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.
