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E265: The Party is Always Right w/ Aidan Beatty
🕑 Added 2024-10-23 10:00:07 +0000 UTCAidan Beatty, author of The Party is Always Right: The Untold Story of Gerry Healy and British Trotskyism joins us to trainspot the British Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP), a Trotskyist cult that was tight with Qaddafi, boasted Vanessa Redgrave as a member, and collapsed after the revelation of years of its leader's sexual abuse of membership.
In the fun half we talk about Irish peacekeepers in Lebanon, the shared historical dynamics of the Irish and Jews, the WSWS's fascination with Woody Allen and Michael Jackson, and the macabre fate of Trotsky's death mask.
Song: Pop Smoke - For the Night
Comments
The Antifada
We got one! Check this out: https://t.me/+wNoqq4a8jhU4NGUx
Sizzle Dizzle
Ex-SEP here: Never saw Troysky's death mask. Did see, in my opinion, lots of cult-like behavior (dressing down and isolating individual members, be it in auditoriums or small group settings, when you diverged from the party line; bureaucratic centralism to the absolute maximum, always demanding more articles for "The Website" lest you run afoul of your branch secretary; and members told to cease all contact with ex-members who were later labeled "enemies of the party").
Isaac Suárez
Great episode! I love y’all’s work- if you ever wanted to expand the ILC to the PNW, you’ll have at least one member
Jim
To add to this: sunlight is the best disinfectant; democracy is an organisational imperative.
Jim
Sometimes we have a tendency to over-attribute politics to a phenomena, e.g. Healy and the WRP can arguably be better interpreted through a more conventional sociological analysis of cults, high control groups or criminal enterprises. Politics has bearing and relation but don't think it is as operative here as it is with other formations. Healy is more akin to a Keith Ranieri or Jim Jones than any other significant sectarian figure on the international or British Trotskyist left imo (though, I do not think he is as psychopathic). I feel that the reason why Aidan felt a pull to psychoanalyse or pathologise Healy is because he's dealing with a narcissist, who might have had a real political perspective, but constructed an organisation around him to satisfy material or egoic needs incl. abusing women. That being said, there is clear relationship to high control groups and the Leninist sect which requires a political analysis and organisational correction. Great ep and will pick the book up; love a bit of sect trainwatching, me.
