February 8, 1966
For NC Majority Only
To the Secretariat
Dear Comrades:
I feel rather uneasy about the circular letter from Tom [Kerry] dated Jan.
28, enclosing a copy of Larry T[rainor]’s letter of Jan. 15 and Arne [Swabeck]’s
letter of January 7 addressed to Larry and his letter of Dec. 14 addressed to
Rosemary and Doug [Gordon], and also the circular of Al A. announcing his
decision to join the PLP [Progressive Labor Party] (which I had already seen
locally).
The Swabeck letter and the [Clara] Kaye document, which I had previously
received, make serious criticisms of the party and youth actions at the
Washington Thanksgiving Conference,31 and
make a number of other serious, and even fundamental, criticisms of party policy
and action in general.
The problem, as I see it, is how to deal effectively with these challenges
and how to aid the education of the party and the youth in the process—in the
light of our tradition and experience over a period of more than thirty-seven
years since the Left Opposition in this country began its work under the
guidance of Trotsky. One might well include the first ten years of American
communism before that, from which I, at least, learned and remember a lot from
doing things the wrong way.
Larry’s letter of Jan. 15 suggesting disciplinary action, and Tom’s
letter of Jan. 28 informing us that the Political Committee has put the question
of discipline on the plenum agenda, are, in my opinion, the wrong way.
Probably the hardest lesson I had to learn from Trotsky, after ten years of
bad schooling through the Communist Party faction fights, was to let
organizational questions wait until the political questions at issue were fully
clarified, not only in the National Committee but also in the ranks of the
party. It is no exaggeration, but the full and final truth, that our party owes
its very existence today to the fact that some of us learned this hard lesson
and learned also how to apply it in practice.
From that point of view, in my opinion, the impending plenum should be
conceived of as a school for the education and clarification of the party on the
political issues involved in the new disputes, most of which grew out of earlier
disputes with some new trimmings and absurdities.
This aim will be best served if the attacks and criticisms are answered point
by point in an atmosphere free from poisonous personal recriminations and
venomous threats of organization discipline. Our young comrades need above all
to learn; and this is the best, in fact the only way, for them to learn what
they need to know about the new disputes. They don’t know it all yet. The fact
that some of them probably think they already know everything, only makes it
more advisable to turn the plenum sessions into a school with questions and
answers freely and patiently passed back and forth.
The classic example for all time, in this matter of conducting political
disputes for the education of the cadres, is set forth in the two books which
grew out of the fundamental conflict with the petty-bourgeois opposition in
1939-40.32 I think these books, twenty-six years after, are still fresh and
alive because they attempt to answer and clarify all important questions
involved in the dispute, and leave discipline and organizational measures aside
for later consideration.
Compared to the systematic, organized violation of normal disciplinary
regulations and procedures committed by the petty-bourgeois opposition in that
fight, the irregularities of Kirk [Richard Fraser] and Swabeck resemble juvenile
pranks. Nevertheless, Trotsky insisted from the beginning that all proposals, or
even talk or threats, of disciplinary action be left aside until the political
disputes were clarified and settled. The party was reborn and reeducated in that
historic struggle, and equipped to stand up in the hard days that were to
follow, precisely because that policy was followed.
As for disciplinary action suggested in Larry’s letter, and at least
intimated in the action of the Political Committee in putting this matter on the
agenda of the plenum—I don’t even think we have much of a case in the
present instance. Are we going to discipline two members of the National
Committee for circulating their criticisms outside the committee itself? There
is absolutely no party law or precedent for such action, and we will run into
all kinds of trouble in the party ranks, and the International, if we try this
kind of experiment for the first time.
We have always thought proper and responsible procedure required that party
leaders confine their differences and criticisms within the National Committee
until a full discussion could be had at a plenum, and a discussion in the party
formally authorized. But it never worked with irresponsible people and it never
will; and this kind of trouble can’t be cured by discipline.
In the first five years of the Left Opposition, Shachtman and Abern took
every dispute in the committee, large or small, into the New York Branch—with
unlimited discussion and denunciation of the committee majority by an assorted
collection of articulate screwballs who would make the present critics of the
party policy from one end of the country to the other, appear in comparison as
well mannered pupils in a Sunday School. There was nothing to do about it but
fight it out. Any kind of disciplinary action would have provoked a split which
couldn’t be explained and justified before the radical public.
To my recollection, there has never been a time in our thirty-seven-year
history when a critical opposition waited very long to circulate their ideas
outside the committee ranks, despite our explanation that such conduct was
improper and irresponsible. We educated and hardened our cadre over the years
and decades by meeting all critics and opponents politically and educating those
who were educable.
I will add to the previously cited examples of the fight with the
petty-bourgeois opposition two minor examples.
1. Right after our trial in Minneapolis in 1941 the well-known [Grandizo]
Munis blasted our conduct at the trial as lacking in “proud valor,”
capitulating to legalism, and all other crimes and dirty tricks. I answered
Munis by taking up his criticisms point by point and answering them without
equivocation or evasion. Munis’s letter and my answer, some of you will
remember, was published in a pamphlet on “Defense Policy in the Minneapolis
Trial”,33 so that all party members and others who might be interested could
hear both sides and judge for themselves.
That pamphlet was published twenty-four years ago, and I personally have
never since heard a peep out of anybody in criticism of our conduct at the
trial. On the contrary, my testimony Socialism On Trial has been printed and
reprinted a number of times in a number of editions and, as I understand it, has
always been the most popular pamphlet of the party.
2. I notice that the YSA has just recently published, in an internal
discussion bulletin, my two speeches at the 1948 plenum on the Wallace
Progressive Party and our 1948 election campaign.34 The circumstances
surrounding these speeches have pertinence to the impending plenum.
No sooner had the Wallace candidacy been announced on a Progressive Party
ticket than Swabeck in Chicago, consulting with himself, decided that this was
the long-awaited labor party and that we had to jump into it with both feet.
Without waiting for the plenum, or even for the Political Committee, to discuss
the question and formulate a position, he hastily lined up [Mike] Bartell and
Manny Trbovitch and the local executive committee and from that, quick as a
wink, the entire Chicago Branch to support the candidacy of Wallace and get into
the Progressive Party on the ground floor. There was also strong sympathy for
this policy in Los Angeles, Buffalo, Youngstown, and other branches of the
party. The discussion at the plenum should be studied in light of these
circumstances.
My two speeches were devoted, from beginning to end, to a political analysis
of the problem and a point by point answer to every objection raised by Swabeck
and other critics. It is worth noting, by those who are willing to learn from
past experiences, that Swabeck’s irresponsible action and violation of what
Larry refers to as “committee discipline” were not mentioned once.
There was a reason for the omission, although such conduct was just as much
an irritation then as now. The reason for the omission was that we wanted to
devote all attention at the plenum to the fundamental political problems
involved and the political lessons to be learned from the dispute. My speeches,
as well as remarks of other comrades at the plenum, had the result of convincing
the great majority present and even shaking the confidence of the opponents in
their own position. By the time we got to the national convention a few months
later, the party was solidly united and convinced that the nomination of our own
ticket in 1948 was the correct thing to do.
Committee “discipline” follows from conviction and a sense of
responsibility; it cannot be imposed by party law or threats. I have said before
that in more than thirty-seven years of our independent history we have never
tried to enforce such discipline There was such a law, however, or at least a
mutual understanding to this effect, in the Communist Party during the period of
my incubation there. But what was the result in practice?
Formally, all discussion and happenings in the Political Committee and in the
plenum were secrets sealed with seven seals. In practice before any meeting was
twenty-four hours old the partisans of the different factions had full reports
on secret “onion skin” paper circulated throughout the party. Even the
ultra-discipline of the Communist Party never disciplined anybody for these
surreptitious operations.
It would be too bad if the SWP suddenly decided to get tougher than the
Communist Party and try to enforce a nonexistent law-which can’t be enforced
without creating all kinds of discontent and disruption, to say nothing of
blurring the serious political disputes which have to be discussed and clarified
for the education of the party ranks.
I would like copies of this letter to be made available to National Committee
members who received Tom’s letter of Jan. 28.
Fraternally,
