Many people reading this article may ask themselves “why join the SWP in the first place?” Others still will ask “why go on to join the AWL?” These are legitimate questions. In fact, the answer to the question “why I left the SWP” revolves almost entirely around answering the other two.
Some people fill hours of their lives writing lists of incidents, outrages and ‘crimes against socialism’ carried out by the SWP. This documentation is a time-consuming and important work, but this article will be no such list. Others have provided us with impressionistic sketches of leading SWP ‘personalities’. These sketches have some value, but the eccentricities, downright rudeness and misanthropy of the likes of Alex Callinicos and Chris Bambery were not determining factors in my leaving the party – you can find strange behaviour across the Left. Some people probably think I’m strange!
My relatively short membership of the SWP taught me the valuable basics of revolutionary activity. I learnt the rudiments of organisation, how to engage with people on the streets and how to mobilise them. I gained the confidence to speak in front of large meetings and lead demonstrations, to write leaflets and have an argument. It was in the SWP that I became immersed in politics, an immersion that lasts to this day. The SWP formed me, as they have a great many others, into a revolutionary. So what went wrong?
Why I joined the SWP
The answer to this question is fairly straightforward and is a lesson to any revolutionary group. I first came into contact with the revolutionary left in the aftermath of September 11th 2001. It’s a cliché, I know, but that day really did change my life. My previous political life had been centred on the Labour Party; I thought of myself as a “Labour leftie” but had never come across any organisations inside the party. I’d been busy helping return Alan Simpson (the left-wing MP for Nottingham South) to parliament before the summer and had settled back into student life quite happily until that day in September.
Shortly afterwards I got involved in the local “Stop the War” (StW) group. The SWP, Socialist Party and AWL were all active around StW, but only the SWP went out of its way to recruit me and stamp its presence on whatever it was involved with. I’d be followed to the pub after meetings, people would be sent to argue with me, ask questions and ask me to join. They’d pop up in the most unlikely of places. Socialist Worker was a ubiquitous presence.
I could easily have joined any one of the groups at the time but only the SWP put real effort into recruiting an awkward character like me. After three months I’d torn up my Labour Party card. Five months later I eventually asked to join the SWP. They seemed pleased that their hard work had paid off. Like many people at the time I threw myself 100% into campaigning and educating myself about the world – the energy I put into StW was quickly absorbed by the SWP.
Within four months I ended up working for the party, first as an organiser in Leicester, then in the membership department at the national office. During this time I helped organise and lead demonstrations, spoke at meetings around the country and personally recruited scores of people to the party.
I had a fantastic time but was also exposed to some of the darker aspects of life in the SWP. It quickly became clear that decision making was not a democratic process. Each Wednesday the Central Committee would meet in a room at the far end of the print-shop and shortly afterwards the office workers would be “told” what needed doing. Basically, if something had to be done, someone was expected to put up their hand and say they’d do it. No questions asked. This person would then go off and tell others what to do and the message would eventually filter down. For places with full-time organisers, Bambery would get on the phone and with his usual charm offload the latest instructions.
This is just one example of the top-down, commandist way the SWP interprets “democratic centralism”. As a local organiser I was expected to “sort out” comrades who lagged behind the latest instructions. This could range from having a direct argument to “going around” (excluding) those who stood in the way. For someone used to being a dissenter in the Labour Party, used to asking questions, this proved to be too much.
Whilst I didn’t want to be a “leader” in the SWP, I wasn’t ready to leave either. I returned to Nottingham and went back to university. I threw myself into local activity again and started reading more and more – this time in a systematic way.
I quickly came into conflict with the new organiser in the city. The “new turn” in the SWP was to “go around” the central StW group and set up independent, local committees. Likewise, every area of Nottingham was to have its own ‘Marxist Forum’, local SWP committee and paper sales. No real explanation was given for this, but I had a feeling for what was going on – I heard it all before.
The local SWP had basically stalled. After two years on a constant war footing the majority of comrades had become less regular in their activity, one leading member had decamped abroad, others were drifting away. The proposed solution was rather like raising yield targets in times of drought. Pure Stalinism.
Around the same time Respect began to emerge as a central area of activity. In the run up to the European elections I, along with some non-SWP members, raised concerns about how Galloway had intervened to ensure that a Muslim man topped the candidate list. This was obviously done to exclude a woman candidate.
After that I was all but shut out of Respect organising. The last major “difference of opinion” was over the establishment of a local “Social Forum” by a group of students and activists from the StW campaign. I saw this as a natural development from people who wanted to generalise their political activity – the group had plans for campaigning on public services and other aspects of international solidarity. The SWP saw the group as a direct threat to Respect, and were determined that members should not get involved. I disagreed. How did the SWP organiser deal with this “little local difficulty”? Well, I was excluded from what passed for local decision making and characterised as having “academic” tendencies.
Why I joined the AWL
Most of my conflicts so far had been organisational. Although I disliked the way the SWP operated internally, I still largely agreed with the basic political perspectives — especially around the war on Iraq. The murder of Hadi Saleh (a leading Iraqi trade unionist) in January 2005 by an Islamist death squad opened a new political door. Almost immediately an email was posted to the local StW e-list from a member of the AWL calling for StW to condemn the murder.
At the time I’d bought the shameful lie that Saleh was in cahoots with the “imperialists” and attempted to justify StW’s silence. What followed was a fairly intense exchange between myself and probably every member of the AWL in Nottingham – they seemed to be making up for the wasted opportunity in 2001!
It’s largely true that your politics is shaped by whatever political organisation you join first. I’d been a particularly keen absorber of SWP “theory”, had amassed a collection of Cliff, Harman, Rees et al, and had made these ideas central to my politics. My critique of capitalism was refracted through the SWP as an organisation – as “the Revolutionary Party” – not through an independent, class-based understanding.
The SWP presents itself as the manifestation of the ‘best’ of the working class, in terms of individuals and ideas. Indeed, this is what a revolutionary party is meant to be. So when you’re presented from the outside with an example that not only challenges but crushes this understanding – the myth that the SWP is an internationalist, independent working-class party – the whole façade falls away.
That the SWP not only ignored but positively smeared Saleh is one of the “crimes” alluded to at the beginning of this article. My reaction to this crime was to reassess almost every aspect of what I thought about imperialism, the national question and the Middle East.
I started to read Trotsky and Lenin instead of Cliff and Harman, discovered Hal Draper (I’m looking for a T-Shirt that reads “Hal Draper Saved My Soul”) and discussed with AWL comrades.
I remained in the SWP and continued to attend StW meetings, trying in vain to get the local group to make the Iraqi labour movement a central concern, and repeatedly failing to get any words of sense from the SWP on my criticisms. Eventually, after banging my head against a brick wall for what seemed a long time, I left the SWP for good.
Why YOU should join the AWL
If you’re a SWP member and if you agree with any of what the AWL says then here’s my advice: The current crisis with the SWP/Respect will probably be resolved sooner rather than later. Now is the time to raise your criticisms, have the arguments you’ve been brewing and keep politically sharp.
In the past when large groups have disintegrated many hundreds if not thousands of excellent activists have dropped out of activity, it would be criminal if this happened to SWP members. Raise your concerns with close comrades, see if you can get them to agree with you and write your criticisms down.
Research and develop your thoughts and confront local organisers, NC members and visiting “national speakers”. Make contact with the AWL, either through the local branch or national office – let us know what you think and engage with our arguments. Most importantly, don’t just leave the SWP in disgust – leave for a clear political reason and take others with you if you can.
Most importantly, I think you should consider joining the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty in the fight for a real revolutionary party and independent working-class socialism.
