Author: Personal Website, Academia.edu

Abstract: »In October 1985, the Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP), a long-standing if notorious fixture on the British far left, fractured in a very public split. While disillusionment after the miners’ strike as well as fears over the party’s finances were the roots of this split, the immediate cause was a set of shocking revelations regarding the party’s leader, Gerry Healy, and his sexual abuse of female members. Healy’s abusiveness has since come to dominate the memory of the WRP across the left. Drawing on archival research as well as extensive interviews with former members of the WRP, this chapter seeks to tell the general history of the WRP as well as recounting the long-standing patterns of sexual abuse and violence that existed within the organisation. A standard refrain about the WRP, voiced by both many former members and hostile critics, is that it was a ‘cult’, with that term becoming a kind of shorthand for so many of the party’s excesses. While this certainly carries weight, ‘cult’ is also too politically easy an assessment. I instead argue that the WRP provides a cautionary tale about Leninism, and the history of the party raises serious questions for the left about party organisation, gender politics and the need to put the ‘democratic’ back into democratic socialism.« (Source: manchesterhive)

Contents:

	Minorities cannot exist in your organisation (p. 95)
	Split, split and split again (p. 100)
	Gendering the revolution (p. 105)
	Conclusion: the perils of Leninism (p. 108)
	Notes (p. 110)

Reviews: -

Wikipedia: History of Europe: History of England | Political party: Political parties in the United Kingdom / Workers Revolutionary Party (UK) | Sex and the law: Sexual assault / Gerry Healy