Back to school with the AWL
On Thursday the AWL held a public meeting in Sheffield to launch their ‘New Workers Plan’ in response to the current economic crisis. The meeting was attended by about 15 individuals, 10 of whom were AWL members/supporter, and 5 HOPI members (CS/PR and Mike Martin). Tom Unterrainer presented a 40 minute speech about the current economic situation which saw him talk about pigs for about half of it.
Yes Tom, thanks for that
We were told that capitalism is like… giant pigs! The pigs get so big that no farm or farmer can hold and control them. They are a menace! They eat everything and then people live off their shit. However, they run out of food and then we have an economic crisis. We were subsequently treated to finding out how credit works when Tom lent Dan Randall 2p and demanded 3p back, and how mass credit works with a
pack of cards.
The interventions from the floor centred around the ‘New Workers Plan’ and the very idea of a Transitional Programme. AWL members argued that they were transitional demands based from today’s society that could lead to us to socialism. Comrades from PR argued that what the ‘New Workers Plan’ amounted to was in fact a bunch of reformist demands, something echoed by Mike Martin (HOPI). CS comrades on the other hand raised the argument against the very nature of the Transitional Programme, arguing that capitalism is certainly not in its `death agony’ and that a minimum – maximum programme was crucial for the victory of the working class.
All in all a miserable experience! But quite fun.
by Mohsen Sabbagh
Has Tom U graduated from playschool yet. Everything I have heard him say or read is total dross.
Actually the comparison of Tom and playschool is unkind.
How can a miserable experience be quite fun? Even dialectics has its limits…
Well, it’s like watching a horror movie. You’re terrified, but enjoying yourself. For a principled communist, watching the AWL make tits out of themselves is both an orgy of pathos and a negative confirmation of even one’s most sweeping judgements on them. Honestly, I’m sure us CPGBers would be less smug if people stopped proving us right all the time.
Of course, as we all know, every subtle dialectician loved horror movies – Stalin was fonder of Fred & Ginger, while Sean Matgamna only watches the Wizard of Oz (Martin Thomas having kindly edited out the scary bit in the woods for him in Final Cut).