AWL history

Marxist texts and Marxist method (part 1)

By Sean Matgamna: from Workers’ Socialist Review no.2, 1982 Time and again the same quotations from Trotsky have been used to justify a pro-Argentine stance in the Falklands/Malvinas war But the main thing the quotations prove is the pro-Argentine comrades’ lack of grip on the points in dispute. Everyone in the WSL majority would agree that if the comparison with China and the other colonies and semi-colonies of the 1930s referred to by Trotsky is legitimate, then we would not invoke the character of the Argentine regime as a reason for not siding with Argentina. We could immediately arrive at...

The Trotskyist Tendency and IS (SWP)

A funny tale agreed upon? By Sean Matgamna A, sort of, review of Jim Higgins' "More Years For the Locust" Let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the looniness of Trots — of the left in general, but of Trots in particular. Let us tell tales that are funny ha-ha and tales that are funny-peculiar. Tell how some were born mad, some became mad and some had madness foisted on them. Author’s doppelganger: No! No! This won’t do. It’s no good! Pretentious — Pseudsville! This is the age of the soundbite, the 30 second attention span and the comedy workshop. You must entertain! Make a joke of...

Leafleting on the Manchester Ship Canal*

This article was based on the experience of Workers Fight, from which AWL has developed and which worked inside the International Socialists (predecessor of the SWP) at the time. It was part of a drive to turn IS towards production of factory bulletins at the end of the 1960s. It has been abridged. It was written by Rachel Lever (Rachel Matgamna), Sean Matgamna and Harold Youd. Memory suggests that Rachel was the main author. SM. The “turn to the class” by IS is currently using the methods of factory leafleting. Presented here is a short report of the experience of using this method on the...

Cynthia Baldry, 1949-1975

Exactly 30 years ago, on 19 November 1975 Cynthia Baldry died in Liverpool. She was a member of one of Solidarity/AWL’s forerunners, Workers’ Fight. Aged 26 at her death, she had suffered since the age of 19 from a rare and incurable disease which finally killed her, lupus erythematosus. Her political life spanned five years of gradual physical deterioration. Yet it was by any standards a life of intense activity and dedication to the cause of socialism and the groups she joined to fight in that cause — first the International Socialism group (now the SWP) and then Workers’ Fight. These were...

'What we are and what we must become'

What we are and what we must become is the founding document of our political tendency - and a critique of 1960s 'Militant'. PDF — What we are and what we must become . (Includes extra material as appendices). Online archive — What we are and what we must become. (Includes extra material as appendices). The RSL (Militant) in the 1960s: a study in passivity : introduction to a reprinting of What we are and what we must become in the 1990s . The RSL (Militant) in the 1960s: a study in passivity: download as pdf .

The 1983 Heresy Hunt: 2

This is article three in the four part series as originally published in 2003. For an edited version of all four articles click here Heresy Hunted 1 Heresy Hunted 2 Heresy Hunted 3 Heresy Hunted 4 Sean Matgamna continues his article on 'The last time we were heresy-hunted', dealing with the campaign against us in 1983 by the Workers’ Revolutionary Party — then a high-profile group with a daily paper, Newsline — for pointing to circumstantial evidence that they were being funded by the Libyan and Iraqi dictatorships. They were — the truth came out soon after, in 1985, when the WRP imploded —...

Send in the Clowns

Gerry Byrne responds to Dave Spencer and 'Salma Mackenzie' on the 1984 WSL split. See also Sects democracy and revolutionary unity It is tempting to dismiss Dave Spencer's letters as the grumblings of a disappointed old man. Why re-open an issue nearly two decades old (literally before some of our members were born)? There's a war on, haven't we got more important things to do? But it is precisely because of the war and the huge political ferment that has opened up, that we need to look closely at the issues. Dave I am sure is genuine when he says: "My main point was that Workers Fight (Clive...

Sects, democracy and revolutionary unity

A further response to Dave Spencer's article and letters in WW. by Gerry Byrne Dave Spencer’s extraordinarily self-serving explanation in the WW is that Workers Fight /ICL /WSL was all fine and then turned overnight into a sect – the AWL. That’s not how I remember it. Dave allows that none of the attempts at uniting the left were predatory exercises, that they were entered into sincerely. So how did Matgamna (the evil genius behind the sect-turn) transform genuine unity-seeking revolutionaries into sectarian ‘hand-raisers’? As a materialist, you would expect quantitative indicators before that...

A Reply to Dave Spencer's "Cults and Sects": AWL's 1984 Split With the Thornettites.

In Weekly Worker 466, Dave Spencer gives an account of the history of the AWL , in which he concludes that after our split in 1984 with the Thornett group (now in the ISG) - when Dave himself left - we became a sect. Clive Bradley replies Dave Spencer’s account of the 1984 faction fight and split in the forerunner of the AWL is misleading. He claims that the majority derided its opponents as ‘non-Marxists’, thereby foreclosing on democratic debate; and complains of the question being put: “why people are still in the organisation when they know they are going to lose the battle. It was as...

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