As I am sure many, many people do on the weekend, I have been flicking through some of the back issues of Workers Hammer, the monthly paper of the Spartacist League. It is not necessary for me to get into much detail about their political views as it suffices to note that they are a small fringe Trotskyite organisation. As such, they wish, like other small fringe Trotskyite organisations, to smash the state and impose a dictatorship of the proletariat. It is rather fortunate for humanity that they will not succeed as when Communists obtain power the only thing that they seem to be successful at, and I concede that they have been very successful in this area, is killing people.
The Spartacist League in Britain is linked, via an international network of small Trotskyite organisations, to the American organisation of the same name. It can be noted that paedophiles might be attracted to the Sparts (as those that have heard of them tend to refer to them) as they support the aims of North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) which would like to legalise sex between dirty old men and young boys.
I have been digressing. One thing that small fringe Trotskyite parties on occasion do quite well is to attack other small fringe Trotskyite parties. I am all in favour of this activity. I encourage them to do more of the same and leave the rest of us in peace. These attacks can, on occasion, be carried out satirically. With that in mind, the February 1986 issue of Workers Hammer contained a song, written by one of their comrades, entitled “The Workers Power song.” Workers Power is another small Trotskyite group that would like to smash the state and impose a dictatorship of the proletariat but will not succeed. I copy the first lines of the song below as I did find it amusing:
The Workers Power Song
The Shah was a man
Who ruled in Iran
And we really thought
He really ought to go.
Well, the Ayatollah K,
Had a lot of things to say,
He used to live there,
So he ought to know.
He won’t go very far
But he’s better than the Shah,
So even though he’s quaint,
We really have to say:
He could be a lot better,
He’s not a Trot to the letter,
But he’s out there,
And he’s showing us the way.
He’s leading a mass movement,
Which could do with some improvement,
But it really isn’t up to us to say.
Cos he’s on the front line,
And we’re running out of time,
So we’ll support him anyway.
Supporting the Ayatollah Khomeini was not really wise for leftists, for as the Workers Hammer noted a few years later (December 1988/January 1989):
Reports coming out of Iran point to a mammoth new wave of executions of leftist political prisoners now taking place in Khomeini’s jails. Already, an estimated 1000 to 5000 have been hanged or lined up before the firing squads of the Islamic dictatorship and dumped in mass graves. In some provincial cities, the entire prison population has reportedly been massacred. Virtually every political leader of Iran’s pro-Moscow Tudeh Party has been executed, and supporters of the People’s Mujahedin, the Revolutionary Workers Organisation of Iran (Rahe Kargar), Iranian People’s Fedayeen (Majority) and the Fedayeen Minority are said to have been killed in the thousands.
