Socialist Worker in Decline?

by Seamus Wed Sep 06, 2006 11:59

Be a pity if the SW paper died, although I am an anarchist I still enjoy reading some of the articles in their paper, mostly interesting news articles. Its refreshing to read a socialist slant on current affairs. Although they can keep all the Trotsky worshipping articles, thanks anyway. Its a good effort from a small organisation, much in the same way the WSF produce an excellent read every few weeks, a big effort for a small circulation but very important nonetheless.
Is mise,
S

by . Wed Sep 06, 2006 12:38

It is clear SW is now a monthly but to be fair it is hard for any small left org to keep a forthnightly going. I have also noticed that it carries very few northern articles these days.

As for trotsky articles I have to say I can't recall any, perhaps Seamus could let us know which issues he has seen them in.

by aunty trotsky Wed Sep 06, 2006 12:59

They are finally getting sense and realising that Irish (or any other) workers dont know or care about prophets such as trotsky. They are not listening to churches or other dogmas much lately either.

by Michael Martin Wed Sep 06, 2006 13:00

Because ordinary citizens are getting more and more fed up with leftwing sterile ideology-bound rhetoric.

by Jonah Wed Sep 06, 2006 13:16

Like Seamus, I'm not a supporter of the SWP and I think the quality of the material in it is variable to say the least, but it has good coverage of industrial news and there's always one or two pieces worth reading in it. Be a pity if it went monthly, as it seems to have done.

I actually think the dogmatic sloganeering stuff has declined somewhat, though it is still prone to outbursts of hysteria and a belief that the larger your font the more outraged you are.

by Historian Wed Sep 06, 2006 13:57

Originally launched as "The Worker" in the early seventies and renamed Socialist Worker in the mid nineteen eighties is was originally a bi-montly then a monthly from the late eighties. In 1995 with some fanfare, including a small article in the Irish Times Socialist Worker went fulltime. Throughout this period Kieran Allen was editor.
The editorship briefly passed on to Simon Basketter who subsequently moved back to Britain and now frequently writes for British Socialist Worker.
Finally SW was relaunched as a paper of the movement under Rory Hearne's stewardship.

I think the key to the declining frequency lies with declining sales which in turn can be attributed to a paring back in the active base in the SWP itself.

The SWP (pre 1995 SWM) emerged from the wreckage of Mattie Merrigan's Socialist Labour Party in the early 1980s in a weak state. Prominant members from the 1970s such as Gene Kerrigan and Paul Gillespie had called it a day and in 1983 Des Derwin and a couple of others split to launch Gralton magazine.

With support from the British SWP which particularly came in the form of a drip feeding of cadre such as Marnie Holborrow and Kevin Wingfield Kieran Allen kept the show on the road. Eamonn McCann's formal joining in 1983 also provided a filip. As the eighties wore on the SWP found a niche in UCD and TCD where some more talented cadre were picked up including Richard Boyd Barret. The key characteristic they then held was one of tail ending Irish republicanism.

There showpiece Marxism event was launch in 1988 and thereafter has proved a good guide to the state of their health.

By the time of the first Gulf War it was clear that the SWP with about 150 members had a certain momentum and had eclipsed Militant (now the SP) who after the expulsions from Labour were struggling to adapt to open party work. The SWP developed an optimistic perspective for growth and revolutionary political developments. By 1995 they claimed 300 members and all subsequent counts have varied from 450 to 600.

Regardless of exagerations they appeared a very vibrant organisation, capable of moving fast on issues and cornering the minority of radical student youth.
The heavy emphasis was on propaganda, demos, recruiting and paper selling.

However the work led by the SP on the water charges and the electoral and recruitment benefits that accrued was a serious blow and forced a reorientation by the SWP to electoral work. However very poor results in general and local elections has since forced them to like the SP divide their leading cadre between "party builders" and "campaign/movement builders".

These two types of building aren't necessarily complementary and in fact cause enromous strains. The SP have a certain advantage in that they have been more successful electorally and have had a good ten years to manage this tension (not without some splits along the way).

The SWP seem a bit lost. The orientation of RBB and Brid Smith to public work has weakened them internally. The merging of the party into fronts such as IAWM etc has caused an identity crises in terms of what is the SWP itself for.

On demos and at their Marxism event it seems that a generation of 1980s and 1990s members have dropped out. They have been greatly weakened in Cork, Waterford and Belfast. There is an absence of youth and the monopoly in the collages is long gone.

Great store has been put in the PBFA as a means to electoral success but like all their other fronts they make no effort to seriously argue their politics.

The SWP are unlikely to disappear. While they may dwindle people like Kieran Allen and RBB are hardened and capable political activists who will keep the show on the road regardless

by Homer Wed Sep 06, 2006 14:22

Socialist Worker should have advertising, entertainment, sports, cinema, horoscopes etc. perhaps from time to time they should have free music CD promotions.

That's how mainstream publications attract new readers and funds to keep themselves afloat.

by radical jonny Wed Sep 06, 2006 23:32

I'm an anarchist living in Belfast, but I keep up on all the different groups' analysis. The SWP in the north haven't updated their site in a year.

But then, Organize! ASF haven't updated theirs since the Firefighters' strike...

Unfortunately, Fox News update daily...

by Michael Martin Thu Sep 07, 2006 02:43

Yeah, that would make sense. After all, the commies of the former Soviet Block turned capitalist as well.

by Radical mick Thu Sep 07, 2006 11:44

Organize site is updated and in recent months has seen arlicles by Jason Branigan and davy Carlin

by itssowrong Thu Sep 07, 2006 11:49

indeed the chinese are not very far behind the ruskis now in the whoring of their assets of the people

by Sean - Organise! Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:07

We do produce a quarterly magazine called workingclass resistance, although at the moment we are behind schedule.

www.organiseireland.org.

ps- our server is currently down at the moment.

by Swim Fan Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:57

I can understand why the editors did not want a lot of messages asking where each and every SWM and SWP member of the 1980s and 1990s was now (a list of names posted up yesterday was deleted) but there is a serious point. The organisation must have a huge turn over when you think of the core activists of the 1980s and then at least two seperate generations of activists in the 1990s, almost all seem to be gone. Very few remain active in anything. The first big turn came in 1992 when the British SWP decided that a revivial of struggle had begun and all the IS organisations had to turn outwards. K Allen took to this like a duck to water denoucing all who queried this as '80s people.' Not for wearing bleached jeans or leg warmers by the way but for not beliving the revolution was quite round the corner. RBB was one of the few who adapted. There is a much older layer of people who have been around since the 1970s, who have a certain niche in the party but Keirin likes em young and active and when they burn out...well tough, the revolution goes on. Theres room for a serious discussion on how the IS groups seem to have this leadership mood swing; Cliff made a life time habit out of it in Britain.

by Historian Thu Sep 07, 2006 13:45

It is interesting (for those of us who follow these things) how comparatively fewer ex SWPers than say ex SPers publically vent their spleen or even write in a balanced fashion about their time in the SWP/SWM. Where is the SWP/SWM's version of Marc Mulholland, Denis Tourish, John Throne etc?

Davy Carlin is exceptional but there are others who parted under a cloud, some of them full timers such as Brian O'Reilly and Alan Goode who along with others previously named (then deleted) could surely throw some interesting light on life in the SWP/SWM in the 1980s and 90s and how they see the changes the organisation has undergone over the years.

As far as I can tell many/most of the prominant people from this period while long since ceased to be active are not hostile and even regard their time in the Swimmies with a degree of fondness but just moved on to other things.

Others who are prominant especially in media circles may understandibly feel uncomfortable about drawing attention to their radical past.

by Bad Bob - Ex-SWP Thu Sep 07, 2006 15:21

As a recent ex-swp member this decision to move the paper to monthly was a financial decision not a political one. Not enough papers were being sold bi-weekly to break even on costs of printing.
Thats what it came down to in the end.
For the record I left because the SWP is not for me, I am quite happy to work alongside them in IAWM etc. I prefer to do movement stuff instead. The people I know from the SWP are decent people commited to what they do.

by Historian Fri Sep 08, 2006 13:23

I don't think you can simply counterpose financial and political reasons for the reduction in Socialist Workers regularity. From early 1995 until 2005 it remained consistantly fortnightly. The normal circulation figures reported at conferences during this period numbered 1,000.

The change in the paper's layout and style was we were told symptomatic of a growing new audience to anti capitalism. The fact that not long since this launch the paper has had to revert to the pre 1995 frequency of monthly must say something of the SWP's estimation of the political situation.

It also is a clear indication of organisational decline ie a smaller active base delivering smaller sales (one expects averaging below 1,000) though higher printing costs may be a factor.

Up until the end of the nineteen nineties the SW newspaper would give details of every branch meeting, time, place, topic and speaker. Now branch meetings in the 12 to 16 Dublin branches used to be staggered througout the week allowing leading cadre to attend a number of meetings but clearly this project ran out of steam. Now we just get contact numbers of people in various locations in Dublin.

By my reckoning, hazzarding a guess from demo and city centre anti war attendances which have been traditionally a forte of the SWP I would say they have some 50 members in Dublin. That figure is generous in allowing for the trade union and community activists who would not also involve themselves in city centre demos and rallys.

If one then factored in the rest of the country, mindful of the paring back in Belfast, Cork and Waterford and solid enough branches in Galway and Derry it would be credible to guess a membership of less than 100.

by wondering Fri Sep 08, 2006 14:27

" mindful of the paring back in Belfast, Cork and Waterford "
was wondering on what information historian bases this on

by Historian Fri Sep 08, 2006 15:02

Well in Waterford we had the debacle of Dick Roche abandoning his lcoal election candidature for the SWP as well as his position in the local hospitals campaign leaving Roy Hassey to step in and scoop up all of 52 votes. Waterford was the one city outside of Dublin that the SWP has had a constant presence going back to the 1970s with Johnny Cluno and the Waterford glass people.

In Cork the SWP have been reduced to two diehards running the Saturday stalls. Over the years full time resources have gone into Cork - Dominic Carroll, Dave Lordan, Conor Kostick and Aoife Ni F have all attempted to get the work off the ground. No full resources have gone in for some time now.

In Belfast Davy Carlin ably charts the SWPs decline. From 4 branches to an active core of McKinney, Muldoon, Hewitt and Buckley

by H, HIstoiran Fri Sep 08, 2006 16:21

McKinney virtually non active and buckley gone. 4 branches once but to a group of four or five active members now

by Historian Fri Sep 08, 2006 17:02

It might take some years before some proper light is thrown on the deline of the SWP relative to the mid ninties. People who drop out of politics seem more reluctant to vent about their experiences compared to say Davy Carlin and John Throne who remain active and don't hold back with their observations.

Even people like Denis Tourish and Marc Mulholland allowed some time to lapsed before publicising their experiences of the SP/Militant.

by trainspotter Fri Sep 08, 2006 17:08

It's by Jim Higgins, called "more years for the locust" and is at the link below:

by Locust reader Fri Sep 08, 2006 17:41

Jim Higgins had the dubious benefit of spending time in the CPGB and Healy's WRP as well as being a seasoned trade unionist so he knew a thing or two about standing up for himself.

Someone earlier mentioned the crazy mad recruitment turn they took in the early nineties. I recall it was Paul O'Brien, one of their best trade unionists who challenged Kieran Allen's perspective but he did not suceed in winning much influence amongst the others who were blinded by the relative successes.

I remember how Militant were floundering during the same period and reduced to something like the state the SWP are in now. We underestimated them to the point that there was talk of them disappearing like People's Democracy, The Irish Workers Group and the League for a Workers Republic.

In hindsight I feel the tenaciousness of people like Kieran Allen, RBB, Peter Hadden, Kevin McLoughlin, Joe Higgins, Gregor Kerr, Alan McSimeon etc is critical behind sustaining a left wing groups through the decades

by Left Watch Fri Sep 08, 2006 17:59

For those who are into this sort of thing here's my rough estimate of membership figures for far left groups, based on what I see at demos, conferences, what members ( and enemies ) of the various groups claim etc.:

Socialist Party: 150-200
Socialist Workers Party: 70-100
Workers Party: 50-100
Communist Party of Ireland: 30-40
Workers Solidarity Movement: 20-30
Irish Socialist Network: 10-20
Organise: ?
Socialist Democracy: 5-10
Spartacists:4-5
Workers Power:2-3

Im fairly sure of the smaller ones, the bigger ones are harder to estimate. Corrections and additions welcome!

by pollo Fri Sep 08, 2006 18:00

Organize

"We do produce a quarterly magazine called workingclass resistance, although at the moment we are behind schedule.

www.organiseireland.org.
ps- our server is currently down at the moment."
....................................
You really couldn't make it up ,could you?

by D_D Sat Sep 09, 2006 02:13

It takes an enormous effort to produce and sustain a regular left paper. The left press, love to hate it though we do, is what we have (balanced by Indymedia and, I suppose, 'The Village'). It cannot go under. Worth worrying about in the week the commercial 'Daily Ireland' died.

This is for the most part a serious and interesting thread. The petty SWP-loathers that buzz almost every Indymedia thread on the far left don’t seem to have discovered this one yet.

‘Historian’ began and has continued with a sober and balanced discussion. ‘Historian’ is very knowledgeable. Perhaps I can correct a few little errors some time. I have a reservation about ‘Historian’ using all those names. If ‘Historian’ is not already a gárda on a slow day he could be filling in some of the blanks for the intelligence community. It’s all very interesting, but maybe H. could ease up on all the names. Especially as ‘Historian’, for some reason (as H. is not being offensive) insists on hiding behind a pseudonym him/herself..

The membership/circulation numbers are also fascinating. I suppose the state knows all this stuff already.

Actually, there is a wealth of material from former IS, SWP (Britain) and IST members and departing groups. Though it’s more buried (or was until the rise of the internet) than for other tendencies. Even though some of it is of great theoretical interest. Organisationally, on the other hand, schisms from the IS tradition do not seem to have had the capacity to survive. The US group (ISO) seems to be an exception. Other tendencies have produced long-lasting spin-offs from the original organisation.

The weightiest document from the ex-IS/SWP diaspora has already been noted on the thread: the late Jim Higgin's ‘More Years For the Locust’. This is rich on the early years and up until 1975. It is also the fullest depository of ‘Old IS’ ideas, outside of old IS publications (one still in print from the SWP is ‘Party and Class’) and of the earlier material in Cliff’s collected works. (Get Kidron too on the web.) ‘More Years For the Locust’ is also a hoot from cover to cover – too personally nasty in my view. Enjoy.

Though not perfect by any means the old IS in Britain and the SWM in Ireland were once radically different organisations, internally and in method, than their contemporary incarnations. Both carried a large factor of critique of, and alternative to, the preceding far left. This critique was not at all unlike that of those today who seek a new broad regroupment on the left, and if anything was more solidly grounded theoretically.

Another history, shorter, of IS until the mid-late 70s, is that of Martin Shaw. I only tracked it down myself recently. I don’t agree with where his article was bringing him, and eventually brought him. But it’s fulla stuff. Cf. www.martinshaw.org

Of enormous interest is the large collection of documents to be found at http://www.angelfire.com/journal/iso/index.html Here are pieces from breakaways and splits at the turn of the century (funny that phrase about the recent past) throughout the tendency internationally. The Canadian documents are of general theoretical interest to Marxists on the subject of the party.

Is the 'Socialist Alternative' site (by former UCD members) still there frozen in cyberspace?

Incidentally the ‘soft faction’ (three people) left in 1982 not 1983. ‘Gralton’ magazine had already been launched and had been a bone of contention in the group. Some previously-departed leading members of the SWM were also on the editorial board. (It is a strange thing but, just as the SLP was an ill-fated forerunner of the present broad left formations in Britain and the continent, it could be said that there was in ‘Gralton’ and its brief successor, ‘Z Magazine’, much of the ‘united campaigns’ project promoted to-day in the People Before Profit Alliance.)

by Historian Tue Sep 12, 2006 17:03

Another critical source of material on the SWM is a pamplet produced by the Irish Workers Group in 1991. The IWG, then linked to Workers Power in Britain and like its sister organisation began its life as a wholesale expulsion from the SWM in the mid seventies.

The Linen Hall library has also collected on microfiche a wealth of far left, republican and loyalist newspapers (including Socialist Worker and Militant), leaflets and magazines from the beginning of the troubles. I recall the UCD library having this microfiche collection though it did not contain anything beyond 1989.

Who knows, some day this material may be archieved on the internet.

by Vasco Tue Sep 12, 2006 19:43

It is interesting that Socialist Worker has slipped to a monthly schedule. It's not altogether surprising though, given that from a couple of months into 2005 it was increasingly sliding towards one issue every three weeks. As Historian comments above, the basic reason for this is declining sales. This combined with increased printing costs to make a fortnightly paper unviable. The Irish SWP has for most of its life been subsidised by its British sister-party directly or indirectly. At some stages this included the sending over of cash or most importantly politically experienced members, it also sometimes meant printing the Irish paper. Socialist Worker is nowadays produced at a commercial printers.

The point of interest for most of us here is what exactly has caused the sales slippage, at a time which Socialist Worker argues is the best ever to be a socialist, when there is supposedly a large new audience ready for socialist ideas. There are two linked factors to be taken into account here.

The first is the general decline in SWP activist numbers. The organisation, outside of Dublin, is going through a collapse. There is no functioning branch of even half a dozen active members anywhere except Derry, itself a semi-detached fiefdom of Eamon McCann as the council elections debacle there again showed. There is nothing in Limerick. There are a couple of people each in Cork and Galway. A branchlet in Belfast. Little left of the historically strong Waterford branch. A few scattered individuals elsewhere. In Dublin the party retains a certain critical mass, which means there has been no similar collapse, but numbers have been declining. Long term cadres have dropped away . Vitally the regular influx of new recruits has been cut off, meaning both that the talent-pool from which a replacement cadre base can be drawn dries up and that there are less peripheral members around to sell papers etc.

The second is the quite genuine change in the SWP mode of operation. Some years ago the main activities of the SWP were party-building oriented. It had a routine based around regular street stalls and high visibility (and high paper sales) at demonstrations and public meetings. Nowadays the SWP stall has all but disappeared from the streets. Even in Dublin, where there is still a relatively strong core of SWP activists, the random punter on the street is much more likely to trip over the Socialist Party or Residents Against Racism. Even when SWP activists are running stalls they are as likely to be on behalf of some front or broad grouping, and when they are on demonstrations they are as likely to be occupied with tasks for the same groupings. All of this means less papers sold.

It also means less recruits, which brings me back to the earlier point about recruitment drying up. The SWP's highly visible, recruitment centred, routine brought in a number of recruits simply through being the radical organisation people where most likely to encounter. Its network of groups in the universities were a particular focus and the source of even more of its new members. That routine has been altered and the college groups have gone. The patchy small scale radicalisation of a minority of young people in recent years has provided a few recruits to the Workers Solidarity Movement or Socialist Youth, but not in significant numbers and barely helped the SWP at all. The quietness of the trade union movement, after decades of debilitating partnership has produced few radicals recently. And while the SWP's turn towards elections and community activism has had some benefits in terms of the first glimmerings of a localised election base, it isn't the kind of thing which produces short term recruits and it most certainly is the kind of thing which soaks up the energy of experienced activists. The SWP have lost their old recruitment constituency and have not (yet at least) found a new one.

All this, I suspect, flows from an overblown estimation of the current situation and the current possibilities open to far left activists. The relaunch of the paper, the change in routine, the generalised shift towards "movement" fronts, the desire for broad left election slates, all are justified by and driven by the belief that there is a dawning radicalisation, which only a turn outwards can make the most of. The question is how long this belief can last in the face of the empirical evidence to the contrary.

by Historian Wed Sep 13, 2006 13:06

Picking up on Vasco's last point. In the traditional course of events in far left organisations a long period of organisation decline that accompanies a change in practises along the lines described by Vasco would normally provoke some intense debate and the inevitable split or min exodus.

The SP is a relatively recent case in point. They went far down the road under DC's leadership of remoulding their structures and practises for electoral work and eased up on the intensive party building methods that worked in the 1980s but not so much in the early 90s.

The background of the boom in the late 90s notwithstanding some important industrial battles (nurses and building workers) stall saw some of the momentum built up after the water charges lost and the SP began to pay dearly for the weak level of cadre development.

It is self evident to those of us on the outside (confirmed by later postings on this site from DC) that a debate kicked off initially in their leadership but brought to a head at the time of the bin tax which in part was to do with striking a new balance between electoral/mass work and building a cadre organisation with DC, JC, MG, MMul on one side and KmcL, PH, MB, SB, CD, JH, GM, MO'B, RC, FO'L & MM et al on the other.

The point I'm getting at is that the paring back experienced by the SP in the late ninties and early part of this decade caused a debate and remedial action which from an organisational perspective can be justified insofar that the SP are holding their own in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Belfast, Drogheda & Galway, have their paper and journal, a presence in some unis and a small vibrant youth wing.

Getting back to the SWP they have gone through a decline far more dramatic than the SPs late 90s paring back, have comparatively little to show organisationally or electorally for their mass work and this is coupled with a super optimistic perspective undimmed since the early ninties.

And yet one doesn't get the slightest hint of debate among the still cohesive BS, RBB, KA, KW, MH leadership!

by interested Wed Sep 13, 2006 13:22

I've heard it said often that there is a nasty conflict with the SWP between KA and RBB over electoralism vs cadre work. Do you think this is completely untrue? Why do think they are still so cohesive.

by Historian Wed Sep 13, 2006 13:53

I think both bring different strengths to the SWP. KA is the intellectual ballast and RBB is the enterprising campagin + profile builder. At IAWM national meetings RBB has demonstrated the occasional impatience at KA.

RBB was once quoted as saying that the SWM he joined in 1988 was full of "headers" but that it was KA and MH in particular who initially impressed him. In particular there was one German born member whose name I forget who would routinely ring him him three times a day about party business. She eventually returned to the land of her birth. RBB was sufficiently confident to see a leading role for himself at an early stage of his membership.

RBB went full time around 1993 and while doing a lot of profile work around the revived ANL his main attention was on recrutiment and branch building. DMcF plays that role these days.

I would reckon that KA has been around so long that he cannot but help have an instinctual resistance to the latest wheezes that come from London. RBB however is far more quick to fall into line. What holds them all together is probably a fear that individually none of them have what it takes to plough a lone furrow which is understandable. Leaving aside the US ISO and New Zeland IS which were wholesalely expelled from the IST I think the Austrailian Socialist Alternative is the only example of a minority expulsion/split which went on to prosper and outgrow its former comrades.

Because KA does has not developed his own electoral work it is inevitable by default that he concern himself with cadre development and political education. But as we have discussed both cadre developmet and mass electoral work demand resources and when an organisation is shrinking tensions inevitably ememrge.

Part of the resolution of this conflict may take place with the SWP confining themselves to two candidates in the general election which should free up some resources for them to rebuild. They were after all extremely injudicious in the local elections in terms of the amount of candidates they ran.

by Vasco Wed Sep 13, 2006 15:56

I doubt if standing two candidates as opposed to six or whatever will free up resources. The best that can be said is that the extra burden of running an election campaign will be less. Even then though the question remains of how much the SWP will have to prop up the other People Before Profit Alliance candidates. Perhaps not all that much - they aren't really in a position to help.

The question of a corrective to the groups overblown perspectives arising from within the party is itself an interesting one. There are two points to consider here. Firstly, the slipping away of experienced activists leaves an absence of the kind of people who might realistically be expected to argue their corner. Outside of the immediate leadership group there aren't that many people with a bit of experience and intellectual independence left - there are none too sharp enthusiasts and some tired semi-active people but that's about it. Very inexperienced members are more likely to drift back out again if they don't like what they see, and wouldn't have the clout anyway. McCann might conceivably be a focus for discontent from outside the leadership core, but realistically he just isn't going to take on an organisational leadership role at this stage and anyway there's no evidence that his various squabbles with the Dublin leadership are centred on the state of their perspectives.

Secondly, and this is a linked issue, the SWP is perhaps the least well equipped organisation on the far left to correct itself anyway. There is no real culture of debate and little formal protection for the uppity. If anyone started seriously organising against the current line I wouldn't think that they would be long for the organisation. Problems in implementing the line are more likely to be blamed on the supposedly half-hearted way the members have gone about their turn rather than on the flaws in the line itself. I suspect that the response to failure will be more hysterical exhortation rather than sober reflection.

This is something of a shame by the way. The SWP did, as someone up the thread says, historically have a bit of drive and dynamism to it. It was always unbalanced in its changing enthusiasms but it is only recently that one of its periodic turns has taken over so completely.

by hmmmm Wed Sep 13, 2006 16:12

this thread is absurd. i am not in the swp but I no for a fact that many of the things said in this discussion are 100% false. for instance the state of the branches in the swp, the actuall figgure for membership in belfast(i was around in august) is not 4 but probably around 15/20 active, not huge but certainly much bigger than ur "estimates".
I wonder how ppl like historian come up with these figures when they are blatantly wrong

by Vasco Wed Sep 13, 2006 16:30

People's estimates of the Belfast branch membership are based on the evidence of: (a) observation of a lack of activity and lack of visibility. (b) the opinions of recent ex-members, like Davy Carlin. (c) the disappearance of branches. You say that there are 15/20 active members in Belfast. If so, what rock are they hiding under? There may well be 15/20 people on the notoriously, ahem, optimistic, branch membership lists. There are not 15/20 real, active members or anything close to it.

But anyway hmmm, as someone claiming not to be a member of the SWP but with some close knowledge of that organisation, why don't you give your view on some of the other points raised in what has generally been quite a careful discussion? There have been no rabid denunciations here, no calls for people to expose / marginalise / smash / avoid working with the SWP. This is not the kind of thread filled with sectarian bile which many SWP members quite understandably avoid. If you have something serious to add, please do so. For instance you seem to be of the view that a few of the estimates of branches have been off, but the only one you actually offer a different opinion on is that for Belfast.

(You may note that I suspect that you are a current member of the SWP, trying to appear like a "neutral" observer. I might be wrong, but either way I don't really care. The opinions of current SWP members would be very welcome).

by Vasco Wed Sep 13, 2006 16:38

For instance, hmmm, it would be interesting to hear your views on some of the following questions. Perhaps by giving your more accurate opinions you could illustrate why exactly this thread is "absurd", rather than simply claiming that it is.

Is it, for instance, "absurd" to say that the SWP is visibly significantly smaller that it was a few years ago?
Is it absurd to estimate real active membership at less than 100?
Is it absurd to say that the branches outside Dublin are in a state of near-collapse?
Is it absurd to say that the paper frequency has dropped to monthly?
Or that the circulation is significantly down?
Or that the SWP's views on the nature of the current situation don't tally with the distinct organisational difficulties they have encountered in chasing these supposed opportunities?

by Historian Wed Sep 13, 2006 16:51

i won't dwell on hmmm's contribution other than to say that I actually over estimated the active core of the SWP in Belfast according to a later poster.

Vasco made some points about the lack of options for the SWP to change course. Yet they have been remarkably adept at it over the years at moving from one turn to the next and one campaign to the next.

However the latest turns in Britain and Ireland have had an electoral side to them and the anti establishment component of the electorate at this juncture will only lend its vote to parties be they SF, WP, SP or SWPor left independants if they are seen to stay the course year in and year out on campaigns and issues. The electorate are a harsh judge of those who don't have this staying power.

In Britain RESPECT is not like the ANL or any other campaign. So much is riding on RESPECT that it cannot be discarded. In Ireland the SWP have not yet reached that point with PBPA. However if PBPA does not work out the SWP here will be somewhat out of options in terms of their turn towards alliances.

by webbie Wed Sep 13, 2006 16:54

Has anyone considered the possibility that the decline in Socialist Worker sales is due to people reading it on the net? I was never a regular reader, would buy at an occasional meeting or march but now I do read it regularly - for free, on their website.

by Historian Wed Sep 13, 2006 17:36

I take webbies point but the internet may be a factor in lost sales amongst non SWP lefties but the vast bulk of paid sales come from members/supporters and papers sold on stalls, meetings and demos. Socialist Worker has been on the internet since 1998/99 in any case and the switch in frequency has only occured recently.

Print costs can definitely be a factor and you could argue that it was the decisive factor in the case of SW going monthly if there wasn't all the other evidence of the pushing back of the SWP organisation.

BTW that was somebody else posting a silly remark under the name "historian"

by maybe Wed Sep 13, 2006 19:21

Isn't it true that modernist socialism was defeated by an alliance of pre-modernist Islam and modernist Capitalism? That now the alliance has turned on each other.

Looks to me like a U.S. empire run by fundy protestants with a poor ("bring on the rapture") reading of the Book of Revelation. A billon chinese, a billion catholics and a billion musims as the only constituencies that could offer oppostion.

Modernist socialism was defeated over 15 years ago. Not saying that's a good thing, but that's the present state of play.

by D_D Wed Sep 13, 2006 21:44

'Modernist socialism'. 15 years ago? Would that be stalinism?

Historian mentions that “Another critical source of material on the SWM is a pamphlet produced by the Irish Workers Group in 1991.” That is, critical as in ‘criticism’ not ‘crucial’. The pamphlet is a history and in that is of interest. And as a source of information it may be critical in both senses, given the rarity of other studies. But it views the SWM/P through a very partisan lens. All histories do that, I suppose. Another hatchet job, but also another source of information and pointers, is the Socialist Party’s pamphlet on the SWP published a few years ago. It was on the SP website.

It comes as a surprise to me that the SWP is in a particularly low state at the moment. Historian contrasts this to a recovery by the Socialist Party’s after its return from its outward turn in the 90s. This may or may not be the case in organisational terms, but in the long term the SP jettisoned an opportunity to build on the growth, and the wider influence on the left, that it begun during the turn outwards. This has been compensated for by the role and charisma of JH. In the long term, again, the concentration on building the SP, as SP, and keeping away from the rest of the left as much as possible will confine it to those who are prepared to accept a revolutionary commitment and an SP version of it.

Openness and reaching out should, in theory, strengthen a party, even at the expense of some transient recruits. The People Before Profit Alliance showed at the beginning clear signs of reaching beyond the SWP and beyond what other tendencies could muster. The momentum to that may have slowed now. A factor here would be how the SWP could work with wider forces and if it itself had changed sufficiently, and to what extent it had absorbed the international trend it hails of broad alliances and regroupments. The SP were staying away from any alliance and most of the rest of the left would not join the SWP in an alliance. Still the SWP were on a ‘broad’ trajectory, both here and abroad. At some time events were going to indicate how far or deep this went. The Scottish Socialist Party split, and the position of the SWP in and on that, may be the historical marker that tested it.

A reflective thread like this might lament on the divisiveness on the left, probably worse than it’s been for a while. And it hasn’t stopped yet. Though in certain areas, the libertarian world and the anti-war movement, there seems to be a quiet trend in the opposite direction.

BTW the word is there was in recent times a small low-key alliance of SWP members who were anxious to, loyally, encourage the group in the ‘new left’ and PBPA direction. But there seems to have been overall convergence of strategy.

Some of the problems of SW might be to do with the British party’s sale of its printworks.

by Vasco Thu Sep 14, 2006 16:09

Some interesting points have been raised in the last few posts, not all of them directly to do with the SWP. Webbie points out the possibility that the web edition of Socialist Worker is cutting into the sales of the print edition. This is a reasonable point, although the fact that SW has been available on the web for many years now lessens its importance as a factor. Also I think it doesn't take into account the nature of SW sales. I would guess that there are very few people who the SWP talk to on a street stall or demonstration who have been religiously following the web edition. That's a practice which I suspect is largely confined to ex-members, other lefties and the like.

Historian correctly in my view points out that the SWP have swung this way and that before and that such shifts have never been permanent. I think though that this latest swing is more serious that that. Before while the language, the issue, the approach might have changed, there was always a very real underlying focus on building the party come what may. That was the grounding which allowed the party to move with a degree of agility from next big thing to next big thing, the next big things were to some extent the gloss on the real aim of recruitment and expansion. This turn is not the same.

Critics of the SWP on the left tend towards extreme cynicism about everything to do with the organisation and its works. This cynicism may well be hard earned, but here I think it leads people to underestimate the sincerity with which the SWP mean their new "movementist" turn. That tendency is reinforced by the obviously delusional arguments they make about the nature of the current situation and the possibilities open to socialists. Their most recent report to the International Socialist Tendency Discussion Bulletin is a case in point. It had little or no relationship with reality. So people think they can't possibly think that really. But in fact they can, and for the most part I think they do.

This is the first turn which has involved sacrificing not just short term party building, but the whole routine on which party building has been based. The relentless attention to party profile is gone, replaced by the broad group/fronts. The street stalls are much less common. The college groups have falled apart and crucially they haven't made rebuilding them their first, second and third priority. They may still be very difficult to work with because of a certain arrogance and the bad habits which are part and parcel of their political training. But they are not engaged in some elaborate manouever.

Some previous contributors have mentioned polemical material about the SWP produced by other left groups. I have to disagree with D_D's evaluation of both the Irish Workers Group and Socialist Party pamphlets on the subject. Both I think are very useful as long as you remember where their writers are coming from, although both are seriously out of date. The IWG pamphlet is concerned largely with debates which have been and gone, while the SP one criticises the SWP for sectarianism and its concentration on short term recruitment over anything else. That may nail the SWP of a decade ago, but it simply isn't relevant to today's incarnation.

This brings me on the comments of Historian and D_D on the SP's evolution. I'm not nearly as familiar with the ins and outs of the SP's past as I am with those of the SWP so I may not really be in a position to shed much light. However one thing that strikes me about D_D's post is that he clearly thinks that the SP missed some real opportunity to broaden out and expand its influence. Historian argues, by contrast, that the SP's much earlier "movementist" or "outward" or whatever turn was organisationally unsustainable. This seems to me to be based on a more fundamental difference of assessment between our two commentators. D_D takes an SWP-like view of what is currently or has been recently possible and ascribes some kind of positive transformative effect to the process of broadening out in itself. Historian is less explicit but seems to be of the view that the SP were throwing themselves into trying to win an audience which just wasn't there and were burning up (mostly human) resources in the attempt, just as the SWP are doing today.

Now without taking a side on the SP argument from some years back, I think it's fair to say that Historian is closer to the mark on the SWP (and other) broad efforts of today. Resources have been poured in, to so far little or no effect. The SWP is unable to replace its experienced activists as they drift away, because it has given up its recruitment flow. Far from showing some enormous potential, I think the PBPA shows just how far from their own supposed politics the SWP have had to move to gain a very limited (thus far) additional audience.

by Risteard the not very bright Fri Sep 15, 2006 21:46

I think it is likely that at least a solid core of SWP activists will stay together. I can't see RBB, KA, BS etc just giving up. Left groups can plug along practically forever in a less and less relevant state. The question is what happens to the members who are falling away? Are they just dropping out of politics or is there any chance of them sticking around left campaigns?

by No Longer Born Again! Sat Sep 16, 2006 09:41

I would like to see a socioogical study of former SWP members of th lowest rung in the party in relation to.... did they stay active on the left once they left the SWP?

The dynamics of the group remind me of a small pentecostal church I was part of when I was a teenager. Mixing socially only in the "circle of certainty", kept overactive with church commitments that one could not stray socially or intellectualy, any intellectual selfdoubt dismissed as "selling out", bourgeoise or being tempted by satan, an apocalyptic sense that the revolution or rapture is just around the corner (all it requires is one more big push, mass rally etc.), emphasis on recruitment in most interactions, lack of affirmation for chosen paths outside the remit of the church or party.

I imagine a lot of SWP recruited cannonfodder/paper sellers end their time feeling exploited and exhausted generally with left politics (as I did with christianity).

I don't know, but would be curious. There might be a masters thesis in there for someone? I know David Rovics has a song entitled "Vanguard" and a counterbalance "I'm a Better Anarchist Than You!"

by Confused Sun Sep 17, 2006 01:25

From WSM (SWP) website: Is there any difference???

As with any organisation, if the WSM (SWP) is to survive it must expand.

Recruiting new members involves a couple of stages:
(i) building a list of contacts
(ii) encouraging contacts to distribute Workers Solidarity, donate money towards its publication and attend meetings
(iii) encouraging WS (SWP) distributors to become members of the WSM

An effort will be made at all WSM (SWP) activities to talk to new people and ask them to provide us with a method of contacting them in the future.

A major purpose of all free publications will be to get people to get in contact with us, they will carry prominent 'ads' or articles asking people to do this.

New contacts will be asked as soon as possible if they will take some of our free publications to distribute to people they know or at events they attend.

After a couple of weeks we will contact them again to see if they are interested in distributing free publications on a regular basis. If so it will be suggested they commit themselves to making a regular donation towards the costs of the publications.

Distributors becoming members.
Any contacts who commit to regularly distributing our free publications will be asked to consider joining the organisation.

The previous section should not be read as requiring a long drawn out process. It would be quite possible that at some event a new contact would be made who would immediately commit to regularly distribute publications.

by Joe Black - WSM - personal capacity Sun Sep 17, 2006 12:37

That's a bit out of date confused - we are even more recruitment orientated these days, see http://www.wsm.ie/join

Mind you I'm not sure if politics can usefully be divided into organisations that want people to join and those that do not - I'd advice you to dig a little deeper.

Interesting thread - to stay on topic I'd wonder what people make of the SWP's alientation of two succesive sets of independents they put into the IAWM leadership. This seems at odds with the new turn, is it just down to bad implementation? In that case perhaps the decline is not simply down to an over optomistic reading of the objective conditions?

by Confused Sun Sep 17, 2006 13:18

Joe Black you make some minor remarks about WSM and recruitment and cleverly try to side step the issue by moving on to slagging the swm'ers again with some crap about the iawm.

This doesnt answer the confusion about WSM and recruitment. Reading the policy of wsm on recruitment it reads just like the dreaded swp. Get contact numbers, get them to distribute the paper and asap get to them to join. I've read on this site that thats what the swp do and they are a shower of bastards for going after people to join. How are wsm any different?

by Anarchist Sun Sep 17, 2006 13:48

Well they give away their propoganda paper rather than sell it.
Takes their membership out of obsessive marketing and the undercurrent interaction with any other left activist with a pitch to buy the paper. Eases up the tension between members and others.

WSM like SWP campaign surf as their emphasis is "spreading libertarian/anarchist ideas" whereever conflict/opportunity should break out bin tax-war-rossport etc. They could be accused on maintaing a focus once these issues (eg. Irish involvement in the war on Iraq/Afghanistan loses its sex appeal, mainstream media coverage etc. SWP priorities are set frmo London Central or the Irish mainstream media. SWP believe every struggle needs thier particular revolutionary leadership

WSM probably relate to other non members who claim to operate in the anarchist tradition in Dublin.(through the Anti Authoritarian Assembly meetings etc) more than SWP relate to those claiming to operating in the socialist traditions and the Republican groups relate to others cliaiming to be operating from their tradition.

The WSM play a role of intelectuals in the anarchist movement in Dublin. Their membership do a myriad of grassoots work...obviously helping to maintain this site on which we are having this discussion for one.

by wsm/swp Sun Sep 17, 2006 19:05

"they give away their propoganda paper rather than sell it.
Takes their membership out of obsessive marketing"
Yet their policy reads just like the swp shower with the paper being the tool with which to recruit. So you could say that whether wsm sell it or give it away there is similar emphasis.

Dont understand this remark though-
"WSM like SWP campaign surf as their emphasis is "spreading libertarian/anarchist ideas" whereever..."

Makes no sense.

by Anarchist Sun Sep 17, 2006 19:38

Genearlly WSM don't have a disposable recruit section. Their recruitment is usually of a higher quality.
I do't think they have a big mphais on recruitment, More likely to work on a basis of mutuality fron the general anarchist scene. could be wrong but that's my observation.

Campaign surfing, moving where the mainstream media shines the spotlight or where you think people are confronting authority and they might be open to libertarian ideas. Leaves the issue you just abandoned (the war that didn't stop) bereft of engagment. It's a reactionary style.

by James R - WSM (pers cap) Sun Sep 17, 2006 19:42

Reading the policy of wsm on recruitment it reads just like the dreaded swp.

The WSM is a political organisaiton that wants to get its ideas out there, we need people to participate in this. We need people to join the organisation in order for its work to grow and continue. Whats wrong with saying that? If you want to know the difference between the SWP and WSM, then speaking as someone who spent a year in the SWP and then later joined the WSM I can tell you that there is a universe of difference in the internal cultures. So what that we give out a paper, have a democratic structure and want to recruit people? You really have an awful obsession with Trotskyism if you think there is something wrong with recruitment. I mean local GAA clubs often recruit people, does that somehow make them the same as the SWP?

by Vasco Sun Sep 17, 2006 20:55

The WSM/recruitment thing is a red herring. Any organisation which is remotely serious about its politics (or whatever else it does) seeks to recruit. If anything I would argue that the WSM put too low an emphasis on recruitment as their all time membership of a couple of dozen or so suggests. Such stuff is best ignored rather than allowed to derail the thread

Joe asks Interesting thread - to stay on topic I'd wonder what people make of the SWP's alientation of two succesive sets of independents they put into the IAWM leadership. This seems at odds with the new turn, is it just down to bad implementation? In that case perhaps the decline is not simply down to an over optomistic reading of the objective conditions?

I'm not too sure of the chronology here but I think that there are a few different things to take into account here. The first is that while the SWP were certainly well into the "movementist" swing, the big falling out in the IAWM predated the really intense turn towards things like the PBPA. They still have some of their old sectarian habits, the ones which make them so hard to work with, now. Those remnants were more pronounced then.

The second is that we really aren't talking about all that many people. The whole AWI milieu, hard working though many of the people are, is still very small. Even if the SWP had managed to keep working with them it would have made little difference to the state of the anti-war movement. If we look at this as a case of "bad implementation" rather than a cunning scheme (and it certainly wasn't very cunning), then I don't think the "bad implementation" had much effect on the outcome. The anti-war movement would still, in my view anyway, have fallen apart even if the SWP and those who went on to from AWI had stuck together.

The third is that the SWP really did see their dispute with the independent grouping as an opposition to a "sectarian" or "elitist" vision for the anti-war movement. The SWP argued for mass movement building as opposed to a greater concentration on the need for everyone to "resist" and then for the movement to mobilise in support of the resisters*. This was seen by their opponents as a cynical attempt to maintain control (which there would have been some element of) and as a way of maintaining an audience for papers sales and recruitment at the expense of doing something effective (which was paranoid nonsense, admittedly rooted in the SWP's hard-earned reputation).

In fact, the SWP really did think that there was immediate potential for a massive anti-war movement to be built, that people would flood into the IAWM structures if only the anti-war movement was as politically unthreatening to newcomers as possible. This was itself part of their totally unreal estimation of the objective situation. In the wake of the giant anti-war march, when the IAWM was having difficulty sustaining its local groups, the SWP was arguing that each local group should be subdivided, not merely in half, but into much smaller fractions to reach out to the new audience in ever smaller localities. The point is that the SWP primarily fell out with these people because they saw the ideas of the small group of independents as an obstacle to the imagined big time around the corner.

*Before anyone comes on to correct me and tell me that this isn't what those people thought then or what AWI thinks now, please don't bother. It's irrelevant to the point either way, what matters for our purposes is what the SWP thought their arguments amounted to.

by AWI member Mon Sep 18, 2006 00:57

What you've written is a cartoon version of what the non-SWP element in the IAWM stood for. To begin with, those who are now in AWI were also believers in mass activity; they just didn't buy the SWP's obsession with marches in Dublin, lack of interest in Shannon and complete lack of solidarity with those arrested for direct actions at Shannon. The SWP, in its studied moderation, was a one-trick pony within the IAWM with regard to tactics and strategy. They had zero interest in engaging with other perspectives and no respect for diversity of tactics and opinion.

The IAWM was never a mass movement in the way that the SWP seemed to believe it was. This unrealistic perspective was a huge hinderance to building a genuinely grassroots anti-war movement that could last the pace and take real initiatives. The SWP was more interested in short-term media coverage and giving the impression to the press that they stood in the van of a huge movement. It was an illusion, but they never wanted to hear this. It was a hollow vessel. To be blunt, their lack of perspective was a pain in the arse.

As you point out, Anti-War Ireland, like the IAWM, is a small organisation. However, we are grounded and have no illusions about ourselves. Our objective is to build a branch-based organisation across the country that will be in a position to take serious initiatives. A case of building slowly but surely.

by D_D Mon Sep 18, 2006 01:53

On re-reading my post above my evaluation of the IWG and SP pamphlets on the SWM/P do not seem greatly different from Vasco’s.

Yes, I do ascribe "some kind of positive transformative effect to the process of broadening out in itself”. It is of value in itself, and does not always depend on particular phases in the wider world. (I’d be as anxious as Vasco and Historian to stay away from exaggerated claims of new radicalisations – or imminent catastrophes). It is rather the old matter of the relationship, in general, of the organisation/party to the class.

The objective is not to have a big and sleek organisation but to have a working class as organised and conscious as possible. A political organisation or party is part of that. But the whole point is to make a real connection with, to have a real presence in, the lives and struggles of ordinary people at work, in their neighbourhoods and on the issues that concern and interest them. This does not mean just having a large political machine that turns up at a strike or a local rally with 200 placards to distribute. It means that there is already an organic connection between these people and organised socialists. Part of attaining this is the ability to work with other POLITICAL people in the movement who differ on aspects of ideas and strategies.

The recent and welcome REDISCOVERY of pluralistic and unitary ways of organising on the international left is NOT JUST an adaptation to the anti-capitalist/war movement. It is the open, realistic and democratic way socialists should organise. The – once, and maybe again, relevant – exclusive, stand alone organisation committed to a particular detailed programme or current – is outmoded, and has been since perhaps the end of the Second World War.

The WSM discovered a way of operating in the 80s and 90s that could relate to and involve people who were not in the group or even libertarians. They did this politically (accessible publications, open meetings, tended contact lists, genuinely joint activity) and socially (social events AND you could have a pint with them without being attacked, harangued or sarged). They combined the most human operation with the most professional, as you’ll see if you go into their website and the matchless companion ‘revolt’ suite.

Latterly there has been an understandable self-definition and self-containment of the libertarian area of the left along with its new growth. The WSM has tended to look in towards that. Conversely, independent non-libertarians have found new areas of activity, and elections have assumed a new importance for them.

The WSM recruitment ‘manual’ quoted-from above by Confused (who really should call him/herself ‘Clever Clever’ rather than Confused) is not so much an embarrassment to the WSM – recruiters too! – as an illustration of how (a) organisation is necessary. And of how (b) the behaviour and methods of ‘Leninist’ organisations have led to the development by default of an alternative ‘leninism’: socialist organisations (or small groups at present) that attempt to be democratic and in touch and ORGANISED at the same time. SO organised, actually, that they recruit and develop a set of instructions for how to recruit.

I’m reminded of KA’s very interesting demonstration of the similarity between the constitution of the WSM and that of the SWP. This is correct – on the surface at least. Joe Black is also correct to say: “Mind you I'm not sure if politics can usefully be divided into organisations that want people to join and those that do not - I'd advice you to dig a little deeper”. Recruiting is not the only SURFACE ATTRIBUTE that hides deeper differences on the left between various currents and groupings, and, on the other hand – I want to suggest – hides essential convergences between other sets of (sometimes unacknowledged) currents and groupings

We have reached a stage in which subjective definitions and distinctions, like leninism/anarchism, workers’ party/libertarian organisation, state capitalist/orthodox trotskyist, marxist/anti-authoritarian, though they continue to have distant and long-term importance, are LESS important. Less important than a developing redivision and regroupment on the international left between those – cutting horizontally across the vertical ideological and programmatic spectrum of the left – who want to or can relate to the movements of ordinary working and oppressed people and those who cannot. Objective indications of this real fault line might be the respective roles of the left groupings in the SSP split, or, alternatively, the respective positions of those who allow for mass demonstrations and the use of the electoral platform versus those who exclusively concentrate on direct action and exclude any electoral involvement; or, alternatively, the line between those who cannot stomach coalition or social partnership and those who want to be ‘at the table’ to ‘get things done’.

This underlying gulf is that crossed by those who leave Blairs's Labour Party for something new. But it was also that crossed by Connolly when he left the SLP for the Socialist Party of America.

Put another way, some ‘anarchists’, ‘marxists’, ‘left social democrats’, ‘revolutionaries’ might be as near to each other, essentially, as they are far away from other self-designated ‘anarchists’, ‘marxists’ and ‘revolutionaries’. This is not to say that secondary political and theoretical differences, even within the context of a shared basic approach, are not important in the long run. They are. But we’ve a long run ahead.

And, hey! Let’s keep them from plunging this thread into another boring inter-juvenile pie-throwing battle.

by Anthony Blair Mon Sep 18, 2006 10:45

The last post raised an interesting point about the consitutions of the SWP and the WSM being very similar. Whether they are or not, I don't know, because I am too old to remember, or else haven't seen them, but it reminds me of a theory that I have been working on for a number of months.

I used to be on the left, but since 9/11 I have became far more conservative. I use the indeymedia website to test my new conservative views with my old radical left ones.

When I was left wing I used to think that the WSM and the SWP were significantly different, in fact could not be more further from each other in politics.

Now that I am conservative, I have been struck by how similar they are in almost everything.

I have been working on a theory that it is not politics that separates them but rather it is personalities.

SWP members tend to be agressive and assertive. WSM members tend to be passive and conciliatory.

You will see WSM people saying things like "maybe I did not make it clear enough", or "maybe you misunderstood", or "your view is x, y, z, and it is partially reasonable, but I differ on this fiddly little point here".

SWP members are more likely to say "you are wrong", "that view is stupid", "SWP took the right line because..".

My theory is reinforced by the reaction that members of left wing parties outside the SWP and WSM have towards them.

Hard lefties tend to like the WSM even if they do not agree with them. This is consistent with the theory that they are passive and conciliatory (ie non threatening to other left wing parties). SWP members are more likely to not be liked by non SWP members. This is because they are agressive and assertive, and are therefore threatening to other left wing parties.

Anyway, this is all pretty heavy stuff. It must be very upsetting to people who have worked long and hard trying to prove that they are different from each other. I'll sign off for now.