WORLD SOCIALISM WEB

Hi Roberto

I think you are referring to a website set up by one of the splinters of the UK Worker’s Revolutionary Party. The WRP were historically a bit of an odd organisation. It appears they got a great deal of finance from General Gaddaffi of Libya back in the 70’s and 80′, they were at that time led and to a large extent groomed by a guy called Gerry Healy. John Lister who was expelled from the WRP in 1974, concluded:

Healy was a crook and a political charlatan, who preserved his position as General Secretary of the WRP by resorting to the most bureaucratic and anti-democratic measures, who stubbornly opposed any campaigning for women’s liberation or gay rights, who habitually subjected women “comrades” to sexual abuse, who sold out the WRP’s formal principles and programme for Middle East oil money and who has done more than anyone to degrade the reputation of Marxism and Trotskyism in Britain.

 

Although they may have got rid of Healy, they have the same organisational principles that Healy used (and which Lenin and his mates Trotsky and Stalin were complicit in). It says a lot for their level of understnading, that they could be taken in by a crook like Healy.

As with most Trotskyist websites they are full of rhetoric and bluster, but if you look a bit harder, it is very hard to ascertain what they actually stand for. There are no “here are our principles”, “this is what we think”, etc.

They also fail to mention their adherence to “democratic” centralism. If you’re not familiar with it, effectively they are a leadership run organisation, very hierarchical, the leadership put forward a “slate” of leaders ever year, for the members to vote for (funnily enough, the leaders are the same people every year) and the members can vote for or against the leaders. Generally speaking, if you vote against the “slate” you are ostracised and learn never to make that mistake again.

I would say in contrast to this, the World Socialist Movement is a genuinely democratic organisation of like minded comrades, who are united on a set of agreed principles, who organise openly (we have absloutely no secret meetings, all meetings are open to the public). We are democratically formed, a member who joined 70 years ago has one vote, the same as a member who joined yesterday. We have no leaders, because we have no need for followers. If you are close to us, why not join us in and be part of a truly democratic movement, based on genuine socialist principles. I did it and it’s the best thing I ever did!

Yes that site is run by members of one of the many Trotskyist groups. This one which calls itself the “Socialist Equality Party” and  originated from one of the factions within the WRP and its US section. They are orthodox Trotskyists whose only difference with other such groups is that they have a different leader. Otherwise it’s the same (the Bolshevik coup was a workers revolution, the USSR was some sort of workers state, workers need to be led by a vanguard party dangling impossible returns in front of them, etc).

Here are a couple of articles on Trotsky and Trotskyism in general:

Trotsky – the Prophet Debunked

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2003/2000s/no-1183-march-2003/trotsky-and-stalin-rival-leaders/