The Socialist Party of England and Wales, also known as the CWI, is one of the two successor organisations to the Militant Tendency of Ted Grant. It is led by Peter Taaffe, Grant’s loyal lieutenant for many years, who later fell out with him over political and organisational questions and launched a coup, kicking his colleague and his supporters out of the organisation after decades of close partnership.
The organisation is among the most toxic of all the Trotskyist cults. Taaffe is an egomaniac who has spent years kicking out anyone who does not conform to his ideas and give him the obedience that this strutting mediocrity believes he deserves. In his latest act of petty tyranny, he has managed to badly split his organisation, leaving him with a rump of supporters that constitute a minority within the former organisation. Most of his erstwhile subordinates have decided to form their own organisation, free of his corruption. They decided upon this after Taaffe chose to expel the disobedient majority rather than obey the ostensible rules of democratic centralism and bow before the will of the majority. A funny thing about these sects is that the leaders expect ordinary members to be bound by the rules of democratic centralism, but feel no obligation to obey these rules themselves. They would prefer to split the organisation.
This testimony from a former member of the sect is a wonderful insight into its internal regime:
Nick had always assured me that they were a thoroughly democratic party and were open to new ideas. I took that seriously, and would often come with new suggestions on how to improve the party’s strategy and means of communication to gain more recruits. I suggested more online work, more non-political mutual aid, fixing the website, etcetra. I was also adamant that their strategy that their policy of ‘putting pressure on the TUC’ to call a general strike was not going to work, as they had shown their cowardice and ineffectiveness time and time again, and what was really needed was grassroots action, occupations and the like, to force the government on the retreat, in a similar fashion to what the Gilet Jaunes would do in France. Also that the working class was a far more diverse group than just trade unions.
But in the spirit of so called ‘democratic centralism’ (aka, not democratic at all), I was told that I was ‘confused’ and needed to just go back and read classic Marxist texts. There was a real divide between the full timers and the ordinary members, and in meetings, whilst there was the illusion of discussion, people would speak and then if necessary be ‘corrected’ by a full timer. They moaned on about how the Labour Party was undemocratic, when in that party despite being under 18 I got to vote for the leader and the NEC, when I got nothing even close to that kind in the SPEW.
What this individual describes is identical to the internal regime of the IMT and so many other Trotskyist sects. I can identify in particular with his point that mainstream left-wing political parties are far more democratic than any Trotskyist sect has ever been in its entire history.
I eventually, after a year or so after the events and momentum had died down, I desperately pleaded with party officials to let ordinary members have more of a say. I was basically told to leave, because ‘I didn’t follow their approach.’ I wouldn’t even be able to insert a bit of light humor into some of their strategies, like how the Scottish section being called the ‘Socialist Party of Scotland’ compared to the ‘Scottish Socialist Party’, their opponents, literally was word for word Monty Python Judean People’s Front. Then Nick said to me in the car: ‘MONTY PYTHON! IS THAT THE HEIGHT OF YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS!’
He would speak such complete and utter drivel, endlessly droning on about the same dreaded party line, not allowing for a shred of intellectual independence or free thinking. I remember reading Jacobin articles, and praising the DSA as a great new movement of American socialism, him saying that ‘it wasn’t good enough because they didn’t follow Trotskyism’ or maybe a slightly more dressed up way of saying it, but it was essentially that.
This is what anyone who raises differences in Trotskyist sects can expect. Despite the existence of a formal ‘democracy’, the truth is that anyone who raises disputes is pressured to either recant or leave the organisation.
I studied the Russian Revolution in great depth, from a variety of different sources, as well as the rise of Stalinism. When I would talk about other factors that lead to Trotsky’s defeat, like how he didn’t engage with other party figures, and had a sense of arrogance that alienated a lot of potential allies, how the structures in Soviet Russia lacked a separation of powers and even in the 1920’s, was largely controlled by the Bolshevik party, didn’t work with the other anti-Stalinist left in exile, etcetra, I was denounced as a ‘revisionist’, ‘a bourgeois psychologist’ etectra, and told that literally, Trotsky was right on everything, and the only reason why Trotsky, Lenin’s RIGHTFUL HEIR, was denied his birthright, was because Russia was backwards, and therefore the Russian people ‘were not worthy of him’. It’s basically just Stalinism just flipped, with Trotsky being Lenin’s heir, and Stalin ‘Judas’. Of course Stalin was an absolute monster, but Trotsky wasn’t himself exactly a saint.
This is practically identical to what happened when I raised these issues with the full-timer for my region. For the crime of stressing Trotsky’s personal failures in the fight against Stalinism, I was lectured about my ‘subjectivism’, ‘formalism’ and various other heresies. These thought-numbing cliches were brought out to suppress any critical thinking. They failed to work on me. They simply propelled me to ditch the sect.
It seems all of these Trot sects are essentially the same – repressive, conformist and hostile to individual freedom and critical thinking.