30.04.2003
Going camping: Alliance for Workers' Liberty
Newspaper: Solidarity (fortnightly).
Other journals: Workers' Liberty (a leisurely quarterly).
Website: www.workersliberty.org.uk
Prominent members: Sean Matgamna; Martin Thomas (member of the Socialist Alliance executive); Mark Osborn. Size: Around 100 members, with a small periphery beyond that.
Comments: Origins in the International Socialists. From 1974 onwards, became a Labour Party entryist group. Like Militant, this orientation often took the form of adaptation to Labourism and a 'soft focus' presentation of the history of this counterrevolutionary party. Politically, the group always had a 'hard' attitude to Stalinism and the countries of bureaucratic socialism, even while it formally adhered to the Trotskyist orthodoxy that these places were 'workers' states' of some sort.
In 1988, the contradiction was resolved when this theory was ditched - although the AWL still refers to itself as "Trotskyist" - and the organisation adopted the view that these societies were "systems of class exploitation which represent a dead-end episode within the era of capitalism" (AWL website). Essentially, the AWL attempts to position itself as a 'third campist' trend. (The first camp being imperialism, the second Stalinism and the third camp that of the working class and independent proletarian politics.)
However, characteristic of the AWL throughout its 'third camp' manifestation has been slippage - it constantly veers towards the first camp and a fatal softness on oppressor peoples. Thus, it correctly calls for a two-state solution in the Israel-Palestine conflict, but this then leads AWLer Martin Thomas to self-define as "a little bit Zionist" - a shocking thing for a Marxist to say.
Similarly, the group's correct observation that a British-Irish entity should have the right to self-determination within the context of a united Ireland caused it to equate the republican movement with fascistic loyalist terror gangs. This also led to illusions in the democratic pretensions of imperialism - a potentially fatal weakness, as we move into a period of more military adventures of the US and its allies.
The AWL often exhibits the sort of mindlessly bellicose hostility to other revolutionary groups that does so much to discredit the left in the eyes of advanced workers. It is SWP-phobic, for example. Its relations with our organisation have so far been divided into two periods.
First, exploratory discussions to convince us that we were Trotskyists, really. In fact, if we thought about it seriously, we would find we were the AWL in exile, as it was the only genuine bunch of Trotskyists anyway. When this approach predictably failed, a second tactic was wheeled out. Draw artificial lines of demarcation between the two groups - and try a membership raid. All very tedious and - frankly - rather unambitious.