Congratulations Comrades:
I sent out the longer post below when Comrade
Sawant got her good vote in the primary earlier this year. I am sending it
again as I think it remains relevant. I think major factors in the
victories, in Seattle and Minneapolis, (Minneapolis was a victory also even
though the seat was not won) as well as the great work of the Comrades and all
concerned, were the program and the mood. The $15.00 minimum wage is
something some of us have been pushing for years even in my own case advocating
setting up $15.00 an hour wage committees. Then there has been the economic
crash and the rise of the 1%/99% consciousness. And also of course, the CWI
Comrades are both very good candidates. Along with and this crucially, the
Socialist Alternative and the Committee for a Workers International of which it
is part has maintained its orientation to the working class and not been
misdirected into an orientation to the left petit bourgeois and academia.
There are great opportunities. However we have to remember
the old saying: Foresight over astonishment. By that I mean we have to
see that there are also dangers that could lie ahead and we have to have
the foresight to see these. I raise these in the short post below. After that I
send my longer post which I sent earlier this year. See first my short post below
about the CWI and working with others.
Dear Comrades,
We are very excited about your great results.
Congratulations. Myself and other Comrades around this blog and Facts
For Working People will help in every way we can with any future tour of
the Comrades.
We hope that the Comrades campaign for 200 candidates
goes well. Even half of that would be great. However whatever number of
candidates could be put forward some important questions arise.
In the past the CWI has not managed to work very
successfully with other groups. In Ireland it just pulled out of the United
Left Alliance which originally had 5 left socialists elected to
parliament. The CWI will have to look at what happened in Ireland and to how it
works with others or there could quickly develop problems in the effort to
get a broad slate of socialist candidates throughout the country.
I would see a campaign for 200 or however many
candidates as a united front campaign. It would have a program and
approach and method of struggle as in Seattle and within
this different forces would be allowed to exist and have their own views
as long as they supported the program and method of the united front. And
did so openly. All such groups would also have to commit themselves not to
put their own sectarian interests above those of the movement that was being
built. If this approach is not taken then the great
achievements of Seattle and Minneapolis can be damaged. In the meantime please
accept my congratulations again.
Sean O' Torrain
The article below was written after the very good
vote Comrade Sawant got in the primary election earlier this year.
Seattle election reflections. Written after the very good
vote in the primary election.
By John Throne (Sean)
We had a piece on this blog yesterday congratulating Kshama Sawant on her campaign for Seattle City Council. Kshama is a member of Socialist Alternative, the US section of the Committee for a Workers’ International. I am a former member of the CWI spending 25 years of my life as a full timer for that organization. I first met the group in Northern Ireland in the early 1970’s.
We had a piece on this blog yesterday congratulating Kshama Sawant on her campaign for Seattle City Council. Kshama is a member of Socialist Alternative, the US section of the Committee for a Workers’ International. I am a former member of the CWI spending 25 years of my life as a full timer for that organization. I first met the group in Northern Ireland in the early 1970’s.
Myself and some other socialists, some who left the CWI and
other groups voluntarily and others like me who were expelled or driven out,
have drawn the conclusion that the failure of the left to build a serious
revolutionary or left current within the working class is not entirely due to
the objective conditions or false perspectives. I have come to the conclusion
that the internal life of left/socialist groups (including the CWI of which I
was a member) is seriously flawed. The leadership’s of these groups
adamantly refuse to discuss in any serious way the internal life of these
organizations, the mistakes we made, and how we came to this point and how we
can correct the situation. And I know we made very serious errors.
I unconditionally supported and support the campaign of
Kshama Sawant in Seattle despite my refusal to keep quiet about what I
consider to be the incorrect internal life and the left sectarianism of
the CWI, the organization to which she belongs.
I would also say that I have always said that I consider
this incorrect internal life and left sectarianism applies to all the
revolutionary left groups. I have had more emphasis on the CWI because that is
the organization with which I have had the greatest experience and also because
it was arguably the most successful of the revolutionary left groups for a
period. It led the poll Tax struggle that was instrumental in bringing down
Thatcher. It was the main force in the Liverpool City council struggle. It had
a number of people elected in the Scottish and the English and Irish
and European parliaments. Of the revolutionary left groups it has been amongst
the most successful if not the most successful. But we need to have a balance.
I am presently writing a book on my political evolution. I
discussed with most of the sizeable left groups after being involved in the
Derry uprising in 1969. I joined the Militant, the British section of the CWI
and was its first member in Southern Ireland and its first full timer in
Ireland as a whole. We started out with about 6 or 7 members in 1970 and
when I left Ireland to work internationally we had about 400.
I did not join the CWI by accident. I joined it for its good
points. It had a generally correct worldview for the three decades following
World War 2. This was crucial. However, in the course of events, it became
apparent to me that this worldview, that is the view that capitalism was in
crisis and was headed for a cataclysmic crisis and along with this, Stalinism
was in turmoil and also headed for a major crisis amounting to a race between
the political revolution in the East and the socialist revolution in the West,
was not correct.
This is to put it mildly. It is also necessary for me to say
and to emphasize that I share responsibility for the CWI developing this
incorrect worldview and more responsibility than most other members as I was on
the leading bodies of this organization.
The CWI argued that capitalism could not be returned to the
Stalinist world as capitalism itself was in such an extreme crisis.
Our argument was that the workers in the Stalinist world would rise up and
establish democratic socialist societies and if the workers in the capitalist
world had not already established democratic socialist societies these
political revolutions in the East would spread the revolution to the West. In
the 1980's we spoke of 5 to 10 years to the world socialist revolution.
We were very, very wrong with this perspective. This major
mistake in perspectives hit the CWI like a wrecking ball. And this is where the
incorrect internal life came in. There had always been an incorrect internal
life in the CWI. It was, as all left groups are, too top down with an
aversion to genuine probing and internal debate and a ferocious opposition
to factions. The internal life of the CWI was a break from the methods of
the Bolsheviks in their healthy period where debate and factional struggle was
the norm and setting up a faction was no crime against the revolutionary party.
Trotsky wrote in 1935: “During the 17 years when Bolshevism arose, grew and
gained strength and came to power factions were a legitimate part of Party
life.” Trotsky talks about there even being factions inside factions in
the Bolshevik Party. Engels wrote that internal conflict was the law of
development of the revolutionary party. There were always factions and even
factions within factions.
The internal life of the CWI was also a break with the
norm of the Bolsheviks in their healthy period when all debate was public and
available for all those interested to read. Some comrades have asked me where I
was when this incorrect internal life was the norm and the comrades are
entirely correct and justified in asking this question.
I made a major mistake over this period. The perspectives
were being confirmed by events. The CWI was going from strength to strength.
Issues such as internal life and left sectarianism did not seem to be problems.
It was just a question of organizing and building on the existing ideas. But
then the world changed. Capitalism was restored in the former Soviet Union, a
development we categorically denied could happen. This development in the old
Soviet Union, the rise of new technology and the boom that accompanied it in the
west and the assault on the working class worldwide gave capitalism a new burst
of energy.
Of course, capitalism remains in a major crisis and will
enter a new economic crisis soon, and without doubt the crisis of climate
change threatens life on the planet as we know it but for a while it appeared
that capitalism had triumphed. The Wall Street Journal gloated in its editorial
heading when Stalinism collapsed: "We Won." Boasting
that finally, the critics had come to realize how the “world really works.”
These mistaken perspectives we held in the CWI need not
necessarily have had such a devastating affect on the group, major splits and a
collapse in membership from around 14,000 to about 2,000, if the internal life
had not been so unhealthy. This internal life was not accustomed to internal
struggle and debate. What was needed was for the organization to be thrown open
to the most democratic and public debate on the major mistakes made and why
these had been made. Unfortunately the majority of the top leadership of the
CWI did not take this road. They maintained the extremely damaging view that
they had never made any mistakes or it was the other faction that had made the
mistakes, by that time there were two major factions, both of which wanted
to split to set up their own organization.
So the most undemocratic practices developed with full
power. The leadership and its supporters waged a war against any member or
members that threatened their positions. Dirty maneuvers, slander and all sorts
of personal attacks and lies were hurled against anyone who disagreed with them
including expulsions and in the midst of this debacle the majority of the
membership walked away. The incorrect internal life prevented the CWI
membership from correcting the ideas and developing a new perspective and this
was for amongst other reasons because the majority of the top leadership
would not admit to making any mistakes, they saw themselves as
teachers of the organization as opposed to being in a democratic interaction
with the membership.
Some of us began to see this for what it was. We set up a
faction in North America. Every lie that the top leadership of the CWI could
think up was thrown at us and we were expelled and denied our right to
appeal. The idea that the majority of the top leadership had made major
mistakes, that we all had major mistakes had to be squelched at all costs.
But having said all this why did those of us like myself and
Richard Mellor who also writes for this blog and was a CWI member and well known
activist in the trade union movement join the CWI and not some other
group? We did so because of its good qualities. Firstly, the CWI held correct
perspectives up until the 1970's. But also, and of extreme importance, is its
orientation to the working class. That is its belief that only the working
class could change society and it’s basing itself concretely on this position.
Most left groups do not have an orientation to the working class. They have an
orientation to the left petit bourgeois or the left liberal wing of the trade
union bureaucracy. The CWI has never made this mistake. More than anything else
this is why many others and myself joined the CWI. I am very pleased to see
from afar that it looks as if the CWI has maintained this orientation. I see on
the website the posters in Seattle with the emphasis on the $15.00 and hour
minimum wage. I see in Minneapolis the emphasis also on this and as
well on stopping an eviction. This is good.
I also see that when struggles develop such as the Bart and
transit situation in the Bay Area that comrades such as Richard and myself
maintain our orientation to the working class as a class and refuse to be
silenced or to silence ourselves in the interests of some sort of alliance with
the left groups and the left liberal bureaucracy. The orientation to the
working class also helps maintain a successful struggle against ultra leftism,
both in demands and methods of struggle.
For us the main issue therefore is the need to maintain an
orientation to the working class. This means starting from the needs of and the
consciousness of the working class and developing a program and demands based
on taking this consciousness forward. The CWI is superior in this area. That is
why people like myself joined it. In the past we did not capitulate to the idea
that the students could change the world, we did not capitulate to the idea
that the Provisional IRA and their methods could solve any of the problems in
Ireland, we maintained our orientation to and belief in the working class. And
we still do. This is and as far as I can see remains the great advantage of the
CWI over other groups.
However and of course there is a however, and not only with
regards to the internal life. By the way, on the issue of internal life, this
is not irrelevant to the new members the CWI is getting, and the success of
winning its new MP in Germany. The CWI just lost its two women MP's in
Ireland. I wonder has this new woman MP in Germany met and discussed with the
two former women CWI MP's in Ireland. But this issue of internal life will come
up the more the CWI grows and it will have to deal with it and explain what
happened to its new members such as its candidates in Seattle and Minneapolis
and other areas. This will create serious problems.
The more the CWI grows the more different views will develop and the more the rigid incorrect internal life will come into conflict with this growth. The more splits and expulsions will take place unless the internal life is changed. This is why I think I am doing more to help the CWI in the long term than those members of the CWI who refuse to take up this issue of internal life. Members of the CWI who are conscientiously looking to the interests of that group should be fighting to change the internal life of that group.
The more the CWI grows the more different views will develop and the more the rigid incorrect internal life will come into conflict with this growth. The more splits and expulsions will take place unless the internal life is changed. This is why I think I am doing more to help the CWI in the long term than those members of the CWI who refuse to take up this issue of internal life. Members of the CWI who are conscientiously looking to the interests of that group should be fighting to change the internal life of that group.
There is the issue of a balanced and collective leadership.
It is very good that the candidate in Seattle is a woman Comrade. It is very
good that the new MP in Germany is a woman Comrade. But why have the most
well-known and leading women MP Comrades in Ireland, Joan Collins and
Clare Daly, former members of the CWI, not been able to stay in the CWI? I
believe there is a problem of insufficient attention being paid to the need to
struggle against the special oppression of women in the CWI. Half the world's
factory workers today are women. This is an issue that will not go away.
Then there is the issue of collective leadership. It is
still, particularly in the older sections of the CWI the one-man band, (almost
always a man) leadership. The leader of the CWI, Peter Taaffe has been in
that position for 50 years. This is common with most of the left groups, a
dominant male figure for decades. Comrades, it is not a healthy thing for
any political organization to have the same and only one leader for 50
years, it reflects an unhealthy internal life and this will not go away,
especially in this new era of the new technology and social media.
And to the issue of left sectarianism. I get the impression
that the work in Seattle and Minneapolis of the CWI there is moving away from
the worst of the left sectarian attitudes in other sections. This is very
welcome. But maybe there is some way still to go. We have contacted them and
offered them our help on a number of occasions but we have never received an
answer. But in both cities where they have candidates they do seem to be
prepared to work in more of a united front way to get their people elected and
to build a united front of struggle. If this is the case this is a very good
and important development. I hope it continues and spreads to other
areas.
However and back to another however. In Ireland the United
Left Alliance was set up with either five or six members of parliament. It was
a united front with some resources which gave hope to many tens of thousands of
workers given the terrible betrayal of social democracy there. There were
different groups which set up this alliance. A small local based group was the
first to break this alliance and walk out. The second was the CWI section,
that is Socialist Alternative's sister organization. It too, with its members
of parliament walked out of the ULA, leaving it close to a broken weapon of
struggle and leaving the tens of thousands of workers who had begun to look
towards it very disillusioned. This was a left sectarian action and very
damaging to the movement.
So while there does seem to be a movement away from left sectarianism in Seattle and Minneapolis this does not seem to be the case in other sections. I hope I am wrong. For example in Europe now the CWI has three members of various parliaments, there are two ex members of the CWI in the Irish parliament, there are other left MP's in Europe. A non left-sectarian approach would be to try and bring these forces together in a united front of struggle around concrete demands and in mass direct action struggles.
So while there does seem to be a movement away from left sectarianism in Seattle and Minneapolis this does not seem to be the case in other sections. I hope I am wrong. For example in Europe now the CWI has three members of various parliaments, there are two ex members of the CWI in the Irish parliament, there are other left MP's in Europe. A non left-sectarian approach would be to try and bring these forces together in a united front of struggle around concrete demands and in mass direct action struggles.
So these are some thoughts on the CWI and where it
seems to be at now. I have much more in common with the CWI than other left
groups due to its orientation to the working class and its struggle to
have a dialogue with the working class and how this helps it struggle against
ultra leftism and its belief that it is only the working class that can change
society.
As I have said before I would be prepared to rejoin the CWI
but on a number of conditions: that free and open and public discussion would
be allowed without slander and lies and expulsions and the denial of democratic
rights. That it would be openly accepted that these false methods were used in
the past, and that myself and any member would be able to state their views and
that it was accepted that factions were a normal part of the building of a
revolutionary organization. And also that member who have been expelled
would be reconsidered for readmission by a democraticly elected body of the
organization.
The CWI and the left groups in general were never like the
Bolsheviks in their healthy period. This will have to change if the
revolutionary left are to become mass organizations. The larger they get the
more pressure will arise for discussion and debate and unless the internal
lives of these organizations can allow and facilitate this, then they will
shatter once again into splinters or remain becalmed at best in stagnant pools.
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