imposs1904
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If there was any Thatcher obit for the Standard that was ready to go once she'd gone, I'd suggest it's put on the website as soon as possible. It shouldn't be held over until the May issue.
The mass resignations have started:http://internationalsocialismuk.blogspot.com/2013/03/fao-central-committee-of-socialist.htmlThe list includes Richard Seymour and China Mielville. It's definitely turned out to be the biggest split in the IS/SWP since the ISO in the mid-70s.I think it's fair to say that the SWP are now no longer the biggest group on the left. Step forward SP(EW). The spotlight is yours.
I understand that's where their headquarters are now. No idea when they moved there from East London.I believe the Conference took place in Hammersmith.
The latest of the goings on within the SWP:http://www.cpgb.org.uk/assets/files/swpinternalbulletins/In_Defence_of_Our_Party.pdfA new faction formed – separate from Seymour and Mieville – that is critical of the decisions taken by the CC around this matter. Some big, big names within the SWP listed: Ian Birchall, Mike Gonzalez, Pat Stack, Colin Barker.This matter isn't going away, and the SWP's CC's hope they could just purge and move on is not an option at this point.
Just noticed via my sitemeter that there is another Brooklyn based reader on the forum. If you want to contact me offlist . . .
For anyone wanting to be brought up to speed on what's been happening in the SWP, Green blogger Jim Jepps has provided a nice timeline with links from all concerned:http://www.jimjepps.net/?p=273
That's one scenario, of course, but another scenario is that the growing opposition to the SWP's CC response to all this generates enough support to trigger a recall Conference – I've read in a couple of places that they need 20% of Branches to spark such a recall Conference – and you have the much thoroughgoing challenge to the leadership from middle-ranking cadre and rank-and-file members in the SWP's history.That's never happened before. The recall Conference . . . a widespread rank-and-file revolt . . . it's all new, and therefore totally unpredicatible.
I think this post from Richard Seymour on his popular blog, Lenin's Tomb:http://www.leninology.com/2013/01/crisis-in-swp.htmland China Mielville's quotes in Laurie Penny's New Statesman article about the events in the SWP:http://www.newstatesman.com/laurie-penny/2013/01/what-does-swps-way-dealing-sex-assault-allegations-tell-us-about-left is pretty much a game changer for the SWP. I'd be genuinely surprised if this time next year the SWP resembles the organisation it currently is, the organisation it has been for the last forty plus years. It's the most serious schism in the IS/SWP tradition since the IS Opposition split in the mid-seventies. I don't think it was this recent sad chain of events that prompted some members of the SWP to look at its democratic deficit. It took the internet. It wouldn't have happened otherwise.
Another review of Gluckstein's book by a fellow SWPer:http://resolutereader.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/donny-gluckstein-peoples-history-of.html
An article on Morris from the same author that appeared in an old issue of the ISJ along the same lines as the book: http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isj2/1996/isj2-071/mahamdallie.htm
We should be looking to convert pamphlets – both old and new – into epub and mobi formats and placing them on the Party website for free download.
Hopefully the 80s generation of Party members who are now either detached or semi-detached from the SPGB will be contacted about this.
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.
