Following on from my mention of Bill Casey recently, I stumbled across the following obituary on the net, from an old issue of the Western Socialist, for Alex Shepherd, a member of the Socialist Party of Canada.
Why post the link? Well, apart from the obvious of wanting some of the old comrades who done their bit to be remembered, it is also pleasing to read the following:
"Alex was also active in the trade union movement and was a member of the machinists’ Local that triggered the Winnipeg general strike. He became a member of the strike committee, whose authority started and stopped activity in the area, earning for themselves the hatred of those whose exclusive right to issue orders had been for the moment usurped."
It really sticks in the craw to hear or read the caricature of impossibilists not involving themselves in the class struggle. Especially when such bullshit comes from hacks whose idea of involving themselves in the class struggle is carrying a placard, a petition and far too many platitudes.
3 comments:
Nice link to the Impossiblists, Darren, like I don't have enough to read!
Bullshit, indeed.
Antagonise away you argumentative git ;-)
Naturally, I've got to disagree abit with you here. Perhaps I should have been more clear in my wee post, but what sticks in the craw is the caricature of the SPGBers not just "privilig{ing} political action/propaganda over economic struggle", but in some way actively avoiding class struggle in the workplace. It's that myth of the SPGBer going along to a picket line - or being in a workplace, where he or she works, which is considering industrial action - and dramatically standing up and announcing: 'This action is pointless. What we must do is abolish the wages system - preferably before next tea break.'
In some of the more lurid versions I've heard or read from members of some sections of the left, it's the case that SPGBers will cross picket lines, oppose strike action and/or collaborate with bosses, like some half-baked version of that final scene in Orwell's Animal Farm.
Where I will agree with you - and you know I've said this for a number of years - is that the Party doesn't do nearly enough in making ourselves better known in the industrial field (though this isn't always the case in what is a long history of impossibilism), whether it is where there is a lack of campaign literature being produced that directly relates to workplace activity, or where members in certain industries don't try and network together, and relate our socialist principles into day to day trade union activity.
I think we missed a golden opportunity in not making enough noise about the misuse of political fund in trade unions - with specific reference to union members paying money into the Labour Party coffers without a second thought - where we could have been well placed in making better known our position to active class conscious workers.
Also, from my time in the AWL, I think there is something to be said for workplace bulletins being produced where there are a number of socialists in an industry, sector or workplace. (And I don't want to give the impression here that I'm suggesting that such an activity would be under the direct control of the Socialist Party.)
I do know the main arguments for why the Party has in the past eschewed such group activity by its members: the recognition that union activity - however militant - doesn't necessarily in itself translate into socialist consciousness; a rejection of the adventurism of the left that thinks that - adopts strong Northern accent - struggle, any struggle will somehow miraculously transform those participants into Socialist Standard subscribers; and avoiding in taking on a substitionist position where in periods of low levels of union activity and minimal participation in trade union affairs by the overwhelming majority of union members, it results in a scenario where any gobby git who has something to say for him or herself in the workplace is automatically catapulted into a positon of shop steward or convenor etc, etc. The left groups have been kidding themselves on for years that when one of their members has been elected a shop steward at an {inquorate} branch meeting, that this somehow is a concrete example of their programme being endorsed by the workers who voted for their candidate.
You know as well as I that the majority viewpoint within the Party is that sometime in the future we will reach some critical mass of socialists on the ground which will naturally impact and transform the activity of workers in the workplace and the community, etc. I'm in a minority position within the Party in that I think there are things we can do in the here and now - which it is accepted socialists will be doing when we reach that 'critical mass' - that I think can in some way contribute to us moving towards that critical mass.
A few years back, as a member of Central London Branch, that was one of the things that we touched upon in an item for discussion we submitted to an Autumn Delegate Meeting. Dave, being Dave, came up with the title for the item for discussion - which I half remember as being entitled: Trade Unions, Class Struggle and the Revolutionary Process, and I wrote the supporting statement.
We got a critical mauling from the delegates from Glasgow Branch, and I remember spitting nails during the discussion 'cos of the slating we got from some quarters. I think I was just keeping bad company at the time. ;-)
Hi Stuart,
Yeah I agree you have a point in reference to how 'myths' are created and sustained, and how there is sometimes something there contributing to what I would still maintain is a caricature of the Party's mainstream position on such matters.
I remember reading a thirty year old review of Barltrop's, the Monument - written by Margaret Cole - in a journal, whose title temporarily escapes me at the moment, where she cites her dismissal/hostility to the SPGB stemming from an encounter with an SPGBer back in the early twenties, where he or she dismissed the notion of working class organising for something other than socialism!
Which, unfortunately, sort of torpedoes my theory that part of the reason why some members of the SPGB are indifferent to action in the economic field was because of their experience of the corporatism of the trade union movement - and its fall out - in the post-war period in Britain. Reading that someone back in the early twenties was peddling the nonesense about workers putting to one side trade union struggle in favour of working for the political action of socialism, as if they are mutually exclusive, sort of queers that :-(
On the issue of gobby shop stewards, I wasn't necessarily referring to lefty shop stewards. My working experience of shop stewards - in the T & G - is that in the main they were apolitical gobby types. Some were excellent, some just liked the sound of their own voices and the miniscule perks that came with the job, and some acted as if they came from the fevered imagination of a Left Communist. ;-)
Best
- Darren
PS - Cliff was all things to all people. And I know from a few anecdotes - one that you mention - that he knew the ridiculousness of small groups claiming mass support, but he still indulged in that sort of politics of self-delusion most of his activist life.
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