http://www.permanentrevolution.net/http://www.permanentrevolution.net/images/logo.gifhttp://www.permanentrevolution.net/en-GBwww.zenblog.net(c) 2008 Permanent Revolution. http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/1773#comment-1116http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/1773#comment-1116Thanks for the article. It is very well argued and absolutely corrent about what is wrong with SWP's politics. Many people are appalled at SWP's bureaucratism at times bordering with arogance. Especially those involved with SWP-led coalitions of any kind. But few people ask themselves what is at root of this politically. Having a wrong method SWP gets impatient and thus vulnerable to the pressures of bourgeois society expressed in the aspects of burgeois ideology that penetrate into minds of workers and youth. And SWP instead of fighting these ideas in concrete, adapts to them - it leaves its oposition to them for general and abstract speechifying while in practice it makes hardly any fight against those influences on the ground. In the very same fashion it educates its members in this superficial and distorted thinking. So it makes it hard for SWP members to form any kind of response to its leadership's failures and errors. So what I am really interested in is what - after absolutely correct and well argued analysis and criticism of SWP - PR will propose to do in the comming period to bring those disilutioned by imminent collapse of Respect to the ranks of revolutionaries. Nuclear Boy2007-11-09 13:23:082007-11-09 13:23:08 http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/1773#comment-1136http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/1773#comment-1136Hi Nuclear Boy, Thanks for the comments. In terms of your last question: "So what I am really interested in is what - after absolutely correct and well argued analysis and criticism of SWP - PR will propose to do in the comming period to bring those disilutioned by imminent collapse of Respect to the ranks of revolutionaries." If I'm honest I think it will be hard to win over many SWP members in the short term as the Galloway side of the split is a shift to the right and the members the SWP are losing have shifted to the right with them. So not only have those members not learnt the lessons of the SWPs broad leftist politics (which are now very similar to the old CPGB in many ways), they are acutally more ingrained in that method of politics. However that obviously doesn't mean we shouldn't try. From day one we have polemicised against the idea of RESPECT but have also try to point out its flaws in practice, by showing that you can have united fronts without dropping revolutionary politics. Our members have taken part in any number of campaigns from the current Karen Reismann campaign to the National Shop Stewards Network to asylum campaigns and Defend Council Housing as well as international campaigns as well. Hopefully through both reading our arguments and seeing that we are activists in many campaigns we can win over SWP members to a revolutionary position. But it might take a bit of time! To be honest I think most of the left has gone down the route of trying political short cuts which actually end up as dead ends. In the SWPs case it is RESPECT and in the case of the Socialist Party and Workers Party it is the Campaign for a New Workers Party. This, in part, flows from a catastrophist view of the world economy that these groups have, constantly stating that a crisis is around the corner. So ever frustrated by the poor state of the revolutionary left they desperately try and take these kind of short cuts. I'll leave it there, but what do you think of what I've said? How do you think we should go about things? Cheers DanDan2007-11-12 20:02:292007-11-12 20:02:29 http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/1773#comment-1137http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/1773#comment-1137Just a quick further comment. Just because we might not be able to win people over straight away the essential question is how to build a movement and organisation that can really fight for working class politics and push forward our class interests. So we'd propose to those disillusioned with RESPECT and working class militants generally that we need united action on many different campaigns (some mentioned above). It would also be a good idea to discuss and debate the ways forward in socialist discussion forums. There will be a lot of fall-out from the break-up of Respect and it's important that revolutionaries focus on the necessary tasks of working class regroupment, rebuilding networks of rank and file militants in the unions, arguing for rank and file control of struggles, drawing out the wider political lessons and drawing in new activists to both discussion and action.Dan2007-11-12 20:10:022007-11-12 20:10:02 http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/1773#comment-1140http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/1773#comment-1140I think Dan's right that there won't be any immediate pay-off for the long-term systematic patient work both in practical and ideological/ theoretical terms. Revolutionaries need to situate ourselves- over the long term- in positions where we can lever the class into action, build rank and file bodies of struggle for working class emancipation using the methods of open, political struggle. There are also necessary tasks of ideological clarification- to find the right ideas, the right language, new ways of relating to working class struggles. Probably Permanent Revolution as a tendency has done the most work in trying to explain the current period and beginning to articulate the necessary tasks ahead. We want to win thinking militants to our ranks certainly but most importantly want to engage with such thinking working class militants prepared to fight- whether they join us or not- as part of a longer term project to build a revolutionary workers' party. In the shorter term, united action around specific points- a trade union struggles to reinstate a sacked militant fighting against privatisation for example- and socialist discussion forums as Dan suggests seem like sensible and immediate ways forward.Jason2007-11-12 22:44:032007-11-12 22:44:03