Ian Birchall ex-SWP
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Ian Birchall on his blog dissects the demise of the SWP here
http://grimanddim.org/political-writings/2014-so-sad/
Quote:In my fifty years’ experience I have certainly seen full-timers – often young, inexperienced and politically insecure – attempt to bully members, but such bullying was an exceptionQuote:Any revolutionary knows that lying is sometimes justified. The problem is who is being lied to.Quote:When I joined the International Socialists in 1962 I was a postgraduate student who had read a handful of Marxist books but knew absolutely nothing about the working-class movement. Formally I had one vote, the same as Tony Cliff, with his enormous erudition and experience. In practice, quite rightly, Cliff’s influence over decisions was immeasurably greater than mine.Quote:Like Edith Piaf, I regret nothing.Quote:Of course enemies of the SWP, or of the Marxist left in general, from both the right and the left, may quote this document out of context for their own political purposes.i couldn't actually force myself to read all of this. An unrepentant sinner who has learned actually very little from his experiences.
Quote:Not for one minute do I regret having joined IS and sayed with the organisation for so long.Like a true SWPer, its not the politics of it that were at fault but a series of organisational wrong-turnings and a failure of the leadership which replaced the troikaa of Cliff, Harman and Hallas and he turns opportunism into a virtue. His concluding abc seems to me to totally self-deceiving wishful thinking rather than the reality of actual SWP practice and theory.Not impressed at all by his soul-searching or his analysis of IS/SWP history. He and they won't be missed if they as i hope disappear entirely from the political scene
I knew him when we were both students in 1962 and went to the "International Socialism" meetings he mentions. He's a decent bloke. We always said hello to each other when we bumped into each at demonstrations.I have just read all the way through the article and of the various "turns" which it has been suggested led to the SWP's degeneration, I'd put the one in 1968 when IS (as it then still was) decided to consciously become an organisation based on Leninist organisational principles.What struck me is Birchall's continuing adherence to the idea of leadership:
Quote:… a revolutionary leadership needs to know what is going on in the working class. It cannot do this by reading the Financial Times, it has to listen to comrades who have roots in different sections of the class and who can report on what is happening on the ground. As Cliff argued: “… they have to learn from their fellow workers as much as – or more than – they have to teach. To repeat, the job is to lead, and to lead you have to thoroughly understand those you are leading. Leadership is a two-way process….many see the party leadership as the repository of doctrine, of theory, of organisational skill and knowledge. Of course it has to be all these things to some degree. But mainly it has to be the most apt learner, the most sensitive ear and the firmest will.”[emphasis added]and also his description of how the "slate" system of election worked and its consequences:
Quote:Yet all too often we have allowed democratic mechanisms which are quite adequate on paper to fall into disuse. Back in the eighties, when strong branch committees existed, the branch committee would nominate a slate of conference delegates. While it was obviously possible for members to nominate an alternative slate, this was frowned on, and in practice was relatively rare. I recall a chairperson telling us the agenda for a branch meeting and saying “and then the conference delegates will be announced”. In practice he was right – this was what usually happened.Quote:However recent events have shown the limitations of the slate system. It has become a means whereby the CC can indefinitely propose itself for re-election, co-opting approved individuals as it goes. Moreover, a career path has now clearly emerged – comrades, generally former students, become full-timers, and if they are successful, they rise in the apparatus and become CC members. Thus we get a CC almost entirely composed of people who have spent most of their political life as full-timers and have very limited experience of work or trade unionism.One passage I liked and which we can use against all those who think in terms on confronting the state:
Quote:Neither the SWP nor any other group on the British far left could confront a bunch of drunken football hooligans, let alone a bourgeois state.He also repeats immediately following this passage the quote he gave in another article from the Statement of Principles of the Hammersmith Socialist Society:
Quote:The important thing at present is the battle of ideas; as William Morris put it, “it should be our special aim to make Socialists”.Which is what I tried to tell him in 1962 !
Doesn't VV have a few personal anecdotes from way back about the personality cult around Cliff the Guru
Quote:Cliff was pontificating in the parlour. He was sat like a king on a throne with a semi-circle of young people literally sitting at his feet. Among them was John Palmer, later European editor of the “Guardian”, and Cliff was telling them, “When the workers are armed then you have the embryo of the workers’ state”.http://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2007/03/when-harry-met-tony-showdown.htmlIf there is someone who the party has to get down on record as oral history is Glasgow's VV.
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