IS: Invented tradition
Matt Hale ( Solidarity 296) is right about the political deterioration of the SWP, but, I think, too generous to the IS and SR groups which preceded SWP. In his book Trotskyism SWP leader Alex Callinicos explicitly sides with “orthodox” neo-Trotskyism. When the Trotskyists split in 1939-40, over how to respond to the first pushing-out of Stalinist imperialism to eastern Poland, Finland, the Baltics, the wrong side was those who registered the imperialism and opposed it — Shachtman, Draper, the future Workers Party/ ISL. They “were indeed an instance of... drift towards... acceptance of Western...