#cliffites

The debacle in the British SWP, for which Tony Cliff historically bears a great deal of responsibility, will undoubtedly reinforce the view that socialist organizations are inevitably undemocratic because they are formal and hierarchical and do not “prefigure” the future communist society... [Instead,] the democratic shortcomings of the SWP are to be traced to specific organizational forms that were adopted by that party under Cliff’s direction, not a necessary and inevitable outcome of formal organization and hierarchy