IMT resignation 2015

April 2024 Forums Events and announcements IMT resignation 2015

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  • #83781
    jondwhite
    Participant
    #110725
    jondwhite
    Participant

    Arash Azizi writes quite a good resignation from the IMT herehttp://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=13080

    #110726
    LBird
    Participant
    jondwhite wrote:
    Arash Azizi writes quite a good resignation from the IMT herehttp://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=13080

    Just had a read – AA still hasn't got away from Leninism. They still think that the steam/piston model is relevant.The key step for a democratic workers' movement to make is away from 'Materialism', which, as Marx warned, is an inherently elitist ideology, fit only for bourgeois experts. That's the ideology that sees the 'experts' as the 'piston', and the workers as the 'steam'.

    #110727
    ALB
    Keymaster

    Which Trot sect is the IMT? The old Militant Tendency people that stuck with Ted Grant?

    #110728
    jondwhite
    Participant

    Yep, this is the Grantites or as they might say the 'Marx-Engels-Lenin-Trotsky-Grantites'.In particular these were the good passages;

    Quote:
    I have always believed that this basis of unity needs to be political and around the goals that we all strive for. If people share the fundamental socialist goal (a world free of classes where production is organized on the basis of need not profit) and basic strategies and stances of a political group in any given period, they should be encouraged to join.As members of IMT would concede this isn’t the real basis of unity for this organization. To be a member of the IMT, you’d need to share in an article of faith that I’ll try to honestly summarize as such: “IMT [with a membership that is today probably around 2000 worldwide, at most] is the only genuine Marxist organization on the planet. It alone has the “correct ideas” [an astonishing term that even the Catholic Church doesn’t use with such certitude], which are encapsulated in the ideas of Marx, Lenin, Engels and Trotsky [maybe, a book or two by Rosa Luxembourg] and those continued by Ted Grant and the IMT. It alone can offer the workers the revolutionary leadership that is needed to win power and build socialism.”

    and especially

    Quote:
     It also follows that work of no Marxist writer or theoretician after Trotsky’s death in 1940 is worth considering, except for the few fellows that have had the honor of working with the IMT. I remember asking a leading member of the Italian section if he could he recommend any good Italian Marxist writers? Surely, with such a strong communist party with millions of members and the allegiance of the majority of the country’s intelligentsia, there should be some bright names. The response was shocking: None. No one. He jokingly said: Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky!This is Sectarianism 101. Instead of defining your political identity and basis of unity around goals and ideals in which others can share, you define it in a way that is akin to a narrow religious organization. Every organization will have some traditions and some historical identity of which it is proud. Every organization should believe in its own unique ability to do grand tasks and great things (otherwise, why bother?) But it is all a matter of degree. Are you flexible enough to concede that not all the truth might rest with you? Will you keep yourself current by taking in the developments in the world around you? Are you ready to grow and change, while keeping true to your basic goals, by embracing the new membership that each generation brings? Are you able to keep yourself intact after you reach a certain number?
    #110729
    ALB
    Keymaster

    The reason I asked was this passage:

    Quote:
    should start by saying that the sad ultra-left turn that IMT has taken in the last few years surely did accelerate my decision. Abandoning of the fundamental orientation to the Labour Party in Britain (signaled by the change in the paper’s masthead) which happened to come only months before the historic election of Jeremy Corbyn

    I thought Grant's position was one of "deep entryism" into the Labour Party and that those of his supporters who weren't expelled never left it. When did they turn against the Labour Party? Or did they ever?

    #110730
    jondwhite
    Participant

    Good question. Don't know why (or if) the IMT have abandoned entryism.Either the Labour party took some action against them (which could have been years ago), and they've held a grudge, orsheer incompetence has led them to take a turn shortly before Corbyn's election as leader when they were expecting Kendall / Burnham / Cooper etc.Or have they been really sneaky and abandoned entryism because they couldn't do the Labour party leader betrayal routine when Corbyn might well nationalise the railways / top hundred companies etc. and they might lose IMT members to the left wing of the Labour party? Hatton has tried to rejoin Labour. Corbyn a threat without realising it to the IMT enterprise lol?

    #110731
    Sympo
    Participant

    I am under the impression that they like and support Corbyn. They wrote recently about a "coup" in the pro-Corbyn organization Momentum

    #110732
    jondwhite
    Participant

    So have they abandoned entryism in respect of the Labour party?

    #110733
    Bijou Drains
    Participant
    jondwhite wrote:
    So have they abandoned entryism in respect of the Labour party?

    I think they are busy entering and trying to take control of the Skegness and District Amateur Dramatic and Allotment Society, and then plan to turn that into a Revolutionary Vanguard Party, in preparation for their planned seizure of state power sometime in 2018.However rumour is that there has already been a split between the "Dramaticist" element in the Skegness group of the IMT and the "Horticulturites" in the same group, with both sides claiming the support of different factions in the Ecuadorian Tendancy for Workers Control (Marxist Leninist). The ETWC (ML) have two members, they Mr Pedro and Mrs Maria Garcia-Lopez of 27 Simon Bolivar Avenue,Guayaquil, who are said to now be sleeping in separate bedrooms.My sources report that it is likely that both factions are likely to launch their own Internationals, claiming each to be the reconstituted 4th international, sadly however there appear to be further difficulties in the Dramaticist group with one side claiming that men dressing up as pantomime dames is a misognistic ritual that supports the Patriarchal status quo, whilst the other side claim that there opponents are homophobic mono culturalists who deny the right of experssion to oppressed minorities.further news will be added as soon as I get it, but I would expect a noticable fall in the quality of vegetables in the annual Allotment Society Vegetable show this year.

    #110734
    Anonymous
    Inactive

      LMFAO !

    #110735
    Bijou Drains
    Participant
    Tim Kilgallon wrote:
    jondwhite wrote:
    So have they abandoned entryism in respect of the Labour party?

    I think they are busy entering and trying to take control of the Skegness and District Amateur Dramatic and Allotment Society, and then plan to turn that into a Revolutionary Vanguard Party, in preparation for their planned seizure of state power sometime in 2018.However rumour is that there has already been a split between the "Dramaticist" element in the Skegness group of the IMT and the "Horticulturites" in the same group, with both sides claiming the support of different factions in the Ecuadorian Tendancy for Workers Control (Marxist Leninist). The ETWC (ML) have two members, they Mr Pedro and Mrs Maria Garcia-Lopez of 27 Simon Bolivar Avenue,Guayaquil, who are said to now be sleeping in separate bedrooms.My sources report that it is likely that both factions are likely to launch their own Internationals, claiming each to be the reconstituted 4th international, sadly however there appear to be further difficulties in the Dramaticist group with one side claiming that men dressing up as pantomime dames is a misognistic ritual that supports the Patriarchal status quo, whilst the other side claim that there opponents are homophobic mono culturalists who deny the right of experssion to oppressed minorities.further news will be added as soon as I get it, but I would expect a noticable fall in the quality of vegetables in the annual Allotment Society Vegetable show this year.

    A further update has been received from our correspondent in Skegness on the IMT and their on ongoing attempts to inflitrate and take control of the Skegness and District Amateur Dramatic and Allotment Society.Following the departure of elements of the SWP from the TUSC, a process of assimilation between elements of the IMT and dissident elements from within the Skegness area branch of the SWP is reported to have taken place.This process progressed rapidly and an international reconcilliation conference was held (in the Skegness Allotment Society potting shed). In addition to Trotskyists from the IMT and the SWP, the "conference" also granted observer status to local members of SPEW (The Party for Trotskyists who don't have enough UCAS Points to join the SWP)It is reported that an initial dispute broke out over the issue of the roll call, some members argued that the delegates from SPEW should be counted as part of the roll call, whilst others argued that they should not. After two and a half hours heated debate it was eventually decided by all members that the SPEW members should be counted in the roll call as observers and the roll call for the International Unity Conference was taken (5 members present, with two observers). It is thought that this is the highest number of Trotskyists to be in complete agreement with each other since 1942.Unity however was short lived. The heated topic of "This years Panto" was the subject of furious and accrimoniuos debate:A group within the SWP memebrs proposed the a pantomime with the title:"Dick Livingstone, Mayor of London" – A pantomime loosley based on the life of a former Mayor of London, who wanted to make London a safe place for cats (especially Fat Cats)In contrast to this elements within the IMT proposed:"Syndicalistarella" – A pantomime based on the story of the forgotten, half starved and often ignored step sister (Syndicalistarella), done down and ridiculed by her two ugly sisters (Lady Labour Reformism and Princess Bolshevism), who finally gets her chance to shine, however it all goes sadly wrong and Daniel De Leon turns into a pumpkin at midnight.A compromise option was also proposed in the form of:Red Robin Hood, – A story of the redistribution of wealth by a organised and centralised vanguard party with an organised cenral committee under the leadership of a single informed individual (aka as Vladimir Ilyich Hood).Our correspondent reports that eventually the conference broke down in disarray with three distinct factions all emerging, all three elements claim to be the legitimate Skegness and District Amateur Dramatic Society and Allotment Society and all three elements have spoken of their plans to not only put on the pantomime favoured by their grouping but also to oppose the "Social Fascist pantomimes" of the other groupings, by force if necessary. All three groups claim that the other groups have been infiltrated by MI5.A spokesperson for MI5 said "Sorry, Who?"

    #110736
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    LMFAO ^^^^^ 

    #110737
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Lol, Tim should have a regular column in the Socialist Standard  

    #110738
    Anonymous
    Inactive
    Vin wrote:
    Lol, Tim should have a regular column in the Socialist Standard 

    Great idea.  But first the print version of the Socialist Standard has to be preserved.

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