| Description | The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is a far-left, Trotskyist political party in Britain. They publish a weekly newspaper called Socialist Worker, a monthly magazine, Socialist Review, and a theoretical journal, International Socialism. In addition they publish an international bulletin, various pamphlets and books often through their publishing house Bookmarks.
The SWP's theoreticians have developed three major theories, which has moved them away from the official Trotskyist movement:
A state capitalist analysis of Russia and the Eastern bloc, developed by Tony Cliff. Other left groups had however been referring to the USSR as state-capitalist from the early 1920s and in 1918 Lenin had set the development of state capitalism as the short term goal of the Bolshevik Party. This led the group (then known as the International Socialists) to adopt the slogan "Neither Washington nor Moscow, but International Socialism" and to oppose both sides in the Cold War.
The theory of the permanent arms economy, developed by Mike Kidron, which argued that high arms spending fuelled the long post-war boom in the 50s and 60s. This helped the group avoid perpetual forecasts that the collapse of capitalism was just around the corner, when living standards in the UK were clearly rising.
The theory of deflected permanent revolution, developed by Tony Cliff, which built on Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution, and attempted to explain why workers had not taken power in various Third World revolutions.
The SWP's origins lie in the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), which Tony Cliff joined. He developed the view, in part prompted by the work of RCP leader Jock Haston and RCP theoritician Ted Grant, that the Soviet Union was state capitalist. Haston and Grant's work caused unease within the leadership of the Fourth International and Tony Cliff was asked by them to bring Haston and Grant into line. As the debate developed Haston becaome demoralised, for entirely unrelated reasons, and Grant rejected the conception of state capitalism, while Cliff came to embrace it. At this stage the theory had no practical political consequences and all three men were part of the majority leadership of the RCP.
The theory of state capitalism represented a major breach with the views of the Fourth International's leadership and brought Cliff into conflict with them. When the FI leadership became sympathetic to Tito's Yugoslavia the RCP was hostile to their views, but the RCP leadership collapsed in the course of the ensuing debate with many of its central cadre leaving politics.
When the RCP dissolved itself into Gerry Healy's Labour Party entrist group The Club, many of Cliff's supporters joined, but were soon expelled. Technically this was for breach of discipline in a Birmingham Trades Council vote on the issue of the Korean War, rifts had been caused by a the dispute over Yugoslavia and the class nature of the Soviet Union. Cliff himself was an exile in Dublin at the time and therefore not subject to the discipline of Healy's group.
Cliff's supporters reorganised themselves around the Socialist Review journal, which lasted until 1962, but grew only very slowly and remained small.
In 1962 the Socialist Review Group became the International Socialists (IS) after the name of their new journal, first published in 1960. They also began publishing a paper called Industrial Worker which was later renamed Labour Worker. This was the forerunner of Socialist Worker which was launched in 1968 with Roger Protz as editor.
The IS gained control of the Labour Party Young Socialists, but soon after, left the Labour Party, and became leading critics of involvement in it during the 1980s when many other Trotskyist groups joined.
In 1969, the IS put out an appeal for unity, hoping to begin merger talks with the International Marxist Group, but the only group to respond was Workers' Fight, which joined the party as the Trotskyist Tendency. The Trotskyist Tendency left again in 1971, claiming they had been expelled, the IS leadership claiming the much smaller TT had been democratically "defused". This was later followed by several expulsions, including that of the Left Faction, which became Workers Power, and of the Right Opposition, which became the Revolutionary Communist Group.
During the 1960s the rise of unoffical strike action led the International Socialists to place a heavy emphasis on the building of a rank and file movement within the trade unions in order to combat the bureaucratic leaders of those organisations. This led to the development of a series of rank and file papers including The Collier (Mining), Redder Tape (Civil Service), Rank and File Teacher, etc. These were briefly brought together in a National Rank and File Organising Committee in 1974, the peak of IS influence in the workers movement.
Increasing problems in the mid-1970s and a failure to recruit led to disputes within the leadership of IS. Cliff argued that the older workers leaders, including shop stewards, were corrupted by reformism and therefore IS had to turn to untried young workers. This was part of the reason for the attempt made at this time to popularise Socialist Worker. This turn was unanimously rejected months later, but by then Jim Higgins was removed as National Secretary and Roger Protz from his position as editor of Socialist Worker for opposing these changes. Prompted by Duncan Hallas, they formed an International Socialist Opposition. Ultimately, a large section of the leadership, in paticular Jim Higgins, Roger Protz and John Palmer, were expelled in 1975 and formed the Workers League. Soon after the IS ditched their commitment to building a rank and file movement in practice and in 1977 launched the SWP.
Soon after becoming the SWP it launched the Anti Nazi League (ANL) in response to the perceived danger of the National Front. The ANL followed on from the relative success of the Right to Work Campaign which had been launched as the dying effort of the National Rank and File Orgnising Committee, and had organised a series of marches against unemployment. These marches were annual events between 1976 and 1981. The ANL was far larger than the Right to Work Campaign and was able to call upon support far outside the ranks of the SWP, which retained organisational control. In its own terms the ANL was relatively successful holding a series of large demonstrations against the National Front and was to some considerable degree responsible for the marginalisation of that grouping. By 1981 it was felt to be no longer needed and was then dissolved, some individuals who had been involved in leading positions in the ANL were expelled and formed Red Action.
Since then, the SWP has built its international, the International Socialist Tendency, and has created a wide range of fronts, including a new Anti Nazi League, Rock Against Racism and Globalise Resistance. They have also participated in the Socialist Alliance, the RESPECT Unity Coalition and the Stop the War Coalition.
In Scotland SWP members joined the Scottish Socialist Party as an officially recognised faction in 2001. They are therefore known as the Socialist Worker Platform and distribute the publications of the state-wide SWP only within the ranks of the SSP being prohibited from doing so publically. A number of Socialist Worker Platform members are on the National Committee of the SWP at a state-wide level, which illustrates the nature of the relationship. |
