Contemporary Trotskyism: Parties Sects and Social Movements in Britain - John Kelly (Routledge) Paperback £23.99
"They have made a fetish of democratic principles. They have placed the workers' right to elect representatives above the party. As if the party were not entitled to assert its dictatorship even if that dictatorship temporarily clashed with the passing moods of the workers democracy."
And so spoke Leon Trotsky at the Tenth Congress of the Russian Communists Party Congress as he attacked the Workers Opposition. The same man who sent the Red Army to crush the Kronsdadt sailors who rebelled against the authoritarian dictatorship being established by the Bolsheviks. Later Trotsky himself became the victim of "the party" as Stalin turned against him and his Left Opposition ending in exile and then murder in 1940.
Trotsky despite all his obvious faults was a great orator and polemicist renowned for his literary style. Never able to work as part of a team (one of the contributory factors leading to his downfall) the Trotskyist movement that arose out of his later work and the establishing of the Fourth International in 1938 has always suffered from factionalism and splits since its foundation.
This particular history of Trotskyism is of great interest to me as for many years up until the age of 30 or thereabouts I was either influenced by or participating in Trotskyist politics and organisations. In around 1981/2 I joined the Socialist League which was infiltrating the Labour Party (of which I was already a member). The League had been better known as the International Marxist Group "led" by Tariq Ali who had gone by that time. We all had to use "party names" for Internal Bulletins. Amusingly I discovered Tariq had used the moniker "Howard".
The SL/IMG was an affiliate of the grandly named United Secretariat of the Fourth International the largest of the organisations claiming to be the continuation of Trotsky's Fourth International. In fact the IMG paper Red Weekly was the first Trotskyist paper I ever came across when a student at tech back in 1974. The second was Workers Press a daily paper produced by the Workers Revolutionary Party and occasionally on sale outside the college.
When first attending demonstrations I was amazed at the number of different paper s or magazines on sale all claiming to be "Trotskyist" and returned home with copies of Socialist Worker, Socialist Press, Militant, and Workers Power or was it Workers Fight? Difficult to remember now. There were others and some anarchist and Maoist publications as well but none interested me as much as the Trot papers.
It is with this in mind that I picked up this book as it covered the years I was active in Trotskyist politics only finally leaving when the Berlin Wall came down and Socialist Worker said this was an "opportunity to show workers what Marxism really was". Unreal. I thought to myself why would people who have been oppressed under the rule of Stalinism want to sign up to something just the same.
Although I threw myself into the Green Party and away from Trotskyism and Marxism this was a difficult action for me to take. It was only the sudden lurch of the Greens to the left that threw me into the political mainstream though I have not belonged to a political party since 1992 and concentrated on trade union work ending up fighting the far-left that I had broken from in the civil service unions SCPS and PCS for over two decades.
Trotskyism is resilient and many groups still exist though Corbynism has stolen their thunder for now. The two biggest groups the SWP and the Socialist Party (Militant) the largest of the groups from that milieu have ossified outside of Labour. The SWP has barely recovered from a rape scandal and Labour continues to reject advances from the old Militant Tendency.
John Kelly examines the Trotskyist movement in the UK in some detail including background material on Trotsky and pre-seventies groups to concentrate on the period 1970 to the present day well 2017 to be precise. he covers the politics, sectarianism and influence that these groups have had on wider British politics through "fronting movements".
The Anti-Nazi League owed it's existence to the SWP, The Anti-Poll Tax Movement to Militant and Stop the War Campaign to the SWP and Counterfire. A lot of smaller less known movements could not have existed without the input of Trotskyist politics.
There are still around 20 or so "Trotskyist groups in the UK ranging from the largest, the SWP which claims 5,000 plus members which no one believes. More likely between 2- 2,500 these days following several recent splits, to the smallest believed to be the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency in Britain which has more words than members numbering just two. Alongside them are the "Lambertistes" (don't ask) who likewise number just two.
Then there are the Fourth Internationals. Kelly asserts that there are Trotskyists in 51 countries. Actually I think there's more but he identifies 23 "Fourth Internationals" which is more than I knew of but some have no group in the UK. There is believe it or not a "Fifth International " represented by the Workers Power group in the UK who organise under the Red Flag label inside the Labour Party. There perhaps 30 of them.
This is a worthy volume for anyone remotely interested in "Trot spotting" and fun for reminiscing for the biggest Trotskyist movement of all those who gave up and left to get a real life. An interesting experience but I for one was hopeless at "toeing the party line" and was always critical of Trotsky's actions over Krondstadt and grew to realise his opposition to internal and external democracy would lead to a form of Stalinism.
All Trotskyist groups have this almost religious sect fervour and the author does compare these groups to religious ones. He has a point. They all have their Icons and "holy texts". Trotsky was the latest "Messiah" and his disciples multiplied through the fifties sixties and seventies. Gerry Healy WRP), Tony Cliff (Yagel Gluckstein) (SWP), Ted Grant (MIlitant/Socialist Appeal), Sean Matgamna (Socialist Organiser/AWL) among them.
There are those that have left such as Tariq Ali (IMG), Frank Furedi (RCP now Spiked!) and countless others around the world.
None of these people have ever led a revolution except Trotsky himself and that was really a coup d'etat. Undoubtedly Trotskyist groups will continue to pop up split, fuse or give up in the future and will be around to "pick up the pieces when the Corbyn project collapses and fails. But that is a story yet to come.
For now read the story of what has been and consider why Trotskyism has attracted so many and disillusioned even more over the years.
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