Dear Comrades of the National
Committee,
Your most recent letter is a real
mess. You quote a couple of words or phrases from our previously correspondence
taken completely out of context but you ignore every argument made in my
letters, attribute to me (again) a series of arguments I’ve never made, deride
me for omissions that aren’t there, absurdly criticise me (again) for not
raising fundamental political points in an exchange about organising an initial
discussion! Large portions of the current letter consist of repetitions of
earlier arguments, detailed arguments by association to evade answering the
political points1 and ad hominem attacks which explain nothing.
The insinuation that I am already
working with Batta, Steiner and Brenner because I used the phrase “so be it”
is, to be frank, one of the stupidest comments I have ever come across in any
exchange, let alone within the Trotskyist movement. Does the leadership of the
Trotskyist movement in France really think that the repetition of one of the
most common phrases in the English language is evidence that I am secretly
working with Steiner and Brenner? It is equal proof that the hand of
Wordsworth, Shakespeare or, believe it or not, Leon Trotsky himself (or at
least the English translators of his works) is behind the letters under my
name2!
The approach adopted across the entire
exchange and the failure of the IC’s most recent response to respond to any of
the substantive points I make raises the question: Have you carefully read any
of my letters? Or do you just screen them for quotes that you can rip from
their context and then twist them to justify your pre-determined conclusions?
For example, you have now twice
criticized the fact my letters do not contain an in-depth political elaboration
of my positions. I have already answered this once, but you completely ignore
this and repeat the attack again. So, for a second time, this series of letters
originally concerned an opportunity to prepare a document detailing my
political positions so that they could be defended before the NC. This is an
opportunity which you originally offered, and I accepted, but then you
retracted and hid behind a condition unprecedented in the history of Trotskyism
and now deny me with the consolation of three months to “reconsider” my
positions. If anyone is to be blamed for the fact that my political positions
have not been defended extensively in reference to party documents and the
history of the IC it is the NC itself.
Call me “light-minded”, “subjective”
and question my seriousness to your hearts’ content, but it is the NC that has
denied me the opportunity to make my case in reference to the objective
situation and the party’s major analyses by refusing even one single planned
discussion of my positions!
This current letter could easily turn
into another dozen page effort to answer every single false assertion made in
your letter of March 23, but as I have already done this in previous letters
and these efforts have almost entirely been ignored it does not seem worthwhile
for you or I to waste any more ink than is necessary on such a fruitless task.
However, I would like to refer to one
false and one true assertion made about me in the last letter, as they seem to
concern the issues you find the most irksome in this entire exchange. Namely,
that I support entry into the Democratic Party and that I dare have the gall to
question Comrade North.
One of your main arguments that I no
longer accept the program of Trotskyism is a verbatim quote in which I
speculate over Shuvu Batta’s political justification for joining the DSA. Here
is the quote from the February 28 call, “Batta is working within a faction of
the Democratic Party. But he would argue that he is there to try to win over
the best layers, workers that are there by accident, youth that are there by
accident but actually are looking for a revolutionary perspective.”
Firstly, I have no idea if Batta
remains a DSA member or whether he has a position within the RWDSU, but even
supposing this is true, how does this mean I have the “ludicrous view that the
Democratic Party—the party of the Biden White House, the cockpit of world
imperialism—are [sic] the center of a growing revolutionary movement.” I never
said the DSA was “the center of a growing revolutionary movement” nor did I
advocate the IC joining it.
Does the NC seriously believe that
contemplating someone’s reasons for taking an action is the same thing as
endorsing that action? You’ve repeated this specific argument regarding my
remarks on Batta across multiple letters and it remains as false and incoherent
as the first time you asserted it.
I would also like to remind comrades
that while it may be valid to criticise me for not having fully worked out
proposals for alternative forms of political work at the time, it is worth
noting I took part in this call a day after I raised my initial concerns with
Comrade Lantier on February 27 at his insistence. Furthermore, my previous
request for a week to prepare a document listing my concerns had been dismissed
as a “waste of time.” Again, the leadership seeks to discredit me for
shortcomings in this exchange which are primarily of its own creation.
Secondly, I would like to respond to
the NC’s dismay that I should support the view of two “middle-class nobodies”
who dared to describe David North as engaged in ‘crackpot philosophy’ and
‘gutter politics.’ Undoubtedly these are weighty words, but unlike the
name-calling which the IC engages in against Steiner and Benner (as well as now
against my own person), Steiner spells out convincing arguments to justify the
use of these sharp terms.
Regarding ‘crackpot philosophy’
Steiner’s analysis in Downward Spiral3 of the history of philosophy expounded
in Comrade North’s Marxism, History and Socialist Consciousness, and his
drawing of a convincing parallel to the manner in which the followers of Ayn
Rand blamed every wrong in the world on Immanuel Kant are substantial reasons
to think that such a designation is fair.
As for ‘gutter politics’ the now over
decade-long smear campaign against Steiner is proof enough of this charge. I
have found out in the course of this exchange that this approach seems to be
the bread and butter of political argument throughout the IC.
As an aside, if Steiner and Brenner
were “middle-class nobodies” then why would you, I direct this toward Comrade
Lantier who I know wields the principal pen behind these arguments, the leader
of the IC in France (a real somebody!) be moved to such anger by their
arguments? If they really are so obviously wrong, why don’t you calmly address
their political positions as they state them, correcting me convincingly and
strengthening the IC in the process?
As I stated above, given that the
points and questions raised in my previous letters have been ignored there
doesn’t seem any good reason to drag a response to other specific charges in
your last letter out any further. So, to the meat of the issue.
Your central point is that I have
“concluded the ICFI historic identification as the continuity of revolutionary
Marxism has been refuted [sic].”
Unfortunately, I have reached this
conclusion, although I hope it can still be proven to me that I am incorrect.
This is not because I support entry into the Democratic Party or that any of
the other assertions you’ve woven out of whole cloth are true.
It is because I believe this “historic
identification” is not akin to the Divine Right of Kings but something a
political organisation earns through its continued defense of Trotskyism and
its practice. It seems to me the IC has the former conception of the continuity
of the Trotskyist movement, that it guarantees we aren’t capable of being
incorrect about anything (even our own significant revisions to Trotsky’s
program at the founding of the FI) and that when someone disagrees with us they
are automatically anti-Trotskyist, petit-bourgeois, pseudo-left etc.
It now appears to me that in its
practice, in the conduct of its leadership and in some of its political
perspectives that the IC has departed from the principles of Trotskyism, if of
course it can be proven otherwise through political discussion then I will
happily admit my mistake in this case.
If you decide to expel me on this
basis (or as you evasively claim that I will have “effectively expelled
myself”) then I hope you are at least capable of reflecting on why it would
seem to me, someone who has loyally fought for the IC’s perspective for six
years, that this is the case.
This conclusion was one that I had no
intention of reaching when I first raised differences with the leadership. At
that time, I hoped- or even expected- these could be dealt with in a swift and
comradely discussion with Comrade Lantier and others. As I detailed in my last
letter, the response of the leadership has shown its conception of
revolutionary Marxism is one that is very far away from the conceptions of
Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. At the core of this conclusion is the
inability of the leadership to respond at all adequately to any of the points I
raised.
I will remind Comrade Lantier and
comrades of the NC who were not informed of my initial discussion with him,
that I raised the following points in our initial private phone call on
February 27 (these are based on the notes taken by Comrade Lantier himself):
• Concern that the party has a
sectarian conception of political work: as long as we are correct on the WSWS,
the objective situation will get bad enough that people will start to queue up
to join.
• Questions over the delineation of the fifth phase of the Trotskyist
movement, the other phases were marked by major internal struggles of the
Trotskyist movement whereas the fifth was just declared.
• Uncertainty about the decade of socialist revolution. Our conception
seems to be that if we can just raise the party’s work to a quantitatively
higher level and raise the morale of the cadre, strategic and tactical
questions about how to rise to the decade of socialist revolution don’t need to
be discussed.
• Confusion over our reasoning on the Will Lehman campaign. We don’t see
the main arena for our work in the trade unions as was traditionally the case
in the Trotskyist movement. We have to struggle against the bureaucrats, but it
feels like we do this shouting from the sidelines.
• Concern over founding of the IWA RFC. What is it, who leads it, how do
workers elect delegates to it, how do you become a member? The same questions
can be asked of the IYSSE.
• Stated that the PES feels more Paris bureau of the WSWS in our day-to-day
practice.
• Raised questions over the term “pseudo-left”, even if we are irreconcilably
opposed to these forces, pseudo-left is an epithet that often replaces a
careful analysis of who these forces are, what they do.
• Raised questions over our carpet ban on entry work in organizations
(and I should add discussion of this as well)
• Concern over the implications of the degeneration of trade unions
after 1970s, did this mean we shouldn’t do work within them? Also trade unions
have been highly degenerate at other periods of working class history but we
worked within them then.
• Concern as to why are we unable to win over students and workers.
• I also stated that I find some of Steiner and Brenner’s arguments
quite convincing, and I find some of the methodology use we use against them
unconvincing.
Behind your quotes and accusations
there has been almost nothing of political substance raised in response to
these concrete points throughout this entire exchange. For the positions you
have addressed your preferred techniques for political argument are
strawman-ing, intimidation and name-calling.
While it can be said that the
questions of the WSWS’s dominance in our work and our intervention in the
unions has been answered more substantially, I am afraid these responses are
still unconvincing. On the first, just quoting the US statement of principles
is hardly an answer to the complex question of how best to develop the IC’s
work in France. It can simultaneously be the case that the WSWS is the primary
tool for our intervention in the class struggle in France and we develop other
forms of work as well, my point was we never discuss this. On the second,
saying we work energetically in the unions is one thing, doing it is another.
Finally, as I argued in my previous
letter, you claim to embody the historic continuity of Trotskyism but you
clearly have no trust in the membership of the Trotskyist party. This is a
violation of the basic spirit of Bolshevism (although you accuse me of not
referring to Trotsky at all, I quoted him to prove that this was a basic
concept of the Bolshevik Party in my previous letter). The fact you didn’t
respond to this charge shows you think this is either unimportant or that you
are justified in treating an individual who has worked loyally for the party
for six years as a pariah for internally raising political differences in a
loyal and deferential manner. Either option is sufficient to show the IC
leadership has drifted from the Trotskyist conception of building a vanguard
party of the working class.
Across multiple letters you have
refused to answer serious questions surrounding your attitude and conduct
toward the membership. Unless the NC responds to the three following requests,
I do not see any conditions in which a principled continuation of this exchange
is possible:
1) Please point me to the place in the
constitution of the PES or precedence in the history of the Trotskyist movement
for your demand of an unlimited non-disclosure agreement, which was used to
block a discussion of political issues and to issue an ultimatum with the
threat to expel me from the party.
2) Regarding my “politically
irresponsible conduct,” please concretely explain exactly what part of my
conduct has been “politically irresponsible” and specify where it has violated
the rules and regulations of the party.
3) Tell me directly whether or not you
covertly recorded the online meeting of February 28. If you did, please provide
me and every member of the NC with a copy of the unedited transcript.
If the NC is unable to response to
these requests the only conclusion can be that it has no intention of any
discussion whatsoever of my concerns, now or after July 1.
As for the “non-negotiable” July 1
proposal for me to “reconsider my positions”- not the first non-negotiable in
this exchange I might note- I do not accept it.
Presumably, even if I express
agreement with the party’s program, constitution etc., on July 1, it will only be found satisfying by the
leadership if I undergo full political humiliation and admit I was wrong about everything,
under the influence of petit-bourgeois forces, or that I was already planning
to leave but used Steiner and Brenner’s arguments as convenient cover to save
face. These allegations have all already been made- without any evidence
presented of course- by the leadership during the course of this exchange.
Undoubtedly should I dare to refer to
any part of the IC’s history that isn’t part of the leadership’s pre-approved
reading list I, and whoever I cite, shall be denounced in similar terms to
those thrown about by the leadership already.
This is not a proposal for political
discussion, which now seems to have been completely tabled. In fact, it
specifically precludes political discussion. It is nothing more than the
proposal I spend three months in political isolation during which time I can
“reconsider” why everything I’ve said was totally incorrect and the response of
the leadership completely correct.
This is a total cop-out on the part of
the leadership, either you are willing to have a planned and prepared initial
discussion4 of political differences or you aren’t. If you aren’t that is
enough proof for me that you do not represent the revolutionary continuity of
Trotskyism and as stated above, I am happy to “effectively expel myself” on
that basis.
I hope my impressions are incorrect
and that the ultimate goal of the NC is to correct what it views to be my
political misconceptions on the basis of valid political argumentation. This
can easily be shown by responding in a principled and, I hope, cordial manner
to the three requests that I have included above alongside an agreement to
organise a preliminary discussion with prepared documents as was previously
pledged by the NC.
Fraternally,
Samuel Tissot
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