SWP

The risible pseudo-pacifist Stop the War Campaign, run by Stalinists and peaceniks, and despised by the left and trade unions in Ukraine, has called a demonstration to mark the first anniversary of the Russian invasion (25 February, London). The demands of these marchers are: “Stop sending arms [to Ukraine]; immediate ceasefire and peace negotiations.” Conspicuously, the marchers will not be demanding that Russian forces get out of Ukraine. The StW call to end arms shipments to Ukraine, if carried through by the West, would lead to a Russian victory, the subordination of Ukraine to Russian...

Mahalla textile strikers, in the Egyptian revolution of 2011 How can the working class becoming politically aware, organised, cohesive and self-confident enough to become society’s new ruling class, overthrowing the capitalists in favour of collective ownership with democratic self-rule? That is the decisive question about socialist revolution. But Socialist Worker ’s explanation of “revolution” ( by Isabel Ringrose, 4 December ) ducks it in favour of advocating more militancy in general, plus the presence, in the wings, of a fiercely-organised “revolutionary party”. Ringrose deserves credit...

Since sustained, massive Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure began on 10 October Russia has launched 600 missiles, killing 77 people. On 23 November 12 million people were left to sit in freezing homes, without electricity, following the latest Russian barrage. Three days later 6 million were still without power. These attacks intend to undermine Ukrainians’ will to fight the Russian occupation, and to undermine normal economic and social life in free Ukraine. Targeting civilian power and water supplies is a war crime. During the course of the whole war, after the full-scale...

The publications and websites of groups that see themselves as Trotskyist provide an important source of information about the rising tide of strikes. Workers’ Liberty, of course, but also the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP), Socialist Party (SP), Socialist Appeal (SA) and Counterfire. They do much better than the Stalinist Morning Star , with its well-funded journalistic apparatus and extensive connections with the trade union bureaucracy. And although the broadly “Trotskyist” groups are a mixed bag when it comes to proposing ideas for developing workers’ struggles, they tend to have much more...

Last month [September 2018] saw the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses . Rushdie’s sprawling novel defies summary: interlinking stories meld scurrilous fantasies, dark humour and cutting political satire directed not only at Islam, but British racism and Indian immigrants’ attempts to adapt. It is an honest attempt to deal with the warping pressures of racism, religion and cultural dislocation. When it was published in September 1988 there was no spontaneous grassroots opposition. According to Kenan Malik in From Fatwa to Jihad , one early move...

A debate was held on 2 July at Queen Mary University London on the Ukrainian war between Alex Callinicos and Gilbert Achcar, two communist writers, as part of the 2022 Marxism programme organised by the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP). To stop the Ukraine war and prevent weapons from being sent, as Alex said? or to send weapons to Ukraine because Russian imperialism would not give up war and occupation without weapons, as Gilbert said? After the debate, I told Gilbert that this situation was more complicated than the two slogans. It is possible to talk about the attitude of the communists and...

Socialist Worker has adopted new terminology for Israel-Palestine. In SW of 18 May , Haifa is no longer Haifa. It is “the occupied city of Haifa”. Israel is not Israel. It is “48 Palestine”, or just “48”. Israeli Jews are not people who live there because they were born there, mostly in families which arrived there as refugees. They are “Israeli settlers”: the article refers to “sustained moves by Israeli settlers to marginalise Arabs in 48 Palestine”, making it clear that it is referring to Israelis in Israel, not to the settlers and the military in the West Bank. Socialist Worker used to...

“Three months since Russia invaded Ukraine”, claims Socialist Worker of 18 May , “the war has entered a new and even more dangerous phase”. Specifically: “there can be no more doubt this is now an inter-imperialist war”. In fact, this was also SW ’s previous line; they are doubling down on it, but with some new twists. They now claim, without any substantial justification, that “today any element of a war of liberation against Russian imperialism is wholly subsumed by, and subordinated to, Nato’s war on Russia”. Note — despite the talk of “inter-imperialist war”, SW says not even “war with...

Outside of the foetid recesses inhabited by red-brown figures like George Galloway and Chris Williamson, few political figures in Britain openly support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Even Putin’s admirer Nigel Farage has been keeping a low profile since the invasion. Much more numerous — particularly on the left — are those who claim to oppose the invasion but also oppose Ukraine obtaining arms with which to fight the invaders. This is the stance of the Stop the War Coalition, the Communist Party of Britain / Morning Star and the SWP / Socialist Worker . The argument comes in various forms, e...

The Socialist Workers’ Party is running a campaign to paint left-wing labour movement supporters of Ukraine as pro-NATO. This campaign, run mainly on social media and no doubt by word of mouth, is exemplified by Nick Clark’s 12 April article on the Socialist Worker website attacking the 9 April trade union protest for Ukraine. (This is presumably the same Nick Clark who in February wrote that the Serb nationalist forces that committed genocidal ethnic cleansing against the Bosnian Muslims and Kosovar Albanians in the 1990s were not “any worse” than those they attacked.) The headline of Clark’s...