Thread by @ChallengeYCL

BOB CROW: WORKING CLASS HERO AND COMMITTED MARXIST-LENINIST ☭🚩

1/11

There will be many tributes for the legendary Bob Crow who died seven years ago today — but how many will mention the real politics of the man who kept busts of Marx and Lenin on his desk and photos of Fidel Castro on his walls?
2/11

Crow was a Marxist-Leninist, and in his own words, the political education that made him what he was, came from the Communist Party.
3/11

In the 1980s, around the same time as becoming active in the National Union of Railwaymen he joined the Communist Party of Great Britain. “He was a Protege of Kevin Halpin who was on the Stalinist wing of the Party” recalled Jeff Porter.
4/11

Despite the influence of Bennism and Trotskyism around him and the general decline of the CPGB (now the CPB), Bob embraced the Communist Party.
5/11

“I used to go to their lectures, I used to read their theory — they weren’t just revolutionary phrase-mongers — they actually had science,” said Crow. “My communist party membership provided me with all my political understanding — it was a university education on its own.”
6/11

He also met Mick Rix, who was to become a lifelong friend and leader of ASLEF through the Communist Party, meeting him on a delegation to the German Democratic Republic in 1984 — remembering fondly that “Beer was 10p a pint and we were given £2 a day pocket money.”
7/11

On the same visit he took offense at the treatment of a female delegate and punched punched the culprit.
He kept up his Party membership as he rose in the ranks.
8/11

In 1994 The Independent newspaper wrote: “Two of the most left-wing executive members represent London Underground. One is Bob Crow, a 32-year-old self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist and a supporter of the ‘Stalinist’ Communist Party of Britain.”
9/11

Crow would go on to lead the RMT from 2002 pushing Tube drivers’ basic pay up to £44,000, and was rewarded by an increase in the size of his union from 50,000 to 80,000, bucking the trend of declining union membership.
10/11

On his death today seven years ago, despite clashing with him during his tenure as London Mayor, Ken Livingstone reflected: “The only working-class people who still have well-paid jobs in London are his members.”
11/11