Red Star was a
revolutionary socialist organisation in Britain formed by former members of the
Communist Party of Great Britain (Provisional Central Committee), the
Alliance for Workers' Liberty and the
Peace Party.
Founded in July 2004 as the Red Party, it produced five issues of its paper called the ''Red Star''.
History
Red Platform
Politically, the Red Party was a continuation of the Red Platform of the CPGB formed in April 2004 in opposition to the CPGB's electoral support for
Respect Party, with the aim to reverse the CPGB's withdrawal from the
Socialist Alliance Democracy Platform
The Socialist Alliance was a left-wing electoral alliance in England between 1999 and 2005.
Origins
The Socialist Alliance grew out of local alliances formed by the Socialist Party, Independent Labour Network and independent socialists from 1992 ...
. It also argued for greater democracy and humanism in the party's internal structure. Though it won the battle to take the CPGB back into the SADP, most of the platform members left following disputes over the publication of their views in the ''
Weekly Worker''.
The Red Party regarded the division of the left into separate groups as natural and even a healthy sign that socialists are arguing out complicated questions of programme. It believed the left had "lost its way" through "sectarianism", which it defined as the refusal to unite in a single workers' party unless each group's own programmatic demands are met. It further believed that the left focuses primarily on arguing these programmatic issues internally, rather than taking basic socialist arguments to the working class as a whole. It placed an emphasis on plain language arguments for socialism.
Red Party
Leninism
Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the Dictatorship of the proletariat#Vladimir Lenin, dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary Vanguardis ...
became the rupture point within the group in the early summer of 2005. The discovery by group members of the writings of
Maurice Brinton (pen name of Chris Pallis) and the
Solidarity
''Solidarity'' is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. It is based on class collaboration.''Merriam Webster'', http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictio ...
group led to a reassessment of the groups political orientation and the departure of one member to the AWL. The surviving ''Red Star'' group considers itself as a part of the
libertarian left
Left-libertarianism,Bookchin, Murray; Biehl, Janet (1997). ''The Murray Bookchin Reader''. New York: Cassell. p. 170.Goodway, David (2006). '' Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow: Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writers from William Morris to ...
and has comrades who are active in
Class War, the
Anarchist Federation and Surrey Anarchist Group whilst maintaining a
libertarian Marxist persona and links with parts of the traditional left through the
Socialist Alliance.
David Broder, whose departure from the Red Party group in protest at its lack of Leninist purity, is now a leading figure in The Commune, an anti-Leninist and libertarian Marxist group that derives a great deal of its founding politics from the writings of Maurice Brinton and the Solidarity group.
Publications
* ''The Red Party Tiny Red Book'' (July 2004)
* ''Red Star 1'' (August 2004)
* ''Red Star 2'' (October 2004)
"Spoiling your ballot"
* ''Red Star 3''
* ''Red Star 4''
* ''Red Star 5''
References
{{reflist
External links
Red Star blog
Red Party homepage
Socialist Alliance Democracy Platform
The Commune
Political parties established in 2004
Defunct socialist parties in the United Kingdom