Re: [Marxism] British SWP co-thinkers (not)

["Calvin Broadbent" <calvinbroadbent@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

'A fucking lie' eh? The British SWP, as has been shown here, *never*
supported the *revolution* in Cuba. The SWP attacked the ANC's armed
struggle against the South African state on numerous occasions (the Umkhonto
we Sizwe, armed wing of the ANC, was decried as 'guerillaist'). The SWP
argued in 1969 that the presence of British troops in Ireland would provide
'breathing space' for the civil rights struggle to develop, and argued that
British troops were not the main enemy. In the 1980s, the SWP argued that
the IRA campaign in England was a distraction from what was supposed to be
the real concern of British workers, the trade union struggle and rising
unemployment. In its hallucinatory delerium, the SWP dreamt that 'While the
IRA have bombed factories in Northern Ireland as part of their struggle, as
part of ours we campaign for workers to take over those factories -a
completely different approach.' (14 August 1982). So, the nationalist
population of the north of Ireland were supposed to wait around until the
loyalist workers took up the struggle against the British state. The SWP
argued that the ANC was divorced from the South African working class and
instead wait around for direct links to be made between British and South
African militant trade unions. The same economistic dross was, as noted,
applied to the Cuban national liberation struggle.

So much for the 'religious-style disdain for heterodoxy'. Fucking hell.

LENINOLOGY WROTE:


I tend to avoid these sectarian arguments, but this is a fucking lie and it
needs to be nailed.  The British Socialist Workers' Party, whatever its
differences on tactics, always supported the IRA *unconditionally*.  It
supported the South African struggle against apartheid too.  Our stance on
the Cuban regime is well-known: we don't support Castro, but we oppose US
imperialist aggression toward the country.  What you're doing here is
conflating criticism with wholesale opposition.  And I suspect that what
underlies this farrago of falsehood on your part is a religious-style
disdain for the heterodox.

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