The CWI split: Insurmountable similarities?
6 August 2020
The split in the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI) has developed and solidified to the point where we should be able to see clear ideological and practical differences, while Rise appears to have travelled furtherest from the CWI dogma, not necessarily in a leftwards direction, the remaining branches, at least in terms of theory and especially in relation to the North, give the appearance of having split over insurmountable similarities. A number of articles are reproduced below in order to satisfy a growing curiousity.
The first article is a review of Peter Hadden's 'Towards division not peace' written by Andrew Johnson, at the time a member of the International Socialists. It focusses on some concrete realities that were completely misunderstood, or ignored, by Hadden and is a concise reminder of some of the repercussions of the CWI's failure to tackle loyalism, sectarianism and imperialism in the North. More can be found at: http://www.socialistdemocracy.org
The second is from the IMT, itself also a result of a split in the CWI, but which spots a crude materialism at the heart of their method.
In the third article, in what must be an unsurpassed critique of the CWI by Lloyd and Brenner (Workers Power), and which chronologically preceeds the IMT analysis, this crude objectivist materialism is traced to its theoretical foundation in Grant's objectivism.
http://www.socialistdemocracy.org/Reviews/ReviewTowardsDivisionNotPeace.htm
https://fifthinternational.org/content/militant-after-grant-unbroken-thread