Weekly Worker

See also: Weekly Worker: A Little Light on the W W Group ("CPGB") Song of the Weekly Worker: I'm so small! But I'm poisonous too; What I say is at best but half-true: I spread gossip thin, So they'll think I'm well in; But I'm useful, torn up in the loo! *(And see appendix by the Marxist-Limerick Tendency) The contradictions of the 'CPGB'/WWG By Sean Matgamna Trotsky, describing it in himself, called it "topographical cretinism". He'd have found a less flattering name for my version of it. I get lost easily. Author's Doppelganger: Oh, a metaphor! You are about to confess your political sins -...

Principles are indivisible The Alliance for Workers' Liberty does not expect to be liked for it when, confronting the dominant politics and prejudices of the left and the pseudo left on the Jewish-Arab conflict, we drive wedges into painful contradictions. If there were not something anomalous and self-contradictory, and thus potentially painful, in socialists advocating, or being willing to accept, the destruction of the Israeli Jewish nation state, then things on the left would be dire indeed. The "left" would not be a left. And, really, if you think about it, there would be no point in...

The politics of the a-political An open letter to John Bridge/Jack Conrad and Mark Fischer, from Sean Matgamna A note to the general reader The incident in Leeds on September 20th 2002 was in itself — if it can be taken "in itself" — pretty trivial. On a personal level I would, indeed, have had a right to be annoyed at being induced to travel from London to Leeds to speak in a debate on Marxism and Religion when in fact the invitation to speak had been "withdrawn". But if there was no more than that to it, I would have regarded it as only a piece of a-political personal nastiness, and put it...

This article can also be downloaded in RTF format here There is a danger that the issues around me being "no-platformed" by the CPGB/WW in Leeds on 20 September, and the CPGB/WW's subsequent attempts to excuse and justify their conduct, will get lost in a torrent of words. To offset that I here tabulate the basic facts and political issues involved. The leadership of the Weekly Worker group shows every sign of being seriously rattled by our insistence that the business of them "no-platforming" me in Leeds on 20 September - and then excusing and justifying that exclusion - raises important...

All republicans are republican - but some are less republican than others This is a reply to a polemic by the AWL's Sean Matgamna entitled "Notes on the CPGB/WW". In this he devoted a section to the monarchy headed "All monarchs are monarchs, but some are less monarchical than others!". It was a criticism of the CPGB's republicanism, but could equally be directed towards the RDG. In fact CPGB supporter, Tom Delargy, thinks that Sean is really attacking RDG arguments, which he has mistakenly attributed to the CPGB. Recently Tom has argued that the AWL and RDG are the real opponents and that the...

Schema or banality? The CPGB and the 'federal republic' By Clive Bradley "The combination of capital created for this mass a common situation, common interests. This mass is already a class as against capital, but not yet for itself. In the struggle... this mass becomes united, and constitutes itself as a class for itself. The interests it defends become class interests. But the struggle of class against class is a political struggle." Marx, 'The Poverty of Philosophy' In a two-part article written in 1999, Jack Conrad of the CPGB spells out in some detail his party's approach to the question...

Before responding at any length, best wait until Mark Fischer gets further in his promised series of articles . By then WW readers should have an idea of his substantive arguments, and, with luck, sight of the "substantial piece" by Sean Matgamna which he is "centrally" responding to, Sean's "Critical Notes" , rather than just quotations filleted so as to "prove" that the AWL misrepresents CPGB/WW politics. One point, however, cries out for immediate comment: Stalinism. In WW 403 (11/10/01) Mark himself proudly introduced a reprint of an article published in 1982 on the April 1978 Stalinist...

By Sean Matgamna At the Socialist Alliance conference last Saturday, I talked to Mark Fischer and Marcus Strom about my being "no-platformed" by the CPGB/WW in Leeds on 20 September, and found them apologetic and conciliatory. The CPGB/WW, they said, hadn't known what it was doing; hadn't meant to do what it in fact, by blunder, did. In any case it shouldn't have happened. I responded that if that was accepted and admitted, then I couldn't see any point in continuing to go on about the matter: shit happens. I asked if all that had been said in the Weekly Worker . Mark Fischer said no, but it...

The CPGB (Weekly Worker) is a small group which originates in a left-Stalinist faction of the old Communist Party of Great Britain ("The Leninist"), formed under the influence of a section of the Turkish Stalinist movement. In recent years they have moved a long way politically towards Trotskyism. In line with our general policy of maximum dialogue on the revolutionary left, the AWL has pursued discussions and debates with the CPGB/WW for many years now. In more recent times, we have been able to collaborate with the CPGB/WW on many issues in and around the Socialist Alliance. Lately problems...

Oh dear. I don't fully understand it myself, and I'm sure others viewing AWL-CPGB relations from a greater distance must be even more baffled. The AWL and CPGB/WW have had extensive discussions in recent years. The very fact of those discussions indicates some political common ground: a commitment to open debate, a desire to win revolutionary unity through that debate. Our positions on many important questions have also converged through those years - on the Stalinist states, on Ireland, on Israel-Palestine, on Islamic fundamentalism and "reactionary anti-capitalism", on the Afghan and Iraqi...