Dear Comrades of the National
Committee,
I have received your ultimatum of
March 10, and I reject it. If this should lead to my expulsion from the
movement without even a single discussion of my political differences in any
official organ of the party, then this will expose that the principles of
Bolshevism are a dead letter to the PES leadership.
You justify your unprecedented demand
for an eternal non-disclosure agreement by accusing me of being disloyal and
claim that I am already plotting my revenge against the party. In fact, I have
no such desire. I have remained completely loyal to the ICFI and its principles
throughout this exchange and my rejection of the third condition of your letter
of March 7 does not change this fact. As I shall explain below, I have no
choice but to reject this condition. Accepting it would, if I am expelled,
leave me unable to defend myself against your attribution to me of political
positions I do not hold, and other slanderous claims included in this
correspondence.
Furthermore, through its campaign
against me and efforts to block any discussion of my differences before the
party, I charge that it is in fact the leadership of the PES that has violated
the basic principles of democratic centralism throughout this exchange and that
it has clearly been preparing to expel me for the sole reason that I dared to
raise political differences loyally and privately within the party.
Ripping Cannon Out of Historical and
Textual Context
In your March 10 letter, you quote
Cannon to accuse me, like the SWP’s Pabloite minority in 1953 as it capitulated
to Stalinism, of beginning “to hate the party.” In so far as the party defends
the program and perspective of Trotskyism, fights for this in the working class
and organises its internal conduct according to the principles of Democratic
Centralism then this accusation is not true in the slightest. Indeed, it was
out of my love for the party and desire to stay in the party that I raised my
concerns loyally and discreetly to Comrade Lantier in the hope they could be
discussed and clarified in a trusting and productive manner. I still hope that,
perhaps somewhat foolishly at this point, this is a possible eventuality.
However, if it should become apparent
that the party has given up its defence of this program, that it is not serious
about building itself as a proletarian party, and runs roughshod over the
principles of Democratic Centralism, then I would be obliged to loyally
struggle to correct this degeneration, as the Cannon of 1953 would also have
done. Unfortunately, the record of the leadership’s behaviour since I raised
differences with Comrade Lantier indicates that this process may be too far
gone to make such a struggle possible.
The leadership’s sole aim in using
this quotation is to frame me as an enraged petit-bourgeois element who hates
party discipline and has decided to leave the movement already as it is
inconvenient for his personal life. This theme has run through the entire
correspondence despite the fact I have not once violated party discipline.
Firstly, if this was the case why would I bother raising differences at all? I
could just leave quietly after all, as many ex-comrades have decided to do.
Secondly, other than the leadership’s preconceived notion that everyone who
disagrees with it is a petit-bourgeois renegade, does it actually have any
proof for this charge in my case? If it is simply that I have a middle-class
background or have a relatively well-paying job well, then you would have to
condemn large sections of the leadership of IC on these bases as well!
You have repeatedly quoted excerpts
from documents produced during Cannon’s struggles against the Shachtmanites and
Pabloites to justify your unprincipled actions and demands in this exchange.
Not only is a comparison to either of these struggles ahistorical and
completely out of proportion with the current situation1, it is also clear that
you are ripping these quotes out of their context to present them one-sidedly
so that you can claim your unprincipled actions are in line with the traditions
of Trotskyism. A closer reading of these texts undermines this approach.
Consider for example the preceding
paragraph in the Internal Bulletin document of October 1953 (Vol 15, No. 19)
from which you quote to claim I “hate the party”, it reads,
“Genuine revolutionists, hemmed in by
a world of enemies, are privileged to differ and debate among themselves. They
are not privileged to fight and split. The party has always permitted
differences of opinion and has never expelled anybody – not one single person –
because of his opinions.”
My contention is that the entire
record of the leadership’s conduct shows that it is preparing to expel me for
loyally expressing a difference of opinion within the party, an action
explicitly defended by Cannon in this text and counterposed to Pabloite minority’s
hatred of the party referred to in the preceding paragraph which is quoted in
your previous letter. Furthermore, through the leadership’s efforts to
intimidate me, slander me and its instructing me to leave the IC if I do not
give up my differences of opinion, it is clear that it is you, not I, who are
attempting to “fight and split”, a privilege Cannon denied for genuine
revolutionists.
How Did We Get Here?
In responding to your ultimatum of
March 10, I believe it is appropriate to review the conditions that have left
me unable to sign away my right to defend myself in the future against the
slanders of the party. This review will also review your conduct which suggests
an intention to expel me since
I first raised political differences
of opinion. This is exactly how James Cannon conceived of evaluating the
validity of political conduct during a split. In another document previous
cited by the leadership in this exchange, The Struggle for a Proletarian Party,
Cannon writes,
“Proceeding from certain fundamental
conceptions, the problem of applying the principle of democratic centralism
differently under different conditions and stages of development of the
struggle, can be solved only in relation to the concrete situation, in the
course of the tests and experience through which the movement passes, and on
the basis of the most fruitful and healthy interrelationship of the leading
bodies of the party and its rank and file.”
The central political question
throughout the most recent letters in this exchange has been whether the
leadership or myself have been in violation of the principles of democratic
centralism. So following from Cannon’s suggestion, let us draw up a brief account
of the “concrete situation” that has led to the NC’s ultimatum.
The ICFI’s perspective is that we have
entered into an objectively revolutionary situation amidst the “decade of
socialist revolution.” This is substantiated by a rise in the extent and
militancy of the class struggle internationally and the turn of the ruling
classes toward war and genocide. In multiple countries, we have organised
sections of the IC into parties to prepare for their transformation into mass
revolutionary parties of the working class. We have also entered the “fifth
phase” of the Trotskyist movement, which has been delineated according to the
conception that “The objective processes of economic globalization, identified
by the International Committee more than thirty years ago, have undergone a
further colossal development” which portends the mass growth of the ICFI.
Given the revolutionary possibilities
in such an explosive situation, the question of the party’s practice naturally
arises. To say that the party’s growth in France and internationally has been
slow, particularly in drawing in fresh proletarian elements (or anyone at all
for that matter), would be an understatement.
I have witnessed first-hand the
preference of the leadership both in France and internationally to sit in
online meetings and repeat ad infinitum the conclusion of party declarations
and hail their “historic character” over systematic contact work, work at
factories and universities, organisation of meetings etc. One consequence of
this policy is that the membership of local sections, or even national parties
such as in France are mostly passive. They scarcely take part in the
formulation, execution, and evaluation of political initiatives. At least in
France, the leadership simultaneously cultivates this behaviour and then
complains about its consequences, such as comrades being unwilling to perform
work or feeling we are too weak to engage in the campaigns proposed. The
situation is little improved in the working out of editorial work, with
meetings organised without notice and in an inconsistent manner. Editorial
feedback on articles can often take weeks. Rather than an active participation
in working out of the party’s political tasks, comrades are handed down
directives from the IC through Comrade Lantier and then the membership is
expected to carry them out, often with little guidance or discussion of how
best to apply these directives in the context of our work in France. I will
remind comrades that the PES has not had a single party conference since its
foundation in 2016. This top-down and dictatorial approach has not led to
concrete political gains in several years.
When concerns about these practices
are raised, the leadership retorts that we were the only party that emerged
from recent struggles defending a revolutionary perspective and the Trotskyist
program, and that therefore such concerns are just “demoralisation.” In other
words, at a general level, things are going swimmingly. While weaknesses are
entirely forgivable and a necessary part of the construction of any political
party, a failure to acknowledge mistakes or bad practices isn’t.
But outside of our small ranks, who
identifies us as the only revolutionary tendency worthy of the name? How do we
plan to grow the website qualitatively and quantitatively? Even if we see an
increase in the number of individuals reading the wsws.org/fr, how many of
these are converted into contacts? To what extent is the content we produce for
the site being assimilated by readers? Even when we perform interviews at mass
protests, often including militant statements on behalf of workers and youth,
this has not led to the development of further contacts. We talk about our
increasing influence on the consciousness of the working class, but what
evidence do we have of this? While these are concerns for the movement
internationally, the intense isolation of our party in France brings them into
intense focus.
When questions about the French
section’s mostly journalistic existence are raised, Comrade Lantier describes
how soon the working class “will be knocking down the door” to the party given
our record published on the WSWS and the betrayals of other organisations. What
our concrete conception is of how workers will make this leap to full agreement
with the WSWS and why, even if they agree with our perspective, they should be
convinced we are a real fighting working class party is left unanswered. This
conception resembles millennialism more so than a concrete strategy to unite
the working class in a revolutionary international struggle against capitalism.
The leadership might as well say, “just a few more articles and judgement day
will come!”
The party in France has been in a
state of political inertia for some time and the only response of the
leadership to this issue had been to try to motivate the cadre into frenzied
and rushed work along six, seven or eight different avenues with the justification
that “the revolution will likely be here in 6 to 12 months,” as Comrade Lantier
has said to me on more than one occasion. An alternative is to blame other
comrades for their laziness or personal animosity to the leadership. This is
not just a national issue as this approach appears to be fully endorsed by the
ICFI, and the flow of information between the ICFI and the PES is closely
managed by the PES leadership.
For a long period, I felt these
political difficulties and lack of motivation to perform political work were
only the product of personal failings of myself and other comrades. However, as
my day-to-day experience of our work became more and more divorced from our
political analysis and triumphant declarations of the historical character of
our interventions, successful or otherwise, I began to suspect the problem was
in fact deeper. Of course, many of these difficulties in the work may be
attributable to personal flaws on the part of the membership, including my own,
but behind these flaws must lie deeper political issues.
It is in seeking political
explanations for these issues that I began reading criticisms of the party’s
political positions, including those of Steiner and Brenner and the ICFI 1953
webpage. I found many of these criticisms to be carefully argued and convincing.
In the case of Steiner and Brenner, to whom the ICFI has of course responded to
publicly, I continued to find their arguments convincing even after comparing
them to the documents produced in response by the ICFI. This led me to inform
comrade Lantier that I believed my feeling that our political work was
ineffectual had a political basis and was not just a product of personal
exasperation and demoralisation (as I had previously accepted, given I had been
trained to consider the party’s political line and practice as practically
infallible).
From Political Differences to
Political Isolation and Intimidation
At the request of Comrade Lantier, I
informed him of my political concerns on a phone call held on February 27. In
this call, I briefly raised the question of the party’s ambiguous attitude
toward the trade unions, that I had doubts over its expulsion of Shuvu Batta
for raising the question of entryism, the vague and imprecise nature of our
description of all forces claiming to be socialist outside of the IC as
‘pseudo-left’, and our sectarian “pre-conditions” for workers to form
rank-and-file committees in order to struggle against the stranglehold of the
pro-capitalist union bureaucracies on their struggles2. Concerning our
day-to-day practice, I also raised questions about the political conceptions
behind the PES’s subordination of all other forms of revolutionary work to the
production of the French language WSWS and the way that political activity of
the French section is often initiated through the dictate of the IC without
internal political discussion, which I have spoken about in more detail above.
Finally, I stated, which I still believe to be correct, that in the IC’s
polemics with Steiner and Brenner, they had often been quoted in a dishonest
way and their views misrepresented.
While the leadership has every right
to argue that each of these concerns is incorrect or even a crude manifestation
of petit-bourgeois pressure, it has not chosen to do this by reasoned political
argument. Instead, it has resorted to slander and misrepresentation. Contrary
to the slanders and name calling on the part of the leadership, anyone capable
of thinking clearly can see that none of these concerns automatically render me
a “Stalinist”, “Pabloite”, “supporter of the Democratic Party” nor does it indicate
my desire to “dissolve the IC” as the leadership has asserted.
Given the party’s analysis of the
nature of the objective situation, and at a time where our party should be
making significant political and organisational gains, it is imperative the
leadership follow the principles of democratic centralism more closely than
ever. Under such conditions, intensifying political pressures will lead
internal divisions to arise more sharply than in previous periods. The question
in this case then is, has the leadership followed these principles? It is my
view that the following record shows that this has not been the case.
Since I raised political differences
in the phone call of February 27, I have been treated with suspicion befitting
of an individual suspected of being a police agent. In that call, I was
immediately instructed that I should not contact anyone else in the IC about my
differences and that any form of contact with Steiner and Brenner would be a
major security threat to the IC.
What was meant to be an in-person
initial discussion on Wednesday February 28 was moved online with a couple of
hours’ notice, with the justification that Comrade Gnana suddenly could not
make it to central Paris that day. Even if this was true, would it not have
been possible to move an important discussion within a small party by a day or
two to facilitate an in-person discussion?
At this unofficial meeting of four
comrades, which is still the only meeting where I have had the chance to raise
my political differences, the discussion was opened by Comrade Lantier laughing
at me and asking, “are you even serious?” The positions I defended were then
misrepresented in order to slander me and to accuse me of being in league with
forces outside our party, which was false then and remains false today. I was
told I was “wasting the party’s time” and that I should leave the party there
and then if I wasn’t going to drop every one of my political concerns.
This was the first, but regrettably
not the last time, the leadership’s new favorite refrain. namely “pull yourself
together,” was levelled at me. Of course, how else could one disagree with the
IC or PES on any point unless one was in the middle of an intense and
overwhelming emotional crisis? Unfortunately for the leadership of the PES I am
in no such condition.
After a week of no contact, on March 5
I was met by comrade C [name redacted] who on behalf of the NC asked me to
write up my differences in a document to facilitate a discussion. In
retrospect, it was clear that Cheliyan was sent to “test the water” and ensure
that I was not working with forces outside the party, despite the fact I had
assured comrades repeatedly that I was not and would not be in contact with
these forces while a member of the PES3. After this meeting I was sent a letter
demanding a meeting with the NC on March 10 without the opportunity to prepare
any document to be reviewed by the NC in advance, contrary to what I believed I
had agreed with Cheliyan just hours before. In response to this letter on March
6, I requested more time to produce the written document in line with what I
had agreed with Cheliyan.
In the March 5 letter, the leadership
produced a handful of verbatim quotes from the February 28 meeting which it
then falsely claimed I was disputing, as can be seen in the previous
correspondence. Even though they did not have the NC’s intended impact, that
these quotes were produced verbatim strongly suggests the leadership recorded
the meeting without seeking my permission. I asked if this was the case in my
March 8 letter, a request which the NC has completely ignored in its March 10
reply.
I repeat again the questions that were
ignored in my last letter: Was the meeting of February 28 recorded secretly
without my permission? Does the party leadership regularly record party
meetings without the permission of the membership? If the meeting was recorded,
the transcript should be shared with me and every member of the NC. I politely
request the leadership does not continue to ignore these questions in its next
response.
I should add that since I raised
differences, I have not seen any member of the NC in-person, including Comrade
Lantier despite our previously close working relationship. Even with the
continued risk of Covid-19 infection, safe meetings with individual or a small
group of comrades could have been organised outdoors. In any case, it was
considered safe enough for Comrade Cheliyan to come to meet me on behalf of the
NC.
The Leadership’s Demand for an
Indefinite Non-Disclosure Agreement
In the March 5 letter, a discussion of
my differences was proposed for an NC meeting to be held on March 10. In my
response of March 6, I accepted this suggestion and requested more time to
respond in writing to the issues raised that letter. In the leadership’s March
7 reply to this request the NC laid down three conditions, without explaining
why, for the meeting to go ahead at all. The first two were basic demands that
I continue to respect the party constitution and its political discipline,
which I happily agreed to. However, the third asked me to confirm in writing
that,
“You have not distributed or made
available in any way, and will not in the future [emphasis added], 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.”
In the midst of its efforts to isolate
me politically, dismiss my political differences, and push me out of the party,
accepting this demand for an eternal non-disclosure agreement regarding the
NC’s handling of my political differences would undermine my ability to respond
to the slanders leveraged against me if I am to be expelled. Indeed, if
“information” is read in the broadest sense of the term I would be pledging to
refrain from discussing any aspect of my time in the PES or the nature of my
now seemingly inevitable expulsion for all time!
What changed between March 5 and March
7? The original proposal for a March 10 NC meeting had been made after I had
already made it clear on two separate occasions that my political discipline
was contingent on my continued membership in the PES and ICFI – a very regular
political conception of party loyalty. What changed in 48 hours to mean I had
to agree to keep this correspondence and any “information” about this exchange
to myself for all time in order to have a preliminary political discussion? Did
my request for time to prepare a response supposedly show I was in league with
hostile forces?
That the NC raised these conditions at
all makes it clear the leadership suspected me of acting disloyally and
believed that I had already contacted forces outside of the ICFI, despite my
repeated assurances I had not. Not only is this belief false, but it is based
on nothing other than my raising of political differences. I have no history of
contact with these forces, I have no previous record of acting disloyally in
the party, and all of my actions since raising political differences have been
taken openly before the leadership and in complete loyalty to the ICFI, its
constitution and revolutionary political discipline. This is in stark contrast
to the paranoid, petty and potentially dishonest behaviour of the leadership.
As will be explained in more detail in
the proceeding section, in my reply of March 8 I rejected this condition,
stating that “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.” I also stated,
again, that as long as I remain a member of the IC than I will not share the
details of this correspondence or any aspect of the IC’s internal political
life to anyone outside of the party and will respect its political discipline.
In response to this, in its March 10
letter the NC wrote that my rejection of this condition was “An open
declaration of disloyalty to the PES and ICFI” and was evidence that I am
“positioning myself to take revenge against the movement.” The letter concluded
with a warning that “if you cannot accept the conditions presented in our
letter of March 7, the PES will be left with no choice but to end your
membership in the party.” This is effectively an ultimatum that I either resign
my future right to defend myself against the leadership’s slanders in this
correspondence or face expulsion.
The leadership’s conduct shows that it
does not trust the party membership. In its eyes, to raise political
differences is equivalent to “hating the party”, desiring “revenge” and renders
an individual a security threat. The leadership will claim this approach just
shows it takes security seriously, however, to any level-headed individual it
is clear that this is not a reasonable security protocol but extreme paranoia
toward anyone who disagrees with it, even if they are members of six years and
have raised their concerns loyally.
This outlook has nothing to do with
the construction of a revolutionary party in the Bolshevik tradition. As
Trotsky explained in The New Course, “You cannot demand of the party confidence
in the apparatus when you yourself have no confidence in the party. There is
the whole question. Preconceived bureaucratic distrust of the party, of its
consciousness and its spirit of discipline, is the principal cause of all the
evils generated by the domination of the apparatus.”
On the basis of its record of distrust
toward me and its instruction for me to give up my differences or leave the
party, it is reasonable to suppose the leadership was already preparing my
expulsion as soon as I raised political differences.
Why the Leadership’s Third Condition
is Unacceptable
As explained in the previous section,
by the time I was presented with these three conditions on March 7 it was
reasonable to suspect the leadership was preparing to expel me on unprincipled
grounds. The actions of the leadership since then, including deleting me from
party group chats without explanation, has only provided further evidence that
this was in fact what was being prepared.
Whether the unprincipled conduct of
the leadership is a conscious ploy to intimidate me to withdraw my differences
or a natural product of its sectarian view of politics is unknown to me. In an
attempt to counter this, I continuously abided by every single demand placed on
me by the leadership even in the face of indications it secretly recorded me. A
consequence of this has been to leave me isolated and unable to raise my
political concerns with other members of the PES or the IC. I will remind
comrades that the last IC comrade who attempted to fight for their political
positions outside of the “normal channels” of party organisation was expelled
for doing so. As a result of my loyal conduct, the PES leadership completely
controls the flow of information about my differences and this exchange not
only to comrades in France but also internationally.
In this context, my rejection of the
third condition is a necessary precaution to be able to defend myself against
future internal and external documents that may be produced by the leadership
which will likely attack my political positions and character in a false and
politically unprincipled manner. As personal and political slander against
members and non-members who have raised differences has been a recurrent
practice in the IC’s responses to internal and external political criticisms
internationally4, including the March 5 letter concerning my political
concerns, this is a reasonable precaution.
If I were to agree to the NC’s third
condition, this would mean the leadership could violate as many of my rights as
party member as it wanted to and if it decided to expel me, I would only be
able to defend myself by breaking my word. This, of course, would be very
convenient for the leadership in the inevitable continuation of its campaign to
paint me as a dishonest and “emotionally unstable” petit-bourgeois element,
which seems to be its pre-determined response whenever it is confronted with
political differences, regardless of whether they have been raised in
accordance with the principles of democratic centralism or not. The convenient
upshot of this is that it allows the discussion of the actual content of
political differences to be evaded.
Alternatively, if I accepted his
condition and I kept my word, then the leadership would have a free hand to
present whatever version of this dispute it felt to be most beneficial to its
reputation amongst comrades in the IC and the potentially the wider public. I
will assume that the political benefit of my not being able to respond to all
the charges of the leadership does not need explanation.
Contrary, to the “revenge” fantasy
projected onto me by the leadership, these are the principled considerations
based on the concrete situation in which we find ourselves that explain why I
am unable to accept the third condition of the NC’s March 7 letter.
Nevertheless, this does not change my desire for a principled discussion before
the NC, as has been promised to me by Comrade Lantier on February 27 and was
proposed without this unacceptable condition by the NC itself on March 5.
Have I Actually Made “an open
declaration of my disloyalty to the PES and ICFI?”
As far as I understand, such an
indefinite condition pertaining to the period after one’s membership in the movement
has no basis in the party’s constitution nor as far as I am aware, any
precedence in the history of Trotskyism5. Please can the NC point me to exactly
where in the Constitution it states that the party’s authority over my
political actions extends beyond the period of my membership?
In fact, it is publishing internal
party documents to defend oneself against political slander that has a
precedence in the Trotskyist movement. After Trotsky’s expulsion from the
Russian Communist Party in 1927 he published internal party documents that
exposed Stalinist slanders against his person6, and false claims propagated by
the Stalinist press that his opposition to the Soviet Bureaucracy meant he
considered the USSR had become a bourgeois state. Would the leadership of the
PES object to Trotsky’s action on the basis that the leader of the Russian
Revolution’s former membership in the Bolshevik entailed an unwritten eternal
non-disclosure agreement?
I should also note that the ICFI has
not hesitated to publish the private correspondence of ex-members in the past
in order to answer criticisms levelled against it. Of course, it will argue that in those
particular circumstances this was actually a principled decision. Similarly, I
contend now, in the conditions of this exchange described above, it would be
principled to publish this correspondence in order to defend myself and my
political reputation against the claims the leadership has already made and is
liable to make in the future. This is what I am reserving the right to do with
my rejection of the third condition.
Even if we place these considerations
to one side and supposed this condition was a completely legitimate demand but
nonetheless one I disagreed with, was what I actually wrote in my letter of
March 8 “an open declaration of my disloyalty to the PES and ICFI?” As the
misreading of my wording has been a recurring theme throughout the NC’s
responses to my letters, I would again encourage comrades in the NC to read
what I actually wrote in that letter. I will repeat my own quote above with
emphasis in the hope it makes its meaning clearer, “I reserve the right to share
this correspondence and my political positions.”
My rejection of the third condition
has absolutely nothing to do with a desire for “revenge” against the IC nor is
it “an open declaration of disloyalty” toward the PES or ICFI but it is what I
take to be a necessary measure to enable me to defend myself against the
slanderous and false accusations levelled against me during this exchange.
Despite what the leadership would have us believe, reserving the right to
defend oneself against unprincipled manoeuvres is not the equivalent of
political high treason!
In my previous letter, I stated
explicitly that my right to share the details of this exchange was limited only
to those documents (“this correspondence”) which include attacks against my
personal character and the misrepresentation of my political positions. I made
no threat to publish any other internal documents of the party nor other
sensitive personal or political information.
To be clear, even should the IC expel
me under the most unprincipled of circumstances, I will not share any personal
information of comrades, nor any internal party documents beyond the scope of
this exchange. If I do decide to share any part of this exchange, any
information related to comrades’ true identities will be redacted. I hold no
personal resentment against the members of the PES leadership or ICFI. My
disagreement with their actions during this exchange and differences over their
political conceptions of how to construct a revolutionary party does not mean I
will resort to slander against them or that I desire to seek personal revenge
against the IC. Despite what I believe to be unprincipled actions of its
leadership, I believe the cadre of the PES is genuine in its struggle for
socialism and I appreciate it is composed of well-intentioned, dedicated
individuals who risk their own security by fighting for a revolutionary
political perspective. No matter how bitter the resolution to my raising of
political differences may be, I will never knowingly endanger any of the
comrades I have worked with during my six years in the IC. This will hold
whether my membership continues or not.
Discussion or Expulsion?
The complete record of this exchange
indicates, as I contended at the beginning of this letter, that the leadership
seems intent on expelling me for a difference of opinion. In order to avoid
admitting this directly, it seeks to justify my expulsion as a consequence of
my supposed “disloyalty” to the party which it will allege has been proven by
my refusal of its unprincipled ultimatum.
Should my rejection of this ultimatum
lead to a vote to expel me from the PES then I believe the party will be making
a mistake. The loss of an individual comrade will be nowhere near as
significant as the further weakening of the claim of the PES and ICFI to the
mantle of the World Party of Trotskyism as a result of this sordid episode,
which has exposed the sorry fact that it is incapable of dealing with internal
differences of opinion, even when raised in a loyal and deferential manner, in
a politically healthy manner.
My expulsion from the IC on such an
unprincipled basis can easily be avoided by the leadership respecting its
previous agreement to an “open and free discussion” on the NC which was
promised to me on February 27 in a phone call with Comrade Lantier and proposed
without conditions in the March 5 letter. This means a comradely political
discussion on the basis of my continued loyalty to the IC which does not
require me to relinquish my right to defend my political positions and personal
honesty for all-time.
If the leadership does expel me, I
politely request it to provide an exact account of what actions I have taken in
violation of the party’s constitution and discipline, including the precise
references to the relevant passages of the constitution. The leadership should
also explain precisely why its ultimatum is legitimate despite my continued
loyalty to the political authority of the PES and IC. Even if what I have
stated in these letters were to be indicative of a disloyal attitude toward the
IC, has this manifested into concrete action in violation of its rules? Or am I
just to be expelled on the basis of what I have said in this correspondence and
what the leadership takes that to indicate about my “intentions”?
I would also like to point out the
leadership’s hypocrisy when it criticises me for raising the possibility of the
termination of my membership. I will repeat once more the essentials of the
current situation. After being treated like a pariah, accused of being a
Stalinist, supporting the Democratic party etc., potentially being covertly
recorded and being directly told to leave if I didn’t withdraw my differences
by the leadership, I am criticised for appearing to view the end of my
membership as “inevitable and unavoidable!” While I hope this fear will not
become reality, I sincerely encourage the NC to reflect on why it might appear
this way. The irony that this statement occurs in a letter demanding I
relinquish the right to defend myself indefinitely or be expelled from the
party seems to be lost on the Party’s leadership!
Conclusion
In this lengthy response, I have
outlined the basic course of my development of political differences with the
PES leadership, my attempt to approach them in a comradely and deferential
manner and the response of the leadership. To borrow Cannon’s phrase, this is
the “concrete situation” in which both my own and the party’s invocation of the
principles of democratic centralism must be judged.
On one side, I have been as
deferential to the party’s requests as possible, followed the constitution of
the party, its political discipline and have continued to trust the party
leadership’s good faith in this exchange. My deference was only halted by the
request I continue to respect party discipline even in the case of my expulsion
on unprincipled grounds. On the other hand, the leadership’s initial response
was to doubt my sincerity, point me to the door, assert baseless allegations
about my sympathies for a wild assortment of political tendencies, distrust me
without any evidence of my disloyalty, accuse me of wasting time, and, I might
add for good measure, carry itself with an arrogance unbecoming of anyone, let
alone a revolutionary leadership (that the leadership believes that the
repeated invective to “pull yourself together” is a valid form of argumentation
is an unfortunate indicator of the low level on which it approaches political
issues). Its behaviour has been an example par excellence of the “pre-conceived
bureaucratic distrust of the party” that Trotsky warned against over 100 years
ago.
I believe that the record presented in
this letter will leave no doubt that it is the leadership of the PES, and not
myself, that has been in violation of the principles of democratic centralism
in the course of this exchange.
Nevertheless, I sincerely hope that
through reconsidering its conduct, the leadership will repeal its unprecedented
demand laid down in its letter of March 10 and the ultimatum that followed from
this. If it is able to do so, I look forward to a constructive discussion in
which our political differences can be resolved in a comradely fashion. This
will require the leadership to trust its party as much as the party is demanded
to trust its leadership. If on the basis of such a discussion the NC feels I must
still be expelled from the party, then so be it.
Finally, there are a number of
political issues and slanders that have been raised in this exchange which I
still wish to respond to in writing. Unfortunately, they are beyond the scope
of what has already become an extremely lengthy response to the NC’s ultimatum
of March 10 and explanation for why I have no choice but to reject it.
In the course of this discussion the
NC has denounced my “repugnant” failing to respond to all of the political
charges it raised against me in its March 5 letter. Frankly, I find it bizarre
that the leadership objects so strongly to my exclusion of a thorough defence
of my political positions in a series of letters concerning my right to even
engage in such a defence in the first place!
Nevertheless, it is still true that my
criticisms must be put into writing so that they can be judged on their merits
and weaknesses. Whether the NC decides to expel me or not, I intend to respond
to all the arguments, allegations and slanders against me. Whether this takes
place within the confines of the ICFI or not is ultimately in the hands of the
leadership. In either case, I hope this will be adequate to address the
repugnance felt by the PES leadership.
Fraternally,
Samuel Tissot
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