Manchester SWP scared to debate Manchester CS
On 27 November, the much beleaguered Manchester SWP held a meeting titled ‘The Capitalist Crisis; the case for Socialism’ which managed to attract around 40 to 50 people, around a third of whom were their own comrades. A small turnout considering the amount of posters that went up across Manchester. They would have had more people attend the meeting, yet Andrew Cunningham, the most unsuccessful SWP student organiser ever to grace the University of Manchester Students’ Union thuggishly blocked members of Communist Students entering the meeting. Apparently CS is a “destructive force” and not interested in “constructive debate”. Cunningham has a wonderful history of embarrassing himself and his comrades when confronted with other sections of the organised left. His leadership of Manchester SWSS saw it go from the most successful group outside of London to a group that is now just another small left group on campus with a cadre similar in size to CS and Socialist Students. This collapse on campus was squarely blamed on members of CS and Permanent Revolution and not on the arrogant and sectarian manoeuvring by the SWSS and their reliance on the Islamic Society to get elected, unfortunately the Isoc broke with them, leaving the SWSS sinking with members and supporters jumping overboard.
Manchester CS has no problems with debating with anyone from any group in our movement. We have encouraged Manchester SWSS to engage in debates through the Marxist Radical Forum. Why is Manchester SWP scared of debating us? Have they had a crisis of confidence in their ideas? Or are they worried that we would raise questions and points for discussion which might get members of the audience and SWP potential recruits questioning the way forward on offer from the SWP and their democratic credentials? The banning and strangling debate discredits the movement. It may be common practice in the SWP but if we are to move forward as a movement then it has to come to an end. The irony is that, by banning the entry of CS members, those attending who came to see what the SWP had on offer became thoroughly opposed to the SWP’s lack of confidence in their ideas, with one student calling the whole sorry episode “a bit fascist”. Manchester CS still leafleted nearly all those who attended for the upcoming Manchester HOPI meeting and HOPI national conference.
Manchester CS will continue to engage others in debate sharply and in an open and honest manner. Will the SWP follow us on this?
Nice little report Chris. They tried to do something similar in Sheffield 2 years ago. I reported on it here: http://communiststudents.org.uk/?p=949
It really is shocking how unconfident in its own ideas the SWP is. This is the behavior of a fragile sect, not a healthy section of the workers movement. Just as in Sheffield 2 years ago, this is also a sign of the impact we are having right now. We need to keep making our message available to the SWP rank and file and not be discouraged by the antics of the likes of Cunni.
at one point i considered joining the SWP but in all honesty..
i felt like they didn’t know what they wanted, while such a broad colitition is to be admired i found there are too many voices sing from entirely different hymn sheets which has become symtomatic of the organizied left,
bore no doubt from our love of debate
we all recognize the problems of capitialism yet never agree on how to tackle them
instead of reading lenin trots and marx’s interspersed with deriding the right and shoe gazing when ever stalin or nulab is mentioned
pehaps we should just get to writing,colaboritively of course about the world as we want it,south america while not perfect does show the communism and socialism can work togeather and that the capital isn’t the only kind of trade that can happen internationally
I’m a former member myself.
People in the same organisation having different ideas is not a bad thing in itself, and is inevitable. Admittedly, you get a particularly jumbled and wide ranging set of ideas from SWPers.
But this is not symptomatic of too much debate, rather a lack of it! Open and honest debate serves to clarify ideas. How much debate has occurred over the Respect debacle? Zilch. Heads have rolled (John Rees, rather unfairly) but lessons have not been learnt.
This is why we place so much emphasis on re-evaluating, critically, the history of marxist ideas and practice, including, yes, Lenin and Trotsky. It is vital when there is so much confusion as to what marxism actually is, when it is constantly abused to provide support for the latest get rich quick scheme of the left sects.
A real marxist party would unswervingly put forward communist politics. It would also be democratic and transparent, with the right to publicly express differing views within the party. Not a bureaucratic and cliquey organisation which is so insecure in it’s ideas that critics are gagged.
An American Marxist wants to know: how likely is it, at this point, that the SWP will completely collapse in the near future, a la Gerry Healy’s WRP (minus the sexual abuse)?
Jason, I don’t think they are going to blow up like the WRP any time soon. A fight at the top and therefore at conference is looking very likely which may spur on SWP members to begin thinking and questioning some of the twists and turns over the years.
While they still might manage to keep a lid on it for now, this could develop into quite an explosion. Once the whole idea of ‘collective cabinet responsibility’ within the Central Committee breaks down, as it looks like is beginning to happen, there is one potentially very nasty can of worms expecting to get exposed. This fight within the leadership *could* get very nasty, very quickly.
I actually tend to agree more with Dave. Such tight groups only really open up from above due to the control over the rank-and-file. When they do, the proverbial shit hits the fan. Depending how things open up and develop, this could get very messy indeed.