Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

The Trots will destroy ESF

John | 19.10.2004 19:38 | European Social Forum | Analysis | Globalisation | Indymedia | Liverpool | London

In the West, whenever an industrial dispute or popular protest erupts, one thing can be counted on – Trotskyist groups will descend to ‘organize’ the struggle. Then, when all is done, the comrades pack up their papers, posters and pamphlets and move on to the next picket line or rally. Disillusioned workers are left behind as groups like Britain’s Socialist Workers Party (SWP), Resistance in Australia and others breeze in on the latest ‘Protest of the Month’.


Whenever tragedy strikes, one thing can be counted on – the media will descend on the location like a plague of locusts. Then, when all is done, the swarm unplugs microphones and laptops and moves on to the next disaster. Bewildered survivors are left to their fate as the media spotlight shines on the latest ‘Horror of the Month’.

In the West, whenever an industrial dispute or popular protest erupts, one thing can be counted on – Trotskyist groups will descend to ‘organize’ the struggle. Then, when all is done, the comrades pack up their papers, posters and pamphlets and move on to the next picket line or rally. Disillusioned workers are left behind as groups like Britain’s Socialist Workers Party (SWP), Resistance in Australia and others breeze in on the latest ‘Protest of the Month’.

The impact these groups have far outweighs their actual numbers. But what they lack in political imagination, creativity and mass base, they make up for in sheer organizing prowess. Consummate opportunists, they tirelessly weave their way into leadership positions of important social movements such as the anti-racist and anti-capitalist movements and, more recently, the anti-war efforts. Often shunned by progressive groups, the Trots bounce back with new front groups such as the anti-capitalist tour operator Globalize Resistance–active in many countries in Europe – and psuedo-Trot front group Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) in the US. Where front groups fail, they also form new alliances such as the Stop the War Coalition in Britain. They seek to assume leadership and assimilate diverse movements for their own partisan aims irrespective of the cause concerned. An Irish environmental festival, Dutch trade campaigners’ strategy meetings, Belgian protests around a business summit, a student network conference in Britain, anti-capitalist protests in Scandinavia, North America and Australia: all these have been targets of authoritarian Socialist groups bent on securing leadership roles, gaining recruits and, of course, selling papers.

Extremely hierarchical, they prefer top-down leadership bordering on authoritarianism rather than grassroots participatory democratic organizing. Their largely anti-democratic tendencies are well documented and often characterized by manipulating important organizing meetings, forcing out dissenters and subverting key platform goals if these are deemed ‘counter-revolutionary’. They ‘represent’ movements in the media, flooding demonstrations with placards and banners promoting their own groups and socialist branding, and packing meeting rooms with their own members such that dissenting views drown in a sea of revolutionary rhetoric.

Their classic vanguardist political philosophy is perhaps best described by themselves in the British Socialist Workers Party’s magazine, Socialist Review:

‘Mass movements don’t get the political representation they deserve unless a minority of activists within the movement seek to create a political leadership, which means a political party that shares their vision of political power from below. Such a party will be much less than the movement numerically, but much more than the movement ideologically and organizationally.’1

The most disturbing current developments are Trotskyist efforts to control bodies such as the World Social Forum and the European Social Forum (ESF). The ESF in Florence in 2002 was heavily dominated by the Fourth International, one of the oldest international Trotskyist groups. Already the preparations for the European Social Forum in London have been disrupted by the classic assimilation tactics of the Socialist Workers Party and their front group, Globalize Resistance. The situation has become so bad that activists determined to have a truly open and democratic forum have launched a campaign to ‘democratize the ESF’, calling themselves the ‘horizontals’. While the horizontals struggle to ensure that another social forum is possible, the ‘verticals’ – the authoritarian Socialists – are not going away without a fight. As musician David Rovics humorously captures it: ‘Cause I am the vanguard of the masses, and all of you should just follow me. If you doubt my analysis, you must be in the petty bourgeoisie.’

John

Comments

Display the following 12 comments

  1. The SWP Dont have the Power Destroy the ESF — Harry Hamlet
  2. Your argument doesn't hold water — |||
  3. Nobody's listening ... — H
  4. I have tried — javier
  5. some comments from a heterodox trotskyist — der nestscheißer
  6. Please — A
  7. Harry Hamlet has a point — Doktor Logik
  8. esf future — johno
  9. You sound like Joseph Stalin — Derek McMillan
  10. have to agre with javier — hamish
  11. Secterianists — Marxist Leninist not Trotskyite
  12. STOP ATTACKING OUR COMRADES! — muffet
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech