Published: The Organizer, Vol. 5, No. 1, January 1979.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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As is now well known, Irwin Silber has resigned as executive editor of the Guardian. According to his own statement (printed here only because the Guardian refused to publish it), Silber developed “fundamental disagreements with the decision of the Guardian staff as announced in the final section of the document, ’The State of the Party-Building Movement,’ to build a political organization around itself as an expression of a ’left trend’ within the party-building movement.” This divergence made his continued position of leadership within the staff untenable.
In the December issue of this newspaper, we set forth our view of the Guardian document–i.e., that it represented the consolidation of the circle spirit as the foundation of the Guardian’s party-building line. Since Silber also states that he is in disagreement with the general line of the same document, it is important to assess the significance of his differences with the rest of the staff. We can then adopt a principled approach to the question of what unity can be developed with Silber and his supporters.
Clearly, Silber does have genuine disagreements with the Guardian. Whereas the staff thinks two mature “trends” have emerged in the anti-revisionist, anti-dogmatist movement, Silber recognized that there is neither a trend around the Guardian nor one around the Organizing Committee for an Ideological Center (OC). Whereas the staff feels that a principled basis has been laid for the building of a Guardian national pre-party organization, Silber argues that a move in this direction at this time would be “bound to promote divisiveness and sectarianism” in our movement. Whereas the staff calls for an organizational division in the ranks of party-builders, Silber regards such a division as “premature.” And finally, whereas the Guardian staff, in effect holds “that the OC is a consolidated right opportunist formation”, Silber does not.
It is important not to underestimate these differences. From the staffs positions flow a whole range of sectarian choices, beginning with their call for complete organizational separation from the OC and its activities up to their renouncement of any attempt to engage the broad forces in the party-building movement in the common pursuit of our most pressing tasks. Perhaps, Irwin, himself, best sums up the essence of the Guardian’s current view when he states that it “is, in effect, an abandonment of the correct task of trying to unite all Marxist-Leninists in a common plan to build the party.”
On the other hand, Silber’s divergence from the Guardian line should not be overplayed. Unfortunately, in his critique of that line, Silber confines himself to excising the warts while sparing the cancer in the Guardian’s “body politic.”
Silber’s critique of the Guardian line centers on two points – its view of itself as the center of a “trend” and its plan to build an organization. But the Guardian’s claim to existence as a “trend” is so manifestly out of touch with reality as to be ridiculous–by taking such a position the staff will only fool itself. And the decision to build a national pre-party organization may be “impractical” but, by itself, it is neither divisive nor sectarian.
In reality, the Guardian’s “abandonment” of the struggle for communist unification lies neither in its conjuring up of trends nor in its call for a Guardian organization. It lies in its decision to oppose the only organization that has unequivocally committed itself to engaging “all Marxist-Leninists in a common plan to build the party”–the OC.
Is not the OC the only organization that has called for unity of the entire anti-revisionist, anti-dogmatist tendency in the pursuit of our most pressing tasks? Is not the OC the only organization which has created no barriers –either political or organizational–to the participation of any of the genuine forces in this tendency, including the Guardian, Silber and others with similar views? Is not the OC the only organization which has called for the formation of a common plan for party-building, a plan forged through open struggle in full view of the entire tendency? Is it not, then, the Guardian’s decision to oppose the OC which is the essence 6f its “abandonment”?
Silber would like to ignore all this for the very simple reason that he “strongly support(s) the general critique of the political line and organizational efforts underlying the formation” of the OC. But like the Guardian, his real opposition is not rooted in principled differences with the OC, itself. Instead, he argues, in effect that the OC’s “one crucial weakness...is that it is dominated by the leading line of the PWOC and most other groups are either too weak, underdeveloped or backward themselves to lead a struggle against it” (Silber letter to Clubs, Guardian Clubs Newsletter, November 1977).
To base an anti-OC position on the fact that other OC groups are “too weak, underdeveloped or backward” to oppose the PWOC is unprincipled. It just shows that Silber is in essential unity with a line which exaggerates differences between prominent circles like the Guardian and PWOC. As Silber knows full well, the purpose of this exaggeration has been from its inception, and still remains today, nothing but an attempt to prevent the development of a common plan for party-building.
Silber’s basic unity with the Guardian’s sectarianism is clearly demonstrated by his role in the party-building movement over the last two years or so. Silber himself wrote the original Guardian party-building supplement published in June of 1977. That supplement puts forward the Guardian’s 29 points of unity not as a basis for unity with the Guardian nor as the basis for joining the Clubs. Instead, although a disclaimer is issued to the effect that these points cannot “immediately be translated into...a draft program”, they are advanced under the following heading–“Principles of Unity for a New Party.” And in the final section where Silber discusses the main tasks of the Clubs he has this to say:
Party-building: The clubs would be an organizational vehicle for helping to develop a distinct political trend within the Marxist-Leninist movement, a trend based on the 29 principles of unity.
Apparently, Silber’s problems with building a Guardian “trend” are quite recent.
Moreover, Silber has been consciously advocating a line which could only encourage the kind of “abandonment” that he now abhors. He has argued that there is a contradiction between the fusion of communism to the class struggle of the proletariat and the task of “rectifying the general line” of our movement. Instead of maintaining that correct political line is the key to pressing forward fusion each step of the way, he has asserted that fusion must wait until the correct line has emerged, Marxist-Leninists have been united and the Party has been forged. Thus, Silber has failed to grasp the fact that the struggle for fusion provides the best context for checking the sectarian impulse towards unprincipled splits. It does so precisely because it places before communists their clear interests in principled unity on the basis of political line.
Nor is this the only way that Silber nourishes the sectarian mentality. He has also consistently belittled the danger from the “left” in our ranks. Having presented no systematic analysis of the history of the anti-revisionist movement, Silber has made light of the necessity to develop a thorough critique of ultra-leftism. And, in particular, having confined himself to demarcating with “leftism” on international line, Silber has continually disparaged the idea that there is any such thing as a “left” party-building line.
He has also strived to divert the attention of our forces from the struggle against modern dogmatism by raising the bogy of the danger from the right. He has argued that “anti-theoretical prejudice, economism and conciliation of revisionism” present the main danger to our tendency. We do not deny that these phenomena exist, nor that they are likely to grow. But it is absurd to advocate turning our attention to these errors when we have not even consolidated our break with ultra-leftism.
Thus, Silber has both advocated line struggle apart from the interests of the working class and also downplayed the danger of unprincipled polarization of our forces. Taken together these things could only feed, and in turn be fed by, the splitist mentality that has clearly emerged in the Guardian.
The most telling indication of Silber’s basic unity with the Guardian’s sectarianism is the fact that he not only voted for, but by his own admission, raised no objections to the original draft of the Guardian’s “State of the Party-Building Movement.” This draft is every bit as flawed, every bit as sectarian and every bit as steeped in the spirit of abandoning the struggle for a common plan for party-building as the published version.
It is possible of course that Silber will deepen his critique as a result of the struggle with the Guardian staff. But all indications are that the prospect is not promising.
In the first place, it would seem that Silber would want to really pursue a self-criticism of his role in the Guardian staff. In particular, given his prominence, he would be especially concerned that he might have, in some manner, contributed to the paper’s sectarian line.
In his letter to the Clubs, he explains his decision to vote for the Guardian document as follows:
It was obviously an error on my part not to have realized. . .the political significance of these changes (the changes proposed, and subsequently added, by the Guardian staff to Irwin’s initial and unpublished draft – CN). I continued to have my vision so focused on the critique of the OC.. .that I failed to recognize the fact that the document was undergoing a qualitative change in its actual political purpose.. .it simply went by me and I will not offer any excuses for this political lapse on my part. The best I can do is try not to repeat this error.. .
Frankly, one cannot be very much impressed with this “self-criticism”. To call voting for a document whose very essence abandons the struggle for “a common plan to build the party” a “political lapse” just will not do. Silber can hardly expect us to believe that one with as much political experience as he has or one as theoretically astute as he is could allow a document to undergo “a qualitative change” of such severity.
And while Irwin says that he “will not offer any excuses,” it is clear that he will not accept any real responsibility either. At the very least a genuine self-criticism would make an honest attempt to go to the roots of the error. Silber, however, seems more concerned with covering over his mistakes.
It would also appear that Silber’s objections to the Guardian’s call for a pre-party organization comes less from concern with the circle spirit than it does from opposition to such organizations in principle. According to Jack Smith, in the Guardian staff Silber has advanced the argument that “consolidated organizational forms are a ’mistake’ at this period, that they ’freeze’ the development of ideological struggle and theoretical advancement.” But Silber has sought to keep these views to himself, arguing that they are not relevant to the debate in the Guardian Clubs.
The point here is this. Silber’s decision to conceal views that are clearly relevant to the debate in the Guardian network raises questions as to the real basis of his so-called “fundamental disagreements.” Are they based on a genuine break with the sectarianism that has characterized so much of the Guardian’s intervention in the party building movement? Or is the opposition just tactical, more designed to take the edge off the circle mentality than to negate its essence?
Unfortunately, some of the methods used by Silber to conduct the struggle against the staff’s line raise questions about his commitment to principle. Early in his letter to the Clubs, Silber writes, “Guardian Clubs number in their ranks some of the best, most developed Marxist-Leninists in our movement, people who have demonstrated a hundred times over both in their theoretical contributions as well as their practical work, a deep-seated commitment to party-building and to the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism.” He continues in this vein for three more lengthy paragraphs, engaging in a rather transparent attempt to ingratiate himself with members of the Clubs.
Silber also sets himself up as the champion of the Clubs struggle against the “bureaucratic centralism” of the Guardian staff. He argues that the leadership of any Guardian political organization is likely to assume the same “commandist” style implemented by the former Guardian Clubs Committee. Apart from the obvious attempt to curry favor in the ranks, there is a strong dose of irony in this. Silber, himself, was the chairperson of the Clubs Committee.
Such unprincipled appeals can hardly be designed to encourage a full and rigorous investigation by Club members of any sectarianism that may affect Silber himself.
Given all this we can not be too sanguine about the probability of a genuine break with the circle spirit on Silber’s part. This does not mean, of course, that there is no basis for united action with Silber in the struggle against the Guardian’s self-serving approach. At some level, Silber has taken up the struggle against sectarianism. That fact must be recognized.
In the context of the struggle against the Guardian’s line we must also call for Silber and his forces to deepen their battle against sectarianism. We must demand that Silber break with his narrow opposition to the OC. We must demand that he commit himself, at least in principle, to the building of a single genuine ideological center for the emerging Marxist-Leninist trend.
Until he does so, we must hold that he, too, in practice, has abandoned “the correct task of trying to unite all Marxist-Leninists in a common plan to build the party”!