Liam redux

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Exclusion, isolation or ostracism. What do you fancy?

One of the problems the Anglophone left has never really got to grips with is the right way to deal with dissent and diverging views. Put three French lefties in a room and a few minutes later you have four different political lines and no one is too bothered. John Molyneux expresses the point pretty…

Liam
2–3 minutes

90008445_3033706e6b One of the problems the Anglophone left has never really got to grips with is the right way to deal with dissent and diverging views. Put three French lefties in a room and a few minutes later you have four different political lines and no one is too bothered. John Molyneux expresses the point pretty well when he says in a document that has been in the public domain for a while now:

“The main form of democratic difficulty we have experienced has been reluctance, at all levels of the party, of comrades with sincerely held doubts and/or differences to speak up. One reason for this has been the tendency to put down dissenters so severely and comprehensively as to deter any repetition or imitation.”

and

“Nor should there be a fear as – with reason – there has been in the past, of exclusion, isolation or ostracism for the expression of dissident views.”

John’s describing an environment that he’s well acquainted with and, having been on the receiving end of this procedure from his co-thinkers on a couple of occasions, I understand perfectly what he’s talking about. An advantage that I had, which many don’t, is not being reliant on those doling out the abuse for political orientation or social networks. Of course it’s mainly done pour décourager les autres but it takes an incredibly strong personality to stand up to this sort of bullying especially when the others who are being discouraged feel honour bound to actively or passively go along with it.

The method is not copyrighted by any single political tradition. There is a lot of supporting anecdotal evidence that it was pretty rampant among some who learned their politics in the IMG and many other places too, no doubt.

If exclusion, isolation or ostracism were effective ways of creating independently minded activists you couldn’t really object to them. They’re not. Mostly they serve to reinforce existing power relationships within a group and tend to much used and valued by those in authority or who hold a bureaucratic position. And if there is one thing that a bureaucrat loathes it someone with an independent view expressing it.

Rosa Luxemburg got it right with her aphorism “freedom is always the freedom of dissenters”. It’s incredibly rare in contemporary British politics for any dissenting views on the left to be on life or death matters requiring that wrong ideas be pummelled into tiny pieces. Invariably it’s over second order tactical questions and discussions swivel round organisational or personal prestige (is that the right word?) rather than attempts to grapple with ideas and what’s happening in the world.

Good luck to John in his mission to get his own current to rethink its political culture. If he’s successful it will have a powerful positive effect on the English speaking left.

 

 

 

17 responses to “Exclusion, isolation or ostracism. What do you fancy?”

  1. Dave Riley Avatar
    Dave Riley

    “,,,it will have a powerful positive effect on the English speaking left.”

    I think that’s true, not because there’s suddenly more democracy in the SWP but because they’d maybe address the festering issues that they seem loath to.Compare what seems to be the internal the situation in the SWP with this:Paul Le Blanc — Why I’m joining the US International Socialist Organization.

    The US ISO was formed of those in the US the IST expelled in the nineties.

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  2. Duncan Chapel Avatar
    Duncan Chapel

    Dave, I’m not sure if a letter written before joining the ISO realy says much about the internal situation in the ISO. Has anyone heard about a pluralist culture in the ISO? Of the leadership losing any votes there, or even facing a notable minority?

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  3. splinteredsunrise Avatar
    splinteredsunrise

    In 2004 there was a major debate on whether or not to endorse Nader. It was carried out in what looked like a very open way, including different perspectives being put forward on the letters page of the paper. Of course they’ve inherited a lot of their culture from the SWP – they still have the ban on so-called permanent factions, which I don’t agree with – but they’re a lot more laid back in the organisational sphere.

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  4. skidmarx Avatar
    skidmarx

    I always thought the quote was “freedom is the freedom to think differently”, but variation is good.

    It’s incredibly rare in contemporary British politics for any dissenting views on the left to be on life or death matters requiring that wrong ideas be pummelled into tiny pieces. Invariably it’s over second order tactical questions
    I think there’s some truth here. I think that the SWP’s internal culture is set up such that first order questions could be adequately dealt with, but most people who join and almost all of those who stay any time tend to agree on those (or accept the settled view of the party, such as over the class nature of the state capitalist regimes). It is difficult to take seriously an opposition that says we have no significant disagreements with the leadership but have some tactical disagreements (one of the reasons it is hard to accept at face value the protestations of those ex-comrades who sacrificed their party membership to continue working with George Galloway).

    As with Phil Hearse’s piece, the question occurs: does all this obsession with the SWP mean you’re thinking of joining them or hoping to affiliate as a permanent faction?

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  5. entdinglichung Avatar
    entdinglichung

    it may also have to do with the “tribalism” which is much more widespread in the British left than in most countries on the continent; in France, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy, etc., it is common, to form ad-hoc-alliances e.g. between anarchist, trotskyist, maoist, left socialist, etc. groups and comrades in case e.g. of a fascist demonstration or of the closure of a plant in town … in Britain, it seems to me that many anarchists say, that they will not work with trotskyists who will not work with CPers who will not work with etc. (not all of course) … probably, it may have something to do with the fact, that the historical experiences of the left on the continent is different, preventing them to indulge in this kind of sectarian boundary marking?!

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  6. Dave Riley Avatar
    Dave Riley

    I think the question of pluralism or democracy isn’t an abstraction on which we can rule by way of set threshold amounts of democracy or not. Any party without democracy is going to be crippled sooner or later because it has no feedback mechanism through which to gauge its activities.

    But then any party that does not have a centralised way of carrying out its democratically arrived at decisions will also, sooner or later, be crippled because its decisions are not being acted upon.

    So it too is not democratic despite its supposed democratic form and how many permanent factions it may allow to exist.

    The problem with the SWP, it seems to me, aside from what may or may not be its internal culture,is its penchant for schematism — formatted templates which they impose on the political environment from which x number of actions supposedly follow.

    And these schemas are rigidly adhered to even though they seem to an outsider, a rule book for Toy Town.

    Their attitude to Respect was almost a classic schema — the problem being that when it doesn’t fit the on the ground facts, they cannot work out what on earth they are doing wrong because they have no internal means to rethink what on earth they are doing .

    This more or less bears down on many socialist groups, but I think the best criteria for judging any one of them is how flexible and nuanced are their interventions. I mean thats’ the main thing — what they do –and not necessarily how they decide to do it as though that involves some rigmarole you should have issues with.

    In my experience, comrades on the left will wax on about how undemocratic this or that outfit is supposed to be — maybe justly — but then have no qualms whatsoever with accepting the autocratic regimes that rule the British or Australian Labour Parties or the US Democrats; or the rule by parliamentarian that governs the green parties — as though the far left has a genetic copyright on rotten internal regimes.

    The existence of a “notable minority” does not necessary equate with a flowering of internal democracy as any party would prefer homogeneity — and still be democratic.The question isn’t whether minorities exist or not, but how the party decides what it will do such that it convinces any minority that their views were weighed and considered. That a leadership may lose votes is not a criterion of democracy. it’s a measure of the fact that you may need a new leadership.

    There’s also a distinction between “formal:” and “real ” democracy that is worthwhile considering in regard to the SWP. If there is a factional alignment in the SWP over “no platform” and the debate by both sides focuses on that then how democratic is that exchange given that any observers knows that “no platform” is a distraction from the core dispute which no one may get around to addressing.

    So how democratic is a debate which does not address the real issues in dispute?

    I’ve worked with many people who have waxed on about the need for party democracy but will try assiduously to obscure their real differences for fear of having to argue them out.

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  7. Mark Victorystooge Avatar
    Mark Victorystooge

    Yes, I think the British left is particularly tribal that way, not that the tribes are very big. Continental lefties do seem to work together better, based on personal observation.
    The British left has no experience of fascism in power, or occupation by a fascist army. It can wax eloquent about fascism etc. but there is a textbook quality to it, divorced from real life. So quasi-theology and boundary setting are paramount, with little sense that this is actually causing harm.

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  8. redbedhead Avatar
    redbedhead

    “So how democratic is a debate which does not address the real issues in dispute?”

    Let me get this straight – if they’re debating but they’re not debating what you’ve divined that they should be debating then that debate is an expression of the fact that there is no democratic debate taking place?

    Dave – also, the ISO was not formed in of those in the IST expelled in the 90s. The ISO has been around since the 70s.

    In any case, you all really ought to move on, rather than obsessing about the SWP’s internal mode of operation. Socialist Resistance is much smaller than the SWP, and originated out of a much larger organization, if I’m not mistaken (the IMG). So, one wonders on what grounds you judge the SWP’s methods – whether of constructing “schematic” united fronts like Stop the War, the UAF, or Respect. Does it always get it right? No – but, then, neither does anybody else.
    The bigger problem for the left is not this or that programatic error or internal regime. The point of Molyneux’s ISJ article is to locate the problems faced by the left in a larger political context, related to past defeats, the present balance of forces, etc. It’s foolish to think that a mass party of the left will arise spontaneously – because of its perfect orientation and composition – in abstraction from the world, with no reference to the level of social struggle, politicization, etc. etc.

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  9. Rustbelt Radical Avatar
    Rustbelt Radical

    On the ISO: From my vantage point here in the States the ISO seems a whole lot healthier than the SWP. Still I they are incredibly top down. We’re talking about a leadership that has been in place, almost to a person, for well over twenty years and when was the last time I heard about ANYONE in that organization organizing for a political change inside the group? Yeah, they opened up a little around the Nader debate, but that was to release some pressure, it wasn’t a change in functioning. For what it’s worth I think that the strengths and weaknesses of the ISO and Solidarity compliment each other and they should join forces yesterday. Unfortunately years of routine and blood under the bridge from splits in the 1970s (for christsake!) will prevent that. I’ve heard each group (I’m a member of Solidarity) give good critiques of each other and then base the reason for not joining on those critiques. Back to square one. I would hope that a new generation would change that dynamic, but old generations in left groups have to die before they are replaced and the newer generations will have learned a whole lot of bad practice to survive in the meantime. I’ve known Paul for a long time and expect he will do quite well in the ISO. After all “discipline” in that group is not extended to those who have published 5 or more books. The stars get to be stars and to make sure they keep coming back to conferences they get to say what they want. A rank and file member, well, not so much. I don’t mean to be cynical, I’m just as critical of my own tradition and my own group, but the ISO didn’t learn all of their negative ways from Cliff and it will take more than a break with ortho-Cliffism for them to break with some of those negative ways. All of that said, they remain the most important left group in the States and they continue to do a helluva lot of good work. If we and they got together I think the terrain of the left would change dramatically here. Who knows, it might happen some day.

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  10. Adamski Avatar
    Adamski

    Interesting to read the article by Paul Le Blanc. I am a big fan of his writing and enjoy his humane, thoughtful, non-pretentious and open minded style so in contrast to much trotskyist writing, for example, Le Blanc can write about anarchism respectfully disagreeing, but also seeing the common ground & genuinely trying to engage with the current without the patronising and condescending tones (and crude misrepresentation) that you get in much UK SWP writing.

    I recall in his history of American trotskyism him first suspecting that things were going wrong in the US SWP was when party organisers in the early 70s began to display a strange fascination with the Godfather films with ‘I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse’ becoming a favourite catchphrase!

    George Breitman who drawing on the work of CLR James developed positions that recognised the revolutionary edge in Black nationalism and enabled the US SWP to engage with figures such as Malcolm X and recognise his significance when he was in the obscurantist Nation of Islam were very significant.

    Turning to organisation, CLR James – one of my patron saints – once put forth the 3 tier model of organisation – 1. The political/theoretical leadership 2. An activist leadership – those who had trade union positions, gained respect in social movements – women’s lib, anti-war, ecology, oppressed groups and so on 3. The rank and file.

    He posited that a problem could be that “democracy” could just turn into the rank and file discussing and debating the different positions of the leaders, this would be democracy, but the revolutionary organisation was not really fertilising the resources of the rank and file, and top-down, The question was to create structures that made sure that the richness and resources of the rank and file drove the organisation. (Though I don’t think that CLR James was particularly succesful himself at creating a revolutionary organisation!)

    But turning to the UK SWP. The SWP could institute a series of reforms that would improve the organisation dramatically, make it more open and democratic, and more attractive to people to join. At present the structure and internal regime of that organisation do not belong to the present era or the future. It is not a very attractive organisation for most open minded critical socialists and also giving marxism a bad name.

    For example, the recent shutting down of the Counterfire website, the suspension of two respected and talented student activists (during the pre-conference period!). Who wants to join an organisation where any creativity or slight difference of emphasis to the leadership means that you are cursorily sidelined without debate and discussion? Where the leadership exercise such control freakery (for example, the bullying of rank and file comrades who, say, set up an intellectual journal that wasn’t directly accountable to the leadership . . .)

    One of the major structural problems of the SWP is based around the CC/Centre and Organisers/Party functionaries.

    In the Bolsheviks or KPD, during times of insurrection and war, all party functionaries were appointed by the grassroots and subject to instant recall by the grassroots.

    This is not the case in the SWP. All party functionaries and local organisers are appointed by the top and can only be removed by the CC.

    A party that supposedly stands for the principle that workers can run society and workers self-management, doesn’t even think that ordinary members of the vanguard (supposed to be the most advanced section of the class) have the capacity to choose their own local leaders or exercise self-management within a party branch.

    What culture does this create?

    Firstly, the party functionaries see themselves as not accountable to the local organisation (because they are not!), and being above it, rather than being servants of the local organisation they see themselves as the local party manager, there also develops a culture of sychophancy where they seek to ingratiate themselves to their employers. Afterall, if you step out of line you won’t advance in the party hierarchy.

    Secondly, the organisation becomes a conveyor belt where everything flows down from the CC to the local funcationaries then to the rank and file.

    The farcical stich-up method of electing the CC of the SWP could also be changed. We might have a more open, democratic body which has some people on who have actually achived positions of leadership in various movements of society and do a nine-to-five job.

    I don’t generally agree with Ger Francis or his positions, but I also recall him getting a good hit when the Brum Respect candidates were being criticised by asking why has the SWP, a party that has been going for three decades, not got people respected and rooted in local communities that it can put forward as candidates?

    To be frank, Redbedhead’s comments are a cop-out. Sure the balance of forces, the hammering the left has taken in the last 20-30 years are significant, but the maneuver of the Molyneux article is to attempt to use the objective factors to dodge improving the subjective factors now.

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  11. redbedhead Avatar
    redbedhead

    adamski – I’m not copping out and I don’t think Molyneux (of all people!) is either. He makes a number of specific points about the struggle for democracy within the party being an ongoing one, not reducible to organizational formula, and of being fundamentally rooted in the need for the party to engage as closely as possible with mass struggles wherever they erupt.
    My point was only that it’s absurd for one tiny left group to spend time criticizing one small left group because they don’t do things they way that they do. Of course they don’t – that’s why there’s multiple left groups. And the fact that the left, in general, is so small – including Respect – is not down to the lack of brilliance or whether permanent factions are permitted in the party constitution. That’s just silliness. It’s more complex than that. But, no, that doesn’t mean I don’t think things couldn’t ALWAYS be improved. And I’ve seen the IB that’s posted online – it’s hardly a monologue. There are multiple opinions and attitudes as to the state of the party, what to do next, etc. Last I heard a faction had been launched. There is clearly some debate going on – maybe you’re just not part of it because you’re not a member.

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  12. Jason Avatar
    Jason

    Liam writes:
    “One of the problems the Anglophone left has never really got to grips with is the right way to deal with dissent and diverging views. ”
    My suspicion is that this goes beyond the Anglophone left though perhaps the English speaking Left have it particularly bad.
    Surely, though, the solution is relatively simple?
    Encourage debate, encourage diversity of opinions, have discussions, including open differences, in public because
    1)it shows that the left is not some kind of android like Stalinist cult and welcomes outside points of view

    2)much more importantly people outside the group or party may have valuable things to pitch in

    3) only by learning in public and sharing the lessons of both defeats and victories can the workers’ movement begin to regrow.

    Of course the left being so small is not merely down to its bad habits. It’s much more to do with a generation of defeats. But unless we get over our bad habits it is unlikely that we can play too much of a role in reviving the movement to notch up and spread some much needed victories.

    Jason

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  13. Dave Riley Avatar
    Dave Riley

    I think these are all very valuable comments . But  what bears down upon us is that the left needs a new left, a renewal in the sense that the sixties left was a “new” non Stalinist left. Our problem in the English speaking world is that we are stultified by rigid shibboleths with very few markers that suggest another way to do political business.

    In that regard I see the SWP as an obstacle to fostering that change. While I recognize that conditions aren’t buoyant and there are many indigenous variables  the present conjuncture is one both of confusion and promise.

    I don’t think the Marxist or socialist left can be re-invented but I think there’s a few tactical options that warrant intense exploration, primarily because the role the Marxist outfits can play — even if they are indeed small and still isolated — can have great bearing on what can be created now.

    As for attitudinal change and the over riding  bunker mentality, I think that’s the rub: I fear that by only placing ourselves in  new milieux  can we begin to address the dead hand of sectarian politics that may dog our organisations. You can’t legislate against sectarianism — it’s over throw has to proceed dialectically, in a way that is more of less out of  our hands.

    But there’s this Greek chorus on the left that insists over and over again: don’t do that; don’t go there; wash your hands after playing  in that cesspool; you are going to be contaminated…

    My original point about the US ISO was that it has courageously moved into a new environment despite these shrill naysayers.On the other hand, the Australian DSP  may be keen to move aggressively  into these new interfaces for the sake of a regoupment perspective but it suffered a major split for its pains. To be frank, I tend to see the old ‘new’ left as a new right on these matters and that divide is still working its way through our ranks. If the SSP had not been so sorely split I think there’d be greater clarity. But until such time as the self evident break through occurs, we have no choice but to find our own way.

    However, some debates are pending and are ones that cannot be avoided –such as the French NPA compared to the German die Linke template.

    As for the SWP — unless it rejigs itself it may be in for some very rough weather and while no one is suggesting that Gerry Healey is back(thank God and Marx)  to haunt us, the implosion of the WRP suggests that no group can sail off free of  the possibility of  internal self destruct. Look at the US SWP — there’s another example.

    However, while there is an ongoing penchant for far left groups to split  it doesn’t follow that these split offs must fetishize the internal goings on in what was the mother ship. If it is de rigueur to slag off at the SWP  — in variations of Weekly Worker style — how is it that the groupuscules cannot themselves move beyond the dark shadow of the SWP and do things the SWP cannot bring itself to do? Why is it that these nodes are often caricatures of their parent? And the large swag of party exers — from many traditions — remain homeless?

    At its root I fear is not just a complication of party democracy but an overbearing political shallowness and arrogance  that, as Peter Camejo asserted, is  driven by Idealism and not  a rigorous  Materialism. Our core problem is that all these groups believe that their current political quotient is the best of all possible worlds and that our one recourse is to look forward to the time when “our day will come”. What ails the left, in a strange way, is a certain level of passivity  which saps its courage.

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  14. redbedhead Avatar
    redbedhead

    “Our core problem is that all these groups believe that their current political quotient is the best of all possible worlds and that our one recourse is to look forward to the time when “our day will come”. What ails the left, in a strange way, is a certain level of passivity which saps its courage.”

    I had to read through your entire comment to real get to the rub of what you’re saying. And I don’t agree here. Look, I don’t really know much about the DSP in Australia or the SAlt or the IST group there. And I don’t think you know much about either Britain or America. I think that the ISO has done some things very well – they have grown and gotten a stronger campus implantation, for instance. They have built an impressive publishing repertoire. But I remember the debates, which ended, unfortunately, with the separation of the ISO and the IST. It was the SWP (with most of the rest of the IST leadership in agreement) arguing hard for a different type of practice because we were in a qualitatively different type of period. Now, you can argue that they were wrong, or partly right, or were right but got the implementation of the perspective wrong. But what you can’t argue is that they underestimated the potential for the growth of a new radicalization or the need to meet it on its own terms, to absorb its methods and culture in order to transform the character of the party. At the end of the 90s the SWP went so far as to effectively banish branches in order to throw the party into movement organizations and to break routinism. You can say many things about this but you can’t say that the SWP – or the general perspective within the IST – was one of passively waiting for their day to come. Nor can you say it’s a lack of courage – launching Stop the War immediately after 9/11 took courage (on the part of many people and organizations, not just the SWP), and it paid off in spades. I think the efforts to broaden the anti-fascist movement by folding the ANL into UAF took a similar courage – though the benefits have been slower to materialize – that is beginning to pay off. Respect – in the face of a left that was (and remains) in its majority hostile to Muslims – was a bold move. It ended badly but that was not foreordained.
    I’m most familiar with the IST but we could find examples of such courage elsewhere; in the LCR or with the Left Bloc in Portugal, et al – each within the particularities of their context. I might not agree with everything that they are doing but I’m nonetheless impressed with the courage with which they have done it. None of these are the actions of groups who think that their “current political quotient is the best of all possible worlds.”
    People and groups try things and sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. And we argue about it and judge it against past experience but in the end you just have to go and do something. If you’re wrong you hope you’ll figure it out sooner rather than later. Chances are you’ll have some of both. And then you keep trying. But this nonsense that says “oh, the SWP are having internal difficulties and debates because they don’t allow permanent factions” or because people are mean to people who raise debates. It’s nonsense – the DSP threw everything into the SA, they gave their newspaper over to it – and still they split. The SWP resisted dissolving itself, insisted it maintain its organizational discipline, publications, etc. – and there was a crisis. A section of the LCR split away to join with the Melanchon’s Left Party and the PCF in the last round of elections. There are no easy one-size-fits-all answers and predictions based on such are a mugs game. You might as well buy a lottery ticket. The left needs to fight for clarity by fighting to engage with the leading edge of struggle, by pushing to develop contacts with the broadest masses and their experiences. An outward perspective, rather than one that obsesses about resolutions, party structures, etc. is our only hope because our only hope is the struggle.

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  15. CWIer USA Avatar
    CWIer USA

    Rusty–I have a tremendous amount of respect for many Solidarity members. I think that merging with the ISO wouldn’t be a positive step for your group.

    The ISO’s work in coalitions is marred by setting up competing “campaigns” in order to try to isolate other socialists. They are also known for manuevering and a lack of concern for bread-and-butter issues.

    What would a merger with the ISO do to Labor Notes? Maybe ruin it…

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  16. Dave Riley Avatar
    Dave Riley

    I don’t challenge your argument that these organisations can build movements — they are in fact the best builders ( although there are some notable sectarian indulgences such as in the US anti-way movement). I’m not challenging that at all.. That’s what these groups have been doing, variously, for over 40 years and I think they generally do it very well indeed.

    My argument is that the very effort to do that as the sixties radicalisation ebbed — while also trying to sustain a revolutionary perspective — has taken a toll on their politics. Every one of these groups believe that they are the true Marxists. Every one of them. And that these others variously are not.

    This is how the DSP put it in one report (and it was Derek Wall who has drawn my attention to this quote):

    “Small socialist organizations operating in relative isolation in the working class movements, or sometimes substantially outside these movements because they are composed almost totally of small groups of “socialist intellectuals” are chronically plagued with what might be called “Marxist” identity politics. That is they are more concerned about “proving” to themselves that they are “real Marxists” than actually applying what Marx, Engels and Lenin taught which is to build real socialist leadership in the working class. In fact, the further away such groups are from that objective, the more loudly they assert their “Marxist” identity. What passes as politics in “the left” as we have it in this country can degenerate to little more than a ridiculous I’m-more-Marxist-than-you pissing competition. We’ve all seen this time and again with various little sects. And we’ve also seen this tendency in our own organization” (http://www.dsp.org.au/node/228).

    While everything you say is correct — ” An outward perspective, rather than one that obsesses about resolutions, party structures, etc. is our only hope because our only hope is the struggle.” — the complication is that it is rhetorical unless that outward perspective enables the grouping to begin to break out of its isolation. That is the true measure of its politics and we all know that’s true but we all default to the comfort of theoretical arrogance.

    And while there are ” no easy one-size-fits-all answers ” the problem I’m trying to address is the seeming preference that these groups have to accept their isolation as an honour. As an honour — the quintessential Trotskyist badge. That’s what I mean when I say that they accept this situation as the best of all possible worlds.

    It happens — unfortunately it does indeed happen — that when other outfits or aggregatons of socialist activists try to creatively break out of this historical sentence, these attempts are rigorously opposed such as the SSP , the English Socialist Alliance, Respect, the Australian Socialist Alliance .. for the one simple reason that these projects, when they generate their own autonomous motion, create a contradictory situation which begins to negate the separate party building identity.

    I grant you that nothing is certain — that no one way, as yet, has proven better or more reliable than another. So for the moment let’s have a discussion . At least we owe ourselves that.

    It was suggested earlier that maybe I and these others were pre-occupied with the SWP. That’s hardly the case. However, when the SWP made its Socialist Alliance turn in the UK it was suddenly kosher way over here for the far left to come together in a unity clinch. The DSP had been engaged in many regroupment enterprises over the previous 17 years prior to the advent of the Socialist Alliance in 2001. But because Ol Blighty had given the imprimatur nod,it was now approved behavior that IST affiliates , as well as the various SWP nodes, could safely partner with the rest of the far left. The complication was that the SWP soon enough dumped the SA option while the project here was buoyant enough to survive even though London had decided to close down the English Socialist Alliance.

    So the SA here was, in fact, a creature of the SWP. In a round about fashion it is the SWP’s bastard child. Without that brief SA turn by the SWP, no unity project here would have got off the ground.

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  17. redbedhead Avatar
    redbedhead

    “But because Ol Blighty had given the imprimatur nod,it was now approved behavior that IST affiliates , as well as the various SWP nodes, could safely partner with the rest of the far left. ”

    I’m afraid that you have a distorted picture of how things work in the IST. There are no orders to do this or do that. In fact, as I remember it, there was hesitation about the Aussies trying to replicate what the SWP were doing in Britain. It’s always been the case – with differing degrees of emphasis – that general analyses have to find their specific application in particular national contexts. If some groups have more slavishly followed a particular tactic of the SWP, like building a socialist alliance, that has to do with the character of local leaderships who are perhaps not confident to find their own specific path. For instance, in Canada, we never attempted a socialist alliance (Nor in most other countries, as far as I’m aware) – though we did join the regroupment that took place in the French province of Quebec, now called Quebec Solidaire. I also remember that, for instance the ISO and the Canadian IS took different positions on NAFTA (the free trade agreement).

    “It happens — unfortunately it does indeed happen — that when other outfits or aggregatons of socialist activists try to creatively break out of this historical sentence, these attempts are rigorously opposed… for the one simple reason that these projects, when they generate their own autonomous motion, create a contradictory situation which begins to negate the separate party building identity.”

    I think this is a vast oversimplification of three different situations, with three different dynamics. The problems with the Socialist Alliance were related to the brake that the smaller groups were putting on the attempt to reach out to the radicalizing Muslim population as part of building a broad anti-war movement. The problems in the SSP were (depending on who you ask) about whether Sheridan had been cavalier in pursuing his case and caused a split or whether, as the SWP comrades argued, that a section of the SSP leadership were sectarian towards united front work – being dismissive of the massive Make Poverty History mobilizations, refusing to work with Labour supporters or MPs around the anti-war movement, wanting all campaigning organizations to be controlled by the SSP, etc. And I’m sure the CWI has its own perspective – but none of those have any relation to “separate party building identity”. Only with Respect could you say that this argument possibly applied, though I don’t think it’s so simple here either.

    So, by all means, discuss experiences – but don’t create templates based upon prejudices and assumptions about what is wrong with the left. Talk about the real struggle and the real potential and how to engage the real openings, such as there are.

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