Talk:Militant tendency

message: I've temporarily removed the following from the section on Neil Kinnock:
*On the reverse of the redundancy notices it was stated that the issuing of the notices was a legal manoeuvre to keep the Council solvent whilst the campaign for more funding continued. It also said that disciplinary action would be taken against anyone who raised the matter with the unions.
and later
*Nevertheless, Kinnock, coming from the left, believed he had an instinctive understanding of the ideology of the Militant that a previous generation of Labour leaders had not, and that made him only more determined to take them on. With Derek Hatton emerging as a bogeyman for the Tories and the right-wing press, Kinnock and his followers felt that there were tactical advantages in being seen to take on the entryists.
I could not trace a source for the first two interesting and contrasting assertions about the 90-day notices, and since these are highly controversial issues (like most of this stuff) I think they need sourcing. I think they might strictly be categorised as original research, unless there's a record of these things kept somewhere (by the council or the government?), or one of the 90-day notices in a private or public collection somewhere, which can be referenced.
The second extract tells us what Kinnock "believed" and what he "felt". Again these sentiments may be true, although the first sentance contains a few sweeping generalisations, but they may be conjecture. They need sourcing. In the meantime, the article describes what he did and what he said, which tells us a lot about what he believed and felt.
Andysoh 22:02, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  sources? 

message: J Morrisions clarifications have been very helpful, but I just want to make two changes.
Most importantly, I don't think it is accurate to say that "the leadership of the Labour Party repeatedly attempted to expel the Militant supporters" in the years 1975 - 1980.
We should be clear that between 1975 and 1980, as Michael Crick makes clear - the two attempted "witchhunts" (as they were termed) against the Militant had very little support in the Labour Party. 
Crick explains - we do not go into the details in this wiki article - that Lord Underhill found that his 1975 report into the Militant would not even be published by the Labour Party, let alone debated, and that although the last thing on his mind was that it should reach the press - this is how Crick puts it - nevertheless, it somehow got into press hands. The wiki article reports the consequences.
The leadership of the Labour Party was the National Executive Committee at this time - it was before this body, on these questions, that such matters lay in those days, 1975 - 1980. 
In addition, one could dispute "repeatedly" - why not "sporadically", or perhaps even more accurately, "twice"? This has to be rendered in to a NPOV form.
It is for this reason that we say that "elements" within the Labour Party leadership attempted to expel the Militant - it is an accurate expression.
Secondly, the clarification about which parties the Militant was not as big as is vey important today, but I have put it in the references with the rest of the explanation of what Crick was saying (he was exposing the Militant as a party, which it denied, and was seen as highly critical of the Militant). This leaves the introduction a little less cluttered with explanations.
Finally, there is some debate as whether to wikify dates, but this article does not, and to remain within the style of the article, I have unwikified the dates. My personal opinion is that links should be relelvent, and a 2007 type link just pulls up dates of the same year. 
Andysoh 00:03, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  1975 - 1980 expulsion attempts 

message: Had to remove this phrase, but also removed the phrase that provoked it. 
The original claim was that monopolisation has increased over the decades. This is factually accurate but could be mistaken as a point of view. the alternative claim was made, as per Conservative Party claims during the 1980s, that entrepreneurship had increased. There was an increase in small businesses, due to many incentives, but at the same time monopolisation increased. 
Careful research of any study on monopolisation in the UK (as elsehwere) will show you that the increase in monopolisation over the last century was not halted due to “the rise of entrepeneurship [spelt ‘entrepreneurship’] in the '80s,” as implied. This is a POV that is not backed up by fact. In fact it increased. (just one example - agrochemicals - in the 1980s twenty firms controlled 90% of global production, but by the late 1990s just ten controlled the same proportion.)
However, this is not the place to argue about statistics, and both the claim about the increasing monopolisation in the original article and the conservative party POV about “the rise of entrepeneurship in the '80s” have both been removed. Andysoh (talk) 19:26, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  'before the rise of entrepeneurship [sic] in the '80s' 

message: Very interesting contibution, although lacking context, points up an important question. 
Firstly, of course, we must not forget that the Afghanistan Communist Party had seized power in Afghanistan in the 1978 in Kabul, but typically its remit did not extend very far. The US began backing the Taliban's forebears militarily and financially to overrun the country. (Enter Bin Laden stage right.) In other words, the US was attempting to overrun a sympathetic government on the borders of the USSR and the Russian tanks rolled in to prevent it. Of course we can't go into that here.
The Militant condemned both sides to this game, but Grant and Woods went a little further. They didn't support the invastion, but took the position reflected in the quote inserted here. 
The original quote (which I corrected) was taken out of context and thus misrepresents this question, but disagreements about the position of Grant/Woods over the USSR occupation of Afghanistan, according to the document on the Collapse of Stalinism written in 1990, (see marxist.net) were the "first seeds" of the split between the Woods-Grant minority and the majority.
I think this needs to considered or mentioned in the The 'Open Turn' section, as an important indication of the seeds of the split, but with references to back up these assertions. I'll see what I can dig up.  Andysoh (talk) 11:37, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Duncan, much improved. I have dug up the issue of Militant from which the quote comes, (see edit) and - no suprises - it clearly expresses the Militant's opposition to the invasion. But otherwise the quote is accurate. "To call now for the withdrawal of Russian troops would be to call for the victory of reaction in its cruelist and most barbarous form." Ted Grant wrote a three page aricle on 18 Jan 1980. It appears that Woods and Grant maintained their apparent misreading of the situation even in 1988 (world perspectives document) after the withdrawal of Russian troops and only months before the collapse of Stalinism began in earnest. By this time it appears that there was considerable disquiet in what became the leaders of the majority over this question.Andysoh (talk) 22:36, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I agreed with that view myself at the time. ;-) --Duncan (talk) 07:28, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Afghanistan 1979 in the International outlook section 

message: Wasn't it 47 councillors that were expelled, and not 49? The reference provided states that is was 47.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.168.28.14 (talk) 12:39, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: 49 were initially subject to surcharge, but two died during the process. Note not all of the 47 were sitting as councillors at the time they were finally surcharged in 1987. Sam Blacketer (talk) 10:19, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've updated the intro and note attached Andysoh (talk) 13:24, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Liverpool City Councillors 1987 

message: Edits always end up improving the article, but wiki etiquette prefers editors to discuss deletions here first. 
Before deleting whole paragraphs it is always far better if there is some discussion, allowing plenty of time for reflection. This is particularly the case with articles that have been the work of a number of editors and, as in this case, have already been classified and rated as mostly complete without major issue. (See a previous talk section and top of this webpage.)
Some material has been deleted with the comment that it was unreferenced, when it was referenced, and described as POV when it is not - in the assessment of wikipedians it is without major issues. Major deletions should therefore be avoided where possible, I think.
Improvements can undoubtedly be made, although I don't know whether we can make it an A class article.
Andysoh (talk) 10:13, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Large-scale deletions restored 

message: I wondered whether it might be more relevent to the new reader who wants to find out about the Militant tendency to read what it stood for first. So I moved the Founding policies section to the top, with the founding members, details of their affiliations, credentials, etc, below. 
This shows, perhaps, more clearly the underlying reason why the Militant came up against the Labour Party right wing - if its policies had been very dull and ineffective, 40 more Trotskyists in the Labour Party would hardly have raised an eyebrow.
Andysoh (talk) 12:25, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  swapped paras 

message: I'm not sure the change to the first para is an improvment
After much debate the first para was settled on defining the Militant tendency according to its most persistent critic, Michael Crick, who descibed its philosophy as descending from Marx Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.
This has been changed to  "It described its politics as descended from Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky." 
Whether the Militant did so or not, this makes the first para less objectively based, and more based merely on what the militant said of itself. In addition, the reference actually defends the earlier wording.
I think the first version is slightly better for an encyclopeadia article, but both are true and wondered what other editors thought.
Andysoh (talk) 14:43, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  change to first para 

message: Please merge Militant tendency#The Open Turn and Peter Taaffe#The Open Turn and put the result into the Open Turn (politics) page, replacing the merged sections with appropriate summaries, per Wikipedia:Summary style. - Altenmann >t 02:07, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, it seems too minor to me at first glance - is the new page intended to be worthwhile? e.g. significantly more than a stub? Would involve some careful work. I mean, if there were already existing a full treatment of the issue, then the merge would be meaningful, it seems to me.  Andysoh (talk) 21:17, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: How can is be a stub, if the two sections I mention are quite large texts. My stub is a mere placeho1der. Also, hardly it is "too minor" if it is written long detail in two wikipedia articles, and there is a huge text given as a reference. - Altenmann >t 06:16, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm not at all sure it is warranted. I don't call a few paras huge detail, (assuming some duplication is removed) but rather not significantly more than stub. Have you discussed it with other editors elsewhere? I'd like to see some feedback from others. Let's get some general agreement before doing anything, as per the most fundamental wiki practice. Andysoh (talk) 12:53, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Open Turn 

message: I think the change of name of the article 'Militant tendency' to 'Militant (Trotskyist group)' is wrong and should be reversed.  Why was the change not flagged up here, on the discussion page? 
The 'Militant tendency' to 'Militant (Trotskyist group)' is mistaken, because the group is widely known as Militant tendency, and there is at least one other Trotskyist group which calls itself Militant (in the USA).
I think it should be reversed pending a discussion.Andysoh (talk) 10:24, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  change of name of the article 'Militant tendency' to 'Militant (Trotskyist group)' 

message: This article is a load of left-wing propaganda written and managed by an editoe named Philip Cross. Anyone who who had any connection to Liverpool knows this article is bollocks. 
Cross could probably make Stalin look like a humanitarian with their editing skills  that are on show here. Liverpool was a shit hole in the 80s. Militant revelled in the problems they didn't solve anything. 
Orphaned kids for instance... were left to fend for themselves when their parents died because there no social services.Cross is controlling the content on this article to fit their own agenda.
This article is almost a whitewash of what happened on Merseyside.
Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Militant connected sources such as the books by Peter Taaffe, hardly an uninvolved witness, are probably overused and could do with substitute citations, or challenge from other published writers. If you can help resolve this problem, both in this article and Militant in Liverpool, you could make a useful contribution to Wikipedia. Not at all sympathetic, but a classic text on the subject, Michael Crick's book is probably cited too much as well, Larklight (above) counted 40 references seven years ago. So far no one has found a way of resolving that issue. Philip Cross (talk) 07:23, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editor Philip Cross is in violation of [[Wp:Own]] on this article 

message: The wholesale expulsion of Socialists by the Labour Party is not new. The accusation of "anti-semitism" which seems to mean opposition to the policies of the Israeli government is new. 
It would seem that Keir Starmer's objective is to show that Labour is a "safe pair of hands" for capitalism by ditching any radical policies.
In this context the Socialist Party of England and Wales (formerly Militant) has concluded that a new political force such as the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition initiated by Bob Crow is necessary.
On the other hand those expelled by the Labour Party could confront the Labour Party on the electoral plane and seek trade union support.
So perhaps Sir Keir might not have it all his own way. Derekmcmillan1951 (talk) 17:19, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Labour - capitalism's second eleven 

message: Socalist Alternative arose from a split in the Socialist Party in 2019, well after Militant dissolved. It would be easy to just remove Socialist Alternatives name from this page. 92.237.155.25 (talk) 16:57, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Socialist Alternative listed as a sucessor.