A reaction to the above comment Some good points here some of which are accounted for very well on the page about the SWP US It seems better that this entry on Barnes remain focussed on Barnes himself rather than the SWP DICTATORSHIP OR DEMOCRACY It s an excellent point to say that it s pointless and misleading to demonise Barnes Clearly there was a qualitative change in the politics of the SWP during the 1980s Barnes clearly played a leading role in this process but had the national committee majority behind him Most would also say that the SWP organisational and democratic norms changed those who were expelled such as the Fourth International Tendency argued it was done undemocratically and wrong headedly BREAKING WITH TROTSKYISM This seems a fair description of the SWP s evolution However if the SWP feel it unfair it would be better to write of a break with Trotsky s theory of Permanent Revolution and the struggle to build the Fourth International In so far as Trotsky agrees with the Leninism and opposition to Stalinism and the third period the SWP agree with him However Trotskyism clearly refers to the politics of the movement that Trotsky and the SWP founded the FI The defining aspects of that movement permanent revolution in the developing world anti bureaucratic revolution in the workers states and the notion of socialist democracy Of course the SWP no longer calls itself Trotskyist and the word is dropped for example from the title of Joseph Hansen s book on Cuba CASTROISM Similary it is mistaken to call the SWP a Castoist party The SWP s New International strategy in the 1980s and 1990s was one of convergence with the Castroist current However it s clear that the SWP has its own ideology Jack Barnes Australian