The latest Weekly Worker has just gone on-line. For the third week in a row,
I've had a latter published (drastically edited this time but making some
important points and not distorted by editor Peter Manson - I sent it yesterday
so that letters editor Steve Cooke didn't edit it first). The headline Peter
chose for my letter is "Staying power".

Incidentally, John Bridge and Jack Conrad are both pseudonyms for the CPGB's
leader; I had previously pointed out in a letter that Peter also published that
an article of Peter's had said that Conrad had repeated the same point several
times. The overthrow of Conrad/Bridge, the Stalin character in the CPGB, could
transform the organisation just like the SWP is getting much better with John
Rees' fall from leadership of Left Alternative (the SWP's splinter from
Respect), although I have heard that Rees is still on the SWP's Central
Committee.

I attended three days of the Covnention of Left in Manchester, as well as
handing out my Foundation for PR-based Socialism newsletter 4 (with newsletter
1 on the back of some copies) - each of which is downloadable from
http://www.PRsocialism.org - to those attending the Labour Party conference,
including Charles Clarke MP, James Purnell MP, David Lammy MP, Daniel
Finkelstein (of The Times) and Tony Woodley (general secretary of the trade
union Unite). [I recognised them all, which Finkelstein pointed out that this
forced him to take my leaflet.] I have now moved to Manchester from Glasgow
(although I may visit Glasgow again for a week or so in the near future).

Those of you on Facebook may be interested in groups I have set up to call for
Nicola Sturgeon to become First Minister of Scotland (Nicola, the current Deputy
First Minister, is much more left-wing than Alex Salmond and as health minister
is introducing a minimum price for alcohol in supermarkets which will massively
help the problem of binge drinking) and Melissa Benn to be prime minister of the
UK.

Melissa's speech was the highlight of last year's Labour conference in my
opinion; it even persuaded grandfather Tony (now President of the Stop the War
Coalition) to try to stand for parliament again. Melissa is not currently an
MP, and would become the youngest ever MP if she overcomes a 8000+ Tory
majority. [Electoral law stated you had to be 21 to stand at the time of the
last general election, despite being able to vote at 18 - clearly a measure to
try to stop young radical people from transforming parliament, just like you
have to be 35 to be US president; I don't recall any legislation being passed to
change the law (imagine the radicalising effect of publicising such an ageist
law especially with the granddaughter of Tony Benn seeking election) so I
thinkit was quietly decided to be changed anyway! In the current and worsening
economic climate, Melissa could well win her seat bucking the national trend of
a swing from Labour to the
Tories, if she puts forward a democratic (i.e. non-Marxist) revolutionary
socialist position in the election - but if there is a left-wing split from
Labour in the meantime, she could well join it! I didn't meet Melissa in
Manchester, but she is a friend of a friend of somebody I talked to at the
Convention so she will probably find out about the group soon.

Search for "Nicola Sturgeon" or "Melissa Benn"at Facebook if you want to
browse/join one of the groups.

Anyway, I've included below the unedited letter I sent to Peter. Download the
whole newspaper - it looks really good this week with a front-page headline
"Bush administration rushes to save sick financial system with trillion dollar
bale-out. Drip-feed capitalism" - by going to
http://cpgb.org.uk/worker/738/WW738%20WEB.pdf. It should be available in HTML
soon at cpgb.org.uk.




In "Knitting" (September 18), Robbie Rix says "we had 15,566 readers last week -
a bit of a drop from our previous high of over 40,000 and something I can't
really explain."

One reason for the fall could be the lack of articles on the Socialist Workers
Party and concentration on the miniscule and largely irrelevant Alliance for
Workers' Liberty. The main article last week with "SWP dumps John Rees" as the
front page headline could rectify the situation". I tried selling your paper at
the Convention of the Left and somebody took the mickey out of having that
headline with the massive economic crisis going on. I showed my letter "Crisis"
which rectified that ommision.

Actually the SWP dumping of John Rees is far more important than any points on
the economy that the ridiculous and obfuscating Hillel Ticktin could have made!
You (editor Peter Manson) told me that the sound quality on the interview with
Ticktin was too bad to include it).

The SWP's leadership has always been dominated by infiltrators on the side of
big business (eg in MI5 but perhaps sometimes outside the realm of the state)
sabotaging the struggle for socialism. I once met "comrade" Rees and his manner
(as well as speech at a meeting) confirmed your assessment of him as a "control
freak" and mind as an agent of big business.

There are many good and genuine rank-and-file SWP members particularly in
Manchester but their deeply hierarchical structure enables agents like Rees to
rise to the top and stay there, like Bob Labi and Niall Mullholland of the CWI
and Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky in the USSR. Could your Jack Conrad/JOHN BRIDGE be
similar?

Maybe the SWP will transform itself into a genuine democratic revolutionary
socialist party - or maybe that is too optimistic! We'll see!


Another reason for the decline in on-line readership could be the massive
extension of the surveillance state under New Labour (the latest example of
which is numberplate data from speed cameras being kept for five years evne for
those who haven't been speeding), which is trying to prevent a socialist
revolution from ever standing a chance of happening. The economic turmoil and
Brown's pathetic speech in Manchester will ensure that New Labour doesn't get
away with it. I have a lot more accesses to my websites from other countries
than the UK, even though I largely talk abour UK politics; my Revolutionary
Platform Network Forum always gets more hits from the USA (over 100,000 one
recent month) than anywhere else - Vietnam, Latvia and now Argentina (the
latter having a socialist president, Cristina Kirchner) have been second!

People in the UK may have been scared of MI5 finding out that they are radical!
I even have the point of view that mind control could effectively turn them into
robots....

--
Steve Wallis (Manchester, England) 
Preferred email address: revolutionarysocialiststeve@...
Blogs: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/steve-wallis-socialist-blog,
http://blog.myspace.com/galaxiasteve
My socialist website: http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk
My pages at MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/galaxiasteve and Bebo:
http://www.bebo.com/SteveW519
Founder, Good Intentions Network: http://www.goodintentionsnetwork.org
Founder, Ethical Capitalism Network: http://www.ethicalcapitalism.net
Founder, Foundation for PR-based Socialism: http://www.PRsocialism.org
Founder, Revolutionary Platform Network: http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net
My socialist band, Red Day: http://www.red-day.net
Author, "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist revolution
will never happen?": http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net
For discussion of the credit crunch, go to
http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/forum/index.php?board=156
For discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories, go to
http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/forum/index.php?board=89

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