Talk:Revolutionary Communist Party (UK, 1978)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In Cruel Britannia: Reports on the sinister and the preposterous (200), Nick Cohen claims that the RCP held reactionary views on Aids -- you know, the "gay plague" mindset -- and that they refused to support the NHS (on the basis that it was a tool of the capitalist state, presumably) or giving money to charity (on the basis that it prolongs capitalism). I don't know if there is any evidence to support this, because Cohen gives no reference to text sources. Likewise, there are rumours (not related by Cohen) that the RCP were an MI5 set-up or worked for MI5. This might just be jealous bitching, but I do hope its true 'cause it would make a good story. -- james.

The RCP did have a contentious position on AIDS which could seem to be homophobic but waasn't. Rather they were happy that others thought that of them. Dunnno bout the HNS but it doesn't seem likely. Rumours about groups being stuffed with state agents are usually tosh. I mean who would se the RCP as a threat? Gobshites is all they were.

I wasn't suggesting that the RCP were a threat -- more that there must be some other reason (than sectarianism) that there are/were so many far-left groups in the UK. Thing is, the RCP seemed awfully well-funded for a way-out political sect. I read an ad in one of their booklets from the 80's that claimed the summer camp would be in a big hotel w/ swimming pools and that. Anyhoo, god knows what the spooks get up to... -- james

I don't know that they were that rich, in the early '90s their summer camp was at a caravan park somewhere on the east coast, Norfolk I think. They got their money from members contributing 10% of their earnings.

It is true that they believed the welfare state within a capitalist society to be revisionist. I don't think they were M15, I certainly wasn't! but they were gobshites. Jane

No, probably not MI5 - though they might as well have been. that furedi bloke still into entryism? i read an article by him in the daily express! - james

If you look at patterns of police work in the US, for example, the sending in of informers seems much more likely. Also, the RCP's cell structure and high security would have acted against the ease of police monitoring. Considering the middle-class nature of the group's supporters, and the highly readable material they produced, plus the agressive selling tactics, I don't think the group's finding is that surprising. --Duncan 19:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

The RCP published a theoretical journal, Confrontation, which commenced in the summer of 1986. Its still worth reading, I must say. At this point, the RCP had as its declared aim the formation of a vanguard of active workers, which would lay the foundations for a mass party -- it was this vision of a leninist party that, they claimed, caused them to split from the RCG. The fact that they took an oppositional stance to much of the recieved wisdom of the British left -- calling for a ballot during the great miners strike of 1984-5, breaking with the strategy of entryism into the Labour party -- later led them to become contrarian libertarians when they abandoned Marxism. I think the impact of the counterrevolutions in Eastern Europe and the USSR allowed the RCP leadership to wind up the party. One ex-RCP member I spoke to seemed to think that the Spiked! set are still Marxists, but though Mike Hume may refer to himself as a libertarian marxist in the pages of the Times, I doubt very much if they have any serious political commitment. -- mr 9