This weekend’s crisis summit of the Socialist Workers Party is nearly upon us and it will, no doubt, mark the beginning of the end of this period of turmoil for the party.
Members have contributed to a pre-conference discussion bulletin (pdf) and at 108 pages it is a surprisingly interesting read. It is a thorough and useful and serious account of how members feel about the crisis their leadership has plunged them into (to see all the articles you could possibly want on this go here).
Considering we’re talking about an organisation in 2013 which has just mishandled an allegation of rape it’s written in very interesting language, a language that I think many might find more alienating than enlightening. Is it really helpful to quote Lenin at length in a discussion about whether close working colleagues are the appropriate people to investigate and pronounce on extremely serious allegations?
Are long dead quotations a help or a hindrance when debating whether there has been a specific lack of accountability and transparency in an organisation? Honestly, even if you thought Lenin was a nifty guy who got a lot of things right what possible relevance does conjuring up his specter have? I think the way in which many (not all) of these contributions is framed is extremely instructive.
Here are the numbers;
Cliff (founder of the SWP who died over a decade ago) 51 references.
Lenin 84, Leninism 49, Leninist 41
Trotsky 35
Marxism 51, Marxist 71
Marx 17
Zinoviev 13, Kamenev 6, Engels 2, Luxemburg 1
Democratic Centralism 87
Stalin(ism) 13
Dialectic 4
That’s 525 references in all to individuals or ideas that are completely irrelevant to the issues in hand, and when deployed are almost always about giving some sort of unearned weight to either satisfaction or dissatisfaction as to how the current crisis has been handled. Talking about the dialectic is a way of not talking plainly and clearly about why the crisis is happening.
A few references here and there would be nothing worth noting but when you average almost 5 such references per page for over a hundred pages it is more than just a slip of one idiosyncratic hand, we’re talking about a style of political speech completely reliant upon holy texts and ritual. There is quite a difference between being informed and inspired by political figures and ideas and actually feeling obliged to reference them in situations where they simply are not relevant.
I guess it’s easier to talk about well rehearsed theories than it is to get to the meat of what is happening today. This language inadvertently excludes those who are not comfortable in an academic environment while only adding the appearance of depth. I can assure you that none of the references to Lenin actually added anything to our understanding of the crisis.
Other numbers;
Rape gets 185 mentions and there are 64 mentions of the police. Sadly most of the latter are actually about police violence on demonstrations, kettling and the like, aimed at reinforcing why people should not go to the police despite the fact that there is a substantial qualitative difference between the role of riot cops and the investigators of rape.
The term legal advise shows up zero times but lawyer does four times, including in an extremely useful piece written by lawyers on how internal investigations into serious criminal offenses without involving the police may in fact be a criminal offense in itself exposing the organisation to worse consequences than those they sought to avoid.
Working class is mentioned 144 times.
Non-party figures that show up are Julian Assange 11 times, John Rees 7, George Galloway 6, Lindsey German 5, Chris Bambery 3, Tommy Sheridan 2, Clare Soloman 1 time only.
Feminism shows up 101 times (almost once a page) as members continue to debate whether feminist ideas are alien to or can be part of the Marxist tradition.
Social media? Facebook 46, Blogs 36, Blogging 10, and Twitter 8. Myspace 0.