Where now for the SWP opposition?

In the few days since the SWP's annual conference (13-15 December) there has been a flurry of public resignations by members of the Rebuilding the Party faction, including SWP old-timer Ian Birchall (here), the authorised biographer of SWP founder Tony Cliff.

No need to repeat the entire sorry saga leading up to this latest split. The RtP faction was formed six (or more) months ago to address how SWP leaders and functionaries badly mishandled, covered up, tried to stymie and lied about a complaint of rape and later one of sexual harassment against former National Secretary Martin Smith. After being carved out of the conference it decisively lost votes on its proposals.

The two most comprehensive accounts of the conference — Dave Renton (see here), and a censored pre-conference article on the Socialist Unity blog (here) — explain well why so many SWP members are disgusted to the point of quitting. If Renton is right, many of those who voted with the SWP Central Committee are also unhappy and could be seen at the conference "holding their heads in their hands" or "in tears".

There will be more resignations and more fall out (see www.jimjepps.net for regular updates). It is disappointing however that, so far, there has been no indication of deeper political purpose to the opposition: no resolve to continue the political fight against the SWP leadership (quite the opposite from some people), no summing up on the roots of the SWP's degeneration. None of those who have resigned comments on the general politics in the class struggle of the SWP, its empty and erratic calls for a general strike coupled with frequent softness on the left union leaders, its incoherent and even reactionary record on international politics. None says very much about whether she or he approves those politics, and dissents only with the SWP's way of organising for them, or whether they see any connection between those politics and what they dislike in the SWP.

None says what she or he will do politically now, other than in a general way to continue as a socialist. Birchall says explicitly that he will not join, or try to start, any new organisation. He cites his advanced age and ill-health as a reason for that. If younger and healthier ex-SWPers have more active plans, they are not saying yet.

None says that she or he will join the International Socialist Network, which was set up by activists who quit early in 2013. The ISN itself is in trouble, with its most prominent members accusing "the majority" of their comrades of casting sectarian anathemas on them (presumably because of their support for the less militant option at the Left Unity conference in November). Some members are quitting or withdrawing from responsibilities.

The SWP have been quick to get out their version of recent events (here). Charlie Kimber reports “[at conference] the central committee made a statement that many people have suffered real distress as a result of taking part in or giving evidence to the disputes committee, or due to slurs on the internet and we are sorry to all of them for that.” In other words, the central committee are sorry but they will not (as the opposition demanded) make a proper apology.

Kimber goes on: “we are sorry for the suffering caused to them [the complainants] by the structural flaws in our disputes procedures, the way in which the two cases became a subject of political conflict within the party and slurs on the internet.” In other words the central committee are sorry about the party's faulty structures but admit no personal responsibility (as the opposition demanded of them). Kimber's implicit criticism is here: “if it hadn't been for you muddle-heads mixing everything up with stuff like 'democracy' in the SWP and 'feminism', no distress would have been caused!”

Utterly cynical and deeply offensive as Kimber's account is, it is also not surprising.

Not for those of us who have been analysing the Stalinistic, sect-like behaviour of the SWP for decades — bullying; spreading lies; advertising themselves as the most militant and decrying as sectarian pedantry attempts to question and debate more precisely the aims we should be militant for; and even on occasion physically attacking their political opponents (including AWL activist Mark Sandell, physically attacked for leafletting at the SWP's "Marxism" festival in 1993).

So now some in the SWP have woken up to the nature of their group, although the “rethinking” of the recent faction and the International Socialist Network which took shape after a split earlier this year, contrasts the “good years” of the SWP with the degeneration of the last period. Others, who were once happy to be good mates with the SWP, now ditch it as a “toxic brand”. All well and good, but what will the left, socialist and anarchist, do about the SWP now?

This is an important question because the SWP will probably recover, at least to some extent. It will almost certainly recover if no sizeable, adequate, compact activist alternative is built. Many members will stick with it. Why would they do that?

Because they delude themselves that the leadership really is “sorry”, just slow or bad at expressing it? Or because they want, rightly, to be part of a coherent revolutionary organisation in the face of huge attacks on working-class people? They will kid themselves that the Socialist Workers Party is that organisation, or can be reformed. Perhaps they think they can push for a little “liberalisation” and if they hang around for the class struggle to pick up, the can become the sum of its better parts. All human beings, unfortunately, have a great capacity to rationalise. Not everyone who choses to stay will also have the capacity to think again (we know better than most from years of political clashes in the trade unions that dyed-in-the-wool sectarian-minded people inhabit the SWP), but some will. Many will be feeling unsure, unhappy and disoriented.

If previously oppositional members stay in the party, that may also help the SWP to carry on. No doubt the central committee would prefer high profile oppositionists like former central committee member Hannah Dee to leave (she has not yet publicly resigned).

It has been said that some oppositionists intend to stay and fight. That is good if they have a sustained political critique of the SWP's history and politics on which to fight and they intend to fight seriously, no matter the consequences — up to and including expulsion.

The SWP leadership's hostile and sexist attitude to the women involved in the complaints, a lack of principled, consistent and elementary sensitive handling of their complaints has been truly shocking. The emergence of at least one other story of an organiser being a sexual predator (see www.internationalsocialistnetwork.org) boosted evidence that there is something “institutionally sexist” about the SWP.

As the SWP stonewalled on criticism, a “zero tolerance” attitude to all SWP members has arisen among some student activists. This has involved shouting down SWPers speaking at demonstrations and meetings, attempting to ban them from holding Marxism 2013 at University of London Union, and most recently breaking up their stalls and setting fire to their papers at Sussex University in December.

We continue to defend no aspect of the SWP's sexist behaviour, we have been in favour of all kinds of interventions, including demonstrative interventions against it.

And we have said all along the entire left needed to look at how it conducts itself; formal commitment to women's liberation and fighting other oppressions is only any good if it also tackles bad behaviour inside the left.

That said, we think political criticism of the SWP needs to be broadened out and bans and physical confrontation tactics towards the SWP are wrong.

The SWP leaders' conscious repression of charges of serious sexual misconduct were also rooted in their Stalinist and sect-like political practices and none of the ex-SWP people and groupings have yet to adequately analyse this.

The “my party, right or wrong” doctrine for the SWP is bound up with their self-image as being “The Party”. As we have said for decades, they do not having anything like the kind of implantation in the working-class necessary to be a revolutionary party of substance, let alone “the” party.

The preposterously inflated self-image, which goes way beyond normal self-belief, makes the SWP's drive to self-preservation whatever the political implications very strong. It produces habitual bureaucratic practices and these reinforce a “clannish” way of thinking among leading people, organisers and long-time members. Trouble makers become “outsiders”; and as the precise conditions dictated here being an “outsider” meant being “feminist” or “autonomist”.

Contrary to recent commentaries and casual belief on the anarchist left, this kind of depoliticised behaviour is not something Lenin advocated.

Prioritising organisational preservation and growth above political principle was systematised by the people who came after Lenin. Through long and winding processes it found its way into the SWP long before recent disputes.

A long-time habit of abandoning political principle as the needs of the party dictate is the main condition which leads the SWP to behave as they do. To repeat, this is not to deny the SWP's concrete sexism in these events but to be aware of all the fault lines.

The SWP will not just go away with a bit of demonstrative shaming. We need to convince the SWP members who chose to stay why they are wrong if they also defend their organisation.

Brushing literature off stalls may shock and frighten individuals but it won't convince them. It risks replicating the kind of bullying oppressive power relations we criticise SWP organisers asserting over ordinary members. It does not hurt or call to account Alex Callinicos or Charlie Kimber. It is more likely to increase their hold over the SWP — “we are being persecuted, stand firm, stick with your party", they can say.

It is of general importance that activists who are committed to democratic ways of organising should try to change ideas and deal with political opponents through political argument. If we want a left movement that is habitable for working-class people, for people new to politics, for anyone trying to self-educate and work out ideas, we should try wherever possible to use reasoned political argument and means of persuasion. It only ever not possible or appropriate to do that when we are confronting organised fascists. But the SWP are not fascists!

Even if stall-smashing "worked" in the short term - and in some circumstances it might - it could not in any longer term serve the creation of a democratic socialist movement able to win a majority in the working class and defeat capitalism.

If many SWPers leave, where will they end up? None has announced a plan to build a new compact activist organisation which might do better what the SWP claims to do, or to join with one of the compact activist revolutionary socialist organisations which already exist.

The failure of the SWP as an adequate compact activist revolutionary socialist organisation makes the building of such an organisation more urgent, not less so. Serious ex-SWPers should discuss with and review the politics and activity of the AWL and of the other activist left groups, and join with the group they can best work with.

Are they too disheartened for that? Do they want a broader, looser left coalition instead? There are major problems with all of the three efforts which claim to be left umbrella groupings.

The People's Assembly (which has the involvement of the SWP) has little life beyond a series of rallies and informative workshop events. It doesn't claim to have a wide-ranging political programme and purpose, but only to be a broad anti-cuts coalition, broad enough to include all the nominally left trade-union leaders.

At its 30 November founding conference Left Unity adopted "aims" of a mixed-economy social-democratic character, combined incoherently with a "platform" which includes more left-wing wording, but had no time to debate or decide what it will actually do next (see here).

A proposed revolutionary regroupment, around the International Socialist Network, Anti-capitalist Initiative, Socialist Resistance and others, lacks basic coherence. The ISN now wants to include Workers' Power, the IWW, and Plan C in the regroupment, which would make it even more disparate.

A resolution on the proposed merger and passed at a recent meeting of the Anti-Capitalist Initiative calls for a very sketchy maximum programme — “Revolution and the abolition of capitalism”. And a very sketchy idea of a new structure — “autonomy of local branches and a grassroots approach to organising”. At the Left Unity conference, the leading figures of the ISN, Socialist Resistance as a collective, and some (not all) leading ACI people, opposed the focus proposed by the Socialist Platform and backed by the AWL. Socialists need to fight for a positive socialist goals — social ownership of the economy, working-class democracy — as well as generalised anti-capitalism.

And reading and listening to the banal and empty postures of much of the left — “grassroots”, “revolution” (whose revolution?) — we need to seriously educate ourselves on our history and on socialist strategy. We also need to organise around the necessary working-class struggles e.g. around defending the NHS, fighting for higher wages and against attacks on conditions, making solidarity with workers in countries like Egypt as they develop independent working-class politics against the army and the Muslim Brotherhood.

We appeal to readers to discuss these ideas with us, and if you agree to help us fight for those ideas in the left.