War,
Respect, ID Cards, Socialism and Infiltration
by Steve Wallis (http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk)
finished, started copying and distributed on the internet on Wednesday
the 8th of September 2004
with a little more editing (mainly about BNP infiltration of the SWP)
on Thursday the 9th of September
I've included below the most important text taken from two leaflets which I have been distributing. Both leaflets contained a fairly concise overview of my position on Iraq (for democracy, against the occupation). They also contained positions on "Respect: the Unity Coalition" - an initiative of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), intended mainly for standing in elections, which unites anti-war activists into a single organisation. The first leaflet was more critical because it was primarily intended for SWP members and supporters, whereas the second is more positive because it is primarily intended to inspire and educate left-wing activists in Manchester. The second leaflet contains some details of events in Manchester and London. Importantly, both leaflets also specify how you can read or debate the issues on the leaflets on the internet (avoiding internet censorship if necessary).
I distributed between 1,500 and 1,700 copies (out of
the 2000 I produced) of the first leaflet at Marxism 2004 in July - a week of
discussion and debate organised by the SWP. There were probably between 3,000
and 4,000 people at that event. The analysis on that leaflet considered the
position after the 10th of June European elections, and called for Respect to
be turned into a broad socialist party like the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP).
However, whereas decades of suspicion and sectarianism had been broken down in
Scotland due to socialists campaigning together in the Scottish Socialist
Alliance, this has not happened with the socialist alliances (SAs) in England
and Wales due to SWP members taking them much less seriously than their own
party as far as conducting non-electoral activity, financing them and participating
in meetings (typically only one or two of their members would attend my SA's
meetings if there was nothing controversial, or no vote required, on the
agenda; otherwise they would mobilise about or more than ten of their members).
The SWP also vetoed proposals for a national SA newspaper. Due to the way the
SWP has misled the SAs, and the fact that the SWP has abandoned the SAs in
favour of Respect, mistrust between left-wing organisations and the
fragmentation of the left has actually got worse rather than better.
My leaflet was intended to get a discussion going within the ranks of the SWP to make up for what some people would call its 'mistakes' - but which I would put down to my premise that its leadership is heavily infiltrated by conspiratorial organisations on the side of big business. However, after speaking at the first workshop I attended, I was asked if I wanted to join the SWP. I hadn't seriously thought about it before then, and still regarded it as very unlikely that they would let me in, but I decided that I might as well apply to join so that I could lead the transformation of Respect from the inside of the SWP as well as the outside. However, I waited until the end of Marxism to apply to join, since it was most important to hand out leaflets throughout the event.
A fortnight after I got back to Manchester, I
contacted the local SWP (because they had not contacted me) and Tony Harper, a
leading Manchester SWP member, informed me the SWP were rejecting my
application to join. I had a long telephone conversation with Tony, in which he
said that I wasn't being allowed into the SWP because I still had big
disagreements with them - if I had decided to join because I had changed my
views then the situation could have been different. He said that I couldn't be
bound by 'democratic centralism' which is how the SWP operates. This term means
different things to different people - if it simply means that we should all
carry out decisions that have been taken internally by a democratic process then
I would not have any problems with it, but if it stopped me from criticising
any of the SWP's positions or behaviour to people outside that party (including
on the internet) then it would be a problem. Additionally, the SWP has a
reputation for emphasising the centralism rather than the democracy in its
interpretation of democratic centralism, and for banning permanent factions and
expelling people who step out of line. Nevertheless, it was theoretically
possible that a quick influx of genuine socialists could have overridden the
desire of agents of big business in the SWP's leadership to keep me out. The
sad and unfortunate death of the SWP's Paul Foot shortly after Marxism could
not have helped, since he forwarded at least one message from me to a considerable
number of SWP members (as I could tell by the sudden increase from about five
to fifteen hits a day to my home page, regularly for about a week, after I sent
him a reply to a reply of his to my first message about Respect).
I have found, by examining a web counter on my home
page, that people in or around socialist and other left-wing organisations, as
well as other people around me, are generally able to access my website ( http://www.stevewallis.org) but the
average person in the street is not. Of course some of those people are on the
side of big business (and are infiltrating left-wing or other organisations in
society in order to try to stop a world socialist revolution), some are double
and triple agents, etc. Even though the forces of socialism are much stronger
in Glasgow than in Manchester, my website has had considerably fewer hits when
I have handed out leaflets in the streets of Glasgow compared with those of
Manchester - because I have been interacting with much more people down here
creating a need for a far more complex web of conspiratorial organisations in
Manchester. I don't know exactly how the programs censoring the internet work,
but it is designed to not be apparent - people who fail to access my web pages
probably blame the random and temporary error messages that occur throughout
the World Wide Web. It should be obvious to most people examining my website in
detail, that such censorship is necessary to limit the rapid growth of knowledge
about how the world works, enabling socialist revolutions to take place in the
near future - because enthused socialists would otherwise send my website
addresses quickly around Britain and the rest of the world (most conveniently
by email but alternatively by other communications media such as the telephone)
- and the people they send the messages to would forward them to even more
people until the working class is educated enough to take power.
My greatest opportunity to date to get new people to
access my website was at Marxism 2004. However, when I examined access
statistics of my home page after the first three days, I found a very small
number of hits - and all of them were due to references from other web
pages/search engines rather than typed in directly. This was obviously because
the level of censorship had been massively extended at such an important time.
I already suspected that the level varied from time to time since my best
friend Ivan (who is in the Socialist Party) told me earlier that he had not
been able to access my website for quite a while, after not noticeably having
any problems since I set it up, but he has recently been able to access it
again.
I have also had some problems with email messages
not getting delivered (without bouncing back with an error message). Clearly,
this is necessary (from the point of view of big business) because if you send
a very important message by email it could spread in the same way as a chain
letter. In particular, I noticed it happening with the contents of what I
called "The most important web page you will ever read" (accessible
at http://www.stevewallis.org/important.htm).
More recently, I found some messages which I sent from one of my email
addresses to another or the same one getting lost (and to yahoogroups.com to
join a mailing list I set up), or put in the "Bulk" folder of my
usual email account (socialiststeve@yahoo.co.uk)
for messages assumed to be spam. At about the same time, I discovered some
error messages in my "Bulk" folder saying that a message supposedly
(but not) sent by me was sent to an invalid email address and contained a
virus, I thought that somebody may have complained to Yahoo!, and sent them an
email to try to get the situation resolved, but they have not replied.
[Some people
may think that I should change my website or email provider to avoid these
problems. However, the service (from hostway-uk.com for my web space and
yahoo.co.uk for my email address) is generally good and I deliberately chose to
locate my web and email space in the UK to limit the censorship and spying.
Also, for a relatively small charge, I have got 2GB of email space and I have
still used less than 1% of it (despite receiving 1941 messages). I therefore
have not needed to delete any messages which was a big pain with my previous
email provider, particularly because I received many messages (each of which
were around 150kb) claiming to contain patches from Microsoft (but obviously
not and probably containing viruses) - most of them are now put in the
"Bulk" folder, which means they are not counted towards my email
quota and are deleted automatically after a month. Even if I changed to other
providers, people or programs on the side of big business would find out where
they are and censor them in similar ways (this was confirmed by my other two
email addresses having problems despite sending very few messages using them).]
Because of those censorship issues, I make sure that
I include other web addresses where people can find material by me, at the
yahoogroups website ( http://groups.yahoo.com)
on leaflets and in internet messages (usually in my signature at the bottom).
Fairly regularly (although this is my first message for quite a while) I post
messages to about 60 of these mailing lists/groups (which you can access via
email or the web), including about 10 of mine. Only one of mine, at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/revolutionary-anti-war
(against war, sanctions and dictatorships), creates a significant number of
messages from people other than me. In recent leaflets, I have recommended http://groups.yahoo.com/group/iraq-democracy
(for democracy in Iraq, against the occupation) or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/manchesterism
(Manchester International Socialist Movement, which is just a group on the
internet after a failed attempt to set up a new revolutionary socialist
organisation in Manchester largely because there are a lot of them already, and
a label under which I have occasionally issued leaflets). In August and
September 2003, large numbers of repetitive messages that were clearly spam
were sent supposedly from my laptop email address (stevewallis@mighty-micro.co.uk)
to some of the Yahoo! groups I was on (including the three mentioned above),
and I had to stop using that address to overcome the problem.
During Marxism, Respect got quite a big boost by saving
its deposits in parliamentary by-elections in both Leicester (with over 12% of
the vote) and Birmingham (with over 6%). Shortly after, it got an even bigger
boost by winning a council seat in Tower Hamlets - however that area of London
has a very high Asian population and Respect expected to win the seat based on
its results there on the 10th of June. Furthermore, at the rally at the end of
Marxism, we were encouraged to come from across Britain just for one
by-election, so it may be far from typical. Nevertheless, these results may be
interpreted by some as the sort of breakthrough that I said (in the leaflet
included below) would be necessary to avoid the Respect initiative from being a
hindrance to the struggle for a socialist society, if my proposal to turn
Respect into a broad socialist party like the SSP is rejected in the near
future (preferably at the national conference on the 30th and 31st of October
in London). It could actually be argued that Respect is a broad socialist party
already! Respect's leaflets often refer to itself as a 'party' and party-like
structures are being set up. The founding declaration of Respect (which you can
find at http://www.respectcoalition.org/index.php?ite=3)
contains, after a list of reformist demands, the paragraph "We want a
world in which the democratic demands of the people are carried out; a world
based on need not profit; a world where solidarity rather than self-interest is
the spirit of the age" - a good way of sending that we want a democratic
socialist world. Unfortunately, most leaflets produced by Respect do not pose
things so well, making the same (deliberate or accidental) mistake as the
socialist alliances and Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party by simply
putting forward reformist demands - in the 21st Century it is obvious to most
people that only minor reforms can be granted by ending involvement in wars and
taxing the rich (which they can either dodge or get round by relocating overseas).
Respect North West's current leaflet contains the terrible sentence "We
don't claim to have all the answers, but we do believe that there is no need
for any poverty in the forth (sic) richest country on Earth." If we are so
inept not to know how to achieve what we are fighting for then why should
anybody vote for us!?! And I haven't a clue where the idea that we are the
fourth richest country on Earth comes from (apart from it being disinformation
to justify the old Labour-style reformist demands) - the mass media talk all
the time about it being more and more difficult to fund decent pensions and the
National Health Service because people are living longer and longer.
My home page contains the paragraph "I am a
revolutionary socialist (a Marxist heavily influenced by anarchism), fighting
for a democratic world free from poverty, unemployment, homelessness,
discrimination, war, famines, deaths from preventable diseases and
environmental destruction." There is no contradiction between Respect's
founding declaration and putting a phrase like "We are fighting for a
democratic socialist world ..." (followed by similar points) on Respect
leaflets. I went canvassing in Glossop yesterday evening (where Respect is
standing candidates in two council by-elections on the 19th of September),
accompanied by an SWP member, and we did not come across a single person who
was put off by me talking about socialism (backing up my view that it is very
popular if put across correctly). The only reason why any of the people we
spoke to (apart from someone who wasn't interested possibly because he was
shaving) wouldn't necessarily vote for Respect was that they weren't convinced
that it would make any difference. My approach to this problem was to point out
that the SSP will lead the way, already having six members of the Scottish
parliament and two in Glasgow, and that I will be moving up to Glasgow soon
because I want to lead the revolution (but obviously other areas are important
too). Incidentally, I don't think using the word "revolution" puts
people off on the doorsteps either, because you can explain what you mean, but
I wouldn't suggest putting it on an SSP or Respect leaflet. It is better to be
honest about your own views, and explain that not everybody in the party is a
revolutionary if asked, than to use some vague formulation.
The final person we canvassed made a point that
illustrated a serious problem with Respect. He put forward the widely held view
that all/most politicians are in it to line their own pockets. In my view,
there was only one way of answering it - by pointing out that all SSP members
elected (to a parliament or to the leadership of trade unions) have to live on
a workers' wage. However, he asked whether this was mentioned in the Respect
literature and I had to say that this was vetoed by George Galloway. I thought
it was better to be honest and said that I have other differences with Galloway
and mentioned the time he was shown on TV shaking hands with Saddam Hussein and
saying what a great bloke he was. The SWP member accompanying me said that he
had answered that on TV and that he'd read a book by Galloway in which he said
that it was a hoop that he had to go through to talk to Saddam. [In my opinion,
that sort of naïvity is about as believable as the Militant Tendency's Steve
Nally saying that offering to "name names" at the time of the poll
tax riot wouldn't imply revealing the names of the riot instigators to the
police - as far as I'm concerned, Galloway is and Nally was agents of big
business.] The SWP member said, after we had stopped canvassing, that we should
have presented a 'united front' and said that we are a party of activists so it
doesn't matter. Not at all convincing! In my opinion, the worst possible result
for Respect would be if Galloway is the only Respect MP after the next general
election, and by supporting his desire to stand in East London where there is a
relatively higher Muslim population the SWP are making this more likely. If the
SWP has had to concede so much to keep him on board already, then it would
regard that as even more important when he has the much greater credibility of
being elected as a Respect candidate than by defecting from Labour. Galloway is
even in favour of doubling MPs' pay and halving the number of them! Oh great,
MPs even more out of touch with the working class and considerably harder for
us to achieve a breakthrough! In light of the fact that Respect has done well
enough during and after Marxism to avert the sort of crisis within the SWP that
could have led to them adopting my proposals and turn Respect into a party like
the SSP, the most important priority should be to get Respect to adopt the
demand for its MPs to live on workers' wages, donating the remainder to the
party and/or campaigns, like Militant's Labour MPs (Terry Fields, Dave Nellist
and Pat Wall) and the SSP's MSPs.
On the way back to Manchester, I also mentioned to
three SWP members including the one I had canvassed with, that infiltrators can
get in such key positions within right-wing organisations too, and it is
important to bear in mind that people can switch sides. Margaret Thatcher's
defeat of the miners in the mid-1980s was a massive setback for the trade union
movement in the UK, but her introduction of the poll tax overriding the advice
of many in the Tory Party (which she must have known would have united people
who couldn't afford to pay with most other working class people who were
outraged enough to support them, in contrast with the Tories' previous strategy
of picking off groups of workers one by one), and introducing the tax in
Scotland a year earlier than England and Wales (where the left was particularly
strong due to greater levels of poverty and the national question) enabled a
revolutionary socialist organisation, Militant, to lead a mass campaign of
non-payment which involved one million in its first year, inspiring over 18
million people across Britain to participate at its height, forcing the Tories
to abolish it and bringing Thatcher down. It also allowed Scottish Militant
Labour, as the Militant Tendency became when it left the Labour Party in
Scotland, gain its first electoral footholds - with Tommy Sheridan getting over
6,000 votes coming second in Glasgow Pollok at the 1992 general election from
his prison cell and then getting elected to Glasgow City Council (he was jailed
for six months for ripping up a court order in front of TV cameras forbidding
him from campaigning in an area including the location at which the first
attempt was made to sell somebody's belongings in the street to pay off a poll
tax debt) followed by some other victories. Tommy's reputation later enabled
him to become the SSP's first member of the Scottish parliament. Because the
Pollok constituency is the stronghold of the SSP within Glasgow (and there is
an SSP councillor in one of its wards, also called Pollok, I aim to move into
that constituency and concentrate my activities there, to try to ensure that
the SSP gets at least one candidate elected to Westminster. The next election
is predicted to take place in May 2005 (but Blair could delay it another year)
so I'm aiming to be up in Glasgow long enough to make a big difference. When I
talked on the phone to Tony Harper of Manchester SWP (as I mentioned above) he
said that I should be content to be a small cog in a large organisation. I
didn't get involved in politics for that - I wanted to make a difference. I'm
confident that I now have the greatest knowledge about how the world works of
any individual on the planet (otherwise I would have come across someone with
greater knowledge than me on the internet and/or in real life), although
collectively there are probably extremely secretive organisations on the sides
of both the working class and big business that know more than me. As time goes
on, I am influencing more and more people in society - and some of them are
influencing further people, etc. They are not all joining left-wing
organisations - in fact, in cities like Manchester where the SWP have quite a
bad reputation and many much smaller socialist organisations that find it
difficult to make an impact (and if they started to, infiltrators on the side
of big business would try to strangle them to prevent them from being seen as
serious rivals to the SWP), they are not likely to get involved at the present
time. However, when the situation changes, due to a big strike or
demonstration, or inspiring activities carried out by a left-wing organisation
such as Respect, they may then get involved. It is important to have a long
term view of recruitment and put success of campaigns ahead of it - that is
what was so good about Militant's leadership of the anti-poll tax campaign and
what inspired me to join that organisation during the campaign. Greater
recruitment (rather than burning themselves out) would have followed too, if it
was not for Steve Nally's 'mistake' and Militant's refusal to expel him for it.
[Actually, being too secretive about Militant and calling on people to join
Labour at most meetings during the campaign was also a big mistake, but not as
big in my opinion.]
I must state what I think is the main reason that
the SSP has stagnated in terms of membership and number of branches in the last
year, despite going from one to six members of the Scottish parliament in May
Day 2003. I have a lot of respect (pun intended) for what the SSP has done
since its inception, but from the coverage of its activities in its newspaper,
the Scottish Socialist Voice, it does not seem to be using the tactics of direct action as much as it (and its forerunners)
has in the past. Young people in particular are less likely to be inspired by
petitioning, selling the paper, campaigning in the workplaces, standing in
elections or even marching (except when an issue is seen as really important
such as the war on Iraq). There have been a few activities at the Faslane
nuclear base, and it is great that sizeable numbers of SSP members including
members of the Scottish parliament (MSPs) have been willing to get arrested but
at the last blockade when two SSP MSPs were arrested, two Green Party MSPs as
well, so this action did not sufficiently distinguish the SSP from the
primarily middle class Greens - indeed I saw a report in a big business
newspaper (the Independent I think) and they only provided a quote from one of
the Green MSPs as you might expect. I
attended an "Earth First! Gathering" in the summer attended by
probably between 300 and 400 people, mainly non-violent anarchists. Anarchists
generally don’t know how to change society since they reject trade union
activity and standing in elections, but they can sometimes come up with great
ideas for direct action, some of which I hope to take inspiration from to
reinvigorate the SSP. My main aim was to educate them about how a socialist
world can be achieved, and in my opinion it will start with an independent
socialist Scotland and quickly spread around the world - because the forces of
genuine socialism (compared to our enemies) are strongest in Scotland
particularly Glasgow. SSP members shouldn’t be pessimistic and talk about
winning a few more seats in the Scottish parliament in May 2007 when the next
Scottish parliamentary elections are scheduled - I’m confident that the SSP can
win a majority in those elections or maybe even force elections before then if
the SSP has enough support in society to launch a mass movement to take power
before then!
I went up to Glossop last Wednesday by mistake,
because I thought there was a Respect public meeting which is actually on
tonight. However, I actually achieved more than I would have done if there had
been a meeting! This was because I got talking to some local youths for about
90 minutes - some came and went but there were probably about 20 (male and
female) in total. I saw about ten of them again yesterday and they said they'd
come when I told them when it was on. Whereas the chosen evening was a bad
choice for many men (since Poland are playing England at football), if you
don't fork out a fortune to Rupert Murdoch's Sky Sports you would have to get
into a pub to watch the match. None of the youths looked 18, although one said
he could get into one pub. I know where they'll probably be and will go early,
so hopefully I'll get some of them to turn up and I'll try to make an
inspirational speech so that they'll want to get involved in Respect.
There are quite a lot of events occurring in
Manchester and two in London before the end of October, so I will spend most of
my time until then in Manchester. However, I will go up to Glasgow during that
period (including for the second half of the SSP's weekend of discussion,
debate and entertainment on Sunday the 12th of September). I will unfortunately
have to miss the first half of that weekend due to a "gathering" to
discuss resisting ID cards in Manchester on Saturday (see "Dates for your
diary" below or visit the Defy-ID website: http://www.defy-id.org.uk). This is an
issue I took up seriously towards the end of 2002 and beginning of 2003 -
handing out copies of a draft resolution (see http://www.stevewallis.org/id-resolution.htm)
at the conference to discuss the 2 million-strong London anti-war demo, and
getting my socialist alliance and the Independent Manchester United Supporters
Association (IMUSA), which defeated Rupert Murdoch's attempt to take over the
club, to support defiance of ID cards. I could do with more information on the
legislation and exactly how it would be possible to defy it, bearing in mind
New Labour's strategy of introducing compulsory ID cards by stealth and
requiring them to be bought and shown for various services, so it will be an
important gathering. I had a personal disagreement with one of the leaders of
Defy-ID (Nathan), which resulted in him removing me from its mailing list and
setting it up so that he would have to approve new members (so I had to use a
pseudonym to get back on). Nathan also refused me permission to organise a
meeting of Defy-ID (which had never met at that stage) shortly after important
meetings of my socialist alliance and IMUSA, so I decided to attempt to set up
an alternative organisation which I called the Anti-ID Cards Network. However,
partly due to me trying to organise the meeting on my own and at short notice,
and partly because it wasn't seen as an issue at the time, nobody else turned
up. [More recently, in two places where there have been trials, in Glasgow and
Brighton, there have been campaigns organising under the name Defy-ID.]
However, I set up a mailing list, to allow me to put forward some information
about ID cards (generally articles from the mass media) as well as the views on
left-wing issues that I send to my other lists. My list has an advantage over
the Defy-ID list in that it has a browsable and searchable archive (go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/anti-id-cards).
It is important that there is a good atmosphere at the Manchester gathering, so
I am sending this email to his list in order to ask him if we can put our
differences behind us (as well as to inform everyone on the other list about
lots of stuff). [I have already told people on my list about Defy-ID and
encouraged them to join its list as well, and if we can cooperate at the gathering
and Nathan allows me onto the Defy-ID list (without repeatedly chucking me off
forcing me to set up a new email address if there is something else that is
particularly important for me to tell people about) then I will gladly put a
link to Defy-ID from my website.] There is another important anti-ID cards
organisation called No2ID (go to http://www.no2id.net).
They are not as radical as us, but they are prepared to continue opposing them
once the legislation is passed (which is vital since there is zero chance that
enough New Labour MPs will rebel, especially considering all the pressure about
terrorism). They have a mailing list which I am on, which only they can send
messages to it, but they did send out details of the Defy-ID gathering.
I will stay in Glasgow for a week and get back just
in time for university freshers' fairs in Manchester, which are particularly
important this year because Manchester University's student Joe Finnan and
Manchester Metropolitan University student Diane Stoker are both members of the
fascist British National Party (BNP) who infiltrated the SWP for the whole of
last year. They were appointed organisers of the SWP's student wing, the
Socialist Worker Student Society (SWSS), replacing the existing organisers.
Both of the infiltrators attended the SWP's national conference, and they got
involved in the most important organisations the SWP got involved with: Respect
from its formation, the Stop the War Coalition and Unite Against Fascism (UAF).
BNP infiltrator Finnan became the treasurer for Respect North West (which has
perhaps incidentally accumulated a large debt from the European elections).
Apparently the BNP got hold of some lists of names and addresses, but
fortunately not one of UAF which would have been a bit more serious. However,
UAF national secretary Weyman Bennett regarded them as close firends and often
contacted them for advice, according to the BNP. I got most of my information
on their infiltration from the internet: visit the following website for a
left-wing perspective (http://www.socialistunitynetwork.co.uk)
and a page on the BNP's website gloating about their achievement (http://www.bnp.org.uk/articles/left_infiltration.htm).
[Some anti-fascists may object to me providing a link to a page on a fascist
website, on the basis of "no platform for fascists", but it is
important to know your enemy and it it is so straightforward to search the
internet that anybody who wanted to could search out this page (which is
actually informative enough to be worth looking at). Besides, I cannot imagine
anybody except the most die-hard agent of big business reading this message and
becoming converted to fascism by reading the BNP's simplistic policies.] I may
have got the odd fact wrong about the achievements of the infiltrators, but if
so it is the SWP’s fault for not answering their assertions. I don’t think I
have ever met either of them, so I’ve had to mainly rely on the internet for my
information.
Although the BNP have toyed with a bit of
infiltration, quite possibly for the first time, another fascist organisation
called the National Revolutionary Faction (NRF) have been doing it extremely
seriously for years. A few years ago, it was revealed on the "UK Left
Network" mailing list 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.
Somebody else on the list found a page on their website (which has since been
removed) giving advice to fascist cadres for infiltrating organisations in
society, including those of the left (but also others in society such as the
police, the NHS and education). The NRF had (and presumably still has) a
complicated hierarchical structure with several layers corresponding to
different depths they had reached within the organisations they were
infiltrating. I produced a draft resolution against state/fascist infiltration
based on the discussion (which also took place on an "international
socialism discussion list" run by an organisation called Labor's Militant
Voice, who had been expelled after a long and dirty faction fight in
Militant/the Socialist Party's sister organisation in the USA) - you can find
the resolution (which as far as I know was not passed by any organisations due
to the huge vested interests against exposing the infiltration methods) on my
website (at http://www.stevewallis.org/lsa-resolution.htm).
This discussion proved very useful in starting to publicise my ideas about the
infiltration that takes place and I wrote the first version of my
"Socialism and Conspiracies" document soon after. Unfortunately, I
have been chucked off both of those lists. If you have enjoyed reading this
message, and want to read more of my views about infiltration by conspiratorial
organisations on the side of the two key classes: big business (to try to stop
a world socialist revolution) and the working class (to neutralise those on the
side of big business enabling a revolution to take place), as well as other
vested interests such as fascism, the middle class and Islamic fundamentalism,
you can read the most recent version of that document (at http://www.stevewallis.org/soc-cons5.htm).
I will expand on the information I've included in the last two paragraphs to produce a leaflet about infiltration soon which I will mainly hand out to Manchester students. I've included below the parts of the two leaflets referred to above (with minor formatting alterations plus details for a Manchester anti-war meeting that were not available when I produced the original leaflet, and deleting an event that occurred before final editing of this document):
[leaflet 1 (leaflet 2 text very similar)]
I pointed out (on leaflets and the internet) before
the war on Iraq took place that it was to increase control of the world’s oil
supplies and that the only solution was for ordinary Iraqis to rise up and
overthrow Saddam Hussein and his Ba’athist regime. Unfortunately, most anti-war
activists failed to point these things out and simply argued that many people
would die if there was a war. They therefore appeared to be appeasing Saddam Hussein,
and Tony Blair claimed the moral high ground and won majority support in
opinion polls even without UN approval.
The exposure in the mass media around the world of
torture and murder of Iraqi soldiers and civilians at the hands of the US and
British military was a massive setback for imperialism. However, what is much
less well known (but has been reported occasionally) is that there have been
about seven deaths in British
custody in Iraq.
The 28th of June ‘handover’ has only replaced one set
of stooges for imperialism with another. Elections are promised in January next
year, but Western leaders would like to use continued unrest as an excuse for
postponing the elections indefinitely. That unrest is getting out of control
but the most forward thinking Western strategists would prefer an Islamic
fundamentalist state to arise when their troops are forced out of Iraq (by
demands for withdrawal in the West or the strength of opposition in Iraq) to
any moves towards socialism, such as a radical left-wing party coming to power
in the elections and seizing Iraq’s assets back from the imperialists (together
with a mass movement carrying out action from below such as occupying oil
rigs).
The 3rd July edition of Socialist Worker pointed out that the former US administrator Paul Bremer rushed through a law giving a seven-member commission the power to disqualify parties and candidates. However, if they used this power against a popular party or candidate, it could spark a mass revolutionary movement. Therefore, there probably won’t be elections at all in Iraq while the occupation continues.
[leaflet 1]
I was the only member of the Socialist Party
(formerly known as the Militant Tendency) from England or Wales who spoke in
support of the setting up of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) at the 1998
European School of the CWI (to which the Socialist Party is affiliated).
Scottish Militant Labour (SML) had done most of its activities in the name of
the Scottish Socialist Alliance, breaking down years of mistrust between
socialist organisations. SML became a ‘platform’ of the SSP, called the
International Socialist Movement, when the Alliance was transformed into a
party. The SSP has been very successful, winning six seats at the Scottish
parliament last year.
Unfortunately, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) has
used the Socialist Alliance in England and Wales as a reformist electoral front
for its own party. Arguing that the problems in British society can be solved
by taxing the rich, rather than overthrowing big business, is not very
persuasive to say the least. The SWP has tended to act in a sectarian way
towards other organisations (for which I think infiltration by conspiratorial
organisations on the side of big business like MI5, but usually much more
secretive, are to blame) and this has provided the excuse for sectarianism
against them (such as withdrawing from the Socialist Alliance as the Socialist
Party did).
The latest initiative of the SWP has been setting up
"Respect - the Unity Coalition" with some other members of the
anti-war movement, including some of those in the Socialist Alliance, George
Galloway MP (who I think is a liability) and Muslim leaders (some of whom are
undoubtedly Islamic fundamentalist infiltrators who have played lip service to
socialism and equality, two of the things that Respect is supposed to stand
for).
Most SWP members were undoubtedly disappointed by
the election results, since they had such great hopes (of a few MEPs and a
million votes, four times as many as they got). Respect suffered from very poor
election leaflets at the start (just saying they were against war and
privatisation; they put forward the same sort of reformist demands that they
have on their website ( http://www.respectcoalition.org)
later on after an internet discussion I had with Paul Foot), a shortage of
money (they said they wanted £1,000,000, then £400,000 and ended up spending
£250,000) and a lack of activists on the ground (largely because they didn’t
set up Respect until January this year). However, all is not lost. I have
already called for Respect to be turned into a broad socialist party in a
message I’ve sent out on the internet and put on my website (at http://www.stevewallis.org/respect.htm),
and distributed a similar leaflet to this at the Socialist Party’s weekend of discussion and debate:
Socialism 2004. The party, called "Respect" omitting "The Unity
Coalition", must:
§ Be
seriously funded. The SWP should hand over most of its assets to Respect when
it becomes a platform within it (as SML did when the SSP was set up). Platform
members should pay more subs to Respect than their own platform.
§ Have
regular frequent branch meetings (probably at least twice a month). Platform
meetings should usually be less frequent.
If this is not done, and Respect fails to make a
spectacular breakthrough at the polls, the whole initiative could become a disaster
for the left rather than a step towards a democratic socialist world.
[leaflet 2]
"Respect: the Unity Coalition" is a new
formation that arose out of the anti-war movement. It has got off to a
reasonable start with about 250,000 votes in the European elections, over 12%
and 6% in parliamentary by-elections in Leicester and Birmingham and winning a
council seat in Tower Hamlets (an area of London with a very high Asian
population).
Hopefully Respect will develop into a broad
socialist party like the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), which arose out of the
Scottish Socialist Alliance in which Scottish Militant Labour (SML) played a
leading role. SML had proved itself serious by leading the mass non-payment
campaign that defeated the poll tax and winning several elections. The SSP now
has a few ‘platforms’, and many of its leaders are in the International
Socialist Movement (ISM) platform that used to be known as SML. On May Day last
year, the SSP won six seats to the Scottish parliament.
Respect must be seriously funded enabling it to
produce a weekly newspaper and many placards, posters and leaflets, its
branches should meet frequently, and its members must usually participate in
campaigns in the name of Respect rather than the platform that they are also
members of.
Respect stands for "Respect, Equality, Socialism, Peace, Environment, Community and Trade Unions". However, there has been a bit of a tendency so far to downplay "Equality" and "Socialism" in order to win votes from Muslims. Islamic fundamentalism, like fundamentalist forms of other religions, opposes equality - because the religion dates back to a very sexist time in history.
[leaflet 2]
Saturday 11th September, 9.30am-4.30pm - Resisting
ID Cards Gathering. For details of the venue (in Manchester), email admin@defy-id.org.uk or phone 07980
291478.
Monday 27th September, 7pm (Main Hall, St Peter's
Chaplaincy, Precinct Centre, Oxford Road, Manchester - Public Meeting - Building
the movement against war; bring the troops home; end the occupation of Iraq.
Speakers: Rose Gentle (mother of Gordon, a soldier who died in Iraq), Ken Loach
(film director) and John Rees (Stop the War Coalition).
Thursday
14th to Sunday 17th October, central London - European Social Forum 2004 - stop the war;
no to racism; end privatisation; global justice; save the environment. Go
for all four days or just for the international demonstration and concert
on the Sunday. Book tickets and accommodation through the website ( http://www.fse-esf.org).
Saturday 30th to Sunday 31st October, central London - national
delegate conference of Respect - for more information, visit the national
Respect website ( http://www.respectcoalition.org).
[leaflet 1]
To find out more about my views, on issues such as war,
socialism, and infiltration of organisations in society by conspiratorial
organisations on the side of big business (to try to stop a revolution from
happening) and conspiratorial organisations on the side of the working class
(to neutralise those on the side of big business and allow a revolution to take
place), visit my socialist website (http://www.stevewallis.org).
However, you may not be able to access
this website due to internet censorship.
I have set up a mailing list based on support for
democracy in Iraq and opposition to the occupation. Browse the archives or join
the mailing list (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/iraq-democracy).
If that does not work (due to internet censorship), you may be able to join the
list by sending an email to: iraq-democracy-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
I send all my important internet messages to that forum and many others (most of which were set up by other people). To find out some of the other important forums that I send the messages to, visit my forum page (
http://www.stevewallis.org/forums.htm).