according to the usually reliable “A Very Public Sociologist”
Lindsey German Resigns from SWP!
Shocking but true! A comrade has forwarded me this incredible email exchange between Lindsey German and SWP national organiser, Martin Smith. There is background to this dispute, which is dealt with here on Alex’s site. I will just say that after 30 years loyal service to the SWP, I find it amazing that Martin Smith can treat the resignation of one of its best known activists in such a cavalier fashion.
Dear Lindsey,
On behalf of the CC, we are repeating our request that you don’t speak at the disputed StW meeting in Newcastle tonight [Wednesday 10th February]. We expect you, like all SWP members, to respect our decisions.
We also think that it is imperative that you meet with members of the CC at the earliest possible opportunity. Could you please give us some dates when you are free.
Martin Smith (SWP National Secretary)
…
Dear Martin,
I asked Judith whether I would be subject to disciplinary action if I went to Newcastle. Your reply is ambiguous on this question. Could you please clarify. The STW meeting is not disputed, as you put it. It was agreed at two Tyneside STW steering committees, despite our comrades raising why I was going to the meeting. I therefore think your request is misplaced.
Lindsey
…
Dear Lindsey,
We have already made our decision very clear to you. If you ignore our request we reserve the right to respond as we see fit.
Martin
…
Dear Martin,
It is clear from your reply that your request is in fact an instruction not to speak in Newcastle tonight at the Stop the War meeting.
I regard such a course of action as damaging both to the party and STW. The meeting is properly constituted as evidenced by two sets of minutes of steering committee. There is no good reason for me to withdraw and none that I could possibly justify to STW members locally or nationally.
I have always tried to prevent internal disputes from damaging the movement. I feel that you have brought these disputes into STW and that is unacceptable.
It is therefore with the greatest regret that I am resigning from the SWP. This is a very hard decision for me. I joined more than 37 years ago and have always been committed to building it, which in my view meant relating to the wider movement.
I was on the CC for 30 years, edited the Review for 20 and played a major role in the movement and party building. My respect and affection for many party members remains, and my commitment to socialism as ever. I hope to continue working with them in the wider movement.
Lindsey German
…
Lindsey,
I acknowledge receipt of your resignation and have amended our records accordingly.
Please note it is your responsibility to inform your bank to close your Direct Debit/Standing Order.
Martin Smith (SWP National Secretary)
Bill Bo Baggins on said:
What ever she does, don’t let the Widow Twanky rejoin Respect, and that goes for the boyfriend as well.
Cat on said:
Oh the goddess!! That made me gasp out loud!! How rude of Martin Smith. Regardless of my feelings about the SWP I expected a little decorum and politeness even respect. I have made this point before with other “revolutionaries” and that is being rude does not make you a revolutionary – it just makes you rude. I hope Lindsey is OK by such a rejection, I actually feel a bit gutted for her. Hope the meeting in Newcastle is a good one.
Stockwell Pete on said:
#2 Nah, what goes around, comes around.
TLC on said:
Fair’s fair Stockwell, nobody in the SWP beats Martin Smith for sheer rudeness. By contrast Lindsey was merely mildly unpleasant.
Red Maria on said:
Has the story been confirmed yet?
Stockwell Pete on said:
#4 Yes, they deserve each other really. Goodness knows how many comrades have been on the receiving end from both of them over the years. The SWP bureaucracy can be really vicious at times and I hope it continues to disintegrate – and if it does it will remove one of the blockages that I feel is preventing the left from moving forward in a more united way in future.
John E on said:
Since Lindsey and other Left Platform members pursued a different course from the perspectives agreed by the party, it was likely this would be the conclusion. Martin Smith’s reaction is not cavalier, now that things have gone this far its accepting the obvious. It is sad after being a leading member of the party for so long that its come to this, but she and John set themselves on a course and it was difficult to see any way back
Many viewing the events of the past year from the outside will dramatically claim that our party is split. But whilst the few who formed the left platform (maybe 30 people?)have drifted away from the party, the remarkable thing is that the rest of us just got on with the job in hand – look at the brilliant success of the Right to Work conference last week.
Lindsey contributed a great deal to the party. So few people have committed so much over such a long period. She was a superb editor of the Review, and she spoke at party meetings with such clarity and coherence. Her books on the women’s movement and feminism are important contributions to our theory. But we will survive, and the way things are going, who knows, we will thrive.
jim mclean on said:
Its like a grown up Solidarity, oops their the same organisation, oh well.
Dodgy Cheque on said:
>”Hope the meeting in Newcastle is a good one.”
hmmm, 21 people, not that impressive is it? What a pity Lindsey is taking out her frustrations with the SWP into Stop the War. Whatever you think of the SWP, StW will be significantly weak without it. JR is a pillock who has so far broken up three organisations – SA, OFFU and Respect – is StW next?
Alan Gibbons on said:
The four responses to this news indicate why the Left is in such a mess. Instead of analysing how a once vibrant organisation is descending into farcical infighting, we get pathetic point scoring. I put in 25 years service in the SWP and left about fourteen years ago predominantly because of the millenarian perspectives that failed to look reality in the face. I find the latest developments extremely sad. While disagreeing with many of her opinions and actions in the past, I recognise that Lindsey did sterling work shifting public opinion against the Iraq and Afghan wars. Since I left the organisation, I have spoken on many platforms. I accept invitations to address meetings on one simple condition: do you seriously want to resist the pro-market, pro-war, anti trade union offensive? I would suggest that real socialists pulled their heads out of their backsides and faced the enemy, not the friends with whom they enjoy squabbling.
in despair on said:
“look at the brilliant success of the Right to Work conference last week.”
Oh please – brilliant? Get a grip. It was smaller than the OFFU conference which was in turn smaller than the SA trade Union conference. Tony Cliff used to admonish about telling lies to the class. Best place to start with that is not to tell lies to yourself.
John E on said:
Alan, I do want to resist the pro-market, pro-war, anti trade union offensive. That’s why I’m still a member. The SWP is the best place to do that from.
Barry Kade on said:
Well, I suppose its good to see that (formerly) ‘important’ and ‘leading’ members get treated like shit by the SWP in the same way as the rest of us have always been! Whoever is on the CC gets into a power trip where obedience is the primary characteristic required – it trumps over initiative and discussion. Its an archaic, anachronistic organisation, inheriting an ethos from a past phase of early twentieth century monopoly capitalism.
I only spent 13 years in the party, and just worked hard at building a local branch… but when I disagreed with the CC / full timer apparatus, unquestioning obedience rather than discussion was required. It sickened me. And yes, it feels shit when after years of making sacrifices for the party, it goes unappreciated, counts for nothing. An organisation that is below the general cultural level of contemporary capitalist society.
For the CC absolute power and obedience is required. They would do any amount of damage to the organization to demonstrate this control. Once they think you are defying them, it becomes a battle of wills, and they must triumph. We are like unruly dogs (or employees) who must be treated harshly. They kicked out the US ISO over a similar battle of wills. When I fell out and left the party, I had the distinct feeling they would have had me shot, if they could…
Barry Kade on said:
Given the appalling state of the left generally, the SWP still looks healthy by comparison! 🙁 The right to work conference would be miserable by the standards of past periods of struggle… but it looked like a veritable beacon in todays situation, the best we have got. But thats not saying much…
The tragedy is that the SWP cannot provide a habitable political space for huge amounts of activists to organise within, which is a shame. This is just the latest example!
anticapitalista on said:
Barry Kade, the split with the SWP/ISO was not over a battle of wills, but down to different perspectives, in the same way and at the same time as was the ‘split’ SEK/DEA in Greece.
“The tragedy is that the SWP cannot provide a habitable political space for huge amounts of activists to organise within, which is a shame. This is just the latest example!”
Well, if it is true, then it is indeed a tragedy for the SWP and the revolutionary left in general. But, name a place for these people. The Greens? Respect? TUSC?
Dirty Red Bandana on said:
Alan G makes an excellent point. It is very sad to see these things happen in a party that many of us gave a lot of our lives to building (including LG). There does need to be analysis of how the trajectory of the bolshevik left in Britain has been so poor over 60 years (the Right to Work conference may well be seen as the launch pad for this phase of the faction fight) but there also needs to be some appraisal of where this faction fight leaves the Stop the War Coalition.
The organization has been mobilizing smaller and smaller numbers at a time when the Afghan war and the Iraq inquiry have been high in popular consciousness. The Afghan war is lost yet the anti-war movement is unable to muster effective opposition to the continued offensive. Now, we will witness the STWC splitting across the country. Other parties on the left will need to act to develop the anti-war movement, notably the CPB and Respect, and be tactically flexible about the ways in which it is done.
Like the general election, rarely has the challenge for the left been so great and its ability to take it up so limited.
River on said:
The most striking thing about the exchange of emails is the total lack of anything resembling a political discussion.
Manzil on said:
Those predicting (hoping for?) a split or collapse in the SWP are deluded if they think the Left Platform was anything but a small and well-organised minority. The SWP, like SPEW, the CPB and others on the Left, is here to stay. The factional infighting which besets us, the expulsions and controversies, are due I believe not to anything particularly corrupted in our political culture or in the personalities of the sect leaderships. We are simply a small pond where every fish looks big.
Lindsey German is a good socialist, and I hope will continue to contribute to the development of an anti-capitalist social movement in the UK. The SWP is also home to many good socialists, among whom I would count Martin Smith and those with whom German and Rees have been arguing. Struggles over power or policy on the Left are not like the purges and ice picks of history, the people who lose stay on the Left and stay active on it too, the big fish simply continuing to rearrange themselves in new formations.
What remains constant is the need for a radical Left based on the workers, students and poor of our society, and on the likelihood that such a Left can be built more easily the more united we are in action, and the closer we orientate ourselves to the needs of those people whose interests coalesce with socialist politics.
Put simply, can we not completely lose our minds over this.
Bob Morris on said:
As one who was purged from a similar group, they also made it clear that their withered version of friendship only applies to party members who never question.
Which is precisely why such groups can never be genuine mass organizations. It’s not about coalitions or joining disparate groups together under a common cause. Rather, it’s about them preaching to everyone else about what they should believe.
It is not possible to build genuine mass organizations that way. But then, they don’t really want to. Recruiting for the party comes first.
Mike on said:
#20 The most striking thing about the exchange of emails is the total lack of anything resembling a political discussion.
Well, yes. That’s because the political discussion was had in pre-conference bulletins, aggregates and the conference itself – and the Left Platform lost overwhelmingly. There was nothing left to say.
Incidentally, on relations between the SWP and the ISO, there appear to be the first fumblings to kiss and make up.
Capitalist Rhoda on said:
“I have always tried to prevent internal disputes from damaging the movement.”
Really?
Dodgy Cheque #10, didn’t they have a hand in the SSP as well? And who decided to sell the print shop and has left them skint? So maybe you can add two more to the tally.
Barry Kade on said:
18 – I don’t think the split between the SWP / ISO was over some deep divergence of perspectives. Thats just Callinicos’s exaggerated and overblown ‘theorisation’. Yes, the ISO was slow off the mark around Seattle, but was soon doing anti-cap stuff. Then after Sep 11 2001 the main focus on both sides of the Atlantic shifted to mass anti-war united fronts – which both organisations did. Maybe the ISO didn’t try the strategy of general electoral ‘united fronts of a special kind’ we associated with John Rees’s leadership – the SA/ Respect turn – but then the SWP has abandoned that now, with many cadres remembering it as a bad dream from which they are now awaking. The split was damaging – but it was basically the because the London based leadership not able to deal with other centres of political authority. I think Ahmed Shawki had some useful things to say about perspectives that UK SWP members would have benefitted from hearing and debating.
But the whole problem with the SWP is that its centralism is too narrowly constituted. It would rather Lindsey German left, than contain someone with slightly different perspectives. Now no doubt some SWP members will see this as a perfect example of democratic centralism, with the imposition of absolute homogeneity. However, for the SWP to ever grow beyond a large sect, into a real mass party, then it would need more breadth. Even Lenin’s Bolshevicks were more heterogenous. If the SWP is not broad enough to cope with a longstanding member like German having a tactical divergence, then it is not broad enough for the rest us. Throughout its history, when the party line shifts, whole layers of cadre who carried the old line are marginalized or driven out. Thats why it never grows. It sheds past layers of activists like a skin when it shifts line. Its not broad enough to contain them.
GT on said:
The SWP’s new leadership may feel happy with how it is succesfully routing the opposition, but the party’s influence amongst the class is lower than in the 25 years i’ve been in politics. Recently we have had the sorry spectacle of it walking into the TUSC with its tail between its legs and being offered one seat by the sectarian SP. At the same time it seems to be intent on building a series of party front organisations. Simultaneously the leaderhip have driven out German because of her work in STW, Solomon for her activity around Mutiny and comrades in newcastle for their NSSN work. Clearly there are many SWP comrades who will see that their work in the broader movement is being undermined by the latest turn of their leadership. Such comrades should look at the few non-sectarian organisations on the left where their energies could better be spent and they would get the support they deserve for their contribution to the class struggle.
Daphne on said:
#15 Barry, I get your point. When our own group opposed the British SWP leadership’s actions in Respect in late 2007, I remember the word “hostile” being batted around, as if (a) criticism of strategy, tactics, perspective or activity was ipso facto “hostile”, and (b) “hostile” organisations or individuals should be repaid that hostility in spades.
But this is a problem with the broader culture on the left, not some kind of SWP/IST disorder. You just need to read the blogs to realise how “hate speech” is institutionalised among the socialist left, the way that small differences get blown up into massive vendettas and the associated use of “nuclear options”. Acting this way towards opponents outside the party inevitably translates into doing that in inner-party conflicts. It’s of a piece with a sectarian, elitist, voluntarist attitude to the class struggle – “it’s not evil if the good guys do it”.
I thought Lindsay German’s book on Sex Class and Socialist was great. I haven’t read it in a while, though. Mind you, I also liked The Algebra of Revolution… Anyway, although from my perspective the recent fight in the SWP was an apolitical waste of time and energy, I do hope she’s not lost to the struggle.
neprimerimye on said:
The sheer lack of loyalty to political principle on the part of the person who leaked these e mails is breathtaking.
Phil on said:
the political discussion was had in pre-conference bulletins, aggregates and the conference itself – and the Left Platform lost overwhelmingly
True enough, but what’s that got to do with the circumstances of Lindsey’s resignation / constructive dismissal? It looks like Smith effectively expelling her by stealth, by setting up a situation where the CC’s instructions to her were so unreasonable that she was bound to challenge them. The LP needed squelching, but people who think the last conference is going to usher in a new democratic internal regime are badly mistaken.
Another Dave on said:
Hmmm… what next? Rees to follow soon. But first a blog site and an accompanying A4 magazine along the lines of the Australian splitters (Socialist Alternative). Feelers out to other internationals. Small campus-based propaganda grouping. Flirtations on a branch basis with RESPECT. General oblivion.
Frank Martin on said:
#17 – “Given the appalling state of the left generally, the SWP still looks healthy by comparison!”
Could it be argued that the SWP has contributed to the state we find ourselves in?
Individually I like all the people from the SWP that I’ve met, but collectively when the orders come down from on high? Is there any group on the left that trusts them?
They also seem to suck in, and spit out students at an alarming rate. I’ve spoken to a few students who speak about their time in the SWP in a hushed voice and nervously.
KrisS on said:
I’ve heard they eat babies, too.
Could it be argued that the SWP has contributed to the state we find ourselves in?
Of course. Same as everyone, every group, has.
Is there any group on the left that trusts them?
Is the trust of another left group some kind of marker here? Which left groups do have the trust of other left groups, then?
Alex Snowdon on said:
Yes, it is genuine. Just posted about it at my blog. Lindsey G gave a cracking speech at the public meeting tonight, despite being shaken by today’s events.
Frank Martin on said:
@KrisS – How many splits has the SWP caused or facilitated in the last 5 years alone?
Is there another group on the left that can match that?
“Is the trust of another left group some kind of marker here?”
Well if it’s not a marker then what is it?
“Which left groups do have the trust of other left groups, then?”
A number of groups trusted each other enough to try and confront the EDL together in Glasgow, but the SWP/UAF managed to totally balls that up for sect gain and paper sales.
Red Maria on said:
@ Alex Snowdon: Given that you referred to today’s events it sounds as though you’ve got the inside track on this story.
I’ll ask you plainly, Alex. Did you leak the emails?
christian h. on said:
It’s the same old story. Person leaks emails, we can safely assume selectively, to left blogs. Left blogs dutifully publish emails, which are of course presented without any context whatsoever. Leaked emails, which are out of context, form basis for breathless denunciations of participant in email exchange, his or her organization, their political ideas and life in general (message: it sucks). As a result, more distrust is created both inside the organization thus denounced and outside. Denouncers go on to proclaim their non-sectarian purity and willingness to work with everyone (except [insert laundry list of class traitors, sectarians etc. here]), feel good about themselves. Rinse, repeat.
Here’s an idea: left blogs could stop acting like the News of the World. They could attempt to get the whole picture. They could even simply report the outcome of the leaked and out-of-context email communication. In short, there’s many ways to behave responsibly without having to hide crucial information ™ about competing organizations from “the class” (as personified by the audience of the blogger in question). On the other hand, I cannot detect a single positive for the breathless leaking, given that most left blogs don’t even have advertising (I can get News of the World, they are working for profit).
Red Maria on said:
I think we’ll get more of the backstory tomorrow.
Cat on said:
The SWP played a scandalous and unforgivable role in the SSP however I am still appalled at the email exchange between Ms G and Mr S. Martin Smith does not shine out well. We will see how it pans out, atleast when comrades in Scotland left the CWI there was a ceremony to it all even a shaking of hands, a hug even and a tear shed here and there. We then all went to the pub (seperately of course)I don’t think I could have beared an email exchange that told me to cancel my standing order. Very cruel and harsh
Barry Kade on said:
christian, oh come on, we all know the context honey, its been all over the pre-conference discussion period. Now stop huffing and puffing in indignation please, it spoils the entertainment…
Schadenfreude on said:
German complains of being given an unfair ultimatum? My heart bleeds.
But those who did that to her went along with her on each leg of this sorry story, from the “I’m being witchhunted” ruse to the Left List gambit.
What will the SWP do now? Grow, recruit, have stunning successes like Start the Fight Now (sorry, wrong decade), stabilise the subs base, and… see you in two decades’ time.
Time to break out of this. There’s scope for an intelligent, energetic left – but not that way.
robert on said:
I agree with you Cat and whatever you think of Lindsey German someone with decades of service to the party deserves basic courtesy. Martin Smith is an arsehole, but then we already knew that
Alex Snowdon on said:
@Red Maria
Why would I leak the emails to another blogger, when I could just put them on my own blog? Phil BC beat me to it by a few hours.
Frank Martin on said:
Christian,
It’s really a case of “lets dance around the massive balls up”.
It makes people a little more careful about their actions in the future, I would hope. A type of accountability if you like.
If someone makes a total mess of things it’s good that there are people willing to point it out to them.
Like the time the SWP split from Respect because it wasn’t to the left enough, and then one of it’s candidates defected to the Tories.
Anonymous SWP member on said:
If this is e-mail exchange is credible, then I am seriously considering my future as a member of the SWP. I do not think I am the only member who shares this sense of disappointment in the current leadership, and this treatment toward Lindsey German is no way to treat any member, let alone someone who has given most of their adult life to the party. The right to work conference was the last event I attended, and I felt then that the party is anachronistic, undemocratic and moribund.
I’ll wait to see if this is the genuine article before making up my mind.
Clayton on said:
Looks like another stunning own goal from the SWP CC, after falling out with most of the other parties of the left, they’ve now turning on each other with their usual over elaberated nonsense. With the tory’s on course for an election win this year you’d think the SWP would have bigger fish to fry.
you lot are in La La Land on said:
“The right to work conference was the last event I attended, and I felt then that the party is anachronistic, undemocratic and moribund.”
Yes, that RtW thing and all that “struggle” cliche was just SO last century!
Cheerio then, I’m sure there’ll be room for you at The Mutiny!
Salford Red on said:
I wonder how many SWP full-timers are wide awake watching these comments right now?
IAmKrupskaya,No IAmKrupskayaAndSoIsMyBoyfriend on said:
That’ll teach Lindz to get more than a few hundred on a mass mobilisation for Blair. (Sorry, 1,000)
No more can the Great Helmswoman bark, “Don’t you know who I am?”
Howard on said:
Lyndey German, for all her faults and despite the failure of Respect as a political vehicle, organized with Stop the War Co-alition a mass-movement that had millions of working class people participating in anti-war, anti-government and anti-capitalist direct action. a million people marched through London, and the SWP’s ability to organize vast public displays of support on key issues was the reason main it has kept it’s pre-eminent place on the left in Britain.
Based on recent evidence, I struggle to believe that the SWP would be capable of doing something like that again in it’s current state, and it’s future as a force on the left looks uncertain.
Red Maria on said:
@ Alex Snowdon: Fairy Nuff.
On the other hand, if you were the leaker, you would leak it someone else, wouldn’t you? Or is that descending into irrational conspiracy theorising?
End of his tether on said:
As a member of the swp myself for 18 years, I think that Smith’s appallingly cruel and unpolitical response to Lindsay’s resignation might be the last straw for me. He obviously decided that this was the issue to push it on and clearly enjoyed it.
The little he writes is ugly, dripping in an the intoxication of power. People can carp on about just desserts for German, but If you ask me any political organization with even the slightest grasp of reality would crawl over broken glass to have Lindsay German in the team. Smith should be begging her to stay.
You couldn’t get a fag paper between the political perspectives of the Left Platform and the CC, but if the CC can’t even accommodate such a nuanced, semantic difference in outlook, then what hope that the Smith Swp can built a broad party? (Obviously it’s about power and personalities and sod all to do with party or indeed movement building).
Also, what now for John Rees ? Let’s face it he’s the one the cc, and it seems most other people hate most. not me as it goes. Will he resign too? Can he stay without her? At least they can’t be accused of factionalism I suppose.
One other important question. I believe Lindsay (and john) is an SWP rep on the Stop The War steering committee. does she have to resign her role in stop the war? If so who will they put on? Will this be the end of the SWP’s influence in the most important political movement in years?
I think we will see a slew of resignations from the party and hopefully smith will have to go too. As I say, I think I’m off. but where…
End of his tether on said:
As a member of the swp myself for 18 years, I think that Smith’s appallingly cruel and unpolitical response to Lindsay’s resignation might be the last straw for me. He obviously decided that this was the issue to push it on and clearly enjoyed it.
The little he writes is ugly, dripping in an the intoxication of power. People can carp on about just desserts for German, but If you ask me any political organization with even the slightest grasp of reality would crawl over broken glass to have Lindsay German in the team. Smith should be begging her to stay.
You couldn’t get a fag paper between the political perspectives of the Left Platform and the CC, but if the CC can’t even accommodate such a nuanced, semantic difference in outlook, then what hope that the Smith Swp can built a broad party? (Obviously it’s about power and personalities and sod all to do with party or indeed movement building).
Also, what now for John Rees ? Let’s face it he’s the one the cc, and it seems most other people hate most. not me as it goes. Will he resign too? Can he stay without her? At least they can’t be accused of factionalism I suppose.
One other important question. I believe Lindsay (and john) is an SWP rep on the Stop The War steering committee. does she have to resign her role in stop the war? If so who will they put on? Will this be the end of the SWP’s influence in the most important political movement in years?
I think we will see a slew of resignations from the party and hopefully smith will have to go too. As I say, I think I’m off. but where…
Alex Snowdon on said:
Yes, it is irrational conspiracy theorising! I’m far too vain to give away something like this to anyone else. Mind you, A Very PS is prob the left-wing blog I most admire, so pleased Phil BC got there first.
Barry Kade on said:
In the context of the CC’s battle with the North Easts (former) ‘left Platform’ members and their participation in the NSSN etc, the CC would undoubtedly have construed the Newcastle StWC meeting as a continued focus for factional activity in the area. So they stamped on it. They are acting in a really paranoid way, here, of course – but its also probably true that German speaking at a StWC meeting in Newcastle – given the ructions there – would inevitably keep alive the possibility of different perspectives. But the meeting was also a legitimate part of movement building – unless we have somehow missed an announcement from the CC withdrawing the party from StWC! So its the CC undermining legitimate united front activity and the wider movement, driven by the paranoid suspicion that this would encourage ‘factional activity’ or more diverse discussion of perspectives within its organisation. hmmm…
Anonymous on said:
This is an outrage
Daphne on said:
#55 Thanks for that, Tony.
Red Maria on said:
@ Alex Snowdon: Phil BC is a very good blogger. I hear tell that he’ll be blogging something else quite juicy soon too.
@ Anonymous: What’s an outrage?
Barry Kade on said:
So what matters? What next? What will German do outside the party? Will Rees follow? Will anyone else? Will there be a new organisation or network? She has hardly done this in a way to bring the maximum forces out with her, but that probably not her plan. She is probably just acting as a really pissed off individual. Stupid to resign – maybe she should have forced them to try and formally expel her?
Ironically – or tragically – probably the nearest group of comrades who have similar perspectives to the left platform were the previous breakaway group of cadre, that they themselves helped force out around the Respect Split! That would be Ovenden, Hoveman, Francis, Hicks – and the forces around Respect, Galloway, Miah and Yaqoob. But, er … there will probably be some difficulty in a rapprochement here…ahem…
Nothing like an avoiding strategic theorising and planning, and just stumbling through political life from one disaster to another is there? If Rees and German really were factionalising, then they are doing a crap job!
Cut The Krapskaya on said:
49 – Organised what? Surely not the work other people put in. Followed by purging more frenetically than a bulimic on sennakot.
jim mclean on said:
I used to go to IS meetings long time gone when the whole idea was to slag of the Maoists or the WRP and anybody else that didnt see the “truth” and our job was to wait until the working class rose up and take control of the revolution. It was political scientology then and it is a cult now as then. Or perhaps the political equivalent of the Plymouth Bretheren, I just dont get it and if the SWP were to collapse it would make not one iota of difference to the working classes who still align themselves with Labour. At this moment in time we have an ideal chance to unite the left within Europe and abandon the John Bullshit attitude much of the left in the UK take. There is nothing in these emails that surprises anyone outside the SWP, your leaders are not nice, they are control freaks, and they are out of touch. Only problem is the rest of us are just as isolated.
Oh well at least the majority of people on this blog can watch the Premiership, Im stuck with the SPL.
Anonymous on said:
I’m just trying to get over the shock that the fantastic childrens author Alan Gibbons has left the SWP. I’m ashamed to say that if it was 14 years ago, it was around the time he stayed with us for Marxism. I really wish I wasn’t so shit at making tea.
Grim and Dim on said:
If this is true (and I await further information before I make any judgment on the circumstances) it is very sad news. I have known Lindsey for 37 years, and though I have had my disagreements, her contribution to the socialist cause, as writer, speaker, editor, organiser and activist, is indisputable.
Of course Lindsey has made mistakes and has her weaknesses – just like everyone else in the movement, starting with Marx, who got the maid pregnant, and Lenin, who nearly screwed up the insurrection by not calling it in the name of the soviet. Too many contributions to this, and similar, discussions, seem to see everything in terms of heroes and villains. Comrades are seen as either perfect or wholly worthless. Most of us are somewhere inbetween. Both Lindsey and John Rees are talented individuals (who could certainly have done much better for themselves if they had not been full-time activists), and I hope they will continue to make a contribution to the movement in whatever organisational form.
What I do find depressing is the attitude of a number of contributors who seem to take a positive delight in these sad events. People who have, for whatever reasons, a grudge against the SWP seem to feel their position is justified by any misfortunes that befall the SWP.
Some people even seem to thinkl the left would be strengthened if the SWP were to collapse or disappear. Perhaps they think their own vanguard would then advance unencumbered; perhaps they imagine some totally new and flawless force would emerge. I remain scpetical and prefer a bird in the hand.
And that’s true of quite a lot of us. It is a myth that the SWP has a rapid turnover. At Chris Harman’s funeral I counted at least fifteen people who have been members at least as long as myself (47 years). I know dozens, perhaps hundreds, more whose membership goes back to 1968, the ANL or the miners’ strike, and who have not changed their basic commitment.
It seems to me that to blame the current weakness of the left on the mistakes of some or all of the groups on the far left is idealist and unMarxist. The basic weakness of the left has to be explained in terms of the changing nature of the working class and working-class organisation (and that is something that we should be discussing, rather than the minutiae of far left organbisation).
So good luck to Lindsey in her future activity, whatever form it takes – but I shall be staying with the SWP.
johng on said:
I don’t see why people are assuming that the SWP will split from STW. A leading member of the SWP who is also in STW has resigned. I suspect that the relationship will be healthier given that political differences will no longer take the form of suspicians about internal factional manuvering. Incidently the belief that the Right to Work conference demonstrated an anachronistic or weaker SWP is diametrically opposed not only to what most SWP members think, but also to what most in the movement think: including some who are’nt exactly are greatest fans. I also found attempts to portray the SWP joining a united front rather then setting one up as ‘humiliating’, ‘tale between its legs’ reminicent of a triumphalist mindset which is just alienating to most people whether inside or outside the SWP. The one thing most people liked about RTW was the demonstration that the SWP was open to working with everyone and that an older more exclusionary method was dead and gone. Some find this ‘humiliating’. I think most of us find this change in tack a great relief.
phew on said:
I think most of us find this change in tack a great relief.
because being placidly content is what being a revolutionary is all about.
dennis on said:
When you read this sorry exchange of emails, you do have to wonder what concept of ‘comradeship’ Martin Smith has.
Barry Kade on said:
G & D – 64 – yes, of course, the main problem has been these decades of defeats for the working class and the retreat of the idea of socialism generally. But this history has in turn shaped the SWP. Many of the parties negative features and habits have been imposed on it by the necessities of surviving such a seemingly unpromising epoch for socialists of all kinds, including revolutionary socialists. The organisation bears both the features of a party and a sect – but the latter tendency is exacerbated by the general situation of working class defeat, retreat and decomposition. Some cling on because there is nothing else, others move on, finding it uninhabitable.
I hope we will all find our forces renewed by future events. Students have just been in occupation at Sussex against cuts. There has also just been the first student protest in my northern university for many years. There is a massive wave of cuts in education and the rest of the public sector, slashing jobs and services on its – and there must be resistance.
I just wonder whether our existing left organizations are suited to the struggles that will come. The SWP and the international socialist tradition carries an important legacy for the next generation who will fight – of the memory of previous class struggle, of rank and file organisation, of the dialectical understanding of party and class, of a the emancipation of the working class being the act of the working class. But it may also pass on more than this positive legacy, and its pathologies and bad habits accumulated over the long retreat could do further damage. The SWP carries a mixed legacy, therefore.
Finally, this risks repelling potential new generations of recruits – it makes the party look like a purist sect that is too narrow to accommodate divergencies and debates amongst revolutionaries of the same tradition and outlook. To narrow to ever graduate from being the largest ever sect to the smallest mass party …
Frank Martin on said:
64 – “What I do find depressing is the attitude of a number of contributors who seem to take a positive delight in these sad events. People who have, for whatever reasons, a grudge against the SWP seem to feel their position is justified by any misfortunes that befall the SWP.”
Dunno about the others…
I certainly didn’t take a delight in them getting a Tory elected in London. That was one hell of a misfortune.
I didn’t enjoy them helping Tommy Sheridan set up Solidarity, and stand candidates with a clear electoral strategy of causing the most possible damage to the SSP (Like Tommy’s mum standing against Keith Baldassara – a sitting councillor for the SSP) I wasn’t particularly overjoyed when the ONLY person they managed to get elected anywhere in Scotland defected to Labour after that.
It’s not surprising some people are getting some pleasure from this.
For me it’s sheer amazement at the Chiefs in the SWP being allowed to get away with this sort of behaviour and incompetence.
When the SWP were in the SSP I was told that the 9/11 attacks occurred on the same night as a branch meeting. Everyone was keen to try and make sense of what it meant and discuss what the reaction should be. Everyone apart from those in the SWP platform that is. No, they weren’t able to form an opinion, not until they had their SWP members only meeting were their opinions were handed to them by Central Command.
If you’re staying with the SWP “Grim and Dim”, what do you intend do do about the problems you have? An entire website could be dedicated to all the stories of woe. I doubt the members themselves know even a tenth of the problems.
An active member of Solidarity only found out about Ruth Black defecting to Labour after I asked him about it. This was about 3 MONTHS after it happened. The internet is making it harder for the CC to sweep stuff under the carpet now.
Frank Martin on said:
PS.
If the SWP sorts out it’s leadership model/problems, then it stands a chance of doing some good, as opposed to tearing the place apart with internal and external power struggles.
Southpawpunch on said:
It’s profoundly depressing reading the above email exchange. And I say that as someone who has a fair bit of time for the SWP.
A party can have very good politics but its method (its way of acting) can be appalling. I think Martin Smith here shows that he has no business being General Secretary of the SWP, his method is appalling.
Anyone who has any idea about organising (indeed anyone with any humanity) would instead have written something like ‘Come on Lindz, let’s not be too hasty about this. I will just forget that email and why don’t we both just sleep on this and resume it tomorrow. You can’t just say goodbye to the SWP through an email after 37 years! Best wishes. Mart’
I’m depressed (because if the above is true) the outcome will be a few dozen comrades drifting off to form yet another of the 57 varieties and the SWP, the nearest thing we have to a communist party, getting that bit weaker.
I’m no great (relative) fan of the politics of the SWP but if I was helping organise a strike, it would be the SWP and the SP (in that order) that I would call for advice.
I prefer the politics of Workers Power or Permanent Revolution or Weekly Worker but all of the latter are incapable of getting their membership out of just double figures. The SP can, but they also have the weakest politics of the all mentioned. But what do I know.
But all these groups are the currently disparate parts of what should be. One Left Unity party.
There is a crisis of leadership of the Left in Britain. After 13 years of Labour we are probably further away than in 1997 to organising even a Left alternative to Labour.
The Greens (completely undeservedly) are the only ones that have managed to establish a (fake) presence, presently to the Left of labour (but not for long, I guess) along with the possible and localised exception of Respect (and maybe the SSP and Solidarity).
We have all screwed up, me included. We do abysmally compared to our comrades in Europe. But the ones who have screwed up the most are the leader of the Left.
There should be term limits on leadership of Left parties. It is completely unacceptable that characters like Taaffe and Matgamna have led, or been a leader of their organisation, since the 60s! Similar are some of the leadership of the SWP.
It’s nothing to do with ageism; would a football club keep a manager who saw the club relegated most seasons for 4 years, never mind 40 odd!
The proof is in the outcome. If I was a management consultant, I would say to the British Left, your perennial leadership shows no signs of being able to grow or make any quantative leap and it is self-perpetuating. It is imperative that you replace every one of them all as they need to be judged collectively on year after year after year of producing an abysmal bottom line.
I suggest completely starting afresh and using those not yet affected by the personal compromises of middle-age, so you should introduce a maximum age of your leading member of 30.
In addition, it is very clear that even though you think there are vast political differences between you and other Left parties, none of you have any empirical way of proving your theorem are better than the others.
It is urgent, therefore, that you call a conference to seek a party of Left unity including everyone from Labour Lefts, Respect and CPB right through to the parties above and the Sparts, Anarchists and Anarcho-syndaclists.
Thank-you and here’s my bill for £50K for telling you the bleeding obvious. It’s not a fucking dress rehearsal, it’s the real deal. Get fucking organised. Lehamn Bros had more clue than you lot.
(Plan 2 is waiting for Deus ex machina – a communist revolution somewhere, who establish the 5th Intl and its single communist party affiliate in Britain.
Plan 3 is the assassination of all the leadership of the British Left and the organising the remaining Left into a single party, at the point of a gun, and which will be headed by me. Actually maybe a single world party. Don’t make me do option 3.)
LarryN on said:
@64
“So good luck to Lindsey in her future activity, whatever form it takes – but I shall be staying with the SWP”.
So it will be grimmier and dimmier.
” Ye hasten to to the grave! What seek ye there”. Sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
old timer on said:
first
@26 “German because of her work in STW, Solomon for her activity around Mutiny and comrades in newcastle for their NSSN work”. That is laughable. LG left the CC in a huff because her partner had lost his authority with the majority of the membership (as evidenced by the aggregates turning against him) after HE MESSED UP over and over again, leading to the mess that was RESPECT. He had to go.
But for years LG had been holding the CC to ransom. 1st threatening “I’ll leave the CC if my boyf is not allowed on to it” then “I’ll leave the CC if my Bf is held to account for his terrible amateur leadership”. That’s no way to run a revolutionary party.
When we (and it is we – a majority of our party) held JR to account, and sacked him, she stormed off in a petulant huff. I worked for the Review when LG was the editor and yes it was a better product that later. But she behaved like the Wicked Witch of the West if you dared to cross her (or even have an opinion) and seemed to have no grasp of good working practices that all but the worst workplaces adhere to.
So @26 get yer facts straight.
As to Claire S. Well perhaps she was used and scapegoated? I have sympathy, kind of. Old JR put her, and the other factionisers, in the frame (typically cowardly behavior – he didn’t argue at this year’s aggregates) and she took the fall. Perhaps the CC was a bit harsh to move so fast and I understand why she would feel hurt. But perhaps she best think about who set her up as much as who wielded the knife. And in the end, if we are honest, she was being set up to be expelled anyway (you can only get sympathy if you can create victims).
and to be honest I encountered Claire’s “politics” and the personal slanderous lengths she’d go to to come out on top at SOAS so I haven’t got that much sympathy really.
LG is a talented and committed socialist revolutionary. But petulant emotional blackmail butters no parnips with me.
And what they have all come to realise-you (LG/JR) made our bed, hard luck that you don’t like lying in it. or rather if you live by the sword hard luck when you get the chop.
although, in fairness, you would have been better off ditching John Grease, before the other revelations come out.
Howard Kirk on said:
It seems the longstanding culture of control and intolerance within the SWP has taken a high profile casualty. The party is largely unattractive to those outside it, and soon repels many who join it with it’s lack of culture of internal debate and endless waiting on the leadership to receive the ‘correct’ views from party notes or from a meeting.
When I was in it, there was a stunning lack of awareness by some comrades of what was actually going on and an unwillingness to question the party line until it was no longer the party line anymore, of course. Furthermore, some people could get rather uptight when you start pointing out what appeared to me to be the bleeding obvious, and would eventually be reflected in a change of the party’s perspective some months down the line.
At that time it was more the case of people relying for their info on Party Notes whereas I found the internet to be a more reliable source of what was actually going on in my own party. Ridiculous.
And if reports are correct, one of the people responsible for this state of affairs has learnt the same way that many have before her. I always found her to be quite personable but this is where this sort of bureaucratic centralism ends up.
Bo on said:
It should be noted that,, from a glance at his blog, commenter # 22 was a member of the Stalinist Party for Socialism and Liberation. He was expelled and he now advocates that US leftist activists should join in left/right coalitions and even join the tea party movement! Maybe his case of turning so far to the right after being a communist is a warning sign against sectarian rigidity.
Liam on said:
There is always the chance of a creative political life after quitting. Some recent expellees organised a top notch evening of politics and culture last night which seemed to reassess some old habits.
http://liammacuaid.wordpress.com/2010/02/10/mutiny-on-the-bethnal/
Tony Dowling on said:
SWP post conference notes 2010:
“Our starting point has to be our united front
work…We have to find imaginative
ways of maintaining, building and
strengthening our united front work in every
area from the big STW, RTW and UAF
groups down to our work in small local
campaigns and strikes.
Conference reaffirmed the position
outlined by the CC that central to our
perspectives for the next year is building
and strengthening our united front work…”
…just words…!
howard on said:
1917 2010,the song remains the same, and the victims are realising their deeds done,when their light was shining.
Phil on said:
Is the trust of another left group some kind of marker here? Which left groups do have the trust of other left groups, then?
When I was in the Socialist Movement, the SWP were definitely towards the bottom of our list – they were fine as long as they didn’t try to get involved with us, but if they did then watch out. We weren’t crazy about the Mils, but they never did try to get involved, so they weren’t a problem. Socialist Action were hostile but not disruptive, and we had pretty good working relations with Outlook and Organiser, aka the ISG and the AWL (OK, one out of two’s not bad).
The SWP in particular does have a bit of a track record of not playing nicely with the other groups.
Imatrot on said:
All this talk of the terribleness of Martin Smith sounds like he must of purged Lindsey German or something, but an even uncarefull reading of the email exchange showed that she resigned because she was unwilling to follow party discipline. Maybe Smith was a bit flippant in his response but German’s conduct was hardly the model of a leninist, even a toy town one.
As one of the leading members of the Left Faction if she thought the actions of the SWP were so bad she had to resign she should have taken people with her and set out to form an organisation on their own terms. Instead she offers a flippant resignation as almost an aside to an email exchanger about speaking at an STW meeting. I feel sorry for all the Left Faction members left in the SWP with leaders like these.
Stockwell Pete on said:
#68 I agree with most of what Barry Kade has written here. The other thing that I would say is that the long defeat suffered by the worker’s movement in this country has contributed enormously to the bureaucratisation of organisations like the SWP. The lack of new members and the gradual the loss of existing members has inevitably led to a “hardening of the arteries” of the party and the entrenchment of the existing leadership.
Of course, that is not the whole story though. Cliff’s “downturn analysis” was applied in a quite brutal way in the party from about 1980 onward (I was part of the opposition then and supported Women’s Voice, Flame and the continuation of Rank and File) and this led to a considerable disorientation, in my view. I can accept that the Cliff-ite faction was worried that the party might fragment in a period of prolonged retreat but the methods that they used to force through the new perspectives contributed significantly to the process of bureaucratisation.
I do appreciate that some comrades feel that there were serious problems even before then – there were expulsions in the mid 1970s (e.g. left faction).
Imatrot on said:
“And perhaps you could explain, seeing as LG is, if I remember correctly, a senior member of the STWC, how Smith (or anyone else, come to that) has the right to stop her from addressing a meeting of that organisation.”
Call me ignorant but I think it has something to do with being members of the SWP. If the Left Faction opposed Democratic Centralism they should say so.
Nas on said:
Indeed, Imatrot, German and Rees promoted this brand of discipline ruthlessly.
It doesn’t make it good politics, however.
I can’t see there being much support for German in the SWP – but a lot more warmth than shown in Martin Smith’s mean-spirited letter.
I get the impression a lot of SWP members just seem relieved that the freefall of the last two years is over.
They’d do well, though, to keep a close eye on the political culture that’s grown around Smith. It’s deeply unattractive.
Meanwhile, the really big question is coming to terms with the three decade decline in class politics various people point to above.
There’s little sign of serious thinking about that on most of the self-identified far left.
Imatrot on said:
What I find funny abouot the left faction is the way they try and attack the SWP majority for not taking advantage of the economic downturn, but if you look at the major demostrations against bankers etc with the G20 meeting in London, what was the SWP doing… building a Gaza rally because (in my opinion) the majority were cowed by arguments by the minority that they were de-prioritising anti-war work. In reality a large proportion of my branch decided to ‘break discipline’ and go down to the Bank of England. One of my main criticisms of the majority is that they haven’t been hard enough with the STWC people that t4he political situation has changed and that the amount of energy the party puts towards STWC in terms of organisers and such is way too much in terms of the priorities of the time. But that won’t mean a thing to Left Faction members whose arguments boil down to a nostaligic look at the achievements of the high points of previous movements.
lenin on said:
Though this is hardly a joyous occasion, I do have to laugh at some of the contributions here. Lindsey German is a long-standing former CC member who has herself been on the control commission. She understands party discipline very well, and what was asked of her was no less than what she would have asked of any other party member. The people pretending to be scandalised on her behalf don’t sufficiently take the point that Lindsey would be the last person to be surprised by this. The two people claiming to be SWP members driven to the edge by this exchange ought to be already sufficiently apprised of the fact that members are bound by conference and by the decisions of its elected bodies. I am singularly unimpressed by the feigned outrage over having apparently discovered this elementary matter of fact.
I would also caution against getting sucked into the ephemera here. This isn’t about an e-mail exchange or a local dispute. It is fundamentally about the underlying differences of perspective that were debated at conference, a summary of which was reported in Socialist Worker. I expect most of you here are familiar with the basic dimensions of that disagreement. Conference voted overwhelmingly against the perspective of the Left Platform. That those differences are being channelled through issues such as that discussed in the e-mail exchange doesn’t change the fact that what is at stake is a model of activity, and a strategy, that has already been subject to democratic discussion and has been rejected. And the democratic decisions of conference cannot be bypassed, any more than can its elected bodies. That is the bottom line as far as I’m concerned.
Imatrot on said:
Well Nas, I actually do think it makes good politics, it helps prevent political leaders living off pass glories by forcing them to be acountable to the party.. by the by what would a trade union look like if individual members could act against the wishes of the majority… it wouold be a beacon fo scabs.
LarryN on said:
In his haste to remind her to cancel her debit, MS (Marx and Sparx) forgot to tell her to turn the lights off when leaving.
Is he so devoid of cognitive powers to understand the implications of his arrogant quip. I am so happy at his forthcoming demise.
Then again its the SWP.He will be applauded off “his” stage at conference. Fools and damned fools!
Cut The Krupskaya on said:
@67 “When you read this sorry exchange of emails, you do have to wonder what concept of ‘comradeship’ Martin Smith has.”
Looks like the same one he learnt off Lindz.
Comment 73- very refreshing. I wish this had been said earlier and by more people who knew about the Power Couple’s destructive ego-trippig at the expense of comrades and the movement. But better late than never.
Nas on said:
Imatrot: of course, any organization requires rules and a sense of discipline.
But the issue here is a clash between the expectations of two organizations – the SWP and StW. Smith’s response just strikes me as a bad way to deal with it.
But no one should be surprised. The leadership was feeling more confident following its conference and the Manchester gathering, thus bringing forward the day German was made an offer she couldn’t refuse. It’s what she used to do.
The problem for ‘lenin’ and co is that they went along with it all back then, every idiocy – the Left List, the defend John Rees campaign – all of it.
The issue isn’t discipline. It’s spectacularly bad judgement.
(Irish) Mark P on said:
#89: Richard, the issue for those of us on the outside isn’t so much the democratic process of the SWP as the democratic process of the Stop the War Coalition.
I have no particular interest in whatever ongoing squabbling there is between the branch that left and the remaining local SWPers in one bit of North East England. Nor do I really care all that much what instructions the SWP leadership issue to their members. I don’t care, that is, right up until the SWP start pissing about with the functioning of organisations that are supposed to be somethng other than extensions of the SWP CC’s whims.
Here we have the Convenor of the Stop the War Coalition being ordered, under SWP discipline, to snub a Stop the War branch because the people who run that branch aren’t in the SWP any more. That’s an abuse of authority.
Imatrot on said:
The most spectacular bit of bad judgement by the SWP majority was to prioritise the Gaza demos at the G20 demonstrations. Although you won’t hear of left faction supporters and its hangers on saying so.
John Palmer on said:
I am sure “Grim and Dim” finds it as disturbing as me that we should come to agree with each other. But he makes a very important point when he says the real issue at the heart of the crises faced by revolutionary marxist organisations “is the changing nature of the working class and working class organisations.” Virtually all left blog debates evades this issue. I would go one step further than Grim and question whether we can today speak of “a working class for itself – not just a working class in itself” – to paraphrase a key distinction made by Marx. These savage blood lettings (which in the case of the SWP/IS go back too many years) is not the product of a clash between villains and heroes as another contributor rightly says. But when it comes to the loss of scarce human capital through expulsions, forced resignations etc, Metternich’s words come to mind “Some things are worse than crimes: they are very serious mistakes.”
Imatrot on said:
“88.I notice you didn’t answer the points raised in my previous post, Imatrot.”
well then read again my dear fellow. No one, whatever their prior history of great deads, within a revolutionary party has the right to dismiss party discipline. To do so would create a hierachy of people who are above question and not able to be brought into line. Maybe the majority was wrong about LG speaking at the meeting but make your case on something other than the great qualities of the speaker in question.
william robinson on said:
Lindsey has worked against and in spite of the democratic processes within the SWP for a long time now and everyone who remains loyal to the principles of democratic centralism is saddened by this. Eg She has retained a monthly column in Sociualist Review up to the current issue. But she and John Rees have had ample opportunities to put their case in SWP branches, in a variety of online contexts and at the last SWP conference. Their only sympathetic response has come from sites like this which are inherently SWP anyway. The mustered votes of no more than 24 in a variety of debates that they insisted on pushing to a vote in a gathering of around 350 delegates.
Lindsey should now have run out of toys to throw out of her vainglorious pram in circulating her correspondence with Martin Smith. She made an explicit statement to SWP conference that she would abide by its constitutional arrangements for factional activity. She is clearly not a woman to now be trusted because she has not stuck to that promise.
The SWP is a voluntary organisation. Comrades who prefer a party which permits permanent factions are free to go elsewhere, though that notion of organisation has always seemed barmy to me, like having both feet trying to walk in opposite or at least different directions.
A spell in a real job surrounded by less deferential and easily bosed colleagues might do her some good.
Phil on said:
This isn’t about an e-mail exchange or a local dispute. It is fundamentally about the underlying differences of perspective that were debated at conference, a summary of which was reported in Socialist Worker.
“We won, you lost, ner ner, not listening. Next item of business?”
What Irish Mark P. said.
william robinson on said:
sorry, the key word “anti” was missing from my previous post in describing this site’s relationship to the SWP!
GBS Larking on said:
#99 *A spell in a real job surrounded by less deferential and easily bosed (sic )colleagues might do her some good*
That’s been true for about 30 years and also applies to most of the current CC. If anyone takes the annual pantomine of the SWP seriously (as Lindsay did, and Smith still does) then this is the likely outcome.
Sausage machine doesn’t even come close to describing it.
Phil on said:
She made an explicit statement to SWP conference that she would abide by its constitutional arrangements for factional activity. She is clearly not a woman to now be trusted because she has not stuck to that promise.
“Factional activity” consisting of asking for reasons why she should be barred from addressing a STWC meeting?
This is just a smaller-scale version of the procedure that was used on the Mutiny group – ban something without giving any reason, wait for the people doing it to defy you, then expel them for breaking party discipline. Parting company with German (and Rees?) might be justifiable, but this way of doing it is really shabby control-freakery, which isn’t going to do the SWP any good in the longer term.
william robinson on said:
also, for all those sects that believe Rees and German’s hype, that the SWp is actively seeking to run-down the StWC, look who runs the biggest and most active StWC local groups!
lenin on said:
“thus bringing forward the day German was made an offer she couldn’t refuse. It’s what she used to do.”
This is what I don’t understand. There would hardly have been any grave ramifications had Lindsey decided not to speak. It might have been difficult for her personally, but surely this is the trade-off of belonging to any political organisation. You accept decisions that you disagree with in order to pursue your broader objectives. This is why I infer that the underlying issue is the perspectives discussed and voted on at conference.
“The problem for ‘lenin’ and co is that they went along with it all back then, every idiocy – the Left List, the defend John Rees campaign – all of it.”
You see, we can do this at inordinate length – revisiting past disagreements. I can bore myself and everyone else by recounting the ways in which I think those siding with Respect Renewal got it grossly wrong. But what will that achieve? Suffice to say, I don’t necessarily defend everything I said and did in the context of the split, and was among those who tried to learn the lessons of it and change our outlook accordingly. My current position is entirely consistent with that.
phew on said:
richard seymour writes:
She understands party discipline very well, and what was asked of her was no less than what she would have asked of any other party member.
come off it – why was she being prevented from speaking at a stop the war meeting?
anon on said:
Martin Smith’s reply was dissapointing and LG deserves at least a mature and political reply but LG knows how CC works having been on it for 30 years so playing innocent doesn’t really work, she knows why CC didn’t want her going to that meeting and would have said the same to other Comrades when she was on there- SWP comrades who have said they’re going to leave are dissapointing too, LG + the faction was voted down at conference and if you don’t like Democratic Centralism then why are you even a member?! . LG does great work with StW and no doubt she will continue to be a good socialist but this was on the cards for a long time and there is obviously more to it than this, i only hope she doesn’t drag the left Faction with her and it doesn’t damage the great work that SWP does with StW.
phew on said:
The two people claiming to be SWP members driven to the edge by this exchange ought to be already sufficiently apprised of the fact that members are bound by conference and by the decisions of its elected bodies. I am singularly unimpressed by the feigned outrage over having apparently discovered this elementary matter of fact.
“ought to be sufficiently appraised”…” “elementary matter of fact”… ugh, someone’s turning into the swp’s very own oliver kamm
anon on said:
#96 also, for all those sects that believe Rees and German’s hype, that the SWp is actively seeking to run-down the StWC, look who runs the biggest and most active StWC local groups!
Exactly, I’m a member and the most active in our StW are SWP and the biggest builders of the front….German has evidently just been waiting for an excuse to leave the party although the tone of the CC emails could be trying to hammer her out i doubt it, she knows exactly what she’s doing, SWP have been absolutly amazing in StW
Alfie on said:
The historic role of Trotskyism (that of splitting the left) has been proved once more. Marx and Engels used to say that “the petty bourgeois ultra-revolutionary directs his blows not against existing governments, but against revolutionaries who reject his dogmas”. Just when the majority of the population are turning against the war in Afghanistan and there are threats of war against Iran the one umbrella organisation to lead united opposition against the policies of the government is threatened by the ludicrous folly of the ultra-left. There is nothing new in this, history is littered with examples of ultra- left splitting tactics that only serve the interests of the ruling class, that is why the Trotskyist movement has no function but to spread disunity amongst the left.
(Irish) Mark P on said:
#102 Go lick the shit off a dog’s arse you Stalinist vermin.
Anonymous on said:
We’re all fucked.
Imatrot on said:
Hey Alfie in terms of historical legacy I would rather have splitting the left on my CV than massacring millions of people… just saying like, you stalinist fucking idiot.
lenin on said:
“I don’t care, that is, right up until the SWP start pissing about with the functioning of organisations that are supposed to be somethng other than extensions of the SWP CC’s whims.”
I am the last person to want to see SWP factional issues channelled through external bodies. For that reason, I agree with johng that the relationship with StW should now be expected to improve.
“Here we have the Convenor of the Stop the War Coalition being ordered, under SWP discipline, to snub a Stop the War branch because the people who run that branch aren’t in the SWP any more.”
That much is internet gossip. The basis upon which Lindsey was asked not to speak at that meeting are as yet unclear. The only source of information at the moment is those who are leaking it, and those who are no longer members but are close to supporters of the Left Platform perspective. That isn’t a solid basis for premature eloquence on this matter. No one in the SWP wants to in any way harm relations with the StWC, and I don’t doubt that every member will be scrutinising this issue, and that it will be debated. But I do not believe that it would have seriously harmed that local branch if Lindsey had said she was unable to attend. Thus, I can’t see that there was a basis for resigning.
“This is just a smaller-scale version of the procedure that was used on the Mutiny group – ban something without giving any reason, wait for the people doing it to defy you, then expel them for breaking party discipline.”
Again, we have this problem with internet gossip, which just runs with knee-jerk hostility to the SWP without any basis in fact. There were meetings concerning the Mutiny issue, and the participants knew full well what the reasons were for asking that it be suspended. They may not have accepted the reasons, but they were given in some detail. From the e-mail exchange above, it is clear that there was a previous discussion on the matter, and that Lindsey was aware of the nature of the CC’s objections to her attending.
Old Mole on said:
“I am so happy at his forthcoming demise. demise.”
LarryN, you are completely bonkers.
For all the whining about the tone of the emails-these were private emails between two people who have a history of political animosity. Some of Lindsey’s behind the scenes actions over the past few months, particularly some of her stunts in November, were totally beyond the pale. This focus on Martin’s reply, thinking it indicates a poer-mad pseudo-Stalin in the making is just about the most juvenile apolitical crap I’ve read in a long time.
Good Luck to Lindsey-its a shame to lose talented comrades but, when they are lost, I’d rather they were open about it. At least now both sides are more able to move forward.
lenin on said:
“come off it – why was she being prevented from speaking at a stop the war meeting?”
I don’t know any more than you do. It seems everyone is happy to leap to conclusions, though they are not privy to the details – it happens quite a lot in these parts.
phew on said:
richard seymour writes:
Again, we have this problem with internet gossip, which just runs with knee-jerk hostility to the SWP without any basis in fact.
but the facts are in front of us in the email exchange.
1. lindsey german told not to attend newcastle stw meeting by swp cc
2. lindsey german refusing to comply and resigns swp
3. martin smith is a real charmer
assuming emails genuine (seems so) thats clear enough isnt it?
phew on said:
particularly some of her stunts in November
what happened in november?
Andy Newman on said:
If ever we needed examples of how the political outlook of Trotskism is the same as high-period Stalinsim, these response are pure gold:
As I wrote before:
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=4900
…
The way in which all dissent was externalised as an alien and existential threat partially explains the fear and insecurity leading to state terror.
The Stalinised party in power developed three important attributes; i) a self-referential Weltanshauung or belief system rooted to the idea that the party itself was an historical actor with privileged access to truth; ii) a culture of demonising categories of opponent “Kulaks”, “Trotskyists”, “counter-revolutionaries”, that became symbolic concepts to pidgeonhole and depersonalise real life dissent;
…
The Trotskyist tradition has sought to unite around a shared belief system, and interpret the world through a largely self-referential and textually based discourse; so they are resilient at ignoring aspects of reality that contradict an arguably faith based political project. Concrete and specific situations in the modern world are often judged by reference to Trotsky’s writings about related but different circumstances more than half a century ago.There is a certain cognative dissonance among some “Marxists” who prefer the idealised working class of their imagination to the real, living and complicated mass of working class people; and prefer purity to the compromises and adjustments that are needed to make socialism a living political reality, relevant to the day to day experience of working people.
anon on said:
Was it lindsey herself who leaked this? build support for her faction n all?
lenin on said:
“but the facts are in front of us in the email exchange.”
No, they aren’t. Irish Mark P made a number of assertions as to the basis for the CC’s request that Lindsey not speak at this particular meeting. Those assertions might be true, or might contain an element of truth – we don’t know – but they aren’t borne out in any of the evidence we thus far have. Like all SWP members, I will be very interested to hear both sides of this argument, but that is never available in the blogosphere – for good reasons.
Still mildly disappointing that some people would rather feign outrage over Martin Smith’s lack of personal warmth in the e-mail exchange than consider the substantive, underlying issues – all of which are more or less in the public eye.
phew on said:
Was it lindsey herself who leaked this? build support for her faction n all?
burn the witch
(Irish) Mark P on said:
#106, Richard:
“That much is internet gossip. The basis upon which Lindsey was asked not to speak at that meeting are as yet unclear. The only source of information at the moment is those who are leaking it, and those who are no longer members but are close to supporters of the Left Platform perspective. That isn’t a solid basis for premature eloquence on this matter.
German says in her letter that the Stop the War branch decided to ask her to speak at a properly constituted and minuted meeting. There is absolutely no reason to think that she is lying when she says that – and if she was, no doubt Martin Smith would have jumped on the issue.
You are being frankly disingenuous to suggest that we can’t safely conclude from this that the SWP CC’s decision was an overbearing interference in the functioning of StW. An interference which had nothing to do with the rules of StW and everything to do with their ongoing dispute with an errant ex-SWP branch in the North East.
I don’t know enough about the SWP’s dispute in the North East to take sides in it, or even to care much about it. But even if the SWP CC are 100% correct on whatever issues are at stake in the fallout from their factional dispute they are abusing their authority in attempting to use SWP discipline to force StW officers to snub StW branches they don’t like.
phew on said:
richard aka lenin:
i’ve read the email exchange, you’ve read the email exchange. maybe you have some other interpretation but when martin smith says this
On behalf of the CC, we are repeating our request that you don’t speak at the disputed StW meeting in Newcastle tonight [Wednesday 10th February]. We expect you, like all SWP members, to respect our decisions.
it looks to me and to everyone else like the cc asking lindsey german not to speak at the stop the war meeting in newcastle. it looks like this because this is in fact what it says.
so why was lindsey german convenor of stop the war being asked not to speak at a stop the war meeting?
Imatrot on said:
Andy why would you come to the defence of some Stalinst who has no point to make about the dispute in question other than to say that Trots sew division amongst the left.. which begs the question on which side of this dispute amongst trots are they sewing division amongst the trots … I mean left. I don’t know for what purpose you decided to jump in to defend the most apolitical contribution so far but hey that it is your perogative.
LarryN on said:
Old mole, away and dig a hole for yourself. We just love barbs from unidentified fucking objects like you.
Hail Hail.
(Irish) Mark P on said:
“If ever we needed examples of how the political outlook of Trotskism is the same as high-period Stalinsim, these response are pure gold:”
If we ever needed an example of how the political outlook of a social democrat with a slightly creepy nostalgia for the GDR tends towards sanctimonious bullshit, Andy, I’ll know to point people towards your response.
I feel no more need to be polite to Stalinists than I do to their close political cousins, holocaust deniers.
LarryN on said:
BTW, Mole AKA (UFO)
His demise will come shortly as he is now a burden to his party as the national secratary. Read German’s email about comrades within and the wider movement. Smith has bitten of more than he can chew.
Tell us your name coward
lenin on said:
“it looks to me and to everyone else like the cc asking lindsey german not to speak at the stop the war meeting in newcastle. it looks like this because this is in fact what it says.”
I’m sorry, but I’ve already dealt with this. The fact that Lindsey was asked not to speak is not in dispute. The reasons for it are unknown, but they were undoubtedly given to Lindsey. Hence, both Irish Mark P and Phil have drawn conclusions that are unjustified.
“so why was lindsey german convenor of stop the war being asked not to speak at a stop the war meeting?”
Again, I think I’ve already answered that. I don’t know.
I would just add, since it’s being lost in a lot of back and forth invective, that whatever the reasons for the resignation, all of us in the SWP have enormous respect for Lindsey and didn’t wish for this to happen. I think that was made clear when Lindsey was voted onto the NC. It’s even the case that the majority would have voted for Lindsey to remain on the CC last year, had she decided to remain on the slate. I see that some people here are acting as if they’re pleased by this, but I don’t think that’s appropriate – especially since we will want to continue to work with Lindsey in whatever roles she now finds herself in as part of the movement. If anything, my hope is that the relationship will become stronger and more constructive.
anticapitalista on said:
#119 -I feel no more need to be polite to Stalinists than I do to their close political cousins, holocaust deniers.
Comment by (Irish) Mark P
Hang on there. I have no love of Stalinism, but equating it to Fascism is ludicrous.
Adrian on said:
Seymour might be disciplined for taking part in democratic internet discussion. We know the CC doesn’t like this.
He will be monitoring his email box with dread.
lenin on said:
“I feel no more need to be polite to Stalinists than I do to their close political cousins, holocaust deniers.”
This is an unnecessary hostage to fortune. Holocaust-deniers are disingenuously trying to revive a barbaric political system, based on racial supremacy and extreme authoritarianism. Stalinists – however unpleasant they sometimes are – don’t really believe in such principles, and generally support campaigns for greater democracy, anti-racism, working class struggles, etc. in a way that Nazis never do.
Adrian on said:
I would just add, since it’s being lost in a lot of back and forth invective, that whatever the reasons for the resignation, all of us in the SWP have enormous respect for Lindsey and didn’t wish for this to happen.
Stable door, bolted, horse etc.
George W on said:
117 can you not see the difference between a rational criticism of trotskite methods and defense of Stalinism. Your eagerness to reveal andy as some great Stalinist heretic only vindicates andy’s point.
Andy said that the political outlook of Trotskism is the same as high-period Stalinsim, due to these responses:
Go lick the shit off a dog’s arse you Stalinist vermin-(Irish) Mark P
and
Hey Alfie in terms of historical legacy I would rather have splitting the left on my CV than massacring millions of people… just saying like, you stalinist fucking idiot.
The way in which some trots go around enacting the great inquisition to root out all those who do not agree with your ‘truth’, and anyone who does not accept your version of historical events are revealed as you cry at the top of your voice STALINISTS!!!.
Please give the point Andy made some consideration, do not simply denounce him for speaking the unspeakable and defending Stalinism. This kind of guilty by association, hell, totalitarian approach simply mirrors what you are supposedly against.
In my experience many people who are denounced as Stalinists are a hell of a lot more rational than many self styled anti-stalinists who follow a semi-religous approach to politics and eagerness to ignore and marginalise anyone who does not share your faith.
lenin on said:
“Seymour might be disciplined for taking part in democratic internet discussion. We know the CC doesn’t like this. He will be monitoring his email box with dread.”
Blah. What exactly is ‘democratic’ about this sort of discussion, btw? It’s just a blogging free-for-all.
Duncan on said:
If ever we needed examples of how the political outlook of Trotskism is the same as high-period Stalinsim, these response are pure gold:
Or, alternatively, they were irritable responses to an obvious piece of trolling aimed at provoking such reactions.
Which do you think is more likely?
As to the above denounciation of a ‘totalitarian approach’, have you ever read comments on a blog before? On many sites they tend to be a bit acrimonious.
Old Mole on said:
His demise will come shortly as he is now a burden to his party as the national secratary. Read German’s email about comrades within and the wider movement. Smith has bitten of more than he can chew. he can chew
You tell ’em Larry! Your political acumen is remarkable, I’m sure your points will be borne out in practice.
“Tell us your name coward”
I’m scared to, now, you’re so tough you might come and beat me up!
Adrian on said:
Blah. What exactly is ‘democratic’ about this sort of discussion, btw? It’s just a blogging free-for-all
Yes everyone is entitled to discuss matters in a free manner. That’s why you and the CC don’t like it. You see the internet as a forum for propaganda, not for free discussion.
Nas on said:
Richard: I appreciate you don’t want to rehearse all the arguments around the Respect split. However, I think an awful lot of humility is in order and some pretty far-reaching reassessments. Let’s recap:
1) George Galloway writes a letter which is critical of the national administration of Respect.
2) This is taken by the SWP leadership as a right wing putsch specifically aimed at smashing John Rees.
3) Events go nuclear with accusations of a witch-hunt. Respect splits.
4) Rees and German – with the backing of the entire leadership and all but a handful of cadre, who spoke out and were ostracised – embark on the vainglorious Left List debacle.
5) Rees is thrown off the central committee. German resigns in solidarity.
6) German resigns from the SWP.
By any standards, this is an extraordinary turn of events in just two and a half years. It would be tempting to pin it all on German and Rees. But if I were in the SWP, I would want to ask myself very seriously how I went along with all of this and indeed defended twists and turns which, according to the new orthodoxy, amounted to nothing more than voluntarism, nostalgia, elitism and catastrophic bad judgement.
I can understand the need to save face and to relativise all this along the lines of – well, we’ve all made mistakes and the left as a whole has blown it so we in the SWP are in good company. And I don’t expect any public accounting from you about what you really think about the course of events. The SWP has been through a torrid time and I’m sure its members will want to rally round any good news and success.
But I would hope that at least in private there would be some serious consideration of how the SWP ended up in the worst crisis in its history.
I think the critical question that leads to is the meaning of class politics today and the strategic line Marxists need to adopt in Britain. Alex Callinicos has raised some interesting new thinking about these questions. I hope it goes further and isn’t buried under a reassertion of the verities.
lenin on said:
“Yes everyone is entitled to discuss matters in a free manner.”
Sure you are. I do like the internet, though. That’s why I’m a blogger. That’s why I’m talking to y’all. And I don’t mind people chattering away, even if they don’t know what they’re talking about. You’ve got me all wrong, bruv. Do I get the vague feeling that you’re trying to get a rise out of me? How adorable.
Imatrot on said:
No George Alfie who made the remarks is a Stalinist and doesn’t need you useful idiot to defend him. And by the way anyone willing to defend stalinism will get an angry and abusive response from me but dont mistake it for irrational. I stick by my original point, but feel I have to expand it for the eurocomunist soft stalinist wannabies (you do realise the exact same politics destroyed the stalinist politics you champion dont you). If the worst can be said about the 2oth century Trot left was that they split the ‘left’ then I would muchy rather be in their company than be an apologist for the barbarities of stalinism and its varients like Maoism or Pol Potism.
(Irish) Mark P on said:
Richard, Anti-capitalista:
I am not equating Stalinism and Fascism. I am saying that Stalinists are worthy of absolutely no political respect and that the denial of Stalinist mass murder is an attitude not much better than the denial of Fascist mass murder.
GeorgeW:
Well, as a CP supporter yourself no doubt you would feel that way. But unfortunately, whether Stalinists like being called by their proper name is a matter of supreme indifference to me.
I will admit though that you gave me a little chuckle at your brass neck when you talked about inquisitorial “trots” going around victimising poor old Stalinists.
Ben Courtice on said:
I can’t comment directly on the goings on in the SWP. But at no 78 the comment was made “the long defeat suffered by the worker’s movement in this country has contributed enormously to the bureaucratisation of organisations like the SWP. The lack of new members and the gradual the loss of existing members has inevitably led to a “hardening of the arteries” of the party and the entrenchment of the existing leadership.”
That much sounds familiar to me. I think the same has happened here to the Australian left over the last 20+ years. The lack of movement and success on the left leads to turning inward. Some of us are trying to break out of that but it’s not easy. I’ve seen leaders who are bullies, irresponsible factionalism, leadeship bodies acting like factions against the people who elected them, and all sorts of crap. I wrote a blog post about it… shameless self-promotion, here’s the link: http://bccwords.blogspot.com/2010/01/discussionocracy.html
People who begin to fail at (or even never had any success at) leading the working class look for alternative ways to be “leaders”… like bossing around the followers in their group. This sort of behaviour on the left is way past its use by date. A lot of these factional fights and splits come because not only are the political positions of these groups incredibly brittle and fragile, their leadership clique/heirarchy/cult/whatever is usually very brittle and fragile – because it would become largely superfluous if the organisation broke out of its sectarian isolation and actually started leading in struggles in the community.
John on said:
#134
Mark, just wondering. What age are you?
(Irish) Mark P on said:
#136:
Old enough that I really should know better than to waste time exchanging words with Stalinist filth.
Stalinism is a dying creed. From the “cancer of the workers movement”, these days it’s become little more than irritable bowel syndrome of the labour movement.
LarryN on said:
Whether they do or not, only time and the exodus from the SWP will tell. He is damaged goods like yourself.
No national secretary who acts the way Smith did to German is worthy of support.
Old Mole, I do not care what you say about me and I dont wonder who you are as you have shown your a halfwit time and again under a different name and you have been pulled up about it. Coward
Andy Newman on said:
Irish mark P
“Stalinism is a dying creed. ”
well, it still lives on in the Socialist Party it seems.
Imatrot on said:
Yeah seriously Ben we should all join the Australian Socialist Alliance and give up political analysis for wishful thinking.
lenin on said:
Nas, there is no question of me trying to relativise. My view is that in the aftermath of such a destructive episode, every party should look first to its own failures. In pointing out that I don’t think the remainder of Respect got it right either, I merely want to avoid being drawn into what I regard as a wholesale revisionism in which the SWP under the leadership of John Rees and Lindsey German bears sole responsibility for what took place.
ahmed on said:
This all sounds like a ‘socialist’ version of Nick Robinson’s nightly appraisals of who’s up and who’s down at Westminster, with barely a word of political analysis. Here though, there is also some offensively sexist terminolgy throw in.
(Irish) Mark P on said:
Yes, Andy, being rude to a Stalinist who is trolling is obviously the main defining feature of Stalinism today.
Adrian on said:
That’s why I’m a blogger.
But you don’t believe – or are told not to believe – that the SWP as a party should be debated on the internet, at all. Now, imagine if any other party said there should be no discussion about them by members on the internet? Imagine if the Labour party did that?
You also don’t believe that SWP members should express a political view on currents events that contradict the views of CC members, and have gone back and changed your own blog posts to comply with this, like on the BJFBWs because it contradicted the views of Martin Smith.
This mafia type of approach – which I’m afraid you have displayed in the thread by continually attacking “internet gossip” – shows a very unhealthy approach to modern styles of communication and discussion.
phew on said:
richard aka lenin:
ok so you don’t know for what reason lindsey german convenor (just to repeat the point) of the stop the war coalition was asked by the swp cc not to speak at a stop the war meeting.
can you think of any good reasons for them doing this? i mean good as in not related to some dispute inside the swp?
Andrew Coates on said:
Central Committee of Tendance Coatesy statement:
http://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/lindsey-german-and-the-trotskyist-tradition/
Unity offensive underway.
Andrew Coates
Imatrot on said:
Seriously Andy Newman why did you side with the most apolitical contribution to this debate, surely you dont beleive that trots deliberatly sow devisions so why defend it.. huh.
Eddie Truman on said:
Irish Mark P of the CWI / Socialist Party with a really solid exposition of their left unity perspective;
“Go lick the shit off a dog’s arse you Stalinist vermin”
Nice.
Imatrot on said:
It is amazing how sensitive some stalinists (eddie truman) actualy are they can’t stand the assertion that the lick the shi of a dogs arse bu they will happily engage in intellectual gymnastics to defend whatever authoritarian leadership takes their fancy this week. To side with mark you don’t deserve to lick the dog shit of a dogs arse you dirty stalinist shite!
lone nut on said:
“in terms of historical legacy I would rather have splitting the left on my CV than massacring millions of people”
Actually, Trotskyists have both on their CVS. The difference is that you actually defend the massacres that took place from 1917 to 1924, whereas “Stalinists” tend to be more circumspect.
“it’s become little more than irritable bowel syndrome of the labour movement”
Excuse me, weren’t you in an electoral alliance with these dreadful Stalinists a few months ago?
lenin on said:
phew – are you quite serious? First you ignore my answers, now you demand that I speculate? I’m not going to do it. Whatever issues surround this will be discussed within the SWP by members.
Old Mole on said:
LarryN, you make a fool of yourself with every pompous, grandiose and utterly politically deatched statement you make. Buzz off.
“Stalinism is a dying creed. From the “cancer of the workers movement”, these days it’s become little more than irritable bowel syndrome of the labour movement.”
Is this because they left TUSC? Because no shit, SP comrades were all over them for the best part of a year.
(I’m just teasing, Mark, of course Stalinists are crackers. But there’s ultra-left and there ULTRA-left, right?)
“changed your own blog posts to comply with this, like on the BJFBWs because it contradicted the views of Martin Smith.”
Or maybe that an initial assessment based on limited facts is changed on the basis of discussions with people who’ve experienced very different circumstances on the ground? One advantage of these evil, bureaucratic and CENTRALISED!!!! parties.
Imatrot on said:
Well seriously Lone nut even if you took the ultra right annd anarchist left at their word Trotsky would have not killed millions of people. He may have been ruthless in conducting a civil war but that is a seperate matter, although I would doudt that ‘Trotsky’s’ innocent victims would have gone into the thousands let alone millions.
phew on said:
richard aka lenin:
very serious. don’t use as many big words but still serious. you speculate about motives and motivations left, right and centre on your blog. sometimes its informed, sometimes its less informed. your an swp member (ok in a different faction to lindsey german) so your speculation here might be better than most. it might even act to stop the wild crazy ideas people are getting about lindsey german being told not to speak at a stop the war meeting because of a dispute inside the swp. because clearly that conclusion would be delusional.
Andy Newman on said:
#147
“Seriously Andy Newman why did you side with the most apolitical contribution to this debate”
oh come on, there have been about 150 comments on this thread, and the only ones to have been “political” were
22, 24, 61, 65, 78, 89 and 131
the rest is just froth and banter
lenin on said:
“don’t use as many big words but still serious.”
Well, apparently these big words include ‘apprise’ and ‘elementary’.
“so your speculation here might be better than most”
Don’t be so daft.
(Irish) Mark P on said:
Lonenut:
No actually, I wasn’t in an electoral alliance with any Stalinists. I don’t live in Britain. The clue is in the name.
I don’t have any objection in principle, by the way, to taking a utilitarian view towards the remaining couple of hundred old duffers who constitute British Stalinism by the way. They are hardly a clear and pressing danger – hence from “the cancer in the workers movement” to the irritable bowel syndrome of the workers movement. If they make themselves useful well and good, if they don’t, that’s also well and good. I don’t much care. But if they start giving cheek about the historical record of other political trends well they aren’t going to get any politeness from me.
Andy Newman on said:
#153
In defence of Trotsky you say: “He may have been ruthless in conducting a civil war but that is a seperate matter,”
How would you feel about
“Stalin may have been ruthless in conducting colectivisation but that is a seperate matter,””
see what I’ve done there?
(Irish) Mark P on said:
Yes Andy, I see what you’ve done there. You’ve equated fighting a civil war against the Tsarists and every imperialist power with a spare army lying about with the mass murder of the Russian peasantry carried out by the Stalinists.
You probably even think that you’ve made a clever point.
Nas on said:
Richard: fair enough. It’s just that if virtually all the propositions I’d advanced were refuted, I’d rethink my position – pretty fundamentally.
We disagree about the Respect split. But I really cannot see how the evidence, what we know now, can lead to anything other than identifying the role of the Rees-German leadership as central, the driving force, the big problem without which there would not have been a split. You see: George Galloway complained of Rees creating false dichotomies. A year later, Alex Callinicos complained of Rees taking minor secondary differences and inflating them.
I think both Galloway and Callinicos were right. But when Galloway said it, the whole of the SWP was marshalled to defend Rees from any criticism. When Callinicos said it, virtually the whole of the SWP was marshalled to support the leadership’s removal of Rees from the CC.
I think the contrast has extremely serious implications for those who toed the leadership line.
Let’s put it another way – say the later Callinicos position had informed the SWP response to Galloway’s letter, say the SWP leadership had not adopted the maginot line over Rees (I’m not suggesting they took his legs, as they did a year later). I think that would have led to the kind of supple response that would have avoided a split in Respect… and, who knows, a reenergised and united Respect in the autumn of 2007 might well have been able to lay the basis for a GLA campaign that could have got Lindsey German elected, or if not at least providing a credible left of Labour alternative.
Serious politics requires dealing with such concrete realities. All too often they get brushed aside with sweeping abstractions: Respect was bound to split sooner or later, Respect was doomed when it failed to get more Labour MPs on board (exactly how many MPs did the people who now say this imagine would leave the Labour Party?), the general level of struggle means that a split was inevitable, etc, etc.
Andy Newman on said:
#159
Mark
ther mass murders and terror of 1919 to 1921 were no more or less justfied by material circumstances than the emergency collectivisation and grain seisures of 1989 to 1931.
It is logically and politically consistent to oppose both, or support both.
what is bewilderingly odd is to support one and condemn the other
Martel on said:
#153
‘although I would doudt that ‘Trotsky’s’ innocent victims would have gone into the thousands let alone millions.’
Well thats okay then.
I know the importance of keeping the slaughter of innocents in the lower thousands.
Duncan Chapel on said:
I just read Andrew Coates’ short comment on all this. It’s excellent: http://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/lindsey-german-and-the-trotskyist-tradition/
Jane Kelly and Dave Packer’s article from last week was timed perfectly: http://socialistresistance.org/?p=835
LarryN on said:
“particularly some of her stunts in November”
what happened in november?
Old Mole answer #110, Phew question,
You that has more political acumen and in the know than the rest of us. I will be buzzing about waiting . Coward
Imatrot on said:
Yeah Andy I seen what you done. I saw you exposing your stalinist politics. You may think stalinism is clever and whatnot but whenever politics like yours are espoused around my way I am always willing to speak up and show you for the anti working class fuckwits that you actually are.
Mikey on said:
Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day!
spot the difference on said:
irish mark p
have you any comment to make on the resignation of the socialist party’s trinity college branch?
Andy Newman on said:
#165
“Yeah Andy I seen what you done. I saw you exposing your stalinist politics. You may think stalinism is clever”
hah! another idiot.
No, I am opposed to both forms of totalitarianism: Stalinism and Trostskyism, in the labour movement.
phew on said:
richard aka lenin:
“so your speculation here might be better than most”
Don’t be so daft.
really? losing your touch?
¦o( on said:
Woo hoo. The SWP is fucked. The left is fucked. Hoorary … Yippee … Deck the halls … Kremlinologists rejoice … tabloid prurients abound.
This sad development is only a small milestone in the gradual but inexorable decline and death of the socialist/anti-capitalist left in the UK and globally.
Clusterfuck.
Imatrot on said:
Well Andy the only point you have made is to defend Alfie who appears to be a complete Stalinist nut, so how else would you want to characterise your role in this debate. By the way and if it means anything I think of you more as a Eurocommunist of the 80s who has woken from a coma 10 year than a stalinist.
A Very Public Sociologist on said:
Have received a comment purporting to be Martin Smith’s real reply to Lindsey’s resignation email. Is at the bottom of comments here.
Old Mole on said:
“You that has more political acumen and in the know than the rest of us. I will be buzzing about waiting.”
There are personal and work-related issues at play that make this problematic to discuss. But I’m sure anyone with a couple of brain cells can think back to something major that happened to the SWP in November and put two-and-two together.
I know that rules you out, Larry, but maybe your Daddy can help?
“Coward.”
Keep saying it macho man, its really rather arousing.
richsw on said:
#163: ‘I just read Andrew Coates’ short comment on all this. It’s excellent…’ – no it isn’t, it’s twaddle, a smug application of chaos theory to politics. Specifically, there is a ‘democratic arena’, the Party Conference, where these things were debated and decisions taken.
Mick Hall on said:
Navel gaze all you wish, but this is yet another clear example of democratic centralist groups being unable to deal with major differences without a split. What is ludicrous is that many comrades here, still believe working class people would trust their futures to such a conservative undemocratic grouplet
enough said
Nas on said:
#172 That would be absolutely in keeping. Smith makes a big error in sending so terse an email and then, belatedly, realises it and tries to undo the damage. I don’t know the veracity of the email you’ve been sent, but it would fit.
One of the problems of the current SWP leadership is that they don’t do politics very well: agitation and propaganda, yes; but sustaining real political relationships, no.
jim mclean on said:
173# something major that happened to the SWP in November
Apart from a new an updated website I think and a total condemnation of the Left Platform, German and Rees by the CC, not much, but who outside the SWP actually cares. Im still trying to find a reason for getting out my bed on May the 6th.
PS are we all on the Dole there seems to be a lot of people online today.
Martel on said:
#172 Has to do with legal issues my arse.
Smith has been told his reply made him sound like a complete d*ck and has sent an completely inauthentic follow up email in a bid to minimise the damage of his vindictative spiteful reply.
Mike on said:
#144
Are you related to the Adrian that actually did leak these emails by circulating them to the Military Families Campaign?
phew on said:
Are you related to the Adrian that actually did leak these emails by circulating them to the Military Families Campaign?
could be. are you related to the swp member who hacked into clare solomon’s email account? you could be.
Ray on said:
Just caught this thread. Wot a palaver! It’s interesting taking an over view of the thread because it starts off with the usual SWP bashing and sanctimonious told you so’s but quickly descends into a ‘my version of Marxism is better than yours you mass murdering bastard’ bun fight.
Forget the RTW conferences I think SU should organise a yearly coach trip to Bournemouth where we engage in combat to find the true light of the left. A bit like ‘It’s a Knock Out’ but with clip boards and megaphones. A cold shower in the morning followed by the latest crimes of the SWP for all to jeer at and by lunchtime the Stalinist/Trots/Reformist anti-SWP bloc will have fallen out and be having bloody pitched battles on the beaches. I’d pay to see that. Far better than that stupid game on TV where they have to squeeze through that hole in the wall. Very entertaining.
Mike on said:
#180
Of course I am. Damn, you’re good at this healthy approach to modern styles of communication and discussion.
(Irish) Mark P on said:
#167, spot the difference:
I wasn’t even aware that we had a functioning Trinity College branch, assuming that you are talking about Trinity College in Dublin.
Perhaps you can enlighten me?
LarryN on said:
Old Mole, you middle class thicko.
Give me your definition of “deatched” and what dictionary you got it from. As it is different from mine
And what stunts happened in November with German that you alluded to. Your post “107”
You being an organiser of the SWP and telling lies about other SWP members forcing them out, we can take it with a pinch of salt. back stabbing Coward
spot the difference on said:
well imp, they held a large meeting last week and seemed to have a few members. ex members now i think. amazed you knew nothing about it.
johng on said:
Just posted this on splintered sunrise..
A couple of points. On the issue of much of the faction coming from STW. Its true that many came from those who work in the STW office. If you look at SWP members who sustain STW on the ground (and many still play that role) almost none (bar Newcastle) are left faction people and most are (oh horror!) trade unionists, sometimes even (oh double horror!!) union conveners. You may recall some rather tasteless jokes I made many moons ago about full timers which were sadly misunderstood. ahem. There is a bit of a birds eye (as opposed to worms eye) view of things going on here.
On the issue of a supposedly ‘juvenile’ industrial perspective: Andy Newman is a nice enough chap but he can be wrong. The RTW conference was by all accounts highly successful, and at the same time flowed out of those industrial perspectives. On SUN one saw left platform people busy denouncing it as ‘tired’, ‘anachronistic’ etc, etc. Which whilst I’m sure you would have never caught Lyndsey or John saying anything so silly, is something of a ‘line’ with this group, repeated any time the Party does anything at all (particularly connected with trade unions: when attempts were being made to set up meetings concerning migrant workers I remember hearing that such meetings were not worth attending because they would be full of ‘boring old trade unionists’. If you live with this day in day out it becomes a bit…boring.
On Newcastle: I think its a huge assumption to imagine that this was ‘provoked’ by the organiser or the centre. Left Platform remind me of the title of that Victorian novel: ‘He knew he was right’. I just had a rather gobsmacking exchange were I was informed by Luna17 that decisions are not made at conferences but on the stage of history. Try dealing with a whole branch parroting this kind of gibberish and lets see how long it is before even splintered sunrise decides, ‘its time to get the guns out’. Which brings me on to the context of these exchanges (which obviously I know nothing about it detail). Its been clear for sometime now that a section of the leadership was determined to operate a kind of scorched earth policy [as that nice chap Andy Newman rather accurately put it].
Note, even to the last, Lyndsey’s claim that she had always believed in working in broad movements the implicit claim once more being recycled that the SWP does’nt. Its also been clear to many of us for some time that something like a split was being orchestrated, certainly a split mentality being developed amongst sections of left platform members. Newcastle was one centre of this, and these were loyal and disciplined members of Lyndsey’s faction who resigned. Its been clear to many of us that long term the leaders of this faction had no intention of remaining in the organisation. This draining situation has now been with us for as long two years (perhaps longer). SWP members at STW would loftily declaim that a ’split would be premature’ etc, etc. This has been a very protracted end game.
The very ease with which Lyndsey went, suggests to me that she picked her moment rather then the other way about. I find complaints about Martin’s ‘rudeness’ here almost funny (not almost actually). The upside of this (if there is an upside) is that work in STW will no longer be overshadowed by an internal faction fight. My feeling is that Lyndsey and Jphn had developed over the years a very different understanding of what socialists ought to be doing from the majority of the party. And whilst these different understandings don’t preclude co-operation in the broader movement, they became pretty bloody poisenous internally.
It is sad when people who have been long standing members of an organisation leave it. But it happens. People change their priorities and of course, organisations change as well. Its just unfortunate that good will had long since been exhausted by the protracted and damaging nature of these arguments which seemed to most of us incredibly destructive. And, incidently, it does interest me that this exchange was leaked. How ironic when one recalls the fulminations from certain people about the behaviour of Kevin and Rob. Now I did’nt agree then with Kevin’s and Rob’s decisions and actions. But how much less serious is the issue which Lyndsey jumped over. And, as I recall, it took Kevin quite some time to ’spill the beans’ as it were. This was instant. Its not what goes round comes around so much as don’t be so naive.
Andy Newman on said:
#186
IO took pity and sorted the paragraphs out for youp>
Mark P on said:
Spot the Difference,
I rang a student member of the Socialist Party in that college after seeing your post. He was pretty surprised to hear that he had resigned.
He also clarified that there is not a Socialist Party branch at TCD. There is a student society, which had a few party members in it and a few non party members in it. The party members are all in actual branches too. One party member has resigned, because he wanted us to form an alliance with Labour and Sinn Fein. It may be that some of the non-Party members went with him to do whatever he is now doing, the student I rang had no idea either way.
I think that our organisation – which has set up 7 new branches in the last three months – will survive the shattering loss of a single student.
phew on said:
johng:
On the issue of much of the faction coming from STW. Its true that many came from those who work in the STW office.
in what sense is this “true”? i count three which even of the small numbers in left platform is not “many”.
johng back on form. sighs of relief all round.
phew on said:
johng:
…particularly connected with trade unions: when attempts were being made to set up meetings concerning migrant workers I remember hearing that such meetings were not worth attending because they would be full of ‘boring old trade unionists’
who and when and what was the context?
more sighs of relief
johng on said:
As I said on Splintered Sunrise thats precisely the kind of antiquated and undecisive commment one would expect from those with a boring old trade unionist mentality. Matters are not decided by paragraphs but on the stage of history. I’m sure you would like to live in a comfort-zone where everything you read was neatly laidout for you but comrades: That is not the way! No, no and again no. Better fewer but better etc, etc. Its clear to me that this kind of tedious whinging is part of an orchestrated campaign against the finest traditions of Leninism. We never used to have paragraphs. Its centrism.
phew on said:
johng:
i am searching for this exchange between you and alex snowden but failing to find it. could you show us where it is please?
LarryN on said:
I have every right to ask you to tell this blog your name. there is nothing wrong in saying your a coward for not doing so and I know bloggers will know there is nothing macho in the asking.
Again you use the excuse its your security to protect your job, Pretty flimsy, and cowardly.
Did you mean de-atched. Well go back to primary school and learn basic grammar and spelling. You with the single digital IQ. You back stabbing coward Buzz off
Aspen on said:
I love the way johng sees it as his mission to put a positive spin on this. ‘These things happen, it will all be for the best etc’.
It’s not just this issue, he always does this. I remember him saying before the split when news was breaking of differences that was all hyped up, that it’s good to have people restating where they stand in a coalition, and we will all move together stronger because of this.
After the last local elections last year he was in the comments on LT saying he can sense a real momentum to start some type of new coalition and start afresh. One got the feeling that by Christmas it will all be sorted out.
He always looks on the bright side. It will all work out in the end, eh John?
johng on said:
Its on this thread:
http://luna17activist.blogspot.com/2010/02/resignations-from-socialist-workers.html
Blessed are the Cheese makers on said:
#194 Aspen: he reminds me of the liberal roman guard in Life of Brian who’s in charge of crucifixion.
johng (with genuine concern): cruxifixion?
prisoner 1: yes.
johng: good. first on the right, take one cross and stright up the hill. Good luck. Next. Crucifixion?
prisoner 2: no freedom actually.
johng: oh jolly good. Well done. Off you go then.
prisoner 2: no, only joking. Crucifixion.
johng: ahh. good. (bites lip). Well, first on the right, take one cross and straight up the hill (mournful glance up from clip board). Next.
johng on said:
I don’t think I’ve put a particularly positive spin on the protracted and appalling behaviour of those in Left Platform. Its been extremely damaging.
But yes, most in the organisation (and many out of it) think we are in far better shape now then at any time in the last couple of years. The spinning going on here is the attempt to portray a series of what look semi-orchestrated resignations from Left Platform indicative of some last minute groundswell of support for a group whose perspectives have never had anything but zero traction inside the organisation. Hence, I believe, despite all the waffle about ‘new methods of organisation’ the increasingly wierd hyper vanguardism.
Short paragraphs they may use (a sign of opportunist deviation if you ask me) but there is something of the long dour missives of the Sparticists in their outpourings. Hopefully when the circle is unsquared and they drop the Leninist pretensions they will return to being decent activists in the movement.
(Irish) James Q on said:
@167 – spot the difference
Bizzare comment. Are you actually equating Lindsey German resigning from the SWP with a member (who from all accounts barely qualified as a member) of the student society in Trinity College Dublin??
Narcissism will get you very far in your political life my fallen comrade!
johng on said:
“One of the problems of the current SWP leadership is that they don’t do politics very well: agitation and propaganda, yes; but sustaining real political relationships, no”
Nas-the CURRENT SWP leadership? Your sure this isn’t a typo? Some examples would be nice.
Aspen on said:
Johng, you’re probably careful to attack the Left Platform because I mention in passing (it wasn’t the point, I was merely highlighting your ever optimistic outlook) that you were keen on starting some type of new coalition a few months back. I remember Richard Seymour to be keen on the idea as well. How does this square with your new conservative more sectarian approach to the united front issue?
VofH on said:
197 – Johng zero traction sounds a bit harsh given that I understand they were de facto your party from Seattle onwards
Or am I missing something?
Most Swerps I’ve talked to over the last few years until Rees and German were sent to the gulag were there strongest supporters. so there must have been some support for them over the years? No?
I wonder if she regrets the comment about shiboleths now. But you guys shockingly supported her at the time
LarryN on said:
I hear the sound of distant drums Far away, far away And if they call, for me to come Then I must go, and you must stay So Johnnie Rees marry me.
Phil on said:
Richard*: Again, we have this problem with internet gossip, which just runs with knee-jerk hostility to the SWP without any basis in fact. There were meetings concerning the Mutiny issue, and the participants knew full well what the reasons were for asking that it be suspended. They may not have accepted the reasons, but they were given in some detail.
And where can the rest of us find these reasons?
Observing from outside the SWP, the only sources we’ve got are official statements, leaks, statements by dissidents and statements by ex-members. From the SWP member’s perspective, dissidents and ex-members have got the wrong perspective and leaks should be ignored – so what does that leave? Reliance on “Internet gossip” to flesh out the official line is inevitable in this situation.
In the case of the disciplining / expulsion of the Mutiny comrades, the only background information we’ve got access to is the piece in the IB with the incriminating emails, which struck me as remarkably thin and almost entirely apolitical. Come to think of it, as outside observers we shouldn’t even have access to that.
*Sorry, mate – I usually respect pseudonyms, but I can’t write a reply to “lenin” without cracking up.
Anonymous on said:
Obviously this is part of the wider crisis in leadership of the left, but I think its disgraceful the way that some people are happy to fall back on right wing stereotypes of left activists when events like this occur, taking pleasure from where we are, a dramtic fall from where we were just 6 or 7 years ago.
I see a few SSP members on here who claim the SWPs behaviour was terrible in the SSP and are still going on about the split in that party. Can any of you actually detail this behaviour or do you think that it is enough just to state that it happened without backing it up? Personally I never noticed it, all I noticed was a constant paranoid SWP bashing from ISM members and especially at the party’s newspaper. That often took the form of calling them “London” based or “English”.
I was an SSP member at that time and thought that the SWP going to Solidarity was inevitable after the NC of May 2006 when the wider membership of the SSP rejected the leadership clique. The SWP were always going to side with the majority and with the side with the better electoral chances. Hindsight might mean that we can call that a mistake now, but there was little choice at the time. The SSP couldnt be a united front after the court case and their choice was try to build another one with solidarity or opt out.
Nas on said:
johng: at the risk of inflaming matters, there’s the way the leadership destroyed all relations with not only George Galloway, but all the non-SWP figures in Respect; then there’s the way they continued with a policy of pretending the George Galloway and Salma Yaqoob did not exist (remember the airbrushing of Viva Palestina, with what coverage there was in Socialist Worker less than even the BBC’s); then there’re the intemperate attacks on Ken Livingstone, followed by the, dare I say, voluntarism in pushing a miserable demonstration in London against the BNP following the London elections…
Now, I imagine the counter-argument is that that was all under the previous administration. But the current leadership were the previous administration. I suppose reference might also be made to work in the fronts where the SWP’s effort is led by others than Rees and German: the Right to Work thing, UAF, etc. We’ll see. Mistrust of the SWP runs incredibly deep. In particular, the hopelessly wrong emphasis over the construction workers dispute last year has further undermined the SWP’s reputation. As ever, there appears to be a tacit acknowledgement that the emphasis was wrong while publicly party members continue the line of sticking it to the Socialist Party for alleged accommodation to chauvinism.
Or we could look at the way the SWP has circumvented a process to select a candidate in Manchester Gorton and announced its own anyway.
As I said – this risks inflaming matters. In answering your question, the point I’m making is that it takes a lot more than a trade union based campaign conference (of the kind which was held by the SWP in the early 1990s or, ahem, with Offu) to amount to serious political relationships.
And building “networks of resistance” to prepare for future “explosions of struggle” just sounds drearily familiar. It’s been said since the late 1980s. It just doesn’t get to grips with how a *political* response to the crisis of working class organisation is going to emerge.
Halshall on said:
Good to see the Comrades in such fine fighting fettle.
I’m sure if they keep beating each other up so well they’ll terrify the ruling class,
[ whilst they choke on their martinis with laughter ].
As soon as this pub closes !
Another9 on said:
**IF THIS EXCHANGE IS TO BE, I think it is incumbent upon an admin to edit to include the *full* dialogue, which puts the last statements into context.***
Lindsey,
I acknowledge receipt of your resignation and have amended our records accordingly.
Please note it is your responsibility to inform your bank to close your Direct Debit/Standing Order.
Martin Smith (SWP National Secretary)
[* This is a letter all members receive when they resign from the SWP. It is a legal obligation to explain to comrades that it is their responsibility to notify their bank to cancel their DD/SO.]
Dear Lindsey,
I am responding to your letter of resignation you sent to me earlier today (my earlier acknowledgment was required for legal/banking purposes).
On behalf of the CC I would like to say that we regret very much your decision to leave the SWP. We are very surprised that you regarded this matter as a resignation issue.
As we made clear to you in our correspondence we felt the disagreements could have been resolved at a meeting between you and ourselves.
The question of disciplinary action was brought into the discussion by you, not by us. Your resignation is your personal choice and was not forced on you or demanded by the Central Committee.
I would also like to assure you that we will continue to build the Stop the War Coalition and where possible work with you in a constructive and positive way.
Martin Smith (SWP National Secretary)
Paul Stott on said:
#206 Just in case the reference to ‘as soon as this pub closes’ was above the heads of some, below is a link to the classic document.
I found it a little harsh on Red Action (RIP) but it is still great knock about even today:
http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Sectariana/Pub.html
Matt on said:
“I love the way johng sees it as his mission to put a positive spin on this. ‘These things happen, it will all be for the best etc’.”
I think in reality John is simply one of the few comrades who can consistenly stand to wade through these wheezing bumvavles of seething sectarian bluster to defend our perspectives and democratic decisions. Fair play to him, at least he seems to exist in the real world aswell as the internet in terms of political activity.
Halshall on said:
# 208
Thanks Paul for that link to ‘as soon as this pub closes’ which I was unaware of. [I shall peruse it at leisure]
Actually I was thinking of the Alex Glasgow song. [ there may be a link to that on You Tube, but I haven’t yet checked ]
yoghurt currantsy german on said:
#205 Isn’t it possible, Nas darling, that you realise that you’re not even inflaming matters, but trying to re-write the history of a conflict that has little to do with this one? After all at the time you were claiming that a faction would arise in the SWP that would reject the Rees-German gang and patch things up on Galloway’s terms, lo and behold when the Rees-German leadership was replaced nothing of the sort happened.
#208 I think it’s a classic too. I particularly remember the part about the Discussion Group (predecessors of the RCP) who would sit around in pubs talking to each other, but not bothering to communicate with the wider world.
johng on said:
Well Nas I take your point about the presence of many (though not all) of the current leadership during the debacles you mention. But its nevertheless the case that the political shifts in the leadership (as well as shifts of personel) represent a step away from the worst of those errors. Obviously the proof of that particular pudding will be in the eating but the couple of snacks we’ve had in the meantime seem to point in the right direction. In particular the non-ultimast approach to electoral activity, the way we are conducting ourselves within UAF, and, yes, the fact that the RTW conference seemed (not just to those of us in the SWP) to mark a better way of organising. On the wider question of long term political relationships and struggles on the trade union front, our differences here probably just are differences in politics. We don’t see this front as somehow secondary, or less important in Britain today. However its fine to have those differences (although tricky if your in the same organisation given the obvious strategic importance of such work to an organisation with our kind of politics). In terms of the drearily familiar. Well the form might look similar but I think most would say that there is a world of difference between the subsequently sabotaged OFFU initiative and the RTW conference. And one could say the same about other areas of work. Personally I’m a little suspicious of the supposed novelty of what is frequently presented as new. The paradoxical situation is having a left which has been fragmented at the same time as the dominant form of working class crisis is in deep crisis. Engaging with both ends of this dilemma is a learning curve. I think its pretty clear that the learning curve was initially so steep we fell off, but we’re now back on it. Not an especially grandoise claim but a reasonable one.
Dustin the Turkey on said:
“my earlier acknowledgment was required for legal/banking purposes”
I must remember that line next time I break up with someone.
johng on said:
dominant form of working class politics is in deep crisis. the crisis is of course always in crisis.
Nas on said:
#211 “After all at the time you were claiming that a faction would arise in the SWP that would reject the Rees-German gang and patch things up on Galloway’s terms…” erm, no, I never imagined such a thing would happen. I do know that there are a number of SWP members who now reject the rubbish they were fed at the time of the split, but that’s a different thing.
johng: I think you are falling into the trap of creating false dichotomies or inflating secondary differences. The trade unions remain the single biggest expression of working class organisation. But everyone who believes in working class self emancipation needs to consider the decline in union organisation – not simply in numbers, but in the consciousness of its cadre.
I think it was you who recently picked up on a quote from Duncan Hallas in the early 1970s pointing out that the vanguard of the socialist/communist movement that had been forged in the 1920s and 1930s had, in effect, gone. That was in the early 1970s – with all those trade union struggles, socialist militants, diffusion of socialist ideas and so on. How much greater is that stubborn fact now? So how is Marxism going to be reintegrated into the working class in Britain?
That requires not novel thinking for the sake of it, but coming to terms with a situation that is not simply a continuation of the last 40 years but with a low level of struggle that should return to trend (after 10, 15, 20, 25 years?).
Callinicos wrote an interesting piece a couple of years back which did look at changing patterns of working class organisation and power, from the Paris Commune, through the classical soviet to the geographically structured uprising in Bolivia and counter-coup in Venezuela. That is far more fruitful than the unnecessarily oppositional approach of many SWP members in counterposing “community-based” Respect and “class-based” real socialists.
Socialist politics in Britain has been successful when they have been embedded in working class communities, and those communities were structured by the labour process and the world of work. Re-embedding socialist politics now means confronting the question of how to rebuild collectivities and recreate a proletarian subject.
As for such differences of emphasis being tricky if you are in the same organisation – I think you exaggerate. There was nothing tricky about Respect building an electoral base – clearly in working class communities – and seeking to be part of rejuvenating workplace organisation. It became tricky only when for factional reasons Rees decided to counterpose the one to the other and, for example, to refuse to broaden the concept of the Offu conference to include people who were evidently working class activists, but were not trade unionists – which is what it is reported was done with the Right to Work conference.
Class and working class politics were then put in opposition to the development of Respect’s electoral base. None of this was inevitable. It all had to do with political choices.
One of the casualties of those choices is, to my mind, a retreat by the SWP, following a horrible couple of years, from open-mindedly and creatively responding to the actual crisis of the working class.
Jo on said:
since anonymous at number 204 begins by requesting evidence of the SWP’s behaviour in the SSP split, can I, as a former editor of the SSP’s newspaper, assure him (I assume him) he’ll find not one single incident of the SWP described as ‘English’ in the Voice of that period. because it never happened, as opposed to ‘often’ as he states. I mention it just seeing as he’s raising an issue of someone saying something and not backing it up. as for ‘london-based’, well, they are, aren’t they?
johng on said:
Nas. I was’nt talking about Respect. And yes despite a lot of what you say being true, I just don’t agree that Trade Unions are not the single most important field of activity for socialists in modern Britain. This is far from counterposing such activity to other areas of activity: ie electoral work, campaign work, community work etc. Such activity has been hampered by some of the real set-backs suffered by the trade union movement (the story of Respect would have been very different if the developing crisis of representation in the unions had been faster: there is an element of turning neccessities into virtues in some of your arguments which I think should be avoided. After all my understanding is that Respect understands the need for a national alternative and also understands that it certainly is not that itself yet). But its a complex and contradictory picture: those weaknesses are also producing cracks in allegences within the trade unions (as yet merely cracks) which are important for future political projects. Its also true that given the sheer scale of the attacks we are facing we are also going to face a political crisis inside that movement about how to take them on. I know the passage you refer to by Callinicos: The truth? I didn’t like it much and thought it a bit of a lazy argument, reflecting perhaps unresolved political arguments of the time. Then again I think the group of theorists he was talking about were mostly pants anyway but I’m in a bit of a minority on that question amongst those interested in such things.
johng on said:
What we do need is a more detailed picture of what has been happening in the unions from the standpoint of socialist activists. This can only proceed in tandem with a growing and more serious orientation in practice though.
Martel on said:
# 207 It is not the full dialogue though is it? It is rather a postscript.
Rather Smith sent an unpleasant vindictive reply which is typical of him. When he realised it was getting published and rightly making him look like a complete d*ck, he sent out this second conceited email.
I also think the SWP should endeavour to keep him off news programmes as he is completely inept.
johng on said:
why was it published, is in any case the real question. As for accusations of ‘rudeness’. Well you have a prominant member, involving an important area of work, refusing to meet with the CC to discuss a matter of contention. Its hardly surprising that matters get terse. Its then leaked after the individual voluntarily resigns (I mean within hours for goodness sake) and actually ends up on Military Families Against the War. Thats the real scandal here. Absolutely extraordinary behaviour.
Stockwell Pete on said:
#219 “I also think the SWP should endeavour to keep him off news programmes as he is completely inept.”
But Martin Smith was a very big star back in the day . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaTxTPAMduM
(I have shamelessly plagiarised this idea from Splintered Sunrise!)
in despair on said:
The idea that Mr Smith send this ‘legal’ document by email when ever someone resigns is simply nonsense. Most ex-members will tell you that their resignations are met with …. absolute silence.
LarryN on said:
#216
Of course they are fortress London based, with cc members living in Scotland.I do not mind that, but to be bussing down people to vote at a divisory conference does show the length they will go to split any organisation within the political sphere of London.
Thank goodness the SSP sussed them out. And I hope rural England comradeswake up to the fact that London will use and abuse them.
Like airbrushing a Birmingham Respect member, a dodgy cheque, expelling comrades they deemed to close to GG and even sacking a family man.
The list of bullying boorish behaviour is long by fortress London. If they want to improve their tarnished image. They should call in the Soprano Family. They have more street cred than dictator Martin Smith. Well he does feel safe and probably so, in London.
Arise the rurals!
Nas on said:
johng: the “most important” field of activity for socialists is going to vary according to their circumstances. What is overriding is the strategic orientation. That ought to be on the recomposition of a working class, socialist movement. The trade unions, and work in them, are a part of that, but not the whole. And so much of what the far left does in the trade unions is, well, nothing more than good trade union work.
The point, for me, about Respect is that it was an actual expression of the process of radicalisation produced by the Iraq War. It advanced way beyond traditional left of Labour electoral politics and far further than trade union political breakages from Labour. That’s just life and reflected the contours of the movement in Britain. Now, at that point the issue was how to develop Respect with a strategic orientation on recreating working class, socialist politics in Britain. How that would happen would necessarily be uneven across the country, given the uneven nature of Respect and of other organisations and processes.
That required, and requires, patience and a ruthlessly honest assessment of the condition of the working class and its organisations. Instead, what happened when the 2006 election results took us forward, but with less rooted elements of the coalition lagging slightly behind and therefore not being elected, was a lurch, a foreshortening of perspective and a false polarisation between supposed class and community politics.
The result was a lot of breast-beating about trade unions, but absolutely no work in the nexus between radicalised, geographically based working class voters and the workplaces, labour processes they were involved in.
Put a bit rudely – talk of trade unions meant puffing up a lot of usually white-collar leftists rather than any strategic, serious drive to – for example – address the low levels of unionisation in Tower Hamlets and to bring the traditions of working class organisation alive to a new layer of people in new circumstances.
To be honest – I think too much of what so many people on the left say about the centrality of the trade unions leaves out of the picture how trade union organisation was in fact built in the first place. It just strikes me as more informed by reminiscences about glory days in Nalgo than it does about Bryant and May, Bread and Roses, or Minneapolis.
johng on said:
Are people really upset by a few terse email exchanges? I don’t really understand it I must confess.
VofH on said:
http://www.harryworth.info/
Fab stuff
Stockwell Pete on said:
#226 I see that he was born in 1917 too! LOL
jim mclean on said:
204# The SWP surely sided with the minority, I joined the SSP after the split but my reading of the situation at the time was that the CWI and SWP acting on figures supplied by the CWI made a grab for power under Tommy and only when they realised that their figures were wrong and Tommy would lose did the SWP authorise support for a split. Since the split Solidarity has basically collapsed and if it were not for the support of SWP activists it would be bankrupt. The majority of CWI members have long gone. Me, I think I’ll join the Wobblies, suits my disfunctional class based politicald beliefs far more than the dogmatic approach of the leftisit parties.
Martel on said:
# 225
Socialism is meant to be a humane mission, seeking to help those failed by capitalism.
Therefore you expect a socialist to act humanely to people in their everyday dealings.
I have no respect for people who claim to be socialist abstractly though in actual practice they act with disregard and lack of any humanity and treat people with contempt.
They would be better out of the movement.
The Ferret aKa LarryN on said:
What has happened to the “old mole”? Is his head up his hole, (larder)
(Irish) Mark P on said:
#216: Jo, my recollection from my relatively brief time in the SSP is that you are correct and that the SWP were not called “English” in the Scottish Socialist Voice.
However, it was extremely common for them to be referred to as “London based” or “English” in general conversation, in debated in branches or down the pub. There certainly was a hostile attitude to them on the part of many in the party, and part of that stemmed from the perception that they were insufficiently gung-ho on the national question for the tastes of some.
Bob on said:
#216 Jo, the way the Voice was used and abused after Tommy’s court case was disgusting and one of the main reasons I left the SSP.
When I phoned the Voice to raise my concern you were quite frankly rude and arrogant.
Those actions were a major tactical error, and just for the record, I am not and never been a member of any platform.
johng on said:
Nas you are again missing my point (as well as, quite wrongly, interpreting what I’m saying as a defence of things done three years ago-things can sound the same without being the same). What I am actually saying is this. There is no possibility of a national left alternative being built in a country like Britain without serious input from the existing trade union movement. What happens inside this existing trade union movement matters OBJECTIVELY, quite independently of what we think about it. A harsh assessment of the left would have to conclude that in relationship to the size and scale of the trade union movement, that left is PUNY. It is not possible for example, to organise the unorganised, in whatever type of community you are talking about, without a relationship to and close connections with, actually existing trades unions whatever their limitations. Certainly not on a national scale. And yes this does include quite a lot of white-collar workers (not an inconsiderable part of the workforce). Trade Unions, given their size and spread, are inevitably a central part of any possible kind of radical or socialist strategy whatsoever in a country like Britain. As to the last part of what you say: I just think its untrue. I don’t think for example, the RTW conference was tedious or did not talk about politics etc, etc. I think its just stereotypes.
anon on said:
228 –
The SWP definently sided with the majority of SSP members in deploring the activities of the SSP leadership clique and leaving the SSP. I attended the SSP national committee meetings at the time (with approx 100 delegates) where the leadership clique were throughly outvoted. They were a geographic minority too, with only a minority of SSP members in the central belt staying with the leadership and virtually all members in Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness, and other parts of Scotland leaving.
johng on said:
Don’t really understand what is ‘inhuman’ about asking a senior member of the organisation to be democratically accountable to that organisation in the same way as any other member is. This has now been going on for something like two years and there is a bit of a compassion shortage I’m afraid. Its also true, as stated, that this was a political move chosen by Lyndsey. That is absolutely clear given the speed with which this was leaked, who it was leaked to, and where it ended up on soldiers families against the war, put there by one of their close collaberators. Are we really supposed to believe that this is all about humanity?
Please.
Nas on said:
“It is not possible for example, to organise the unorganised, in whatever type of community you are talking about, without a relationship to and close connections with, actually existing trades unions whatever their limitations.”
But what do you do when a section of working people, who are largely unorganised at work, begin to organise in a different way, based on where they live, who they vote for and what politics they want to see in those who represent them?
Of course what happens inside the trade union movement matters. But that doesn’t mean pursuing the struggle as it actually emerges and seeking to anchor it in renewed working class organisation.
I’m sorry if you think I’m simply dealing in stereotypes, and I’m sure that people at the RTW talked about politics. It’s just that I think that what is required is more far reaching than “bringing politics into the workplace”, “political trade unionism” or similar formulae.
One big thing that worries me, John, is that the way you are arguing this reminds me of nothing more than what the SWP said at the time of the poll tax. Verities about trade unions being the most important field of activity and the workplace being the achilles heel of capitalism led to a dismissive approach to what was the actual course of working class struggle and attempts to forge organisation.
I think the course of working class struggle is going to be much more varied than it simply emerging through the portal of the trade unions. When you look at it, that’s in fact been a rather rare phenomenon in the history of anti-capitalist struggles.
Old Mole on said:
LarryN, you truly have an unsavoury and unhealthy obsession with macho posturing.
Since you’re too dim to work it out, “deatched” is what “detatched” often comes out like when tapped out on a battered old keyboard that is prone to typos.
Still, at least your sense of humour extends as far as picking up on typing mistakes, calling people middle class (ho ho!) and repeating yourself like a spoilt, drooling infant being ignored by his parents.
Nas on said:
Sorry, there’s a not missing in the third paragraph.
Anyway – I think this all boils down to what you do when you have a base, however localised, in working class communities. I don’t think delimiting that artificially by invoking the centrality of the unions – which are in a poor state – is sensible.
Rather, I think it comes down to seriously engaging in how you progress that base in the context of the strategic orientation discussed above. The forms of organisation and activity that gives rise to are much more open-ended than you seem to allow for.
johng on said:
It might resemble what was said about the Poll Tax. But it does’nt make it the same. One thing which we stress is that it is vital that trade unions link up with communities in struggles: the fight over TH college being treated as one model. Where new struggles did emerge (particularly amongst marginalised groups of workers) it would be an absolute responsibility to hook up with unions as fast as you could. If there are mass community campaigns emerging, of course that would require particular kinds of approaches. But lets be brutal. There is little sign of this in Britain, and being disillusioned about what is in Britain without question the main arena of politics and organisation (whether we like it or not, simply in aggregate) won’t make it magically appear. One question: what do you mean that its been rare for trade unions to be central to anti-capitalist struggles? I’m not at all sure what you mean here. Are you talking about the very recent past? And where?
johng on said:
I mean community organisations are in a far worse state then trade unions are. OK I’m being deliberately provocative, but what would be your response?
Owen on said:
#228 ‘Since the split Solidarity has basically collapsed’
Seriously what is the point of writing garbage like this. Solidarity has not collapsed. In the recent Glasgow by election it polled nearly 800 votes to the SSP’s 152. It should also be noted that Solidarity asked the SSP to consider a unity candidate in that election and the SSP refused.
In all fairness Jim, sticking our chests out and making daft comments serves no purpose whatsover other than to ensure that the Scottish left remains divided.
AndyB on said:
“They were a geographic minority too, with only a minority of SSP members in the central belt staying with the leadership and virtually all members in Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness, and other parts of Scotland leaving.”
No they didn’t. Theres plenty of SSP members in Aberdeen and Dundee, despite the split who are active.
http://aberdeenssp.org/
http://dundeessp.org/blog/
tone on said:
the email exchange is saddening. Meeting the resignation of a person who has devoted a good part of their life to working class struggle with such callous indifference is distasteful at best. No doubts Smith felt, when framing his response, that his reply was dispassionate and self assured. Subsequently the email has provoked no little amount of surprise and irritation. Smith later insists that he was only getting the legal nitty gritty out of the way first.
In fact the legal details could have easily been made part of an email which offered as well a genuine recognition of this comrade’s contribution to the orginisation. Now that the leaking of this email has provoked irritation and surprise on the part of many that have read it, Smith is trying to mitigate the damage it has done using the whole legal issue. Such a device is characteristic of bourgeois politicians when they realise they have angered the ‘rabble’ and use the first flimsy rationalisation in order to diffuse the situation.
Now people like Johng rather loftily chastise others for dwelling on trivial details such as an exchange of emails. I wonder if he might not have a slightly different attitude if a boss was as casually dismissive with a worker at the end of a 37 year tenure?
Lynsey on said:
“I was an SSP member at that time and thought that the SWP going to Solidarity was inevitable after the NC of May 2006 when the wider membership of the SSP rejected the leadership clique. The SWP were always going to side with the majority and with the side with the better electoral chances. Hindsight might mean that we can call that a mistake now, but there was little choice at the time. The SSP couldnt be a united front after the court case and their choice was try to build another one with solidarity or opt out.”
LOL! Leadership clique! Anonymous, if you were at that NC then you know fine well what the SWP did, and your phony ignorance is played out. They behaved appallingly, and what they did has been well documented all over the internet and in SSP mailouts to members. Do some googling instead of demanding that we play along with your ignorant act.
The SWP cannae just keep trying to get away with behaving in outrageous manners and then pretending it never happened.
And to all the folk who want to believe the SSP is bad for not going with ‘unity’ with Solidarity: 1) They split from us and 2) We are currently involved in ongoing legal proceedings where his defence is predicated on the idea that everyone in the SSP are liars or deluded. Your criticisms and armchair calls for unity are ludicrous, as I have said before.
Lynsey on said:
“The SWP definently sided with the majority of SSP members in deploring the activities of the SSP leadership clique and leaving the SSP. I attended the SSP national committee meetings at the time (with approx 100 delegates) where the leadership clique were throughly outvoted. They were a geographic minority too, with only a minority of SSP members in the central belt staying with the leadership and virtually all members in Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness, and other parts of Scotland leaving.”
See if SSP members cannae get into this stuff because it’s sub judice, can we stop anonymous stirrers posting nonsense like this?
And you’re wrong about the spread and practically everyone leavings. And BTW, it wouldnae have been hard to take all of Inverness since it was Mr. Arnott’s own personal club.
SSP currently has a thriving Aberdeen branch, btw. And other parts of Scotland? What, everywhere except Glasgow and Edinburgh, you mean? Tell it to all the folk outside those cities; why not try it on the Arran branch?
Lynsey on said:
“There certainly was a hostile attitude to them on the part of many in the party, and part of that stemmed from the perception that they were insufficiently gung-ho on the national question for the tastes of some.”
No. It stemmed from their outrageous behaviour, underhanded tactics and brazen lack of commitment to the SSP project; essentially they adopted an entryist regime, and when they thought Tommy gave them a better chance of more paper sales and more members they went with him, despite slagging him for years about independence, and he them. They never gave a shit about the SSP, and we knew it.
Alan G on said:
“virtually all members in Dundee, …leaving.”
Utter garbage. About half to 2/3rds in Dundee left.
The last Solidarity meeting in Dundee advertised was over a year ago and the advertised meetings clashed with when the SWP met.
I can’t recall the last time I saw any activity in Dundee in the name Solidarity and for about 2 years any time members have been active in public they have declared themselves as members of CWI or SWP, I can’t recall the last time any of them acknowledged themselves as being Solidarity members.
Owen on said:
# 243: Let’s not go into the court case or the events that happended five years ago.
On the question of left unity, I understand your point that unity between the handful of individuals involved in the court case is ludicrous. But it would have been possible to have stood a candidate innocous to both sides. The same is also true of the forthcoming election where it is possible for grassroots activists to work together. In some parts of the country Solidarity and SSP members already work together on joint campaigns.
Eddie Truman on said:
#247 “handful of individuals involved in the court case…”
It’s not a handful, it’s hundreds.
I would certainly hope, in a personal capacity, that all those in Scotland intending to mount a left of Labour challenge in Scotland can at least agree to a non aggression pact.
From my own, again personal, point of view I am really looking forward to the Colin Fox v Alistair Darling contest in Edinburgh.
I’ll put 10 quid on us not getting more than 1% of the vote on election day but there’s a great team of comrades with decades of experience and a party growing rapidly on opposition to the Afghanistan occupation that can put up a great campaign.
Bet we get on the national news !
unity - you know it makes sense on said:
I remember a time when the SSP used to celebrate the fact that it united the different left formations in Scotland. Now the rump that’s left celebrates the fact that they are better off without both the CWI and SWP.
Vastly exaggerated claims about a resurgence in both membership and profile hide the fact that when last tested at the ballot box the SSP polled 0.7% in their former “socialist citadel of Glasgow” (copyright A McCombes)
in despair on said:
John G “I don’t think for example, the RTW conference was tedious or did not talk about politics etc, etc.”
Though of course it must be said that some people were told on a number of occasions that they could not hand out ‘political leaflets’ of have ‘political’ stalls. It seems that just some politics were allowed – those the SWP deemed suitable.
One supporter of Jerry Hicks was told he couldn’t hand out leaflets as it was a ‘fire risk’
Owen on said:
As I said before let us ignore the court case and the ‘hundreds’ of people in the SSP now involved.
Let’s focus on the election. I agree with Eddie’s points about non-agression pacts. However a wee word of caution about the SSP ‘growing rapidly on opposition to the Afghanistan occupation’.
This is just nonsense mate. Spin that even people in your own party would laugh at.It’s this kind of stuff that we can do without. I’m close to many people in the SSP and they all contradict this.
I also think some of the public meetings on Afghanistan have been a missed opportunity. In certain areas had you focused on opposition to council cuts you could have really tapped into something. Near to where I live over 100 people attended a public meeting against council cuts. A couple of nights later the SSP had a meeting on Afghanistan in the same venue with hardly anyone there, expcept for the same old faces. I’m not knocking you for trying, but it was a classic example of the left getting the issue wrong and not understanding the immediate priorities of working class people.
Anonymous on said:
A non-aggression pact is virtually impossible in Scotland while the SSP ignore all calls to negotiate over who stands where. Colin Fox should obviously not have announced he would stand against darling when he knows the CWU no2 branch were planning to stand a candidate in the same seat. I was looking forward to that contest until Fox announced he was standing, now it will be a waste of time for the left.
The SSP behave like the SLP in England, to Fox and Scargill left unity means joining them, the one true holy apostolic socialist party.
I am not a member of any post-split formation in Scotland, but its very obvious that Solidarity are looking to build some sort of electoral pact while the SSP are pinning all of their hopes on Sheridan being jailed.
Eddie Truman on said:
#253 “Colin Fox should obviously not have announced he would stand against darling when he knows the CWU no2 branch were planning to stand a candidate in the same seat.”
What on earth are you talking about ?
You’ve made that up.
Andy Newman on said:
No CWU branch could stand a parliamantery candidate, as the CWU is affiliated to the Labour Party.
Karen Elliot on said:
#235: “Don’t really understand what is ‘inhuman’…”
Really? It is many years since I have seen anything quite so depraved and wicked as Martin Smith’s calculated insult to a benighted comrade in suggesting that, having resigned, she might also like to cancel her monthly standing order.
Owen on said:
#254
The point Eddie is how can you claim to be supporting non-aggression pacts when your candidates are selected in advance and you have refused to talk to other forces on the left.
I wouldnt get too excited about Fox versus Darling either. Most people dont even know who Colin Fox is. Last time around in the Scottish Parliamentary elections Fox couldnt even get more votes than the miniscule Scottish Christian Party.
It’s time the SSP faced reality. The Scottish left is in a mess-let’s stop the delusions about ‘rapid growth’.
GBS Larking on said:
Is johng real or is it an SWP bot that responds automatically to criticism? One of the longest standing members resigns – and the arguement becomes one of procedure. Is that the IS tradition or the tradition of Cliff, Hallas, Foot?
Is it a coincidence that someone called ‘lenin’ appears (on the *internet* – rather than as a result of working class self activity) – at exactly the same time that the last semblance of the IS tradition disappears; and when working class self activity is at a very low ebb?
Does everything have to be so un-comradely?
Could it be suggested to the new troika of Bennett, Smith and Bradley that if they want to organise the working class they should become part of that class? Politically, philosophically and in the spirit of comradeship?
This is Britain in 2010, not an imagined Russia of the 1920s. They were never there, they never will be.
AndyB on said:
Owen obviously the Scottish Left is in a mess and will be unable to make headway for some time. But Eddies point is still justified, in the past few months the Afghanistan issue has been one we’ve focused on. It doesn’t mean hundreds of people are joining the SSP etc but it has meant significant groups of people across areas of the country, enough to start new branches with.
I take your point regarding council cuts but I’m guessing that meeting was called by a TU or community council and would therefore have much more pulling power than any left party anyway?
As for Edinburgh CWU, we’ve not heard about any candidate they are standing. There is no mention of it on their site http://www.tusc.org.uk/candidates.php
There are several other Edinburgh constituencies the SSP are not standing in for TUSC to mount a challenge.
River on said:
The real issue, that seems to have been totally ignored here, is that the CC felt they had the right to instruct the Convenor of STW not to attend a STW branch meeting. This is clearly laid out in the email correspondance.
This implies that they believe STW officials who are SWP members are not accountable to STW members, but to the SWP CC. This is certainly not ‘socialism from below’.
Would they have taken this stance with someone who was the convenor of a Trade Union? What implications does this have when we’re trying to get lefts elected to Trade Union positions?
steve arnott on said:
Mr. Arnott would dispute Lynsey from the SSP (post 245)when she says ‘And BTW, it wouldnae have been hard to take all of Inverness since it was Mr. Arnott’s own personal club.’
Between 1999 and 2003, on the basis of the promise of the SSP, we built a party of 12 branches, over 200 members, in the Highlands and Islands. Our influence was such that sections of the media were shocked that we came less than a thousand votes short of winning a regional seat. Although ‘Mr. Arnott’ was re-elected by SSP party members in the region as party organiser year after year unanimously or overwhelmingly, he didn’t always get his own way. In the ballot for top of the list candidate for the 2003 Holyrood elections at least a third, perhaps more, of party members voted for other candidates. It’s a bit silly to say that all those people were puppets dangled from ‘Mr.Arnott’s’ expert hand.
‘Mr. Arnott’ suspects there might have been a little demonisation going on in the ranks of the SSP.
Okay, enough of the mister Arnott stuff. i’m not sure i know Lynsey, but in the spirit of socialist dialogue I’d like to invite her and a friend up to the Highlands to meet myself and other Solidarity members. It’s unlikely we will change each others minds about anything but you have to start somewhere. This is a genuine offer and regardless of what political differences we have, Lynsey, you’ll be made welcome and treated with the utmost courtesy.
Lastly, and on what I hope will be a positive note in a thread that’s often been quite divisive, I welcome Eddie Truman’s comments in support of a non-aggression pact in Scotland. The DGS magazine has been arguing for such a position for some time. It seems a sensible way to proceed. Highlands Solidarity will stand in at least one or two seats in the area, but we are open to contact from the SSP, Greens or anyone else to try and come to an agreement
LevDavidovich on said:
You devious bastard!
You’re painting Martin Smith to be frigid and unfair. That last email is the standard letter any swp member gets when they resign. In Lindsey’s special case Martin Smith wrote an extra letter, which you would have gotten if your comrade sent you the full transcript that was sent to all SWP members this afternoon.
What really annoys me here is that there are 261 people above me at the time of writing, all with different opinions…all probably socialists. But instead of going out and campaigning with other socialists and forces on the left to rid this world of capitalism and fight against the dangers of the right, you choose to sit here and tut at the ‘inefficacy of the SWP’. This is all made worse by the fact that the author intentionally missed out the last stage of correspondence.
ryutin on said:
when i resigned they didnt send me shit, they phoned me six months later asking for cash though
cheaper drugs now on said:
#253 “but its very obvious that Solidarity are looking to build some sort of electoral pact while the SSP are pinning all of their hopes on Sheridan being jailed”.
I am not a member of any party having left the SSP because I do not feel that Independence is of any relevance to the majority of working class people in Scotland but I must pull you up on this one.
The majority of SSP members I know of regret the split and if Tommy had heeded them, and from what I have read this included SWP members, this split would not have happened at that time. Few people if any want anybody gaoled.
Solidarity are looking for some form of electoral pact.
Bull, I recognise one or two brave figures who want some form of unity but their leaders, they attack everbody they can, SSP, SLP, anybody outside their clique, and that clique is SWP to the core, so less talk of Solidarity and accept them for what they are SWP Scottish section
Luke on said:
#265, Considering Solidarity’s National Steering Committee voted unanimously to back a non-Solidarity, united left candidate in Glasgow NE by-election you are clearly talking balls. This meant postponing the start of out campaign whilst we strenously sought this possibility. The national office bearers were the main drivers behind this. Incidentally the SWP normally only have 2 or 3 people at NSCs so you are probably the most ignorant person on this entire thread even though we mostly confess to not knowing much!
Luke on said:
Lynsey, if you really knew anything that went/goes on In Inverness you would know that there have been many heated discussions and that Steve Arnott far from always gets his own way. I find it particularly halarious that I and others are seen as Steve’s henchmen or however you view it. As for spying on the forum you know fine that was me and it was agreed no disciplinary action was taken because there was no forum rules, so how could I have been aware what I did was so evil.
I know you like to boast about ‘being a member since I was 12’ (never seen you for years though!), but you could start acting older than that now.
Luke on said:
Andy Newman, The Endinburgh CWU branch left Labour and affiliated to the SSP years ago. The have since decided to stand a CWU candidate against Darling under the TUSC umbrella. Anyone who thinks the SSP could mount a more credible challenge than the posties who are at the forefront of challenging cuts to living standards and public services is seriosly deluded. If Eddie or anyone else in the SSP is serious about non-agression pacts then please stop announcing candidates untill we discuss this.
Alan G, Solidarity in Dundee held an open branch meeting with over 20 last summer (granted thats higher than the norm) so your prophicies of our impending doom are a tad premature.
Fuck, i’d managed to stay away from these hotbeds of sectarianism for about 3 years untill now. It’s crazy what a couple of nights of insomnia will make you do! And reading untruths of course!
arch on said:
This thread is funny, it contains all sorts of tears for Lindsey by people who only yesterday where calling her a tyrant etc etc.
I am sad how its ended up but politics is not about being sad or happy. Lindsey was not able to accept the vast majority verdict at conference. The accountability of SWP members is of course to the party. Members need to be accountable it is as simple as that, trade union exec members, members in leading positions in united front work have to work under the direction of the Party. It is democratic, because otherwise it simply says leading members can do what they like and do not have to follow the democratically arrived at views of the membership.
So lets get over this baiting of the SWP and do something useful.
DM on said:
hear hear
The Ferret aKa LarryN on said:
Old Mole. you back stabbing coward and halfwit.
Bloggers here, still want you to explain what German’s stunts were in November. We all know truth is a stranger to you. If you are going to smear people, do it with proven facts. You, that is so devoid of commonsense and with an abundance of hot air, your only excuse for being a SWP organiser.
So I am correct that deatched is not in the dictionary and yet, you attempted to show all, how limited my working class education is.
Stay, with head up your hole, Mole. If you want to practice computer geek words, this website is not the place and I am one of the last people in here you should try to impress. Your comrades think “your a nice person but awful thick”
Is the new approach in political education of the SWP goons, to bamboozle the masses with words that are not in dictionary. Tower Hamlets all over again, where you were turfed out for macho anti working class hectoring and bullying. Respect sorted you out. Give over fool
What other calumnities can we expect from your ilk, when your spokesperson, Martin Smith makes a complete arse of himself on telly regards the BNP. You have neither the will, guts and IQ to to remove the Marty Smith impedient. whether it be the left platform or the SWP, a plague on both your houses.
Moles are deemed blind a very apt description of you, the Blind Pugh, nasty back stabbing coward.
PS,I should not have tainted the middle classes. It is more appropriate to use the words “SWP Cretins” when addressing your ilk.
Ray on said:
“This thread is funny, it contains all sorts of tears for Lindsey by people who only yesterday where calling her a tyrant etc etc.”
It’s hilarious! 270 post generated by those who, before her resignation, wouldn’t piss on Lindsay if she was burning in the gutter and would probably have been the ones who set her alight in the first place.
The fact that a thread called, “Addressing the crisis of the left’ on SU receives just 17 posts speaks volumes about the priorities of these foul weather Lindsey supporters.
Ray on said:
The biggest laugh is that this rabble of sectarians think that any of us in the SWP should be accountable to their demands and declarations.
I particularly love the posts where some sectarian or other demands the SWP comrades on here answer his (it’s usually a ‘he’) questions. “I demand an answer otherwise you are all scum!” Like some high judge commanding a response from some lowly minion brought before him in the dock.
Commanding and demanding seldom encourage a response at the best of times but the pomposity and hypocrisy does provide great comedy value.
Ray on said:
The most disturbing aspect of this thread is the way that some of these clowns makes sexist jibes about Lindsey when they refer to her as John Rees’s wife. Implying that because she’s a woman she’s only following hubby’s orders. This has been an ongoing method of attacking her by some idiots on the left. This nasty sexist tactic would never be used against a male comrade.
That’s why their current sympathy for her is so obviously bogus. Their hypocrisy and deviousness would be shameful if it had any sophistication but because it’s so transparent it deserves ridicule.
¦o( on said:
The weaker the left, the stronger the delusions of grandeur.
billy mouat on said:
The old mole is wrong to introduce geek words into his posts. I am not familar with words outside everyday language. He loses me.
Grim and Dim on said:
Karen Elliot”: “It is many years since I have seen anything quite so depraved and wicked as Martin Smith’s calculated insult…”
Really, Karen? So Martin’s e-mails were more “depraved and wicked” than the invasion of Iraq?? This really does show the sense of proportion of most people in this discussion.
As it happens I’ve just been editing some people’s recollections ofthe first time they heard Tony Cliff and the impact it had on their future development.
I wonder if in forty years time people will writing things like:
“I first got drawn to socialism by the Socialist Unity website. Peple were so abusive to each other; you could insult anyone, especially if they agreed with you on 95% of issues. It was really inspiring. And it helped me to understand that raking over trivial organisational questions was so much more important than fighting capitalism. That was what made me a socialist and I’ll always be grateful to Socialist Unity”.
Andy Newman on said:
#262
“That last email is the standard letter any swp member gets when they resign.”
I did not get any acknowldgement wheh I resigned. That is simply a lie.
Andy Newman on said:
#276
Karen was obviously joking.
You saracasm abiout whether or not the daet is inspirational is aso a little misplaced, because this discussion is about the SWP. So it is your organisatuin that has provoked this response. You should ask your self why.
Mike on said:
#276 I think Karen Elliot’s right. It’s only a short step from asking someone to cancel their standing order to the killing fields of Cambodia. It’s all part of the same continuum and just goes to show the fundamental evils of Leninism.
Either that, or they were being ironic.
ben on said:
Some one resigns from SWP shocker.
Surely we have better things to discuss then the supposed rights and wrong of just one person and the people she has fallen out with over who knows what.
Move along now.
Andy Newman on said:
THIS IS GETTING SILLY
to spare the left from further ridicule, I am going to close this in case some ordinary punter stumbles upon it.