It seems that even as world weary an observer of the left as I am can be bewildered by the number of different organizations, and when I reported below that the CP was supporting the SSP for the Hollyrood elections it was an error - it is not in fact the CPB Scottish region, but the rather less significant Communist Party of Scotland who have recommended the vote for the SSP. Oh well.
Thanks to Cameron for correcting me.
9 comments:
Hi Andy - if you'd like to host a carnival, that'd be great: just give me a name, a date and a (controversial-as-you-like!) theme, and make people aware they should send submissions to you. Cheers!
AN said...
Rohan, you sent me an e-mail off list about your blog, but I somehow accidently deleted before reading it - so if you could send it again please.
No problem Andy. I have decided to repost as a blog reply here because I can't see how that could be a problem. The excellent blog (which isn't mine) is edited by Ian Angus. The site is found at:
http://climateandcapitalism.blogspot.com/
My previous email to you was a request that you add this blog to your "interesting blogs" list.
Also, I love you use of the image the Monty Python team playing the People's Front of Judea.
["Is this the Judean People's front?"... "F**ck off! We'er not the Judean People's Front. WE'RE THE PEOPLE'S FRONT OF JUDEA!"]
Ok JOhn
GIve us a month to do it, Monday 10th April, and the topic will be "learning from the past", either waht the past expereince of the left can teach us today, or how the individual past experiences of comrades informs their politics today.
Those who do not learn from history are dooned to repeat it.
Could I have your email address then Andy, so I can tell people where to send submissions?
my e-mail address is:
swindon_socialists@yahoo.co.uk
I love the use of the Python picture to go along with this post. I read somewhere recently that there might be as many as 40 Marxist parties in England and Wales. Could that be possible?
More than that I expect Tim!
As Tony Benn used to say there are too many socialist organisations and too few socialists.
Good God! That's pretty wild.
Here's where I read that there were around 40. In his 2005 book 'Babylon and Beyond', current Green Party of England and Wales male speaker Derek Wall's 2005 writes that 'in England and Wales there may be as many as 40 Marxist political parties, with a combined membership probably smaller than the single 6,000-strong Green Party. There are two Communist parties; a New Communist Party; several Marxist-Leninist Communist parties who follow Mao; the Socialist Party of Great Britain, so old (founded in 1904) that it predates the Labour Party; dozens of Trotskyite groups; new socialist alliance parties such as Respect and the Red Party. The UK is not uniquely fertile: Argentina has over 20 Marxist Parties including the Socialist Workers Front, the Socialist Workers Movement and the Socialist Workers Union. There are many more self-proclaimed Marxists active outside party politics."
So much for 'workers of the world unite', eh?
I really liked Dereks' book, and I wrote a review of it
http://www.socialistunitynetwork.co.uk/voices/babylon.htm
I'm not sure that he actualluy counted too derive the number 40, or whether it was a figure plucked from the air as a reasonable guess.
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