Resolution on SWP crisis from AWL EC 15/02/13, discussed at AWL NC 17/02/13

Submitted by martin on 23 February, 2013 - 7:23

1. Underlying the SWP crisis is the erosion of the political authority within the SWP of the Central Committee. The crisis, in turn, accelerates that erosion.

2. The SWP is structured so that the CC majority monopolises political initiative.

a. There is no regular forum for SWP-wide discussion outside brief pre-conference sessions.

b. The CC and its corps of paid full-time organisers are obliged by rule unanimously to promote CC majority views. Members outside the CC are not informed about the debates within the CC.

c. Each new CC is elected by the outgoing CC presenting a slate. Members can present alternative slates, but cannot amend the CC slate. Short of a revolt which musters a 50%+ majority against the CC, therefore, the CC is self-selecting.

3. Dissatisfaction among SWP members will have been increased by promises of more democracy made after the departure of John Rees and Lindsey German and around the SWP's 2009 Democracy Commission, and the fact that those promises produced no increase in democracy.

4. The SWP understands "Leninism" only administratively, as "democratic centralism". Its version of "democratic centralism" lacks the necessary democracy (a culture of sharp, well-informed debate to clarify politics). It also lacks the necessary centralism: most nominal SWP members are entirely inactive; most active members follow only a particular strand of SWP activity; the SWP has been repeatedly unable to control its members in prominent trade-union positions. Above all, the SWP evades the struggle on the ideological front.

5. The mode of selection of the CC and the paid full-time organisers is very distant from Gramsci's (and Lenin's) idea that revolutionary-socialist organisers must be educators, i.e. intellectuals, and revolutionary-socialist intellectuals must be educators, i.e organisers. SWP members are selected to become paid full-timers by commitment, energy, tenacity, loyalty, and resourcefulness, but not by level of political education or proven capacity of critical judgement. Then the CC is selected from among the paid full-timers by the same criteria. The eventual result of decades of these methods is that the CC now includes no-one with stature even within the SWP as a political persuader, i.e. writer and speaker, except Alex Callinicos. And the general political level of the membership has been pushed down very low.

6. Another result is that the policies put out by the SWP CC consist increasingly of a series of superficial improvisations, and the SWP CC's response to errors or difficulties is increasingly shaped by the adage: "if the bicycle wobbles, then pedal faster".

a. In the immediate class struggle, the SWP proposes no political perspective, but only appeals for more militancy; tinny declarations that the government is "weak" (as if its weakness or strength could be measured in abstraction from the resistance it faces); and increasingly lacklustre gambits like Unite the Resistance, Right to Work, Organise for Fighting Unions, Education Activist Network, Another Education is Possible, etc.

b. The SWP takes Egypt as a cameo of the virtues of "revolution" in the abstract, and in line with that backed the Muslim Brotherhood in the elections and describes the Muslim Brotherhood's political role as analogous to that of a reformist workers' party.

c. The SWP advocates voting for "Britain out of the EU" in a referendum, for no reason other than that this stance is popular with a leftish audience it wants to cultivate.

7. As far as we can tell, the main issue around Martin Smith is that the CC's response was to minimise disturbance rather than to seek independent and authoritative investigation. It is not in the first place that the SWP is sexist: the CC responded that way because Martin Smith is a functionary, rather than because he is a man. However, in society as it is, a syndrome of defensive and minimalistic handling of charges of abusive behaviour against leadership people has inevitable sexist bias, since leadership people are more often men and people charged with abusive behaviour are more often men. The CC's use of blunderbuss denunciations of alleged "feminism" in response to the opposition also has sexist implications.

8. We call for the case to be reopened with an investigation by qualified people independent of the SWP which would consider a "balance of probabilities" verdict as well as a "beyond reasonable doubt" one.

9. We note that oppositionists in and around the SWP are not calling for the case to be reopened, but instead arguing about general questions of SWP regime.

10. Some elements of the more militant SWP opposition have links with the ISO-USA. The ISO-USA has had better positions than the SWP on some recent questions (Atzmon; Syriza; Muslim Brotherhood). S Alt, with which the ISO-USA has links, has better ideas than the SWP about regime. However, in fundamentals the ISO-USA and S Alt share the SWP's political method and basic attitudes. Evidently many people in the SWP opposition are as hostile to AWL as the SWP leadership are.

11. The SWP CC has called the 10 March special conference to squash the opposition (both militant and moderate), not to allow for a discussion to clear the air. Realistically it would cost the SWP CC little to conciliate most of the opposition. However, the CC is not on that track. The most likely outcome still seems to be the creation of a new splinter, linked to the ISO-USA.

12. This process will shake up SWPers. It is entirely to be expected that even those most shaken up will at first restrict themselves to arguing about the questions of regime, and will be defensive and unforthcoming on broader political debates.

13. We should seek the maximum of comradely discussions with SWPers. We should approach them with our literature (e.g. our Gramsci booklet) and proposals for joint activity (e.g. requests to them to support the Bob Carnegie campaign).

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