hello everybody

isn't it funny to see the self righteous trots getting in a tizzy? the comical Fight Racism Fight Imperialism branch of the politburo scraping with their commrades the socialist workers pricks?

who gives a toss? this is just gossip for a trot minority.

hahahahahaha - fuck the lot of em

!

Could someone tell me who the FRFI are? Thank you.

What the hell is wrong with the independent socialist movment when they can't distinguish between Trotskyists, Leninists, or Stalinists (and can we expect them to have ever heard of Gramsci, Sartre or Mao Tse Tung ?). This is unjust. If the SWP starts laying into any legitimate socialist group, we must asume prima facie to rally round. So what about their position on Trotsky ? Whats the relevance ? As far as I know, this group (FRFI / RCG) has never presumed to thwart the tactics of other groups on the left, whereas the SWP does it all the time. This group has made an excellent critique of the labour party (which was endorsed by Pilger) Whose side are you on here ?

What the hell is wrong with the independent socialist movment when they can't distinguish between Trotskyists, Leninists, or Stalinists (and can we expect them to have ever heard of Gramsci, Sartre or Mao Tse Tung ?). This is unjust. If the SWP starts laying into any legitimate socialist group, we must asume prima facie to rally round. So what about their position on Trotsky ? Whats the relevance ? As far as I know, this group (FRFI / RCG) has never presumed to thwart the tactics of other groups on the left, whereas the SWP does it all the time. This group has made an excellent critique of the labour party (which was endorsed by Pilger) Whose side are you on here ?

What the hell is wrong with the independent socialist movment when they can't distinguish between Trotskyists, Leninists, or Stalinists (and can we expect them to have ever heard of Gramsci, Sartre or Mao Tse Tung ?). This is unjust. If the SWP starts laying into any legitimate socialist group, we must asume prima facie to rally round. So what about their position on Trotsky ? Whats the relevance ? As far as I know, this group (FRFI / RCG) has never presumed to thwart the tactics of other groups on the left, whereas the SWP does it all the time. This group has made an excellent critique of the labour party (which was endorsed by Pilger) Whose side are you on here ?

If instead say Manchester Evening Standard or any other mainstream paper had a stall, I wonder if anyone, from either parties would have opposed to them. I do not understand this bitching that goes on inside the left. I have bought few times the FRFI newspaper. What I noticed is that almost in every paper, they attack the SWP. That is not the case with SWP's paper, the Socialist Worker.To their credid they focuse more on Daily Mail rather than other far-left publications. Now on the stall dispute, if the facts are correct, shame on SWP members for their action against the stall, and shame on FRFI for publicising this, in order to score point againts the SWP.

This is an example of the sort of society the SWP would create if they ever (heaven forbid!) got their grubby little Trotskist mits on the 'levers of power'...

Remember Krondstadt!

Did anyone who has contributed to this thread actually attend the carnival? Doesn't sound like it. The FRFI stall was there when I arrived in the morning, and it was still there (in the same place, operating normally) when I left
in the evening.

c'mon guys, get a fucking life.

I was there and this story is cobblers. C'mon guys, get a fucking life.

Estabamos en Manchester por la festival de ANL, y este mensaje es completamente vasura, completamente. Dit nos la verdad muchachos!

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (FRFI) is the newspaper of the Revolutionary Communist Group and its under this slogan/name we are organising ani-racist/anti-imperialist activity. We are communists (Marxist-Leninists), not Trotskyites. We believe that Trotsky was historically wrong, abstract and idealist on many issues, that his theories were not linked to the real world and its struggles and therefore have never lead to a Trotskyist revolution or any serious movement.
We are for the destruction of capitalism and its replacement by socialism in which things are produced according to a plan based on people's needs not profit, for the working class becoming the ruling class. We are against Labour imperialism, we follow Marx, Engels and Lenin's position on imperialism and social democracy: that imperialist nations like Britain super-exploit the oppressed peoples causing misery around the world. That with crumbs of these super-profits the imperialists are able to buy off the middle class and a layer of better-off workers in Britain who form the base of social-democracy while the mass of the working class are abandoned to unemployment, low pay, casualisation etc. That social-democracy is an alliance against the British working class and at the expense of millions being forced into poverty and starvation abroad by imperialism, and must be broken not accomodated with. That social democracy in the form of Labour is carrying out the programme of capitalist imperialism and racism, with its immigration controls, deportations, internment, "war on terrorism", police harassment and brutality that is more deadly than the small fascist groups.

Anyone who thinks we are Trots obviously knows nothing about us, or wouldn't know a Trotskyist if one hit them over the head but condemns in ignorance (they are left, they have a newspaper - they must be Trotskyists! type superficial analysis). Also there's a hatred of ANY organised campaign because of what Che Guevara called a deeply ingrained petty bourgeois individualism under capitalism that hates and denies the need for democracy, for the minority to submit to majority, the need for the exploiters to be made to submit to the exploited, for the individual being part of and subordinate to the collective, for organisation, responsibility and discipline; an attitude that an action should be carried out or not at an individual whim; a lack of seriousness and an attitude that its better not to do anything than to be active with "authoritarians".

Whether an organisation is a sect or not is not determined by its size: a sect can be large or small. If an organisation disagrees with anothers policies that doesn't make it a sect either. However too many organisations simply label anyone else as a "sect" as a way of dismissing them without addressing their politics, which is a lazy way of doing things that shows political insecurity.

Unfortunately the sect mentality is strong in the British left - not just in the SWP. We've had Gerry Healy's ultra-sectish WRP etc. The SWP has strong sectish habits. For example often their members especially new members are "shielded" from other ideas and discouraged from reading anything political not published by the SWP. For example at a demo for Palestine at Trafalgar Square I have seen a young woman from the SWP being almost dragged from the Revolutionary Communist Group's stall and told not to buy a book on the Labour Party because the SWP regards Labour as being at base a workers' party while we say its history has been anti-working class and treacherous. Other organisations ban their members from certain websites etc. At public events people who disagree are censored or expelled - eg those who support Cuba are prevented from speaking or are thrown out of "Marxism" because the SWP thinks Cuba is "state capitalist".
If an organisation doesn't allow its members to know what goes on outside the party or whatever thats a big feature of a sect, it becomes almost religious and shows that they can't be confidant that their politics are right or they would not be afraid of members being "contaminated". On the contrary its good to know what others are doing even if you don't agree with them.

We have criticised the SWP very harshly for a long time because we regard them as left social democrats, and as Lenin and the Bolsheviks have shown these are the most insidious enemies of communism and revolution, constantly working for concilliation, moderation, repectability etc and trying to defuse or stamp out any revolutionary tendency while giving an appearence of socialism. Was it wrong to criticise the SWP (and others) for supporting Labour and Livingstone and spreading illusions in them? No! Was it wrong to oppose the SWP's ugly lies about Cuba? No! But criticising politically is different from censoring and trying to sabotage. We have never attacked, censored or tried to use force against the SWP or anyone on the left.

More info:
In support of Palestine
In support of Cuba
Fight Poverty Pay!

The ANL Carnival was a huge demonstration of anti-Nazi feeling in the North-West, with people as interested in opposing the forthcoming war in Iraq as they were in opposing the Nazis. It was a hugely enjoyable - as well as a very political - event.

So what are the Revolutionary Communist Group (RCG) interested in? Are they interested in building on the anti-fascist feeling to kick the BNP councillors out of Burnley Council? Are they interested in using the Carnival to get as many people as possible to London on the 28 September to protest against the war? No - all they want to do is concoct stories in an attempt to discredit others on the left.

Get a fucking life.

The FRFI comrades? should put their vivid imaginations to better use, or seek medical aid. i was there all day and heard/saw nothinfg of this fictional story - sadly repeated on just about every radical event. What is this virtually unknown group? Where is the evidence for this alleged attack? I think we should be told. Have you discovered cameras yet?
Put up or shut up

It was a great day, peaceful and enjoyed by 10s of 1000s

Did this shower play any part in organising it? NO

I was not in Manchester but the way the SWPies operate I am about as suprised to hear of it as news that the Pope is a Catholic. It has a definate ring of truth to it - if FRFI was making it up the SWP would only have themselves to blame for having a record of this sort of thing that makes any accusation believable.

After the WOMBLES and people being thrown out of the SWP MARXISM conferences anything is believable.

The SWPs denials are like a Tory ministers denials of sleaze. For the poor old SWPie or Tory the mud will always stick because of the past record.

The SWPs denials are like a Tory ministers denials of sleaze. For the poor old SWPie or Tory the mud will always stick because of the past record.

trotskyists, bolsheviks, leninists, stalinists - it doesn't matter what they call themselves - they've got no place on indymedia. Lenin and Trotsky were tyrants. The bolsheviks were an authoritarian sect.

Anybody who calls themself a trotskyist or leninist is at best ignorant and at worst no better than a fascist.

Why can't we ditch all these authoritarian tendencies as an unfortunate element within the social movements of the early Twentieth Century? Why do all these two-bit historical re-enactment societies persist decades later?

SA should be Socialists Anonymous where they can get together and collectively overcome their dangerous addiction to early Twentieth Century Russian sects.

In my humble opinion, which is the one that counts, I must speak up for the rights of criticism on the left. Im disappointed to see a rather lacklustre defence of the rights of this small party to criticise the SWP without being attacked. I personally am a lifelong admirer of Trotsky, and when the RCG suggest there has never been a successful Trotskyist revolution, they perhaps forget 1917 ! (and 1905 was a good try). But that really isnt the point.
If you condemn, or fail to defend, groups merely because they dont share an identical ideology to your own , that is surely Neo- Stalinism, (if not Paleo- Stalinism). To gloat "they got what they deserved for criticising" is really the first stop on the railway to Siberia...

I recall that the phrase "Globalise the Resistance" was first coined by the FRFI in 1999, but it does seem to have been taken up by some other group associated with the SWP, and the FRFI received no credit as far as I can tell...