The rise and initial success of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP<\/acronym>), between 1998-2004, was a significant historical event, not only for the history of the Left in Scotland (with knock-on effects in the UK<\/acronym> and Europe), but also in the wider world of Scottish politics. It is therefore vital that we account for this success, despite the SSP<\/acronym>\u2019s subsequent fall from grace. This record can not just be left to cynical media and academic figures who have claimed that the SSP<\/acronym> project was always doomed from the start, so we should all just accept the current world order and make the best of it.\u00a0Nor can we leave the accounting to those Jeremiahs in their \u2018revolutionary\u2019 sects, who cover their own inability to grow significantly, by issuing their anathemas and pouring scorn on those who try.<\/p>\n Before the First World War, Rosa Luxemburg said that the choice facing humanity then was \u2018Socialism or Barbarism\u2019. Istvan Meszaros has modified this for today\u2019s crisis-ridden world of corporate imperialism, with its austerity drives, mounting environmental degradation, and the continued threat to humanity posed by weapons of mass destruction. He claims that the choice we face now is\u00a0– \u2018Socialism or barbarism if we are lucky\u2019!<\/p>\n Therefore, to provide new hope, we must account for the factors that contributed to the initial success of the SSP<\/acronym>, and see what can still be useful in the future. However, any meaningful accounting also means identifying those weaknesses, which contributed to the SSP<\/acronym>\u2019s decline, so that these are not repeated.<\/p>\n Many, from either side of the \u2018Tommygate\u2019 divide, still hold fond enough memories of \u201cthe good old days\u201d before the split, to hope that something like the SSP<\/acronym> can be built again. Recently, some have even been tempted to say, \u201cLet us forgive and forget\u201d. This may sound attractive, in the face of the current unprecedented attacks on our class. However, such a stance would just lead to the repeat of earlier mistakes, perhaps in more desperate situations.<\/p>\n This contribution, which is also based on a strong desire to rebuild that lost unity, argues that to be successful in such an endeavour, we need instead to \u2018listen, learn and then move on\u2019. Then we can indeed recreate socialist unity, but on a higher basis. We must take account of those challenges, which the SSP<\/acronym> failed to meet, to better prepare ourselves for those that we will certainly meet in the future.<\/p>\n The drive for greater socialist unity in Scotland originated in the experience of the Anti-Poll Tax Campaign. This drew together socialists and communists from diverse backgrounds in a successful struggle against the Tories and their official Labour Party helpers – one of the very few. Later campaigns against water privatisation, the Criminal Justice Bill, and in support of the Liverpool Dockers, also brought socialists and communists in Scotland together in common campaigns.<\/p>\n Militant, a section of the Committee for a Workers International (CWI<\/acronym>), led by Peter Taffe, had learned, through the bitter experience of the Liverpool Council Fightback and the Anti-Poll Tax Campaign, that conducting a successful major struggle was incompatible with membership of the Labour Party (LP<\/acronym>), and that Labour is an anti-working class party that acts as a block to socialism.<\/p>\n The CWI<\/acronym> majority[1]<\/sup><\/a>The Socialist Appeal minority, led by Ted Grant, has remained committed to deep entrism inside the Labour Party, without any visible effect.<\/span><\/span>1. THE STRENGTHS OF THE SSP<\/acronym><\/h2>\n
a) Politics<\/h3>\n