Sectarianism And Lies

by Daithi Mon Sep 01, 2003 13:11

"Not just from contributors but also from those who run IMC"

Your article is about contributors. Can you please point to concrete evidence of a campaign of anti-SP activities on the part of anyone involved in administering IMC IE?

by Joe Mon Sep 01, 2003 13:18

I was very annoyed with the SP over Shannon but willing to leave this to one side because of the good work they do elsewhere. Mind you I note above the repetition of the 'workers action is the answer' lie from the organisation that refused to even support a lobby of ICTU for such action.

I'd read Tourishs piece about the SP being a cult well over a year ago and thought at the time that while it raised some good questions the 'cult' accusations were overblown and anyway more a description of Militant then the SP.

I found the John Throne stuff interesting, again with some solid questions being raised but no more or less revealing then insider pieces about other Leninist outfits.

By the time the Mulholland stuff was posted though I was beginning to re-consider my original position. I was moving from a position of seeing Tourishs cult description as overblown and in the past to something relevant to the present.

While the Mulholland stuff added to this feeling the key factor was not what either of these three characters who have all been at somewhat senior positions within the CWI had posted.

Rather what has started to convince me that 'cult' is a useful term is the reactions from SP members to these criticisms. Reactions which if you look at Tourishs original essay he predicted in advance.

There are almost no attempts to seriously discuss or answer the accusations. There have been a couple of half-hearted attempts from anonymous but obviously senior members of the SP today.

But what has been more typical is exactly the sort of stuff we see posted above. Attacks on the character of those who raise the criticisms. Attacks which are now even applied to indymedia in general - an implicit demand that indymedia should silence the critics of the SP to add to the threat to sue indymedia made by two senior members of SY at the start of the summer.

This is the method of the scientologists or the moonies. Those using it should give what they are up to some serious consideration.

by Observer Mon Sep 01, 2003 13:20

This type of posting can easily colonise this site, and others. The immediate problem with it is that the vituperative tone cannot disguise the absolute absence of any kind of argument. Rather than denounce what the writer thinks is the motivation of his opponents (and who really knows, apart from these people themselves?) it is mroe constructive and certainly more consistent with the norms of debate in the labour movement to actually try and engage with people's arguments. These have been exhaustively rehearsed on these issues on other threads. SY member might find it a more constructive use of his/ her energies to direct his attention there - and, I repeat, engage with the arguments of his opponents rather than denounce their character. I suspect that this rather crass assault is really a spoof posting, but it does detract from the overall value of the site.

by John Meehan Mon Sep 01, 2003 13:40

Looks like a spoof alright -

Perhaps the author would like to identify him/herself?

Otherwise, I suggest boycotting this poisonous anonymous contribution - as others have said "don't feed the trolls"

by Sharon Mon Sep 01, 2003 13:50

I'd say definately a spoof, bit of baiting going on methinks. How would someone who claims to be a member of SY for one year know what marc mulhollnad was like 'back in the day'?? IGNORE

by Yeren - SY (Personal Capacity) Mon Sep 01, 2003 13:58

Far from being a spoof this represents my heart felt opinion. I have spoken to members who were around at the time and studied the relevant douments both internal and external.

By allowing stories that were no more than a pack of lies or the ravings of embbittered individuals remain up on Indymedia, IMC effectively took part in the campaign of villification. Any lie under the Sun was published.

The Editorial Board of IMC is dominated by Anarchists who supported direct action and who are hostile to the traditional Workers Movement in general and to TRotskyism in particular.

I have no intention of revealing my identity. I have seen the personalised abuse which has been heaped on others who stood up against the barrage of lies.

by Joe Mon Sep 01, 2003 14:16

Given that all 3 of the people were at a fairly senior level within the CWI should we conclude that

1. The CWI likes to promote "embbittered individuals" who rave to senior positions.

or

2. Being a member of the CWI is likely to turn you into a "embbittered individuals" who raves

or

3. The CWI finds it easier to label people "embbittered individuals" who rave then to answer the points they raise

Neither of these three options is all that attractive, which should we go for?

Also you seem to suggest that the CWI should be able to judge which stories are 'lies' and which are not and then get them removed.

A. Is this a good idea?

B. Does it tell us something about what the CWI might be like if they ever had power?

As already said the replies from SP members are FAR more damaging then the articles posted. Which is why some feel you must be a spoofer rather then an SP member.

A final point. Is there not something ironic in hiding behind an anonymous label for fear of personal attack while at the same time labelling 3 people who post under clear identifications as "embbittered individuals" who rave?

by Gaucho Rivero Mon Sep 01, 2003 14:24

I suppose the incident in the Ukraine is a figment of all the anarcho CWI haters imaginations.

WTF is the traditional workers movement?

And there are plenty of Marxists who are hostile to the deification of Trotsky which you seem to wallow in.

What I wrote in July still applies:

There is no doubt that the SP comes under far too much criticism compared to that heaped on other groups and worryingly more than the real enemy capitalism.

But that said there is a worry that the SP sees all questions and critical analysis as trolling but what would you expect with an unhealthy internal regime that prizes bloodying its youth in ridiculous incantations of the latest mantra over its discardable experienced members.

by ec Mon Sep 01, 2003 14:34

IMC Editorial Group is not 'dominated by anarchists' it includes or has included Greens/SWP/Labour as well as non-aligned individuals.

sp and sy members are welcome to join and excercise influence.

The archives of the editorial group are open and accessible. Anyone who is interested in the nuts and bolts of how the site is run can join the editorial mailing list and thus access the archives here : http://www.indymedia.ie/about/mailinglists.php

by Chekov - WSM Mon Sep 01, 2003 14:41

This poor soul is serious. Like Joe, it is the responses of SP/SY members that scare me a lot more than the original accusations. To the SY author this seems like a reasonable, even convincing post; to the rest of us it seems like lunacy - emphatically proving the cult point in a way that is likely to convince virtually every non-SPer on indymedia. It just goes to show how wierd the internal culture of the SP must be, if the author thinks that this post amounts to anything other than shooting him/herself in the foot.

The post is a load of shite, and the part that stinks the most is the pathetic attempt to force indymedia to carry out the SP's censorship.

"By allowing stories that were no more than a pack of lies or the ravings of embbittered individuals remain up on Indymedia, IMC effectively took part in the campaign of villification. Any lie under the Sun was published."

The IMC is an open publishing collective. If there is no clear evidence that an article or comment is factually incorrect, or promoting race-hate, it is allowed to remain on the site. Your ludicrous logic would claim that the IMC effectively took part in the war on Iraq (many pro-war people posted here), and all sorts of shite that has appeared on the site.

Even if the IMC was a censorious outfit, these posts about the SP would come way, way down the list of things to be removed. Especially since, we have only the SP's word for the claim that they are full of lies and I really can't see that persuading any neutrals at all. Consider the fact that all of the main SP critics (Tourish, Throne, Mulholland..) have presented evidence based arguments and the SP have responded with little more than bitter personal attacks, which could much more easily be described as a "pack of lies or embbittered [sic]ravings".

So, if I were you, I'd watch your words when it comes to having a go at the IMC (especially when you make stupid, unsubstantiated claims about the political composition of a group which you clearly know next to nothing about), the posts from the SP, like yours, come much closer to the censor's line than anything they are arguing against.

by Yeren Mon Sep 01, 2003 14:44

When a SP member went to the bother of writing a detailed response to the DEnnis Tourish Cults diatribe, an Indymedia Editor tried to have it removed and proceeded to pour abuse on the piece.

Its on your archives and speaks for itself. I'll put it here as not many would want to subscribe to such a hostile list.

R Isible p0litic0 at yahoo.com
Thu Aug 7 14:05:14 PDT 2003


The long-running and very boring SP flamewar has had
some fresh fuel thrown on it by an anonymous
"SP-member" purporting to be replying to earlier
comments accusing the SP of being a cult. I'd dearly
love to downgrade this "story":
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=60690

to being a comment on the earlier thread where this
issue was dealt with ad nauseam:
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=60567&results_offset=80


If no one objects I'll do this in a few hours. If
this really _is_ an SP member and not some elaborate
joke then I wonder at the wisdom of the SP members.

by John Meehan Mon Sep 01, 2003 14:47

The anonymous yeren denies s/he is spoofing - how can we know? It seems to me that if a correspondent hides their identity, and proceeds to make personal attacks on other people, - as is clearly the case with this "yeren" contributor - others should ignore the material -

Perhaps a correspondent who is a genuine SP supporter could say if yeren is a real person or not?

nothing more to say.

by Doubter Mon Sep 01, 2003 14:54

You are really John Meehan? In any case the story is ready made for deniability, the 'personal capacity' bit. I remember Steven Boyd coming on before and saying that comments even by identifiable SP members didnt represent the official SP line. Its an old trick of theirs.

In a forum where even many of the editors and certainly a large proportion of the regular contributors hide their true identities anybody can be anybody.

by ec Mon Sep 01, 2003 14:56

Here it is and what a hell of a long thread it is too: http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=60690

If I remember correctly I defended it on two counts
1. If it was genuine the author had put a lot of work into the original post
2. If it wasn't genuine I would defend it as satire

by Gaucho Rivero Mon Sep 01, 2003 15:03

....a Chinese wildman.

So I doubt the CWI will admit to him being a member. Unless of course China is now the largest growing part of the CWI after Nigeria and the Ukraine.

by Poisonous Poster Mon Sep 01, 2003 15:14

"nothing more to say"

If only it were true.

by Yeren Mon Sep 01, 2003 15:42

This may well refer to a mythical creature but it is also a Hebrew word which I will let you search out for yourself. It might teach you not to jump to conclusions so quickly.

I expected little better from the Editors responses. I am being threatened with censorship because I challenge them. I am thankful to the Editor who stood over the original piece.

by ec Mon Sep 01, 2003 15:49

Where did you get that idea?

Stop crying 'wolf'.

by Doubter Mon Sep 01, 2003 15:52

'YEREN is from the Hebrew RANAN meaning TO SING, TO SHOUT WITH JOY; TO PRAY, CHANT.'

Just what we need a singing, joyful, praying, shouting Trot!

by anonoymous - sp Mon Sep 01, 2003 15:54

Its the worst one ever really, like the headline suggests and used for years by tabloids. If we are accused of being a cult and we defend ourselves, even by simply saying. No actually its not a cult, you get the answer - THAT PROVES IT only a cultist would deny being a member of a cult!!!! I would advise comrades not to bother their arses its a no win situation, out in the communities where it matters we are gaining respect and support. Most people aren't bothered by inter left polemics.

As for the four I don't think Marks piece was so bad, he dosen't agree with us fair enough. John Throne has has points. Tourish is on an ego trip don't let it get to you.

by Gaucho Rivero Mon Sep 01, 2003 15:58

Yeren in hebrew means TO PRAY, CHANT.
Quite cultish really.

I still prefer the Chinese answer to Big foot becaue you certainly know how to put it in it.

by Sean - none Mon Sep 01, 2003 16:05

Dear ?

I started to read your polemic against three ex SPers and got as far as the first line where you state you are in the SP one year. So, in fact, you know NOTHING about ANY of the people involved, the circumstances of their departure, or who is and isnt telling fibs.

I admire your loyality, your youthful zeal and your public display of devotion to the SP and CWI but you should stick to commenting on what you actually have experience of. You were not there to see what happened and are relying upon a second hand and highly suspect 'line' from the SP.

Its a bit like beliving that the Garda complaints bureau are objective in their investigations into garda brutality!

by observer Mon Sep 01, 2003 16:06

I certainly would NOT claim that if SP members deny they are a cult, that proves they are a cult. However, I would argue that if they do not engage with the arguments of their critics and instead spend their time assassinating their characters then this is indeed cultic behaviour. Abuse of critics rather than debating their ideas is quite frankly cultic, and very off putting to anybody who is not already a convert to SP ideas - which is most of the population, at this time. I do not believe that most people give a toss about what the SP imagines the motivations are of Mulholland, Tourish, Throne etc. What they do rather expect is that the SP might address their arguments. The original post on this thread failed so spectacularly to do any such thing I for one wondered, and still do, if it was a spoof.

by Chekov Mon Sep 01, 2003 16:17

"even by simply saying. No actually its not a cult, you get the answer - THAT PROVES IT only a cultist would deny being a member of a cult!!!!"

Nobody has said anything remotely like this, or maybe you could point out a place in the thread where somebody has argued this poisition. It is the manner of the denials, in particular their focus on character assasination rather than evidence, that has been picked upon, not the fact of the denials. The construction of feeble arguments, then attributing them to your opponent in debate before demolishing them - the straw man technique - can not be taken seriously be any observer.

It is interesting that your straw man argument is so incredibly transparent as to be laughable. Any observer can simply scroll up the page to look for the argument that you are responding to and, hey presto - it's not to be found. This type of thing might work in the internal debates of an organisation that can take stalin's airbrush to imperfect memories of events and debates, but on the internet where it is obvious exactly what was said, it just looks embarrassing.

Yeren seemed to take my last post as "being threatened with censorship because I challenge [the IMC editors]." Which is pretty amusing really since I am not on the IMC editorial collective. I would be very embarressed to write a public diatribe about the composition of a collective (dominated by anarchists apparently) when I then clearly reveal that I don't have a clue about the actual composition of it. So Yeren do you have any shame? Are you going to apologise for your ignorant attack?

(Holding breath....turning blue....passing out...)

by fingers crossed Mon Sep 01, 2003 16:34

.

by Pat C Mon Sep 01, 2003 16:55

I also wonder if this attack is for real. What makes believe it might be is the way the writer psycho-analyzes his opponents motives. This is so typical of the SP attacks. Also as gaucho has mentioned the SP have a habit of blooding their young members by setting them loose on experienced ex-members.

My views on the SP are well known and I have no desire to rehash them here. But I will say that the attacks on JT, JR, DT and MM are underhand.

by Aidan Mon Sep 01, 2003 18:28

You claim an active campaign of criticism and vilifcation, please then list several (not just one example) of this campaign by IMC Editorial.

Aidan
-just off to have my face removed-

by Curiouser and curiouser - Up your rabbit hole Mon Sep 01, 2003 20:22

As a long-standing member of the SWP I would like to deny that we have any involvement in trying to incite an argument about the SP. Our conspicuous absence from this debate is because we are busy OVERTHROWING! CAPITALISM! and don't have time for the sectarianism displayed by the Socialist Party.

by Patsy - patta-cake patta-cake Mon Sep 01, 2003 20:58

patty-cake, patty-cake, he he he!

by sp member Mon Sep 01, 2003 21:28

I think it is clear that the posting is a spoof attempt to reignite discussions from other threads. Seems to have worked.:)

by potty Mon Sep 01, 2003 21:48

Take a seat!! you need one. You are suffering from delusions brought on by lack of contact with real people. A necessary cure for this illness is withdrawal from mixing with moonies, ultra left cults or right wing milita's.

Busy deconstructing capitalism where? Not in Ireland, thats for sure.

PS there is a rumour that the world bank, international capitalism, multinationals and the IMF are all closing shop. Why? they just received the SWP's petition!!!

by Brian Cahill - Socialist Party (personal capacity) Mon Sep 01, 2003 22:00 nigel_irritable at yahoo dot com

I have no idea if the article by "Yeren" is just more shitstirring by one of the usual two or three people or if it is actually by some Socialist Youth member who has lost his or her temper in a rather unhelpful way. I suspect the former but you can never be sure one way or the other. If "Yeren" really is a member of the Socialist Party he or she should feel free to email me at the address above.

It is a fact, undeniable and uncontestable, that a few people's obsession with the evils of the Socialist Party has taken over the newswire. This abuse of the IMC is having the effect of gradually wearing down the considerable amount of goodwill towards Indymedia which has existed amongst the activist community in Ireland. Few people want to use a site that is dominated by one, never-ending, squabble.

There are three people using this site who have a vitriolic hatred for the Socialist Party. Any time a member of the Socialist Party takes part in any thread or even if they don't, there is a strong possibility that one or other of them will derail the thread to deal with their personal obsessions. Every few days a new thread entirely devoted to their obsession begins.

Those three individuals have been joined by a couple of people who have a background in the Socialist Party some decades ago, an axe to grind and seemingly limitless amounts of time on their hands. The red-baiting Management studies academic, Denis Tourish and the entirely more serious, if even more longwinded John Throne.

I have no respect for Tourish, rather more for Throne (and while I disagree with most of it I am quite enjoying Marc Mulholland's blog), but none of these are the real problem for the newswire.

The problem consists of our three or so obsessives and their unlimited number of aliases.

Socialist Party and Socialist Youth members are confronted with an endless barrage of lies and half truths and disinformation presented under psuedonyms. If they respond then as in most cases on the internet it has the effect only of feeding the trolls. If they don't respond then they are presented with more and more "why aren't you answering..." comments. Eventually an unchallenged lie repeated over and over comes to be accepted as truth.

Some members of the Socialist Party or Socialist Youth don't help themselves by responding in kind. How often they are actually doing so is open to question. I myself have been impersonated on the newswire more than twenty times. I don't always even catch the impersonations - I don't have time to read every comment on every thread on Indymedia. I'm certainly not the most-impersonated member of the Socialist Party here.

Of course, as our trolls have become a little more experienced they have moved away from impersonating named real people. It's much easier to impersonate some invented member of the SP. Who knows every member of any reasonably sizeable organisation? I certainly don't. Better still, don't give a name at all. You are much less likely to get caught by the person you are impersonating if you don't pretend to be a specific individual.

So it goes on and on. Very few actual members of the Socialist Party or the Socialist Youth now read this site. Fewer still post here. I'm sure that our three keyboad slanderers regard that as a good thing but I don't.

I don't share Yerens view that the IMC collective has any kind of grudge against the SP. I'm on the editorial list. The people involved have done a good job to get the site up and running and are doing their best. My only complaint against anyone involved in the editorial team is that they have been a bit complacent in allowing this nonsense to go on for as long as it has.

Of course now that the site as a whole is being so obviously damaged by this nonsense they are beginning to lose that complacency. Because he/she actually did something about one of the interminable threads, R Isible was accused of being in the Socialist Party by one of the usual suspects only a few days ago.

What precisely should be done, I'm not sure. A start would be to do as R Isible suggested and simply scoop up all of the bile overflow and keep it in one thread. In other words quarantine the obsessives and any foolish SP members who want to play with them.

From the point of view of a Socialist Party member I can only make a brief appeal to any other remaining SP members using this site.

1) Most importantly don't rise to the bait. Just ignore the usual suspects in all their various incarnations.

2) This shouldn't need saying, but don't post personal attacks on anyone.

3) Don't post in any way that gives the impression that you are speaking on behalf of the Socialist Party or Socialist Youth. That includes using psuedonyms like "SP member".

4) Don't use a psuedonym at all unless you have a good reason to do so (like job victimisation). If you are using a psuedonym stick to the same one and let other SP members who use the site know who you are. This would make impersonations much more difficult.

The fourth part is linked to an idea which might have some use for the site as a whole - usernames and passwords. I'm not sure how technically difficult it would be, but requiring anybody who wants to post to log in would cut down a huge amount on the casual anonymous abuse which adds to the problems of the site considerably. It would also prevent much of the impersonation that goes on here.

What do other users think? Would it lead to privacy problems? Is it just technically too difficult?

by Observer Mon Sep 01, 2003 22:30

Brian Cahill's comment is (mostly) welcome. It seems indeed that the original posting on this thread was a malicious spoof, designed to reignite old debates. However, if I could take issue with Brian on one point, his comments on the need to avoid personal abuse would carry more weight if he avoided labelling one of his critics a red baiting academic.

If he wishes, he can deal with the said person's arguments. If not, throwing around more insults while deploring the tendency of others to do so adds little to the point. For what it is worth, I personally do not think that either Brian or his colleagues in the SP have demonstrated an ability to engage with the arguments of their opponents on the internal regime of his organisation - a perfectly valid issue for discussion. However, I do think that it has been discussed adequately elsewhere, and I rather doubt whether the SP or anyone else has much new to say about it at this stage. But - please - from Brian and his friends, less abuse and more debate and argument would be a welcome step forward

by . Mon Sep 01, 2003 22:35

I would agree with most of what Brain has said.
Use of indy media to spread lies about the left in general ultimatly will undermine its key function.
Will there come a day when indy media becomes a less honest vehicle for reporting news and debating issues than the multi national press it was set up to challange?
On the role of the editors can I just say that they operate under very difficult circumstances and while I do not agree with every decision I think that over all they do a very good job.

by Chekov Mon Sep 01, 2003 23:18

But his analysis is rather one-sided. I agree that, for some reason, there are some people who use any mention of the SP to have a go at them about unrelated points. This is extremely tedious and distracting as we have the same arguments again and again on unrelated threads. However, this is at least partially the fault of the SP.

I have never seen any remotely convincing attempts by the SP to answer their critics in any of their forms. On the few occassions that individuals have defended the SP's internal regime they have gone to pains to emphasise how far beneath the SP this defence is. There have also been a number of totally unwarranted personal attacks against individuals who have been critical of the SP, seemingly carried out by members of the SP. The SP have never distanced themselves from any of this mud-slinging. Even in Brian's defence here, he does not really distance himself from the opinions expressed in Yeren's mail, he merely disagrees with the theory of an IMC grudge against the SP and calls the whole mail 'unhelpful'. If there are people on indymedia impersonating SP members, it should be easy to distance yourselves from the content of what they say if it contradicts SP policy. I note there is no sense that Brian, or the SP, would distance themselves from the slanders against the named individuals involved. In fact Brian refers to Tourish as a red-baiting academic. As a 'red' (with some black mixed in there too), I must say that I think this is a grossly inaccurate characterisation. I think that his writings are full of interesting material for anybody interested in healthy group dynamics, and I think that there is no evidence whatsoever for the charge of red-baiting. In short, it is a slander.

All the groups and parties that use indymedia have a certain group of people who try to undermine them at every chance. In general the groups who try to answer the points come out looking best (at least in my eyes). So, for example, although I have no love for their politics, I think the Shinners present themselves very well on indymedia, despite the fact that they have as many baiters as the SP do. The difference is their willingness to engage in debate and the fact that they rarely try to engage in personalised attacks.

So, while Brian would say: "The problem consists of our three or so obsessives and their unlimited number of aliases," I'd add "and a party whose internal culture is far too centralised and doctrinaire to flourish on the internet, a medium which favours groups with an open, flexible and decentralised attitude towards debate."

I'd actually agree with Brian's advice to SP members, with the additional point that:

5. Answer anything that looks like it could be a serious criticism. Unanswered criticims compound the problem. Just because the criticism may possibly come from somebody that you consider to be an enemy of the SP, doesn't mean that the criticism is without foundation or can be ignored.

I'd also implore SP critics not to drag every bloody thread into a discussion of the problems of the SP, and maybe even try to ignore attempts to provoke you (as I probably should do myself sometimes). Remember that this is very boring to all but the hardcore trainspotters of the left. If I was attempting to disrupt indymedia, what better way than to turn every story into a slagging match about a group that most people haven't the tiniest acquaintance with.

by Brian Cahill Mon Sep 01, 2003 23:22

For what it's worth "observer", I partially agree with you.

I should have stuck to just describing Tourish as a Management studies academic (a factual description) and left my personal view of his actions (that he was red-baiting) to the side.

On your other point, I disagree.

To the very limited extent that anybody from the Socialist Party bothered to take up any of the criticisms offered of us they did so very well. However, I think you fail to take into account the nature of the environment here on Indymedia.

I haven't taken part in any of the interminable "the SP is evil" threads in a very long time.

It is impossible to engage with any serious criticism in the acidic surroundings of an Indymedia thread on the Socialist Party. Any point you make will meet only with anonymous howls of abuse from the usual suspects. Quite simply this isn't an atmosphere in which we choose to debate anything with anybody.

Now I'm not going to get derailed here. What do other users of the site think is the best way forward?

by Brian Cahill Mon Sep 01, 2003 23:49

Chekov, I barely skimmed over Yeren's article the first time I saw this thread. I just saw that it was full of personal abuse and moved on.

Having read it properly, it is quite clear that the whole thing is just another piece of impersonation. The post contains some nasty distortions of our political views, ranging from the part about ultra-left attacks on workers in Shannon to the bizarre stuff about Loyalists in the North.

I'm not sure quite what parts of a post written by somebody trying to cause yet more hassle on Indymedia for the Socialist Party that you want me to "distance myself" from. None of it has anything to do with me or with the Socialist Party.

On your wider points, I can only refer you to my answer to "observer" above. We don't typically "engage" with what you regard as serious criticisms on Indymedia because we don't regard Indymedia in its present poisonous state as an appropriate venue for a discussion with anybody about anything.

If you want to argue about what you claim is a lack of democracy or too much centralism in the Socialist Party then I'm more than willing to go for a pint and talk with you about it. A few months ago we invited your organisation to come to the Socialist Youth festival to debate the question of Marxism or Anarchism and a part of that discussion dealt with organisational questions. There are many ways in which you will find Socialist Party members willing to "engage" you in a discussion on this subject or any other.

Demanding answers on Indymedia, in between fifteen pieces of abuse written by a few people under seven different psuedonyms, isn't one of them. That isn't because Indymedia is an inherently bad site, it's because Indymedia has been turned into a bearpit.

The post starting this thread is itself a small example of just why so few actual Socialist Party members go anywhere near Indymedia.

by observer Tue Sep 02, 2003 00:17

Ok, the original on this was a spoof - probably designed to draw Throne, Tourish, Mulholland and God knows who else back into a row with the SP. In general, people are trying to avoid this. But a word to Brian, and I am glad he is distancing himself from at least some of the abuse: ok, there is much intemperate discussion here. But there is also some sensible discussion. For example, the SP member who recently took on the cult issues wrote a very cogent piece. It provoked a reasoned response from Tourish, counter-responses from SP member and some good general discussion, largely and thankfully focused on issues rather than abuse.(We will all differ on who got the best of it). I could not agree that that discussion wasn't worthwhile, nor of considerable interest to people on the Irish left and even further afield. I think you are making a serious mistake if you avoid all debate on Indymedia. It might be tedious to you, but it isn't always so to many socialist inclined people and activists. To avoid all debate, if that is what you are proposing on this site, would only make you look shifty. Avoid the insults, yes (and avoid issuing them) - but there are issues worthy of debate from time to time, and it is good if you take up the challenge. Having said that, I have had more than enough of this issue, and it is clear that most people feel the same. There really isn't anything more to add on many of these issues.

by John Meehan Tue Sep 02, 2003 00:17

Very good points Brian.

I agree with your proposals regarding the curbing of anonymous contributions, the need to abandon personal abuse, and so on - I think, if people insist on using pseudonyms, they should register them - these discussion threads have to be cleaned up.

Perhaps some good can emerge from the provocative post that started off this thread.

by SWP? no SWP here Tue Sep 02, 2003 00:40

I would like to echo the points made by curiouser above. Nobody should think for a second that at least one of the anonymous people who attack the SP is actually an SWP member trying to give the impression that he is an anarchist.

Nobody should think that all. Why would a member of the SWP want to spend such a huge amount of time trying to cause trouble?

by John - none Tue Sep 02, 2003 01:52

the sites gone mad, according to half of what I've read tonight, anyone who critisises Israeli Policy is a rabid nazi and anyone who supports the socialists is a cultist! Well I critize Israeli policy and I voted for joe higgins and i'll do it again - lock me up!

by pat c Tue Sep 02, 2003 11:13

I didnt rise to the bait of the original post nor to that of the fool who posted above. While making people log in wont completely stop impersonations (you could always have a one letter name difference) or multiple identitities, it would make it a lot more difficult.

It is unfortunate that Brian Cahill had to continue the slander of Dennis Tourish. If the views of Dennis are so weak then Brian should be able to engage with them instead of setting up men of straw to knock down.

by Agent of Chaos Tue Sep 02, 2003 11:52

" This shouldn't need saying, but don't post personal attacks on anyone."

"The red-baiting Management studies academic, Denis Tourish "

Both of the above statements are by Brian Cahill in the one comment. As usual the rules do not apply to the SP. Do as he says, not as he does.

by . Tue Sep 02, 2003 12:04

The efforts of trolls/spin doctors on this site to provoke rows about every subject under the sun continue to have an effect.
This latest thread started with a statement that most everyone now accepts was a spoof but that has not stopped folk from using it as a jumping off point for further attacks on the Socialist Party.
It is not only the SP that is attacked in this fashion it happen to other groups though with slightly less venom. In many incidents the attacks are without even the slightest foundation if they happened in the main stream press would be treated with outrage by the users of this site. It would appear that the art of black ops is alive and well on indy media.
The big question for the future of the newswire will be, can it be turned into a honest reporter of alternative news or will it go down to defeat under the impact ot the lies spread on it?

by Magneto - LP/LY Tue Sep 02, 2003 12:06

In the thread about a 30 hour week the SP use five different anonymous identities to attack the Labour Party.This is nothing new. Any article posted by a LP member will be assailed by SP members using numerous identities. The same is true of Sinn Fein articles.

by . Tue Sep 02, 2003 12:42

Magneto makes a point about the 30 hour article but forgets to say that the opening post on this thread, posted by some one claiming to be a labour party member, begins in the first paragraph with an attack on two other parties,

"This puts clear water between the radical but achievable and realisible policies of the labour movement and the ultra left positions adopted by micro parties such as Sinn Fein and the SP"

it seems to me that all other attacking comments arise from this opening making it quite hard to argue that these other parties should not reply.

That said the discussion around the issue of a 30 hour week is itself good and quite informative.

The point, i think, is that all contributors should consider how their posts will be viewed before making them.

by Magneto - LP/LY Tue Sep 02, 2003 12:49

I never said they should not reply. I was pointing out that the SP regularly use multiple identities to attack articles and individuals they disagree with. I merely wished to remind Brian Cahill that he resided in a shaky glass house.

by . Tue Sep 02, 2003 13:33

Considering the numbers in it I suspect that it must be a hell of a big glass house magneto. :)

by Magneto - LP/LY Tue Sep 02, 2003 13:51

Its not at all as big as Cahill and the other SP spindoctors would lead us to believe.The Northern membership has shrunk even further since the last SP conference, there they were claiming 30 members on paper. Peter Hadden, dont you just love him?

In the South they are having problems with Dermot Connolly, purged from the post of General Secretary at the 2002 SP conference. His open disagreement with the SP is awkward for them. How can they expel someone who was last years Little Lenin?

Whatever happened to Domnic Haugh?

by dickwatch Tue Sep 02, 2003 13:58

My dick is bigger than your dick

by . Tue Sep 02, 2003 14:02

Wrong end of the stick magneto.
What I saying was you would have a room in the glass house too.:)

by Irritated Tue Sep 02, 2003 14:21

"If "Yeren" really is a member of the Socialist Party he or she should feel free to email me at the address above."

Ah Brian, how touching, you are offering your services as the agony aunt of the CWI.

After doing that you elucidate a thoughtful response on why there should not be anonymous postings, all fine and well but could you enlighten us as to who this anonymous poster is.
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=60690&search_text=tourish&search_comments=on&condense_comments=false#comment43035

I'm convinced that you are the author.
Excuse me if I can't take your other arguments seriously.

by Magneto Tue Sep 02, 2003 14:26

I do not get on my horse about posters choosing to remain anonymous, Cahill does. He makes a token call for open posting whilst ignoring the reality of the SP abuse.

by just remembered Tue Sep 02, 2003 14:28

The above reminded me that one of the SP's most sturdy declarations against the cult accusation was that they never use fronts (only the SWP do that). Doesn't the Labour and Trade Union Group and the Youth Campaign for Jobs not ring any bells? Both fronts, without any independent existence - eg people often collected money on the streets for the YCFJ, but it all went straight into CWI coffers, every last penny.

by john throne - labors militant voice Tue Sep 02, 2003 17:09 loughfinn at aol dot com

I think if we go back over the discussions on indymedia we will see that when those of us who believe in discussing the main issues facing the working class and anti capitalist movement focus on these issues that those who want to stir up flame wars tend to keep quiet or if they do speak they get little echo. I think this is the general issue that gives us some direction in how to avoid the childish exchanges that can develop.

For me the main issues are what does the left say to the millions who marched and are marching world wide against the capitalist offensive. Do we only say let us work together on specific united front campaigns such as against the invasion of Iraq, the bin charges etc etc or do we say we have to try and develop this international movement with some structure and direction through the building a new mass anti capitalist international. This is my position. My open letter to the SP was mainly on this point. I think an exchange with the SP Comrades and other Comrades on this issue would be very helpful to us all.

The second point I am grappling with and which I believe is relevant to the movement is how does those of us who believe in building revolutionary socialist organizations do so with out these developing an internal life that has a tendency to crush the critical political life out of the members of these organizations. I believe these are important points for all left activists and of course there are others that other Comrades would see as more important. But as long as we stick to discussing the general political issues then the childish abuse can be kept to a minimum. This more than any detailed rules is what can continue to make this site a valuable resource.

I believe that indymedia is a valuable resource and in spite of the probelms such as we are discussing now that a lot of interesting ideas have been and are being discussed.

I am not interested in attacking the SP for the sake of attacking the SP. I think that anybody who does so acts in a more destructive manner than any of the mistakes of the SP. I think that the reason the SP gets into such trouble are yes because there are some people out there who are obsessed with attacking the SP, but more because the SP has a real base while at the same time the SP has made some serious mistakes in the past which it will not face up to. I have said many times to CWI Comrades that until they face up openly and honestly to these then they will keep coming back to haunt it and they will distort the internal life. When I was being expelled at the last meeting I was able to attend I asked the CWI what they thought was going to happen. That I would go away and shut up? I explained there was no chance of this and they would have to face up to the issues again and again. This will continually be the case.

I am glad to see Brian C adopt a very reasonable tone but I could go back as I have done before and list the long list of terms of abuse and slander that have been used on this list by SP members against myself. The use of such methods reflect a weak political position. Both on behalf of the SP and on behalf of those who attack the SP. Calling people names and commenting on their psycological state shows that those who do this have a political position that is weak.

I do not think there are any rules that can resolve the problem that we are discussing here other than that those of us who want to clarify how the movement of the working class should go forward try to focus on this. This general aim includes as I say again what do we as activists say to the millions and tens of millions who marched in Febuary of 2003, do we only say join together on specific issues and along with this join the labors militant voice, the SP, the SWP, the anarchist organizations or do we have a suggestion that would connect with and actually take this movement forward. And what do we say about the internal lives of left organizations and how they have tended to squeeze the critical political life out of those who join them.

There are many other issues. For example I would assume that all here would like to see a defeat for the occupation forces in Iraq. If this comes at the hands of the islamic forces then while weakening Imperialism this will be at the cost of strengthening a mass movement of islamic fundamentalism, a reactionary movement throughout the world. I believe instead that we should all be putting our energies into connecting with the small points of development of working class struggle we can see in Iraq. The unemployed movement, the various small working class parties. We should be trying to aid these. In doing so we should be arguing that the Iraqi working class by forming workplace and neighborhood councils can begin to take the reconstruction of the economy into its own hands, can begin to take over ending the occupation and division into its own hands, can organize for mass demonstrations and mass general strikes to bring together all Iraqi workers to these ends. Such a movement can also appeal to the increasingly disenchanted occupation troops and help develop a movement in these forces that will demand that they are withdrawn and that in turn will assist in building a new movement in their own countries when they return. This would be very good to discuuss. Now I would like to see anybody turn that discussion into an attack on the SP or the SP members turn it into an attack on myself or Dennis T or anybody else.

By the way in relation to names. I do not have sympathy for those who do not give their names. My first participation on this list was when I was posted on this indymedia a number of times by others whom I do not know and my real name was used by others in impersonating me. I have been attacked and referred to many times by my real name.

I do not have sympathy for those who claim that if they use their real name their boss would find out who they are etc. If their boss does not know who they are then they are not fighting in the workplace. I am not suggesting that indymedia have a rule that everybody has to use their real name but anybody who does not then they are contributing to the problems that this site has. Such as this thread. Is this a real or a spoof email. I have no idea. It seems nobody else does either except the person who sent it. It reads genuine enough to me. But use of false names should be so infrequent as to immediately cause suspicion. I repeat again I cannot imagine working in a workplace where the boss does not know who I am politically. This is immediately a condemnation of the approach. I would agree with a tactic like keeping quiet in the workplace for a brief probation period of a few months but other than that how can we convince out workmates, how can we be fighting in the workplace and the boss does not know who we are. It is ridiculous. People should give their real names on these discussions if they are not prepared to then I think they should consider whether or not to contribute. Wait to your probation is over. In the case of the SP members take it up within the SP that you want the right to speak our publicly on the indymedia and use your real name. In the meantime perhaps there could be a rule that nobody can take part on this list without providing an email address. But I do not know the full implications of this so I am raising it for discussion not as a concrete suggestion.

John Throne

by Doubter Tue Sep 02, 2003 17:25

Theres a new CWI statement on the Ukraine Scam thread.

by Yossarian Tue Sep 02, 2003 17:55

John, the main reason I would suggest that people do not want to use their real names is not necessarily that they will be identified by workmates/bosses (who should know roughly what you're into, as you say) but that they will be identified as campaigning during working hours, a very different and eminently sackable offense.

by Richard Mellor - LMV Tue Sep 02, 2003 21:28 aactivist at igc dot org

I am saddened that Yeren's post continues the same methods that the CWI used during our expulsion. I am one of the "cronies" as Yeren puts it. But Yeren doesn't mention what these policies were, what the dispute was about.

One of the major issues was our role in the Labor Party here. We argued, or tried to amidst the slander, personal attacks and psychological profiling, that the LP was dominated by the labor officialdom and was intended as nothing but a pressure group on the Democrats.

The position of the entire group at the time that was advocated in our paper, Labor Militant, was that we should fight at the founding convention of the LP for candidates in the 1996 elections. The CWI/majority undeclared faction opposed this position (secretly initially) as it brought them in to conflict with the labor bureaucracy with whom they had built close relations. This is a danger all of us face in the labor movement.

It also became clear that the stifling weight of the bureaucracy would prevent the LP from developing beyond this; that it would not attract the best types in the main. At the conference, we always agreed that the best activists that were initially drawn to the LP would see our position as the correct. The CWI worked behind the scenes to undermine this position without openly questioning it or raising it within the group.

The LP is defunct, known by no one except a few labor officials and their hangers on. The movemetn against the capitalist offensive has initially occured outside the traditional organizations. Were our policies correct, the policies that Yeren says were rejected? They were, of course, never debated fully. Like Yeren, our psychological state, our class backgrounds (Lynn Walsh refered to me as the "son of a colonial administrator"), a complete fabrication, were the issues in the forefront. Lies, name calling this is the tradition that Yeren is continuing.

And this touches on John Thrones remarks about the internal life of left organizations. They are despised here by most youth, as well as older workers like myself. They have played no role whatsoever in the genuine offensive against capital that has taken place, This fell to youth, many who would call themselves Anarchists. Where the left have played a role, it has generally been a bad one.
Therir role in the Uions and workplaces have been just as dismal where they exist at all.

Yeren's continued attachment to this method and failure to recognize that genuine revolutionaries of all types are obligated to relate to the developing movement in a non-sectarian and comradely way, a way where we learn as well as teach where we can, means further alienation from the best layers of workers and youth.

I can expect to be called a hencmen of Throne's I suppose. I am used to this as it is a common tactic used by the labor bureaucracy whenever their members agree with policies they oppose.

Richard

by AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhh Wed Sep 03, 2003 02:15

Richard, you should have read the rest of the thread before responding to this wind-up merchant.

"Yeren" is not a member or supporter of the Socialist Party. He is one of the three people with a grudge against the Socialist Party who use this site.

The "Yeren" post is just an attempt to stir up more rows and bad feeling between the SP and the various people it lays into.

In your case at least it appears to have worked.

by ex-SP Wed Sep 03, 2003 02:35

I don't know what people are refering to as "marc's blog". I do know that Peter Hadden had been waging a war on him as far back as the 1998 CWI World Congress and that his own brother, (apparantly) did not defend him against Peter's Haddens ego, power tripping, learned from the meglomanic, Peter Taaffe. (Peter, like many int the CWI I are decent - just victims of the degenerating methods). Sad for those who were in the CWI, but encouragement that more and more people are leaving the CWI and that a genuine, socialist International, is possible.

by Archivist Wed Sep 03, 2003 10:23

For those who might have missed some of it, and who are interested in what life is like inside this organisation, I have collated the full text of Marc Mulholland's recollections of his time in the CWI. Here it is.

My Life as a Revolutionist - Part One
From 1986 to, oh I'm not sure, about 1995 or so, I was a member of Militant (later Militant Labour, later again the Socialist Party) in Northern Ireland. This was a small group of about 99 nominal members when I joined ( '99 Red Baloons' as a music savvy wit dubbed us). We were a Trotskyist group dedicated to the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. We would nationalise the top 200 monopolies (a slogan strangely immune to the impact of deregulation and competition legislation) under democratic workers' control. This latter meant that enterprises would be run one third by the shop-floor, one third by government nominees and one third by the wider trade union movement. It was never detailed (I think) how this would dovetail with the 'overall plan of production', also our aim.

We were content to operate through the democratic process, but assumed that a socialist government would be stymied by the establishment in the manner of Allende's Chilean Government (we seemed to assume that Allende's 30% or so of the vote was sufficient mandate for revolution). Thus parliament would pass an 'Enabling Law' (originally Cripps' idea, I seem to remember) to side step the constitution. This would be backed up by a workers' militia etc.

We accepted the notion of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat', i.e. that this class should have a disproportionate political weight during the revolutionary transition. This was held not to contradict democratic norms in advanced capitalist countries as the proletariat were in the majority. Our proletariat were those who lived primarily by selling their labour. (I remember some dissident ideas I once spouted were rejected as irredeemably petit bourgeois as I was a student. My accuser was a 'wage-earning' consultant doctor!) However, we did counsel banning 'bourgeois' parties in China, in the event of 'political revolution' there, for fear of the peasant majority swamping the proletariat. We also critically supported the violence of Romanian miners against petit-bourgeois students in the aftermath of the revolution there, though the miners were mobilised by old commie apparatchiks.

As you can see, our adherence to democracy was a bit shaky. This was even more evident in our unstinting praise for Lenin / Trotsky. The Russian Revolution was held to have degenerated only from about 1924, long after the faintest whiff of proletarian autonomy, never-mind representative democracy, had been snuffed out. Even then we characterised communists countries as 'deformed workers' states' that required not social revolution, but political revolution, an objectively easier task. We hated Stalinism but concurred with some of Trotsky's more repulsive conclusions drawn from his characterisation of Stalinism, such as his support for the Soviet Union in the war against Finland in 1940. 'Capitalist restoration' was seen as virtually impossible

We never gave any verbal support to the IRA, as did other ultra-left organisations like the SWP. We called for the trade union movement to organise both a labour party and a 'workers' self-defence force' as the way forward in Northern Ireland. When I joined, our aim was a Socialist United Ireland. This was seen as the only way to overcome the sectarian divide in the province. It was never specified whether it would be the socialist movement or a socialist government that would break the back of sectarian division.

In Britain we denied that we existed as a separate organisation (we did, revelation fans) and claimed to be the Marxist tendency in the British Labour Party. This 'entrist' tactic gained considerable success, and from about 1984 to 1986 we controlled Liverpool Labour council.

There was no Labour Party worthy of the name in Northern Ireland, but nevertheless we denied our true identity and operated through a front organisation called The Labour and Trade Union Group (L&TUG). This was a faction dating from the early 1970s of the long defunct Northern Ireland Labour Party. In reality, the L&TUG had no independent existence. Formally our secret organisation was called the Irish Section of the Committee for a Workers' International (the Northern Ireland section had no formal status). Most knew us as Militant. We normally referred to ourselves as 'the Organisation' (as members of the old Fenians also called themselves).

We were a very 'workerist' organisation. Of all the ultra-left groups, we were easily the most working class in membership. Our leader, Peter Hadden, was (and is) a very clever political commentator and tactician, but there was only a very superficial hold on Marxist theory in the Organisation. Generally or 'perspectives' were based upon impending capitalist crisis (for which we chucked together the gloomiest predictions we could scour from the 'serious bourgeois press') and a radicalisation of the working class. As one document put it, 'The 1980s: Socialism or Barbarism'. Revolution was confidently predicted in 'five, ten or fifteen years time'. I was concerned when I joined (aged 15 I think) that I would be too young to be able to properly participate in the revolution.

This is an account of my time in Militant. Autobiography is an inherently egotistical enterprise, so I want to emphasise my essentially middle-ranking position. This relied upon my zealotry more than anything: I had no leadership qualities, and I spoke very poorly in debates. My impact on the Organisation was deservedly minor.

Sorry about the rather dreary presentation so far. I need to set the scene. This account from here on in will be mostly anecdotal, though I will avoid metaphorical 'kiss and tell'. The members of Militant generally were a good bunch who, I should stress, had no desire to impose tyrannies or whatever. Particularly in the context of Northern Ireland, they were a benign, if ineffectual bunch.

Tomorrow I speak about my early days in Ballymena Militant - the most productive and fun time I had in the Organisation.

My Life as a Revolutionist - Part Two
Though the circumstances of Northern Ireland produced in me a inchoate dislike of the 'establishment' - in this case Britain and the US - I did not make my own way to revolutionary socialism. Most of all, as was often observed in future years, I had no real feeling of 'class anger', or much passion at all really. I did, in Spanish anarchist style, once try to burn a church down in a drunken iconoclastic rage. Unwilling to break and enter, I put a fluttering lighter to the granite clad exterior. Somehow, perhaps protected by God, the temple resisted my assault unscathed, for which I'm very grateful.

Intellectually, in so far as I can construct it in retrospect, I found 'meta-narratives' and systematising theories very attractive. I liked the idea of big analyses that made sense of the world.

Certainly the Miners' Strike had a huge impact on me. I still remember a televised scene of a picket line when some police charged protesting miners off screen. Some other strikers wordlessly mouthed their outrage, pointing to the brutality taking place before their eyes, but the camera slowly panned the opposite direction.

Militant was a family concern, with all my older brothers being members (my sisters were immune and fairly apolitical). One of them acted as my political tutor. I used to accompany him as he shotgun hunted crows and other vermin in Portglenone Forest, where I grew up. These were tremendously exciting and stimulating excursions for a fourteen year old. I suppose it led me to identify socialist politics with worldly wisdom and adulthood, the way other kids found listening to their older brothers' Ska collections a rite of passage.

I was fairly resistant to 'recruitment' (as it was always called in the Organisation). It was a slow process as, no doubt, I was fairly silly. It was doubly laborious as inductees, at least in the outer reaches of rural County Antrim, were only slowly introduced to the reality of Militant as a secret revolutionary cadre, rather than a mere Tendency (see yesterday's entry). There was a marvellous frisson that came with the idea of a secret organisation. As its esoteric mysteries were progressively revealed, one felt an elevation as if through Masonic orders. The Organisation was presented as a world-historic elite, a band of 'comrades'. (This is how we always referred to members. It was never a personal greeting - 'hello Comrade so-and-so' - but an imprimatur for the elect. 'So-and-so is a Comrade', one of us).

Revolution, it was explained would explode at any time. Much was made of the nominal membership of Militant in Britain - 8000, or the same number of Bolsheviks as in February 1917. In the turmoil to come, one might fall on the barricades, one would face repression. It was heady stuff. A Northern Ireland twist was the approaching Anglo-Irish Agreement. Militant was predicting that this would produce a 'carnival of reaction' that could endanger us all. Fear only challenged my youthful strivings for audacity.

'Normal' politics - which I though of as essentially British politics (Northern Ireland struck me as atypical and, in a weird way, somewhat distant - I grew up far from the centres of disturbance and my sheltered upbringing meant that I was in no traumatising way a 'child of the Troubles') - seemed irredeemably dull. If one were to plunge in politics, it had to be to change the world. Anything else seemed not worth the bother.

But, as I've said, I was fairly passionless, and was most attracted to the idea of coherent and logical explanation for, and alternative to, the world as it is. When I was formally recruited (no oaths - one simply agreed a 'sub', i.e. a weekly money contribution, all that was necessary to maintain one's membership, if not reputation, within the Organisation) I insisted that this was a step that I could, if I ever saw fit, reverse. Of course I was honestly be given that assurance. Members were always allowed to leave unmolested though, revealingly, such an eventuality was almost always explained by 'demoralisation', not disagreeing or disillusionment. It was explained that an upturn in class struggle would reactivate the bulk of lapsed comrades. (I'm sure now that I would find myself strenuously opposed to Militant / the Socialist Party in the unlikely event that it ever challenged for power.)

The local branch was in the medium sized (small by British standards) town of Ballymena. There were about ten members, a good proportion being Mulhollands. Our local 'theoretical leader' then was an older bloke (mid-30s maybe) called Ken. He seemed very real world, working in a local industry and living in his own house. Most of the rest of us were school students (we never used the demeaning 'pupils') or unemployed. He had what seemed then to be an encyclopaedic knowledge, and owned a large collection of books. Ken had the enviable ability to take any, I mean any, issue, and immediately come up withy the correct 'marxist' position on it. The 'closed system' of Militant ideology, was perfect for this. It was a mode of irrefutable logic in the Popperian sense, and very seductive.

A meeting would begin with a political 'lead-off', on historical or current issues or a matter of theory. These lead-offs were extraordinary in retrospect, often lasting over an hour. The discussion, as we were in awe of Ken, were truncated affairs dominated by his ‘contribution’. Then we would discuss activity (where to leaflet or poster, the possibility of organising a public meeting), the paper (we would do 'estate sales', a dreary trudge around working class housing, street sales and personal sales to sympathisers; we rarely sold more than 30 to 40 in a month) and finance.

One day Ken, without warning, upped stakes and left for England, never to be heard of again. This hit us all very hard. At the centre (Belfast) he was not merely ‘reduced’ from the ranks (a sort of honourable discharge for those who were 'demoralised' and no longer paying subs) but actually expelled, I seem to remember. As Ken was a cadre of high standing (though he had always shied off activity) his ‘betrayal’ was a great shock to us. In fact, his departure inaugurated the glory days of Militant in Ballymena, of which more next time.
My Life as a Revolutionist - Part Three
When an existing leadership of a political organisation is lopped off, it either disintegrates or falls into the hands of radical young Turks. The British found this to their cost in 1971 when they introduced internment against the IRA. Something similar happened to Ballymena branch of Militant when Ken left for England (about 1987 maybe?). Suddenly new young blood took over. We had learned to associate ridiculously long lead-offs, even by Militant standards, with revolutionary seriousness, so these remained. But other than this, there was suddenly a new élan and enthusiasm. This spiralled as young people joined the branch, some of a fairly defiantly non-conformist nature very unlike the normal proletarian stolidity of Militant generally.

Off in the 'sticks', far from Belfast, we had a great deal of autonomy from the Belfast 'Centre'. We only really heard from two 'full-time' comrades from the centre. (Full-timers were those who, whilst seeking work, committed themselves more or less whole-heartedly to running Militant. They were invested with huge authority in the Organisation. The full-time ‘apparatus’ had much in common with a priesthood. Their sacrifice of time and money, often taken to competitive extremes, was held up as the very model of revolutionary selflessness They had a stifling moral authority).

Benny, who hailed from Ballymena originally, would come down periodically to dispense an engagingly cynical good cheer. He was amused at our youthful enthusiasms, but remained indulgently avuncular. He remembered well his own youthful anarchist inclinations. Benny was considered to be a 'technical' full-timer, working mainly on the Militant newspaper, and was not part of the inner circle of 'theorists'. A very fine classical guitarist, he was unusually bohemian. He inclined towards witty deflation, at least when not loyally asserting the 'line' in contributions to political discussion.

We also heard fairly regularly, by phone, from Ciaran, the full-timer who handled the organisation's finances (most of which went on paying the expenses of full-timers). Ciaran was equally perceived as being something of an administrative full-timer, not quite one of the inner circle. He was interested in the sayings and doings of other ultra-left organisations, a hobby much deprecated as 'sectology' by the leadership. For a small coterie including myself his semi-samizdat circulation of ultra-left publications became, over time, an attractive source of pluralism in the ideologically unadventurous marxism of Militant. Ciaran, who always called his interlocutors 'squire', affected a gruff, no-nonsense manner. But he had an interest in and concern for we young uns otherwise not conspicuous from the leadership.

Generally, however, we were left alone. Heated arguments would rage in branch meetings, with ultra-leftism often ripping wild. I was very much on the conservative wing, and fiercely loyal to the national leadership. Passions often ran high, and I remember one unfortunate member, on his way out, who had his door kicked in so that some leaflet-making equipment could be recovered. This was hardly commendable, of course, but there was a high energy and urgency about everything we did that made people sit up and notice. The good people of Ballymena noticed us, most scoffed, many were quietly impressed, a few - but a fair amount by national standard - joined us or were openly sympathetic.

Experimentation in activity was constant. The best I remember was a picket on the Northern Bank in Ballymena, closely connected with Willie-John McBride (he was a manger I think). McBride was a local Rugby hero, an International in his time, who became associated with a rebel rugby tour of South Africa that defied sporting sanctions. The picket split opinion down the middle in Ballymena in a way that made our intervention seem genuinely controversial and exciting.

We were always trying new ways to spread our revealed truth. I wrote and photocopied a pamphlet on socialism specifically for my school. It included a hand-drawn title page, complete with school crest. (This no doubt ground-breaking, publication had the smallest of circulations). We would leaflet shopping centres, school buses, even workplaces, a rather risky enterprise in loyalist Ballymena. Our techniques were haphazard and amateurish. One leaflet condemned 'Aparthied', causing much hilarity amongst the unconverted; one poster announced a 'Pubic Meeting'. Every Thursday I would literally sprint from school to try to sell papers at the bus-station where all out of town school students converged. The authorities were anxious not to have politics seep into school, and one amused teacher was put in charge of keeping an eye on me.

I don't wish to overstate our impact, though we made Militant very well-known locally. And I shudder to think about our ultra-left politics. But our members were real characters, and for an earnest teenager (who didn't drink, smoke or have any facility at chatting up the opposite sex) it was exciting and genuinely stimulating. However, I always saw Belfast, where resided the leadership we were literally in awe of, as the place to be. Even before leaving for Uni I increasingly made my way to the 'centre' at weekends. I'll talk about this next time.

[There is a load of material about the internal life of Militant, or the Socialist Party, these days – about which now I have no direct knowledge – at Irish Indymedia:
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=60690&search_text=tourish

There you can find some comments on these memoirs, plus a lot more.]
Memoirs of a Revolutionist - Part Four
When the family was young, our parents were loath to bring us to Belfast, for fear of losing us in bomb scares or worse. Our holidays were day excursions to various churches and graveyards, soporific to the ungrateful young me. This meant that, in my mid-teens, the city was a place of exotic mystery. It had about it the whiff of cordite missing from Portglenone (In retrospect I appreciate how militarised and polarised even our backwater was, with armed troops, the fortified RUC barracks, separate catholic and protestant school-bus runs, ubiquitous paramilitary graffiti, random sectarian punch-ups and the occasional bombing, shooting and riot. I remember watching both Orange parades and hunger-striker Francis Hughes' funeral cortege passing by our front gate. Once troops swamped the forest my dad ran in an attempt to ferret out an IRA man on the run). Belfast had a glamorous fear for me. I remember on an early train journey up to the city I seriously unsettled myself by reading Martin Dillon's 'The Shankill Butchers'. What sort of place was this? Belfast seemed an impressively serious place for a committed revolutionary.

When I went up it was to go to centrally organised events. Mostly these were 'youth' activities and meetings, in which enthusiasm and a sort of cod agitational style were at a premium. Though I participated in events with gusto (though no finesse) I always found them a bit jejune, and much preferred the 'serious' political meetings. Compensation was the arrival of Michael as youth full-timer, a bizarrely inappropriate appointment. I got on with him very well, partly because we shared a certain pretentious intellectualism (once we sat through a video of Bertolucci’s four and a half hour classic ‘1900’, about the era of Italian fascism. We feigned rapt absorption and only much later confessed our stupefied boredom). He was also interested in classical and revisionist Marxisms much beyond the vulgarised version generally current in Militant. One day, finding the demands of full-time life too much, he absconded to England, much to my regret.

One early fun event, before I moved to Belfast as a student (1989), was a rally that marked Militant's peak. Derek Hatton and Peter Taaffe came over to address a meeting that we actually charged people into, such was our confidence. I was rather disappointed by Hatton, bowled over by Taaffe.

Best of all was to visit the Militant centre, and to hear talks from the general secretary and leading theoretician, Peter Hadden. There was no doubting Peter's charisma. He was tall and solidly built, with uncommonly big hands that, when speaking, he would hold before his navel, palms inward, thumbs stretched and touching, as were his index fingers, to form a diamond shape. Somehow this unconscious pose bespoke concentration and self-control, as well as a certain defensiveness. Occasionally he would jab the air with his finger to make a point.

Peter was no 'rabble-rouser'. His speeches were logical and forceful, perfectly constructed in paragraphs, though he spoke not from a text but notes. Militant argued that revolutionary opportunities had occurred frequently, but were always transient. History was filled with revolutionary opportunities that would quickly disappear without a revolutionary party to take advantage of them. Journees could last a matter of days and (this was key to our defiance of electoral reality) transform consciousness. A typical Hadden speech would point out some such opportunity and conclude with the burning 'need for a revolutionary party' (a phrase so common that it became a bit of a joke, even if respected). Imagine, he would say, if even a small cadre had been in place in Germany 1918, Hungary 1956, Northern Ireland 1968, etc - 'what a difference that would make!' Our relatively small size was rendered less problematic. We needed only maintain a sufficient force to take advantage of the upheavals to come.

Peter scorned petit-bourgeois politics and particularly other ultra-left 'sects'. (I was genuinely astonished when, in 1999, Peter wrote a lengthy document, 'The Struggle for Socialism Today', given over to a polemic against the SWP. [ see http://www.geocities.com/socialistparty/frameset.htm] He would never, I think, have condescended so when I was a member. The SWP was an irritant to be ignored as much as possible. While the SWP harangued us for our unwillingness to join them in various broad fronts, we dismissed this a sour grapes from a smaller organisation that wished only to ride on our coat tails. From what I can gather now, the position has been exactly reversed). Peter had a genuine commitment to 'proletarian' politics, particularly in the trade union movement, and set great store by our building a base there. He was knowledgeable about such politics, and was a genuinely talented tactician, even if most of his advice necessarily fell on stony ground. He impressed me enormously with his lack of hysteria and his remorseless logic.

Peter, and others, insisted that our trade union work in particular could not be opportunist or fly-by-night. We were true to our word in the instance of the Chelsea Girl strike. A city centre clothes shop had sacked all their staff when they formed a union, under the softly-spoken but formidable Geraldine. I remember coming across their picket in 1988 and, terrified in my school uniform, sidling up to throw money in their box and try to sell them a Militant paper. In fact, the centre had been in contact already. We ended up fighting with the strikers for over a year, before they agreed that victory could not be achieved. The RUC at this point got seriously interested in Militant, and one Saturday arrested most of the picket line. I was ordered to remove myself by Militant leaders as I was an out of town school student. It was a heroic struggle, and a credit to the strikers, as well as the Organisation.

I made my way onto the Central Committee of Militant aged 16 (appointed, really, rather than elected, as national conferences simply voted for a slate – indeed I may have been co-opted). I was the youngest member ever at that time, and I was proud to note that I became a certified revolutionary ‘leader’ even before I could vote. CC meetings took place alternately in Belfast and Dublin, and the latter meant sleeping on comrades' floors over a weekend. The agenda was exhausting with long lead-offs and the much disliked 'financial discussion'. Our bloated full-time apparatus, held intact as a sort of officer class for the day when recruits would swell our ranks, cost a fortune to support and meant a demoralising merry-go-round of fund raising. (My ‘sub’ - financial contribution - as a student was proportionately the highest in Ireland, and genuinely impoverished me as an undergrad - luckily I was a non-drinking nerd). But CCs were a highlight for me, as I saw Peter in full swing and, given the ultra-centralist nature of the Organisation, was privy to whatever secrets reached the CC level.

More tomorrow, when I talk about my laughably ineffectual dissidence. In connection with this, and for those who prefer politics to anectodage, I'll talk a bit about Militant's views on the 'National Question'.
My LIfe as a Revolutionist - Part Five
I was always a slight dissident. I took my A Level History seriously and in studying the French Revolution became convinced that the vulgar Marxist view of this as a bourgeois revolution inaugurating capitalism could not be correct. My heresy on this grated with the comrades, but was put down to a petit-bourgeoisie concern with respectability, a passing fad. More generally, I was annoyed with Militant’s ignorant dismissal of ‘bourgeois’ historians, who were always being accused of believing that the origins of World War One, for example, were adequately explained by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. I found this silly arrogance embarrassingly insular.

Over time, I grew increasingly doubtful about Militant’s take on the ‘national question’. I’ll have to fill in some detail here. It’s worth noting that, as far as I can tell, only really Peter Hadden developed Militant’s position on this while I was a member.

Militant ostensibly based our analysis of the national question on Trotsky’s theory of ‘Permanent Revolution’. We argued that the bourgeoisie were incapable of solving the problem of the border. Only socialism could do this. First and foremost, this would be based on the massive impetus given to the forces of production we assumed socialism would unleash (with no demonstration that would impress an economist). No ‘want’, no ‘crap’, to borrow from Marx. Secondly there would be a ‘socialist united Ireland’ (I seem to remember the ‘united’ was later dropped) in federation with a socialist Britain. So as not to frighten the horses, ‘federation’, in so far as it was defined at all, was corrupted from the common-sense (‘bourgeois’) understanding of the term (domestic parliaments subordinated to a superior parliament responsible for foreign affairs, only the latter enjoying sovereignty) to mean a free and equal association between sovereign entities – what we might normally mean by a treaty relationship. The substance of such a ‘treaty’ was not spelt out.

Militant’s position was a pseudo-radical repudiation of ‘stages theory’ – the idea that national democratic revolution was a prior condition for socialist revolution. It was based on a misunderstanding of Trotsky’s theory of Permanent (better translated as ‘uninterrupted’) Revolution. Trotsky argued that, unlike their Jacobin forebears, the modern bourgeoisie (where they were politically subordinated to imperialism or semi-feudal reaction) preferred to compromise with reaction rather than struggle resolutely for national democratic demands. National democratic ‘tasks’ include the consolidation of a sovereign state based upon a fairly homogenous people sharing a consciousness of common ethnicity or citizenship. It stands opposed to fractured semi-feudal assemblages (the Tsarist Empire, Habsburg Empire, etc) or foreign ‘imperialist’ rule.

Trotsky argued that the unwillingness of the bourgeoisie to struggle for a modern liberal nation state stemmed from their fear that a mobilised working class would escape their control and move towards the seizure of power on their own behalf. Trotsky did not argue that national democratic demands were somehow only capable of resolution through the socialist transformation of society. A nation-state, if there existed a sufficiently popular basis, and even the establishment of democracy, could well be sustained by capitalist society.

For Trotsky, the ‘stages’ theory was incorrect only in that a resolutely national-democratic revolution would necessarily be led by the working class rather than by the timid bourgeoisie (as in the February Revolution, 1917). The working class would not artificially limit itself to national democratic demand but would push forward to achieving power in its own class interests (October 1917). This in turn would generate a process of international revolution, pulling in its train countries where advanced nation-states had been consolidated and which were thus ripe for socialist transformation (Germany, France, Britain). Thus ‘uninterrupted’ revolution.

Trotsky did not see working class power as necessary for the completion of the national democratic stage of revolution. In fact, they were opposed, one transcending the other. He simply argued that if the working class led a national democratic revolution it would tend to push on to workers’ state (though, without a poised revolutionary party, this was likely to be abortive). Without the Bolsheviks, or even in the absence of Lenin, the Kerensky regime might arguably have consolidated (it is a pity it didn’t). There was indeed a revolutionary wave with workers in the lead in Western Europe, in the period 1944 to ‘6, but here the drive towards regimes based upon working class power was arrested, and national democratic regimes did (thankfully) consolidate.

Furthermore, forces other than the bourgeoisie or the working class could construct modern nation-states, as with the Bismarckian unification of Germany or the Mejia Restoration in Japan. Nation states could even be imposed in democratic form by exterior military forces (Japan and Germany post-1945, Iraq now?). [For more, see my Daily Moider, ‘No More Permanent Revolution’, 14 August].

Trotsky condemned ‘two stages’ if this meant socialists imposing a self-denying interregnum between national-democratic revolution and ‘proletarian revolution’, as the Mensheviks had counselled. He did not mean that socialism was necessary to carry through national democratic demands (clearly a nonsense if he had).

The point is, national-democratic demands clearly are, in Marxist and classical Trostkyist theory, a ‘stage’ preceding socialism (socialism, after all, is supposed to see the gradual dissolution of nations and states, to be replaced by ‘associated producers’, whatever is meant by that). It might require a working class revolution to overthrow a regime (semi-feudal or imperialist) inhibiting national democracy, and this might ‘grow over’ into a worker’s state, but this does not make the construction of a nation state a ‘socialist’ task. If history has produced peoples unwilling to combine in a nation, it is not for socialism to cajole them into so doing.

Militant argued the contrary. They held that capitalism itself, not just the bourgeoisie, was incapable of sustaining national democratic revolution in Ireland. Capitalism could not provide the material incentives that would draw protestant workers into the Irish nation. This could only be achieved by socialism. It was not just that the bourgeoisie were too timid to fight for Irish national self-determination, as Trotsky might have argued, rather that only socialism could convince protestants in Ulster to demand all-Ireland self-determination. (Why socialism requires protestants to do so was not made clear).

For Militant, it became a socialist aim to actually create a nationalist consciousness rather than to find structures to express existing consciousness. This flew in the face of classical Marxism (which does not, a priori make it wrong, but the novelty was unacknowledged).

This was pseudo-radical because it meant that Militant ducked the reality of the Irish ‘national question’. Militant did not seriously attempt to construct demands to cater for the actually existing competing identities in Northern Ireland. (Other groups did brave this difficult territory. Social republicans, such as People’s Democracy, candidly argued that protestant unionism was reactionary and a transient non-national minority dependent on British imperialism. A united Ireland, preferably but not necessarily socialist, was appropriate. It was not dependent on minority protestant approval. The British and Irish Communist Organisation, on the other hand, insisted that Irish protestants in Northern Ireland were a nation and, as such, they had a right to democratic self-determination. Partitioned Ireland, preferably but not necessarily a socialist Eire and socialist UK, was appropriate. It was not dependent on minority catholic approval). Militant’s answer to the ‘national question’ was simply: ‘socialism’.

Militant set an impossible standard for ‘capitalist solutions’ – they were all equally failures if they did not eliminate sectarian or national tensions. By this standard, no act of national self-determination has ever been legitimate. Self-determination for the 26 counties, for example, left an embittered protestant minority in the south and a sundered nationalist minority in the Six counties. Thus, by Militant’s logic, Irish Independence should be considered no more progressive than unmitigated Union with Britain.

This sounds hyper-radical, but in fact, Militant’s position on partition was an enormous evasion of thorny questions. Socialism, somehow, would overcome ‘sectarian’ division in Ireland (but not, curiously, the national division between Britain and Ireland, otherwise why not argue for a Socialist Union of Great Britain and Ireland?). Until then, any capitalist solution (Partition, Unification, Joint Authority, Power-Sharing, or whatever) was equally fruitless. There was, in truth, no ‘transitional programme’ (much beloved by Militant otherwise) on the national question.

In fact, Militant’s ‘socialist’ solution was actually conservative. Any attempt to re-balance the competing claims of the nationalist and unionist communities in capitalist Northern Ireland (the dreaded ‘two-stages’) was likely to provoke sectarian discord. As the priority was always to maintain maximum working class unity, all the better for achieving that ‘radical’ socialist solution to the national question, any thing which rocked the boat was reactionary.

Given that historically the unionists had the upper hand in Northern Ireland, such boat rocking could only really come from nationalist self-assertion. Any perceived dilution of the Union understandably provoked protestants and split the working class. Indeed, it is the case that the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP) vote always peaked when catholics were quietly subordinated. If they asserted themselves, the working class cleaved on ‘sectarian’ lines. (Had Militant the courage of its convictions, it would have agreed with the NILP’s arm’s length relationship with the Civil Rights Movement, or with Communist Betty Sinclair’s disavowal of street confrontation with the state, as inevitably leading to sectarian polarisation).

In effect, the catholic minority had to subordinate themselves to the demands of working class unity, which meant not challenging protestant unionism until such a time as a sufficiently strong socialist movement eliminated the very psychology of protestant unionism. (For some reason it was never explained why the process might not work the other way, i.e. a united socialist movement would eliminate catholic nationalism. This, on the face of it, seems much more plausible).

Thus, when I joined Militant, the Anglo-Irish Agreement was deprecated because it would provoke an explosion of unionist anger and thus be a blow to working class unity. Consideration of whether it might have improved institutional recognition for Irish nationalism in Northern Ireland, or indeed if it unfairly diluted British identity, were not weighed and balanced to determine whether the Agreement was progressive or not. The Agreement provoked unionists, thus it had to go. Militant ideology was a pseudo-radical variety of Labourism, and as Labourism must in Northern Ireland, it leant towards the unionist status quo (again, not indefensible, but not acknowledged by ever-so-radical Militant). There was to be no rocking the boat until socialism (in effect Militant) led the working class.

Okay, a bit of a diversion from anecdotage here. I’ll get back to it next time. This will be useful as, in truth, Militant ideology on the National Question was incoherent. The Organisation never openly repudiated positions it had covertly abandoned. For example, the dropping of ‘For a Socialist United Ireland’ from the crest of the Militant newspaper was explained (after I pointed out its disappearance and one leader had denied it ever existed) by the polarisation of the working class since the 1970s. As if protestant workers toyed with all-Ireland nationalism in 1972! Thus, a diachronic approach will give some idea of the obfuscating accretions that served to obscure Militant’s evasions.

My Life as a Revolutionist - Part Six
Only brief today, as time is not ample. BTW, for those bored senseless, I hope to conclude this series in about 10 parts.

There was a tendency in Militant to characterise Northern Ireland politics as simply 'sectarian', with all politicians roughly equivalent in their iniquity. There is something to this, certainly, but the blanket approach tended to flatten out complexity and to avoid the difficulties of balancing the ‘national' rights for both communities. It would be as if to dismiss the Irish War of Independence as merely a 'racist' spat between two peoples, and to affect a lofty disregard.

My first written ‘dissidence’ was in Ballymena branch, when I wrote criticising an article in the Militant newspaper that had attacked the Provos as sectarian. My intention was not to defend the IRA, nor to deny a substantial sectarian drive in their mentality, nor to deny their ‘objectively’ sectarian impact in Northern Ireland, but to argue that the IRA expressed, fundamentally, the frustrations of a denied nationalism. I was unhappy at the populist identification as all protagonists in Northern Ireland as sectarian opponents of workers’ unity. At least, this is how I remember it. I have since lost the handwritten (in red pen, for some reason) text.

The response of a local comrade was to discuss my concerns with the chap who had written the article, and then discuss with me. I was convinced of the error of my ways. My written material was not sent to Belfast, I was not encouraged to write a letter to the paper. There was, at that time, no party journal seeking contributions to debate. The whole thing was pretty much squashed.

The letters page in the paper was really a con. Only agitational letters were published, along the lines of a sort of socialist ‘Thought for Today’ (‘I saw a sectarian bourgeois politician buy a hat from Hats’R’Us, where the workers are paid only £3.50 an hour. … I realised again the Need For a Revolutionary Party.’) Often letters were effectively commissioned, or were articles simply re-shaped. Submissions debating with the editorial line were not countenanced. (I see today that Militant / The Socialist Party’s new paper has no letters page at all).


My Life as a Revolutionist - Part Seven
Mostly my objections to Militant, as they developed, were political rather than organisational. I did, however, once run into some flak over finance.

We were at a peak of numbers - about 100 - when I joined in the mid-eighties. By the early 1990s membership had declined considerably, yet our 'full-time apparatus' was much the same size. The idea was that this precious cadre was an investment to be maintained for the next up-turn in class struggle.

The result was an increasingly frantic search for money, and enormous pressure on members to contribute. This caused much grumbling. At a CC I proposed that, rather than chase endlessly after money that was not there, we should bite the bullet and ‘sack’ full-timers.

Peter Hadden's response in such crises was always to put his opponent on the spot. 'Who would you sack, Marc? You have to be specific.' So I was, and I named a full-timer widely considered to be dead weight.

That was the end of it. Hadden acted outraged, enumerated the full-timer's manifold qualities and, as ever, won the subsequent vote with everyone against me. No-one wished to be seen as personally attacking the full-timer in question (who, of course, was present at the meeting).

Afterwards another full-timer berated me. I was right, he said, but I should have refused to specify a full-timer to be sacked. This was a task for the executive 'Political Committee'. He was correct that I had been caught out by Peter’s ploy, but I was annoyed at the trap, and frustrated with the timidity of other CC members who I knew agreed with me, but who wouldn't stand up to the Hadden storm.

Of course, the inexorable logic of money cannot be denied. Full-timers drifted away anyway, with my nominee for redundancy amongst the first to go.

But, as I say, politics was my main concern. Peter Hadden had written a book in the early 1980s, of canonical status, called 'Divide and Rule'. This dealt with the history of partition, more or less blaming it on British machinations to split an Irish working class otherwise coalescing around socialism.

Quite clearly to me, this was a travesty of history. I decided, in 1993 I think, to write an article, for circulation in the Organisation, attacking Hadden's thesis. Partition happened, I thought, primarily because Ulster protestants were irreconcilably opposed to forced inclusion in an 'Irish Ireland'.

I went on to argue that there was no 'One Nation' in Ireland. Socialists had no obligation to jolly protestants into a united Ireland. I argued, as a response to the 'National Question', that we should propose a form of Joint Authority in Northern Ireland to reflect the two conflicting and equally legitimate identities. (I'm not altogether sure whether I developed all of these points in this draft, though they were certainly in my second draft mentioned below. I do not have copies anymore).

I handed the piece of work in to the Centre, where it was ignored. The document was not circulated. It was dismissed as unworthy of consideration. One did not wish to appear vain, and I accepted this.

Many months later, Peter Hadden produced a new pamphlet called 'Beyond the Troubles' [you can read it at http://www.beyondthetroubles.cjb.net/ ]. I was astonished, on reading this, to find a hefty section clearly directed against my article (though it was not referred to directly). I was gob-smacked. My article had been buried and I had been effectively told to get off my pompous ego-trip and shut-up; in the meantime Hadden had busied himself moulding a counter-blast. This was typical of Peter's tactic of dealing with opposition by only entering debates after he had controlled the run-up (preparatory discussion or, in this instance, suppression) and had readied an annihilating counter-blast for the final 'open debate'.

I immediately re-fashioned my article, and this was circulated. A conference was held. The night before the debate I got pissed and had a huge argument with my girlfriend (the fault was all mine). I was in some state the next day! This did nothing to improve my already crappy debating technique. I was duly hammered.

Comrade after comrade got up to assault my thesis (I was most irked by one comrade who agreed with the standard 'socialist united Ireland in federation with Britain' line, but then said that after the Revolution we would encourage citizens to identify with Britain or Ireland as they liked, with institutions to express these identities. This was close to my argument and not at all what the leadership were actually arguing, but he, of course, was not corrected on the point by the leadership. If incoherent, he was speaking against me, and that was all that mattered. The point was not to have a free-ranging debate; it was to stamp out opposition).

I think no one else voted with me. We had democratically approved not definite agreed aims or demands, but an entire pamphlet, complete with historical analysis. This was the point, I think, where, in open propaganda, Militant effectively abandoned ‘united Ireland’ rhetoric. More than ever the solution was ‘workers’ unity’ and ‘socialism’; largely meaningless but best calculated, in Labourist fashion, to avoid confronting the totalising claims of either nationalism or unionism.

(Rubber-stamping multi-thousand word theses as ‘the line’ was standard in Militant - 'Perspectives Documents' would be approved as an indivisible whole. It appears ridiculous to me now, to approve every word, dot and comma. And this is literally how it worked. In another document, for example, I disagreed with Peter's characterisation of an anti-Red Hand Commando backlash in loyalist areas after they beat a protestant woman to death with snooker cues. He argued that this meant that loyalist communities were becoming less sectarian.

I believed it meant no such thing, sadly. A few months before snooker-cue wielding loyalists had beaten a catholic woman to death, and there had been no important negative reaction in the loyalist ghettoes. When I argued this in the pub, Peter worked up into a storm of righteous indignation. If the paragraph was amended in any way he would (Lenin style) resign from the CC and take his opposition to the rank and file. Little wonder that document was stamped with customary unanimous approval. It was now what we had to publicly defend).

To have a party line on 'what happened in history' was a nonsense, inhibiting of normal intellectual freedom (imagine if Labour had a party line on, say, whether Harold Wilson had been a good or bad PM, that all members had to sign up to).

From here on in, I was regularly, and with varying foundation, opposed to the leadership. A later controversy had me arguing that an IRA ceasefire was most unlikely without a covert or overt British offer of Joint Authority at least. This, it seemed to me, was the watered down IRA price. I thought it would lead to a huge protestant backlash. Peter argued, on the contrary, that the IRA, in a cul de sac, were moving away from armed struggle even in the absence of very radical British concessions. There is no doubt that Peter was right in this controversy, and I was wrong.

On this and other issues, I was roundly defeated every time. I felt I was little more than a cipher, proof proffered by the leadership of healthy internal debate. I was the token loose cannon (in so far as I was noticed – I had not the authority or charisma to command any great amount of respect).

In fact, real debate was always met with a phalanx of leadership unanimity. The leading bodies would, in sequence, agree a line. If you then argued otherwise outside the meeting where the line was agreed, you ‘put yourself outside’ that body. (There was one extraordinary occurrence when Peter Hadden heckled a dissident, Finn Geany perhaps, who had just lost a vote on the CC. He could either swear to keep his opinions to himself outside the CC, or he could resign immediately. He was forced to do the latter, in front of the slightly shocked meeting. It was a grotesque sight, open bullying, which, to my shame, I do not recall objecting to). The line was always agreed from above and transmitted with regimental efficiency downwards. As far as I can tell, Peter Hadden was the real originator of all important positions, unless they came from the ‘International Centre’.

More generally, I knew I was drifting from Militant's 'Revolutionary Socialism' philosophically. The leadership was increasingly correct to suspect me of being a renegade from Marxists tenets. More on this tomorrow.


Friday, 29 August 2003
My Life as a Revolutionist - Part Eight
I feel it's time to draw this thread to a close. Of course, I'll reply to any substantive points raised in posted comments.

To conclude, I want here to re-produce my reply posted to a comment on yesterday's Daily Moider (for which, see below):

"One can, of course, overdo enthusiasm for democracy inside political parties - their function is to be effective within a political system, not to reflect the pluralism of society as a whole. Political parties should not be microcosms of they entire system; they are components of the system, interacting with other parties, voters, non-voters, the media, pressure groups, churches, business, trade unions (at least in the old days), protesters, even intangible inherited tradition (e.g. royalism in UK & Oz, republicanism in the Republic of Ireland).

For a party to be effective requires a top down management to some extent (as British Labour found to its cost in the 1980s). Without effective, and thus relatively authoritarian political leadership, electoral democracy cannot work (Burke - Ireland's greatest political philosopher - made interesting points along these lines, though with less enthusiasm for enfranchising the swinish multitude of course).

On the other hand, political parties in this Burkean sense are more coalitions defined by general orientation than cadres of strict ideology. To some extent, parties work best in democracies if they act as poles of attraction for possibly ineradicable human tendencies. There is always a constituency for change, always a constituency for preservation. The party label is secondary.

For most of C20th British history, Labour has been the party for change, the Tories for preservation; arguably this reversed in the mid to late 1970s when Thatcherism became the radical alternative to the post-war settlement.

(I'm not arguing, by the way, that this psychological analysis for political allegiance is sufficient in itself. We also have to bear in mind factors such as class identity).

Those who bring the party into disrepute, or pinch money, or diminish effectiveness in situations where collective responsibility is crucial for making an impact (in a cabinet, for example, or a parliamentary party) are reasonably liable for discipline. Moreover, one can probably define some core, discrete policies as mandatory. (Though, actually, in mainstream political parties, it's hard to think of many examples.) In general, there should be maximum latitude, and a healthy party can survive quite a lot of formal rule breaking by members without recourse to expulsion or splits.

I think groups like Militant do go too far, and have a cultish element, when they move beyond enforcing discipline around minimum requirements for effectiveness. It is corrupting to be required to subscribe to a 'correct' view of history, or general perspectives.

Indeed, to require members to sign up to 'Marxism' is unhealthy. Revolutionary Socialism might make sense as a general orientation, but to require largely uncomprehending members to agree with the twists and turns of Dialectical Materialism, or the Labour Theory of Value, or Lenin's definition of Imperialism? That's not tradition, that's ossification. The Tories don't require members to define themselves as Hobbesians, or Adam Smith-ites, much as most of them appreciate their contribution. (Even in the nominally Marxist 2nd International, the great French leader, Jean Jaures, was never a Marxist).

The problem with Militant was dogma. The most depressing thing was not the 'shock and awe' tactics of the leadership against dissidents (a very appropriate phrase I've pinched from Indymedia). Rather, it was the slide into a schematic mode of thinking on the part of members. Members were groomed, or 'armed with theory' (in effect, party documents and a very narrow selection of 'Marxist classics'), to come to largely pre-determined conclusions. Militant was a very good example of Marcuse's 'repressive tolerance'.

A turning point for me was one day sitting on the bus from Ballymena to Portglenone and realising that, more or less, I could work out the 'correct' position on virtually any political, social or moral question you might care to mention. From this epiphanal moment, I rediscovered the joys of doubt, ignorance, scepticism and agnosticism (secularly I mean, of course). Suddenly non-Marxist books became a means of exposing myself to criticism rather than sources to be mined for self-reinforcement. My view of the world became permanently provisional.

To return to an earlier point, it is my impression that people join Militant because they want change. The murder-machine (a debt here to Padraig Pearse - look it up my Aussie friend) turns many of them into conservatives of the most unshiftable and frankly boring stripe."

I'm not sure when exactly, but one day (maybe 1995 or 96 or something), when walking home from the Public Records Office in Northern Ireland, I thought long and hard about my relationship with Militant / the Socialist Party. (I'm pretty sure I was no longer on the Central Committee - or National Committee as it had become - but I have absolutely no recollection of when or how I left this august body). I had been becoming increasingly detached, but still felt a loyalty to the idea of a socialist organisation. I had, of course, friends in the party too. But upon reflection, I realised that my enthusiasm for democracy and openness as a governing principle of society had out-stripped that for 'revolutionary transformation'.

I had long thought Militant politically unsophisticated. In truth its Marxism was superficial, though this had the beneficial impact of making it in reality a rather pragmatic outfit. Its drumbeat re-iteration of workers' unity may have been bland and ill thought out - see previous Moiders - but it was hardly objectionable. Its view of socialism was unconvincing. I couldn't see demonstrably inefficient command economies being much improved by romantic notions of democratic worker's control ('hands up who wants to be on the three-inch bolt supply committee, comrades!'). But Militant’s version of socialism was so unlikely ever to be put into practice that it did not seem immediately important.

I believed that history would carve a path to a fairer, post-capitalist world, but not inexorably. Political action, a political party, was necessary. But this party need not contain within itself a blueprint for post-capitalism. The 'revolution' might dance to the music of the past, but it would be self-creating if allowed.

But thinking about it, I realised that I no longer believed in such a wager on the revolution. Revolutions devour their own children. Revolutionary zealotry, in an open society where 'revolutionaries' are neither real nor rational, castrates them. Imaginative political thinking degenerated into tediously spun out slogans. Activity was soulless, even cynical, driven by a need to recruit to the party.

Sight was lost of the real world. The cadre talked only to other revolutionaries. I remember arguing for liberal democracy, as against dictatorship of the proletariat or some such, with one comrade. Slightingly, she dismissed me - 'You think you're being original Marc, you're not.' Of course I was not being original! Our world is built on liberal and democratic values. To the Comrade, exposition of representative democracy seemed academic point scoring. It was just another 'bourgeois' ideology, indeed one she rarely came across in 'serious' political discussion.

As I thought about it, I found that I had allowed the cocktail of dream and machismo characteristic of revolutionary socialism to corrupt me. In truth, I felt more for the Trotskyist martyrs of Vorkuta than the nameless dead of the Russian Civil War, collectivisation or forced industrialisation. I had been sick at heart that the revolutions in the communist world in 1989 had reinforced capitalism; why had I not whole-heartedly celebrated one of the great liberations of history? I had allowed myself to hope for economic crises, for the exposure of the 'facade' of bourgeois democracy, for wars, for cruel mid-wives of revolution. I had fixated on a vision for a great new dawning, and my moral sensibilities had shrivelled.

My greatest regret now is that I did not detest communism as a morally foul system in its own right, as I should. Rather, I regretted it most of all as a betrayal of the revolution. Communism was, in fact, a grotesque experiment on humanity, and if the original sin is to be found in Bolshevism, or Marxism, or even revolutionary fervour, then I was obliged to draw conclusions from that.

The adherents of revolutionary socialism, of course, argue that they do not welcome human suffering, even if they bank on it as an engine of struggle. Formally I can accept this argument as logically legitimate. I knew what the ideology had done to me. For this I, and I alone had responsibility. But I honestly feel that, to one degree or another, this subordination of people to vision, truth to program, eventually creeps into the soul of all those who live for the revolution.

Of course, callusing of our sympathies is unavoidable, to preserve our sanity never mind take any sort of political action. And utopianism is legitimate, indeed necessary as a sort of audit on the world in which we live. We have no real refuge in moral simplicities, whether they are religious or secular. Life is about balance and effectiveness and dialectic, not moral agonising. But I felt that I'd long reached a point where Militant, the 'revolutionary party', had become an incubus, morally and intellectually crippling.

On reaching the quad of Queen's University Belfast, I wrote a letter to the party’s Executive Committee. In this I declared that I would no longer be bound by the discipline of the Organisation. I would speak and act publicly as I chose. I did not resign, rather I left it up to the Organisation to respond as they saw fit.

How did it? I don't know. The letter was never mentioned. It was not acknowledged. It was never brought up in discussion. Happy with this, I drifted away and, at some point, slipped moorings altogether. When this happened, precisely, I didn't notice. Nor, I'm sure, did the Socialist Party.

by Observer Wed Sep 03, 2003 10:36

I originally thought that the Yeren post was a spoof. It seemed such a caricature of even the worst nonsense that sometimes goes on at this site. Yet a wee doubt remains. Some ex-CWI folks I have talked to are certain it is genuine. And the reason why there is some doubt is that although it reads like a caricature, a caricature implies some degree of truth - in other words, it only exaggerates rather than totally distorts the normal CWI style of 'debate'. Even Brian, in his post, couldn't resist a bit of slander, as if someone's character rather than their arguments are what counts. I know that some name calling abuse is also aimed at the CWI on this site, and this is equally senseless. But I don't think that the three principals singled out by the Yeren post have done any of that. Instead they have mounted cogent criticisms - you can agree or disagree with them, but character assassination doesn't seem an appropriate response.

To the SP I would say: when you just shout names at people you lend credence to their worst criticisms of you, rather than the opposite. And to any members who drop in here I would say, if your leadership is more concerned with abusing their opponents than answering their arguments, then you have a great deal to be concerned about.

by John Meehaningless Wed Sep 03, 2003 12:00

How could you dupe me so?

by Joe Wed Sep 03, 2003 12:13

Yeren might be a spoof but I see no evidence for it beyond Cahill thinking it might be so. But if he is a spoof the method and the accusations he uses are those used by many other SP posts on indymedia.

Or this might be another case of semi-anonymous SP members being encouraged to run amock and then once the damage is done some named SP member distancing themselves from it. A pattern we have seen several times.

My own view is that Yeren is probably who he says he is. Someone who joined the SP recently and is simply repeating what he has been told by more senior party members about the three accused. The method of senior political leaders slandering political opponents in the pub would hardly be new. Yeren failed to understand he was not meant to repeat what he was told in a public forum.

by Dennis Tourish Wed Sep 03, 2003 12:34

I have just come across this thread. My own criticisms of the CWI, which rests on argument, evidence, analysis and some considerable personal experience is well known. If there is anybody concerned with this issue, then it is these arguments which I assume they are interested in, rather than what job I do, my personality, my ambitions (or lack of them), whether I am bald, hairy, fat or thin. None of this is remotely relevant, to anything.

The problem with deciding whether Yeren's comments are serious or a spoof is indicated here by others - if it is a spoof, it is only an exaggeration of what often passes for debate when people like Brian Cahill engage in it, under his own name or an alias. Character assasination is no substitute for reasoned argument. I do not intend to be drawn into meaningless exchanges of abuse with anyone, SP members or otherwise. A genuine exchange of views is a different matter. But that has already been conducted on other threads. My views and the riposte of the SP are well known, and unless anyone has something significant to add about the issues I will be giving it a rest.

by Marc Mulholland Wed Sep 03, 2003 14:09

Hi Indymedia,

Intemperance goes hand in hand with the audacity of youth and Yergen, who I suspect is authentic, should not be too put off from further expositions of his / her opinions in writing. It is often a good way to think through problems.

Let me just assure Yergen that I have all due respect for Peter Hadden's labours in the cause of anti-sectarianism.

As for lies, well memory is a fallible thing, and I'll be happy to correct any inaccuracies if they are convincingly pointed out to me. I have not knowingly included any untruth: what I related is as I remember.

I'm 'kept going' by hatred of the Socialist Party? Hmmm. All passion long spent, I'm afraid, unlike the pugilistic Yergen.

Regards to all,

Marc.

by 1 of IMC Wed Sep 03, 2003 14:28

If Brian is so well disposed towards IMC then why has he not responded to these remarks on the Socialist Youth Discussion Board? It goes omn in much the same vein.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Oisin


Title: Registered

Posts: 46
Joined: June 2003 Posted: July 1 2003, 4:12 #219
Don't bother

Indymedia Ireland is not worth even bothering with. It does not have many genuine people looking for alternative media and news.

It's infested with a small number of Anarcho types that get a sick kick out of having a go at the SP and the SWP.

There's no longer an point in going on as they will just have a go at us for no reason just to stir it up.

--------------

Red_James


Title: Registered

Posts: 38
Joined: June 2003 Posted: June 30 2003, 10:07 #216
What a heap of steaming shite!

I went browse indymedia Ireland today (the internets version of the news of the world/ the people ie crap) for the daily virtual rant against the SP. I'm not going to give the latest rant any publicity because its just absolute trash for want of a better word.

What are peoples opinions on Indymedia Ireland and its appearant decline from news to secterian point scoring and bitching with its 3 occupant users.

--------------

by ec Wed Sep 03, 2003 14:34

Hi Marc

Thanks for the memoirs - tragicomedic like most of life and politics - seems a pity that the best piece of original writing relevant all this cwi/sp vs their trolling enemies stuff is buried at the end of a very long thread that probably only editors and obsessives on both sides are reading.

Keep up the scribbling

by sean - sp voter Wed Sep 03, 2003 14:59

to be fair if I was being insulted every time I came onto the site I wouldn't come back either.
About the accusations they seem the usual party political stuff, lots of people from the shinners and labour (probably people like joe higgins who was expelled too) could say the same stuff. People being expelled for not toeing the party line is hardly news for a centralised political party. Labour do it and Sinn Fein have done it, (with guns). I think the cult idea is an exaggeration to say the least. As for the original text being real or not. If it is real it is an embarrasment to Yeren himself and also to the socialist party. If its not real it's still an embarrasment to the socialists. No win situation. On marcs blog I haven't read anything cultish or off John Throne who is understandably angry for being kicked out of the party he founded (I would too). And he should be allowed back in if as long as he is in Ireland.

In short a centralised, maybe over centralised political party. But in the end there is no one else where I live (swords area) and I will continue to vote for Clare Daly and them because they are the ones who do the best work (sometimes only) in the area. The bin charges are coming now so we should concentrate on this.
And when all is said and done the work clare and joe have done on community issues has been second to none, and I don't believe they are cultists.

by sp member Wed Sep 03, 2003 18:22

How can a 'cult' get the support of thousands of ordinary people in working class areas?

by Chekov Wed Sep 03, 2003 18:34

Some indisputable 'cults' have memberships larger than the number of people who vote SP (scientologists, moonies...).

In practice the inner workings of the SP, SWP and their kind are almost entirely unknown to anybody who is not either a member or a 'trainspotter' of the left. Personally, despite being one of these trainspotters, I knew next to nothing about the internals of the SP before these threads started to appear on indymedia. Even if the people who voted for Joe and Clare read the Voice every week, they wouldn't know the faintest thing about the internal regime of the SP.

by Observer Wed Sep 03, 2003 22:22

Or how could a degenerate party supporting the mass murder of millions of its own citizens in the name of socialism get mass support in Italy, France and even tens of thousands of members in Britain? Impossible. Oh, I had forgotten - didn't the Communist Party do precisely that?

by rifondazione - PRC Thu Sep 04, 2003 02:55

The PCI never stood over the deaths of its own people. Communists in italy fought against facisim and killed fascists. Communists fought for the liberation of Italy, they fought for freedom and nothing else and never did the PCI act in an undemocratic manner, we had 2 million members and armed control of the factories until the fifties and did not kill people.

by sp member Thu Sep 04, 2003 11:25

The moonies may have many members- but they're still a cult! I was not making a point about membership figures- it was about support from ordinary working people (which cults cant have)

A cult is an organisation that removes its members from ordinary life and away from their family and friends. Do the SP do this? No!

And I never heard of a cult that has the support of thousands of ordinary people and a TD.

by 1 Of IMC Thu Sep 04, 2003 12:32

Brian is quick enough to do his Spin Doctor act but when he is asked for his opinions about abuse of IMC which has occurred on the SY Website he is strangely silent. I might take him a bit more seriously if addressed questions which are difficult to spin about.

He is also naive if he thinks that it is just 3 individuals on Indymedia who are disturbed at the activities of the SP. All he has to do is look at the number of critics on this thread alone.

by Badman Thu Sep 04, 2003 15:39

It's interesting to see how many of the articles include quotes from indymedia - up to the last few days. So despite the overwhelming consensus among SY that indymedia is a 'heap of shite', they still seem to come back for news.

It's also interesting to note that there is only a single thread on the whole bulletin board which resembles a debate in any way (a debate is where people disagree with each other btw). The debate is in the thread on indymedia where Ray, bless his brave soul, argues against the unanimous opinion among SY that indymedia is shite.

The rest of the boards can't come up with a single debate - everybody agrees with each other, except on points of fine detail. The closest they get to a debate is as to whether China is a deformed workers state, and this is more a question of Finghin explaining the tortuous sematics of the SP line (accounted for by their necessity to have always been right so that each shift in policy requires an explanation of why they are right now with a new policy despite the fact that they were also right before with the old policy).

It's also amusing, given the frequent complaints about indymedia being full of sectarian slander, that any mention of any other political group is ALWAYS in the context of a standard sectarian slander ('anarchists' burning McDonalds, SF puppets of big business, Bourgeois greens, SWP the sect...).

From this its pretty clear to me that the SP are operating in a dangerously blinkered political universe. Their sectarianism is accepted as FACT, not even debatable, while any criticism of them or even any difficult questions are treated as sectarian sniping that is obviously refuted by FACT. It is not surprising that yez find indymedia so hard to deal with, people don't seem to accept the FACTS as interpreted by the SP. It would be good for yez to come out to play more often on indymedia. Having to deal with people who actually hold different points of view from you is good training in effective argument, if nothing else. In the big bad world people have different ideas of what the important facts are and different ways of interpreting the facts.

by Observer Thu Sep 04, 2003 15:56

I agree with Badman's last points. Debate is good for the mind, even if there isn't a soul to benefit. Its presence or otherwise is a good indicator of an organisation's internal atmosphere, and in turn as to whether it is cultic or not.

On which point, the last SP member writing here seemed to think that unless SP members are locked away in a remote location, and have no support outside their own ranks, then they can't be a cult. This does not seem to square with the general literature in the area. Some cults of course do lock themselevs away in remote areas, and then often conclude their existence in a mass suicide (eg Jonestown - a political rather than religious cult, by the way). But most don't. They do involve their members excessively in 'internal' events, but try to influence people outside by engaging with them, even if it is only to recruit more members.

As to your party's support, in the form of Joe and Clare: well, this is beside the point. Someone else here has pointed out that your internal regime would be a closed book to most folks, except your own members and some trainspotters. Plus, whatever support you have does not represent any kind of evidence for the tenability of your beliefs.

Moreover, whether you recognise cultic norms in what you do or not, there is at the very least extensive evidence to show that you are very intolerant of debate and dissent, in any form. Plus a great deal more. Badman's point about the SY thread bears it out even more.

How about some openness to change? And, who knows, ongoing debate?

by Aidan Thu Sep 04, 2003 16:04

Members of the SWP or SP who have stated an opinion on IMC Editorial have nearly always focused on articles about their own party.

Objecting to deletions of SP electioneering, protesting on the manner their party is viewed in an article.

It gives the impression that they are only on IMC editorial to protect and promote their party.

by Agent of Chaos Thu Sep 04, 2003 17:37

Below is an example of what passes for debate on the SY site. He talks of how strikes were banned by the Bolsheviks with the support of the Workers! But if the workers were against striukes why would you have to ban them?!

Read the rest of the tosh and justification for murdering opposition Socialists.

_______________________________________

Shane.Kenna


Title: Moderators

Posts: 85
Joined: June 2003 Posted: September 4 2003, 6:56 #618
In response

What absolute pathetic attempt to discredit Trotsky. Look at the facts straight "Agent" before you make an argument. Trotsky's actions were takin in light of a civil war (in which 15 Imperialist armies were involved and the SR's were openly preeching a counter revolution to overthrow the Bolshevik socialist programme) Stalins crimes were carried out in peace time against an innocent people.

The banning of Party Factions as you put it was a temporary measure in all Cases both Lenin and Trotsky had made this clear, both were were honest to the membership and had lost many aspects of policy to the democratic decision of the membership of the CP - This never happened in the time of Stalin.

I would like to know which Bolsheviks were shot by Trotsky? Maybe im just crazy but your getting confused with Stalin here or is it that the whole documented history is just wrong?

"Having Left SR's/ Anarchists shot" - Ok lets clarify this, the Left SR's and Anarchists had taken up arms against the bolsheviks in an open counter revolutionary struggle, they fired the first shots. The way you write it makes it seem like the Bolsheviks were blood thirsty animals - attempt after attempt was made to appease Anarchists and SR's alike to avoid a civil war. Waht were the Bolsheviks to do when the counter revolutionaries were shooting at them - sit back and allow them to overthrow the revolution.

To base your rationale on the same situation in Ireland during the Irish Civil war than W.T Cosgrave is guilty of warcrimes for ordering the Free State troops to fire on irregulars.

"Kronstadt" do you Anarcho's have wet dreams over Kronstadt? Kronsdadt was a major port that would have fallen into the hands of one of the Imperialist armies in Russia (I forget which one it was) and would have greatly threatened the socialist revolution to the possibility of counter revolution and restoration of Capitalism - Lenin & Trotsky made clear this point as the justification of their argument. Nasty things happen in war particulary civil war.

Once again too apply your rationale on the bolsheviks actions during the Russian civil war to the Irish civil war Michael Collins is guilty of crimes against humanity because he fired on the Irregulars in the Four Courts to prevent them from overturning the Irish Free State.

As the man himself cant defend himself against this accusations thrown about Kronsadt I'll put forward his argument. Trotsky writes that he read the following from a reactionary weekly:

Trotsky ordered the shooting of 1,500 (?) Kronstadt sailors, these purest of the pure. His policy when in power differed in no way from the present policy of Stalin.“

Anarchos draw the same silly idea, without looking at the inner facts, the Anarchists while defending what they beleived Kronstadt stood for dont really have an alternative answer for what would happen when the pprt fell into the hands of the Imperialists that were going to take it. The mensheviks at the time openly called for the restoration of Capitalism.

Trotsky writes: "How can the Kronstadt uprising cause such heartburn to Anarchists, Mensheviks, and ”liberal“ counterrevolutionists, all at the same time? The answer is simple: all these groupings are interested in compromising the only genuinely revolutionary current, which has never repudiated its banner, has not compromised with its enemies, and alone represents the future. It is because of this that among the belated denouncers of my Kronstadt ”crime“ there are so many former revolutionists or semi-revolutionists, people who have lost their program and their principles and who find it necessary to divert attention from the degradation of the Second International or the perfidy of the Spanish Anarchists. As yet, the Stalinists cannot openly join this campaign around Kronstadt but even they, of course, rub their hands with pleasure; for the blows are directed against ”Trotskyism,“ against revolutionary Marxism, against the Fourth International!/................. Kronstadt differed from a long series of other petty-bourgeois movements and uprisings only by its greater external effect. The problem here involved a maritime fortress under Petrograd itself. During the uprising proclamations were issued and radio broadcasts were made. The Social Revolutionaries and the Anarchists, hurrying from Petrograd, adorned the uprising with ”noble“ phrases and gestures. All this left traces in print. With the aid of these ”documentary“ materials (i.e., false labels), it is not hard to construct a legend about Kronstadt, all the more exalted since in 1917 the name Kronstadt was surrounded by a revolutionary halo. Not idly does the Mexican magazine quoted above ironically call the Kronstadt sailors the ”purest of the pure.“

The play upon the revolutionary authority of Kronstadt is one of the distinguishing features of this truly charlatan campaign. Anarchists, Mensheviks, liberals, reactionaries try to present the matter as if at the beginning of 1921 the Bolsheviks turned their, weapons on those very Kronstadt sailors who guaranteed the victory of the October insurrection. Here is the point of departure for all the subsequent falsehoods. Whoever wishes to unravel these lies should first of all read the article by Comrade J.G. Wright in the New International (February 1938). My problem is another one: I wish to describe the character of the Kronstadt uprising from a more general point of view.............

The political composition of the Kronstadt Soviet reflected the composition of the garrison and the crews. The leadership of the soviets as early as the summer of 1917 belonged to the Bolshevik Party, which rested on the better sections of the sailors and included in its ranks many revolutionists from the underground movement who had been liberated from the hard-labor prisons. But I seem to recall that even in the days of the October insurrection the Bolsheviks constituted less than one-half of the Kronstadt Soviet. The majority consisted of SRs and Anarchists. There were no Mensheviks at all in Kronstadt. The Menshevik Party hated Kronstadt. The official SRs, incidentally, had no better attitude toward it. The Kronstadt SRs quickly went over into opposition to Kerensky and formed one of the shock brigades of the so-called ”left“ SRs. They based themselves on the peasant part of the fleet and of the shore garrison. As for the Anarchists, they were the most motley group. Among them were real revolutionists, like Zhuk and Zhelezniakov, but these were the elements most closely linked to the Bolsheviks. Most of the Kronstadt ”Anarchists“ represented the city petty bourgeoisie and stood upon a lower revolutionary level than the SRs. The president of the soviet was a nonparty man, ”sympathetic to the Anarchists,“ and in essence a peaceful petty clerk who had been formerly subservient to the czarist authorities and was now subservient . . . to the revolution. The complete absence of Mensheviks, the ”left“ character of the SRs, and the Anarchist hue of the petty bourgeois were due to the sharpness of the revolutionary struggle in the fleet and the dominating influence of the proletarian sections of the sailors........

This social and political characterization of Kronstadt which, if desired, could be substantiated and illustrated by many facts and documents, is already sufficient to illuminate the upheavals which occurred in Kronstadt during the years of the civil war and as a result of which its physiognomy changed beyond recognition. Precisely about this important aspect of the question, the belated accusers say not one word, partly out of ignorance, partly out of malevolence......

When parlor pinks try to mark out a different route for the October Revolution, after the event, we can only respectfully ask them to show us exactly where and when their great principles were confirmed in practice, at least partially, at least in tendency? Where are the signs that lead us to expect the triumph of these principles in the future? We shall of course never get an answer.

The present disputes around Kronstadt revolve around the same class axis as the Kronstadt uprising itself, in which the reactionary sections of the sailors tried to overthrow the proletarian dictatorship. Conscious of their impotence on the arena of present-day revolutionary politics, the petty-bourgeois blunderers and eclectics try to use the old Kronstadt episode for the struggle against the Fourth International (now gone but its early traditions live on in marxism) , that is, against the party of the proletarian revolution."

Banning Strikes - well this has been done in every single country during war time. In the Case of the Russian Civil war it was done with the support of the Russian workers. Well I was a little depressed today but reading your pathetic attempt to discredit the Bolsheviks "Agent" cheered me up for a while. Thanks for the laughs i do need them.

by Joe Thu Sep 04, 2003 18:51

I generally have a lot of respect for Shane Kenna from working alongside hime in campaigns. From what I hear he is trying to build a SP branch of some form in trinity good luck to him. SWSS may have some competition soon, but sure they say competition in the market is good dont they??

I dont think his argument isnt "tosh" its based on a form of documented fact and marxist theory. I have looked at the orginal debate on the SY thread and found that if anyone is talking tosh it is agent of Caos who has been revealed as a guy called Jim (?). Its been a long Militant line to defend the planned aspects of the "deformed workers state" or whatever they call it and the gains of the october revolution notebly Lenin and Trotsky's role in it.

In relation to a number of postings - I have to agree with Brian in relation to people relaxing and not having a go at each others party or lack of party we need to be united and fight the common enemy - Capitalism and not each other. The right if they look into this forum must be wetting themselves laughing at the present - how can we honestly take on Capitalism without stopping the infighting.

Its a terrible fact that some users have degenerated the forum by posting attack after attack on groups based simply on their dislike or hatred of that group, it can be very off putting and annyoing to users many of whom have had enough and just gave up. This site has a potential to unite the left in discussion and broad independent news its being waisted through petty infighting

by Badman Thu Sep 04, 2003 19:05

A SP comment is posted, basically justifying the wholescale murder of left wing opposition to 'the party', and pretty much saying that they'd do the same again given the chance. Joe then appeals for 'unity' and for us to stop criticising the SP.

See the contradiction?

by . Thu Sep 04, 2003 21:05

A real problem about the discussion around the position of the sp and how they deal with indy media is the straight forward lies posted about the sp.
This makes it much harder to develop real discussion about how a positive way forward can be developed.

by Sumdumguy - indypendy Fri Sep 05, 2003 00:26

I am a leftie, well am interested in left ideas but coming here shocks me. Firstly the disputes are a clear bias against one party. Also it is almost like some ppl are repeating crap withour argument in the hope that eventually we all believe it.

The only reasonable guy is called Joe and I think he mite be swss/swp? but cant be sure.

I am just wondering, why if you dislike sp so much do you spend so much time trying to slander them instead of working with your own party, constructively rather than reading their boards like children snooping?????????

by Badman Fri Sep 05, 2003 02:31

Somdumguy: Being interested in the reality of political life within left wing organisations is an example of being 'interested in left ideas'. Life is not simple. It's best to know as much about the various political groups as you can before getting involved. Many people have been burned before and found themselves committing vast amounts of time and energy to parties that manipulated their better instincts. Asking questions and bringing up difficulties with various organisations, even if only to see how they can answer them, is a smart thing to do for anybody interested in left wing ideas. You want to learn from history and not fall in the same holes again and again.

by German Communist (1940) Fri Sep 05, 2003 02:37

Joe thinks we should all put our concerns behind and rally to fight capitalism. All well and good, except, do you really believe that life after the revolution would be a socialist nirvana with the Socialist Party at the helm? I have followed the postings from many of their former members and, if they can have the contempt that they have shown for their former comrades, what chance would a left opposition have? We would probably be 'in hiding' or enjoying the comfort of Spike Island. I matters to me that an organisation so commiitted to the workers could be so callous to their ex membership.

The socialist party has many 'good' people in their ranks. Honest hardworking activists with a belief in socialism and the transformation to a society where people are liberated in every aspect of their lives. But it also has a dark side. A side that would, given the opportunity, destroy anyone that dares to challenge their positions.

The SP is a dogmatic Leninist organisation that argues the side of Trotsky against Stalin. Its a pity they don't realise that they are two sides of the one coin. Trotsky lost the power struggle against Stalin despite Lenin's 'last will and testament' (BTW very North Korean, handing the mantle to his sucessor). If Trotsky had won the Gulags and firing squads would have been for Stalin's henchmen and supporters and any other unfortunate that whispered against the 'socialism from above' revolution.

by Agent of Chaos Fri Sep 05, 2003 11:47

Once again the SP use intimidatory tactics to try and silence their critics. Shane Kenna has threatened to complain to my service provider because I put his comments on Indymedia. Hypocrisy, SP members have put a lot of stuff from Inymedia on the SY Board.

As for publicly naming people, the same could be done to SP/SY members who choose to remain anonymous, but I will not do so. Do the SP approve of Kennas attempt at intimidation?

This is Kennas piece and my response.

Shane.Kenna


Title: Moderators

Posts: 86
Joined: June 2003 Posted: September 4 2003, 11:06 #621
Armchair activist agent exposed

Firstly Agent of Caos I.P. address 62.77.181.1 or Jim Leahy, I respectfully ask that you dont put postings of mine on indymedia or I will notify your server of abuse

Secondly I think you are foaming bullshit from your mouth, you ask "But if the workers were against strikes why would you have to ban them?!"

1. The workers supported the bolsheviks this was shown by the outstanding support which bolsheviks recieved in the cities and urban areas. Its a known fact that the workers in support of the october revolution supported the measures the Bolsheviks took to protect the revolution.

2. You raise the point about Advanced Capitalist countries - again I make the point I am not for a socialist state but for an international socialist society. The Russian Revolution isolated and weak prone to counter revolution with over 15 external imperialist armies on its soil and internal counter revolutionary movements - harsh measures had to be temporaly taken to prevent the restoration of Capital.

you still havent answered my questions regarding the lies you made earlier about how Trotsky had bolsheviks shot.

--------------


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




Agent of Chaos


Title: Guest

Posts: 0
Joined: May 2002 Posted: September 5 2003, 4:23 #622
try Again

1st I'm not Jim Leahy. (Do you think that the real names of your members should be publicly revealed? They may not all want that.)

2nd your members have put postings from Indymedia on your Board. Maybe I should complain and have your board shut down?

Well, I wont, unlike you I dont believe in silencing my opponents.

3rd I repeat, if the Bolsheviks had such support of Workers why would they need to outlaw vstrikes?

I find your "reasoning" abou other (capitalist) states banning strikes during wartime bizarre, Trotskyists organised strikes in Britain and the US during WW2. Were they wrong to do so?

4. a) By shooting strikers Trotsky had Bolsheviks shot.
b)By shooting soldiers for "cowardice", "desertionTrotsky had Bolsheviks shot.
c) By having Commmisars shot when exTsarist officers defected, Trotsky had Socialists shot.

by Joe Fri Sep 05, 2003 11:56

There are two Joes posting here, the one defending the SP on the russian revolution is a new one. The other posts are mine.

I'm not a member of the SWP, I'm another anarchist. And I do think what Shane posted in tosh. A simple example, he writes "Kronsdadt was a major port that would have fallen into the hands of one of the Imperialist armies in Russia (I forget which one it was) "

I forgot which one?!? Maybe Shane because the theory is so much more important to you then the facts that you simply assume the facts confirm your theory. The last white army had been evacuated by the French Navy from the Crimea well before March 1921. There were NO further interventions. Your imperialist army is a figment of your imagination, one you have brought into being to avoid facing what you heros were up to in 1921!

by Joe(2) Fri Sep 05, 2003 13:16

No I am not the bloke in the SWSS/SWP. Please lets not get into another Kronsdat thing again it happened 60 years ago get over it and focus on the real issuses people - ie the building of forces oppossed to capitalism.

I make the point once more who can we logiclly say we are against Capital when we are clearly against each other more? The publication of this entire posting is evidence of that it was all shitstirring and you all fell for it.

by Kevin Fri Sep 05, 2003 13:32

I for one thought this discussion was about sectarianism, lies and the left in general - but guess I was wrong the arm chair activists would rather discuss shane kenna, Kronstadt, Leon Trotsky and how Anarchists are so perfect.

People are getting sidetracked and lost in absolute crap please can people lay off the sectarianism and discuss the topic in question rather than go on about some Russian port, Shane "Little Lenin" Kenna and the long dead Trotsky.

Getting back to the initial topic in question which has been lost among all this abuse is the fact that the left is ridden with infighting and sectarianism. Indymedia is breeding ground for this. First it was the SWP who were subject to intimidation from the usual suspects who live on the net, we heard time and time again of how the SWP were organising Front after front sometimes postings referred to the truth sometimes others didnt. I remember one post about how RBB had stormed magazine fort and declared a workers republic, strangely enoigh others replied and added to the post. then the SWP got sense and left. Then the wolves were turned on the SP. Acusations of Cultishness, Unionism, stalinism etc which is in all fairness wacko. From what I know the SP doesn't have midnight sacrifices to Kevin McLoughlan or Peter Taffee.

I ask who is next on the list for the intimidation of the 4 or 5 usual suspects? Sinn Féin are generally untouchable by these people even though there is enough baggage to write a book, FF, FG, LAB, UUP, SDLP dont really use it.

Indymedia needs to get back to its roots and start reporting real independent news and not sectarian rabble. I put this challange to the Indy editorial list - postings like this shouldn't be left on the newswire, perhaps a subnewswire should be setup to discuss this. I pput it to you to take Indymedia back to its roots - to look into real lssues which effect real people, from the binb tax to homelessness in dublin etc. Please for the sake of sanity do something

by Magneto Fri Sep 05, 2003 13:39

The only intimidation I have seen on this thread is the reports from the Socialist Youth Discussion Site. SY publicly named an opponent and threatened him.

by Magneto Fri Sep 05, 2003 13:42

Kevin must be selective in the articles he reads on Indymedia, otherwise he would be aware that every article posted by a LP member is savaged, just look at the LP PR on Laffoy.

The same is true of Sinn Fein articles, they cannot post without being hounded.

by Agent of Chaos Fri Sep 05, 2003 14:28

In the true spirit of Socialist Democracy, the SP have either blocked me from the thread or deleted the entire debate! Stalins Airbrush strikes again!

by Agent of Chaos Fri Sep 05, 2003 14:31

They deleted my last 2 comments! Now thats a fair debate!

by Hal Silke Fri Sep 05, 2003 15:43

Its most likely they were ordered to delete the comments. Buts its not just that! I had looked at it previously, Shane has also edited his own reponses! Now thats a real Stalinist Airbrush!

by pat c Fri Sep 05, 2003 15:55

With the SP only the future is certain, their past is constantly changing.

by Degenerate Fri Sep 05, 2003 16:13

"Be not too hasty to trust or admire the teachers of morality: they discourse like angels but they live like men." -- Dr Samuel Johnson

Certainly true with regard to the SP!

by Pat c Fri Sep 05, 2003 16:27

"The Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets."
First Kings Ch.22

Might refer to the SP!

by Badman Fri Sep 05, 2003 16:54

The SP's international seems to be coming apart at the seams. According to a letter published in the Weekly Worker (sep 4th), the Russian outfit was in on the scam as well:

"I am a leftwing communist activist from Russia and I know about the scandal in the Ukraine. In Russia a lot of left activists know about it. Everybody is angry about this fraud with Vernik, who is a traitor to the working class.

I know the real name of a man who is pictured on the IBT’s website (http://www.bolshevik.org/ukrscandal/ivan.htm )His name is Ilya Budraitskis and he is very well known in the Russian left movement. He lives in Moscow and is one of the leaders of the Russian left organisation, Socialist Resistance, an official section of the Committee for a Workers’ International.

A lot of left people over the world are interested to know whether the Russian leadership of the CWI is aware of the Ukrainian scam. As Ilya Budraitskis is involved, that proves that the Russian leadership also knew about it. Besides, the Vernik scam has been talked about on Russian left mailing lists for years, so everybody heard about it long ago. I also know that CWI people from Russia and the Ukraine have links with the Libyan embassy. The Libyan embassy has given money to the CWI and the CWI every year organises a summer camp in the Crimea (Ukraine), where everybody studies the ‘green book’.

It is a political crime to take money from the dictator Gaddafi instead of fighting against his regime. Many people in the left movement knew about this link between Gaddafi and the CWI and even CWI members did not deny it."

Alexei Safin
Russia

by hs - sp Fri Sep 05, 2003 18:15

Well I'm goning to make one last comment. The truth is that for all the talks of cults and the rest as far as I can see alot of people on this website are locked away in their own little world. And really out on the streets we are discussing the bin charges which is happening next week, and the new developments in Dublin airport. Now the lads stuck to their computers 24hours a day are having their own discussions. Which one is based in reality? Lads get out from behind your computers and do some work in the real world. Your help is needed. You also may find outside computerland people tend not to be so nasty and sectarian to each other. Nest week the bincharges will hit volunteers are seriously needed. If you can put down your polemics on interleft infighting (those who are actually involved rather than internet wonders) and talk to some people out in planet dublin.
this is my last comment because indymedia has turned into what it is and I don't think its doing any of us any good. I will look in in a few weeks and see if theres still the same shite. Till then.

by Watcher Fri Sep 05, 2003 18:27

Someone called Ramon Mercada has posted The Ukraine/Russia info there to start a new topic.

How long before Stalins Airbrush strikes?

by Badman Fri Sep 05, 2003 18:29

I know for a fact that many of the people posting on these threads are active in many campaigns, in particular in the bin tax campaign. It is a fact that, especially in modern Ireland, a significant proportion of the working class have jobs where they have to sit in front of a computer for 8 hours or more a day. It is difficult to do campaign work in an open plan office. I'd consider contributing to debates about any and all ideas to be a more productive use of this time than simply following orders from the boss.

by pat c Fri Sep 05, 2003 18:31

Chekov, Joe & myself are involed in the anti-bin tax campaign and other things as well. you havent dealt with the issues here.

by sp member (personal capacity) Fri Sep 05, 2003 22:10

As a socialist I can well understand the desire to walk away from indy media.
No one can argue that it currently plays its role as an alternative source of new (despite the best efforts of the editors). But indy media can play a huge role in becomming a focal point for real news, remember, indy media became one of the best news sources during the war.
Now the role of socialists is to stay and argue for our position, expose lies and black ops and defend the right of other lefts to be given a voice on indy media.

by sumdumguy - indy pendent Sat Sep 06, 2003 01:01

Shane Kenna and his board surely cant be the source of such a debate, or any debate. Oh no he deleted your post on some obscure sy board. Who the fuck cares? Jesus fucking christ.

So why dont you encourage new sp'ers to take leadership of their party from the people you moan about, that way a socialist bloc may be possible. Look at SY and see how many good people are there, just go to one of their stalls, all active and knowledgeable socialists. Look to them not the old members if you want change, al you seem to want is retribution but you are dragging young good members down with you and ending any kind of possibility of having socialists in there who arent totalitarian or whatever it is you accuss members of.

by sp member (personal capacity) Sat Sep 06, 2003 01:49

Sumdumguy makes a number of points about the sp and socialist youth which seem to be based on opinions formed from following debates on indy media.
In responce I would appeal to him to consider the following points before drawing conclusions about the sp or sy.

1. Many of the critisims of the SP and SY on indy media are straight forward lies.

2. Debate on indy media tends to become distorted through activities of trolls.

by Phuq Hedd Sat Sep 06, 2003 05:09

QUOTE:Indymedia needs to get back to its roots and start reporting real independent news and not sectarian rabble.

ANSWER: Well, there have been a whole load of newsstories, look at the frontpage.

QUOTE:I put this challange to the Indy editorial list - postings like this shouldn't be left on the newswire, perhaps a subnewswire should be setup to discuss this.

ANSWER: How do you (or anyone else) decide that something is a troll and not true? The intention of "Yeren" may have been to start a flamewar about the SP by pretending to be someone criticising indymedia (someone like you that is), instead "Yeren" has demonstrated that there are enough pro-SP posters to go around, that they like these little fights as much as "Yeren". "Yeren" has also demonstrated that it is possible to have an open, public discussion even with the most malign protagonists and no harm is done to anyone except the malign protagonists. In short, there's no need to hide this or not leave it up and there's no basis for doing so as we don't know if "Yeren" really is an SY member. It also doesn't really make much difference -- what's interesting is the response of the SP which is to call for deletions and censorship (as they did on the editorial list in posts from Brian Cahill and on posts on indymedia. Earlier they had threatened to sue indymedia!).

QUOTE:I pput it to you to take Indymedia back to its roots - to look into real lssues which effect real people, from the binb tax to homelessness in dublin etc. Please for the sake of sanity do something

ANSWER: I put it to you Kevin to get out there and write the stories and take the photos. The same goes for anyone else (including me) who wishes to bitch about the "current state of indymedia" -- write articles, take photos, record audio. Soon the trolls will be swamped with the flood of content produced by concerned citizens like yourself. Indymedia.ie is merely a blank canvas upon which you can paint. I've seen NOTHING from the SP or SWP in terms of contribution of newsreports: the only stuff submitted was press-releases or cut and pastes from their newspapers.

JUST FUCKING DO IT!

by sp member (personal capacity) Sat Sep 06, 2003 08:16

Phudd head makes a good point about how to decide if someone is a troll.

At times it is difficult to tell but there are very clear cases such as KJIFAN who was exposed and admitted playing that role on another thread last night.
The problem with the news wire at present is that it is swamped with lies and black propaganda making it very difficult for it to function as a source of alternative news. Perhaps a good indicator of the level of problem that this has become is the statement by KJIFAN that his/her efforts are directed not only at attacking a particular group but at closing down indy media altogether. I suspect that for many people kJIFAN and other trolls have at the very least driven many people away from indy media.
There are difficulties in any attempt to combat this type of activity.
A starting point may be the very obvious posts which are straight forward lies if these are exposed straight away it would have the effect of limiting the room for the trolls to provoke others into joining in on attacks.

As far as providing news articles for indy media goes I certainly have done this as have other socialist party members.

I have to admitt that I have not felt the need to post them under the name of the socialist party as they tend to be wider issues that are not the sole concern of the socialist party. Until now I would only have considered posting announcements for Socialist Party activity or meetings under the partys name.
Phudd head does have a point though and I may decide to post all news storys under the socialist party name from here on.

by Magneto Sat Sep 06, 2003 19:32

What is truth?

The SP dont accept that they did anything wrong in the Anti War campaign. They think they were right to spread scare stories about cops shooting into an unarmed crowd (Domnic Haugh). Scare stories about the need to have medics at the Mar 1 demo (Haugh and MichaelO'Brien). Condemning GNAW as Virtual Warriors at the same time as 10 protestors were arrested (Joe Higgins).

Maybe in a parallel universe the above did not happen, but it did in this one. The trouble is the SP willdeny it. Just as they will deny they opposed lobbying an ICTU Conference.

I accept that the Labour Party was wrong to dissociate itself from the Mar 1 demo.

But individualmembers of the Labour Party took part in Direct Action.

by Doubter Sat Sep 06, 2003 19:38

The thread about the Ukraine CWI and Russian involvement has been removed from the SY discussion board. So have all the outside posts which criticised the censorship and attacks on Agent Of Chaos.

Democracy in action!

by sp member (personal capacity) Sat Sep 06, 2003 21:53

I do not want to go over arguments already made on this thread so I will quickly outline my view of the difficulties with debates on indy media.

I feel that there has to be real and serious debate between those holding opposing ideas on the left. Although the main function of indy media is to provide an alternative news source it also provides for this debate to take place, this should be welcomed and developed.

All lefts should feel that they can express their views here.

Lies and spin are not acceptable ways to debate ideas. The Socialist Party like others has been a victim of lies and spin. Those using indy media should fight the methods of those who engage in this form of attack.

I would be interested to see comments from anyone who disagrees with these comments.

by Former CWI supporter Tue Sep 09, 2003 12:41

I have run across this document, which contains some interesting analysis of the CWI, and offer it here as another contribution to discussion.


Introduction
News
Documents
Documents

Militant - what went wrong?
The retreat to sectarian dogmatism
Phil Hearse

Promise dashed
Theory as dogma
"The Marxist Tendency"
An International 'made in England'
The methods of the leadership
An interrupted revolution
Renewing class struggle, rebuilding socialism
British Trotskyism and Sectarian
Propagandism

Socialists in many parts of the world looking for
alternatives to Stalinism and social democracy will
have come across groups affiliated to Trotskyist
international groups based in Britain. The two most
notable of these groupings are the International
Socialists, based on the UK Socialist Workers Party;
and the Committee for a Workers International
(CWI) based on the UK Militant organisation, now
known as the Socialist Party. To understand these
organisations, it is necessary to look at the way the
function on home ground - Britain itself - and at
their basic theoretical outlook, invariably forged in
Britain.
The Militant/Socialist Party is important to analyse
because in the late 1970s and 1980s it became the
biggest far left group in Britain, during its period of
entrism in the Labour Party. In this period the
Militant tendency played a leading role in the Labour
Party Young Socialists, and in the struggles in
Liverpool.

Now the Socialist Party, together with its
international network, is in terminal crisis and
decline (see the article by John Bulaitis in the British
journal Socialist Democracy Feb.' 99 for up-to-date
details) .

This article was originally written for discussion
among former members of the organisation in Britain
who are attempting to find a new way forward.
Thousands of former Militant/SP members remains
committed to the socialist transformation of society,
but see no perspective in that organisation's retreat
to sectarian dogmatism. Millions of pounds and
millions of hours of activity have been contributed to
building Militant/SP and its international grouplets.
That the fruits of these innumerable personal
sacrifices have now been so recklessly squandered
by the London leadership of Peter Taaffe and Lyn
Walsh is a tragedy.

Even though the international network around
Militant is mainly insignificant, the lessons of what
went wrong with this organisation touch on many
key questions of orientation and organisation which
face the whole of the international left. Militant/SP
is collapsing because it retreated on the task of
facing up to the problems of socialist renewal which
are unavoidable in the world after the collapse of
the Soviet Union.

Two important documents by former leaders of the
tendency have attempted to analyse these
problems. The first, by Roger Silverman - a founder
of Militant - was published in the SP internal
bulletin, and argued that the failure lay in wrong
perspectives in the 1980s, especially in relation to
the collapse of Stalinism. The second, by Dave
Cotterill, former newspaper editor and a leader of
the Merseyside organisation, took up a number of
issues, but centrally identified a failure to analyse
the resilience of modern imperialism, and a
consequent consistent overestimation of
revolutionary possibilities. Both these documents
contain important insights.
However, in my opinion both fall down in merely
analysing perspectives and analyses. In truth, the
failures lie in basic theory and methods. Only by
going to the roots of the problems can we get a
clear picture.

Equally, I don't accept the position of those who say
that the problem was that Militant was Leninist and
democratic centralist. I think a key problem was that
in some crucial ways it produced - in common with
many other Trotskyist organisations which have
degenerated in a sectarian direction - a bowdlerised
version of democratic centralism which owed much to
ideas imported from the Stalinist movement.

Peter Taaffe and Lyn Walsh will shrug off criticisms
such as those contained here with the argument that
this is the same old stuff we are used to from 'the
sects', which ironically is the way they refer to all
other revolutionary tendencies. Anyone who is
satisfied with this type of argument is - temporarily
- beyond help. As Abraham Lincoln once said,
"people who like that kind of thing, will like that
kind of thing".

TOP

Promise dashed

In 1983 the Labour Party bureaucracy expelled the
Militant editorial board. Anyone with eyes to see
could tell this was the beginning of a major purge of
the Labour Party left, which would go way beyond
Militant. Through the 1980s hundreds of Militant
supporters were expelled. This put in question the
whole tactic of entrism, and the organisation was
faced with redefining its strategy, which in some
ways meant redefining its identity. In any case,
what were the expelled members to do?

The urgency of this question was in a sense
disguised by the turn to the anti-poll tax campaign,
proposed by the Scottish leadership. Margaret
Thatcher's poll tax, imposed in the mid- and late
1980s, generated huge resistance among both the
working and middle classes. In particular, a
campaign of non-payment, organised by local
community groups, developed. This campaign was an
outstanding success, in part because it did not go
through the structures of the labour movement and
thus did not have to confront, at each stage of the
struggle, the sabotage of the Labour and trade union
bureaucracy. The Scottish leadership of Militant were
the first on the far left to see the potential of the
non-payment campaign; it put the Scottish
organisation on the map, particularly through the
role of Tommy Sheridan as the best known leader of
the whole movement. Through this campaign Militant
had found a successful focus of activity outside the
Labour Party, although formally it remained an
'entrist' organisation.

In the wake of the poll tax campaign, in the early
1990s, a break with entrism was inevitable. But
given the dogmatic training of the organisation
discussed below, a split on the issue was also
inevitable. The minority, led by Militant founder Ted
Grant and by Alan Woods, were expelled and formed
their own organisation - Socialist Appeal. But with
the shackles of entrism thrown off, there was good
reason to be optimistic that the mainstream
Militant, now a public revolutionary organisation
named Militant Labour, could make a substantial
contribution to the British Left. Several factors made
such a judgement credible. They included:

1.the role of Scottish Militant Labour (SML) as the
major force on the Scottish left, with the
election of Tommy Sheridan as a Glasgow
councillor and an 11% vote in the Glasgow
Euro-elections
2.the building of the militant anti-racist front
Youth against Racism in Europe (YRE) in
response to a wave of racist violence, including
murders, inspired by the fascist British National
Party
3.the role played, for a time, by Panther, the
organisation set up by Militant to attract black
youth, in the anti-BNP campaign
4.the role of Militant women in establishing and
leading the highly successful Campaign against
Domestic Violence (CADV)
5.the start of serious work on lesbian and gay
liberation by Militant Labour activists
6.the establishment of a caucus campaigning on
the rights of disabled people and producing the
most developed analysis of the fate of disabled
people under capitalism produced in Britain
7.the start of campaigning on the environment,
and Militant Labour's role in the linked
campaign against the highly repressive Criminal
Justice Act, which particularly targeted
environmental activists. All this was, by the
mid-1990s, feeding into what appeared to be a
new openness to other forces on the left,
including at an international level.

That openness was given concrete form by the
response given by Militant Labour to the split from
the Labour Party to form the Socialist Labour Party,
led by miners' union leader Arthur Scargill in 1995.
Militant proposed to go into the SLP as an organised
current, but this was rejected out of hand by Scargill
and his entourage. Almost immediately, the shutters
came down and the Taaffe/Walsh leadership retreated
to the bunker. It was at this point that they began
to argue that Militant Labour, with no more than
1000 members (and going down) could itself form a
'small mass party', a proposal which underlay the
idea of changing the name to Socialist Party - but
was totally excluded in the mainly unfavourable
British political situation. After a limited period of
opening up, and of willingness to discuss with other
forces on the left in Britain and itnernationally,
sectarianism and dogmatism reasserted itself. But
the roots of the dogmatism and sectarianism go way
back. It is to the origin of those problems which we
now turn.

TOP

Theory as dogma

At the basis of Militant theory were a series of
highly questionable propositions about socialist
strategy and transition which, taken together, give
us an insight into fundamental failings.

First was the conception of 'entrism' - working as a
tendency within the Labour Party and not as a public
revolutionary organisation - in the strategic plan of
party building. Naturally, the security precautions of
entrism meant that Militant had to use a series of
disguised formulae for self-defense. But even
putting these aside, there was a one-sided
explanation of entrism in forming a revolutionary
party. Entrism tended to be conceived as a strategy
and not a tactic, inevitably posing the question of a
split if entrism was abandoned. Entrism was a badge
of honour, a key point of difference with others on
the left. In a fatalistic and mechanical way, the
evolution of Militant ("the Marxists") into the
dominant force in the Labour Party (or at least the
left) was seen as inevitable. When a split came in
the Labour Party it would be the right wing splitting
from a radicalised and Marxist-led base. But this was
always highly optimistic, given the always dominant
role of the Labour and trade union bureaucracy. It
was mechanical and formalistic to see mass
radicalisation always being channelled into the
Labour Party. In fact the Militant scenario was one
variant, one theoretical possibility in the curve of
development, but justified in a way which didn't take
account of the profound changes in the relationship
between the social democratic parties and the mass
of the working class which has taken place since the
1930s. Entrism, at a certain point, was not
necessarily wrong - especially in relation to the
LPYS. But its explanation and long-term rationale
was flawed, generating huge tensions when its
abandonment was posed.

Linked to the rationale for entrism was the theory of
the Labour Party. Lenin called the Labour party a
"bourgeois workers party". By this he meant that it
was a bourgeois party politically, but with a working
class base. Trotsky in his writing on Germany called
the social democracy "bourgeois through and
through" ( as opposed to the Communist Party,
which at that time he called "a workers party, but
badly led"). But in the hands of the Grant-Taaffe
leadership, Lenin's theory was transformed into the
idea that the class character of the Labour Party was
contradictory: it was part bourgeois and part
proletarian. This easily fed into the idea of a
struggle to transform the Labour Party, to resolve its
class character.

This in turn was linked to the theory of the Enabling
Act. This posited that "at a certain point", a socialist
majority in parliament, led by "the Marxists", could
pass an Enabling Act nationalising the major banks
and monopolies. This again fetishised one possible
theoretical variant, elevating it into a dogma. But
this dogma, far from being unimportant,
encapsulated a certain vision of the transition to
socialism, downplaying the role of mass action.
Socialist revolution was not seen primarily as the
activity of the working class itself; and the nature of
the bourgeois state apparatus, and the need to
smash it, was downplayed. The notion of socialism
coming about as the result of the self-activity of the
working class was sidelined in Militant dogma. In a
strange way, this was illustrated by Militant's
idiosyncratic ideas about the nature of third world
nationalist regimes - so-called 'Proletarian
Bonapartism'.

In the 1950-80 period Marxists were faced with the
need to analyse all kinds of nationalist regimes,
some of them very radical, which emerged out of
anti-imperialist struggle in the third world. Ted Grant
devised the notion of Proletarian Bonapartism to
explain these regimes; they were a form of sui
generis workers states, despite their highly
authoritarian, often militarised, states and the
repression of the working class and peasantry. In
this theory the nationalisation of the means of
production was festishised as the key criterion for
establishing the class nature of particular regimes.
This was a false method. For example, in Nasser's
Egypt in the 1950s the basic means of production
were nationalised, and the bourgeoisie turned into a
rentier bourgeoisie, receiving profits as subventions
from the state. This was genuine 'state capitalism' -
nothing to do with Cliff's theory incidentally. In such
regimes, and many of them were far less radical
than Nasser's, the bourgeoisie remained in power
and the bourgeois state intact, even if the key form
of control of the social surplus, and hence profits,
was the role of the state apparatus. All kinds of
bourgeois and petty bourgeois nationalist regimes
got dubbed "Proletarian Bonapartism" because of the
one-sided and partial criterion of nationalisation.

The theory of Proletarian Bonapartism is clearly
linked to the idea of the Enabling Act and the role of
nationalisation as the key criterion of socialist
transition. But this is a wrong - economistic -
method. The key criterion is the character of the
state, and which set of social relations it historically
defends - which is a different question what
percentage of the economy is nationalised. But the
self-activity of the working class, and the central
role given by Marxism to this in the socialist
transition, is also inextricably linked to the
transformation of the nature of the state, and the
establishment of the working class's own
organisations of power. In the Russian case these
were called soviets. The exact nature of the
organisations of working class power in future
revolutions is a matter of speculation and debate.
But the necessity for these organisations - and not
just a left-dominated parliament carrying out
nationalisations - is fundamental to the Marxist
conception of the transition to socialism.

In any case, the Proletarian Bonapartism idea led to
absurdities in analysing third world revolutions.
Countries as diverse as Cuba (the one real
post-capitalist state in the list), Mozambique,
Afghanistan, Iraq(!) and Burma (!!) all became, in
Militant theory, non-capitalist states. In our opinion,
the Militant theory of the Labour Party,
nationalisation as the key criterion of the nature of
the state, the Enabling Act and Proletarian
Bonapartism are all linked together. What links them
is a failure to grasp the centrality of the
self-organisation and self-activity of the working
class, and an economistic conception of the struggle
for power.

TOP

"The Marxist Tendency"

A failure to fully understand the role of the
self-activity and self-organisation of the working
class in the transition to socialism naturally goes
hand-in-hand with a suspicion of the mass
movements of the oppressed, and a
self-proclamatory sectarianism. Militant's
self-identity was that of the Marxist tendency,
excluding all others from that label, an absurd
proposition at the end of the 20th century. This in
turn was reflected in sectarianism and frontism. In
the poll tax campaign, Militant was absurdly
sectarian to others tendencies and independents,
routinely taking over 90% of leading positions on
campaign committees. Even in the campaign against
the witch hunt in the Labour Party, Militant was very
reluctant to engage in joint activities with other
socialists, despite the fact it was often their own
comrades who were being defended.

This was all of a piece with the notion of
campaigning bodies as being basically front
organisations and recruitment forums for the 'party' -
Militant - itself. Such things reached fiasco point
when the YRE national committee had to endure a
long afternoon's report from Peter Taaffe on his visit
to South Africa. More seriously, it resulted in the
split in Panther and the loss of most of the black
cadre.

All the things we have touched on here have
implications for the conception of the party and its
relationship to the self-activity of the working class,
the labour movement, and the movements of the
oppressed as a whole. The type of party you build is
deeply connected to your notion of socialist
transition. Logically the two cannot be separated. So
far, of course, there has been no successful
revolution in the advanced capitalist countries. But
provisional answers have to be given on key issues.
For example: is the revolution primarily the work of
the party, or the self-organised activity of the
working class? In many bowdlerised versions of
Trotskyism, the very posing of this question would
be regarded as semi-anarchist heresy. Second, given
the provisional answer that socialist revolution is by
definition the self-activity of the working class itself,
what relationship exists between party organisations
and the organisations of struggle of the working
class and the oppressed? Whatever the answers
provided by (future) history, we can be sure that the
mass movement will reject paternalistic,
manipulatory and sectarian types of party
organisation. Third question: is there just one
version of Marxism, and is there only one Marxist
tendency in the world? If the answer to both
questions is 'no' (which it obviously is), then is it
necessarily the case that socialist transition will be
carried out in each country with only one
revolutionary tendency existing?

Your general approach to these questions will have a
large bearing on the type of socialist organisation
that you try to build. I go into these questions more
at the end of the document.

TOP

An International 'made in England'

The Committee for a Workers International (CWI)
crystallises many lessons on how not to go about
building an International. That the workers and the
oppressed need an international socialist
organisation I personally do not question. But now,
the hypothesis that it will emerge solely around one
of the existing international formations - IS, CWI,
USFI, LIT etc - is increasingly improbable. Only
major developments in the international class
struggle, leading to the rebuilding and renovation of
working class organisations, and a substantial
strengthening of the militant socialist and
revolutionary forces internationally, can create the
conditions for an International with substantial
weight. Such a real international is unlikely to divide
over secondary questions of analysis and
programmatic codification; and it is likely to include
forces from diverse origins. For example, we have to
recognise that, especially in the third world, real
revolutionary forces have emerged from Maoist
origins - indeed a diverse array of living militant
socialist forces have emerged from outside any of
the Trotskyist traditions.

The CWI however is a grotesque caricature of an
international. A real international would imply an
ongoing dialogue between different socialist
organisations strongly rooted in the class struggle in
their own countries, and able to discuss on equal
terms. The CWI is the paternalistic organisation of
international supporters of the (mainly English)
Taaffe-Walsh tendency. The relationship between
the SP leadership, who are also the leadership of the
CWI, and the national sections is politically corrupt
and clientalist. For comrades in poor countries,
favour with the British leadership is often needed for
the allocation of money. Taaffe and Walsh feel free
to intervene at will in the affairs of each national
section, and trouble-shooters are routinely sent
worldwide to 'sort out' dissidents. The international
centre is in the SP office, and generally all but one
of the full-timers is British. It is the norm for section
leaderships to consult with their allocated
international fulltimer before leadership meetings.
And reports to international leadership meetings
have to be approved by Peter and Lynn first (cf the
hapless queue outside the EC corridor the day before
IEC meetings).

Taaffe and Walsh think it's fine to impose tactics
from London. This is not international democratic
centralism - even if any variant of that is appropriate
today - but a corrupt hierarchy or orders and
instructions which would have even embarrassed
Zinoviev, the first leader of the Communist
International to impose such a regime. Naturally as
soon as sections leaderships start to think for
themselves, they run into trouble. If they don't back
down, expulsion cannot be far away.

The methods of the London-based leadership have
led to repeated problems in the last few years. Most
notable is the expulsion of the large majority
Pakistani Labour Party, one of the most significant
organisations of the CWI. An important part of the
American leadership was expelled over political
differences, and clashes are looming with others.

The problems with the CWI are the same problems
as with the SP in England, but transferred to an
international level - where they become even more
grotesque. The CWI will fall apart together with the
SP, because it is not possible to build a viable
international regroupment today on the basis of a
single 'correct' theory, only one version of Marxism,
an all-authoritative English leadership, and a high
degree of homogeneity on most questions. The
political conditions no longer exist for such a
structure. Today, international collaboration between
revolutionaries has to be on a completely different
basis.

TOP

The methods of the leadership

A very long document could be written outlining
horror stories about the internal functioning of the
SP and the behaviour of its leaders. But the
important thing is not the quirks of personalities,
but the structures and norms of functioning to allow
political ostracism and bullying to go unchallenged,
and indeed to be accepted as normal.

The central problem is a conception of leadership
which sees it as the work of a couple of 'philosopher
kings' with a bevy of acolytes around them - rather
than an attempt to construct a genuine team
leadership, capable of mutual support and mutual
criticism. Constructing a team leadership in a
revolutionary organisation means trying to integrate
into a collective people with different skills,
perspectives and emphases. It means that there will
inevitably be secondary - and occasionally major -
differences of opinion among members of the team.
This is systematically avoided in the SP. The
executive committee was for a long period Taaffe,
Walsh and the department heads. Now in some
circumstances department heads will be important
people to integrate into a team leadership. But to
do it solely that way means to construct a
management committee rather than a political
committee. The result is an executive of people
many of whom are rewarded for selfless loyalty
rather than put there for political reasons. The result
is that Taaffe, who chairs every meeting and
summarises every point, and Walsh, will 999 times
out of 1000 get their way on the EC. When there is
no unanimous vote on the EC, as happened with
newspaper editor Nick Wrack over the name change
and head of political education Margaret Creear on
several issues, there is an explosion.

In the event of differences Taaffe and Walsh resort
to politically brutal methods. The ones I would
identify as most blatantly politically immoral are the
'kitchen sink' method, political ostracism and the
political purge. The kitchen sink method is the use
of any political argument, about any matter
whatever, which happened at any conceivable time
in the past, to discredit opponents. Thus for
example Lynn Walsh, in 1996, in an 'information
report' on differences in the American section at the
National Committee, launched a tirade against John
Throne, including allegations about what he had
done while an international full timer years ago and
when he was in Ireland. These matters were totally
irrelevant to the discussion in hand, about which
most people present had no information, and when
John Throne himself was not present to reply. This in
an 'information report' with no discussion scheduled!
(The most bankrupt argument of this session, one
used regularly against opponents was "We received
many complaints about him and had to intervene
regularly to defend his position". Which poses the
question: if he was such a terrible person - why the
hell did you "repeatedly" intervene to defend his
position?).

Nick Wrack got the same treatment from Taaffe
when he resigned as newspaper editor, and Dave
Cotterill got the same, apparently, during the
expulsions in Merseyside. These are not the
methods of loyal debate but of political gangsterism.

Ostracism is the fate of anyone who raises
differences, and this is especially true for fulltimers
working at the centre. Paid a pittance, fulltimers are
particularly vulnerable to the methods of gossip,
innuendo and intrigue used by the occupants of the
EC corridor, because to raise differences immediately
puts you in conflict with other staff members and
puts your job in question.

The political purge is the throwing out of fulltimers,
on any pretext, who have real or imagined
differences. Thus the newspaper staff was purged in
early 1995 because a majority of the newspaper
staff supported the conception of a popular, highly
agitational, camapigning paper of the type pioneered
by Dave Cotterill when he was editor. The issue is
not who was right and who was wrong: the issue is
whether it is correct to deal with such differences
not by political discussion, but by throwing people
out - on the excuse of financial difficutlies, the
oldest trick in the book The opportunity for political
clarification was lost; the lesson learned was "don't
have an argument with Taaffe and Walsh or you will
be out on your ear."

All this is a pretty unseemly story, and probably a
depressingly familiar one to people from some other
Trotskyist traditions. Many more examples of the
use of these methods on the SP could be outlined.
The point is that the whole notion of leadership
embodied in these methods is fundamentally flawed.
A sectarian notion of leadership goes hand in hand
with a sectarian notion of the party. As Trotsky
noted, the sectarians routinely erect tin-pot
dictatorships in their own ranks.

TOP

An interrupted revolution

In retrospect, it can be seen that the break from
entrism in the early 1990s represented an
opportunity for the opening up of the organisation to
new methods of work, a more constructive
relationship with the mass social movements and
others on the left, and a less sectarian and dogmatic
theoretical approach. It would have amounted to a
cultural revolution, and in some ways the Scottish
leadership, in its pioneering poll tax campaigning
and its break with Militant's appalling sectarianism
on the national question, had already announced a
cultural revolution. This trend was deepened above
all by the leadership of the women's work, forced to
grapple with a whole series of new theoretical
questions while building CADV. A completed cultural
revolution would have had implications at an
international level, which was prefigured by the
exchanges with the Fourth International (an
exchange of observers at IEC meetings) and the
beginning of friendly relations with the Australian
DSP.

In fact though most of these changes were initiated
'from below', or at least outside the EC corridor, and
subsequently adopted, with good grace or ill, by the
central leadership. Most of these things were
'add-ons', and not articulated as a generalised
change of approach. As mentioned above, the key
turning point in going backwards was Militant's
exclusion from the SLP, a big error by Scargill and his
team. Faced with this rejection, Taaffe and Walsh
reached back into their sectarian past and closed the
hatches. At a British level, the organisation has
turned inwards to a propaganda routine around an
increasingly dire newspaper; internationally, the CWI
went back to its self-imposed isolation, symbolised
by the resignation of Lyn Walsh from the editorial
board of Links, the international journal of socialist
renewal and debate, launched originally by the
Australian DSP, to which socialists from many
countries and backgrounds have contributed. Having
contributed nothing and made no suggestions,
Walsh resigned because of "lack of consultation"!

The results of the sectarian turn have been
predictably disastrous. Membership has declined
precipitously. The bulk of the Merseyside
membership has been expelled. The organisation
has lost leaders like Margaret Creear, who was
central in founding CADV and developing Militant's
position of women's oppression. Tensions with the
Scottish leadership have amounted to a "cold split".
Tensions now exist with the French leadership. The
Pakistanis have been expelled. And further
dissidence has apparently emerged in Manchester
and other places. (For a fuller account see the article
by John Bulaitis referred to above).

The Taaffe leadership will now say that the crisis is
caused by a retreat from "Marxism", including inside
the SP and CWI itself. The truth is very different.
The real reason for the crisis is the failure of the SP
leadership to turn towards the opportunities for
socialist renewal and rebuilding in Britain and
internationally. The future lies not with retreating to
a propaganda rump defending the basics of (a very
bowdlerised and dogmatic) Marxism, as if this was
the 1950s or the 1930s. The future lies in rebuilding
and renewing socialism internationally; in assisting
the strengthening of working class struggle; and
addressing the key strategic questions of class
independence, self-organisation and political
representation which face the whole of the working
class and the left internationally.

TOP

Renewing class struggle, rebuilding socialism

Nothing more shows the failure of the Taaffe-Walsh
approach than the debate with the Scottish
leadership. The Scottish Militant Labour (SML)
comrades correctly capitalised on their work from the
poll tax onwards to build the Scottish Socialist
Alliance, a broad coalition of socialist forces. Once
the alliance became successful, and conducted joint
campaigns and electoral interventions, the question
of forming the Scottish Socialist Party was inevitably
posed .Taaffe and Walsh instead proposed to break
the alliance (which would have been disastrous) and
change the name of SML to Scottish Socialist Party -
which would have been seen as an outrageous
sectarian stunt by all of SML's closest collaborators.

This issue encapsulates both socialist renewal and
class independence. With the Labour Party now
widely seen as an openly bourgeois party, the
question of a new mass workers party, a new
socialist party, is posed directly. In Scotland, where
the relationship of forces is much more advanced
than in the rest of Britain, intermediate steps
towards the resolution of the question of the
political representation of the working class are
immediately possible. The SSP cannot immediately
be a mass party, but it can have an echo in sections
of the masses, and be looked to as a real potential
mass leadership by sections of the workers and
youth.

But this is not possible by the SML working on their
own; only a socialist formation with broad appeal
can do this, and that means working with other
forces. Undoubtedly this poses big problems for the
SML. How do you put together building the SSP and
recruiting to the Marxist current at the same time.
This is a problem far from unique to Scotland, and in
my opinion there are two thoroughly incorrect
answers to this conundrum. The first is to say like
Taaffe and Walsh, they key thing is to 'build the
revolutionary party', so we solve the problem by
suppressing it. Get out of the SSP, build the SML,
put off or ignore the question of class independence
and the political representation of the working class.
This sectarian course would be posing an
organisational solution to a real political problem.
The dilemma of how to build a broad socialist
organisation (in countries where that is posed and
possible), and at the same time build a Marxist
leadership current, is a dilemma which exists in
reality not in abstract schemas. The Scottish
comrades have to both build the broad party and win
people to Marxism within it, just as Marxists inside
Italian Communist Refoundation have to carry out a
dual tactic. Complex tactics like this, full of dangers,
are imposed by the state of the workers movement
internationally - as well as the state of the
revolutionary left.

The second incorrect solution would be to say: build
the broad socialist party, give up on building the
Marxist current. All the current debates about
Leninism and democratic centralism have to start
with this issue: is the specific and separate
organisation of Marxism, of the forces won to the
Marxist programme, necessary or not? This means,
in effect, does Marxism have anything specific to
say, any programme to propose, different to that
advocated by broad (and very heterogeneous)
organisations like the RC in Italy or the United Left
in Spain? I think the answer is obviously 'yes'. And if
so, then the Marxists have to organise themselves in
the form of a more or less formal current. Although I
don't have the space to argue the point here, my
own opinion is that the organisation of a Marxist
current in a broad formation is perfectly compatible
with an intelligent application of Leninism and
democratic centralism, although it would have to be
applied in a very different way to that in an open
revolutionary organisation.

But debates about labels are secondary: the key
thing is the tasks. Inside a broad formation, the
tasks are heavily ideological and propagandistic; yes
to be the leaders and organisers of the activity and
win respect on that basis, but also to have a
membership which is highly ideological, highly
versed in Marxism and can explain Marxist ideas.

All the broad left and socialist formations in Europe
are 'only' transitional steps towards the formation of
new mass parties of the class. They are thus
transitory and temporary steps: the programme of
Marxism however is only transitory and temporary in
a world-historic sense. Or to put that point in
English, the Marxist current has to survive, build and
go on, whatever happens to these broad currents
and recomposition parties.

I have taken the Scottish example to demonstrate a
more general point. In an earlier section of the text
I argued that socialism can only come about as a
result of the self-activity of the working class, and
that this has to be reflected in our concept of
socialist organisation. But it really is anarchist
primitivism to counterpose the self-activity of the
working class, and the necessarily drawn-out process
of renewing working class struggle and
self-confidence, to the task of building socialist
political parties.

Let us take an example I know quite well: the
contemporary situation in Mexico. The Mexican
workers, rural workers, indigenous people and
popular movements have not experienced defeats
like those in Europe. They are incredibly combative
and active. Every day brings new strikes and
demonstrations. The students are massively
mobilised at this time, as are electricity workers,
teachers and other sectors. But there is a problem -
political leadership, which does not emerge
spontaneously out of the struggles. The
radical-nationalist populist party, the PRD, has a
near-monopoly of electoral representation of the left
- despite being explicitly not a socialist or in any
way anti-capitalist party. The Zapatistas, although
very important for the overall development of the
struggle - and very popular with the youth and other
radical sectors - only have a programme for
'democracy' and the indigenous peoples. They
cannot, and do not wish to, provide an overall
leadership and anti-capitalist perspective for the
Mexican workers. In other words, the problems is not
the level of struggle, but its lack of perspective and
where it ends up politically. The need to build a new
party of the workers and oppressed is obvious in a
country where the masses are fighting back, but
where the collapse of the Soviet Union has pushed
socialist consciousness back.

But who is going to build it? Will it emerge,
Phoenix-like, from repeated strikes and popular
struggles? Not at all. Popular radicalism and
struggle, without the conscious intervention of
revolutionary forces, will end up in support for
Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, leader of the PRD - or worse.
The only people who will fight for a new mass
socialist formation are the forces of the
revolutionary left, many of whom come from Maoist
traditions.

But small, perfectly formed, and brain-dead
sectarian propagandists will never win anyone or
build anything of significance in Mexico. Only by a
dialogue with the workers and popular movements,
actively engaging in struggles, recognising that
revolutionaries are not just your own tendency,
organisation collaboration and debates on the left,
having an on-going united front and united action
approach - only by using the tools of intelligent
Marxism can progress to be made.

Mexico well illustrates the general approach which
needs to be taken up by Marxists today. The same
general lessons apply in England, Wales and
Scotland. The Socialist Party is however anything but
a mechanism for the application of intelligent
Marxism. The way forward is now the fight for a new
socialist party in England and Wales which will work
with the comrades in Scotland to forge a new
political representation of the working class. Inside
a new party the forces of organised Marxism will be
irreplaceable. The Socialist Party, on the other hand,
will not.

TOP

British Trotskyism and Sectarian Propagandism

Despite the wonderful work done by many Militant
members, particularly in the Liverpool struggle,
CADV and Scotland, the Socialist Party is now a
further example of the sectarian propagandist type
of organisation which has dominated the British
Trotskyist movement. The SWP is today the supreme
example of this type of approach (despite having
rejected it in its early history). The key
characteristics of these organisations are a
propaganda rhythm which is divorced from, and
independent of, the struggles of the wider
movements of the workers and the oppressed; a
fetishisation of an authoritarian internal regime in
the name of a totally mystified and historically
inaccurate version of 'Leninism'; the elevation of
certain theoretical positions (in the case of the SWP,
state capitalism) into dogmas which are meant to be
- but are obviously not - key dividing lines with the
rest of the militant left; and a linked overestimation
of the significance of certain theoretical and
programmatic codifications as opposed to
participation in living struggles.

This is nothing new in Britain. In the 1950s, and the
first half of the 1960s, the dominant far left
organisation was Gerry Healy's Socialist Labour
League (later renamed the Workers Revolutionary
Party). The SLL/WRP was a caricature of dogmatic
sectarianism, with an internal regime occasionally
characterised by physical violence - also sometimes
used against opponents on the left. Among many
other absurdities, the SLL/WRP refused to accept
that Cuba was a workers state because it was not
created by a "Bolshevik' (ie Trotskyist) party;
refused to participate in the Vietnam movement
because it was a "diversion" from the task of
building the party; and totally refused all joint
action with others on the left. Now, today's SWP and
Militant/SP are nowhere so extreme in their
sectarianism, and of course do not use physical
violence. But they are organisations of the same
basic type. While this type of organisation is not
unique to Britain, the British far left has been
particularly dominated by them. Why? In my opinion
there are two basic reasons. The first is the whole
history of the formation of the British left.

When the British Communist Party was founded in
1919, its component organisations, of which the BSP
(British Socialist Party) was easily the largest, were
mainly of this sectarian-propagandist type. The
reason for this was the isolation of Marxism, which
never in Britain achieved the position it reached in
France, Germany or Italy. That isolation w

by USELESS Fri Sep 12, 2003 01:38

ABOUT THAT CRAP?

by Jack chickerton Wed Feb 11, 2004 13:53

Can somebody out there please explain what part of revolutionary theory the Nigerian section of the CWI was following when they collaborated with the radical/reformist wing of the corrupt Nigerian ruling class to form a, (wait for this new addition to Marxist lexicon) - "pro -poor" party - the National Conscience Party. A move that doesn't even attempt the normal entryist pretence of the organisation being a mass one, attracting the mass followership of the Nigerian working people. At present the leaders of the CWI in Nigeria all occupy senior positions in this party. Which clearly gives them wide ranging "entry" into the drawing rooms, offices and company of the Nigerian Bourgoisie or sorry its "pro poor" section

by john aliedere Fri Mar 05, 2004 12:58

So the Bolshevik party was a cult