REVOLUTIONary?

What is REVO? In simple terms REVO is the Worker's Power (WP) youth group, this is something that many REVO & WP members deny, but it is extremely obvious. The REVO manifesto states clearly that:

"...we support the struggle of the League for a Revolutionary Communist International, which is fighting to establish a new World Party of Socialist Revolution, and its British section, Workers Power, which is fighting to build such a party in Britain."

WP keeps a certain number of members in REVO (who are often not youths by any stretch of the imagination) to make sure it remains a Trotskyist group and doesn't deviate politically. WP members in REVO often strongly deny that it is a Trotskyist organisation, despite the fact that Rule no. 2 of the organisation says that:

"We stand in the tradition of Leon Trotsky"

...the man who ordered the crushing of countless strikes and uprisings and who instructed his army to "shoot down like partridges" the people of Kronstadt who refused to submit to Bolsheviks, who had banned all other political parties, shut down "soviets" where they didn't win a majority, allotted their own party members extra-large rations during the famine and brought back one-person management in factories.

Also REVO claim to be a revolutionary socialist youth group but they are clearly not socialist, they are state-capitalist as you can see easily from their manifesto which states that they will:

"*Nationalise all big businesses and multinationals without compensation.
*Nationalise all firms that go bankrupt...or announce sackings.
*Nationalise the banks, insurance companies, and finance houses"

...which sounds very much like the USSR.

If you attend political demonstrations in Britain you will probably have come across REVO as they have a very visible presence, due to their mass-produced red flags. REVO participate in a large number of demonstrations and even organise some small scale campaigns, but REVO has very few links with the anti-capitalist movement and does not contribute to any long-term projects: they just turn up at the spectacular finales to be visible. Now we do not blame this on REVO members (who some of us were once, too) but on the Workers' Power members within REVO, two of whom turned up to a few of the Mayday Collective meetings in 2001 and boasted afterwards about deliberately blocking consensus to "prove" that anarchist methods of decision-making are unworkable.

What does REVO stand for? It's difficult to tell, since the REVO manifesto is full of contradictions: they say they will nationalise some businesses but not all; they constantly refer to "workers'" rights and neglect the other 70% of the population; they claimed to be opposed to sexism and totalitarianism and yet they support the Taliban and Saddam Hussein!

From this we can see that REVO is clearly diverse group with a large variation of ideas which meeting REVO members will show you this. But then the question remains: why if opinions of REVO members are so diverse do they seem so happy to build a "mass party" and work in a group created purely to recruit people to Workers' Power?

This is possibly because REVO provides radical anti-capitalist youths who wish to make the world a better place with a group they can belong to and be part of, while offering no direct democracy within it, and no real requirement for participation since all important tasks such as running the website and e-group and printing the newspaper are taken care of by WP members.

REVOLUTION claims to be "a democratic organisation. Our policies and actions are decided by a simple majority vote of our members" and yet at the last national conference, the "Rules of the Organisation" were not even brought up for discussion, including the one which requires that a member "sells and distributes REVOLUTION publications, makes regular contributions to REVOLUTION funds and campaigns for the policies of the organisation"! In addition, the draft manifesto discussed at the conference was written by a non-youth, non-REVO member who, surprise surprise, is in Workers' Power. Any dissent was kept to a minimum due to the ridiculously short time in which changes in policy could be discussed.

WHY ARE WE BEING "SECTARIAN"?

We do not enjoy attacking organisations we ourselves were once part of, and which has members some of us are friends with, but certain members of Workers' Power, speaking on behalf of REVOLUTION have been spreading lies about some of us and so this leaflet is partly a response. It is also to express disappointment that so many good revolutionaries' and activists' attentions are being diverted from revolutionary struggle into building a sad future wannabe dictatorship.

This leaflet was written and produced by:

Ramon Mercader Collective
 ramonmercader@hotmail.com