Libertarian Socialists Alan Woodward 1939-2012

[jondwhite]

Libertarian Socialists Alan Woodward has died 1939-2012. Reported on libcom
;

http://libcom.org/forums/news/alan-woodward-libcom-contributor-has-died-21102012

I have two of his pamphlets The New World: perspectives on workers control in revolutionary Spain 1936-1939 and Life and Times of Joe Thomas. He was also involved in Radical History Network in London.

[ALB]

I know you're not supposed to speak ill of the dead but, ok, Alan Woodward was a nice bloke and a good trade unionist but he spread all sorts of false stories about us. For example, this snidey review of our pamphlet on parliament.http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/debating-anarchists.htmlHe was also a guest speaker at one of our meetings at Head Office in 2009. It was one of the most embarrassing meetings we've held there as it became clear that he didn't have a clue about what socialism was (he thought it was some form of self-managed market economy). The only effect this visit seems to have had on him was the basis of this nasty comment

Quote:

One mystery remains about the `Small Party of Good Boys'. What do they do with their vast financial income that neither keeps the UK banking system going nor invests in capitalist type institutes? One thing is certain, it does not go to people fighting for socialism outside the parameters of the Holy Script or Principles. The funding of the SPGB is not covered by either of the following texts, the unofficial and the semiofficial versions.

He also accused us of being "vanguardist" and "authoritarian":

Quote:

In the mind of this reviewer, the SPGB is located slap bang in the middle of the Marxist vanguard groups whose characteristics it shares – authoritarian structure, party chauvinism and so on. What else can be said about this eccentric body?

There are people outside the SPGB who are socialists but he was not one of them.

[jondwhite]

Interesting stuff, I posted the original because I was curious of his attitude or statements towards the SPGB. I just dug out an e-mail from him last year where I asked him about the SPGB and other groups and he replied;"I … find the exclusive attention on parliament a real diversion.  Most libertarian bodies like SolFed etc. have some excellent members but policy wise I find I disagree with them on many points, so Socialist Libertarians – who are based on the old council communists – fit the bill."He also said"There are other [pamphlets] on NHS, Shop stewards history, Joe Thomas etc. and one to come on Joe Jacobs."Different political labels seemed to be used in different pamphlets. So "Libertarian Socialists" for one pamphlet then "Socialist Libertarians" for another. I think the prefix "Independent" might have even been used.

[ALB]

jondwhite wrote:

I just dug out an e-mail from him last year where I asked him about the SPGB and other groups and he replied;"I … find the exclusive attention on parliament a real diversion. 

That was him at it again. Distorting our position. What "exclusive attention on parliament"? The pamphlet he was reviewing and which it must be presumed he read says this on page 10:

Quote:

This is not to say that the socialist majority only needs to organise itself politically. It does need to organise politically so as to be able to win control of political power. But it also needs to organise economically to take over and keep production going immediately after the winning of political control. We can’t anticipate how such socialist workplace organisations will emerge, whether from the reform of the existing trade unions, from breakaways from them or from the formation of completely new organisations. All we can say now is that such workplace organisations will arise and that they too, like the socialist political party, will have to organise themselves on a democratic basis, with mandated delegates instead of leaders.

This re-iterates what the Socialist Standard said in an article on "The Socialist Party and Economic Organisation" in November 1937:

Quote:

The Socialist Party, therefore, whilst holding that the working class must be organised, both politically and economically, for the establishment of Socialism, urges that the existing unions provide the medium through which the workers should continue their efforts to obtain the best conditions they can get from the master class in the sale of their labour-power. That the trade unions must inevitably accept the Socialist theory as the logica1 outcome of their own existence, and as such will provide the basis of the economic organisation of the working class to manipulate the means and instruments of wealth production and distribution when the capitalist ruling class have first been dislodged from political power. The essential conditions for obtaining Socialism must never be underestimated. At the very moment that the workers have gained control of the State machine provision must be made simultaneously for the economic requirements of the community. The Socialist working class of the future will, no doubt, see to this as one of its supreme functions.

The full article can be found on our website here:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1930s/1937/no-399-november-1937/socialist-party-and-economic-organisationIt wouldn't have taken much difficulty for a "radical" historian to have discovered this, but of course it isn't what they want to discover. 

[imposs1904]

Seems strange (and a little sad) to read that Woodward sought to distort our position, 'cos I remember he was actually a guest speaker at a Central London Branch meeting in the early 2000s. (Sorry, I can't remember the exact year, though the meeting would probably have been advertised in the Standard at the time.)The invite to speak at the branch came about because a couple of us got chatting to him at the SWP's Marxism that year –  we may have had adjacent stalls outside the event –  and we were interested in his political history and political trajectory, I guess. Someone who was in the IS/SWP position for 35 plus years and then decides on his own special take on councillism is not something you encounter every day.I don't remember much about the meeting itself, except that the ICC turned up mob-handed (all 3 of them) and proceeded to denounce him in the gentlest of terms during the question and discussion period. ;-)It turns out that his pamphlets had turned up on their radar at the time, and they thought it needed the extra effort to speak out in public against him.He seemed like a nice enough bloke at the time.

[Anonymous]

imposs1904 wrote:

Seems strange (and a little sad) to read that Woodward sought to distort our position, 'cos I remember he was actually a guest speaker at a Central London Branch meeting in the early 2000s. (Sorry, I can't remember the exact year, though the meeting would probably have been advertised in the Standard at the time.)

It was 2003 as a matter of interest.http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spintcom/message/2846Four years later Woodward gave a talk at Head Office entitled "Workers' control and socialism".

[jondwhite]

Papers of the late Alan Woodward have been deposited at Bishopsgatehttp://radicalhistorynetwork.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/alan-woodward-research-archives.html

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