Over at the Socialist Unity blog a number of Socialist Workers Party internal documents have been, or are, in the process of being posted for public viewing by a public spirited Andy Newman.
Those who are interested in Trot internal arguments will find material that prior to the invention of the internet would only have been read by members of Britain’s self-described ‘revolutionary elite’ – or the odd unambitious plod from Special Branch.
In this particular gem of a pre-conference internal bulletin its author Neil Davidson considers why his beloved revolutionary Party has increased in size by little more than 2000 members in the space of three decades. Not much to show for thirty years of frantic and indiscriminate recruitment he laments sadly.
Has the comrade considered the obvious answer?
One explanation might be that SWP members are simply inadequate to the task of building a revolutionary party: we are a collection of eccentrics, dilettantes, malcontents and middle-class do-gooders, incapable of relating to workers and the oppressed, and consequently without roots in the class or local communities.
He has!
The question is: what does he do with this rare example of self-analysis?
He fluffs it, that’s what.
I do not intend to dwell on this proposition since, as I outlined in the introduction, it is obviously untrue.
Ach. So near Comrade, so near, but still so far….