Workers Power have split

[Pickman's model]

Not quite. SWP members were forbidden from participating in a particular internet discussion forum at some point in the mid 1990s. They weren't forbidden from being on the internet!

They do have something of a cultural opposition to internet forums though. It's not a rule, but their members rarely participate in online discussion outside of their house blog Lenin's Tomb.

it's like a sepulchre in there

 

[Delroy Booth]

In 1995 they banned participation by members in a particular list offering amongst other reasons the fact that they had not asked the CC if it was ok first.

Fucking hell they're total control freaks aren't they.

Even by the standards of left-wing sects they're fucking nuts.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Not quite. SWP members were forbidden from participating in a particular internet discussion forum at some point in the mid 1990s. They weren't forbidden from being on the internet!

They do have something of a cultural opposition to internet forums though. It's not a rule, but their members rarely participate in online discussion outside of their house blog Lenin's Tomb.

ok I will go with this, it just seemed like it

 

[SpineyNorman]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm basically in my "sect" because I'm more effective in there than I would be if I wasn't and all the campaigning work we do is for causes I believe in. If any of that changed I'd leave.

I suspect this is the case for most sensible people in far left groups. Apart from the "wevolution's wound the corner" young students you get a lot of, especially in the SWP, and the more dogmatic party hacks, I don't think anyone really believes they're always 100% correct on everything or that they're objectively the only true leaders of the working class or anything like that.

 

[frogwoman]

there are plenty of swp members on revleft, they tend to be the saner ones there!

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

Name and shame then?

Well I'm pretty sure there are a few Socialist Party members on this thread for a start. I suspected SWP as well, but maybe not given what's said above.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

there are plenty of swp members on revleft, they tend to be the saner ones there!

Revleft is a fucking madhouse. It seems to consist entirely of teenage internet Hoxhaists and the occasional random SWP member. It's a bit odd that they choose Revleft of all places to post.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Well I'm pretty sure there are a few Socialist Party members on this thread for a start. I suspected SWP as well, but maybe not given what's said above.

So what? The far left can be a pretty absurd place. Having a bit of a sense of humour about it isn't a bad thing, you know.

 

[frogwoman]

oh god i caused a massive arguement on revleft on a thread called "Are meat workers counter revolutionary"? There was also another arguement where someone in an irish republican group who had been tortured or something and some of the people on there were going on about how to oppose it was "supporting nationalism" or some shit

 

[SpineyNorman]

My "the working class are superior in every imaginable way" thread went down rather well on there I thought

 

[Delroy Booth]

The only thing sadder than the alphabet spaghetti of various left groups, from anarchist, to trotskyist, to stalinists etc (there could be over 100 in the UK alone), are those who pretend they aren't interested but take delight in all this kind of rubbish. I very much doubt there are even 10,000 people in all these groups put together.

Well of course all these groups have a very vague way of defining member, but consider this. The SWP claims just over 7,000 members, with about 3,000 paying subs. The SP claims around 2,000 members and I think probably has a higher percentage of people paying subs than the SWP, just under 1,000. So you've got, in theory anyway, 9,000 right there just with the two biggest groups. so yes in theory there are 10,000+ members of trot organizations in the country. It's quite a substantial number when you consider just how awful they are for the most part.

 

[frogwoman]

Revleft is a fucking madhouse. It seems to consist entirely of teenage internet Hoxhaists and the occasional random SWP member. It's a bit odd that they choose Revleft of all places to post.

There was also one mental Sparts vs CWI arguement i fucking took them apart

 

[Belushi]

Well I'm pretty sure there are a few Socialist Party members on this thread for a start. I suspected SWP as well, but maybe not given what's said above.

Don't you worry I've got files on all of them.

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

So what? The far left can be a pretty absurd place. Having a bit of a sense of humour about it isn't a bad thing, you know.

But the humour, I suspect, is always about other groups without the obvious realisation that they are in a split, from a split, from split and in a tiny sect themselves. Also given I actually believe in socialist politics it kinda loses its humour value when you see the sad ramshackle bunch of cranky groups who represent those ideas, and totally fuck up stuff like the anti-cuts movement.

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

Don't you worry I've got files on all of them.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Well of course all these groups have a very vague way of defining member, but consider this. The SWP claims just over 7,000 members, with about 3,000 paying subs. The SP claims around 2,000 members and I think probably has a higher percentage of people paying subs than the SWP, just under 1,000. So you've got, in theory anyway, 9,000 right there just with the two biggest groups. so yes in theory there are 10,000+ members of trot organizations in the country. It's quite a substantial number when you consider just how awful they are for the most part.

In fairness, that "9,000" is going to contain quite a lot of people who are blissfully unaware of their SWP membership. I would be pretty confident that there aren't 10,000 members of left groups in Britain at the moment.

 

[discokermit]

I never you'd been in the swp roadkill.

the swp has such a high turnover that approximately one in three people you meet is ex swp.

you're probably ex swp yourself and don't even know it.

 

[Belushi]

you're probably ex swp yourself and don't even know it.

They're like the Mormons, you join and they add all your relatives, living and dead, to the membership list.

 

[SpineyNorman]

I'd imagine there's a fair bit of crossover too. I'm in the SP but I'm pretty sure I'm still included in the SWP membership figures since I still get supposedly confidential internal emails (that's after about 3 or 4 years too).

 

[Nigel Irritable]

But the humour, I suspect, is always about other groups without the obvious realisation that they are in a split, from a split, from split and in a tiny sect themselves.

I think you'll find that most people in left groups are keenly aware of the political marginality of their own organisation, with the possible exception of some of the more excitable SWP members and a few mad Spartoids. And, in my experience, most of them have some sense of their more absurd aspects of their own organisations too.

 

[Deareg]

Instead of all this gloating, Shouldn't we be trying to get them all to kiss and make up?

Will nobody think of the dialectics?

 

[frogwoman]

I went to one of their (SWP) meetings once and they sent me stuff and kept ringing me up.

 

[SpineyNorman]

I think you'll find that most people in left groups are keenly aware of the political marginality of their own organisation, with the possible exception of some of the more excitable SWP members and a few mad Spartoids. And, in my experience, most of them have some sense of their more absurd aspects of their own organisations too.

Except people in the SP. We quite rightly think that there's nothing absurd about our group and that every decision that's ever been made about the party line has always been 100% correct. We are the true leaders of the working class.

 

[Belushi]

I went to one of their (SWP) meetings once and they sent me stuff and kept ringing me up.

You are so a member

 

[Fedayn]

As an aside, Arthur Deane, one of the founders of the RCP in 1945, died recently. Any sectologist would know about his family and their involvement with the Trotskyist movement in Britain.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Workers Power must be in a bad way at the moment. First the old duffers left, now the kids.

 

[Delroy Booth]

I'd imagine there's a fair bit of crossover too. I'm in the SP but I'm pretty sure I'm still included in the SWP membership figures since I still get supposedly confidential internal emails (that's after about 3 or 4 years too).

Yeah I get emails from the SWP, SP and Labour so I'm probably in all three technically.

The most important thing to consider here is turnover. Most of these parties don't have difficulty in actracting new members, it's making sure those members don't leave after the first 2 meetings where they struggle. I could go into specifics but I think it's probably not wise just coz I don't want to get into a petty sectarian arguments ala RevLeft over it.

 

[discokermit]

They're like the Mormons, you join and they add all your relatives, living and dead, to the membership list.

you're a member. i got you to join last saturday when you were drunk and dancing with your hands in the air to disco. stick that in your files, beria!

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

Their last album was shit anyway.

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

I think you'll find that most people in left groups are keenly aware of the political marginality of their own organisation, with the possible exception of some of the more excitable SWP members and a few mad Spartoids. And, in my experience, most of them have some sense of their more absurd aspects of their own organisations too.

To be honest my experience of people in far left groups is that they live in a bubble world in quite a few cases, and their humour about the left is largely about other groups, even though the sect they are in has exactly the same problems. The most excited I see them getting is when there is a chance to slag off another irrelevant group. And even if they are aware of the absurd nature of things it still doesn't stop them acting in a way to fuck up stuff like the anti-cuts movement. I went along, for my sins, to the RTW, COR and NSSN anti-cuts initiatives (and even took my work colleagues along to the NSSN event, they never went back after the experience) and they were all as bad as each other and had no real reason why they shouldn't be combined. They were all more than happy to drive people out in droves as long as they kept their brand and their control on things. And all of them seem to have done very little and now we have the anti-cuts movement in the dire state it's in now, with the far left having a large chunk of the responsibility for that.