SWP and Its Off-On, Off-On Relationship with Programme Weekly 2 May 14 2020 1299 Worker LETTERS
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A paper of Marxist polemic and Marxist unity World War II: breeding n CPGB aggregate n Biden and lesser-evilism ground for comforting myths, n Covid-19 Italian style both for bourgeoisie and left n CPGB 100 years No 1299 May 14 2020 Towards a mass Communist Party £1/€1.10 SWP and its off-on, off-on relationship with programme weekly 2 May 14 2020 1299 worker LETTERS Letters may have been of wages and of hours, etc lose all political the case with the organisational model interests: 1905 or 1917? the Workers International League (better shortened because of purchase.) of top-table-dominated bureaucratic Alan Johnstone known as Socialist Appeal), the British space. Some names I will admit that it is a very long time centralism, which is promoted by the Socialist Party of Great Britain section of the International Marxist may have been changed since I read the first three volumes of Labour and trade union bureaucracy and Tendency. Socialist Appeal currently sees Cliff’s Lenin (in the late 70s and early most of the left. To insist on “learning” Join CPGB? the 90,000 people who voted for Richard 80s), that I haven’t kept a hard copy of and “generalising experience” as the Ian Birchall marshals a well-argued Burgon in the Labour Party deputy Error of method it, and that I didn’t feel the need to revisit exclusive tasks of this minority is, in fact, defence of Tony Cliff and his emphasis on leadership contest as its target audience Ian Birchall’s reply to my article on the it online to write a journalistic squib to prevent ever overcoming that poison. recruiting new members to the Socialist for recruitment. treatment in the left press of the 150th about the left press’s treatments of the Mike Macnair Workers Party. At the same time, Ian’s If the CPGB through the same deep anniversary of the birth of Lenin (‘Lenin anniversary. Oxford criticism of the CPGB’s failure to recruit entryist tactic also sees these 90,000 avatars’, April 30) begins by condemning My point about the “concrete more than 30 members over the last 30 Labour Party members as its target my article as “supercilious” and as analysis” and the Independent Social Which soviets? years is well-founded. Whereas the SWP audience for recruitment, it should come arguing that “everyone’s out of step but Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) is Ian Birchall asks, “Who invented continuously call for people to ‘join the out and openly say so. Alternatively, if us [CPGB]” (Letters, May 7). Towards not particularly to praise the speeches. It is soviets?” and then answers: “Russian socialists’, it is many years now since the CPGB sees its task to organise the the end, he says that “The Weekly Worker to explain Lenin’s criticism of Béla Kun, workers, who had probably never heard the CPGB called for people to ‘join the left through its Labour Party Marxists spends its time lecturing the rest of the left György Lukács and their objections to of Lenin.” What I would like to know is communists’. and Labour Against the Witchhunt fronts, on its failings - it never imagines it has any sort of engagement with the USPD, what soviets is he talking about: 1905 or As a former member of Militant - it should also come out and openly say anything to learn.” on the ground that its character was to be 1917? and its successor, the Socialist Party in so. The problem, as far as I can see it, is This is a very basic error of method. inferred from the (Kautskyite) character In 1905 workers’ councils arose England and Wales - I can remember that these 90,000 Labour Party people The “everyone’s out of step but us” snark of its majority leadership. This inference spontaneously out of the January- being given a leaflet in 1978 asking are virtual members who can easily is a reference to the old joke about a from the character of the leadership February 1905 strike and were me to “become a Militant supporter”. disappear from Labour at a drop of a hat. mother watching a military drill, saying to the character of the base has been independent of any external initiatives. Since then, SPEW, just like the SWP, This can clearly be seen from widespread of her son: “Look at my Johnny - he’s characteristic of a large part of the far Their popularity derived largely from continuously asks people to ‘join the discussions on social media that, the only one in step.” But, while the point left’s response to the Corbyn movement the absence of political party agitators in Socialists’. Why does the CPGB not following the defeat of Jeremy Corbyn, of parades is to display unanimity, the - the other side of this response being their midst. They expressed the workers’ ask readers of its widely read Weekly the Labour Party never will be, nor ever point of discussion is to learn through merely to tail Corbyn as a good leftist, political and economic demands in a Worker to ‘join the communists’? All I has been, a vehicle for the building of disagreement. And it is perfectly possible without criticising his and his co-thinkers’ situation where trade unions were non- can conclude is that either the CPGB has socialism in Britain. for one person, or a minority, to be the substantive politics. existent and where the political parties something to hide (which I doubt) or it Lenin often remarked that “an ounce only ones who have got the right answer SWP canvassers for Respect claiming held little influence. It was all very wants to hide its modesty under a bushel. of experience is worth a tonne of theory”. - as Galileo was on the shape of the solar to be “left Labourites” - ie, former Labour different in 1917. In the same issue of the Weekly Lenin was also fond of the Russian system, Semmelweis on doctors washing voters disillusioned by Blair - was my The February strikes had been Worker, CPGB guru Jack Conrad proverb, “Life teaches”. Why should any their hands, or Wegener on continental personal experience of canvassing for spontaneous like those in 1905, but the explains that the mass Communist Party sane, right-thinking communist want to drift. Perhaps (as several left economists Respect, alongside SWP comrades, soviets had not arisen directly out of he envisages will be built from the top be in a party - ie, Labour - which treats argue) the Marxist minority should defer in East Oxford, and of arguments put them, as they had 12 years earlier. They down. The problem is that on the left its dissident members so badly? I know to the marginalist majority? forward at Respect meetings. I would be resulted from the combined efforts of there are few cadres still alive today. The this from bitter experience last year, In effect, Birchall is suggesting that perfectly willing to accept that this was politicians and workers’ leaders: the sad death of Neil Davidson, following when my local Corbynistas opposed my minorities ought to defer to majorities, not the invariable practice; but I rather politicians of the Duma Committee and the death of Colin Barker, has weakened application to rejoin. To put it bluntly, because this is to “learn from the doubt that it had no basis in SWP policy, the members of the Workers’ Group the left considerably. However, both why should we have to go through the movement”. Sharp polemics against given the point about the SWP putting on sitting on the Central Committee for Neil Davidson and Colin Barker were anguish and distress of being expelled majority views are thus to be taken as protective coloration more generally, as the War Industries, which installed members of Revolutionary Socialism in from the Labour Party as part of Sir Keir “supercilious” (and so on). in Globalise Resistance. itself in the Tauride Palace on February the 21st Century (RS21), a split from the Starmer’s purge of socialists? But, while it is certainly true that Who invented soviets? Trotsky, who 27 and set up a provisional executive SWP in 2013, which has had the good John Smithee the CPGB is a very small minority in was fairly centrally involved, claimed in committee of the council of workers’ sense to double its membership since the Cambridgeshire the left, the Socialist Workers Party 1905 (London 1971, pp104-05) that the delegates, to which committee several split by asking people to ‘join RS21’. tradition is also a very small minority in Petersburg Soviet was created because socialist leaders and members of Jack Conrad - and his close associate, Bizarre writer the larger workers’ movement, relative the factional struggles between the left parliament attached themselves. This Mike Macnair - are not getting any Daniel Lazare has been a recent (since to the Labour right - and even to the parties and their clandestinity meant explains why, when the first Provisional younger. If the CPGB fails to open itself November 2019) addition to the writing part of the labour and trade union left that non-party organisations had to be Soviet met, it contained no factory up to new members it will remain an team for the Weekly Worker, focusing on which, though no longer organised created (by the left) to engage the masses, delegates. irrelevant sect, albeit with a widely read politics in the United States. by the ‘official’ communists, remains and that the organisational form was What had changed from 1905 paper. Without new members, especially I found myself disagreeing with some politically influenced by their ideas.