From Wikipedia:
"Straight Left was the name of a political group in Britain, and of a left wing newspaper.
Straight Left was a political group consisting of members of the Communist Party of Great Britain who disagreed with the leadership's policies. It was also the name of a monthly newspaper produced by the group. Though the origins of this faction within the CPGB go back earlier it emerged under this name in 1977.
The leading ideological force in the faction was Fergus Nicholson, who had previously worked as the CPGB's student organiser. Unlike the leadership, they supported the Soviet invasions of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. They also thought the party should concentrate its work in Trade Unions, and not in social movements such as feminism and environmentalism.
Because the CPGB's rules banned the formation of factional groups, SL operated in secret. Members of the faction contributed funds to the organisation through significant monthly donations, which helped fund the groups educational gatherings, often referred to as campinq weekends.
Its meetings were not publicly announced, and writers in their newspaper Straight Left and their theoretical magazine Communist wrote under pseudonyms like Nicholson, whose pen-name was "Harry Steel". The Straight Left faction also produced anonymous bulletins to try and influence CPGB Congresses usually under the heading "Congress Truth".
The faction also produced a a dissident internal pamphlet entitled "The Crisis in Our Communist Party- Cause, Effect and Cure", which was distributed nationally but not under its name. This was authored,(in all likelihood in conjunction with others), by veteran miner and communist Charlie Woods, who was expelled from the CPGB for putting his name to the publication.
Charlie Woods, who had been the CPGB's Northern organiser in the late 1930's, was the factions oldest link to a period when the CPGB was operating in a manner that the Straight Left faction hoped the CPGB could eventually return. A significant number of Straight Left faction members had developed close personal friendships with members of fraternal communist parties, particularly the Iranian, Iraqi, South African and Greek parties, who were well organised on most British University campuses. Many Straight Left supporters felt that the style of organisation and the overall ethos of these organisations was significantly more impressive than the CPGB at that stage, and as a result sought to steer the CPGB away from its maverick stance within the world communist movement and back to positions similar to these highly effective and highly disciplined and considerably better supported fraternal parties.
They wished the CPGB to return to a pro-Soviet stance, with high levels of membership commitment, a focus on working class organisation, as well as a strong emphasis on Marxist-Leninist education in the branches. The faction recruited members from within the CPGB and required members to demonstrate a high level of commitment. The faction was widely regarded as being quite successful in recruiting a large number of bright and able younger members within the CPGB, especially in the 1980's when Thatcherism and a return to overt class politics from the right, led more CP members to question the alliance of euro-communists and centrists who were increasingly focusing not on traditional class politics but on the new social forces around the environment and feminism.
The faction's opposition to the leadership of the CPGB was visceral and extremely time-consuming for its members, and many members were expelled throughout this period.
Though it was a faction within the CPGB it had supporters within the Labour Party. In March 1979 the Straight Left newspaper was launched as a monthly which claimed to be a "non-party, non sectarian journal of the left, committed to working class unity and class consciousness". It was edited by Mike Toumazou and the Business Manager was Seumas Milne.
Frank Swift was responsible for fund-raising and the editorial advisory panel consisted of Ray Buckton, Bill Keys, James Lamond MP, Jim Layzell, Alf Lomas MEP, Joan Maynard MP, Alan Sapper, Gordon Schaffer and William Wilson MP.
Straight Left supporters chose to stay in the CPGB, when rival factions split off to form the New Communist Party (NCP) in 1977 and the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) in 1988. Some leading members such as Andrew Murray and [Nick Wright] formed a group called "Communist Liaison" after the dissolution of the CPGB in 1991 that published a newsletter called "Diamat" but it later dissolved and most of them, including Wright and Murray joined the CPB. Others, (notably Fergus Nicholson) decided not to join any party.
The Straight Left magazine is still published by Nicholson and his supporters and they have organised a number of annual Straight Left conferences over the years."
And:
"Harry's Place was originally started by a writer using the nom de plume Harry Hatchet (aka "Harry" - none of Harry's Place writers use their full name), who was originally the sole writer. Harry was active in British anti-fascist and Marxist politics in the mid-to-late 1980s, and in this period was also a member of the Straight Left faction of the Communist Party of Great Britain. It is claimed that he took the pseudonym "Harry Steele" as a tribute to Harry Pollitt, former General Secretary of the CPGB, and the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin (though Harry claims it was a "p***-take" and "not a homage to anyone"). Under this name he contributed to a number of far-left message boards and mailing lists, including "UK Left Network" and "The Politburo", a discussion board for British Communists, the latter of which he set up. In this period he became well-known among fellow contributors for his support for "orthodox" Soviet Communism and his attacks on Trotskyists, in particular the Socialist Workers Party."
"Anti-totalitarianism", indeed! This tells one all that one needs to know about Harry's Place, about its idol Oliver "Dodgy Degree?" Kamm, and about everything that emanates from either of them. It is also an important insight into who the fabulously well-connected Eustonite, pro-war, "decent Left" really are. Reliable sources of information? No wonder that Kamm is now published hardly, if at all. Is the coup against the coup finally beginning?
And no wonder that they refuse to set up a party and contest elections as themselves.
Frit.
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Why don't you publish critical comments on your blog?
ReplyDeleteFrit.
(And, no, I don't expect you to publish this. Because you're frit.)
I do so all the time, or at least as often as I receive them and they are not obscene. If that is not very often, then you can draw your own conclusion.
ReplyDeleteAnd even if you didn't, that's hardly in the same league as either being a successor of Straight Left or refusing to put yourselves to the people at the ballot box, is it?
ReplyDeleteBut in your post about Jacobitism you state that a "neoconservative geopolitical position" is "now hegemonic within this country's oligarchic and extremely narrowly-based Political Class".
ReplyDeleteIf it's the case that and neoliberals and neoconservatives have achieved hegemony, then why on earth would they need to set up another party?
but I'm very dissappointed you wouldn't even publish my broadly supportive comment when all I called for was for you to dismiss the mischief making rumours of a Leadership crisis in BPA.
ReplyDeleteWell, I have now. But they're not in the BPA, and I don't want to give them any publicity.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 3:42 PM, for honesty's sake.
ReplyDeleteMost of such Tory, Labour or Lib Dem voters as there still are, are not of their persuasion. Most of such members as those parties still have aren't, either. And the neocons routinely claim that oridinary people share their views, but are kept down by the elite. Well, speaking as an ordinary person, let's see.
Furthermore, the existing parties are in their final generation. So, like us, the neocons are just going to HAVE to set up a party, or they just won't have one, whether their own or rightfully someone else's. We have acted on this. Have they? When will they?
Frit.
I'm relieved to hear that the rumours of the Leadership crisis are unfounded. I thought it couldn't be right and nearly laughed myself silly when it was suggested that Clark, the Deputy Leader would be challenged by some bloke called Kahn in the event of your resignation. BPA without Lindsay would be like Respect without Galloway.
ReplyDeleteHow goes the campaign to recruit Bob Wareing to lead BPA in the Commons?
What's wrong with Gimlet's degree? This is a new one on me.
ReplyDeleteKamm, not Kahn, Clive (although Kahn would have been funnier, I grant you). He says that there should have been an "open selection procedure" at Wantage.
ReplyDeleteHe can talk, of course: one of Britain's neocon godfathers, he knows all about rigging selection procedures to get people into Parliament under false colours so that they can discharge their parliamentary responsibilities according to the day-to-day direction of a cabal of crooks and cranks across the Atlantic. Wantage current has just such an MP, which is why Neil is standing there.
Of course, Kamm is joking when he says he wants to challenge Neil. But we should call his bluff. Why doesn't he put up against Neil at Wantage? Where is the neocons' party? Frit.
The Exile, his Masters degree mught be perfectly sound, like mine. But isn't it odd that different sources, which he has either written or could easily correct, state that it was awarded by different institutions?