Forwarded from Phil Ferguson #2

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>
>Doing a headcount of the AMERICAN SWP is less interesting than performing
>an obituary and trying to discover how the self-described "second-largest
>left organization on the US left" in the 1970s could have descended down to
>the level of the Spartacist League.From my contacts with the Barnesites in
>the 1980s, and following their degeneration via the Militant thereafter, I
>think I can offer some clues.
>   Circa 1980 the SWP began to exhibit many of the characteristics of a
>Stalinist cult:
>1. The uncritical worship of a foreign motherland, in their case, Cuba.

Well, I can't help thinking that the Cubans, who are not silly, must regard
them as nuts.

>2. Lying to the membership.Despite that silly obstacle, REALITY, the Party
>leaders continued to insist that the 1980s onward were a period of
>radicalization for the American working class, and that the "turn to
>industry" was going along fine-and-dandy.

One of the wacky things about this, is that they now talk of the 'downturn'
coming to an end and a new era of struggle arriving.  Yet during the period
they now refer to as the downturn, they labelled anyone who talked of there
being a downturn as a petty-bourgeois pessimist.

So there is this amazing closed-off mentality (actually I hesitate to call
it a mentality, because that suggests there is working grey matter
involved).

>How many industrial workers do you
>suppose the Party recruited between 1980 and 2000? My wild guess: none.

Well, I would say they recruited a handful, maybe a couple dozen, but
probably lost as many as they recruited, plus lost most of their
already-existing membership.

I think the metnal and moral damage they did to many of their members can
be seen in the rather masochistic desire of 140 aging ex-members to spend
their evenings digitizing Pathfinder titles so the company can make even
more profits on their vastly-inflated prices.

I can imagine some party lackey in ten years time (if they're still around)
going and 'visiting' (ie harassing) ex-members in old folks homes trying
to get them to stop their frivolous retirement activities and take up the
challenge of Pathfinder digitizing.

>3.The Great Helsman.The sayings of Chairman Jack now constitute the Bible
>of the SWP. If he says capitalism has not been restored in the Former
>Soviet union and Eastern Europe, it must be so.

My favourite is their claim that a non-existent country ('East Germany') is
still a 'workers state'.  I think that is coming close to rivalling Juan
Posadas and his UFOs.

>4.Trailing alien class forces.The SWP hailed Solidarnosc in Poland, and got
>burned for it. They schmoozed up to the PLO and got burned for it.They
>glorified the IRA and got burned for it.

Well, actually they didn't really glorify the IRA.  In fact originally,
from about 1970-75, they supported the Officials as against the Provos.
The Officials, after 1970, rapidly evolved into a very Stalinist and
thuggish (and quickly pro-imperialist) gang, which abandoned fighting the
British and began trying to get people to finger Provos to the state.

The SWP then had to rapidly change tack.

However, they didn't get enthusiastic about the Provos for a long time.  I
remember the year after I escaped the madhouse, that the Provos blew up the
Tory party conference in Brighton.  It was a fantastic operation, one of
the two or three most outstanding operations of the IRA ever - they only
missed Thatcher because she was on the bog.  I was working in a factory in
London at the time, on a production line, and most of my fellow workers,
especially the young ones and/or black workers, were really enthused.  They
thought it was great.

Anyway, out of curiosity I looked for what 'Intercontinental Press', the
Barnesites' international factional publication, would say about it.  Not a
word!  Incredible!

The Banresites actually only got keen on the Provos *after* the
Adams-McGuinnes leadership were well on their way to doing a deal with the
Brits.  The more awfulk the Provo leadership got politically, the more
enthused the Barnesites got for them.  While the Provo leadership was
driving republican leftists out of the movement and positioning itself to
help run capitalism in the six counties, the Barnesites began getting all
over them like a hot rash.

>Not, they insist the ANC is
>leading South Africa towards socialism.

Given that the rest of the world knows that the ANC is carrying out a quite
right-wing market-oriented programme, the Barnesite position on this pretty
much rivals their position on East Germany.

> Wanna take bets on how this
>relationship will end?

In tears?

But what is also amazing is that even though Barnes has been proven wroing
over and over and over again, and even though his stewardship has taken the
outfit to an all-time low, he remains leader.  You would think that if
there was anyone left in the organisation with a functioning mind, they
might be drawing the conclusion that, even in cult terms, they could do
with a sharper cult leader.

>I could go on, what's the point, other than schadenfreud, of dissing a tiny
>American sect headed for outer space? And, as Lou says, we have more fun
here.

The left isn't exactly known for its fun people these days, not like the
60s and early 70s!  But the Barnesites have got to be the most miserable,
dour, humourless, sad-assed of the lot.

>"Groupscule politics is not the embryo of revolutinary politics;
>it is a substitute for it." Goran Therborn

Very true.

And I guess the challenge for all of us who are serious about human
emancipation is to find a way to build formations which are not groupuscles
but which also don't dilute the politics down to some wishy-washy lowest
common denominator.

This list is a kind of example of how you can have robust debate,
non-factionalism (people have have sharp disagreements on one issue and
agree on another) and plenty of hard-core revolutionary politics.  It's
much more educational and, as Lou says, much more fun, than the Banresites
(who are only amusing if you're outside them and only educational in a
totally negative sense).

Philip Ferguson


Louis Proyect
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