Socialist Appeal

Bombastic, “dogmatic instead of critical”

The last sixty years (though not the previous history of Marxist movements) have seen several precedents for the current frenzy of the Socialist Appeal group (about to rename itself Revolutionary Communist Party). All those essays ended sorrily, but they were nearer realism than the “RCP” today. Issue 4 (14 March) of The Communist has “theses” claiming that “capitalism is in terminal decline” and “the youth are completely open to radical, revolutionary, and especially communist ideas”. Thus, in this “year of Lenin”, the “RCP” can reach 10,000 members, become a “mass party”, and look to “the...

Alan Woods and his "born again" RCP

Socialist Appeal (about to be renamed Revolutionary Communist Party) says that 5,000 copies were sold of no.1 of its renamed paper, The Communist . Where, we don’t know. The paper does now carry photos of street stalls, though the paper is not much seen at demonstrations, let alone at workplaces or labour-movement meetings. But the group says it had over 1,000 members by the end of 2023 and now aims for 10,000 soon. Every one of the first three issues of The Communist is mostly a series of short breathless reports in a tone akin to “Have you heard the good word about our lord Jesus Christ?”...

A splurge of self-puffery

The Socialist Appeal group has announced that from January it will rename its fortnightly paper The Communist , and, from May, the group as the Revolutionary Communist Party. Already it has taken to using the hammer and sickle and star insignia of the old USSR. The hammer-and-sickle goes back to Lenin’s day, but is dated now — how many peasants using sickles are there in Britain? — and inescapably overlaid by decades of Stalinist misuse. Since the Stalinisation of the once-revolutionary Communist Parties in the 1920s, Marxists have generally called our organisations league, alliance, group...

Against suspensions, for discussion

The Socialist Appeal society at University College London (UCL) was suspended on 11 October for its “Intifada until Victory” posters, and on 19 October organised a joint demonstration with UCL Socialist Alternative, both protesting against the university’s crackdown. Socialist Alternative were not prevented from holding their meeting (as it was held off-campus), but the advertisement for it on the university’s website was removed, on grounds (as with Socialist Appeal) of “inciting violence”. Protestors also heard about the suspension pending investigation by SOAS university, nearby, of four...

Israel has the right to defend itself, but not to raze Gaza. The Palestinians have the right to win a state of their own, but not to despoil Israel

To Israeli Jews, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh declared on 7 October, when Hamas forces invaded Israel to kill over 1,300 people, overwhelmingly civilians, and take over 100 hostage. “We have only one thing to say to you: get out of our land... There is no place or safety for you”. This was not an “excess” on the fringe of a basically justified struggle, but an effort to kill or panic as many Jews as possible. And probably done by Hamas as part of the network of a regional-imperialist power, Iran, pledged to the destruction of Israel. The rise of Hamas has been framed by Israeli governments’...

Why Socialist Appeal can't "learn to think"

In the 1938 article, “Learn to think”, Leon Trotsky argued that if fascist Italy sent weapons to aid – for its own malign reasons – nationalist rebels against France in Algeria, socialists in Italy should not oppose and even help that.

Ukraine, Israel and the left

Solidarity has long argued that sections of the left have fallen into particular form of antisemitism. Starting from ultra-hostility to Israel which goes beyond criticising the real misdeeds of its governments and into demonising it as the world’s hyper-imperialism and hyper-racism, they end up reflexively hostile to all “Zionists”, i.e. all Jews who have some default or instinctive affinity with Israel, however critical. Readers who wonder why should look at how the same sections of the left portray the war in Ukraine. In this portrayal of the conflict, Ukraine takes on many of the political...

Yes, victory to Ukraine!

More on Socialist Appeal and Ukraine here , here and here . Armed only with a biro and a startling amount of pomposity the leader of Socialist Appeal, Alan Woods, has found a new issue to misunderstand: the war in Ukraine. Woods’ articles, and those of his co-thinkers in Socialist Appeal, are noteworthy for what they do not say, as well as what they do say. You will not find an answer to the question: should the Russian troops get out of Ukraine? in the pages of Socialist Appeal. The war should end, it seems, but without Socialist Appeal being willing to tell us what the peace should look like...

Ukrainians are not deluded "pawns" of the US

At a “festival” organised by Socialist Appeal on 21 October, their leading writer and speaker Alan Woods devoted 15 minutes or so of his hour long speech to Ukraine. Delivered in his oddly smug style, the speech set out the main elements of the group’s analysis. Firstly there was the marked emphasis on the “international relations” context of the conflict. Napoleon and Clausewitz were duly quoted. According to Woods, this is a war between the USA-Nato and Russia. The Ukrainian people, their national rights, the workers’ movement and the left? They don’t really figure. On one level this allows...

Socialist Worker, Socialist Appeal and The Socialist on the strike wave

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...

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