|
|
Class War issue 81: There's Nowt As Queer As Trots
"It is clear that socialist groups don't have any influence on this protest but they falsely claim all gains for themselves. Additionally they are worried about the continuous growth and popularity of anarchism and its influence upon the anti-globalisation movement."
A Polish anarchist in a letter to Class War following last year's S26 protest in Prague.
The politics of the British left has seen some profound changes in the last two decades. From the early 80s when Militant were in control of Liverpool city council, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) could mobilise thousands of students to rallies in London and there were a multitude of other Trotskyist groups all claiming to be inheritors of Trotsky's ideals. They now have reached the lowest point in their fortunes for a long time.
Whereas the major Trot groups once hated each other more than they hated the Tories (People's Front of Judea, fucking splitters!), they are now so weak that along with a rag bag of other lefties (including the Communist Party of Great Britain) they have to huddle together in the newly formed 'Socialist Alliance'. Having failed to rouse the working class to join their 'revolutionary' organisations through Trotskyist dogma they will soon be entering the electoral lottery and ask the to vote for them in Parliamentary elections. How the vanguard have fallen!
Principles of the gutter
And what about the principles of these 'revolutionaries'? After the Scottish section of Militant split off from the rest of the British party, becoming the 'Scottish Socialist Party', their new führer Tommy Sheridan (the same Tommy Sheridan who once offered to 'name names' to the cops after the Poll Tax riot) became a member of the Scottish Parliament. Not only has he joined the Scottish people's elected oppressors, he also showed his true socialist principles when he got married in a Catholic church. Perhaps it was one of those paedophile priests who spliced the know for him. At least he was happy to support a good Stalinist tradition of the Millies and took his honeymoon in Cuba.
As for the SWP, it seems that getting into bed with what is left of the English Trot movement has not increased their paper sales and they are now having some seriously bad financial problems. It has recently come to our attention that one of their full time staff, the much loved Julie Waterson (who we all felt sorry for when battered by a copper at the Welling march, not!), has recently been made redundant with, apparently, much falling out among the comrades. What's more their need of cash means they are now indirectly supporting the hunt scum. In a recent copy of Private Eye the Countryside Alliance paid for a full page advert, money that Eye used to pay their printers who are, yes you've guessed it, the SWP! (East End offset who print Private Eye and Searchlight amongst others is owned by the SWP).
The failure of Trotskyism
The recent demise of groups like Militant and the SWP can be put down to the failure of Trotskyist politics. With the massive discontent against Thatcher in the 80s, Major in the 90s and now disillusion with Blairite politics as well as widespread concern about the rape of the planet and oppression of workers around the world by multinationals, these centralised parties have got nowhere. The inevitable slide into oblivion of our once hated enemy (the Trots not capitalism, that is), is in profound contrast to the successes that anarchist politics has had during this time.
From a few muesli crunching weirdos in the 1960s, anarchism can now mobilise enough forces worldwide to stop meetings of the IMF, force governments to change policies on road building, genetically modified crops and other environmental issues and generally be a pain in the arse to police forces around the world. As we all know the Internet is a wonderful thing and anyone who has access can soon see that while the Trots are ghettoised in a few, mostly western European countries, anarchism has spread its wings and covers all four corners of the globe.
Vampire alert
The success of the anarchist movement in winning so many new converts to our ideas and actions has now led to one of the more bizarre twists in the politics of the SWP. Those of you with experience of Trot politics will be well used to these middle class warriors doing everything possible to either distance themselves from groups like Class War, or just ignore us, or just ignore us, although many of their members often realised what a group of tossers they were and came over to our ideas anyway. In the last year, however, the SWP has been trying its hardest to appear to be us.
In Manchester recently, a number of posters were seen around the university. While at first glance they looked like they were by the Manchester CW group, with the slogan of 'Fuck' something or other, and with the Nike flash 'just do it' in the graphics, on closer inspection they were by the university SWP. This poster that sported traditional CW imagery had the slogan 'Fuck tuition fees occupy the university'. Yet more dull SWP go nowhere student politics.
This comes on top of the most recent major parasitic political campaign of the SWP and their efforts to hijack the anarchist led campaigns against the World Bank. Although the Trots were nowhere to be seen when any action took place at Seattle or Prague they are trying to get credit for the brave work of others. It is now obligatory for all of their members to wear badges claiming themselves to be 'anti-capitalists'. But their apparent new-found liking for dressing up in anarchist clothing isn't a road to Damascus conversion after the death of their totally unlamented leader Tony Cliff (boy did we laugh) that we anarchists have been right all along. No, when you scratch the surface the same shitty oppressive Trotskyist dogma lies just below.
Different face, same shit!
In a recent article in the SWP theoretical magazine (is that possible?) entitled 'Anarchy in the UK' we are treated to all the usual Trotskyist rejections of our ideas of self determination in favour of their line of dictatorship of the proletariat. In plain language what the SWP mean by the dictatorship of the proletariat is the dictatorship by a few of their unelected and unaccountable central committee members. Under this doctrine they will rule how we should all live our lives which, if they are any example, will be drinking cappuccino in wine bars in Kensington.
While the SWP treats us to a parody of what anarchism stands for, which is excellently rebutted in Freedom, they don't take a single step back from the idea of this dictatorship. According to the SWP, "Lenin's development of a Marxist theory of the party was so important...Such a party [the SWP of course] will...be centralised, in the sense that once it has voted on a course of action then all its members will [like a flock of obedient sheep] follow that course, or once it has decided on a principle all its members will adhere to that principle".
Do we get a hint of 1984 'doublespeak' here? What they mean is that they decide what's best for us and if we don't like it, tough! Indeed the article itself explains why we anarchists reject this parody of a revolutionary organisation, it is "undemocratic, sowing the seeds of dictatorship and stifling the will of the individual". Nuff said.
But according to them our rejection of their politics is because of "the failure of anarchism to understand the centralism of the working class itself". This comes from a party whose central committee is so middle class they shit cucumber sandwiches and whose leading member, the journalist Paul Foot, had a father who was the governor of Jamaica! And they have the cheek to say that we don't understand the centrality of the working class! Finally the SWP dismiss us anarchists as a whole because "whatever ideals and gut instincts individual anarchists may have, anarchism, both in word and deed, fails to provide a roadworthy vehicle for human liberation". Yeah like Trotsky and Lenin who murdered thousands of workers at Kronstadt have shown a better example.
The end is nigh
Although the Trots can still pull out a good display of paper sellers on most demos, the lengths they now go to recruit enough cannon fodder to raise enough money for their apparatchniks and their desperate attempts to mimic the rejuvenated anarchist movement shows that as a political force Trotskyism is on its way out. But we should be aware that before these parasites finally disappear we should be wary of they can and often do to the causes they leech off.
When they do finally give out their last dying gasp, however, no longer will anyone be led into the blind alley of Marxist-Leninist politics and we can get on with the fight against the real enemy and not have to watch out for them trying to stab us in the back.
Back to issue 81 contents
|
|
