Dear Comrades of the National
Committee,
I am now writing in response to your
letter of March 7.
In responding to your conditions for a
discussion on the revised date of March 17, I would like to start by stressing
that I have been nothing but open and honest with every comrade I have spoken
to about my political concerns. On three separate occasions since February 27,
I have told party members verbally (including twice to Comrade Lantier) that I
have not contacted anyone outside of the ICFI or in other sections of the party
regarding my political differences.
I am happy to repeat this in writing
here:
Throughout the nearly five years I
have been a member of the ICFI and the three and a half years I have been an
active member of the PES, I have not once contravened the party’s constitution
nor violated its political discipline, including any discussion of its internal
political matters with anyone outside of the ICFI. This extents to the entire
course of this exchange regarding my political differences.
I believe this settles the first two
conditions of the NC’s list to go forward with a discussion of my political
differences.
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.
I must also protest against another
interdiction asserted in the letter, although not listed in the three
conditions for the March 17 NC meeting to go ahead. This is the command that I
“do not begin this discussion by claiming that what is cited in my previous
letter is not what you said.” I will not respond again to the assertion that
everything written in the March 5 letter was accurate, as this has already been
raised in my March 6 reply.
As comrades will recall, in my
previous reply I described the March 5 letter as “largely false” and I still
believe this to be the case. The verbatim quotes are of course true, and I find
it bizarre that comrades interpreted my previous letter as disputing this1.
Nevertheless, I reserve the right to correct the way in which these quotes have
been misinterpreted and ripped from their context to attribute political
positions to me that I do not hold as well as other assertions in the NC’s
March 5 letter, made without quotations, that are false.
To be clear, I will not argue that
those quotes are false, but I will demonstrate to comrades that they have been
stitched together in a manner that removes or distorts the political content of
the positions I raised and defended during the February 28 meeting.
I was told by Comrade Lantier during
our February 27 phone call when I first raised these differences that the only
way forward was a “free and open discussion on the NC.” My ability to speak
freely to the NC and NC’s recognition that its authority over my public
political actions will cease if I am no longer a member of the IC are critical
preconditions for such a discussion to take place. I am raising this issue of
an end to my membership of the IC explicitly as this was raised by the
leadership in the first meeting concerning my political differences. I will
again remind comrades that Comrade Lantier stated in the February 28 meeting
that if I did not intend to withdraw my criticisms then I should leave the
party.
If the preconditions stipulated above,
which I believe to be in line with our party’s constitution and the principles
of Democratic Centralism, are acceptable to the NC then we can proceed with the
revised time schedule proposed by the NC.
I would also like to ask the NC to
clarify two further points raised by its March 7 letter.
Firstly, the verbatim nature of the
quotations from the February 28 discussion of more than an hour raises the
question of whether it was recorded? If so, why was this done without my
permission? If it was recorded, then the entire transcript should be released
to the NC and myself. I would also like to remind members that this was not a
meeting of the NC or any other political body of the PES or IC. The discussion
was proposed by Comrade Lantier as a meeting between him, myself and Comrade
Gnana. Comrade Kumaran also was present although I had not been made aware that
this would be the case before.
The discussion was initially supposed
to be in-person before it was changed to being online a couple of hours before
it commenced. If the meeting was recorded, then this raises the question, does
the leadership regularly record unofficial discussions with comrades without
their permission? Did my raising of political differences with Comrade Lantier
lead to the decision to move the meeting online so it could be covertly
recorded?
Secondly, a number of phrases used in
the discussion of February 28, the NC’s letter of March 5 and the reply of
March 7 refer, implicitly or explicitly, to my wasting of the party’s time or
an individualistic approach to this exchange. I will remind comrades of the NC
that I raised these political differences discreetly with Comrade Lantier in
the hope that these positions could be refuted in a comradely manner through
precise political argumentation. It was only at the request of Comrade Lantier
that I shared these views with a wider circle of comrades at the February 28
meeting, from which the current exchange of letters followed.
My only request in my March 6 reply to
the NC was to ask to be allowed time to prepare a political response to the
NC’s March 5 letter. Please can the NC explain what aspects of my political
conduct through this exchange have been individualistic and politically
unprincipled? And why my compliance with the leadership’s requests as to the
nature and extent of political discussions has been a waste of the party’s
time?
One final note, as for the author of
the March 7 letter’s statement that “Regrettably” my March 6 reply “does not address a single historical or
political issue raised in my letter of March 5,” I will remind comrades that my
reply was sent to state I disagreed with many of the characterisations of the
March 5 letter and to request time to prepare a written response as a
foundation for a principled political discussion. I do not see any reason why
the NC should find it regrettable that such a request was not yet a complete
political response.
I hope that on the basis of the
considerations above that the March 17 meeting can proceed in a manner which
clarifies the political differences raised and strengthens the political
understanding of the PES and the ICFI.
Fraternally,
Samuel Tissot
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