by Paul Cudenec

I have always had a rather uneasy relationship with the “socialist” and “communist” left.

On the one hand I have been deeply inspired by many thinkers and rebels loosely associated with this tradition, from John Ball of the peasants’ revolt [1] and the legendary Robin Hood (robbing the rich to feed the poor), to Gerrard Winstanley [2] or William Morris. [3]

I have campaigned alongside grassroots socialists and communists, in both Britain and France, on numerous occasions when our causes have coincided and would, of course, do so again.

However, at the same time I have the gut feeling that there is something wrong about this movement.

My ambivalent attitude embraces all the terms it uses to describe itself.

Two writers who have greatly influenced me, Gustav Landauer [4] and George Orwell, [5] described their thinking as “socialist”, while going out of their way to warn us against communism.

But at the same time, the most insidious “left-wing” organisation I have personally come across is the UK’s Socialist Workers Party – a Trotskyist outfit notorious in anarchist circles a quarter of a century ago for “parachuting” into struggles and diverting them away from genuine resistance to the system.

Its “Globalise Resistance” front group, or “Monopolise Resistance” as it was dubbed, was deliberately set up to hijack the anarchic energy of the anti-globalisation movement. [6]

In 2001 it effectively sabotaged the May Day resistance planned for Oxford Street in London by forming a march that led protesters into a police trap hours ahead of the scheduled protests. [7]

I can well remember helpful police officers gesturing to us to follow the SWP up Regent Street into the awaiting kettle at Oxford Circus – an offer my friends and I chose not to accept!

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