Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line

G.G.

Excerpts from a Letter to the Theoretical Review about the OC Labor Day conference


Issued: n.d.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Dear TR,

Am writing to tell you and Red Boston about events that transpired after you left the recent OCIC conference Saturday. You might have been in touch with the friend from Kansas City who stayed but I thought I’d make sure.

Here In Minneapolis the LC is split right down the middle with the NSSO and MSC(of which I was a member)opposed to the direction the OCIC is taking. Most opposition is centering around Point 15, the one that say ultra-leftism is the exclusive concern of the OC.

At the conference, a quite illuminating struggle took place around the Draft Plan, which was rammed through – ratified in 45 minutes. We put up a fight(the MSC)and delegates from Chicago(COG), Detroit (DMLO) and KC and Atlanta voted together on various resolutions. They key one was a vote on whether the phrase “revisionism was consolidated in 1957” should be deleted from the Draft Plan, since there was no agreement on this point as yet. Newlin showed his complete contempt for any real attempt at political unity and instead favored bureaucratically ramming the resolution through. It was unfortunate that both you and Red Boston were not there. 12 delegates voted to delete. There was only 3 speakers allowed by the chair (Pam from MSU). She will make a hell of a good bureaucrat someday.

Back in Minneapolis, people around the OC had voiced concern about this “revisionism in ’57”,which is why we brought it up. Although there was no chance to make it clear at the conference, the split came down to those who (knowingly or unknowingly)favor a Stalinist view that everything was hunkey dory up to Khrushchev and those with a more critical Maoist point of view that held that revisionism had affected the CPSU much earlier…

In our LC the forces that see rightism as a danger in the OC are coming around to believe that the OC is following the same sectarian monolithic Stalinist view of organisation. This was all but said by friends of PWOC in the LC. (TCWOC) They favored a united SC instead of what we called for, that the minority in the OC should have a seat on the steering Comittee. Being Stalinist liberals, they couldn’t agree with this.

As to how long you guys stay in, some people here were suprised that you hadn’t resigned after the conference when we received your letter. You are clearly the loyal(but isolated) opposition – a “voice crying in the wilderness”. The battle in the OC is already over – PWOC is using the OC as a front for its right economist, pro-black nationalist, class collaborationist organisation to recruit around the country and set up a national organisation. The longer Tucson/Red Boston stay in the longer PWOC can maintain the fiction that the OCIC is a broad organisation. On the other hand, you also might be able to recruit, which is what I suggest you do…

Sincerely,

G.G.