The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is a Trotskyist political party in the United Kingdom. Founded as the Socialist Review Group (SRG) by supporters of Tony Cliff in 1950 which had split from The Club, it became the International Socialists in 1962 and the SWP in 1977. Cliff and his followers criticised the Soviet Union and its satellites, calling them state capitalist rather than truly socialist countries.
The SWP has founded several fronts through which they have sought to coordinate and influence leftist action, such as the Anti-Nazi League in the late 1970s. It also formed an alliance with George Galloway and Respect, the dissolution of which in 2007 caused an internal crisis in the SWP. A more serious internal crisis emerged at the beginning of 2013 over allegations of rape and sexual assault made against a leading member of the party. The SWP's handling of these accusations against the individual known as "Comrade Delta", later identified as Martin Smith, led to a significant decline in the party's membership. It also led to a number of formal reviews which resulted in new procedures to support any member who experienced sexual harassment or other forms of oppressive behaviour.
On the international level, the SWP is part of the International Socialist Tendency.
History Socialist Review Group (1950–1962) The SWP's origins lie in the formation of the Socialist Review Group (SRG), which had split from The Club (a precursor to the Workers Revolutionary Party). The group was formed in 1950, and held its founding conference in 1951. The group, initially made up of only eight members, (Chapter 3). was formed around Tony Cliff's analysis of Russia as a bureaucratic state capitalist regime rather than a truly Marxist one. Three documents formed the group's theoretical basis: The Nature of Stalinist Russia, The Class Nature of the People's Democracies and Marxism and the Theory of Bureaucratic Collectivism.(Chapter 3). The group at this time was associated with Third Camp Marxism.
The group's size meant that they adopted entryism as a means of working in the Labour Party in order to reach an audience and recruit. Of particular importance was the Labour League of Youth (LLY); from the 33 members at the first recorded meeting, 19 were in the LLY. This entryism eventually led to the creation of Labour's Militant tendency in the 1980s.
By campaigning within the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Young Socialists, a new Labour Party youth movement, the Socialist Review Group recruited from a new generation of activists and by 1964 had a membership of 200. In 1959, the first edition of Cliff's book on Rosa Luxemburg was published. In it, Cliff writes:Rosa Luxemburg's conception of the structure of the revolutionary organisation – that they should be built from below up, on a consistently democratic basis – fits the needs of the workers' movement in the advanced countries much more closely than Lenin's conception of 1902−4, which was copied and given an added bureaucratic twist by Stalinists the world over.Tony Cliff, Rosa Luxemburg, London, 1959, p.54 cited in John Callaghan The Far Left in British Politics, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987, p.95; "Rosa Luxemburg's place in history", marxists.org. Cliff wrote in 1960 that Leon Trotsky's insight in 1904 about Vladimir Lenin's substitutionism was a strong warning of the serious flaws "inherent in Lenin's conception of party organisation" sustained by events since 1917.Tony Cliff "Trotsky on substitutionism", reprint from International Socialism, first series, No. 2, Autumn 1960 on marxists.org.
International Socialists (1962–1977) The paper Industrial Worker was created in 1961 and was quickly renamed Labour Worker before evolving into Socialist Worker. Socialist Review was reduced in size and then scrapped.Jim Higgins, More Years for the Locusts, Chapter 7, IS Group, 1997. The Socialist Review Group became the International Socialism Group (IS) in December 1962.
With the Labour Party in power and many Labour members becoming disillusioned, IS started doing more work that was external to the Labour Party and ceased to practise entryism as a tactic around 1965. After 1967, few IS members were active in that party. In 1965, an article in Labour Worker said: "Obviously Marxists should take those positions which give access to the direct workers' organisations. But in the wards and GMCs the practice of buying the right to discuss politics by over-fulfilling the canvassing norms, should cease or be reduced to the minimum".
It marked a turn to more of a focus on work in the trade unions, and a key part of this process was the pamphlet published in 1966: Incomes policy, legislation and shop stewards, which opposed the Labour Party's incomes policy and discussed how it could be fought.Cliff, Tony, and Colin Barker, Incomes policy, legislation and shop stewards, London, 1966.
In 1968, the group adopted Leninist democratic centralism as an organisational practice returning to Cliff's original position after leaving aside brief flirtations with Luxemburgian critiques of party vanguardism. This period saw the IS heavily involved in the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (in support of the Viet Cong) and local variations of the student protests of 1968, where it was able to recruit from this pool of youngsters."More Years for the Locust". Chapter 9. As a result, the IS grew from 400 to 1,000 membersDavid Boothroyd The History of British Political Parties, London: Politicos, 2001, p. 302. but also suffered many splits.Tony Cliff, A World to Win, Chapter 4, Bookmarks, 2000. According to group historian Ian Birchall, "IS's position was always one of unconditional support for the IRA in the struggle against imperialism".Ian Birchall History of the International Socialists – "Part 2: Towards a revolutionary party" (originally published in) International Socialism 77 (1st series), April 1975. However, Socialist Worker argued against those who prematurely raised the slogan "Troops Out!" on the grounds that the presence of British troops would allow the nationalist population to recover: The breathing space provided by the presence of British troops is short but vital. Those who call for the immediate withdrawal of the troops before the men behind the barricades can defend themselves are inviting a pogrom which will hit first and hardest at socialists.Socialist Worker, No. 137, 11 September 1969.
With hindsight, Tony Cliff concluded that the years 1970–74 had been "the best years of my life".Tony Cliff, A World to Win, Bookmarks, London, 2000, p. 124. That period saw the creation of rank-and-file newspapers and a general turn to industry, including setting up factory branches. During the 1972 miners' strike, Socialist Worker was taken and sold by miners.Jim Higgins, More Years for the Locusts, Chapter 11, IS Group, 1997. The membership of the IS increased from 1,000 in 1971, to 4,000 by 1977.
Meanwhile, other much smaller far-left groups emerged as a result of their members being expelled from the IS. The Workers Fight group joined as an open and allowed faction, but were expelled in 1971 over disagreements relating to the European Common Market. The Revolutionary Communist Group split in 1973 over the fact that the IS had no formal programme and its reliance on "Economism". The RCG itself had to deal with internal opposition that eventually became the Revolutionary Communist PartyRobert Jackson Alexander International Trotskyism, 1929-1985: A Documented Analysis of the Movement, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991, p. 498. led by Frank Furedi. In 1975, what had been known as the Left Faction suffered the same fate, and became Workers Power.John Sullivan As Soon As This Pub Closes: "Workers Power (the Class of '75)", (2004), marxists.org. The group had split over the lack of a party programme and transitional demands.
In 1974, Labour returned to power and introduced the Social Contract which implemented a voluntary incomes policy, with the backing of many left wing union leaders such as Hugh Scanlon and Jack Jones. This period also saw an increase in the number of full-time union convenors, and these factors along with an increase in unemployment have been blamed by Tony Cliff and the SWP for a drastic fall in union militancy.Tony Cliff, A World to Win, Chapter 6, Bookmarks, 2000. In 1974 the IS was ambitious and optimisticTony Cliff A World to Win, Bookmarks 2000, p. 132. expecting to double the number of its factory branches over the next year. In practice, they declined swiftly from 38 in 1974 to only three or four by 1976. When the firefighters went on strike in 1977 against the Social Contract the IS could deliver no significant solidarity. The national rank-and-file movement fell apart. In 1976, the SWP decided to stand in parliamentary by-elections but the results were very poor and the original idea of standing in 60 seats at the next election was dropped.Tony Cliff, A World to Win, Bookmarks 2000, p. 142.
In 1976, the Workers League group split from the IS.
Formation of the SWP (1977–1990) In January 1977 IS was renamed the Socialist Workers Party. This decision was a result of the move to stand in elections along with a perception that "IS's ability to initiate activity, rather than simply join in movements launched by others, had never been greater. Industrially, there were more members than ever able to lead disputes in their own workplaces". According to Martin Shaw, this occurred with no real discussion within the organisation.Martin Shaw: "From the International Socialists to the SWP", Socialist Register 1978. Jim Higgins has said: "Its founding was for purely internal reasons, to give the members a sense of progress, the better to conceal the fact that there had actually been a retreat".Jim Higgins, More Years for the Locusts, Chapter 14, IS Group, 1997.
Anti-Nazi League and Rock against Racism
A campaign in which the SWP had a significant role at this time was the Anti-Nazi League (ANL), and viewed as a "front" for the organisation by commentators and historians. The National Front (NF) grew during the 1970s and in the May 1976 local elections polled 15,340 votes in Leicester and large votes elsewhere. They were even more visible on the streets through graffiti, racist attacks and street protests. A key turning point came when on 13 August 1977 thousands of anti-fascists, later joined by large numbers of local black youths, attempted to stop the NF from marching through Lewisham.
The SWP launched the Anti Nazi League in 1977. The SWP's involvement was led by Paul Holborow with assistance from Jerry Fitzpatrick and Nigel Harris. Although it was portrayed as a broad initiative supported by the SWP along with wide swathes of the Labour Left and figures from popular culture (singers, musicians, actors and so on), many on the left saw the ANL as a self-serving unilateral SWP initiative to seize the leadership of the anti-racist movement and many anti-racist/anti-fascist activists regarded it with suspicion. This was particularly true of many in the existing broad-based Anti-Fascist Committees (often with close connections to the local labour and trade union movement). That local ANL groups were often launched as an SWP-led alternative to existing broad-based Anti-Fascist Committees increased non-SWP activists' suspicions, but a widespread desire not to display public divisions and fear of alienating the ANL's celebrity sponsors kept these divisions fairly quiet. The ANL also received support from other Trotskyist groups and the Communist Party of Great Britain, who restrained their members and supporters from openly criticising the ANL.