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Socialist Workers Party (UK)

The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is a left wing organisation in the UK.

It grew out of the Trotskyist movement, but made three main theoretical developments:

1) A "State Capitalist[?]" analysis of Russia and the Eastern bloc, developed by Tony Cliff[?]. This led the group (then known as the International Socialists) to adopt the slogan "Neither Washington nor Moscow, but International Socialism" and to oppose both sides in the Cold War.

2) The theory of the "Permanent Arms Economy[?]", developed by Mike Kidron[?], which argued that high arms spending fuelled the long post-war boom in the 50s and 60s. This helped the group avoid perpetual forecasts that the collapse of capitalism was just around the corner, when living standards in the UK were clearly rising.

3) The theory of "Permanent Revolution Deflected[?]", developed by Tony Cliff[?], which built on Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution, and attempted to explain why workers had not taken power in various Third World revolutions.

The SWP has a reputation for throwing itself into various campaigns, ranging from the Anti Nazi League to the Anti-Capitalist[?] movement and the Socialist Alliance to the Stop the War Coalition.

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