[Marxism] Re A sectarian approach

[robert montgomery <ilyenkova@xxxxxxxxx>]

Louis asks:
"Does anybody have any idea why Peter Taafe of the
Committee for a Workers International broke with the International Marxist
Tendency of Grant-Woods? This is one of more obscure splits in recent
times, besides that of the WWP in the USA. It seems to have something to do
with differences over how to respond to the Poll Tax in Scotland in 1991,
which for me hardly constitutes the kind of struggle that Lenin had to wage
in 1914."

If the Wood-Sewell-Grant account is all one has to go on the split is
hard to figure (i.e.) the poll tax. Taafe's reply, no easy read itself
seems more plausible (www.marxist.net/grantreply/reply2frame.htm?ch1).

IMO: Recognizing the qualitative shift that had occurred in the
British Labour Party with the ascent of New Labour, Taafe wanted to
break with Labour Militant's traditional encysting within the LP. He
wanted to take specific initiatvies like forming a British Socialist
Party and the Scottish Socialist Party. The Grant-Woods-Sewell faction
charged Taafe with ultraleftism, activism (as opposed to focusing on
theory) and delusions as to the objective possibilities for working
class struggle. I still can't figure out if the IMT is still in the
British Labour Party, or continues to advocate working within it.
This is simply how I read it. Both sides have members who post to this
list or lurk. If they want to elaborate or correct my take on this
they can post. My own hope is  with the aging of Grant, and the
ascendancy of Alan Woods,the tendency's historical strong points will
assert themselves as the group immerses itself in ongoing struggles as
in Venezuela. It's make-or-break for the WIL in this coming period.
They at least ought to be given the chance to succeed or fail, no
matter where one's own bets are placed.
What are its historical strong points? Managing to build arguably the
most vital marxist current within a European Social Democratic Party
as they had done by the early 1980s when Kinnock and the LP leadership
decided to purge them to pave the way for Blairism.

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