DOCUMENT 8c

Letter from George Novack to the SWP National Committee Majority, September 10, 1953

Documents 3 to 17 and 19 to 24 originally published in Internal Bulletins of the SWP and the International Bulletins of the International Committee


Dear Comrades:

Since Comrade Cannon's report May 18th on 'Internationalism and the SWP' we have sought to alert the majority caucus to the possibility that the Cochran faction had inspirers and allies in Paris and, if so, that the fight in the SWP would inevitably spread to a broader arena. It was known that Clarke started his factional operations upon his return from abroad two years ago; that the Cochranites persistently claimed he was Pablo's righthand man; and they claimed to be the real representatives of Pablo's interpretation of the Third World Congress documents. They recruited and held together their faction with the aid of this contention.

These circumstances indicated the possibility that the faction fight had been encouraged by some sort of understanding between Clarke and Pablo; that the Cochranites were proceeding with at least tacit support from that quarter; and that this was one of the main reasons for their arrogant and reckless behaviour.

Despite growing apprehensions on this score, we were reluctant to come to a definite conclusion that this was the case. On one hand, early in the year after the Dobbs-Stein-Hansen memorandum was written, we received assurances that the general line the memorandum defended was acceptable to the IS and provided an adequate basis for continuing collaboration. On the other hand, in the absence of irrefutable evidence, we hesitated to believe that responsible figures would knowingly engage in a double game behind the backs of our party leadership. We had to suspend judgment pending further and conclusive proof of devious organizational methods unprecendented in our movement and at odds with all our traditions.

We did inform the IS that any outside intervention in the unfolding factional situation would be extremely unwise since it would serve only to complicate, prolong and embitter it, although we did not object to expressions of opinion by them on the political issues involved at some point in the literary discussion. The SWP has a leadership and membership mature and experienced enough in faction fights to solve its own internal problems. Moreover, as Comrade Cannon recalled in his report, we did not want any repetition of the moves made without our knowledge or consent in the fusion negotiations with the Shachtmanites during the Morrow-Goldman fight.

We learned later that, at any informal meeting in Paris held shortly before our May Plenum, Pablo and several others indicated sympathy with some of the minority's views and raised the question of taking a stand on the American struggle. This move toward intervention on behalf of the Cochranites was held up at that time by Burns' objections.

A week before the Plenum Comrade Cannon sent Pablo a digest of the information reported to us by Comrade Stone after his break with the Cochran faction regarding their claims to represent Pablo and his views in our party. We did this to give him the opportunity to repudiate these allegations and dissociate himself from the Cochranites and their revisionist positions. His ambiguous reply added to the accumulating evidence that he was dealing with the Cochranites behind our backs. Moreover, as we learned directly from him, he had been in correspondence with Clarke, although we did not know the content of the correspondence.

The agreement made at the Plenum temporarily altered the outlook of the internal situation. Having accepted it in good faith, the majority leadership was concerned with making the truce effective and preventing any further flareup of factional hostilities. As Comrade Cannon wrote in his letter to Tom, the main threat of disruption could come only from 'some artificial "intervention" from Paris, which would feed the flames of factionalism, again call in question the authority of the majority leadership, and plunge us headlong into an embittered factional organization struggle, with the implicit threat of split.

As his letter indicated, we would try to forestall such an unwarranted intervention, but would nevertheless prepare for its possibility. It appeared that the danger had been averted, at least for the time being, when a message came from the IS saluting the outcome of the Plenum.

The situation took a sharp turn when the Cochranites capped their disgraceful conduct in the New York Local by unloosing the 'scandal-sensation' of the Cannon documents and vying to make them the pivot of the convention proceedings. The minority aimed to blow up the truce and renew the split offensive; shove aside the Plenum resolutions as the basis for party activity; switch the discussion from the home grounds where they had fared so poorly onto the field of foreign affairs. They sought to cast off parry discipline in the name of allegiance to Pablo, and to justify their withdrawal from collaboration in party work and sabotage of party finances with the pretext that Cannon was organizing a personal international faction against Pablo.

This declaration of war was promptly followed by Clarke's trip abroad which was a defiant demonstration of international factional activity. Now, as a sequel to these developments, come the IS letter of August 10 addressed to the NC Majority. This hypocritical letter confirms our worst expectations. It is contrived to back up the false allegations of the Cochranites and prepare the ground for extending their unprincipled factionalism throughout the world movement.

It is clear that this threatening letter is only a preliminary to a series of hostile moves against us and other orthodox Trotskyists. This has been made plain by the expansion of the factional warfare into England. There a group around Lawrence, obviously set into motion by Pablo, has opened hostilities against the Burns majority.

The internal struggle in England is unfolding along parallel lines and around the same fundamental issues as in this country -- with the Lawrence clique using the same unsavory organizational methods as the Cochranites. For example, they have gone so far as to brand Burns an 'American agent,' and vied to impose IS discipline as a gag upon him to prevent him from expressing criticisms of the IS documents at the beginning of the discussion in his own party. Such methods, employed by the Comintern, have been unheard of in our movement.

Simultaneously the IS has called a special meeting which portends new hostile acts of the same type, despite the declaration in their August 10 lever that 'we are resolved to undertake nothing in this matter.'

Even if there existed no serious political differences, such abominable organizational methods would have to be openly challenged and vigorously combatted. However, the severity of the clash on organizational grounds betokens the presence of political divergences on basic questions which will have to be fully brought out and counterposed to each other.

The nature and trend of these opposing views have already been manifested in the fight the majority has been waging against the Cochranites for the past year and a half. Under the war-cry of 'Junk the Old Trotskyism,' this revisionist and liquidationist tendency has been throwing overboard more and more of the principles and positions of our party, including our conception of the role of the revolutionary party and the Trotskyist analysis of the character and role of Stalinism.

It is now apparent that the lines developed by the Cochranites is merging with that of an international tendency which not only shares their general outlook but may well have prompted at least part of their ideas. Those who support the course taken by the Cochranites do not represent the views of orthodox Trotskyism -- and that is precisely the core of the developing political dispute.

The major task before us is to clarify the growing theoretical and political differences between the orthodox Trotskyists and those who are moving away from basic Trotskyist concepts, especially on the nature and role of Stalinism and the role and prospects of world Trotskyism. The international discussion preparatory to the Fourth World Congress will be utilized for that purpose, and we shall continue to press for the fullest probing of the political questions at the bottom of this conflict.


As a number of comrades have already observed, the trend of thought in Pablo's article on 'The Post-Stalin "New Course" ' in the March-April magazine approaches the appraisal of the Stalinist bureaucracy and Stalinism's future which we have already challenged in Clarke's Articles. There Pablo envisages the liquidation of Stalinism, not through the organization and victory of the uprising of the Soviet masses against the Stalinist bureaucracy, but through the progressive reform of the bureaucratic and police regime under mounting pressure from the masses.

He raises the question: what form will the now irresistible liquidation of the Stalinist regime take? 'Will it be that of an acute crisis and of violent interbureaucratic struggles between the elements who will fight for the status quo, if not for turning back, and the more and more numerous elements drawn by the powerful pressure of the masses?'

This is a partial projection of the idea put forward by Clarke that the bureaucracy may reform itself, share power, and a section of it even lead the anti-bureaucratic movement of the masses. In our opinion this is not a realistic view of the way Stalinism will be liquidated; it points toward liquidation of the Trotskyist programme of the necessity of the mass uprising to smash the entire bureaucratic caste.

In the forthcoming discussions in our party and in the world movement, we propose to challenge all such false conceptions head on. Against the revisionist cry of 'Junk the Old Trotskyism,' we will raise the slogan of 'Hold fast to Orthodox Trotskyism against the new revisionists.'

Fraternally,

William F. Warde


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