Trotwatch #1 Summer 1992

Contents

• New readers start here - A powerful and inspiring introduction to the fascinating world of Trotwatch. A must for workers everywhere.

• News from the front - The incredible true stories they didn't want you to read. The inner most secrets of the leftie world, layed bare.
• Crimes against the class awards - Join your Trotwatch compere for the all the drama and tension of this new left-of-centre awards ceremony.
• ‘X’ marx the spot - A frighteningly detailed Trowatch postmortem on the squalid spectacle of the left and the Geneial Election. All your favourite brands put. to the test.
• Disgusted of Sheffield Central - Handy hints and helpful tips for our left critics.
• A Tendency to split - A graphic autopsy on the brutal split that tore apart the Militant Tendency.

New Readers Start Here

WELCOME TO THE first historic issue of Trotwatch: an anarchist examination into the murky underworld of "left-wing" party politics.

Trotwatch has a simple aim: to catalogue and document, to analyse and critique, all manifestations of left- vanguard politics from an openly partisan anarchist perspective.

We believe the continuing dominance of leftism, in all its guises, over most expressions of working class resistance to "things as they are", represents a serious bloc to the creation of a truly revolutionary anti-capitalist proletarian movement. And we hate Trots too.

Trotwatch aims to contribute to the destruction of the leftie myth. To assist in however small a way to hurrying along the decline of the party builders and their central committees. Trotwatch will aim to provide ammunition for anti-left argument and evidence of anti-working class left activity. It will aim to expose instances of left manipulation and opportunism, and highlight examples of the left’s attempts to rewrite our history and derail our struggles.

Trotwatch will unearth the crass and the unconvincing, the inept and the offensive, the most dangerous and most comic from the sordid and cynical world of left power politics.

Some of Trotwatch’s coverage will be serious. Some will be silly. [But then so much serious Trotskyite politics is silly - "TUC, Organise a general strike!", yeah right...] All we hope will be informative, entertaining and useful.

Trotwatch welcomes all unsolicited internal bulletins, memoranda, central committee meeting minutes and account books from disaffected party hacks and former members. But we intend that most of our sources will be from generally available published left journals - which provide, in themselves, more than enough evidence for the prosecution.

Trotwatch cannot hope to cover every last disparate Trot groupuscle with access to a dot matrix, a Roneo and a grudge against their former comrades. But we can hope to analyse trends in the left movement - its orientation to the Labour Party and the trade union barons, its reaction to the poll tax movement, the collapse of Eastern state-capitalism, its responses to strike waves - as well, of course, to poke fun at its marketing strategies, its vicious sectarianism and endless, obsessive introspection.

It is clear that the launch of Trotwatch represents a major victory for the global proletarian movement, which even now is flocking to its banner. It is essential that all advanced workers now rally around the following demands:

DOWN WITH EMPTY SLOGANEERING!
FOR THE BUILDING OF TROTWATCH!
NOW READ ON WITHOUT ILLUSIONS!