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Weekly Worker 617 Thursday March 23 2006
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Diehard donor
An extra £45 was raised in addition from donations handed to Weekly Worker sellers on the March 18 Stop the War Coalition demonstration. Despite the hype from some of the platform speakers in Trafalgar Square, numbers were down again and so those contributions, combined with a reasonable healthy paper sale, were not too bad. Our total for March stand at £486. That leaves us with £114 to raise in a week. However, I am confident we can do it - especially if just a few of our many thousands of online readers would put their hands in their pocket. Last week there were 15,395 who visited our website but, once again, not one of them left a donation using our PayPal facility. I would really like to be able to report a change for the better next week. Robbie Rix
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Just
two donations via the post this week - £60 from one of our most
diehard supporters, comrade TR, and £20 from PH. Thanks to both.
A big ‘thank you’ also to those whose standing order donations have
just come through - MM, DO, IT, AD, JD, JS and EB. All in all, a
further £165.
As a delegate at this year’s SWP conference, I was generally supportive of John Molyneux and his alternative slate for the central committee.
After attending the Saturday January 7 sessions, I came home and logged on to a leftwing web-board and answered some questions from non-SWPers about how it had gone. I told people the votes for and against Molyneux and the central committee slates and I also mentioned the names of three comrades who had spoken.
Three days later I was rung by Martin Smith, who told me that I was a in a lot of trouble - I had broken party discipline and I was suspended. He talked about the security dangers of mentioning members’ names in these sorts of forums.
I responded that the comrades concerned were pretty well known - they had stood in elections, had even written books for the party. Also, other SWPers had mentioned their names on the same web-board previously, but there had been no question of disciplining them.
I was so shocked, I resigned on the phone and I didn’t dispute my expulsion further. When bureaucratic things like this happen to young members, they could easily be turned off left politics altogether. Some SWP members I have spoken to are of the opinion that I was treated harshly and say they would have defended me if I had taken it further with an appeal. But, frankly, I wasn’t interested in staying in this party after being treated like that.
I have spoken to people who are not part of the organised far left and no one could believe what had happened. They think it was crazy. Especially as socialist parties are supposed to be more democratic than mainstream capitalist parties. But the truth is they aren’t.
The SWP has always talked up its anti-Stalinism, especially during the cold war. But this sort of incident makes the SWP look Stalinist, especially in their treatment of the rank and file. It can only produce disillusionment, especially amongst younger, more inexperienced party members.
Matt Kidd
Wrong thoughts
When questions were raised about a response I wrote to an article in Socialist Review by Duncan Hallas in 1994, I knew there was a problem brewing. He had argued that the fight for reforms was a key part of revolutionary politics. My response was simply to say that I agreed, but what consequences did that have for the question of political reform?
Shortly after sending that in to SR, I became aware that I was under investigation and I was called to a series of meetings. At these, it was actually very unclear what I was being charged with, what misdemeanour I was being accused of. I had been a Fire Brigades Union official until the year before, so I was very suspicious that this new hostile attitude to me was related to my ‘diminished’ importance in the movement!
At the initial stages, a number of different allegations were made. I was told that I was a disruptive influence in my branch, for example; I simply went to my branch, reported this and got their support. Once I had countered it, that allegation simply disappeared from the ‘charge sheet’. From then on, it was never really clear what I was supposed to have done.
In short, I think it was that I had maintained contact with comrades in the Revolutionary Democratic Group, who had been expelled from the organisation for their political views already. This was said in the background, but it was never actually put to me as a formal allegation.
I was expelled, and then went through the process of a full appeal. This was a remarkable procedure, in which witnesses were heard without either myself or my representative being present. So the person against whom allegations are being made never gets to even hear them - so you can’t even attempt to defend yourself. It is a process that contradicts all the basic elements of what would be needed for a just outcome. Anyone expelled from the SWP will be very lucky to get anything like a fair hearing, from my experience.
The strong implication I picked up was that I was being expelled because I held certain political views which were similar to opinions held by the RDG. Therefore - by definition - this meant that I would be in a position of ‘permanent opposition’ and that this was contrary to the rules of the party.
In other words, I was out not because of anything I had done, but because of what I thought.
Chris Jones
