Replying to Jose was Re: The speech that Barnes should have given

[Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

thank you for this Jose.  Such an interesting and informative post.  But
what are the lessons we have to learn I wonder.


My knowledge of the Australian DSP was then SWP is very sketchy as I
refused to join the fusion process at the end of the 70s. So I cannot
really comment on the parallels and differences in Australia between Barnes
and Percy's 'turn to industry'.  Alan might fill in here.


However I was in the ISO from 78 to 81 and much of what you said seems very
relevant to my experiences.  For instance looking back on the first ISO
(1981) split of which I was a victim, I tend to think that we were reacting
to the 'super activism' that the organisation  plunged us into.  I also
think that super activism works best for the 'full-time' revolutionaries,
those who do not work, have no family and nothing but time to plot and plan
how they will lead the party i.e. sect. It still burns my ass to think how
those of us with jobs used to subsidise these parasites so they could
scheme against us and eventually denounce us as 'right wing opportunists'.

But the point of this post is to wonder what 'The speech that Tony Cliff
should have made' would read like.  My own opinion here is that Cliff was
much brighter than Barnes and Percy.  He picked the down turn in the
working class struggle, while they, as you pointed out, did not. Still I am
convinced that Cliff's response to the correct analysis was deeply
wrong.  I think that he decided to isolate his cadre from the deteriorating
national and international climate.  When the working class were going into
quiescence, Cliff decided to purify/Bolshevize his organisation.  He
dropped slogans such as 'Luxembourg is greater than Lenin' and proceeded to
reorganise the movement along Zinovievist lines.

The alternative was to 'hang loose' along the lines suggested in Lou's
original post. Some of  us in IS were groping towards just that kind of
position, but ass holes like Tom O'Lincoln and John Minns and Mick
Armstrong mobilised against us. The rest is, as they say, history.

In Britain the ISO is just now desperately seeking to find a way out of the
sectarian cul de sac that Cliff shepherded it into.  Of course in Australia
the loony that the British helped to the Australian national leadership
i.e. Ian Rintoul, cannot be shifted.  His is now a true cult and sect and
the few genuinely talented revolutionaries in the ISO tendency have to
remain locked out in the Socialist Action grouping.

regards

Gary