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I want to report two major interrelated developments at the November 1981 plenum.
I. In my view, the plenum witnessed a deepening of the revision of our traditional approach to the mass movements of the workers and their allies. The downgrading of Trotsky's contributions to revolutionary Marxism was significantly accelerated. And
II. A convergence of political positions took place at this plenum between those associated with the views of the two minority tendencies (at the 1981 convention).
Let me cite some of the facts upon which these conclusions are based.
The downgrading of Trotskyism could be summed up in a rare candid admission by Comrade Jack Barnes near the conclusion of the plenum to the effect that: the PC intends to emphasize Lenin's contributions over Trotsky's in coming issues of party publications. This statement followed from a dispute at the plenum provoked by the publication in the November 1981 ISR of an article by Doug Jenness titled “How Lenin Saw the Russian Revolution.” (I will say more on this in a moment.)
The abstentionist policy followed in the unions is now being extended to the women's liberation movement. More precisely, accelerating a trend begun previously. This was evidenced by a theme sounded by Comrade Barnes in his political report for the PC to the contradictory effect that the ERA is a lost cause and that it is a liberal issue which is “not central to the women's struggle.” Barnes said, further, in response to proposals to launch a campaign for mass action to win the ERA: “We don't want to hitch our wagon to a dead horse.”
Again reporting for the PC, Comrade Barnes coined the term: “political centralism,” which he went on to define as greater emphasis on control by higher bodies over lower ones in the party. He exemplified “political centralism” by pointing to two cases.
1. The San Francisco Bay Area District Committee's reversal of the SF branch and NOW fraction decision regarding tactics in NOW. (Contrary to the distorted version presented at the plenum, the comrades in the SF branch have not shown the slightest adaptation to the misleadership of NOW.)
2. The expulsion of Randy Furst by the PC and the plenum for his violations of branch decisions.
In this case, it should be noted, no one at the plenum opposed the decision of the Twin Cities branch which found Furst guilty and voted to censure him. The issue in dispute was the PC proposal to expel him.
Comrade Lynn Henderson pointed out that the comrades assigned by the PC to investigate the matter in response to an appeal of the branch decision to censure Furst discovered nothing new in justification of the highly unusual recommendation to increase the penalty by the appeal investigators. Lynn further pointed out that not one person had even raised the idea of expulsion during the lengthy trial proceedings in the branch.
These actions, according to Barnes, explain what is meant by “political centralism.”
Another theme advanced by PC reporters and echoed by a number of speakers was that the losses suffered by the party in the last five or six years was due to “the pressures of imperialism on the party membership.” That the party “was undergoing its “Mariel.”” As in Cuba, it was alleged, the weak, the tired, the demoralized elements of our party have been deserting in the face of the mounting pressures of imperialism.
This, we were told, was not all bad; that, in a sense, people were leaving our ranks who “had already stopped contributing to the party” and the departures had the beneficial effect of “clearing the decks for action.”
This rationalization of our losses, it should be noted, flies in the face of the oftrepeated assertion that we are in a new period unusually favorable to the growth of our party. Leaving aside exaggerations, we can all agree that the period is new and favorable. This is evidenced, among other things, by the growth of some of our opponents.
The explanation for losses thus serves limpingly to divert attention from political errors that are responsible for the setbacks.
Now I will cite the facts supporting my judgment that a convergence was evidenced at the plenum between the two minorities.
First let me say that in my view — and I speak only for myself — the differences between the two tendencies were essentially artifacts of the response to the shifting line of the PC which goes back to at least early 1979. Because of our different vantage points we became conscious of different aspects of the changing line at different times. Thus Breitman supported the PC's political resolution at the 1981 convention, with the exception of his amendments relating to international questions.
(On the other hand, Comrade Breitman sought to clarify the shifting PC position on the Cuban CP in the 1979 convention discussion ahead of the rest of us.)
The following motion introduced at the plenum by comrades Lovell and Bloom and supported by Comrade Henderson and myself is one indication of our converging views:
1. To launch immediately out of this plenum a national campaign of intervention in NOW and other mass organizations around action proposals to promote the ERA and other issues of the feminist movement as outlined in our letter and in Steve Bloom's comments.
2. To launch immediately out of this plenum a national campaign to build teachins on Poland, and to build coalitions to sponsor propaganda actions around the role of U.S. banks in the Polish crisis.
3. For a change in the Militant's coverage of the PATCO strike to reflect the continuing nature of this struggle, to pose concrete tasks for solidarity, and to present our criticisms of the trade union bureaucracy in the correct context of the overall struggle with the employing class.
Our essentially harmonious political outlook is further shown by our common response to the revision of our traditional views on Trotsky's contributions to Marxism which was significantly deepened at the expanded PC meeting held immediately following the 1981 convention, and intensified through the Jenness article in the November 1981 ISR. Again comrades Lovell and Bloom introduced a motion which was supported by Henderson and myself:
1. To object to the publication of the article by Doug Jenness in the ISR and instruct the editorial boards of party publications not to print any articles which revise our traditional view of permanent revolution or Trotsky's role in the history of the Bolsheviks and Russian Revolution until theoretical conclusions have been drawn by the party as a result of a thorough democratic discussion.
2. To begin a literary discussion on Leninism open to the membership of the SWP.
3. To elect an editorial commission to regulate the discussion.
Finally on this point, the four of us presented the following motion rejecting the political report. (It was not recognized by the presiding committee; we were compelled, therefore, to offer it as a statement to be inserted in the minutes):
To reject the general line of Barnes's report on the political situation because it fails to correctly lay out a perspective for our work in the unions and other mass movements. This motion is in no way intended to express opposition to the perspectives laid out for mobilizing the party against the U.S. war drive in the Caribbean and Central America. We support an allout effort in this area.
My concern over events at the plenum is heightened by the syllabus for the Lenin “classes” circulated to the party. The quotations can only be characterized as tendentious; having been culled, it is estimated, from thousands of pages of Lenin's writings. Rather than a syllabus for a class, it constitutes a concealed polemic against the totality of Lenin's thought engineered by selective quoting.
In the name of a “study” of Lenin's contributions to revolutionary Marxism, we are confronted with a poorly disguised attempt to elevate a onesided presentation of Lenin's pre-April 1917 views over his later views. In passing, Trotsky's permanent revolution is dismissed as at least an inferior rendition of Lenin's outmoded formula — the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry—and at worst wrong.
There are two things wrong here:
1. This theme, which is being advanced by the PC in a series of speeches and articles, is without benefit of any written documents defending this de facto revision of our longheld views.
2. This revision has been sprung on the party in the anomalous form of “classes” given to an expanded PC meeting barely two days after the convention.
This sheds more light on the meaning of the newly coined term “political centralism.” It is, evidently, the name given to an organizational concept that includes backing the party into a revision of our program without benefit of a proper discussion, based on written documents inside the party. To underscore this as a deliberate departure from our norms, Comrade Barnes proclaimed at the plenum's ending, and I paraphrase: “the next convention is a long time away, not until September 1983; there will be a lot of plenums and a lot of decisions that will be made. If the decisions at this plenum are so intolerable to you [to the minority] then be prepared for much more.”
This is not in the tradition of democratic centralism.
San Francisco, December 6, 1981