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Labour and the Struggle for Socialism
Labour and the Struggle for Socialism An ON THE BRINK Publication WIN Publications Summer 2020 On the Brink Editor: Roger Silverman, [email protected] Published by Workers International Network (WIN), contact: [email protected] Front cover photo: Phil Maxwell Labour and the Struggle for Socialism By Roger Silverman From THE RED FLAG (still the Labour Party’s official anthem) The people’s flag is deepest red, It shrouded oft our martyred dead, And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold, Their hearts’ blood dyed its every fold. CHORUS: Then raise the scarlet standard high. Beneath its shade we’ll live and die, Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, We’ll keep the red flag flying here. With heads uncovered swear we all To bear it onward till we fall. Come dungeons dark or gallows grim, This song shall be our parting hymn. A Turning Point The recently leaked report of the antics of a clique of unaccountable bureaucrats ensconced in Labour headquarters has sent shock waves throughout the movement. Shock – but little surprise, because these creatures had always been in effect “hiding in plain sight”: ostensibly running the party machine, but actually hardly bothering to conceal their sabotage. All that was new was the revelation of the depths of their venom; their treachery; their racist bigotry; the vulgarity with which they bragged about their disloyalty; their contempt for the aspirations of the hundreds of thousands who had surged into the party behind its most popular leader ever, Jeremy Corbyn. They had betrayed the party that employed them and wilfully sabotaged the election prospects of a Labour government. -
Information Bulletin No.86 (Feb 2010)
MODERN RECORDS CENTRE MODERN RECORDS CENTRE INFORMATION BULLETIN INFORMATION BULLETIN No. 86 February 2010 ISSN 0309-0418 No. 80 June 2006 ISSN 0309-0418 Strongroom re-shelving The removal to an outstore of the contents of our upper archive strongroom was recently completed and work has now begun on installing the new shelving. The removed collections, which include most of the archives of the Transport and General Workers’ Union and its predecessors, the National Cycle Archive and the University of Warwick Archive, will be unavailable until some time in May or June. But once the work has been completed it will give us much-needed additional space to store existing and future accessions. Cataloguing and access The number of publicly available record descriptions on our catalogues database now stands at over 191,800. Notable recent additions to the database have included finding aids to the archives of: Richard Hyman, professor of industrial relations (HYM). The British Air Line Pilots' Association (BAP). Bookmark Publications (BOO): including minutes of the Socialist Workers Party Publications Committee, 1984-1991; edited drafts of publications, including works by Tony Cliff, Alex Callinicos, Paul Foot and Chris Harman, 1981-1991; and published books and pamphlets. The National League of the Blind and Disabled, a trade union of visually impaired and disabled people, 1915-1994 (NLB): including subject files on labour disputes and the employment of the blind and disabled. Eric de Mare (Social Credit collection) (SCC). The NatWest Staff Association (NWS). The Drawing Office Materials Manufacturers and Dealers Association (DOM). Thomas Alan Swinden, CBI deputy director general (TSP). -
'Pabloism' JIONAL MITTEE
'pABLOISM' \ And The JIONAL CRISIS IN THE MITTEE PHILIPPINES De~end surcharged councillors! ON 5 MARCH ~he High Court will rule on the cases of the surcharged Lambeth and qverpool councillors. According to Ted Knight It will almost certainly find against them, despite the £118,000 legal fees paid by Lambeth and the £200,000 by Liverpool. The council ors were In fact bound to take the case to the Liverpool. If they lose they will High Courts. The ruling of the be barred from office (local or District Auditors against them government) for 5 years and perso was based not on any kind of nally liable for the surcharge. hearing or trial, but on the The same would have been true District Auditors' opinion alone. had they not taken the case to No doubt this opinion was shaped the High Court at all. by a few guiding words from If the judgement goes against Patrlck Jenkln. the councillors then a decision The councillors are accused has to be made within 2 weeks of 'wiIful misconduct' In not set as to whether or not to appeal. ting a rate, and Issued surcharge This would cost another £50,000 notices amounting to £126,947 at least for Lambeth. Such a stra against 32 Lambeth councillors tegy may delay the councillors' and £106,103 against the 49 from disqualification for a few more weeks but Is unlikely to reverse the court's decision. Its only pur pose would be as part of a cam paign to mobilise the local trade unions and community to take action against the court decisions. -
Week School on Political Issues from the History of AWL
Week school on political issues from the history of AWL Day One Session: Heterodox, orthodox, and “orthodox Mark 2” 1. Why we started: 1966-8 Trotskyism: http://www.workersliberty.org//taxonomy/term/555 http://www.workersliberty.org/wwaawwmb The AWL's tradition: http://www.workersliberty.org/node/5146 Session: Party and perspectives What happened in 1968 and how the left responded ***************** Why we fused with IS (SWP) Timeline 2. Ireland: 1968-71 1964 July 2: After years of civil rights agitation in USA, Civil Rights http://www.workersliberty.org/node/10010 Act becomes law. October 15: Labour wins general election, after 13 years of Session: The debates in 1969 - “withdraw subsidies”, Tory rule “southern arsenals”, “troops out” before August 1969, “Catholic economism” and transitional demands, “troops out” 1965 in August 1969. January 31: USA starts bombing of North Vietnam. Vietnam war, and movement against it, escalate. Day Two February: SLL, then biggest revolutionary group in Britain, launches its own independent "Young Socialists" as a 3. The Tories and Labour 1970-4 response to limited expulsions by Labour Party after SLL wins majority in Labour youth movement. Session: General strike Our Labour Party debate then: syndicalism, economism, and 1966 politics Summer: Beginning of "Cultural Revolution" in China: a faction of the bureaucracy mobilises gangs to purge rivals 4. Stalinism 1968-75 reinforce autarkic, ultra-statist policy. But many leftists in the West will admire the "Cultural Revolution"; Maoism will Session: Czechoslovakia 1968 be a big force on the revolutionary left from 1968 to the “Soviet dissidents” mid-70s, though less so in Britain than in other European Vietnam and Cambodia 1975 countries. -
To Download the Paper As A
So& Wloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y No 214 24 August 2011 30p/80p For a workers’ government Ban the EDL? 1911: Liverpool The religion of the page 3 on strike page 8-9 Socialist Party pages 11-12 Post-riot clampdown on working-class youth OPPOSE THIS CLASS-HATE BLITZ See page 5 More socialist ideas and labour movement news online: www.workersliberty.org NEWS What is the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty? Libya: the return of hope Today one class, the working class, lives by selling From back page workers’ rights. gogue on the British left and its annihilation, it is its labour power to another, the capitalist class, But in fact the funda - will ever have to face. irresponsible and morally which owns the means of production. Society Outright support for Qaddafi is confined to a mental lesson of Libya — Workers’ Liberty be - degenerate to simply de - is shaped by the capitalists’ relentless drive to marginal fringe of sects,. as with all the heroic and lieves that a people staring mand that it ceases, or to increase their wealth. Capitalism causes inspiring uprisings we down the wrong end of a oppose it ever taking poverty, unemployment, the blighting of lives by For most of the far-left, have see in the Middle state-sanctioned massacre place. We believe that the overwork, imperialism, the destruction of the the intervention of NATO East and North Africa this have the right to call for gains of the uprising vin - environment and much else. in Libya cancelled out the year — is that no ruling assistance, even from im - dicate that view. -
Petty Bourgeois Deviations?
Petty bourgeois deviations? https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article6154 International left Petty bourgeois deviations? - IV Online magazine - 2019 - IV534 - July 2019 - Publication date: Monday 22 July 2019 Copyright © International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine - All rights reserved Copyright © International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine Page 1/3 Petty bourgeois deviations? This contribution has been published in the July-August issue of Sozialistische Zeitung (SoZ) which is published since 1986 in Cologne.* The CWI is an international organization in the Trotskyist tradition. [1] Its strongest national organization is the âEurosoemother partyâEuros Socialist Party in England and Wales. In the 1980s, when its members were still working in the Labour Party, then as the âEurosoeMilitant TendencyâEuros , it gained great prestige through its fight against Margret Thatcher's poll tax, among other things. According to reports, this organization could be threatened with division. By all accounts and that is where the problem begins. We are dependent on âEurosoeleakedâEuros internal documents on the Internet, press articles based on them from other left-wing groups in the English-speaking world and a kind of Kreml-astrology. The CWI does not publicly discuss the differences of opinion that have arisen. In particular, a 12-page text by Peter Taaffe (English member of the leadership of the CWI for almost 50 years) dated 15 January this year and entitled âEurosoeIn defence of a working-class orientation for the CWIâEuros is available on the Internet. At the very beginning, heavy guns are fired at the CWI: âEurosoe... the CWI is confronted with ...tendencies towards petty bourgeois MandelismâEuros . [2] Above all, Taaffe accuses the Irish organization of the CWI of âEurosoeabandoning the necessity of an organization based on the working class movementâEuros in favour of âEurosoeidentity politicsâEuros .. -
Libya, Anti-Imperialism, and the Socialist Party
Published on Workers' Liberty (http://www.workersliberty.org) Libya, anti-imperialism, and the Socialist Party By Sean Matgamna This is a copy-edited and slightly expanded version of the text printed in WL 3/34 Libya, anti-imperialism, and the Socialist Party Did Taaffe equate the Libyan rebels with the Nicaraguan contras? [3] Anything other than "absolute opposition" means support? [4] Intellectual hooliganism and AWL's "evasions" [5] What is more important in the situation than stopping massacre? [6] Bishop Taaffe and imperialism [7] What is the "anti-imperialist" programme in today's world? [8] From semi-colony to regional power [9] Taaffe's record as an anti-imperialist [10] The separation of AWL and the Socialist Party [11] Militant in the mid 1960s [12] How did we come to break with Militant? Anti-union laws [13] What is a Marxist perspective? [14] Peaceful revolution [15] Our general critique of Militant's politics [16] "We can't discuss what Grant and Taaffe can't reply to" [17] The US in Iraq and union freedoms [18] Socialists and the European Union [19] Toadying to Bob Crow [20] Ireland: why socialists must have a democratic programme [21] Conclusion: Pretension [22] Appendix: Militant and the Labour Party, 1969-87 - a strange symbiosis [23] What We Are And What We Must Become: critique of Militant, written in 1966, which became the founding document of the AWL tendency, is available at http://www.workersliberty.org/wwaawwmb The RSL (Militant) in the 1960s: a study of passivity: an account of how What We Are And What We Must Become came to be written, and the battle around its ideas. -
Campaigning for the Labour Party but from The
Campaigning for the Labour Party but from the Outside and with Different Objectives: the Stance of the Socialist Party in the UK 2019 General Election Nicolas Sigoillot To cite this version: Nicolas Sigoillot. Campaigning for the Labour Party but from the Outside and with Different Ob- jectives: the Stance of the Socialist Party in the UK 2019 General Election. Revue française de civilisation britannique, CRECIB - Centre de recherche et d’études en civilisation britannique, 2020, XXV (3), 10.4000/rfcb.5873. hal-03250124 HAL Id: hal-03250124 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03250124 Submitted on 4 Jun 2021 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique French Journal of British Studies XXV-3 | 2020 "Get Brexit Done!" The 2019 General Elections in the UK Campaigning for the Labour Party but from the Outside and with Different Objectives: the Stance of the Socialist Party in the UK 2019 General Election Faire campagne pour le parti travailliste mais depuis l’extérieur et avec des objectifs différents: -
Whatever Happened to the Great Depression?
Whatever happened to the Great Depression? http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/2887 Way back in March Peter Taaffe, the General Secretary of the Socialist Party, wrote; “Most capitalist commentators now agree with our analysis that at the very least this is the worst economic crisis since the great depression of the 1930s and may yet exceed it. In a sense, this crisis is potentially even worse than then. The extent of capitalist globalisation which led to this crash is much wider and deeper than existed in the so-called ‘gilded age’ before 1929. For this reason, it is already the most internationalised, generalised economic crisis in history.”...writes Bill Jefferies Peter Taaffe - March 2009 Like a Jehovah’s Witness Minister who predicted [1] the end of the earth in 1975, Taaffe will now reassure his followers that he only thought it was “possibly” the Armageddon. But Taaffe was anything but the exception among Marxist economics commentators. The late Chris Harman at the ISJ crisis day school in November 2008 said that the present crisis was either a repeat of the Great Depression or in the best case scenario a worldwide 10 years of Japanese like stagnation. In May 2009 he repeated the idea; “Supporters of the system always try to console themselves with the thought that every previous crisis of the system has eventually come to an end. But it can take an awfully long time. It took a decade of economic devastation and the worst war humanity had known for the system to resume its old growth in the 1930s.” Chris Harman Socialist Review – May 2009 By then growth had already resumed in Germany, China, Brazil, Russia, France, Japan, Korea. -
By Sean Matgamna the Formation of the SWP
Workers’ Liberty Volume 3 No 38 March 2013 £1 Reason in revolt The formation of the SWP By Sean Matgamna The formation of the SWP “Standing resolutely on the side of the proletariat, the so - to the working class in East London; and others. cialists do everything in their power to facilitate and hasten Even then the leadership of the De Leonites never joined its victory. But what exactly can they do in this case? the Communist Party. Sylvia Pankhurst was soon expelled. “A necessary condition for the victory of the proletariat is But the main bulk of the organisations stayed. its recognition of its own position, its relations with its ex - There is no magic formula that will bring about unity at ploiters, its historic role and its socio-political tasks. will. But we can consciously create a culture where real dia - “For this reason the socialists consider it their principal, logue is possible, and a will to find unity in common areas of perhaps even their only, duty to promote the growth of this activity. consciousness among the proletariat, which for short they And we can foster a culture of democracy. Splits may hap - call its class consciousness. pen anyway, however good the movement’s democracy. But “The whole success of the socialist movement is measured splits are absolutely inevitable given a culture where the ma - for them in terms of the growth in the class consciousness jority rules absolutely and the minority must not only ob - of the proletariat. Everything that helps this growth they serve unity in action — which was Lenin’s conception — but see as useful to their cause: everything that slows it down also be silent and publicly pretend to agree with politics they as harmful” Plekhanov, The Tasks of the Social Democrats in do not really agree with and may detest. -
Peter Taaffe Equates Libya's Rebels with Nicaragua's Contras
Peter Taaffe equates Libya's rebels with Nicaragua's contras Martin Thomas For the first time, I think, in 45 years of political conflicts On the evidence so far, Max Hastings, writing in the with the AWL and its forerunners, the Socialist Party Financial Times (20 April), was right: "The real mission of (formerly Militant) has explicitly polemicised against us. the British and French military 'advisers' being dispatched to They always used to hide behind bluster against "sects on the rebel camp is to explore what the west might do to get the fringes of the labour movement". Now they have been out of it". forced into the open. The May edition of the SP magazine carried an article by SP leader Peter Taaffe attacking AWL "Absolute" support, "absolute" opposition - and other (and, secondly, the Marxist of Lebanese origin Gilbert things Achcar) for failing to express "absolute opposition" to the NATO "no-fly zone" in Libya. Taaffe misrepresents our opinion, saying that we "justify" AWL has written to the SP and Peter Taaffe challenging and "support" "imperialist intervention". them to a face-to-face debate on this in front of AWL The difference between not wanting to obstruct or stop the members and the left at our summer school, Ideas For NATO action, and supporting it, is perhaps subtle, and may Freedom, on 8-10 July in London. The SP has not yet seem evasive. But a couple of examples will show that responded - generally they are far from brave about such political life requires more responses than just "absolute" things - so we are also replying in writing. -
Political Pseudonyms
BRITISH POLITICAL PSEUDONYMS Suggested additions and corrections always welcome 20th CENTURY Adler, Ruth Ray Waterman Ajax Montagu Slater [in Left Review, which he helped create & edited in 1934] Ajax Junior Guy A Aldred (in the Agnostic Journal). Allen, C Chimen Abramsky [CP National Jewish Committee] Allen, Peter Salme Dutt [née Murrik aka Pekkala; married to Rajani Palme Dutt] Anderson, Irene Constance Haverson [George Lansbury's granddaughter, Comintern courier] Andrews, R F Andrew Rothstein [CPGB] Arkwright, John Randall Swingler [CP writer] Ashton, Teddy Charles Allen Clarke. 1863-1935. [Lancashire dialect novelist and socialist] Atticus William MacCall [pioneer anarchist, reviewer for The National Reformer] Aurelius, Marcus Walter Padley [author of Am I My Brother’s Keeper? Gollancz 1945; Labour MP and President of USDAW] Avis Alfred Sherman (before he became a close advisor to Margaret Thatcher, he had been in theCP in the 1940s, and used this name to write on Jewish issues) Barclay, P J John Archer (Trotskyist civil servant) Baron, Alexander Alec Bernstein [novelist] Barrett, George George Ballard [anarchist] Barrister, A Mavis Hill [Justice in England, LBC, 1938] Thurso, Berwick Morris Blythman [Scottish radical poet, singer-songwriter] B V James Thomson [Radical poet and reviewer] Bell, Lily Mrs Bream Pearce [in Keir Hardie’sLabour Leader] Bennet or Bennett Goldfarb [ECCI rep. to GB & Ireland; Head of Anglo-American Secretariat, C.I.; married Rose Cohen, CPGB. Both shot in 1937] Aka Lipec, Petrovsky, Breguer, Humboldt Berwick,