 |
||
Telephone: 07725 735255 |
||
Note: Some platforms warn you about “active content” that could access your computer. If you don’t trust me not to give your computer a virus, you can browse this website without allowing the active content. The only difference is that the buttons below would not be highlighted when the cursor moves over them.
I view society as a struggle between good and bad organisations and individuals. Some of the organisations act conspiratorially, including infiltrating other organisations, whereas others are open about what they are doing.
I found out in the autumn of 2004 that two members of the fascist British National Party (BNP) had infiltrated the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in Manchester, for the whole of the previous academic year. The BNP does not normally indulge in infiltration – in fact, this may be the only occasion on which they have done so.
There are some other far right organisations, including the National Revolutionary Faction (NRF), that specialise in infiltration as a way of pursueing their agenda. It was revealed on the “UK Left Network” mailing list (that I am a member of again but under moderation with my messages currently being censored) towards the end of 2000 that two members of London Socialist Alliance, who were leaders of the South London Republican Forum and called themselves revolutionary socialists, had been collaborating with the NRF for about a year, and the contents of a page on their (now defunct) website which provided advice for their members and supporters who wanted to indulge in either short-term or long-term infiltration was posted to that forum. I used that opportunity to start putting forward my views on infiltration on that forum and on an international socialism discussion list run by Labor’s Militant Voice in the USA. The Wikipedia (on-line encyclopaedia) describes the NRF as a “national-anarchist” organisation and says it no longer exists. However its founder Troy Southgate has set up an organisation called the Cercle de la Rose Noire, which also describes itself as national-anarchist but incorporates some weird mystical ideas and produces a journal called Synthesis; its home page credits the NRF as a contributor and it seems that the NRF still exists but is operating underground. It would obviously be ridiculous to wind such an organisation up, when its methods look so effective (unless of course its members are carrying on the same role under a different name).
I wrote a leaflet in December 2004 about state and fascist infiltration, mentioning those activities of the BNP and NRF, as well as giving some of my views about infiltration of the Militant Tendency, which became Militant Labour and is now the Socialist Party of England and Wales, and is affiliated to the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI), a revolutionary socialist (Trotskyist) organisation I was a member of from 1990-98. You can read the contents of that leaflet by clicking here.
I started coming to conclusions about the high level of infiltration, not just to gather information but to also wreck organisations from within, at the 1998 European School of the CWI, at which I was the only member from England or Wales to speak in the debate in support of the setting up of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), which had overwhelming support in Scotland and France but was opposed by the British and international leaderships. I noticed that whereas some CWI members were swept along by the mood as the balance of forces shifted between supporters and opponents of the SSP project, others retained a poker face. I am not saying that one set of members were completely genuine and the others weren’t, but it was clear that there were many acting conspiratorially.
I have tended to think in the past that those opposed to the CWI and other socialist organisations doing well have been infiltrators on the side of big business. However, since I am no longer a Trotskyist (or even a Marxist), I now believe that wrecking such organisations can actually be a good thing under certain circumstances! Therefore, some infiltrators that have acted against the CWI may have actually been good, well-intentioned, individuals trying to create a better but non-Marxist world! Indeed, I have played a role of opposing Marxism and radicalising people at the same time, which has led some people (including myself) to doubt whether I am really a genuine revolutionary socialist. I explore these issues in more depth in the overview of an on-line book I am writing, called Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist revolution will never happen?
