Straight from da Tomb. AKA Lenin's Tomb

A joint statement from the Conservative Party and the conservative press posted by lenin

The government and the right-wing media would like it to be known that they are very disappointed with the lack of scruple, principle and resolve on the part of the capitalist class. In these difficult, austere times, it was incumbent on them to make very public, proud, ostentatious use of freebie labour, and to show class-wide unity in the offensive: not wilt under the slightest pressure from the Socialist Guardian BBC Bloody Trotskyspart General Strike Workers Party.

The aforementioned parties have therefore decreed the following:

1) it is a disgrace that a tiny party with no seats in parliament can make us look likely bloody idiots;

2) of course, we don't look like idiots - they look like idiots, we look great, and we're winning (winning, winning, winning!);

3) businesses have to stiffen their spines and stop pretending that they're embarrassed to be seen in public with us... yeah, well, does our face look bovvered?;

4) you turn if you want to, Greggs, Tesco and the rest, but we're not for turning, unless you want us to. Do you want us to? Do you want some free money? We'll give you free money. Look, have Iain Duncan Smith's house, he doesn't need it, he sleeps in the fucking crypt.;

5) it's not true that we're very unpopular. The SWP is very unpopular. We have written it in our columns, and said so on the television, and now everyone knows just how unpopular the SWP is.;

6) the SWP is a tiny party, completely irrelevant, things would be perfectly okay if everyone would stop talking about the SWP.;

7) the SWP has eaten our hamster.


Nicked from Leninology.blogspot.com with Thanks : )

Marxism 2011 part three (write up of a meeting)

Multi-culturalism is an important subject, the term multi-culturalism and what is implied by it is under attack by the right and needs to be defended, so I was at that meeting at Marxism 2011. I haven't always been a hundred percent happy with the term, don't know why exactly, might be that the liberals and some people on the right have confused the meaning, I remember once being involved in an argument with a rough looking woman in London who was attacking multi-culturalism and so I attempted a defense of it by inserting a 'new' name for what it was I thought we were talking about, I used the word 'mix' as opposed to 'multi - culturalism' thinking that she was probably just confused about the term like I was to an extent, but no, when I dropped the term multi-culturalism in our (heated) discussions, to her that was a victory and one in the eye to multi - culturalism, I think she was heavily influenced at that time by the extreme right, she had a mixed race son with her who showed signs of being mighty embarrassed. Anyway that was not a very nice experience for me and the memory has lingered and so I feel it important to strongly defend 'multi - culturalism' and was glad of a meeting on the subject at this years Marxism.

Michael Rosen was one of the speakers on the platform, he also used semantics to change the term, to make it clearer, as I had attempted to do, but his idea was to use the term ' inter - culturalism', he noted that the whole history of humanity is one of migration, and that we 'share' culture; hence 'inter culturalism'. Due to our history, it is necessary to defend people's rights to practice their culture on the land. He described how the invention of a pure 'englishness' has no foundation, even a tradition like good ol fish and chips was jointly invented by a Jewish and a Belgian cook.

There are pressures put upon us from birth ( and is big in schools ) to harbour an englishness and it is a cruel and cunning ruling class trick. There is in no sense a pure englishness or assimilation, its like begging for the holy grail; it is something that doesn't exist, we will never get there. The ruling class use this idea(l) of 'assimilation to keep us divided. They spread fear among us of one another, that one or other human being is 'the other', not to be trusted, but to be feared, derided, persecuted even, so they can go on happily ruling over us while we fight among ourselves. Its the classic: divide and rule. As human beings we have a right to be secure and we need to fight for that basic right, fight for us as beings that are essentially migratory and ' inter cultural'.

I absolutely love learning new things and new ways of putting and understanding things and so from that perspective this meeting did not disappoint, it already came into good use in a meeting I was at a week or so later, where I was defending the right of women to dress how they wish ( the context was a guy moaning about the hijab and birka, he ended up saying that anyone who comes to this country ought to ... what exactly?) we are who we are and defending peoples right to live culturally in ways that they are familiar with ( food, music, stalls, dress etc) is a matter of defending a basic human right to be secure and to be ourselves.

Marxism 2011 part two

Above pic is the man himself, Tony Benn, guest speaker at Marxism 2011. He has been attending Marxism for many many years.

Although I didn't attend many meetings of Marxism 2011, the ones I did go to were good, interesting and thought provoking. It would be nice to participate in the debates though and that remains a criticism I have of the event this year, its good to debate in meetings but not every one gets a chance at this, therefore in order to make it a really full and appealing event, debating should be a conducive element, encouraged all over the venue(s).

Many good events had taken place in the run up to Marxism this year, like the events in the Middle East and North Africa, and the strikes on the 30th June ( the first day of the five day Marxism event), so a certain amount of euphoria could be expected, although I am uncomfortable with prolonged collective euphoria in any sphere of life. There was actually quite a bit of euphoria at this years event, and people really giving it some welly and cheering things that I really thought they should think better of doing.

A small example was the first meeting I went to which was a meeting about the web, social networking on the net and organising, it was called "Tweeting about a revolution: social media and social movements", and near enough the concluding comment that almost raised the roof was when a comrade said that the young should teach the old how to use new technology !!!! It was an Ernest point being made but a poor idea as a future strategy since so many older people are using the net, and many young people shy away from the political potentialities it creates, or they are unconfident and inexperienced politically.

But for that remark to be applauded and cheered sent alarm bells ringing through my ears. One of the reasons for such euphoria was because of the person who made the comment, not the content - which was, if people thought about it, a weak point. However, it was an interesting talk and debate, despite a level of passivity and confusion. A memorable moment was when one comrade got up to say that although the technology was poor back in the old days, any new innovation in technology was seized upon then for its use in enhancing the struggle, and that is not happening today with the net as much as it should or could be.

Moving on ...

Our Tony Benn was fantastic, just so good that he continues to support us and so many others getting together to fight and struggle for a better world. He didn't speak for very long and he is in his nineties now, still fit mind you but more frail than I have seen him before. He is an inspiration, so kind and encouraging, he said that the same effort that some people put into making war they should put into making peace. He said that no one ever says they can't afford to bomb a place or not to have a battle in war because of cost cuts, so, the same effort and the same finances need to be made to make peace in the world. He also said that we would all benefit and so would society as a whole benefit from looking after the elderly, a point that although may sound obvious and simple is actually far reaching and true.

The above meeting and debate was called "Socialist and the Welfare State" and was really interesting all round. A young man got up to disagree with socialists, he spoke on the side of capitalists, I was glad he spoke and I was interested to hear his defence of this dreadful system ...

Basically he said that things were worse in places like Russia and Eastern Europe where there was communism, and that we scared him ( or something like that). Of course the vast majority of people now accept that the Eastern European countries were not socialist in any way and in Russia the new formed socialist society ( from the 1917 revolution), renamed USSR, was strangled and died in infancy. The old order gradually retook control under Stalin and was socialist only in name. Tony Cliff who founded the SWP wrote an extremely comprehensive book called 'State Capitalism in Russia' in 1947 outlining how it is a myth to say Russia was or is socialist, it is capitalist and was involved, even way back then, 1947 and before, in international competition and trading with the west, its economy being capitalist was run heavily by the state.

I wish I could remember the gist of this young pro capitalist's other arguments, but I have forgotten, sorry, next time I will listen more keenly and take notes ... Or then again maybe there were and are more pressing and sensible debates to be getting involved in.

The only other meeting I went to was called "Why we defend Multiculturalism", a great meeting again, and I look forward to writing up about it in the next post.

Marxism 2011 part one

As with most things in life there is the good, the bad and the ugly and so it is true too of the SWP's annual event 'Marxism'.

It's like our Christmas, we see old friends and comrades and chat to one another like we've never been apart, we meet new people, get fresh ideas, laugh, cry and dance ( usually at the end in the after party). This year's Marxism was held for the first time in about twenty or so years in a different venue and due to the disability I have ( I get disorientated in new places quickly and it's bad, worse in my case than for most people I reckon) I was worried. A local friend and comrade offered to help with the practicalities as much as he could, something I was grateful for; and it did work for a time while I was up there, but not all the time.

Another problem I have is that sitting for long periods of time in meetings causes me quite a bit of discomfort, so this year I had that to contend with too.

I did meet up with some old friends and familiar faces and had a couple of great quality conversations, although the chats seemed to come around to the subject of art, but that was great as art is one of my favourite subjects anyway. I had a great convo about mental health with a very nice and understanding young man who was also a fellow sufferer.

The venue was split over two sites, Friends meeting house and a nearby university. I was fine at Friends meeting house as I already new it, but there weren't many people around to talk to in between meetings and there were no debates, or few, but none that I was able to participate in anyway.

The university to me was a nightmare, which I thought it would be, I could not make head nor tail of where I was going, it was all very strange and I felt very lost there, I saw one person I knew; a man from my Welsh days, he was pushing a pram around with his young son in, and was as equally confused as I was as to what was happening and where everything and everybody was.

Eventually I found the canteen and recognised a few faces although no-one looking particularly friendly, again it was boring as there were no interesting debates, plus the food was appalling and expensive, when a canteen hand cleared my table and asked if the food was alright, I left that question unanswered. I heard of one poor comrade who actually got food poisoning, poor thing.

So I thought I would give up trying to fathom the university and waited for my friend to arrive from Kent, but he was severely delayed, so I sat in the rose garden in front of Friends meeting house. There were comrades milling around, some I knew and recognised and some I didn't, but I felt isolated and excluded, probably on account of the relegated membership I endure which means I am not attached to any branch. It felt even more acute as I had been friends with a local Kent comrade for a while up until a few months ago when ... ( well it's a fairly long story that I won't go into), but I saw her on the train going up and she walked past me and then hurried on ahead.

So, do you get the picture? Marxism changed this year. I went up for only two days, the Saturday and Sunday, and only went to one meeting on the Sunday before returning home feeling all sorts of things, but one feeling I had that Sunday night in my flat was that today's SWP sadly felt no longer like a home.

And its something I intend to explore in this blog over the coming weeks.

What is happening to the SWP?

Having been a member of the SWP for twenty five years, it has been a life changing entity in many respects and right from the start. For many people and for me included, coming across and joining a revolutionary party was an almost euphoric experience, I, like many others before and since felt on joining a eureka moment; like how fitting it all is, how much sense it makes and how it is and always has been something that we have always been looking for. The SWP was precious to me for that and for other reasons, namely that it enabled me to fight against the right wing and the system much, much more effectively as I learned about class history, I learned about socialist traditions, I learned and was exposed to the old classics without any fear that the writing was unobtainable, boring and irrelevant ( a myth perpetuated by the capitalist system we live in). Also I got involved in current debates not only in the wider class struggle but also, our party would constantly rehearse arguments in the form of regular branch meetings, and ones back in those days were vibrant and large. There were a lot of good things about being in a revolutionary party such as the SWP which although was not orthodox Trotskyist i.e fourth internationalist was, as Cliff always reminded us, the authentic fighting spirit of Trotskyism.

Large events can put revolutionary organisations such as the SWP to the test, and certainly the very large anti capitalist movement was one such event. The emergence of the movement coincided with radical changes in the SWP's CC in that three major players including the founding member (Tony Cliff) died. Although Duncan Hallas was no longer on the CC due to ill health when he died, I believe that Paul Foot was. Lyndsey German and John Rees informed Paul of the new events as Paul lay in a hospital bed. So there was a mysterious ( to many people in the SWP's eyes) movement i.e where did it come from and what shall we do about it, combined with the deaths of the most capable and leading members. Definitely difficult.

We experimented by launching an electoral challenge in the form of Respect, this was not an easy project from the start as it was very difficult to find leading reformist from the labour party who were prepared to make a clean break from their war mongering party, despite some who were opposed to the direction of the right wing in the party, they still preferred to stay. So, we had George Galloway who was thrown out of the Labour Party therefore had nothing to lose by joining a new venture. This was new territory for us and we were without our strongest members.

Here is a quote that I picked up from face book during some recent discussions, I do believe that this quote is from a book or pamphlet written by Tony Cliff on Substitutionalism.


"... the policy of the united front contains not only advantages but also dangers. It easily gives birth to combinations between leaders behind the backs of the masses, to a passive adaptation to the ally, to opportunist vacillations. It is possible to ward off these dangers only if there exist two express guarantees: the maintenance of full freedom of criticism of the ally and the re-establishment of full freedom of criticism within the ranks of one's own party. To refuse to criticise one's allies leads directly and immediately to capitulation to reformism. The policy of the united front in the absence of party democracy, that is, without control of the apparatus by the party, leaves the leaders a free hand for opportunist experiments, the inevitable complements of adventurist experiments."

I think this is an accurate description of what did take place in the SWP, and consequently we started to see the party split, and deteriorate in democracy within the party. This took the form of character assassinations as the leadership nationally and locally became unable to tolerate criticism.

From what I remember there was first the expulsions of Kevin Ovenden and Rob Hoveman in 2007, then the left platform departure ( which I did write about early on in my blog, but am somewhat reassessing my thoughts about it now) and sometime during those large events I had the wonderful experience of being ritually and routinely character assassinated myself for my sin of criticising the local leadership. During that most unpleasant time ( which occurred twice) the comrades seemed to spend more time having meetings to discuss me and write letters about me than they did on more important business like how to reach out to people in the class with revolutionary politics. I was lucky in a strange way because although I had done nothing wrong by being critical, the response of the comrades might have lead to my expulsion particularly had I taken a grievance to the control commission ( something I think they hoped I would do) but I knew that I would end up the victim if I went down that route, so reluctantly I accepted 'national membership' and as I said this was on two occasions.

The other factor to bear in mind in all of this is the utter tragic and untimely death of Chris Harman, who Pat Stack described at his funeral as being Cliff's best recruit. He was the instigator of the uprisings in the student movement in 1968 and was a complete all round class hero and warrior from his many writings and books and his practice. He was not faultless as no human being is but an asset with a capital 'A'. His death coincided with the formation of the left platform split, I wonder what was going on then, as I was out of it due to my relegation within the party, but the demise had set in and was playing out.

So now Chris Bambery a long standing and very capable fighter has left the CC and the SWP citing lack of adequate political direction on the CC and 'factionalism'. The most common argument from the comrades is that he should have stayed and argued if he had disagreements, but this is not only a demise but also factionalism on the CC, where there is a lack of political debate and instead there is attack after attack upon a person. You lose before you even start in that situation. I know. I was attacked, called a liar and mentally ill. There is no debate at that stage. Chris Bambery was probably attacked for being belligerent and all the rest of it. I can think of many good things that Chris has done and contributed to making the left as a whole more combatant, such as the recent defence of Tommy Sheriden. If there are specific political events that show how Chris has done bad, then fire away. But we don't hear of anything do we, its all this rumbling personal discontent. It is a demise of the SWP.

The truth is that we need a revolutionary party to make our fight to challenge and change the system as effective as it possibly can be. We need to be a visible pole of attraction with coherent sensible ideas that have resonance and depth. One that will strengthen the fight on the ground in the class itself and then will in tern relate those struggles to ones of the past therefore have the benefit of learning from history to give revolutionary direction in the present, and have a vision for the future. Some people may say that despite everything that has gone on this is still what there is. I don't think so. There is no dynamism and culture of healthy dialectic debate or healthy criticism, there is a sort of tale ending of arguments taking place and a myopia in terms of future. We can do better.

We need to fully and accurately assess the current situation without clinging on to something that isn't working just because there seems to be nothing else. We need to be confident in ourselves and our own abilities, there are many of us who want revolutionary politics and see the necessity of being organised in a party rather than a loose anarchic banding with all the inherent dangers that is contained within it. We need to look to ourselves for the solution and not the current leaders in the SWP. This is of course the very principal of self emancipation, something that needs to be central in revolutionary struggles, so here it is; the challenge of the century. Dear God I pray that we will and that we can rise to it, for all of our sakes, and for our future.

Chris Bambery

The SWP and Religion

I have a lot of time for Marx, Engels,Lenin's and other classical Marxists, left views and writings on religion. But they do still have to be contextualized to their own epoch; even so there is much to be learned from them and their literature on the subject.

Applying the format in Lenin's time does not fit exactly with today. I would argue that since the huge anti war movement or the movement for peace (as it became known), the politics in many religiously minded and motivated people took a shift to the left, whether it still stands to this day though I am not sure, but certainly things like Jubilee 2000 and drop the debt campaigns were enthusiastically supported by huge numbers of ordinary church going people, many of whom provided the motor for those campaigns and were visible on the many demonstrations during that time including the massive two million strong anti war demonstration in 2003.

Religion for a time was not about right leaning social democratic middle class and poor oppressed believers in God and followers of the local priest. Things changed, from around 1995 to recently ( it is hard to put an actual date on when the peace movement of that time either died or morphed into something else). There was more dynamism among religious groups as many of these people took to the streets to demonstrate causes of justice and peace. Many people from different walks of life and from the whole spectrum of faiths, felt inspired in those years and the question of religion captured peoples imagination. The left, with its tired old 'religion is the opium of the masses', really had to return once again to the classic texts and re-read some of Marx's most beautiful and courageous prose on the subject.

As hard as this is for materialists to understand, and I am one, I am a materialist, not everything can be answered in the here and now; even if Marx said it can, he had to clear a path for materialism on the back of the period of time that came before the enlightenment. Alongside Marx's criticism of religion and atheism is also beautiful writings on philosophy, and that is where the debate needs to shift to, and it is in the process of doing just that. There doesn't need to be any departure from Marxism but by using Marx's theories and applying them to the situation today in the struggle for socialism, we still find that the basic concept of unity stands, it is all in the fight for socialism, unity of the poor, the oppressed, the workers, men, women, black, white, gay straight, and also the unity of the religious and non religious.

That is not to say there should be cross class alliances, those who generally hold the dominant ideology in religious institutions is the same ideology in any other institutions, it is the ideology by and large of the right and of privileged class. In religious institutions where the main work is moral and spiritual, there are means of enforcing compliance with the overall system of minority rule. For example debate is not encouraged in a formal sense, and people's general confidence in themselves is also not encouraged (something that goes hand in hand with all other institutions we live in).

There used to be a terribly patronizing notion in the SWP, a notion that may have fitted with the Bolsheviks in their time and allow as we must consideration to be given to the fact that the majority in the society in Russia at that time were peasants ( and therefore the influence of religion was more of a stupefying one on peoples mental ability), but really it is a questionable practice for today; that any religious party member needs to be convinced out of their religious belief.

Any convincing one way or the other is perhaps an interesting debate but no-one should take the high ground on it; believers or non believers.

Also, I don't believe it is right for today or for the necessity of unity, to convince someone out of their belief and honestly sometimes the euphoria displayed in SWP meetings on the subject of religion that I have witnessed, comrades ecstatic when someone declares their atheism, it really beggars belief and in fact shows them up to be sect like because of it, because of their shallow understanding of the subject.

Something which I do believe (and hope) has stopped and a more sober approach adopted by now. I will be testing this out at the Marxism 2011 event, and hoping for greater depth and direction than what I have seen on some previous occasions.

Mistakes and Mishaps

On first joining the Socialist Workers Party, I was full of enthusiasm and hope for the future and as I was still very young, (19 years old) I felt hopeful in general.

However there were and probably still are some dodgy and unsavoury characters in the SWP.

Whereas I would normally have told my Mum everything that was happening in my life, my joining the SWP was not something she wanted for me, therefore I believed it would cause a rift between us, although in reality although she would not have liked it, she would be very supportive of it later on. But I didn’t realise this.

I was having other personal problems that I was not dealing with very well. One was that my Dad had left the country for good (divorce and all that) at the same time I left home to go to college. Secondly, a relationship I was having with a nice Jamaican lad from school was getting strained to the point of a break up just before I decided to join the SWP. So I was vulnerable.

Then I met this very smarmy 25 year old man in the SWP who took me under his wing when I first joined as a wide eyed 19 year old. He spent ages with me telling me all about the history and traditions of revolutionary and left wing politics and I lapped it up. Then at some sort of conference ( I cannot remember which one) he arranged it so that I would stay with him. I was unsure, but agreed, then during the night he made a pass at me and at first I turned him down, but then I can’t remember why but I eventually relented (even though I knew he was in a relationship with someone). I really regret that decision, and just cannot explain how much I regret it now and how bad the whole sordid two year affair made me feel.

I continued as an SWP member, finished my degree which I passed, but was in a god awful clandestine affair with an uncaring and advantage taking so - called socialist in the SWP. Eventually after suffering for two years (after a year I started to self harm), I found out that he had been sleeping with about six or seven women, many of them my friends and I think he got one or maybe even two of them pregnant. I froze emotionally and became very depressed.

He left to do a job within the SWP elsewhere and I was very glad because I was at last released from him, although he still rang me from where he was then living asking me to ‘visit’ him as his partner was away for a weekend (the utter sod). But I felt no inclination to carry on with him surprisingly!

I was very glad that this awful liaison was over, but I was becoming emotionally very unstable. I contacted my old boyfriend (my childhood sweetheart), but he lost respect for me when I told him what had happened and he was starting to become abusive and hurtful.

Then I went back home to live with my Mother, who was now living alone (but she had always told us that this is what she wanted) and my relationship with her was terrible, and I started to feel suicidal. My local branch of the SWP was not in the least bit helpful or offered any kind of light or hope in these dark times, mainly because it was effectively a one man band, and that one man was crushing my spirits too.

I would have gone to the doctor because of the extreme emotional strain I was under but I decided to try to talk to my mother about it first. She was not supportive of my going to see a doctor for my mental health and although I was really upset that she thought it was not the right thing to do, I didn’t go after all, which was another very big mistake, for which I paid heavily later on.

Part two coming soon …

Radicals and Rebels

None of us were born to be rebels and radicals; so why are some of us inclined towards radical, revolutionary and rebel politics? What happened that made us become and in many cases stay that way?

For me, turning radical goes back a very long way; to my childhood in fact.

As a young child born and growing up in Toronto, Canada, I was just like every other child who wanted and needed love and to fit in with things. It was a bit traumatic when our family had to up sticks and move to England, but I was still a fairly happy, healthy and normal child. I was liked at school, did well in reading, writing, music, art and PE.

Things changed for me in 1974, I was seven years old and the miners were on strike. We loved the candlelit nights with lemonade and crisps, but the thing that really changed me was a girl in my class with whom I became very close friends, she had recently arrived from South Africa and there was a great deal of curiosity and interest in her from fellow class mates. What she told me about the reality of apartheid South Africa really shocked me, I thought it unfair that black people were mistreated so badly.

The other significant thing about 1974 was the General Election, my political South African friend asked me who I would vote for. I had never considered that question at all, she said she would vote conservative because her Dad did and for other reasons which I cannot remember, but at first I said that it sounded cool! Off I went home to my mother ( we were and still are very close ) I asked her who should I vote for and that I was considering voting conservative.

My dear mother took time to talk to me about this. Her brother (my uncle) who she loved very much had set up the young communists group sometime in the 1950's and she herself and my Dad were more inclined to the left. To a seven year old she explained it very very well; Labour is more for the people she said, it is more about caring for one another. Well, on that note I was sold.

My friend and I proceeded to argue about politics day in day out. We would go to our local park, the Rec, sit on the swings and argue until we both felt sick (not from arguing, but from the motion of the swings that we had forgotten we were on as we were too engrossed in our arguing). Well there you have it, therein started my lifelong commitment to radical politics.

At fourteen, I had come across racist and nazi graffiti at school, I would purposely sit on the back desks where i knew it would be so that I could very carefully scribble it out, one of our books in the library; 'Cry the Beloved Country' had an NF mark on a picture of a young black boy. This really sickened me, but living out in the sticks, I had not come across the anti - nazi league.

Also in 1982, the Falklands war was on and a group of us started to become very anti and vocal about it, and some of the teachers got involved as they were concerned about our interest and our anti tones.

I was starting to long to be involved in something, CND maybe, but how to get involved? I sent off for more information about CND and received some wishy washy things written by Bruce Kent which frustrated me rather than lead me to more involvement. Then a stroke of luck, one of my friends at school, her younger sister had started to go to Labour Party Young Socialists meetings in Nye Bevan Hall in Twydall, Gillingham, and thought that I would like it. Well I jumped at the chance and I kept dragging everyone there who I could think of; my sister, friends from school, anyone, it didn't matter.

Then there were demonstrations to go on, my first being a local CND demonstration, it was at night and we walked with big candle things, I remember the hot wax dripping onto my hand, but that whole experience fired us ( me and my mates) up. The next one and my first national demonstration in London was against Pinochet, the Chilian dictator, it was the tenth anniversary of the military coup in Chile (1983).

Again another really positive experience; I went up with my lovely sister, she is great, basically she was really there for me as she is not politically inclined in the same way I am, so I will never forget how she stood and still stands by me.

During the miners strike of 1984 - 1985, I was aged between 16, 17 and 18, was supportive of the miners and watched the strike closely, I got very depressed when it looked almost certain that it was heading for defeat, my main political activity turned to the many pubs in and around the Medway towns, where we combined politics with booze and fags (those were the days) and we had such great fun.

Then things started to get serious for me as I went off to university and I was starting to suffer from depression ( might have been all that booze), but it affected my political outlook and I turned more towards the frustrated and dead end politics of radical feminism and post modernism (whatever that was, but my friends from Medway fell about laughing when I returned home from college after a year and announced that I was a proud post-modernist!)

However, I stuck to my right ward leaning guns until as luck would have it SWSS ( the Socialist Worker Student Society) arrived on our college campus. I could not win any arguments with them nor persuade them to be post modernists like me, so in the end it was like; if you can't beat them join them. But I was also very impressed with the socialist politics that I was hearing, it had future and they were not just talkers, they acted too, and they were mixed, young and old.

The Socialist Workers Party has now been my political home for nearly twenty five years. The story doesn't end there, at my joining the SWP, there has been lots and lots of goings on, maybe I will chart my history in the SWP in my next blog, until then, Ciao.

The left platform - Thank God its over

The recent split in the SWP ( the departure of sixty members of the faction 'left platform') which was precipitated by the resignation of long standing SWP member (many years on the central committee) Lindsey German, has been a very sad affair, an utter distraction from political life and from my blog.

I had high hopes of developing the my last theme about faith on this blog, but was otherwise occupied with the horror that was unfolding which was the left platform faction formed late last year and supposedly disbanded after the annual conference in January, coming to its end, this week gone.

The circle of around sixty people seemed to have varying views, but were united against the party and their 'political strategy'. I didn't get too involved in the discussions because I was finding it all very sad indeed, and am not sufficiently involved at branch level. However one of the themes that seemed to emerge time and again was about the anti-capitalist / anti-war movement which the left platform seemed to think was the force (movement of people with left leaning - save the planet - capitalism sucks type ideas became visible in Seattle in 1999, but probably started before then, with for example the french workers strikes of 1995) which could be wielded to somehow oppose the recession.

That idea is really quite daft, first of all it lacks the understanding about how that movement has changed, we no longer see the huge demonstrations that characterised that era and culminated in the great and massive two million strong anti - Iraq war march in 2003, although many millions would be in some way more open to radical ideas through the actuality of that movement particularly the young, the forces that made it then are not the same now. We cannot go backwards in time, any new force will have new characteristics developed by those who have nothing to lose but their chains, if there will be a new force like that of anti - capitalism, maybe that was completely unique and never to be repeated. It doesn't mean we still can't fight the system as we always try our utmost to do.

The other reason why the left platform's position on the movement is daft is because they seem to think the direction can be turned by people in the SWP. We are and were only a part of that movement, we do not hold those sorts of powers, even if it existed today like it did in 2003, we could not tell the movement to come here or go there, it was a dynamic movement, a coming together of forces, we were and are only a very small part of it. To think that we are it and try to emulate the spirit of it for our own ends is opportunism, and shallow.

Now it is all over and sixty have left, we can resume the fight against the bosses system, a system of inequality, injustice, oppression, fascism and war. Yes with slightly depleted forces, and I am sorry about that. However, I can resume an orientation on the question of faith and socialist politics again, hopefully in my next post. Phew.