s, also itself split over a year ago, with one group departing to found the Bolshevik Tendency (BT)
Here's their obit of Robertson:
 
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Don't know if it's been mentioned on here already, but the International Bolshevik Tendency, which split from the Sparts in the late 80s, also itself split over a year ago, with one group departing to found the Bolshevik Tendency (BT)
Here's their obit of Robertson:
There's some good stuff in that article but clicking on somelinks in there I found the answer to a question that used to puzzle me ie how come there was always an American amongst them when you had the misfortune to bump into them,

“Robertson was always good at sizing up people and was attuned to detecting human weakness. He generally took a conservative approach to building the Spartacist tendency; tended to avoid taking too many chances and preferred to avoid risk rather than pursue opportunity. He wanted to scale up the operation, but was very reluctant to lose tight personal control. This is why, even in its best period, every foreign section of the iSt had one or more trusted American cadres in its top leadership.

I was also more than pleased to find out the Sparts had also had a look at the 'interpenetrated peoples' issue

“In its best period the SL under Robertson’s leadership not only defended the Trotskyist program, but also made some important contributions to it, including the now repudiated approach to the national question, particularly the difficult and complicated challenges posed by situations of ‘interpenetrated peoples.’ The renunciation of much of this history cannot detract from the clarity of the analysis put forward by the revolutionary SL in the 1970s.

And a Spart library Prometheus Research Library
 
In the early 1990's the only Sparts I met were extremely attractive females with US accents and flirt mode turned up to 101%. Pretty scary to be honest considering it would be in some Coventry Trade Union council meeting with various teacher trots and "disillusioned labour" people.
 
It's OK, kenny g, I also get the Fear when fit birds try to flirt with me.

Anyway, back when Jeffrey Epstein (didn't) kill himself last summer, all the talk centred around the breaking of his hyoid bone, this being the tell-tale sign that another hand was behind that one.

This reminded me of an Irish Times thing I'd read back in the early 90s about an American Spart in Moscow who'd been sent to organise the post-Communist proletariat, but was instead found dead in her apartment. She'd been stabbed, but her hyoid bone was also broken. . .

Here's an LA Times article about the poor woman: Who Killed Martha Phillips? : Was it an assassin, a former lover or a thief? The death of the onetime Oakland activist is a Moscow mystery.

The whole thing is desperately sad, and a terrible waste.
 
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On a slightly less serious point. when I was SWP, at the LSE freshers week thing the Sparts came over and "engaged us in comradely discourse". This involved an American Spart thumping our table and shouting at us. I pointed out that he was in danger of breaking a copy of Mike Carter's double A side single "Brixton/Ordinary People" that we had for sale at which point he apologised profusely and went away.

I was 19. It was my first "interaction" with Sparts, and I won!
 
On a slightly less serious point. when I was SWP, at the LSE freshers week thing the Sparts came over and "engaged us in comradely discourse". This involved an American Spart thumping our table and shouting at us. I pointed out that he was in danger of breaking a copy of Mike Carter's double A side single "Brixton/Ordinary People" that we had for sale at which point he apologised profusely and went away.

I was 19. It was my first "interaction" with Sparts, and I won!

But you were in the SWP. So you lost
 
Even in Coatbridge, just outside of Glasgow, there was a yank Spart.
I remember doing a Sat morning papersale and we went to the offy to get some cans, as we were going round someone house for a barbecue late afternoon , and some Yank spart selling their paper came up and says 'you guys gonna partry at this time of day, wheres your political commitment to revolutionary politics?'
 
I remember doing a Sat morning papersale and we went to the offy to get some cans, as we were going round someone house for a barbecue late afternoon , and some Yank spart selling their paper came up and says 'you guys gonna partry at this time of day, wheres your political commitment to revolutionary politics?'

😂😂😂
 
Ah lads.

"The Sparts built their organisation in Britain on splits engineered firstly in the WSL, and then the IMG. Prior to these, they relied upon good old “primitive accumulation of cadre”. For reasons which have always escaped me, I was the subject of two such approaches, both (as I recall) in 1976/77.


The first occurred when I was introduced in London to an American woman doing post-grad research into rank-and-file movements in the building trade. This having been my field of activity for several years, I was invited to interview and assist with research. I was happy to do so and found we got on well at both the working and personal levels. Arrangements were made for me to come down to London for a weekend and stay with her to continue work.


We had an enjoyable supper and then retired, whereupon my companion revealed herself to be a plenipotentiary of the International Spartacist Tendency, authorised to bring me into its ranks. An uncomfortable night concluded with the end of our research and relationship."

 
The US Sparts sent a fella called Tom Crean to the 26 Counties to recruit for them. Ostensible amongst the CWI etc. Tom ended up joining the CWI and is now a leading figure I believe
 
The US Sparts sent a fella called Tom Crean to the 26 Counties to recruit for them. Ostensible amongst the CWI etc. Tom ended up joining the CWI and is now a leading figure I believe
Mrs. Idris has run into him a few times, and seemed to find him one of the good guys - and she normally takes a dim view of all things Trot (esp. the SWP and its Irish branch).
 
The US Sparts sent a fella called Tom Crean to the 26 Counties to recruit for them. Ostensible amongst the CWI etc. Tom ended up joining the CWI and is now a leading figure I believe

I remember seeing him speak in New York for Socialist Alternative about 10/11 years ago.

I remember encountering a couple of Sparts outside Brooklyn College when my wife was a student there. Both Sparts were German. :D
 
I remember seeing him speak in New York for Socialist Alternative about 10/11 years ago.

I remember encountering a couple of Sparts outside Brooklyn College when my wife was a student there. Both Sparts were German. :D

I met him a few times, liked him.
 
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