Talk:Workers' Struggle

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SI criticism

I have removed this section, pending the appearance of references. It seems to be written by a supporter of the SI current in France. The originators of the group considered that if trotskyism did not have mass support, as Trotsky had beens ure it would soon have, this was because of the petty bourgeois attitudes and behaviour of the trotskyist groups, and it was therefore a priority to establish a (rather rigid view of) "proletarian" morals and discipline in its organization. Thus the group has always been characterized by a negative attitude towards theory (only two or three books published in fifty years), and a rather moralistic view of the personal life of its activists. Comrades are encouraged, for example, not to have children. The politics of Lutte Ouvrière have generally been dominated by a concentration on workplace and economic issues. They ahve been more than reluctant to be interested or involved in political campaigns outside the workplace. So, for example, they denoucne the European Social Forums. Until very recently, they were also notably homophobic - internal memos even recommended not to recruit homosexuals, seen as "psychologically unstable". --Duncan 15:31, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I am the supporter of the SI current what wrote it! But these are well known facts and are not criticisms of my current. However, (although the rest of the article is unsourced) I have put back two points with references to Lutte Ouvrière's weekly paper. There is much more - I will try to find time, but, IMHO, LO are rather isolated these days in movements of all sorts in France (student, antiracist, or more traditional union struggles)Johncmullen1960 08:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

John, I will look forward to seeing what you find time to add. Do be careful not to over-claim. For example, publishing books does not prove or disprove anything about a negative approach toward theory. Can can respect theory even if one does not revise it. One could publish a lot of books but have them have no impact on the organisation (as was the case with Healy) or consider theory to be quite important but to not require many new books, especially when one produces a weekly newspaper, a regular magazine and dozens of pamphlets. --Duncan 18:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV

I removed these two sections that are clearly POV oriented. Some statesment are simply wrong. "For long, the internal organisations of the party were largely unknown to the general public, the spokeswoman and regular presidential candidate Arlette Laguiller being the only party leader appearing in public. Even to party members, some leaders were known only code names. Such measures of secrecy were justified by the possibility that the party may have to go into hiding, should there be opportunities for a Communist revolution. For the same reason, marriages and children were (and still are) discouraged. Lutte Ouvrière has thus often been criticised as being sectarian or akin to a cult, for example by Daniel Cohn-Bendit, his older brother Gabriel Cohn-Bendit, L'Humanité and Libération.^[1] In part this strict disciplinary attitude has enabled LO to be a very stable organisation in contrast to the instability that characterises so many other left groups. In fact LO is a difficult organisation to actually join and after becoming a member individuals are expected to conform to a code of conduct which is rather old fashioned. However this rigidity has been breached a few times most notably in the early 1970s when a group left influenced by a various ideas to form the short-lived Union Ouvrière grouping. A year later another smaller group left expecting to join UO, which had dissolved in the meantime, and formed the group Combat Communiste. This in turn dissolved although some of its supporters later formed the Socialisme International grouping. " OscarHippe 14:02, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

It would be worth mentioning the use of party names, and the strict conditions on joining the party, as well as the reasons for these. The section you've removed is badly written, but there is some useful information on the history of the group in there. Warofdreams talk 00:58, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I will add something about party names and so on.

About the history of the group, if you want to do it (I don't know if there are sources about this...)

OscarHippe 07:29, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I added some details concerning splits from LO in the 1970's but these have been edited out. I also changed the order some material appeared as it made little sense chronologically to include material on the principles of LO inbetween passages on its history. These edits have been removed despite being truthful and accurate. So i'm putting them back in until there is a good explanation of why they were removed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 91.108.183.88 (talk • contribs).

True. I've added them. But why did you remove the headings? And change the order? History comes first. Also, this entry needs clean-up. Going to the point is important, we're not interested in litterature for political parties entries. The article also lacks sources (apart of LO sources, I mean :). Tazmaniacs

PS: I hadn't read the removed section. It is true. And sourced. I therefore restaure it. Tazmaniacs 03:20, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

PS: Removing it a second time without a good reason might lead to an article with 20 sources proving these points, and lots more of precision. Trying to censor things which are well known and for which sources are easy to find is a bad idea (and a good demonstration of your will to accept criticisms :) Tazmaniacs 03:26, 6 March 2007 (UTC)