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On 15 December 2013 I resigned from the Socialist Workers Party, after some fifty years membership. I was no longer prepared to trust the party leadership with my money, nor to accept its discipline. I said at the time that I would make no further public criticism of the SWP and I have tried to stand by this. There are many more useful and interesting things to do than engage in arguments between small far left groups. Polemics about splits in small revolutionary organisations tend to be very tedious; I have no desire to add to that literary genre.
Yet I am left with the problem as to why it happened. Why did an organisation which, though I knew its imperfections, seemed to me to be by far the best thing going on the British left, and of which I was proud to be a member, deteriorate so quickly? I have fifty years’ experience of the IS/SWP, seven of which I spent writing a biography of Tony Cliff, a narrative which was necessarily entwined with the history of the organisation. My observations may therefore be of some interest to others on the left, both inside the SWP and in other groupings currently at an early stage of their development.
full: http://grimanddim.org/political-writings/2014-so-sad/ _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
