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The National Committee majority caucus started early—with the adoption of the draft political resolution by the April 4-7 plenum and its publication in the bulletin in late April [SWP Discussion Bulletin, Vol. 37, No. 1].
I know of no disadvantage. The advantage was that the entire party and our entire world movement had the same documents in front of them for over three months to read, study, criticize, improve, and decide on.
As comrades know, the National Committee majority made the decision not to have anyone tour the branches when Comrades Weinstein and Henderson did so this summer. This is not because we thought that doing so would be improper. It was because we were convinced that the party would benefit most, not by an organized debate among National Committee members, but by the branch membership themselves working their way through all the political questions before the party. That turned out to be a correct decision—one of the strengths of the preconvention discussion.
During the debate here at the convention, Comrade Breitman addressed a question to the great majority of convention delegates. He asked what we would do if we lost the debate on Cuba in the Fourth International. Well, that's an abstract question, since the World Congress is still a ways down the line, and the international discussion has not even opened. We're convinced we'll win, as we did on the turn and as we are winning on Nicaragua. Anyway, if we lose, we will simply do what we've always done when we have held a minority point of view in the International, as we have done most of the time since reunification in 1963—that is, we'll continue functioning as an active and loyal minority.
Meanwhile, the two minority tendencies in the SWP have lost. Now, they will set a concrete example of what you do when your point of view is defeated after a thorough debate in the party.
Operating in this fashion is not always so easy. I was struck by the depth of the feelings that leaders of the two minority tendencies clearly expressed in the discussion bulletins and at the convention. Comrade Lovell's judgment that the elected leadership of the party fails to even grasp the problems of trade union work, the main work of our party. Comrade Breitman's judgment that our political line on Cuba and related questions is having a “devastating” effect on the party's relations with the Fourth International—a view he repeated in his remarks to the convention, more than 90 percent of whose delegates then voted for this line. Comrade Weinstein and Henderson's strong opinions—which in their views were reinforced, not diminished, by the convention—that the majority is introducing programmatic revisions. Comrade Bloom's judgment, stated in his report here, that the beginning of a programmatic revision is opened by the majority's position on the Cuban leadership.
These opinions are genuinely held, which no doubt makes it somewhat difficult to now put the discussion aside for a period while we all carry out the positions adopted here by the party.
But that's what always happens following conventions, and that's what will happen following this one.
The majority disagrees with the decision by Comrades Henderson and Weinstein to maintain their tendency. It's an error, and a serious one. The party's organizational resolution states unambiguously, “When the party has made its decision on the issues in dispute, groupings formed during the polemical struggle should dissolve into the party as a whole.” [The Organizational Character of the Socialist Workers Party, resolution adopted by the 1965 SWP national convention, an Education for Socialists Publication, July 1970.]
The reasoning presented by Comrade Weinstein is also disturbing because it is completely unconvincing. He stated that the only purpose of the “Trotskyist Tendency” is to prepare to participate in an international discussion when it opens. But there is nothing an ideological tendency from a previous discussion does to prepare to participate in a future discussion whose character and content, as Comrade Weinstein himself pointed out, are undecided. There is no activity that an organized ideological tendency can engage in during a period when the party has not opened discussion. So the explanation given by Comrade Weinstein literally makes no sense.
If what was involved was the formation of a faction—if the group for which Comrade Weinstein was speaking was convinced that it must maintain itself as a disciplined formation, discuss among itself, and function by majority vote to prevent grave abuses by the elected party leadership—then, while I would not agree with the decision, it would at least make sense. This current decision does not on the basis of the reasons given.
The discussion in the Fourth International has not yet opened. The resolutions from the May International Executive Committee meeting have not yet been read by the comrades of the Weinstein/Henderson tendency. A major part of their platform had to do with issues that do not figure in the international discussion. The party's elected national leadership bodies have not yet opened a discussion on the issues in dispute in the world movement.
So, there is no basis to maintain an ideological tendency in the SWP. Deciding to go against what the party's organization resolution presents as a norm is unjustified, especially since the reasons given don't make any sense. I was asked by Comrades Henderson and Weinstein for my view on this question, and I expressed this opinion to them before their tendency made its final decision.
We do not yet know when the international discussion will be opened, or in what form. And we don't know how we will decide to participate. Comrade Jones has informed us that the meeting of the United Secretariat that will take place in October will make recommendations on these matters—whether to first open the discussion in the national leaderships, or to open it from the outset in the memberships; what kind of discussion bulletin; what limits on the discussion contributions; what topics; leading toward what leadership meetings; and so on.
We are quite spoiled by this massive, multiple-volume, encyclopedia-length bulletin that we publish during our preconvention period. We place no limits on the length or number of discussion contributions. It is clearly impossible to democratically conduct the discussion in the International the same way. Everything has to be translated into several languages to have a democratic discussion, for example. So, there will be a restricted number of bulletins with certain limits on contributions and for a limited period of time.
Whatever the decisions and recommendations of the United Secretariat, it will then be up to the party's National Committee to decide how and what kind of discussion to organize in the SWP.
I do not believe the party leadership will open up a discussion on these questions in the branches in the next year or so, since there is no reason to think that the October United Secretariat meeting is going to open a pre-World Congress discussion. It will most likely be a literary discussion in the bulletin over a number of months, leading up to another International Executive Committee meeting, and then another discussion period that will lead to a World Congress. So, there will be no party discussion, as such, until we are preparing for another convention, or unless something breaks on a national level that the leadership decides would be valuable to open up a discussion on, or until a formal pre-World Congress discussion opens.
That doesn't mean, of course, that we don't need to find ways and means to have discussion on how to organize to implement the convention decisions and party tasks. Given the political homogeneity conquered at this convention, we need to come out of here during the next six months organizing ourselves as well as possible on every level. We will find the forms—Party Builders, Party Organizers, or other ways—to aid us in doing that. The first meeting of the National Committee will have to discuss how to do that.
The majority at this convention is such an enormous majority that it is even more important for us than for the minorities to be clear on the question of dissolving. It won't be difficult for the majority caucus to do this, since the most the caucus did in the branches was to hold a meeting to elect delegates at the end of the discussion. In some branches there may have been a meeting or two to discuss out some other questions before the Weinstein/Henderson minority representative came to debate. There was one caucus meeting here before the beginning of the convention. There were no other meetings.
It is crucial for the party, especially when there is such an enormous majority, that there not be any remnants of a caucus, or any touch of an idea of a “majority” as distinct from the party as a whole. That would be a disaster—like a giant elephant in a small room.
All the normal bodies of the party—the branches, the locals, the districts, the fractions, the National Committee, the Political Committee—will now function exactly as before. From this moment forth, there is no meaning whatsoever to “the majority,” and there is no validity to any meetings, discussions, exclusive gatherings, or communications among each other—either in your local areas, back and forth to comrades in other areas, or with any section of the national leadership, as a majority caucus. There is no longer any majority or majority caucus of any kind. There are simply the decisions of the convention, which are now the positions of the Socialist Workers Party binding on all members, all of whom have the same rights and responsibilities. Any and all business of the party should be conducted through normal channels, with the full participation of all comrades who are members of those party units, committees, or fractions to implement these decisions.
Whenever you have had a discussion and sharp debate, and when you anticipate further debate down the road, it is important to review the organizational norms of the party. Because it is everyone's job to make sure that the party maintains its equilibrium and moves forward. Comrades should take the time during the next couple of months to reread carefully the 1965 organization resolution of the Socialist Workers Party.
Many comrades haven't read this resolution, or haven't studied it. It is very useful to do so. And it is also extremely useful to read the lectures on them that Farrell Dobbs gave a decade ago [The Structure and Organizational Principles of the Party by Farrell Dobbs, an Education for Socialists Publication, June 1971].
The 1965 resolution was drafted by a commission of Farrell, Jim Cannon (it was the last resolution that Jim worked on), and George Novack. It captures and explains well something that is not often thought about—the way to maintain a normal rhythm of functioning in the kind of a party that is always discussing questions, meeting new situations, and so on. It is important to read and think about this, because it is the resolution that guides all of our activity and determines all of our criteria on organization questions. It is the resolution that will be implemented by the incoming party leadership.
The party discussion is now closed. It's traditional to say that we will now concentrate on party-building work—although my impression is that we were concentrating on party-building work throughout the preconvention discussion. The ruling class doesn't allow us to have a leisurely discussion with no activity.
It's more accurate to say that we will all now carry out the political line and tasks that were decided here, and work together to implement the party's line in our branches, locals, and districts.
The last act of the majority caucus is to celebrate its victory by deciding that it dissolves each and every aspect of itself. There is simply the Socialist Workers Party in an undifferentiated way once again.
Jack Barnes
August 7, 1981
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