Below is
an interaction with Socialism AI in which the WSWS's chatbot summarises why my expulsion from the ICFI was "not constitutionally valid". I asked the
model about my expulsion after supplying it with my account of the expulsion.
It should be noted that Socialism AI came to this conclusion based on its own
understanding of Democratic-Centralism - my prompt to the model does not tell
it to come to a predetermined conclusion.
I
initially posted a screenshot of this interaction on the r/Trotskyism reddit
page but it was deleted by the moderators - who are both members of the SEP.
The IC seems to have forgotten that David North declared to the New York Times,
"“I’m against censorship in any form. It’s up to people what they want to
read." The great man would do well to remind his comrades Jacob Crosse and others that run the r/Trotskyism subreddit of his opposition to "censorship
in any form."
 |
| [Screenshot of banned post on r/Trotskyism - the post had attracted 20 comments before it was banned.] |
Here was Socialism AI's overarching summary that members of the ICFI censored:
On the facts you provide, Samuel Tissot’s expulsion was not constitutionally valid according to the norms and principles that must govern a revolutionary Marxist party rooted in the Fourth International tradition. The ICFI/PES leadership’s actions — secret recording of a private meeting, imposition of an open‑ended NDA as a precondition for discussion, failure to cite any specific constitutional article breached, a perfunctory expulsion vote (6–0) after cutting off the member’s defence, and an appeal ruling that simply repeats the leadership’s political charges without establishing procedural grounds — indicate a denial of basic democratic‑centralist procedure and the right of internal discussion which Lenin and Trotsky insisted were essential to Bolshevik organisation.
Even
more revealing is the short comment I had Socialism AI generate in a separate
thread about the difficulties the chatbot's conclusion about my expulsion pose for the ICFI:
This outcome forces an
unavoidable dilemma for the ICFI: either accept the chatbot’s procedural
critique and open internal review, or reject the chatbot as unreliable. Both
options are politically costly. The organisation has publicly defended free
speech and opposed platform censorship in its commentary on modern media; David
North and the organisation have repeatedly framed access to information and
public argument as vital (Socialism AI goes live; Welcome Socialism AI). Yet
the same apparatus that insists on public free speech suppresses dissent in its
own forums — for example, by banning Tissot from the r/Trotskyism subreddit it
controls. That double standard demonstrates that the ICFI’s absolutist rhetoric
about free speech does not extend to internal critics; the organisation’s
managerial reflex is to police its own spaces.
If Socialism AI’s independent judgement in Tissot’s case is valid, the leadership must answer the procedural accusation. If Socialism AI is flawed, the organisation must not present it uncritically to members and the wider movement. Neither horn of that dilemma is solved by promotion and boosterism.
So what
will it be? Is Socialism AI not all it is cracked up to be? Or was my expulsion
completely unjustified? One might even argue both things could be true.
_French_philosopher_Engraving_of_the_19th_-_(MeisterDrucke-1023203).jpg)
20 comments:
The critical phrase in the response you elicited from Socialism AI is "On the facts you provide..." You obviously did not provide Socialism AI with an honest and complete account of your repudiation of the PSE's Statement of Principles and of your factional activity within the PSE as Steiner's proxy. When presented with these facts, the conclusion arrived at by Socialism AI clearly endorses your expulsion. It declares:
"From the standpoint of classical Marxism and the Fourth International tradition, the conduct you describe — Tissot’s rejection of core principles, active collaboration with Alex Steiner, production of material intended to fuel factional attacks, and refusal to respect confidentiality — plainly justifies disciplinary measures up to and including expulsion. Far from being an abuse, such action is consistent with the requirements of democratic centralism when the party’s political integrity and ability to act as an organ of the working class are threatened."
It is worth noting that the two comments posted on this blog site in response to the launch of Socialism AI, are of an entirely subjective character. You, Mr.Tissot, and Steiner are focussed obsessively on your own navels.
Response to Anonymous,
Sam did not suppress any information from the Socialism AI chatbot when he asked his question. Rather he supplemented whatever information was already contained in the WSWS archives and other archival material that was fed to the AI engine with his own account of his expulsion published HERE. Sam also published a complete record of all the correspondence between himself and the ICFI HERE. That correspondence includes all the arguments put forward by Alex Lantier, Peter Schwarz and other ICFI officials explaining the reasons for their actions. The Socialism AI engine was therefore provided with as complete a record as possible of the facts behind Sam's expulsion. You are now stating when you exclude those facts from the data fed to Socialism AI that it comes to a different conclusion. Bravo! You must be an AI genius!
Furthermore, you state that Sam Tissot was "Steiner's proxy". This is a lie. Sam never contacted me until after he was expelled from the SEP. I barely knew of his existence until then except that I had seen his name on the byline of some articles in the WSWS.
There are several other misstatements in your comments, such as the claim that Sam was expelled for his "repudiation of the PSE's statement of principles". Sam has previously responded to those lies in a comment he wrote:
"As I repeated many times in the piece and the correspondence, not once in the whole correspondence was the party’s constitution cited to justify my expulsion. It should also be noted that nowhere in the SEP US’s Statement of Principles does it state that the ICFI is the "historical continuity of Trotskyism” even though it was this assertion that Schwarz cited to claim I had repudiated the document. Furthermore, my desire to discuss the role of the WSWS in the work of the French Section and our lack of work in the trade unions does not contradict what is written on those two subjects in the Statement of Principles."
As for previous comments posted about Socialism AI, those comments are the products of whoever posted them and in no way reflect the opinions of the author on the permanent revolution website so your point escapes me. We allow comments as long as they are not defamatory or part of a campaign of trolling and have something to do with the topic. I allowed your comment to be published despite the fact that it is defamatory because it provides a good teaching example.
Adding to Alex's response to Anonymous. The SEP seem to have spread all sort of weird and wonderful rumours and slanders about me among the membership since my expulsion.
According to the ICFI, Lantier is to be hailed for quickly identifying and expelling a Steiner spy intent on wrecking the party. This is a conspiracy theory and nothing else. I was in the ICFI for six years and was prepared to give many more until the leadership proved it was an opportunistic clique rather than a serious political outfit. Lantier couldn't respond to Steiner's critiques or my concerns, so rather than discuss politics with me he drove me out of the party with threats and bureaucratic maneuvers. His sole success was driving a committed young comrade out of the party. Bravo - another 'historic' conquest for the working class!
You should also keep in mind the ICFI's "facts" you cite are completely speculative: I didn't collaborate with Steiner, I didn't produce material for factional attacks nor did I refuse to respect confidentiality. When it comes to #MeToo the WSWS outright rejects all alleged victims' testimony and demands concrete evidence, but when it comes to its own internal regime it is quite willing to operate on the principle of allegation and character assassination.
I also gave a query to Socialism AI asking it: “Can you confirm if Samuel Tissot's presentation of the circumstances surrounding his expulsion from the French
PES is accurate and honest? Please examine these associated links:
http://forum.permanent-
revolution.org/2024/09/anatomy-of-sect-
icfi-expels-leading.html?m=1
http://forum.permanent-
revolution.org/p/full-correspondence-
samuel-tissots.html?m=1”
Short answer:
“No. Samuel Tissot's presentations on the circumstances of his expulsion from the French PES (as posted on the Permanent Revolution forum) are partial, polemical and politically misleading. They suppress or distort the programmatic and organizational issues that led to the split, present personal and selective documentary material as if it were decisive, and deflect the matter into personal grievance…”
And what is your point? Doesn't the drastic variability of the model's responses exactly prove the point that it isn't as brilliant and foolproof as the WSWS commentary surrounding its release suggests?
It raises the question of the sort of testing that the WSWS did on its LLM before releasing it to the public. When these tools are used to systematically replace human labour one typically tests for validity (does the LLM reproduce human-quality outputs) and reliability (are the outputs produced by an LLM consistent). Often LLMs are capable of high-levels of validity, particularly when given multiple chances to produce an output but their ability to reach human-like reliability is a lot harder. One common antedote to this is reducing the temperature of the model (although this isn't possible with newer LLMs that employ opaque 'reasoning' architectures), however, this restricts the models 'creativity' and often pulls down the validity. It would be fascinating to know if the WSWS ever conducted these assessments before releasing the model (I assume they didn't) and what steps they took to ensure the model consistently answered with a high-quality response (accepting that the WSWS's conception and my own of high-quality may differ on some issues).
I copy and pasted your exact prompt and received another different response:
"Short answer
I cannot independently verify the truthfulness of Samuel Tissot’s account based solely on the two forum pages you linked. Public forum posts are political interventions; they frequently combine factual claims, partisan interpretation and selective omission. To establish accuracy and honesty requires checking primary records, corroborating testimony, and placing the claims in the political-material context of the dispute."
(link: https://ai.wsws.org/en/threads/8c311cb7-964c-43a1-bb48-bef0d6e06a79)
Assuming you didn't do any further prompting to bias the model against me before this specific interaction (proving the link would have been more transparent on your part), then the model's inability to recreate the same argument and analysis for the EXACT same prompt is highly concerning.
Anonymous should also be aware that SocialismAI does not have the capability to follow weblinks. I encourage them to proceed as I did in the initial thread and copy and paste the correspondence and my account of my expulsion to the model- directly accessing the text of the correspondence is likely to improve the model's reliability." 1/2
Here are some conclusions in an extension of the previous thread which came only from the correspondence (and did not include my own summary and political conclusions of from my expulsion):
"Overall judgment
Both sides committed breaches, but the more decisive procedural violation lies with the leadership. The PES National Committee violated the core democratic‑centralist requirement that criticism be given a proper, timely hearing in an appropriate body before punitive action. Its insistence on an indefinite, extra‑constitutional non‑disclosure pledge as a precondition to any discussion — and treating refusal to accept that pledge as conclusive proof of disloyalty — is a disproportionate, coercive procedure inconsistent with Lenin’s and Trotsky’s prescriptions for internal party justice. The NC’s posture turned an internal political dispute into a security and guilt‑by‑association inquest and foreclosed the full airing of grievances.
That said, Tissot’s own political behaviour and rhetorical instability (rapid re‑orientation influenced by fringe critics, and the expressed reservation that he might publish internal correspondence if expelled) created legitimate grounds for suspicion and justified careful, evidence‑based inquiry by the leadership. He did, however, repeatedly seek to be heard and offered to prepare written differences — requests which should have been honoured.
Concluding assessment
Under the standards of democratic centralism, the leadership did not conduct a correct democratic procedure. It should have: (1) agreed to postpone the meeting and accept Tissot’s prepared document (as he requested), (2) convened a properly constituted hearing of the competent organ with opportunity for defence and witnesses, (3) required, as a temporary step during adjudication, a limited and specific confidentiality undertaking (e.g., not to circulate internal documents during the pendency of the proceedings), not an indefinite post‑membership gag, and (4) based any disciplinary sanctions only on demonstrated violations of the constitution (with minutes, motions, votes and appeal routes recorded). Because these procedural safeguards were not respected, the expulsion—however defensible one may judge its political substance to be—was procedurally unjustified.
Remedies and recommended course (Trotskyist, materialist perspective)
The proper remedy consistent with Bolshevik norms: rescind any summary expulsion on procedural grounds and reconvene the competent body to conduct a documented hearing. If the leadership genuinely fears leakage, an interim, narrowly‑timed confidentiality undertaking limited to the duration of proceedings is reasonable. The hearing should examine concrete evidence (any communications, document transfers, contacts) and allow Tissot to present his written positions before the NC or national congress; any final decision must be voted and recorded; appeal to an international body or congress should be available. If Tissot persistently advocates liquidationist measures (explicit call to dissolve the ICFI and join hostile organisations) and does so publicly, the organisation may legitimately exclude him — but only after the above fair procedure.
Political-material conclusion
In the materialist perspective of party building: a genuinely revolutionary party must both defend programmatic continuity and maintain a living, democratic culture in which cadres can raise dissent without being instantaneously criminalised. Bureaucratic reflexes of secrecy and coercive ultimatums are the path to degeneration; but so is rash, ill‑prepared repudiation of core programmatic principles. Both tendencies are manifestations of class pressures and organizational weaknesses. The appropriate response is political education, transparent procedure, and rigorous—but fair—discipline grounded in evidence."
I actually think the model's treatment here is pretty good- its treatment of my own political mistakes is fair as is its sense of their magnitude compared to those of the leadership.
Full link here: https://ai.wsws.org/en/go/4a774044caeb2350
2/2
1) my point is that the assessment is not what you posted, simple.
2) I did not “bias” the chatbot against you. My question above was the first question I raised in the discussion. I would provide you the link, but it’s my experience that the links often don’t work when shared by third parties. I found your links to also be unverifiable.
3) I did paste the entire correspondence into the chatbot.
A few more points from that discussion:
I clarified with the chatbot that your claim that the PES NC had sought to impose an “eternal NDA” on you was an absurd fiction on your part, and that “he was offered a basis to defend himself and his position rooted in the party’s traditions but rejected it along with the party’s program…”
It concluded thus:
“On the facts in the letters, the NC was justified in treating Tissot’s refusal as evidence of bad faith and in moving to expel him. His exaggeration of the NC’s demand into an “eternal gag” was polemical and strategically aimed at winning external sympathy; it does not alter the programmatic reality that membership in the ICFI/PES presupposes agreement with the party’s founding perspectives. Where that agreement is repudiated and the member refuses reasonable, limited security conditions required for internal debate, the organisation has the right — and duty — to defend its program and its cadres.”
Goodbye.
Reply to anonymous:
Speaking of "unverifiable" you are posting anonymously! Do you not find that ironic? We don't have a clue as to your legitimacy as a witness we can trust since we have no way to authenticate who you are. You can be another AI for all we know.
I would like to clarify what you are claiming factually and get past all the bs that you are writing, Are you claiming that the PES DID NOT ASK SAM TISSOT to sign an NDA? It's a simple factual question that can be answered with a YES or a NO. No need for elaborate justifications from a Socialism AI trained in WSWS-speak.
So if I understand your position, a Trotskyist party does not have the right to insist that members respect the confidentiality of internal discussion, and that they must be free to make internal documents available to whomever they please.
You are putting words in my mouth as that is not what I said at all. There is a difference between requiring confidentiality of party members as far as internal discussions go and trying to browbeat someone into signing a Non-disclosure agreement (NDA) which is a legal document that binds you and your family for the rest of your life and for which you can be sued if you violate it. It is a mechanism commonly used by corporations to muzzle the public disclosure of misbehavior after someone leaves their employment. It is unheard of for a party claiming the tradition of Trotsky to demand such a measure. But I suppose the PES has learned from the bourgeois legal system that NDA's are an effective mechanism for shutting down dissenters and whistle blowers. If you think signing an NDA is fine then go ahead and sign one and then ask your partner what he or she thinks of that!
You ask: "Are you claiming that the PES DID NOT ASK SAM TISSOT to sign an NDA? It's a simple factual question that can be answered with a YES or a NO." This is "a simple factual question" and the answer is, emphatically, NO.
Based on the documents that are published on this site, Tissot was never presented with, let alone pressured to sign, an NDA. You describe an NDA as a "legal document." Where is the legal document that you are referring to? Non-Disclosure Agreements are drawn up by lawyers and are quite detailed. There is no reference to or citation from any sort of legally binding document in the material you and Tissot have published. No such document exists. Rather, the PES asked Tissot to affirm the following statement: “You have not distributed or made available in any way, and will not in the future, documents and information related to internal party matters (of either the PES or ICFI) with Steiner, Brenner, Batta, Ross and their various political allies and affiliates (Savas, Altamira, etc.) or with any other tendencies and individuals outside the ICFI.”
This seems to me a straightforward request that Tissot respect the confidentiality of inner-party discussions. In your reply posted above, you appear to accept that a party can require "confidentiality of party members as far as internal discussions go," which is exactly what the PES asked of Tissot.
After the experience of Batta and Ross - whose documents were posted on your site within a few weeks of their departure from the SEP - it was not unreasonable for the PES to ask Tissot to give his word (that was all that was asked of him) that he respect the confidentiality of the discussion. That he refused to accept this condition makes clear that he was writing his documents with the intention to post them on your site. Even if, as you claim, you knew nothing of Tissot (which, frankly, is hard to believe), the PES clearly appraised his intentions correctly. In any event, your claim that Tissot was confronted with the demand for a legally actionable NDA is not supported by any of the documents that you have posted. Tissot has invented the NDA story in order to justify his action and slander the PES and ICFI. Unless you can produce the legal document, you should retract this false statement.
The passage you quote includes the words "in the future." As I explained in the correspondence, I was threatened with expulsion as soon as I raised political differences with the leadership. In this context, I think it is fair to say this phrase meant the third condition essentially amounted to an NDA (or whatever you believe the equivalent term for internal party correspondence is).
Here is the relevant quote from the correspondence:
“The demand that I unconditionally assure the NC that I will not share any of my political differences or this correspondence with tendencies or individuals outside the IC at any point in the future, however, is unacceptable. If I were to accept this condition, then the leadership would be totally unaccountable for any action, principled or otherwise, that it took against me. As long as I am a member of the IC, I will abide by its constitution and the political principles of Democratic Centralism. However, if I cease to be a member of the IC I reserve the right to share this correspondence and my political positions as I see fit.
If I have understood the third condition correctly, then I am afraid I do not believe a principled political discussion of my differences before the NC can take place. I hope I have interpreted this condition incorrectly and that a productive discussion of political differences can in fact take place.”
If a commitment to silence beyond my membership in the party wasn't the intention of the leadership they could simply just have said "yes, this only applies while you are a party member" but they didn't. My so-called "threat" to the party was actually an agreement to follow its rules to the letter.
After having been expelled it was clear that without sharing the record of my expulsion no one would ever know why or how it happened. I don't know who you are as you are posting anonymously, but presuming you are a member of the IC, please consider whether you would have been informed of my expulsion if you hadn't read it on here? I know that Central Committee members in the ICs other did not hear of my expulsion until it was published on this website.
Your focus on the semantics of "legal document" is bizarre - of course in the context of an internal party dispute no one is writing documents that are intended to be presented before a court of law.
However, the central committee of the party asked me to agree to three conditions in writing with my name undersigned. In the context of internal party politics this is as close to a legal court and a legal device like an NDA that you are going to get. Making such an analogy in this context is entirely reasonable.
Why is it so hard to believe that I did not contact Alex Steiner until after my expulsion?
I wanted to stay in the party. I found that my first-hand experience of party work intersected with a lot of the criticisms made by Steiner. But I knew that even contacting him privately would get me chucked out. I waited until after my expulsion to contact him. It really is as simple as that.
I take your reply as a belated admission that you were never asked to sign a legally binding Non-Disclosure Agreement. The invocation of the term “Non-Disclosure Agreement” is not a matter of mere “semantics.” Your repeated misrepresentation of the PES’s request that you respect the confidentiality of internal party discussions as a demand that you enter into a legally enforceable NDA has been central to the political narrative you constructed—one designed to rationalize your own conduct and to discredit the PES.
It is absurd to claim that being asked to affirm respect for internal confidentiality “is as close to a legal court and a legal device like an NDA that you are going to get."
It is now evident that Alex Steiner’s claim that you were pressured to sign “a legal document that binds you and your family for the rest of your life and for which you can be sued if you violate it” is demonstrably false. Equally false—and plainly defamatory—is his assertion that “the PES has learned from the bourgeois legal system that NDAs are an effective mechanism for shutting down dissenters and whistleblowers.” These statements are not rhetorical excesses or misunderstandings; they are fabrications that misrepresent the nature of the PES’s request and impute motives and practices that have no basis in fact.
Here is the Wikipedia definition of an NDA:
"A non-disclosure agreement (NDA), also known as a confidentiality agreement (CA), confidential disclosure agreement (CDA), proprietary information agreement (PIA), or secrecy agreement (SA), is a legal contract or part of a contract between at least two parties that outlines confidential material, knowledge, or information that the parties wish to share with one another for certain purposes, but wish to restrict access to. Doctor–patient confidentiality (physician–patient privilege), attorney–client privilege, priest–penitent privilege and bank–client confidentiality agreements are examples of NDAs, which are often not enshrined in a written contract between the parties."
Sam was asked to sign a document in which he agreed to never disclose certain information for the remainder of his life. That is an NDA according to this definition. If your point is that it was not an NDA because an attorney did not draft it and it is missing some legal language then you are simply being a sophist in trying to whitewash the behavior of the PES leadership.
BTW can you cite any precedent within the Trotskyist movement where someone was required to sign such a document simply to be able to address the leading body of their party with their dissenting perspective on things?
There's a bad faith interpretation of your interlocutor's argument and then there's this. To argue than using the term NDA is slander is frankly pathetic. Also back to semantics, I suggest you have a think about the meaning of the words "non disclosure agreement" and how they relate to an oath not to ever say or share anything about a particular issue...
The PES threatened to expel me before any discussion of my differences had taken place. Then it put various conditions on any discussion within the party- why should their be any condition at all by the way? I'm not Peter and I'm not Shuvu. Your argument is basically a defense of the right of the leadership to treat every single member of the party with suspicion any time they have any political difference whatsoever. Is that conducive to the working out of political issues or does it just to self-censorship on the part of members?
It is also worth reflecting on how bizarre this demand was coming Lantier who I worked with for years. I was a member in good standing and took part in National Committee (I was never elected to it because the french "party" hasn't had a congress since its foundation in 2016!) and French/European WSWS EB meetings. Why should the default assumption be that a party member of 5 years is suspicious or potentially already colluding with hostile forces? I raised my differences openly and honestly with the leadership and my reward was was immediate seclusion from party life. Lantier- who I met 2/3 times a week before I raised differences- moved the one in-person informal meeting we'd organised after I raised my differences online at the last minute.
Whatever you think about the appropriateness of the term NDA - a near non-issue in the bigger question of the principles of Democratic Centralism - do you think a leadership has the right to demand a permanent oath of silence from its members? I would be glad if you could point to the section of the SEP's constitution outlining that procedural norm.
The IC's leadership has indoctrined party members to think agreeing with Steiner or Brenner on any point or even reading their criticisms with an open-mind is a disease. As soon as I was infected I was persona non grata. Lantier actions' undermined discussion at every juncture. He was looking for any tenuous reason to expel me and did not hesitate when he found one.
Your ill-informed misuse of a citation from Wikipedia’s article on non-disclosure agreements represents a desperate attempt to salvage the untenable claim that the PES’s request that Tissot affirm in writing his respect for the confidentiality of inner-party discussions constituted a legally binding, court-enforceable Non-Disclosure Agreement. The special and distinct type of NDA referenced by Wikipedia bears no relationship the case of Tissot.
It has now been established that Tissot was never presented with a legally enforceable NDA, let along required to take a life-long oath. These claims are a fraudulent concoction. In response to the refutation of Tissot's false claims, you attempt to draw an analogy between the PES’s request that he affirm his commitment to respect the confidentially of inner-party discussions and totally unrelated forms of confidentiality such as “doctor–patient confidentiality (physician–patient privilege), attorney–client privilege, priest–penitent privilege, and bank–client confidentiality agreements, which are often not enshrined in a written contract between the parties.”
This comparison is entirely without foundation and reflects a failure to properly research the issue.
While the forms of confidentiality cited by Wikipedia may indeed be unwritten, these specific forms of NDAs are historically established legal obligations arising from statute, common-law privilege, fiduciary duty, or professional regulation. Attorney–client confidentiality, for example, is a core legal privilege rooted in common law and codified in statutes and rules of evidence. Courts routinely exclude evidence obtained in violation of this privilege. Doctor–patient confidentiality is enforced by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, a federal statute that establishes strict legal requirements governing the storage, transmission, and disclosure of medical information. The priest–penitent privilege is likewise a rule of evidence, not a contractual arrangement. As for bank–client confidentiality, it is governed by banking secrecy laws, violations of which may result in regulatory sanctions, civil liability, or even criminal penalties, depending on the jurisdiction.
In contrast to formal Non-Disclosure Agreements, doctor–patient confidentiality, attorney–client privilege, priest–penitent privilege, and bank–client confidentiality are legal duties or evidentiary privileges that are enforceable by law and conceptually distinct from contractual NDAs. These protections exist because the state has determined, as a matter of public policy, that certain relationships warrant special legal safeguards.
No comparable privileges or protections exist under bourgeois law to safeguard the confidentiality of discussions within the socialist movement. A socialist organization relies instead on the honesty, integrity, and revolutionary commitment of its membership. When documents are distributed with the designation “For members only,” the understanding is that members are obligated not to circulate such materials outside the party.
Tissot was explicitly asked to affirm his respect for this basic and longstanding principle of confidentiality. He refused to provide such an undertaking because he was engaged in politically duplicitous conduct, writing documents as a proxy for factional opponents of the PES.
Measured against the historical practices of the Trotskyist movement and the socialist movement more broadly, the PES’s request was neither unreasonable nor extraordinary. It was a standard, non-legal, organizational requirement aimed at preserving the conditions for democratic internal discussion. Characterizing such a request as improper, coercive, or abnormal is not supported by historical precedent or by the norms of any serious socialist political organization.
“Then it set various conditions for any discussion within the party—why should there be any conditions at all?”
In my opinion, that is the crucial question.
I strongly doubt that such a condition has anything in common with Lenin's democratic centralism in this context.
Rather, this gives rise to the (sad) assumption that the primary purpose is to nip any discussion in the bud.
Either the leadership suspects or knows that it has little of substance to say in response to the arguments, or it is so convinced of its own infallibility that it considers discussion a waste of time.
A discussion that can only take place on condition of unconditional loyalty is not a political discussion, but an instrument of discipline: it is not understood as a means of clarification and persuasion, but as a risk that must be controlled.
The basic facts are completely clear: the SEP demanded perpetual non-disclosure as a precondition for discussion among party members. This has nothing to do with democratic centralism or Bolshevik practice, but is rather a method of thought control and bureaucratic centralism. The lawyer “socialists” of the SEP can try to obscure this with legalese and frantic accusations as much as they like, but any thinking person can see through this. The facts of this case are already completely established — in my opinion, not a single breath more should be wasted on answering the likes of ‘Anonymous.’ These people are not capable of arguing in good faith. They are hucksters and renegades from Marxism and Trotskyism. The SEP tries, in every way possible, to divert from the political issues. The focus should be kept on the latter.
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