Letters

Shop Stewards

I am writing in criticism of your reference to the Colin Roach Centre supporters in your article, ‘Revolutionaries, unity and the SWP’ (Weekly Worker 102). Far from tailing any spontaneous movement within the class, most Colin Roach Centre activists are shop stewards and, unlike your organisation, we have many manual workers who are materially and consciously working class.

All our workers argue revolutionary politics in their work places and are to a degree responsible for the movements that you wrongly label spontaneous.

The Colin Roach Centre trade union section sees a need for a shop stewards’ movement to organise the working class and, through struggle combined with political action, to form an organisation which will eventually have the ability to lead the working class to revolution.

We are not an exclusive organisation like the CPGB which demands 10% of their members’ money, control over their jobs and has political schools in - of all places - Bulgaria (That will draw in the working class, won’t it?). We are in fact just an organisation that incorporates wide ranging views from communist to anarchist, but after open debate we act in unity. This in my view is a proto-communist party - of the class, for the class.

Unlike yourselves, we are not made up of professional revolutionaries and white collar workers. We suggest that if you are serious about rapprochement you should at least research your facts about other organisations before criticising them.

Steve Hedley
Colin Roach Centre

Activist formulas

I wish to support Ray Hickman’s comments in Weekly Worker 101 about the recent Open Polemic conference. Stan Kelsey’s subjective and impressionistic views about the conference do not accurately portray the high level of productive discussion which took place about philosophy, history and revolutionary politics.

For example, this included discussion of whether it is possible to overcome tendencies towards philosophical dogmatism about the relationship between reality and thought which could justify the role of authoritarian leaderships.

In contrast your call for Open Polemic to place emphasis upon political practice adds nothing of a constructive character to the discussion which took place. Instead such activist formulas seemed designed as a means to dismiss Open Polemic, and to justify avoiding real dialogue which is not reduced to support for the grandiose pronouncements of your individual leaders.

Phil Sharpe
Trotskyist Unity Group