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IV. Expulsion of National Committee Members |
As documented in the volume The Struggle Inside the Socialist Workers Party, the only place that oppositionists were able, under the new organizational restrictions, to openly challenge the political betrayal of the Barnes leadership after 1982 was inside the National Committee. There were two oppositional groupings—the Fourth Internationalist Caucus of Frank Lovell and Steve Bloom (both later in the Fourth Internationalist Tendency), and the Trotskyist Tendency of Nat Weinstein and Lynn Henderson (both later in Socialist Action). The two currents joined together, despite some significant differences, in an Opposition Bloc—until the bloc was dissolved in the summer of 1983. At the same time, the four dissident members of the National Committee were suspended (which, for all practical purposes, amounted to expulsion). This is discussed in a document signed by Lovell, Bloom, Weinstein, and Henderson, and also in a document signed by a number of leaders of the Fourth International.
September 7, 1983
To All Sections, Sympathizing Groups, and Members of the Fourth International:
Since the August 1981 convention of the U.S. Socialist Workers Party, the current party leadership has been carrying out a revisionist course which threatens to destroy that organization as a revolutionary party. The open repudiation of the historic program of Trotskyism, in particular the attack on the theory of permanent revolution, has been imposed on the membership in a step-by-step process—through the pages of the party's press and other public activities, as well as through an internal “education” campaign of anti-Trotskyist classes, educational conferences, and speeches.
The content of Jack Barnes's public 1982 YSA convention speech, published in the inaugural issue of New International six months after it was delivered, and the editorial attack on Ernest Mandel's defense of our program in the August 6, 1983, issue of Intercontinental Press (Mandel's article was also published months after it was submitted) are the clearest and most recent expressions of the programmatic break with the Fourth International and with our Trotskyist heritage. These are policies promoted by the entire leadership, its editorial boards, and all party institutions. They are not simply the opinions of a few individual SWP leaders.
The promotion of this new theoretical line of the Barnes leadership (actually a rehash of old slanders against Trotsky and Trotskyism, long ago thoroughly refuted) has been accomplished without any discussion or vote inside the party. This is true despite repeated requests by many comrades for such a discussion. Even when opening a discussion was constitutionally mandated for the regular preconvention period, the leadership postponed it—first for three months, replacing it with an educational conference, and then for an entire year. Only spurious reasons were presented for this. The muzzling of the opposition through this process clearly reveals the complete unwillingness of the current majority leadership to allow any serious consideration of these questions by the party ranks, and exposes their lack of confidence in their ability to defend these policies before the membership.
In order to assure that no discussion of these anti-Trotskyist, liquidationist policies will take place a massive slander campaign against the opposition and an unprecedented wave of expulsions of party members with opposition viewpoints have been implemented. The right to constitute internal party groupings (tendencies and factions) was suppressed. (Party members have even been denied the right to participate in an organized way in the pre-World Congress discussion of the Fourth International, in direct violation of the statutes of that organization.)
The erosion of internal democracy reached a new level at the August 1983 National Committee meeting with the unprecedented suspension on the eve of the meeting of the four minority NC members so that they could not attend, and then their suspension—in fact their de facto expulsion—from the party itself, in an attempt to isolate them from party members. The opposition leaders were falsely accused of being responsible for the crisis in the party, which has in fact been created by the policies of the majority itself. Since the suspension of the NC members, the thinly disguised purge of other party members in disagreement with the central leadership has been accelerated.
The expulsions, the ban on tendencies and factions, and the twice-postponed convention are merely the organizational manifestation of the anti-Trotskyist political course which the current SWP leadership has embarked upon.
These organizational measures carried out by the SWP leadership are not only undemocratic; they amount to a de facto and unprincipled split which the majority leadership is solely responsible for engineering. We, the undersigned four suspended National Committee members, state categorically that we are opposed to any such split. We will fight for our reinstatement into the party and the National Committee and for the opening of a free and democratic discussion of the differences. We will advocate a reversal of the current destructive course and a return to the historic program of the SWP.
The split in the SWP being carried out by the Barnes leadership is only the national expression of a political line which they are beginning to implement on a world scale—through the formation of an undeclared international faction in the Fourth International. It is clear that much more than just the existence of the SWP as a revolutionary Trotskyist organization is at stake. At the recent Oberlin conference, open to non-members of the SWP, leaders and members from other countries joined in the attacks on Trotskyism and the Fourth International. They even attacked their own sections where they were in a minority -without any authorization to do so by the sections' leaderships. This clearly reveals the threat to the existence of our world party which the onslaught of the current SWP leadership represents.
We, the opposition NC members in the SWP, have been at the forefront of the political struggle against these policies and have witnessed the blows on our party and on the International most closely. Merely advocating the official positions of the Fourth International has become grounds for expulsion from the SWP.
It is time to sound the alert for our entire world movement. We call on all comrades to vigorously take up this struggle, to reject abandoning the Fourth International for a nonexistent “new mass Leninist international” as the SWP leadership proposes, and to act decisively to combat the danger that threatens us. There must be an opening of the discussion in all sections and convening of the World Congress on the earliest possible date. The political struggle against the revisionism of the SWP leadership must be a major focus of that World Congress. It is vital that we confront this challenge to the program, and to the very existence of the Fourth International, and that we mobilize every comrade in this effort.
We must reaffirm the continued validity of the Trotskyist program—the only real continuation of Leninism today—on a world scale. The task of building the International and its component sections cannot be accomplished except within this framework. We must rally to the defense of the International and its program against the revisionist line of the SWP's undeclared international faction.
/s/Steve Bloom
/s/Lynn Henderson
/s/Frank Lovell
/s/Nat Weinstein
October 20, 1983
1. At the August plenum of the SWP (USA) National Committee (NC), following the Oberlin educational conference of the SWP, all four minority members of the NC (Comrades Steve Bloom, Lynn Henderson, Frank Lovell, and Nat Weinstein) were suspended—first from the National Committee and then from the SWP.
This has been combined with a purge of a new layer of members in political disagreement with the central party leadership launched at the August NC plenum.
These actions represent a qualitative escalation of the campaign of political expulsions under way in the SWP for many months. It is an act of direct hostility to the Fourth International and is in defiance of its norms and traditions, which also used to be those of the SWP.
The de facto expulsion of the NC minority, because of their defense of the programmatic continuity of the SWP and the Fourth International, is designed to prevent their participation in the international discussion in the pre-World Congress period and in the political life in the Socialist Workers Party.
The goal is to isolate the SWP NC minority by arbitrary organizational means from the ranks of the International and the SWP
This attempt to destroy political opposition by organizational means is an attack on the fundamentals of proletarian democracy. Thus it undermines the basis of political collaboration both in the SWP and in the International.
The actions of the present SWP (USA) leadership are in total contradiction to democratic centralism and the statutes of the Fourth International, which lay out a democratic framework for the resolution of political differences.
These expulsions represent a de facto course by the SWP leadership toward splitting their party, the Fourth International, and its sections.
2. The full meaning of these organizational measures can only be understood against their political background.
In the last period—and especially after the August 1981 SWP (USA) convention—this leadership has increasingly challenged key sections of the historic program of the Fourth International, around which the entire movement has been united. These include permanent revolution, the political revolution in the bureaucratized workers' states, the dialectics between the three sectors of the world revolution, the role of the Fourth International and the defense of its organizational integrity.
These programmatic revisions have gone hand in hand with the adoption of gravely mistaken positions on major events in world politics. The outstanding examples are the adaptation to the counterrevolutionary bourgeois Khomeini regime in Iran and the shrinking from any real action to defend Solidarnosc in Poland from bureaucratic repression. There is also the political line followed during the Malvinas war which involved downplaying the need for the Argentine workers to continue an uncompromising struggle against the bloodstained Argentinian dictatorship.
During this period—when the leadership of the SWP (USA) was carrying through a whole series of programmatic revisions without any previous discussion in the SWP ranks or any ratification by an SWP convention—the participation of the SWP leadership in the political life and discussions of the International has markedly declined.
For several years now, including the 1981 and 1982 IEC meetings and all the USec meetings that have taken place since then, the SWP (USA) leadership has systematically voted against the draft resolutions proposed. Yet it has failed to propose one single positive written resolution on any political question.
This course has been accompanied by several attacks on sections and leaders of the Fourth International. The Mexican PRT has been treated as an opponent organization in Central American solidarity work. A deliberate attempt has been made to discredit it in the eyes of the Salvadoran revolutionary movement. There is also the characterization at the August 1983 NC plenum of the Australian SWP leadership as degenerate and adapting to the chauvinist ideology of Australian imperialism.
Simultaneously, the SWP leadership has started to create an organized international current, which is in reality an unprincipled grouping without any platform presented to the International and its members.
In the long run, this approach will not only undermine the activity of the International as a whole but will also foster cliquism and factionalism—destructive to the interests of all its components including the SWP (USA).
3. The opposition now being expelled from the SWP (USA) was formed in response to the new course bureaucratically introduced by the SWP (USA) leadership.
The activities of the opposition have been centered around efforts to defend the theoretical and political continuity of the SWP and the Fourth International against the anti-Trotskyist course.
It is absolutely clear that there is nothing in the political positions advocated by the opposition, or in any action by these comrades, that justifies their suspension from the SWP and its NC.
The opposition comrades have demonstrated—through their participation in a number of NC plenums, by their written contributions to the World Congress debate and by their actions—that they are determined to defend the historic positions of revolutionary Marxism and the program of the Fourth International. They have tried to convince the party leadership and, to the extent possible, the membership as a whole of the dangers involved in the political and organizational course of the SWP.
They have, on numerous occasions, proposed the opening of a written discussion, and later the call for an SWP convention and a full preconvention discussion.
All these proposals were turned down.
Instead the party leadership through an internal reeducation process imposed its programmatic revisions without democratic debate. This is completely contrary to the fundamental responsibilities of leadership in a democratic centralist organization.
Attempts to question these views, even through normal party channels, have been interpreted by the leadership as “reopening preconvention discussion without the approval of the party leadership” and resulted in threats of disciplinary actions.
New “norms” have been adopted for members of the NC, who are prohibited from reporting back to the membership anything except those decisions and those points on the agenda that the NC has decided to make available to the rank and file. The very existence of minority points of view or minority reports may not be mentioned unless this has been explicitly decided on by the NC.
The opposition comrades have also been put under special forms of discipline that if consistently interpreted would make effective and positive intervention in the mass movement almost impossible.
Such new forms of “discipline” are in no way commensurate with the needs of democratic centralist functioning.
A leadership obviously has the duty and right to organize and regulate discussions and party interventions. But within the fundamental traditions and principles of our movement, as the continuator of the democratic centralism developed by Lenin, a leadership does not have the right to impose such regulations on discussion which in practice stamp out normal internal political life.
Any leadership in the Fourth International concerned about maintaining its democratic authority would have ensured democratic progress of discussion involving all views in the organization.
On the contrary the May 1983 NC plenum, which according to the normal schedule would have opened preconvention discussion, instead postponed it. At the same time it rejected en bloc appeals of a large number of expelled members—victims of the “new norms.”
The period following the plenum, which should have been a preconvention discussion period, was further marked by an escalation of the political expulsions.
And the August plenum even voted to postpone the convention to the summer of 1984, a full year later than normal. By this time at least a large part of the known opponents of the new course will have been expelled.
To cover up for the real meaning of this decision the SWP (USA) leadership announced that it would conduct a poll of the membership which in fact has taken the form of a vote of confidence or no-confidence in the leadership.
The SWP leadership has explained the unprecedented wave of expulsions as the result of the compulsive indiscipline of minority comrades who feel the party is a “cage” or a “prison.” This turns the victim into the criminal!
4. The concrete action taken against the four minority NC members at the August 1983 plenum was based on the accusation that they in fact constituted a “secret faction.”
This extraordinary charge staggers the mind. The facts are indisputable. The SWP leadership has violated the statutes of the FT, the constitution of the SWP, and the norms and traditions of our movement. They have silenced and expelled oppositionists in the SWP going so far as the suspension of the four opposition members from the NC and the party.
No proof was presented to the August plenum before the trial and suspension of the four comrades.
No effort was made to ascertain the views of the comrades about the accusation before the charges were formally presented.
The minority comrades requested that a commission be set up to assess the validity of the accusation before action was taken. This request was rejected.
A decision of very great importance for the SWP was rushed through. And it was done in the context of a witch-hunt atmosphere—where innuendos aimed at discrediting the four comrades and the opposition as a whole were substituted for evidence.
5. We decide to characterize the suspension of the four NC minority members as a suspension (which for all practical purposes means expulsion) because of political differences—a political suspension carried out on an organizational pretext. The FI cannot recognize this suspension and must state that these comrades remain members of the FT (to the extent that this is compatible with American law) with full right to participate in all organized internal discussion.
All other expulsions from the SWP (USA) that are part of this political purge should be treated in the same way.
We appeal to the comrades in the SWP (USA) to halt these political expulsions and reintegrate, immediately and collectively, all comrades who have been expelled for their defense of the programmatic continuity of the SWP and Fourth International and to carry out a full and democratic discussion of the differences.
We condemn the charges made against these comrades as a means of suppressing minorities and denying the right of tendency, in direct violation of the statutes of the Fourth International.
We appeal to the comrades of the SWP to reverse their present course toward splitting the FI and to fully participate in the ongoing pre-World Congress debate with all the corresponding rights and responsibilities. We appeal to them to present their views in an open and systematic way for democratic discussion by the world movement.
It's our opinion that if the comrades expelled from the SWP are not immediately and collectively reintegrated and given their democratic rights to fully present their views they will have no choice but to organize collectively in order, on the one hand, to participate in the World Congress discussion and fight for the maintenance and continuity of the program and tradition of the SWP and in the USA, and also to continue carrying out their responsibilities as revolutionary class-struggle militants. The international leadership has the duty to uphold these rights and collaborate with the comrades unjustly expelled from the SWP.
James Kutcher (1912-1989), as a member of the SWP, was a victim of the “loyalty oaths” during the Red Scare of the 1940s and early '50s. The fact that he had lost his legs as a U.S. soldier during the Second World War added drama to a highly publicized fightback which Kutcher and the SWP waged. His story of this struggle is succinctly told in Bud Schultz and Ruth Schultz, eds., It Did Happen Here, Recollections of Political Repression in America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 175-181, and more completely in James Kutcher, The Case of the Legless Veteran (New York: Monad Press, 1973).
He stood fast to his political beliefs in the 1980s as he did in earlier years—and again paid a price. The terrible story of Kutcher's expulsion from the SWP has been somewhat gloatingly recounted by Harvey Klehr in the Social Democratic magazine Dissent, Winter 1986, pp. 104-106. “Despite his shabby treatment by the party to which he had devoted his life, Kutcher remained a true believer,” Klehr sneered, adding: “It should come as no surprise that Marxist-Leninist groups, which demand strict adherence to every detail of every regulation by private organizations or the government, evince no strong attachment to such procedure themselves. Luckily for Kutcher, his former comrades only have the power to expel him from their ranks.” Superficial political sniping such as this, which makes Kutcher an object of undeserved contempt, is best answered by Kutcher's own words and example.
Three items are presented here: Kutcher's appeal to the 1983 SWP convention, asking that his expulsion be overturned, which contains a thorough account of his case; an interview at the time of his fiftieth anniversary in the Trotskyist movement (reprinted from Bulletin in Defense of Marxism, October 1985), and an account of his life by Frank Lovell (from Bulletin in Defense of Marxism, April 1989).
October 18, 1983
Delegates to the next Socialist Workers Party Convention
Dear Comrades:
This is my appeal against the actions of the Manhattan Branch declaring me guilty of violence against a comrade and censuring me at a trial on August 28, 1983; suspending me at a second trial on September 20 for violating discipline and informing me that I would be expelled by October 5 if I didn't comply with instructions by that date; and expelling me as of October 5. I will try to keep this appeal from getting too long, but it involves two separate trials, and I have to explain some things in detail because the branch has refused to let me use or see official branch documentation about my case.
I was a charter member of the SWP when it was founded in 1938 and a supporter of the Fourth International since 1937. In all those years I never was accused of violating discipline in any way and was never brought up on charges for any reason until August 1983. Being called undisciplined or disloyal by party leaders is a new experience for me; in fact, I could hardly believe it when it happened.
It is also necessary for me to mention two other things in the recent period which I think have a bearing on my case.
One is that relations between me and some leaders and members of the Manhattan Branch have not been satisfactory during the last two or three years. I began to feel that some of the members were being prejudiced against me by things said to them about me behind my back, that they were making fun of me or laughing at me, etc. When I asked comrades I trusted if this was so, they told me I was imagining things or becoming a little paranoid, and assured me I had no reason to suspect an imaginary whispering campaign. But I was not satisfied with these assurances and began to feel uncomfortable and irritable around some members. Since they were not acting in a comradely way to me I did not feel much like acting in a comradely way to them.
Another thing I have to mention is my growing worry about several unhealthy developments in the party nationally since the last convention (1981). At that time I abstained in the voting for convention resolutions, but since then I have found myself in definite disagreement with some of the National Committee's political and organizational decisions, which I think are undermining many of the party's traditional policies and practices. The party leadership is changing many political and organizational positions without having a party discussion to consider such changes, and comrades who want such a discussion are being expelled or encouraged to resign. It seems to me that our concepts of a Leninist party are also being changed—changes that are turning the members inward and encouraging them to think and act dogmatically, and on the whole making the party less attractive to the workers we hope to recruit. As a result, I have sometimes voted in the branch in favor of positions taken by minority members of the National Committee against unjust expulsions, against cancellation of the 1983 national convention, etc. But I have never acted in a disruptive way at meetings or violated any of the new organizational norms, even the ones I think are incorrect or harmful.
A New York-New Jersey district membership meeting was held at the Manhattan branch hall on August 14, four days after a plenum of the National Committee at Oberlin. The meeting was called to hear plenum reports. I didn't know it yet, but the NC had just suspended four NC minority members. Somebody decided (the district committee or another) that trouble might erupt when this purge was announced, and so a security guard was appointed, headed by NC member Dick McBride. I did not realize it at the time, but this guard was supposed to defend the meeting not against outside forces but against part of the membership. I can't remember such a strange thing happening inside our party before this.
Quite a few members were upset or unhappy hearing about the four NC members being ousted from the party, the decision to postpone our next national convention for a whole year, and other disturbing news. But nobody disrupted the meeting or tried to do so. All they did was ask for the floor during the discussion period and express their opinions. That left the security guard with not much to do. But, as Comrade McBride told the branch two weeks later, he remained alert and on the job and decided to keep his eye especially on me (although I didn't even ask for the floor once at that meeting). So he stationed himself near me and watched me like a hawk.
According to his later testimony, he saw me “punch” Berta Langston without any advance notice or provocation during the second part of the August 14 meeting, following an intermission. He said Comrade Langston had looked startled when I punched her, but had said nothing, moving away from me to the side and later to the rear. McBride said he had not done anything to intervene at the time because he did not want the situation to “escalate.” When he saw it was not escalating, he returned to his previous role of surveilling me. He then thought it over and talked it over for an entire week, and on August 21, at a branch meeting, he gave me a piece of paper informing me he was filing charges against me for “hitting a comrade.”
What actually happened was this: I was sitting in my wheelchair near the back of the hall listening to the discussion up front. My view was partly obstructed when Berta Langston, also listening to the discussion, walked in front of me, a little to the side, and stood there. So I reached forward a little and touched her on the back, to get her attention so that she would move a little. I touched her either with my right index finger or, possibly, with that and the middle finger. I don't think any rational person could mistake this for a punch. It could correctly be said that I touched, nudged, or prodded her, but not that I punched her. Comrade Langston turned when this happened. Since I did not want to talk aloud during the discussion from the front of the hall, I indicated to her silently that I would like her to move out of my line of vision. She understood exactly what I meant and moved aside. That was the end of the incident, or non-incident.
At my trial two weeks later, Comrade Langston testified in complete accord with my account here of what happened. Since I was not present at the trial, she sent me a letter the next day saying what she had told the branch. [See page 244.]
I can't convey how shocked I was on August 21 when McBride filed his charges against me at the Manhattan branch meeting. It was like a nightmare. I told myself McBride must be hallucinating or making some impulsive mistake. But I couldn't avoid the fact that he had taken a whole week before filing the charges, or the fact that the branch Executive Committee, instead of throwing out the charges, was treating them seriously and preparing for a trial. I couldn't believe that the whole EC was hallucinating, too.
That night was a real ordeal for me. I couldn't explain what had happened; I couldn't believe what had happened; I didn't know what to do. What was happening to the party? Did the EC really believe the McBride fantasy? Would the members of the branch? I turned hot with anger, feeling under intolerable pressure, isolated, helpless, humiliated, and in despair. By morning I must have been in pretty bad shape. Later in the day George Breitman, a comrade and friend who lives across the street from me, visited and said I looked so shaken and distraught I ought to go to the hospital for medication to calm me down.
I tried to regain my bearings without seeing a doctor. But before I could do so, I got a phone call from Ken Shilman, then the branch organizer, which further aggravated my condition.
I told Comrade Shilman the same thing I had told McBride the day before, that I had not hit Comrade Langston in any way. But he was not interested in that. He was phoning to inform me that the EC had appointed an investigating committee that would meet in three days (Thursday, August 25) and that my trial would probably take place three days after that (Sunday, August 28). I then told him I was in a state of shock and unable for the time being to defend myself effectively. I asked him what was the hurry, why did the investigation and trial have to take place so quickly? Shilman did not answer that at all. I then made two requests:
1. Can I have a comrade come with me to the investigating committee, to advise and help me if I need it? Answer: absolutely not; if you need help you can get it from the investigating committee.
2. Since I am emotionally and physically unable to handle the tension of an investigation and trial so soon, can I have a brief postponement of both for a week or two, until I am able to respond normally and defend myself adequately? Answer: a postponement is entirely out of the question.
I think that this arbitrary refusal of a reasonable request was more upsetting to me than the filing of the charges had been. Shilman didn't even pretend to take my postponement request up with the EC before rejecting it. I felt I was being treated as a criminal before I had even been tried. I had the same feeling many years ago when the government was persecuting me, but at least some of the time the government witch-hunters pretended I had some rights, including the right to ask for a postponement when there was a legitimate reason to do so.
Later the same day, Craig Gannon phoned from the National Office and said a Political Bureau subcommittee (himself, Mac Warren, and Ken Shilman) wanted to meet with me the following morning at the National Office. I told him I was too upset to have any meetings at that time, and I did not hear from them again.
The date of the investigating committee's hearing was changed from August 25 to August 28. It wasn't delayed because of my request but because the committee wanted more time to prepare the case against me and to line up witnesses to testify against me. Since I was unable to attend, for the reasons I had told Comrade Shilman, I was not present. Three members appeared before the committee: Dick McBride and Berta Langston, who presented their conflicting versions of the August 14 incident, and George Breitman, who told the committee my version and urged that the case be dismissed without a trial or, if a trial was insisted on, that it be postponed until I could be present to defend myself.
The EC voted to accept the McBride version, reject the Langston and Kutcher versions, deny any postponement and hold the trial that night. It also approved a report to be given by Shilman to the trial that night, including motions the branch would be asked to adopt.
Since I was not present at the investigation or the trial, what I say about them is obviously second- or third-hand. As will be seen, I tried to get official verification of what actually was said and done, but was prevented from doing so by a decision of the leadership.
The only written charge against me was that I had hit Comrade Langston. The 45-minute EC report, presented by Comrade Shilman, spent only around five or ten minutes on the hitting charge. According to Shilman, the EC recognized there was conflicting testimony, by McBride and Langston, but it had no doubt whatever that some violent incident had taken place; the only question in doubt was the severity of the incident. The EC held me guilty of violence against a comrade, but since the severity or degree of the violence was uncertain, the EC did not propose a penalty that would be appropriate for very severe violence. This was said to be the logic of its motions to find me guilty of the violence charge, censure me, and warn me to mend my behavior in this and other respects if I wanted to remain in the party.
By around 43 to 6, the branch voted to approve the EC's report and motions, and by a similar vote it defeated a motion to postpone the conclusion of the trial for two weeks so that I could be present to defend myself. I ask you to rescind these motions of guilt and censure on the ground that the EC's report was deliberately and maliciously distorted in order to prejudice the members against me. For reasons explained below, I cannot give exact citations here to demonstrate this. But I will give a few examples that are typical of the report as a whole.
I had told the EC, through its organizer, why I could not be present at the trial. But the EC's report did not mention why I was absent—as though I had not informed the EC, or as though I was absent without good reason. This omission was deliberate, not accidental.
I has asked to be granted a postponement of action on my case “for a week or two.” The EC report given by Shilman did mention this but only in a deliberately falsified form, so that it was made to seem something else. According to Shilman, I had asked for a postponement “for a week or two or a year.” The addition of the last three words, invented by Shilman and never said by me, makes the request seem frivolous or cynical. Instead of a sincere request by a loyal comrade in distress it is transformed into a transparent attempt to evade any judgment of serious charges.
Is it any wonder the members voted to condemn me? How could they know that the EC report was filled with such lies and distortions?
Members on trial have the right to honest reports by the leadership. Members deciding verdicts in trials have the right to honest reports by the leadership. The members sitting in judgment at my trial and I were both cheated out of our rights by a lying leadership.
The only written charge against me was about the August 14 incident, but the great majority of the EC report was about something else—alleged acts of violence against other comrades in the past, threats of violence against comrades, and abuse of women comrades through vile sexist language against them, which added up to a so-called pattern of my conduct.
According to the EC, these offenses against our norms had been going on for at least two or three years, but the EC had never spoken to me about them or tried to get me to stop committing them. The EC admitted it had been at fault in never even mentioning this problem to me or to the branch; they had, instead, “organized around the problem” by going to individual members and urging them to avoid me as much as possible, not sit near me, etc. Now they realized that was wrong, and so they were bringing the problem out into the open and would demand that I discontinue my obnoxious behavior if I wanted to remain in the party.
And then, in the absence of written charges about these offenses and in my own absence, the EC and some members whom the EC had mobilized during the week turned my trial on another charge into a campaign of character assassination against me. The August 14 incident paled into insignificance by comparison, and any doubts people had about the August 14 facts were washed away in a torrent of mud. I maintain this is a crooked way of conducting a trial, violating the party constitution's requirement for written charges, and that the branch's verdicts are invalidated on this basis alone.
Not that I claim to be above criticism or reproach. I have said and done things I later regret—usually, I believe, under provocation. But I am not the monster I was painted to be at this trial. One EC member told the branch that when he moved to New York a couple of years ago, three different members warned him that it would be dangerous for him to sit near me with his newborn infant! If I haven't always said the right thing, or if sometimes I have spoken too harshly, this kind of incitation behind my back should be taken into account in judging me. And the EC report certainly did not take it into account. Instead, it sought to inflame the members against me. I will give only one example:
As part of its charge of sexist abuse of women, the EC report said I had called women comrades “cunts.” This is an absolute lie. I have never used that term in my entire life, either out loud or to myself. It was made up and attributed to me by the EC, for only one purpose—to smear and discredit me completely, to make me an object of contempt and hate. Whatever other terms I may have used that members consider sexist, I hereby apologize for and will try to never use again. But I maintain the EC's deliberate falsification on this point taints the entire trial. It justifies your rescinding the verdicts and your passing of a motion to censure the EC that resorted to such poisonous methods.
Two days after the trial, on August 30, Comrade Shilman phoned me again. His account of the trial decisions was very terse, which he explained by adding that he was going to send me a copy of the EC report to read, after which I was to meet with an EC subcommittee to discuss the conditions under which I would function in the party in the future. He indicated that until I had read the report and met with the subcommittee I was not to go to the branch headquarters, but that this would not be a problem because I would get the report immediately or very soon. I replied that after reading the report I would be glad to meet with the subcommittee as soon as possible.
I really appreciated being offered the report, for at least two reasons. I had heard secondhand what had happened at my trial and I wanted to see for myself whether or not the report contained the distortions by the EC that I have mentioned above. Reading it was the surest way to settle this question in my mind. Secondly, it would help me decide what to do about possibly appealing the branch decisions to a higher body. I knew I needed the text of the EC report to make the most effective possible appeal to a higher body.
So I waited for the report to arrive. And waited and waited. For eight nerve-wracking days and nights. I phoned the branch office and was told that Shilman was out of town, on his way to another branch, and no longer was our branch organizer. On September 7, 1 mailed a letter to the EC, expressing my bitterness and frustration. I wrote, among other things:
Now eight days have passed and the report has still not arrived. Considering your refusal to grant my reasonable request for a postponement of the trial for a week or two, until I could appear to defend myself, you seem to me to be displaying a damned casual attitude to the rights of a member whose name has been dragged through the mud. I hope you will read this letter to the branch so that I won't be blamed for your failure to send the report eight days ago.
The next day Susan Jacobson, the acting branch organizer, phoned to say that the EC had received my letter. She said she thought Shilman had sent me a copy of the report before leaving town, but now she herself would have it copied without delay and get it hand-delivered to me at home.
On September 8 the acting organizer and the EC still thought I should read the report and still intended to give it to me. But in the next three days their minds were changed, and they now decided it should not be given to me. Why? They did not bother to explain to me; they did not tell me they had changed their minds. Instead, in a letter to me on September 10, they acted as if the offer of the report had never been made or accepted. Was I exaggerating when I said the EC was playing cruel and heartless games with me?
I answered their letter the same day it was handed to me, September 11. I reminded them of my agreement to meet with the subcommittee after reading the report and asked to be given a valid reason for their denying it to me. “Are you afraid,” I asked, “that I, a rank-and-file member, might dare to differ with the report of your almighty committee and even disprove some of your claims against me?” I also asked why they were
now in such a hurry after dawdling with the report for two full weeks of promises that were not kept... Now you are rushing ahead again and trying to twist things so that I will appear to be violating discipline when it is you who are violating the real norms of the party by your distortions about my case, your refusal to grant me a brief postponement, your false promises to let me read your report about my case, and your threats to take further action against me because I refuse to accept your versions of reality. Instead, I urge you to cease and desist your campaign against me and send me a copy of the report ...
That same night the branch complied with the EC's request that it approve the EC's September 10 instructions to me. It also complied with the EC's new position to deny me the report. The reason given for this reversal was that if I got the report I might circulate it, presumably outside as well as inside the party. This, it was said, would damage the security of the party. Therefore I should not be allowed to read the report about my case, even though it had been read to the whole branch during the trial and even though I would have heard it at that time along with the other members if I had been able to attend my trial.
For the second time in my life I was being declared a security risk. The first time was in 1948 when the government fired me from my clerical job with the Veterans Administration, not on the basis of anything I had done (other than belonging to the SWP) but on the basis of a bureaucratic decision, without a trial, that I might do something threatening security. Now the EC was taking similar action against me, without the slightest evidence in the world that I would ever do anything to harm the interests or security of the party I have supported and tried to build most of my life.
I think that the day I learned about this was the worst of my life. If I was emotionally unable to meet with the subcommittee before this, I was even more unable after. So I didn't attend the new investigation and I didn't attend my second trial. I therefore was not present when the EC introduced new lies: that I was challenging the party and its norms, that the effort to build a proletarian party would be undermined unless my challenge was repulsed, that I wanted to meet the subcommittee only on my terms, that I had “declined” to meet, that I “chose” to absent myself, etc.
At the trial on September 20 the EC proposed and the branch agreed to find me guilty of violating Article VIII, Sections 1 and 2, of the party constitution by failing to meet with the subcommittee on September 13, as ordered by the EC; to suspend me from party membership; and to expel me by October 5 unless I met with the subcommittee before then. A countermotion to simply send me a copy of the EC's August 28 report on my case was defeated by a heavy margin. Two EC members came in with the new alibi that I couldn't get the report because it was only notes, which require editing; a third EC member said Shilman had let him read the report, and he could testify that it was not just notes but a regular text.
A letter to the branch I had sent that day was read at the trial. In it I explained once again why I hadn't attended the investigation sessions or the two trials: “It wasn't because I was trying to violate discipline or defy the EC.... I did not participate because I simply couldn't, physically or emotionally.” Everything the EC did in my case, I continued,
only aggravated the stress on me. If I am not present at the second trial, that is the reason. I am still shaking with anger at the thought that such a thing could happen in the party we have worked to build for so many years. If I am to blame for this, the EC is ten times as much to blame, because of its off-again, on-again arbitrariness and its disregard of my rights as a loyal party member.
But the EC report at the second trial didn't even mention the reasons why I couldn't meet with the subcommittee or attend the trial. Why? Was I lying? Was I actually able to attend but pretending I couldn't? That was the clear implication when the EC refused to comment on my explanations and acted as if the only reason could be hostility to the party. Some supporters of the EC even took the floor and said that since my letters to the branch were rational, that “proved” I could not be under real emotional stress: if I could write such letters, obviously I also could attend the trial or subcommittee meeting. The EC reporter, in her summary, did not dissociate herself from these profound and authoritative psychological insights.
After the second trial, during the two-week period when I was suspended before being expelled, I made a last effort to draw attention to the fact that I had legitimate reasons for being absent and had presented these reasons to the EC and branch several times, without ever getting acknowledgment of them. In a letter to the EC on September 27, I put it this way:
If I suffered a concussion of the skull as a result of somebody smashing it with a club, wouldn't you accept that as a valid reason for my not meeting with the subcommittee? Why then haven't you accepted as an equally valid reason the fact that my equilibrium or composure have been smashed (only temporarily, I hope) by the shock of false charges, unkept promises, outrageous slanders, and dirty tricks—not by class enemies but by members of my own party? What must I do to convince you that I am unable to meet with your subcommittee now, short of jumping out the window to satisfy the branch's psychological experts? Haven't any of you smart people on the EC heard that emotional injuries can be as disabling as physical ones?
These questions went unanswered, like the earlier ones.
I also want to quote the last part of the letter I sent the second trial which as I have said was read to the branch but ignored by the EC:
Comrades, I urge you not to be distracted by the technical side of the new charges against me. Much more is at stake than that ... in the capitalist army soldiers are taught that they must obey any “direct order” from a superior officer or they will face severe punishment. That is formal discipline, and soldiers are invariably ruled guilty for violating it. But discipline in the SWP is not and should not be the barracks type, formalistic and rigid. In judging violations of this kind our party has always taken into account the specific circumstances, extenuating factors, etc. Let's not throw out the flexible and comradely practices and traditions the SWP has had since its foundation. Criticize or punish me if I am wrong, but don't forget to do the same thing with those who provoked what I did by their lies to me and about me. Most of all, please reaffirm the earlier decision to let me have the report. That would be the best outcome there could be to these harmful trials.
1. At my first trial I was falsely accused of an offense which merits expulsion. I was found guilty and censured in the face of the preponderant testimony that I was not guilty. Although I was charged in writing with a single offense, I was denounced viciously in the EC report to the trial for a “pattern” of misdeeds stretching over three years or more, about which I was given no advance notice before the trial. This pattern consisted nine-tenths of lies, distortions, and exaggerations; the one-tenth that did have some connection with reality was never discussed with me or the branch at any time before the trial. If it had been, I would have responded to criticism and tried to avoid repeating offenses or mistakes.
2. I asked for a one- or two-week postponement so that I could regain self-control and be able to defend myself properly. This was denied by a branch leadership that routinely gives much longer leaves of absence to members for personal or other reasons.
3. I agreed repeatedly to meet with the EC subcommittee, as directed, and at the same time explained why I could not do so immediately. The EC ignored my commitment to meet with the subcommittee and acted as if I had not explained to it the temporary disability that prevented me from complying with its timetable.
4. I was offered the EC report about my case, and then the offer was withdrawn under cover of the most vile slanders about me. Every request I made to see the report after that was treated as a hostile act. Denial of this report weakens my appeal, because it prevents me from proving some of my accusations by the EC's own words. The EC pretends that this denial of my right to see what I was accused of is an example of “proletarian justice.” On the contrary, it is an injustice of the kind made notorious by all nonproletarian bureaucracies—capitalist, Social Democratic, Stalinist, and labor.
5. I urge you to rescind or nullify the branch's verdicts in my case, dismiss all the charges against me, reinstate me to membership with all rights, censure the Manhattan EC, and issue a report to the membership explaining why the methods used by the EC in my case are incompatible with Leninist norms and practices.
The reason I am appealing to you, the delegates to the next convention, instead of to the next higher body (the district committee) or any other higher body, including the National Committee, is because I do not have confidence at the present time that they would handle my appeal objectively.
There are two reasons for this. One is that in the last year or so the National Committee has given short shrift to appeals against expulsions on flimsy grounds of a large number of members whose chief crime seems to be that they disagree with one or another of the new policies and practices that have been introduced recently without prior discussion by the membership.
The second reason is that the Political Committee and the National Office have been involved in my case from the beginning. Dick McBride consulted with the National Office before filing the charges. A subcommittee of the Political Committee asked for a meeting with me the day after the charges were filed, which I wasn't able to attend. A member of this subcommittee, Mac Warren, was made a member of the investigating committee for the first trial, although he was not a member of the EC, as the other members of this body were. Comrades Gannon and Warren of the Political Committee's subcommittee met with acting organizer Jacobson at branch headquarters to discuss how to handle my second trial. That is why I don't expect much objectivity in what they say or do about my appeal—they were too implicated in everything that made this appeal necessary.
Am I claiming that I was tried, censured, suspended, and expelled for factional reasons? I lean in that direction because, frankly, I can't think of any other reason for these measures against me. At the first trial George Breitman asked if the EC believed Comrade McBride's story because he is a member of the National Committee majority caucus and rejected the stories of Berta Langston and me because we have voiced disagreements with the majority caucus. I understand that Comrade Breitman was castigated for asking this question, but I will ask it again. I had no motive to hit Comrade Langston, and I did not hit her. Everybody who has heard branch reports by Comrade McBride knows that he has a tendency to overdramatize. Why should the word of one bystander be taken over the word of the two principal participants in whatever happened? If there is some other explanation than the political one I am suggesting, I will gladly consider it. But it will have to square with the facts, and the first fact is that I did not hit Comrade Langston.
I am mailing out only three copies of this appeal—one to you convention delegates (through the Political Committee), a second to the Manhattan EC, and a third to the United Secretariat of the Fourth International. I hope that I will not be held responsible for any use or misuse of this appeal by them or anyone else. Dishonest people will attack this appeal as “proof” of my hostility to the party, disloyalty, etc. My hostility is not to the party (which they equate with the party leadership) but to anti-Leninist practices that are undermining and discrediting the party. My loyalty to the party remains unchanged. I have always defended the real interests of our party, and I intend to continue doing this in the future. This appeal is part of that defense. The party will be stronger and healthier if you will act favorably on this appeal.
August 29, 1983
Dear Jimmie,
I am sorry that you weren't feeling well enough to attend the branch trial last night, and hope you'll soon feel better.
I'd like you to know that I informed the executive committee trial body that the charges brought against you by Dick M. were completely baseless. Despite my testimony, the executive committee decided to press those charges at the branch meeting.
I'm enclosing a copy of some excerpts from my statement to the branch.
Comradely,
Berta
... Ken, in his report to the branch, distorted my replies to the executive committee trial body. He said that the e.c. had decided to recommend censure rather than expulsion because there was “conflicting testimony over the severity of the incident.” But I did not question the “severity” of Jimmie's violence against me—I denied it outright. In fact, it was only after Dick described the time and place of the crime in considerable detail that I recalled the event at all, or rather, the non-event that sparked this ludicrous investigation.
The facts are as follows: I was ill and had to leave the district meeting before it was over. However, since I was interested in hearing the remarks of the comrade called upon to speak after I left my seat, I stood listening at the rear of the hall. When I was tapped on the back, I turned and realized I was standing in front of Jimmie, obscuring his view. I, of course, moved away and shortly afterwards left ...
These are the most bizarre charges yet in the series of spurious charges, trials, and expulsions that constitutes the ongoing purge of comrades who protest the escalating violations of democratic norms, who uphold the program and principles on which the FI and SWP were founded ...
The charges brought against Jimmie at this trial is that he struck me—not tonight's revelations of his alleged improper behavior over the past three years. Since there was no victim and no crime the branch should reject the e.c.'s recommendation ...
Bulletin IDOM: The United Auto Workers celebrated their fiftieth anniversary last month, and according to the records you joined the radical movement in October 1985. So your fiftieth anniversary will take place in a few weeks. Would you care to comment for our readers on how you came to join and how you feel about being an activist for such a long time?
James Kutcher: Why I joined is told in The Case of the Legless Veteran. Basically it was the same reason why so many others became radicalized in the 1930s—disillusion with the economic system that was unable to provide us with jobs, and the prospects of war and fascism which were becoming more threatening all around the world.
I joined the Young People's Socialist League in Newark while I was a student at Essex County Junior College. This was the youth affiliate of the Socialist Party, which was led by Norman Thomas at that time, but the youth were moving to the left, and two years later they broke with the Second International and endorsed the movement for a Fourth International.
In those days the choice facing young rebels was between the YPSL or the youth organization of the Communist Party. One of the things that led me to the YPSL was a pact that Stalin signed with the French imperialist government that summer, and the support that the Stalinists there and here began to show for the democratic imperialists.
I was very antiwar. I remember that fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia a week before I joined the YPSL. For a whole year the Ethiopian government had been pleading unsuccessfully with the imperialist democracies to prevent this war.
Another factor was my father's membership in the fur workers' union, a left-wing part of the needle trades industry, as it was then called. My father did not belong to any party, but he taught me that working people have to organize and rely on themselves. The CIO was organized as a committee inside the AFL less than a month after I joined the YPSL, but I did not know the significance of it then.
Bulletin: What did you think about the future then? Did you expect the next fifty years to turn out the way they have?
Kutcher: I can't remember everything from that time as clearly as I would like. I probably expected that we would achieve socialism on a world scale in less than fifty years, if I thought about it at all.
You must understand that, like most new members, I was not very well educated in socialist theories or strategies. I hated exploitation and oppression, militarism and discrimination, and wanted to help eliminate them. But I didn't know much about the history of the revolutionary movement, or about economics, principles, and tactics, and so on. It would be foolish for me to pretend that I am an authority on all these questions even now.
But I was lucky to come into contact with a group of young Trotskyists, who joined the YPSL not long after I did, and they helped me to acquire at least the rudiments of a Marxist education. If not for that, I might have dropped out as so many YPSL members began to do with the approach of World War II. Some of them even became antisocialist.
So I put a lot of stock in socialist education. I was mainly an activist myself, but activism must go hand in hand with solid education if you want to build cadres that will last for the long haul. Anyhow, that's how I came into contact with Trotskyism, and why I joined them when they were expelled from the Socialist Party in 1937 and proceeded to organize the SWP.
Bulletin: Can you compare the SWP of 1938 with the SWP of today, or of 1983, before you were expelled?
Kutcher: That is a big subject to tackle off the cuff, without thinking it over first. It's like asking me to compare myself as I was in 1938, when I was 25, with what I have become today. I was the same person all that time, but I was also changing and growing, learning and relearning, and so on. The SWP is also a living and developing body, with all of its advances and setbacks over such a long time, and I really can't answer such questions about it in a few words.
But I guess I have a few opinions about it. In many ways the SWP is stronger than it was at the beginning (or it was until two years ago; I can't vouch for what has happened since then). For example, it has a larger professional staff and as a result is better organized than it used to be in the early days. We should never underestimate the importance of a staff for a revolutionary party. That is one of the things we learned from Lenin and the Bolsheviks.
Recently I reread a part of the book The Founding of the Socialist Workers Party. It reprints convention and National Committee documents—resolutions and minutes—of the first year and a half of the SWP -1938-39. You can't read it without being struck by what an able leadership the SWP had at that time. Not that they were infallible, but they knew what they were doing, they had clear perspectives and presented them openly for everyone to judge, and they seemed to be very self-confident.
I am not trying to imply that the present SWP leadership—or the one while I was a member—is not able. In some ways they are or were just as capable as the party founders. But they don't seem to be as consistent and self-confident as James P. Cannon and the others, or to have the same confidence for the intelligence of the membership.
Another thing I think about the 1930s and 1940s is that the membership was more self-reliant than the members of recent years. They didn't need constant supervision and advice from the National Office about every little thing they did. So maybe they made a few more mistakes that way. But they also learned from their mistakes and were able to develop a greater sense of initiative, which is certainly an asset for revolutionists.
Probably I should have stuck with my first reaction and passed up this subject altogether. It is too complex to be treated briefly or in passing.
Bulletin: Do you want to say anything about your expulsion from the SWP after forty-eight years in the movement?
Kutcher: No, it's a painful subject, and I said what I thought in my appeal for reinstatement, which you printed in your bulletin last year. But I do have something to say about the reinstatement question.
In my view, the SWP is the only revolutionary party in this country, whatever mistakes it has made. That was why I didn't want to be kicked out of it and that is why I want to be readmitted. I don't know if that will happen in my lifetime, since I hear the SWP convention last month turned our appeals down again. But I am sure that as long as the SWP remains a revolutionary party, the question of reinstating loyal revolutionists will come up again and again. Both the leaders and the members of the SWP are intelligent people. Sooner or later they will recognize that readmitting us is in the best interests of the party.
Meanwhile, I am grateful to the Fourth International and most of its delegates at the World Congress last winter for supporting our appeal and calling on the SWP to restore us to membership with full rights. Their action has helped to keep our case alive against people who want to see it buried and forgotten. I am counting on them to continue along these lines until all Fourth Internationalists in the U.S. are united inside the SWP Victory in this effort will strengthen the FI as well as the SWP.
James Kutcher suffered more than his share of misfortune and adversity, but he never stopped fighting against injustice. He met every challenge with quiet determination to win. His life was more willful than accidental, more satisfying than frustrating. The decisions he made distinguished him from ordinary men, even though he described himself as an ordinary man “in most respects.”
He came of age during the Great Depression. There were no jobs for a young man of 19 in 1932. He had hoped to become a teacher but the family had no money for his education. He thought himself lucky to get hired as a butcher's delivery boy, but that didn't last because he was soon replaced by a relative of the boss. After a succession of low-paid temporary jobs, he began first to question his own ability and then the capitalist system that divides society between a few rich people and the poor. He recalls in his book, The Case of the Legless Veteran, how he began to solve this riddle. “I heard there was going to be a symposium at the Y [in Newark, New Jersey, his hometown], and I went there. H.V. Kaltenborn, the radio commentator, defended capitalism; Norman Thomas, the Socialist Party's candidate for president, defended socialism; and Scott Nearing defended communism. A lot of what they said went over my head,” he wrote. “But when Kaltenbom said it wasn't fair to judge capitalism by what it looked like during a crisis because that was not its normal condition, and Thomas poked fun at this, my sympathies were with Thomas.” Jim began to read about these questions and in 1935 joined the Socialist Party. His basic education began there when he was introduced to the political writings and organizational work of Leon Trotsky. He became a Trotskyist in 1936 and remained so for life.
In retrospect Kutcher said his life was shaped by three man-made catastrophes: the depression, the war, and the Cold War, each with consequences both tragic and challenging. The depression cut off his right to work but it gave him a new outlook on the world. World War II cost him his legs. He had to learn to walk again on artificial legs, like a child learning to use stilts. “But,” he said, “it also brought me a job I expected to keep for the rest of my life, and for the first time, I got a sense of personal security.” The Cold War cost him his job because he was a member of the Socialist Workers Party and decided not to renounce his socialist principles. The day he was notified by the Veterans Administration that he was slated to be fired was when his illusory sense of security vanished. He felt it as a personal blow but he understood it as a blow to civil liberties in this country. He said it tore him out of a self-centered routine and reawakened his interest in the world and his relation to the political repression of the time.
From 1948 when he was fired from his clerk's job at the VA in Newark until 1958 when his case was finally settled and he was securely back on this job, Kutcher conducted a tireless campaign against the government's unconstitutional blacklist. During that decade he became the most prominent witch-hunt victim, and the only completely vindicated champion of civil liberties in this country at the time. He attributed his success mainly to the mass support of the CIO unions, to the Kutcher Civil Rights Committee, which was organized by the Socialist Workers Party and endorsed by all major civil liberties organizations, and the able staff of attorneys headed by the civil libertarian, Joseph L. Rauh. But Kutcher himself made the major contribution.
He made two national tours. The first began early in June 1949 in Minneapolis, went west to Seattle, down the coast to San Francisco and Los Angeles, and back through the industrial cities of the Midwest. It ended with a meeting at the Capitol Hotel in New York on December 15—the 158th anniversary of the Bill of Rights.
Many highlights of this trip and some excerpts from Jim's talk at the New York meeting are recounted in his book. He talked about what he had learned on tour. “Of course, it wasn't only the unions that helped me, although they took the lead,” he said. “In addition there were scores, hundreds, of liberal, civil liberties, veterans, civic, religious, student, old-age, Negro, Jewish, Japanese-American, Slavic-American, fraternal, academic, political and social groups and organizations who came to my aid morally and financially, although the overwhelming majority of their members disagree—and sometimes violently—with the social and political views for which I was purged from my job.” His conclusion: “...the people are on our side. And if we redouble our efforts and reach them with the truth, they will come to our aid and guarantee that the liberties won in the Bill of Rights will never be destroyed in this country.”
More than ten weeks of this tour was spent in Los Angeles. Upon arrival he was greeted by a large delegation and some examples of advance publicity, including an editorial in Crossroads, the Nisei weekly, which linked Kutcher's case with the victimization of West Coast Japanese during the war. The editor, Masamori Kojima, later spoke at a banquet in Kutcher's honor, reminding those present that, like Kutcher, “A public hearing is what we Japanese-Americans demanded to decide our case [during the war]—but we didn't get it.” Instead, they got concentration camps for the duration. The SWP was one of the very few organizations to expose and denounce this brutal totalitarian-style government operation at the time.
While in Los Angeles Kutcher was invited to address the national convention of the NAACP, the only speaker who was not an NAACP official or a government representative. “Next to the labor movement,” he noted, “most of our support here is coming from the minority groups: Negro, Jewish, Japanese-American, and now I've been invited to talk to the Community Services Organization (Mexican-American).”
Jim left from Newark May 17,1954, on his second national tour. Driving alone from city to city he made his way across the country and back, returning to Newark on November 8. One purpose of this six-month journey was to sell his book and get the widest possible distribution of it. It had been published in England the year before because he was unable to find a publisher in this country. This was the first edition. It explained the case of the legless veteran during the first five years. It brought the story up to June 16, 1953, the actual date on which Kutcher's name was removed for a second time from the rolls of the VA. He attached significance to that date, “which will be better remembered as the date when the workers of East Germany began their inspiring political uprising against their Stalinist rulers.” As for the Kutcher defense case: “Our next steps were back into the federal court.” He was not optimistic. “One thing I have learned,” he said, “is how hard it is for someone in my position to get even a hearing from the Supreme Court, let alone a favorable decision.”
Among Kutcher's personal effects “A Log of Journey Across Country” has been found. It consists of places he visited, miles he drove, people he saw, meetings he addressed, books he sold, and the treatment he received. It is clear from his log notations that the political climate in early 1954 was noticeably different from the time of his first tour in 1949.
His opening tour stop this time was Buffalo where he spent 17 days, from May 18 to June 5. He received a warm welcome from members of the SWP branch, spoke before several local union meetings, made a trip to Toronto and spoke to meetings there, and ended his stay with a big public rally at the Hotel Statler which was well advertised, including an ad in the Buffalo Evening Express. At the rally 34 books were sold and $120 collected.
Altogether, while in the Buffalo area, he distributed about 100 copies of his book. He did so much driving that one notation says, “Getting to know my way around Buffalo a little bit.” In general Jim enjoyed his stay, but there were signs of new problems with the case and some extraneous aggravations. His car had been driven about 65,000 miles and had to be repaired. The FBI paid a visit to the house where he stayed, and tried to intimidate the elderly occupants. A conference of the International Union of Electrical Workers on civil liberties denied Kutcher admission to speak and sell his book. No explanation given.
His next stop was Detroit. He had a series of successful meetings at union halls, mostly at UAW locals and other CIO affiliates. An entry in his log for Sunday, June 6, says, “Tour starts with a bang, sold 64 books first day....” He stayed in Detroit through June 20.
While in Detroit Kutcher began to learn more about shifts in popular attitudes as conditioned by and reflected in the daily press. He held a news conference upon arrival. His log notation for June 5 reads: “Had press conference—reporter from Times [probably the Detroit Times, a Hearst publication]—wise guy. But I did all right.” The following evening he drove to Grand Rapids and spent the night there, expecting to attend the opening session of the CIO convention, June 7. His log book shows the following notation for that date: “CIO convention starts today. Wasted trip.”
This was his first reaction at not being allowed to address the convention. But the trip was far from wasted. In Grand Rapids he met with Gus Scholle, president of the Michigan CIO. Scholle had been an early supporter of the Kutcher case and admired Jim's courage. Jim wrote in his log, “Meeting with Scholle—said rumor about book going around that royalties were going to party and similar things.” This was the first time Jim heard of anything like this. But Scholle was more specific. He gave Jim enough information to allow the Kutcher Civil Rights Committee to begin immediately to track down the source of these groundless and damaging rumors. Back in Detroit Jim continued to make the rounds of union meetings, church groups, civil liberties organizations, wherever he could get a hearing and sell his book.
He spoke at a National Lawyers Guild luncheon and got a good reception which was somewhat surprising because the Guild was influenced by Stalinist ideology. In the past the Stalinists had tried to block support to his case. He had confronted them on several occasions, most memorably at a meeting in San Francisco of 2,800 longshoremen in the Local 10 hall of the longshore union on his first national tour. In that situation the Stalinists were discredited and humiliated. They were not deterred. In the early stages of his fight they hounded him wherever possible. An entire chapter of his book had to be devoted to their disgraceful slander campaign, “The Role of the Communist Party.”
By 1945 the witch-hunt had caught up with the CP, with a vengeance. They were finally beginning to realize that their attacks on Kutcher were harming them more than him. Guild members who earlier might have been prejudiced against Kutcher by Stalinist falsification of his case were now ready to listen to him with open minds, and buy his book. That was another side of the witch-hunt pressures.
At this point Kutcher was painfully aware that he was the target of a more insidious and damaging campaign than the crude slanders of the Stalinists, and this new threat was generated within the CIO from a hidden source.
While in Detroit Kutcher worked on the draft of a letter to top CIO officials, hoping to dispel the false rumors against him and his defense committee. His log shows that on June 15 he spoke to a meeting of laid-off Dodge workers at their UAW hall: “Couldn't sell book because CIO is sabotaging sale of book.” Later that day, “Had meeting with Rev. Henry Hitt Crane at his home.” Reverend Crane of the Central Methodist Church was then the most prominent civil libertarian in Detroit. Nationally known, he was highly respected by Walter Reuther and the UAW bureaucracy. Rev. Crane was a sincere supporter of Kutcher, always helpful throughout the long fight. It may be that Kutcher sought his advice, hoping to gather more information about how his campaign was being undermined within the CIO. The next day, June 16, Kutcher wrote: “Letter to G. mailed out.” (G. was either George Novack or George Weissman, both representing the Kutcher Civil Rights Committee at the time.)
Thursday, June 17: “Sent off letter to Riffe in CIO office.” (Mr. John V. Riffe, Executive Vice President, CIO, 718 Jackson Pl., N.W., Washington, D.C.) On his last day in Detroit, Sunday, June 20, Kutcher wrote: “Tried my new electric razor [a gift from comrades in Detroit SWP], it was fine. Went to 3 meetings. 2 were canceled—one said they wouldn't sell Trotskyist literature.”
From Detroit Kutcher went on to more than a dozen cities: Chicago, Milwaukee, Seattle, Vancouver (Canada), Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Duluth, a one-day stopover in Detroit where he met with his close friend and comrade George Breitman en route to Cleveland, on to the Youngstown/Akron/Warren region in Ohio, Pittsburgh, Pa., and finally back home. His last log entry: “Monday November 8, 1955—leave for home 8:45 a.m. arrived Newark 6:45 p.m.—end of tour & last entry in diary.”
It had been a long trip. Kutcher traveled alone, driving more than 10,000 miles. He saw beautiful places in this country and in Canada, places he had only read about before. He met people in the unions and in the civil liberties movement about whom he had only previously heard or read, both good and bad. He learned about his own political organization, the Socialist Workers Party, in a way he had not previously known it. He had troubles-with his car which several times needed repairs, and sometimes with people who didn't want to hear what he had to say and didn't want others to hear him either. But when it was over Kutcher could look through his log book and be reminded of the good times he had—the picnics and scenic excursions he went on, the people who gave him special attention because they realized that others were beginning to desert him—and he could be confident that his record was clear.
In Chicago he met Ralph Helstein, national president of the packinghouse workers union, who made a hefty financial contribution, ordered a large number of books, and enthusiastically introduced Jim to union members and staff. Out in San Francisco the longshoremen in Local 10 bought his book and welcomed him back, perhaps to read about their first welcoming. His log entry for September 13 records the occasion: “meeting at longshore—They remembered me all right. 124 copies sold.”
After Jim returned to Newark, his second national tour behind him and with bleak prospects of ever getting back his job with the VA, he started to learn the printing trade in the hope of becoming a proofreader. But there still remained a ray of hope in his struggle with the government bureaucracy. The Public Housing Authority was stymied. Its decision to evict Kutcher and his aged parents from their home in a federal housing project had been stayed by court order. The Housing Authority appealed, but the courts delayed for two years. And when a ruling finally came down, the vindictive eviction orders were nullified.
Meanwhile the government struck another blow. Two days before Christmas, 1955, Kutcher's disability pension was bureaucratically terminated. His only income was gone. This focused public attention on the Kutcher case as never before. He later said that at the time this overshadowed the job issue and probably had an important effect on the outcome of his case. Suddenly the newspapers were full of the Kutcher story. Public hearings were held for the first time in a “loyalty” case of this kind. Kutcher's testimony was widely publicized, the baseless charges against him exposed. On April 20, 1956, a federal appeals court ordered Kutcher restored to his job. He went back to work at the Newark VA on June 26; and finally, two years later, on June 4, 1958, he got a settlement for back pay. The famous “Case of the Legless Veteran” was closed after nearly ten years.
Kutcher retired from his VA job in 1972 and after that worked at Pathfinder Press, the SWP publishing house. During his first year there he completed the story of his long fight against political persecution. The first edition of his book was written in 1953. Twenty years later, in 1973, the second edition appeared, published at Pathfinder. This second edition retains unchanged all the 17 original chapters. It adds two more, “The Second Five Years” and “Summing Up,” in which some fundamental questions about the witch-hunt of the 1950s are examined from the vantage point of Kutcher's experience.
What happened in the mid-1950s that caused the witch-hunt hysteria to subside? And why did Kutcher's long struggle for an open hearing take such a drastic turn in the courts at that time?
Thinking back on those times, twenty years later, Kutcher made the following observation: “It was not a happy time, for me personally, or for civil liberties generally. The witch-hunt became even more rabid and widespread after Eisenhower won the election in 1952. Joe McCarthy was the center of American politics for the next two years, and pretty much had his own way until mid-1954, when the U.S. Senate finally voted to censure him (he had gone `too far,' attacking not only the army establishment but the Republicans too)
Of course, it was not only a matter of what the ruling class decided to do in its own self-interest at that juncture. Kutcher was certainly keenly aware that his efforts counted for something in the final outcome of his case. “Not to have resisted with every resource at our command would have meant relying in the last analysis on the good will or rationalism of the ruling class,” Kutcher said. “That is not the kind of `realism' I ever could recommend to anyone, nor the kind that genuine radicals can accept after the experience of the United States government's role in Indochina.” So he was satisfied that he did what was right, that he would never have regained his job if he and his supporters hadn't fought for it.
Another unanswered question: What happened in the unions? Why did so many union officials desert Kutcher?
The sad fact is that the union movement during World War II was subjected to government controls, and enactment of the Taft- Hartley Law in 1947 codified and extended those controls. Under these conditions the unions became highly bureaucratized. Bureaucrats do not risk their soft jobs for the sake of principles. Kutcher came to the conclusion that “the unions were in a state of transition, starting around the time my case began.” He said he hadn't sensed this in 1949 but it was clear in 1954, during his second tour. “Bureaucratization of the unions made enormous strides in those five years,” he said. “That, and the impact of McCarthyism, had frightened some and served as a pretext for others.” An examination of letters between Kutcher and top officials of the CIO, an appendix in the expanded second edition of his book, confirms this judgment.
Kutcher's defense of socialist principles did not end when he won back his government job. After he retired from that job he took up the work of explaining those principles, what it means to defend them, and how best to do this. That was the purpose of the 1973 edition of his book. He participated in the making of a documentary film of his case while still working at Pathfinder Press. The film (released in 1981) took his book's title, The Case of the Legless Veteran. This, too, was a defense and exposition of the socialist principles he espoused as a youth. He thought by that time, after all his experience of nearly half a century in the Trotskyist movement, that he could face any challenge. But even then another challenge, both personal and political, was still to come. It came from an unexpected source and took a more bizarre form than any he had ever before encountered.
In 1983 a new generation of leaders in the Socialist Workers Party, headed by the national secretary Jack Barnes, charged Kutcher with “hitting a comrade” at a party membership meeting (a charge that was later demonstrated to be patently false based on the testimony of the individual allegedly hit) and expelled him on the grounds that he refused to appear when summoned to stand trial (when in fact he was ill and unable to appear, and had merely asked for a delay). Kutcher was not sure at the time what the real reason for his expulsion was, but it soon became clear that he was deemed to be a Trotskyist when the party leadership was seeking to establish its own anti-Trotskyist credentials. Kutcher's summary expulsion—the renowned defender of Trotskyism unceremoniously kicked out of the Socialist Workers Party—was certainly one means to this end. Or so this latest gang of anti-Trotskyists thought.
At age 71 Kutcher was forced again to defend his socialist principles. He responded in the only way he knew, by demanding an open hearing. In his appeal to the 1984 national convention Kutcher explained in detail the circumstances of the charges against him and the manner of his expulsion, a task imposed on him because his tormentors refused to provide documents of the charges and mock trial proceedings. He exposed their antisocialist concepts of “loyalty” and “discipline.”
In this situation it soon developed that Kutcher had not been singled out as a lone example. A list of comrades who remained loyal to Trotskyism had been prepared and Kutcher happened to be one of the first purged, soon to be followed by more than a hundred others. Kutcher was among those victims of the purge who organized the Fourth Internationalist Tendency (FIT) as one current in the U.S. Trotskyist movement and began publishing the Bulletin in Defense of Marxism.
Kutcher's closest friend and literary collaborator in the SWP was George Breitman, also one of the most widely known exponents of Trotskyism and also a founder of the FIT. Breitman died in 1986, a terrible blow to Kutcher. He determined that a proper tribute was necessary, and financed the publication of the book, A Tribute to George Breitman—Writer, Organizer, Revolutionary. In that book Kutcher's contribution tells about their friendship and collaboration of 50 years. He said Breitman helped him on two critical occasions, “as no one else could.” The first of these was when he was fired by the VA and the other was when he was kicked out of the SWP. “Shortly after my expulsion from the SWP,” he remembered, “George was also expelled. We had something new in common after that. George was accused by the dishonest and underhanded SWP leaders of 'disloyalty.' It reminded me of the charges made against me by the U.S. government, also charges of 'disloyalty.'”
During the remaining years of his life Jim Kutcher spent his time caring for his personal needs as an invalid, and reading. He never gave up his hope that somehow the SWP could be won back to Trotskyism and the traitors in the leadership exposed.
His body finally gave out a few days before his 76th birthday, December 26, 1988. He was taken to the intensive care unit of the Veterans Hospital in Brooklyn. There he lingered in semiconsciousness until pronounced dead February 10. In his struggle with death, as in life, James Kutcher refused to give up.
In the wake of expelling the four oppositionists from the SWP National Committee, the Barnes leadership moved in to finish the job in such places as California and Minnesota.
California was seen as an SWP “trouble spot”—the home of independent-minded, critical-thinking, sometimes opinionated and volatile old party veterans—going back to the time of the so-called “dual center” established by Cannon in the 1950s. San Francisco was home of expelled NC oppositionist Nat Weinstein, and had been a center of strength for his tendency before the 1981 national convention; it also contained a significant cluster of supporters of the Breitman-Lovell-Bloom current, another existing in Los Angeles.
The “Twin Cities” of Minneapolis-St. Paul had been an almost legendary stronghold of working-class Trotskyism since the 1934 general strike, when the city's dynamic Teamsters Local 544 was led by such Trotskyist stalwarts as Vincent Raymond Dunne and Carl Skoglund. Much of this tradition persisted. Minneapolis was the site of the abortive “Cannon-Trotsky Faction” and was also the home of expelled NC member Lynn Henderson. It was also a center of a substantial grouping of Breitman-Lovell-Bloom supporters led by younger but seasoned party and trade union activists such as Bill Onasch and Dave Riehle.
It should be noted that before the expulsions there was a tension between the two oppositional currents: one was eager to build an organizational alternative to the Barnes-led SWP as soon as possible; the other was inclined to give greater time and focus to the struggle for the political defeat of “Barnesism,” if possible to be accomplished inside the SWP. This was reflected later by the existence of two different organizations of expelled SWPers—Socialist Action and the Fourth Internationalist Tendency. The materials presented here are representative of this second current.
In California there was a statewide SWP convention on December 3-4, 1983, at which the two dissident currents joined together in support of a common minority resolution. Of the twenty-one party members supporting that resolution, sixteen were expelled on December 10, three were forced to resign on December 11, and two were expelled on December 17. That is, twenty-one out of twenty-one oppositionists were eliminated within two weeks of the convention. The details are provided in the report of Evelyn Sell. An SWP form letter to expellees is also reproduced here. The California expulsions were then utilized to create a “loyalty oath,” which was used to expel the Minnesota oppositionists in the manner described in the letters of protest reprinted below. This was part of a nationwide “mopping-up” operation.
Evelyn Sell served as a convention delegate from Los Angeles.
It is now clear what really happened before and during the 1983 California state convention. The call for the convention issued by the State Political Bureau became a deadly trap for those who voiced political criticisms or alternative proposals to those of the leadership.
The surface appearance before and even during most of the convention itself was of relatively democratic procedures. The minority counterresolution, “Deeds Not Words,” was published in the second discussion bulletin. One of the three signers, Michael Schreiber, was given time to present a minority report at the convention. Out of the nine articles published in the discussion bulletins, five were by minority supporters. Minority counterreports were allowed in some branches.
The state leadership responded to the effective criticisms and positive party-building proposals in the minority's counterresolution by issuing a six-page “amendment” which significantly changed the original draft resolution and provided the basis for attacks against minority supporters during branch discussions. Majority leaders and supporters avoided discussion on the political and strategical differences by falsely accusing minority supporters of being against the party's turn to industry, of being “economists” who only wanted to talk about shop floor issues, with being cowardly about “talking socialism” on the job and afraid to discuss the U.S. invasion of Grenada with fellow workers.
The atmosphere during the discussion was affected by the party leadership's reaction to the emergence of Socialist Action, a new national organization formed by members expelled from the SWP over the previous two to three years. The November 19-20 SWP National Committee plenum passed motions characterizing this group as an opponent organization hostile to the party and prohibiting any support to or collaboration with it. Plenum reports to the six California branches stressed these motions and repeated the false charges about “split actions” by party members who had expressed political differences over the last several years. The formation of Socialist Action was viewed in the context of such charges.
At the same time, plenum reporters repeatedly assured the branches that no witch-hunt would take place in the party and that members could express political differences. These assurances appeared to be valid since preconvention discussion was proceeding and differences were expressed on all areas of party work and internal party matters. A little over ten percent of the members voted for the minority resolution at the conclusion of the discussion.
The majority reports on the first day of the state convention gave no hint that a purge would soon be under way. The first report, “Defending the Party in California,” reviewed successful defense cases for SWP and YSA members and projected further campaigns to fight government and employer attacks against socialists. The report was discussed and unanimously approved by the delegates. The next three reports were given one after the other followed by discussion on all of them. The majority Political Report covered major areas of party work, defended the record of party activities over the past year, and rejected all minority proposals. The majority report “The Fight Against Imperialist War in Central America and the Caribbean” covered current events and reviewed the party's strategy and accomplishments in carrying out anti-intervention and solidarity work. After eighty-five minutes of majority reports, the minority reporter, Michael Schreiber, was allowed thirty minutes to speak.
He stressed the key themes of the strategy presented in the minority resolution, refuted the charge that the minority was against the turn to industry, outlined a general approach within the trade unions, criticized the weaknesses and inconsistencies in party antiwar work and presented an alternative approach, described his own support activities to the Greyhound strike as an example of what party members could do in such situations, and ended with comments about the need for democracy within the party. Within the context of pointing out problems in functioning democratically, the reporter made the following remarks about Socialist Action:
Is it any wonder that many of the people recently expelled from the party (and other people who were disillusioned with the abstentionist policies of our party and had dropped out) came together to form a new organization?
These people are activists and Trotskyists, trained in the SWP. And yet in the reports given to our branches from the national plenum, they have been slandered as “enemies” of the party. Never before have I heard this term “enemies” used by anyone but Stalinists, except when referring to members and agents of the ruling class.
In order to back up this characterization, it was alleged that these Trotskyists in Socialist Action distributed a leaflet which “attacked the revolutionary government of Maurice Bishop.”
Now I will read to you the sentence from the Socialist Action leaflet in question which deals with Maurice Bishop.
“The coup d'etat that overthrew the government of Maurice Bishop in Grenada sharply underscores the need for institutions of workers' democracy at all levels in the struggle for liberation.”
That's all! Comrades, that statement is true! A faction within the New Jewel Movement which had a majority of the central committee took over, threw the head of state into prison, demobilized the militia, murdered Maurice Bishop, murdered several cabinet members, murdered scores of supporters—can anyone in this room say that such actions represent workers' democracy?
This statement offers criticism along the same lines as Fidel Castro, who criticizes the Coard grouping among the Grenadian revolutionaries. In no way is that statement an attack on the policies of Maurice Bishop or the Grenadian revolution. In fact, the whole purpose of the leaflet was to express the solidarity of the Socialist Action group with Grenada, and their determination to help build a movement against U.S. intervention in Central America and the Caribbean. [Taken from a text of the report circulated by Socialist Action.]
In the discussion that followed all three reports, most of the majority delegates spoke about very positive experiences and achievements in carrying out party campaigns and activities. Several majority delegates sharply criticized the minority reporter's remarks about Socialist Action.
One minority delegate, Marc Rich, commenting on serious problems regarding party democracy, used the example that the Los Angeles branch was told not to talk to members of Socialist Action—a prohibition he felt was not appropriate.
The second day of the convention began with the summary by Michael Schreiber. He answered majority delegates' remarks about NBIPP, party election campaigns, antiwar work, union activity, Greyhound strike support, and the way the Lenin study classes were carried out in the SWP He also defended his own views about Socialist Action:
In San Francisco and Oakland the party has expelled virtually its whole cadre of trade unionists who to any degree were leaders in the trade union movement.
That's one reason why the Socialist Action grouping was able to move so rapidly into the top leadership of the Greyhound strike support here in Northern California. The other reason is their fighting program, which is also the program of the SWP
Jan G. once again laments that Comrade Jeff Mackler, “one week after leaving the party helps draft a leaflet which puts the blame on the revolutionary leadership of Grenada.” I don't know how Jan knows it was Jeff Mackler that may have drafted the leaflet, but in any case I thought I had put this slander to rest. It seems clear that the New Jewel Movement party was able to take on, for most purposes, governmental power in Grenada. The mass organizations had little real power. But Maurice Bishop was not “to blame” for this situation. (Besides, he and his supporters were a minority in the New Jewel Movement.) Blame is a strong word, and the Socialist Action leaflet doesn't place blame. It only affirms the need for socialist democracy. That's all it says.
As for Jeff Mackler, if you turned on the radio in the week after the invasion, you probably would have heard his voice on one of a number of stations defending Grenada. Yesterday, he was one of the speakers at the labor support rally for the Greyhound strikers, along with Sylvia Weinstein, who gave the fund pitch, and Don Harmon, who gave the main organizational speech from the support committee. I think we should stop defaming these people in Socialist Action and find ways to work with them.
In his summary for the majority political report, Sam Manuel opened the attack against the minority which would culminate in the mass expulsion in California and around the country. He claimed that Schreiber had “solidarized with Socialist Action by calling them 'Trotskyists' and `activists.”' Manuel hammered away at the position taken on Socialist Action by the NC—that it is an opponent organization which only seeks the destruction of the party and YSA.
Under the “State Organization Report,” further groundwork was laid for the witch-hunt about to take place. The reporter spoke briefly about the organization and functioning of the State Committee and state finances, but most of the report was devoted to a lengthy attack against Socialist Action, and to political differences in the party nationally going back to 1979.
Immediately after this report and before any discussion, the presiding committee presented motions to refer to the incoming State Committee the remarks made about SA by Michael Schreiber and Marc Rich. The presiding committee spokesman said this “raises questions on their willingness to abide by decisions of the National Committee” and “challenged the party's right to regulate relations” with other organizations. The minority reporter was accused of “a conscious attempt to reopen discussion on decisions of the National Committee,” and Marc Rich was accused of asserting that only he, and not the party, determines his relations with other political groups and with opponents of the SWP.
At this point the focus of the convention shifted to the accusations against the two minority delegates. Marc Rich clearly stated he had always abided by party discipline and would continue to do so. He pointed out that it was no breach of discipline or loyalty to get up in front of a convention and state an opinion although, as he explained, he had phrased his feelings in a heated and exaggerated manner. Michael Schreiber defended his right to state his personal opinions in front of the delegates in accord with norms long practiced in the SWP.
The other three seated minority delegates attempted to take the floor, but the chair recognized only one from San Francisco who had not previously spoken under any agenda point. The minority delegate from Oakland had been called on the first day of the convention. I had been called on during the discussion on the plenum report on Grenada—when the convention was officially adjourned and discussion was opened for all SWP members. The significance of this pattern of allowing a minority delegate to take the floor only once became clear after the convention when we were charged with “failing to take the floor....” This was a true Catch-22 since we had to be called on by the chair in order to take the floor and were deliberately not recognized.
The newly elected State Committee quickly acted on the motions to refer. First, it instructed branch leaderships to meet with each member who voted for the minority resolution and ask them to immediately agree to the following statement:
The minority resolution “Deeds Not Words: Draft Counterresolution” contained no position on, or declaration of support for, the sect Socialist Action. As a supporter of that resolution, I repudiate the disloyal actions of the entire seated minority delegation, Marc Rich, Hayden Perry, Evelyn Sell, Paul Colvin, Michael Schreiber, and Ralph Forsyth in failing to take the floor before the SWP California state convention and disassociating themselves from the split statements made by minority delegate Marc Rich and the minority reporter Michael Schreiber.
When comrades asked questions or expressed the desire to see a written report or hear a tape recording of what was said at the convention, they were told to accept the leadership's report as the only true and correct one. Under these conditions, agreement with the repudiation statement involved a breach of SWP organizational principles. Without any documentation or discussion or opportunity to hear other points of view, members were required to state political agreement with the leadership's characterizations of SA, the behavior of the minority delegates, and the remarks by Schreiber and Rich. Any hesitation in fully agreeing with the leadership's version resulted in charges of disloyalty to the party. Up to now, loyalty to the party has always been defined in terms of actions, that is, members were required to carry out majority decisions—members were never required to agree with decisions or positions taken by the majority or leadership bodies. It is unprecedented in the SWP to equate blind acceptance of the leadership's judgment with loyalty to the party.
The minority delegates were not called into any meeting but received charges of “disloyal actions in failing to take the floor at the SWP California state convention to disassociate (herself/himself) from the split statements made by minority delegate Marc Rich and the minority reporter Michael Schreiber.”
Six days after the convention, the State Committee heard the charges and, acting on the basis of its own unilateral interpretation of events, expelled every minority delegate who had been seated at any time during the convention (six in all) and expelled ten minority supporters who had not agreed to repudiate the six delegates. None of the charged members were present at the December 10 trial; most didn't even know it was taking place. Statements from the accused members were not solicited or, in some cases, members were told statements were not allowed. (When I protested this procedure, a State Committee member told me members had trial rights only at the branch level; members charged by higher bodies had no rights.)
When the report on this mass expulsion was given at the Los Angeles branch meeting the following night, three minority supporters protested the actions of the State Committee and said they could not, in principle, agree to such a repudiation statement. On the spot they were told that everyone who refused to agree with the statement would be charged and expelled along with the others. Under these circumstances they were forced to resign.
The State Committee then checked more carefully and “discovered” two more minority supporters who had not agreed to the repudiation. These two were expelled by the State Political Bureau on December 17.
The branch members who voted for the minority resolution and for delegates had no control over what those delegates said or did at the convention. Delegates to SWP conventions are not “instructed,” that is, delegates are elected on the basis of agreement with the general line of a resolution, but each delegate is free to speak and vote at the convention as they consider appropriate. Serious consideration of convention discussion can, at times, result in delegates being convinced of another position and changing their votes. Otherwise, there would be no point in people spending their time and money to travel to conventions; political positions could be determined simply by polling the branches.
An SWP convention is—or should be—a true collective discussion and decision-making body. It is a violation of this basic aspect of party norms to make branch members responsible for remarks made by delegates they elected. It is a violation of SWP organizational principles to demand that members repudiate opinions stated by other members in the course of an internal party meeting where democratic discussion is supposed to prevail.
It is also a violation of SWP convention proceedings and organizational principles to demand that delegates take the floor to repudiate each other. It is completely contrary to SWP norms to hold delegates who vote for the general line of a report or resolution responsible for every specific formulation used by the reporter. The vote is taken on “general line” exactly because this allows members to register major agreement and, at the same time, permits particular differences or reservations over phrases, specific points, and even whole sections of a resolution or oral report. If members had to agree with every word and sentence before they could vote for a position SWP conventions would be endless bickering sessions.
In branch discussions for the 1981 SWP national convention, I expressed differences, doubts, and questions about a section of the majority's draft political resolution, but I voted for the general line of that document. The majority accepted this as perfectly appropriate, and nobody criticized or challenged my voting for general line while holding certain differences. Two years later, however, this norm was suddenly replaced with a new one: voting for a general line automatically assumed agreement with every single word spoken by the reporter and all other supporters of that line. I voted for a general line in 1983 the same way I voted for the general line of the majority in 1981—with some differences on particular points and statements.
I and three other minority delegates were not accused of any disloyal actions during the convention itself where we could have answered such accusations in front of the membership. We were not allowed to clarify anything after the convention was over. We were not called in for special meetings with branch leaderships nor permitted to be at the trial where we were found guilty.
In order to create an atmosphere of hysteria within the party to justify the sweeping purge of oppositionists across the country, the California State Political Committee and the SWP Political Bureau made false assertions about “disloyal actions” and “a split perspective of political support for and intent to collaborate with Socialist Action....” The real facts are: there was nothing in the remarks by Schreiber about SA which changed the general political line of the counterresolution. Even the State Political Committee admits that the minority resolution contained no “disloyal” or “split” statements. In addition, the minority delegation did not function as a caucus either before or during the convention. There was no caucus meeting to elect a reporter, no caucus discipline, no caucus collaboration on the summary, no caucus consultation on remarks made by delegates during the convention. The minority delegates heard Schreiber's report at the exact same time as the majority delegates: at the state convention on December 3. The minority delegation did not discuss, approve, or support any kind of split perspective in regard to Socialist Action or any other organization.
All SWP members will need to think through the character and purpose of party conventions in light of what happened in California. A national convention was announced for the summer of 1984. A huge question mark hangs over preconvention and convention discussion and voting. Will comrades be free to express views honestly and openly or will they be victimized for any deviation from the official line of the leadership?
California Socialist Workers Party
1184 Broadway
Seaside, Calif. 93955
December 14, 1983
Dear ____________
At its meeting of December 10, 1983, the State Committee of the California Socialist Workers Party passed the following motions:
Based on the actions of the entire minority delegation to the California SWP State Convention, to find Paul Colvin, Ralph Forsyth, Hayden Perry, Marc Rich, Michael Schreiber, and Evelyn Sell guilty of disloyal actions in failing to take the floor before the convention to repudiate the split statements made by minority delegate Marc Rich and the minority reporter Michael Schreiber to the effect of declaring support to and intent to collaborate with the sect Socialist Action.
This conduct is in violation of the motions passed by the SWP national committee at its meeting of November 16-21. The motions state in part, “Membership in, affiliation to, support to or unauthorized collaboration with Socialist Action or any of its members is incompatible with membership in the SWP The national committee and the Political Committee are the only bodies empowered to authorize any such collaboration.”
This conduct is also in violation of the SWP Constitution Article VIII, Section 1, which states, “All decisions of the governing bodies of the party are binding upon the members and subordinate bodies of the party.” And also section 8, which states, “Political collaboration with non-members of the party must be formally authorized by the party committee having jurisdiction.”
Having found you guilty of disloyal actions the State Committee voted to expel you from the Socialist Workers Party.
Sincerely,
Sam Manuel
for the State Committee
To the Members of the Twin Cities Branch
Dear Comrades:
By now you have heard of our expulsion from the Socialist Workers Party by the Political Committee on charges of “disloyalty.” We reject those charges and reaffirm our loyalty to the revolutionary party we dedicated our lives to build.
We were expelled from the SWP not because we committed acts of disloyalty but because we refused to participate in the procedure used by the Political Committee to sniff out and victimize loyal party dissidents. To charge someone with disloyalty for refusing to repudiate others for something they did or did not do is spurious and unprincipled. It is a violation of communist integrity to demand a repudiation of the actions and views of others on command as a price for membership in a revolutionary party. It never has been so before in the SWP. It has never been necessary or possible to safeguard the loyalty and centralism of the party by demanding self-abasing rituals such as those presented to us.
Just the opposite is true. This method is drawn from the arsenal of Stalinism, the antithesis of revolutionary Marxism. The parallel between this demand and the demands placed on the Minneapolis communists in 1928 that they approve the expulsions of Cannon, Shachtman, and Abem as a price for continued membership in the Communist Party is plain to anyone.
What is inevitably also involved in this method is the ultimate demand for renunciation of one's own political views, in a demonstrative public way, as a price for membership. The conclusion that will be drawn and is being drawn is that political views at variance with those of the leadership will of themselves lead to disloyal action. Therefore, renunciation of all dissident and minority views is an a priori test of the capacity to be a loyal member. This is why it was a matter of principle to have rejected the demand that was placed upon us regardless of what our opinions were of the events in question.
We are appealing our expulsions, which we feel are unjust. We have already contacted the party leadership requesting that we be allowed to participate, under the direction of the party leadership, of course, in such party-building activities as Militant sales, the election campaign, forums, and PRDF. We think we have something to contribute in these areas and sincerely hope our request will be granted.
We are enclosing the trial statement submitted by Bill Onasch, which summarizes the reasons why we declined to sign the loyalty oath repudiation demanded of us by the Political Committee.
We believe the charge of “disloyalty” is false and unjustified. We are being expelled for our political views, which have evolved over the past two years. We belonged to no tendency—membership tendencies being currently banned in the party by decision of the National Committee. But we have been outspoken in our opposition to the revisions in party positions undertaken by the NC since the 1981 convention without the participation of the party membership.
We have defended the theory of permanent revolution against the new, false counterposition of Lenin to Trotsky. We have upheld our movement's traditional program for workers' democracy both for the workers' states and for the revolutionary party against the new theory of “revolutionary centralism.” We have indicated our ideological support for the positions of the Fourth Internationalist Caucus (the Bloom-Lovell tendency in the NC suspended at the August plenum) on Castroism and the “New Leninist International.” And we have fought to maintain the Cannon methods of party building against the new “norms” constantly being introduced into the party. Our expulsion is part of the ruthless drive of the NC to force out the Trotskyist cadre who stand in the way of their total revision of our basic theory, program, strategy, and organizational methods.
This purge is not limited to the Twin Cities but is sweeping the party. We have confirmed that the following comrades in other areas have been expelled on charges identical to ours: George Breitman, Dorothea Breitman, George Weissman, Sarah Lovell, Paul Siegel, Evan Siegel, Naomi Allen, Alan Wald, and Jean Tussey. We are sure there are many more.
Despite the crippling blows to the party's program and cadre dealt by the NC's revisions and purges, we still consider the SWP to be a revolutionary party. We will fight to be reinstated into the party and demand the reinstatement of all others unjustly expelled. We believe all revolutionists in this country should be in the U.S. sympathizing section of the Fourth International—the Socialist Workers Party.
We urge all party members who support our views—or who oppose our expulsion—to remain in the party as loyal party builders. We further urge that at the appropriate time you raise your voice against the revisions, against the purges, and support our reinstatement to the party.
To organize our political work during our forced separation from the party, we have established a branch of expelled members. This is not an attempt to form a rival party but an organizational form (temporary, we hope) imposed upon us by our expulsion.
We wish all the comrades well and look forward to the day when we will be reunited with you in the Socialist Workers Party.
Comradely,
Bill Onasch
Christine Frank Onasch
Dave Riehle
Gayle Swann
Bill Peterson
Melanie Benson
Ralph Schwartz
January 2, 1984
Political Committee
Socialist Workers Party
Dear Comrades:
I regret and must protest your decision to conduct my trial at a time and place ensured to exclude me from participation. I totally reject Comrade Stone's charges against me of “disloyalty” and “violation of the NC motion regarding collaboration with Socialist Action.” These charges have no substance or merit whatever and should be dismissed.
These malevolent charges hinge solely upon my declining to sign a statement “...[repudiating] the action of the entire minority delegation to the California State Convention in refusing to repudiate the split statements of minority reporter Michael Schreiber....” My reasons for refusing to lend my name to this statement are several.
First of all, my repudiation would imply that I have some responsibility for persons or events at the California State Convention. I, of course, accept no responsibility for any conduct or inaction by anyone at all—majority or minority—at the California convention. I do not know Michael Schreiber and, to my knowledge, have never communicated with him about anything whatever at any time. I have not spoken with any California comrades-either majority or minority—about the convention before, during, or after the convention.
I not only have no responsibility for the California convention, I have no reliable facts about that convention. Other than the brief article which appeared in the Militant Comrades Stone's and Sheppard's synopsis delivered to me is my only source of knowledge. During the PC's reorganization of our branch last summer, I got some firsthand experience with the kind of one-sided, self-serving reports given by these comrades. I would never lend my name to a repudiation of other comrades solely on the basis of remarks by Comrades Stone and Sheppard.
The very concept of demanding that comrades on a factionally selected hit list repudiate actions they have no responsibility for or information about is repugnant. All proportions guarded, this reminds me of the expulsion of a number of Minnesota communists fifty-five years ago for refusing to repudiate Cannon without knowing the facts. I don't compare myself to Dunne or Skoglund, but I try to learn from them. Those communists who bravely faced expulsion rather than condemn comrades on orders from others represent the continuity I identify with—not the Lovestoneite higher bodies that booted them out for “disloyalty.”
I made it clear to Comrades Stone and Sheppard that if anyone was taking the position that party members could collaborate with Socialist Action without approval from the party, that I thought that was unacceptable. I, of course, believe the party has the right—and as a Leninist organization, the obligation - to regulate its members' relations with other political groups. I have always abided by that principle, and I have supported disciplinary action against those who have consciously violated that principle in the past.
I was told this was not sufficient. I must sign the prepared statement because we are dealing with “splitters.” It is, of course, evident that a split in the SWP is in progress. I am opposed to this split, among other reasons, because the political differences in the party and the Fourth International have not yet been clarified. An unclear split is an unprincipled split.
Without knowing all the facts, and while certainly not endorsing all the positions and actions of those who have been expelled and who have resigned, I nevertheless feel the fundamental political and moral responsibility for the split rests upon the present National Committee. The drastic changes in fundamental party positions coupled with organizational measures such as postponing the convention, prohibiting tendencies for the international discussion, and numerous questionable expulsions have created the conditions for a split.
On the branch floor, during plenum report discussions, I have called for slowing down and reversing the split trend. I believe there should be a moratorium on expulsions and resignations, and all those who have been expelled for political reasons should be readmitted to the party providing they are prepared to function in a disciplined manner. We should then have an open, thoroughgoing discussion to see if the differences can be resolved in a common organization or are so fundamental they justify an organizational split.
I was told that this position on the split was inadequate. I must demonstrate my loyalty by signing the prepared statement repudiating the “splitters.” I don't believe “loyalty” is established by signing loyalty oaths under pain of expulsion. I have a record of words and deeds extending over twenty years by which comrades can judge my loyalty to this party.
A particularly malodorous part of the charge against me cites me with “violation of the NC motion regarding collaboration with Socialist Action.” I had stated early in my “interview” that I was not collaborating with Socialist Action, was not contemplating collaboration with that organization, and certainly would not collaborate with any non-members without approval from the appropriate party body. I demanded to know why this was included in the charge and asked for specific allegations of how I had violated the NC motion. Finally, Comrade Sheppard admitted there were no specific allegations of indiscipline being made against me. Through some logical construction understandable only to members of higher bodies my refusal to repudiate the California comrades puts me in violation of the NC motion regarding collaboration with Socialist Action.
If, as I fear, it is reported to the party membership that I have been expelled for violating the NC motion, then this verges on deliberate dishonesty.
After the latest plenum, it was reported to us that there would be no purges, no suspect lists. We would discover the splitters by watching to see who builds the party and who doesn't. That seemed reasonable. During this past period, as over the past twenty years, I have worked to build our party. I defy anyone to contradict that. My companion, Christine Frank Onasch, who faces a charge identical to mine, has worked even harder on party-building tasks.
This current purge has nothing to do with loyalty, collaboration with Socialist Action, or party building. I, and evidently numerous others, are being expelled because of our political views. And this is a far greater crime against the party than any of the fraudulent charges leveled against me.
The timing of this purge is hardly coincidental. In three weeks our branch has scheduled our first Tasks and Perspectives discussion since we were reorganized by the PC. Less than a month after the T&P is our Minnesota State Convention. A few weeks after that should be the opening of the long-delayed preconvention discussion.
Obviously, you do not feel confident about debating those of us who remain committed to a Trotskyist program and the Cannon methods of party building. You seek to resolve your political crisis through crass organizational measures. You hope to appear tough, but many will see through your desperate purge and will understand that you, like most bullies, are motivated by political cowardice.
I implore you to pull back from this purge while you still can. Subordinate your factional concerns and demonstrate responsible leadership to live up to the standards of the party you were elected to lead. Stop the purge. Reverse the split!
Comradely,
/s/Bill Onasch
January 3, 1984
To the Political Committee:
I am innocent of the charge of disloyalty which has been brought against me. I am a loyal member of the Socialist Workers Party and am an active participant and builder of the party. I am not a “splitter.”
To charge someone with disloyalty for refusing to repudiate others for something they did or did not do is spurious and unprincipled. Selectively making certain “suspect” comrades take oaths or sign statements is not a procedure which is compatible with Leninist norms of functioning. Leaving aside my personal loathing and disgust for such methods, I could not in good conscience as a Bolshevik and member of a Leninist party give credence to this action by participating in it because it is totally inappropriate and alien to our movement. Extracting loyalty oaths or giving tests represents another new norm which is being bureaucratically instituted from the top and selectively applied without any consultation with the membership.
In spite of the fact that I stated my disagreement before the Political Committee subcommittee and the branch organizer with the remarks of minority reporter Michael Schreiber in regard to collaboration with Socialist Action and reaffirmed my support to the responsibility and obligation of the party to regulate relations with other organizations, I was charged with disloyalty because I refused to make a repudiation of Schreiber's statements for the reasons stated above. I implore the Political Committee to reject this method of sniffing out and victimizing loyal party dissidents.
What is also disturbing about this affair is that my trial will not take place under the scrutiny of the party ranks here in the Twin Cities branch where comrades know me as a consistent party activist, but in New York, under the auspices of the Political Committee. I understand that the constitution provides for the right of higher bodies to conduct trials. However, in this case, I must protest the use of this constitutional provision since I will be unable to attend my own trial. I feel that it is more than expediency and practical concerns which have prompted the central leadership of the party to place this particular series of trials within the jurisdiction of the Political Committee. I believe that the party leadership has done so out of the fear that these trials simply will not wash before the ranks for two reasons.
First, like myself and others who have been charged, many comrades may not find acceptable the manner in which the charges of disloyalty have been brought against us. Many party members would undoubtedly see that those of us who have been charged have been given two choices by having been set up either to violate long-standing Leninist principles of functioning where loyalty is judged by how one actively builds the party rather than by oaths and tests or to capitulate to the bureaucratic methods of the party's central leadership in order to save our membership. I believe many comrades would see the problem of those charged in this manner as being stuck between a rock and a hard place and would consider these trials unjustified and factionally motivated. Most importantly, they would recognize that this method is not a proper way to defend the revolutionary party.
Second, to charge people like myself and my companion Bill O. with disloyalty when we have both made it clear to the SWP our intention to remain within and actively build the party would be difficult to sell to the party ranks. Bill and I have been loyal builders of the party all along regardless of any disagreements we may have because we both feel that the Socialist Workers Party is the revolutionary party in the United States, that this is where revolutionary Marxists belong and that there is no other organization for us. Since we have made this very clear to our fellow comrades in the Twin Cities branch, how then could they see fit to expel us for disloyalty? Thus we are to be tried in New York in absentia.
I feel it is necessary to pose before the Political Committee two simple questions: why is this happening and what will the end result be? Since the central leadership of the party has decided to interrogate all comrades who are considered to be “suspicious”—that is, supposed adherents of one or another political tendency—and to charge them with disloyalty if they fail the test, the ramifications of the subsequent trials are much broader than what happens to Chris Frank's membership. It is very likely that the end result will be the expulsion of most of the current minority in the SWP.
It is difficult to believe that the central leadership of the SWP is too frightened to go through a debate over the disputed issues in the party when all along they have been saying how insignificant the minority is. It appears now that all of this has merely been a lot of bravado and fourflushing on the part of the party leadership to convince the ranks that the ideas of the minority aren't worth giving a hearing. In reality, the minority in the SWP is more like the Aesopian gnat on the bull—small but very annoying and bothersome as it buzzes about. That is why a major purge is now under way through these trials.
Throughout its deliberations in these trials the Political Committee must consider the consequences of the expulsion of the party minority. Once there are no more dissenting views within the SWP, the danger of the party becoming a sterile vacuum becomes very real. The party needs a minority to prevent a situation of complete homogeneity in terms of ideas being discussed and debated—there being a difference, of course, between the homogeneity of ideas among the ranks and the homogeneity in program which is absolutely essential. Historically our movement has arrived at some of its most important political conclusions as a result of the persistent struggle of a minority in trying to convince and win over the party ranks. The analysis of the degeneration of the Russian Revolution and the subsequent rise of the Stalinist bureaucracy by the Left Opposition and the character of the East European workers' states are two examples. As long as a minority conducts itself properly in a disciplined manner and applies a patient and pedagogic approach with the good of the party in mind, it can play a healthy and useful role. A minority can be constructive in the party-building process if it proceeds with the confidence that it can win the party ranks. As Farrell Dobbs taught us, “If you proceed on the basis of reason, if you try in a responsible, loyal, and disciplined way, using the power of ideas and the force of argument to convince people, if you are right and the party is wrong, then the party will rectify itself.” This has certainly been the intention of myself and Bill O. and no doubt others like us who have remained consistent party builders while holding dissident views.
A growing tendency can be observed in the party today toward dalliance as opposed to a healthy doubting and skepticism. Whenever the central leadership of the party hands the membership a new programmatic revision, be it rejection of permanent revolution or the newfound obstacle of the labor aristocracy, the party ranks immediately become infatuated with the idea rather than approach it with serious questioning and testing out as a trained scientist would do, since as Marxists and revolutionists, scientists and practitioners are what we are. One can ask, where is the thinking machine Comrade Barnes says the party must become? I fear it is rusting away in some dusty storeroom. The party ranks are forgetting that Marxism, although it is not a dogma, like any science, does have its conservative aspect in that it possesses a body of doctrine and theory which has been put to the test through practice and has been proven correct and applicable in the real world. Many comrades no longer are in the habit of taking what they are currently being told and seeing how it measures up to what they have been taught in the past. We all know that the programmatic acquisitions of our movement were not obtained easily but were fought for over many decades of struggle and should not be rejected so lightly. I believe that the presence of the party minority in a debate will help comrades to sharpen these skills and begin anew to apply the methods of Marxism in strengthening our program.
I am sorry to say that if the party minority is unjustly expelled for disloyalty what will be left will be a single-minded body of people who have stopped thinking for the good of the party and accept whatever their leadership tells them. A party of hand-raisers is no party at all, and it is a far cry from a well-tuned thinking machine. This is not to say that there will not be many good people left in the party who are sincere and dedicated to the socialist future of humanity. However, today many of the party ranks consist, on the one hand, of a large layer of enthusiastic revolutionary-minded youth who unfortunately have been quite miseducated. These precious young fighters should not go to waste. On the other hand, there are the older cadre well grounded in Marxist theory and experience in the mass movements who should know better than to accept the leadership's revisions without question but have been lured by the fantastic promise of a fusion with the Castroist current when there is no principled programmatic basis for it at this time. For this reason, I feel that to place the minority outside of the SWP would be a great loss to our movement since we have a positive contribution to make and are quite willing to do that both in terms of party building and in the formulation of the SWP's program.
What is at stake here in these trials being conducted by the Political Committee is the future of the revolutionary party in the United States. As Cannon said, “A factional struggle is a test of leadership.” I hope that the Political Committee does not fail this test. So far, the central leadership of the party is not doing too well. Rather than using factional struggle to aid in the party-building process, it is using the political differences with the aid of slander campaigns and bureaucratic maneuvers to split and liquidate the Socialist Workers Party. This approach is unprincipled and gutless and will only reap history's condemnation.
I am a strong adherent of Cannon's approach to party building. I firmly believe that there are no shortcuts or get-rich-quick schemes and that there is no substitute for patience and hard work. That is how I judge the performance of the party leadership, my fellow comrades, and myself as well. Again, I am sorry to say that the central leadership of the party has not measured up. One has in mind the ludicrous picture of Jack Barnes breathlessly pacing the floor of the penthouse at West Street nervously awaiting that fateful telegram from Havana offering the franchise on the New International. This will never happen as long as revolutionary Marxists do not live up to our historic responsibility to not only unconditionally defend the Cuban revolution but to also teach to the Castroist leadership the elements of Marxist program and theory which are not objectively part of this revolutionary current's political heritage. This is absolutely essential if a real convergence is to take place. It will never happen by ignoring and glossing over the basic weakness of the Castroist current or by throwing out the Trotskyist program in order to eliminate any embarrassing obstacles. No. Any fusion with the Castroist current must take place on a principled basis. I say this to set the record straight so that you know for what I am really being threatened with expulsion—not for disloyalty but for Trotskyism.
In conclusion, the possibility of the nuclear annihilation of humanity by imperialism makes the threatened liquidation of the Socialist Workers Party a disaster of potentially tragic proportions. However, revolutionary Marxists have been faced with disaster and tragedy before and have gone on to struggle with even greater determination. If I and others in the party minority are expelled for disloyalty, I do not intend to weep but to continue fighting.
Fraternally,
/s/Christine Frank Onasch
January 3, 1984
Political Committee
Socialist Workers Party
Dear Comrades,
I decline to sign the statement repudiating the actions of the minority at the recent California state convention. I reject the entire method involved in presenting an ultimatum of this sort as alien to our movement.
Repudiation contains a clear implication of accepting responsibility. I accept no responsibility for the actions of the California minority. Consequently, it is totally inappropriate to demand that I repudiate their actions.
I reject the clear implication that I need special certification of my loyalty to the Socialist Workers Party in order to remain a member.
I reject the star chamber procedure that resulted in my being placed on a list of suspect party members who must be given security clearances.
I reject the charge that I am in violation of the NC motion regarding collaboration with Socialist Action.
Since I was a supporter of the majority political resolution at the last party convention in 1981, and since I have been charged with no act of disloyalty or indiscipline in fifteen years of membership, it is evident that the sole basis for my name being on this list is those political views I have expressed that have been at variance with those of the current party leadership.
This judgment has been arrived at through a process to which I have not been privy or allowed to participate in. I have no information that these consultations were even carried on in authorized party bodies and not the result of informal discussions between individuals in local and national leadership. Whether the characterization of me was prompted by political judgment, personal malice, or mere whim, neither I nor most other party members have any direct knowledge.
Had I been asked to state my own position rather than to sign a statement, in other words, to express myself politically rather than mechanically, I would have replied as follows:
My position on relations with non-members is clear and unequivocal. I support the right and obligation of all authorized party bodies to direct the political activities of those members under their jurisdiction, including their political relations with non-members and their right and obligation to take disciplinary action against those who violate this norm. I have complied with and intend to continue to comply with all decisions of authorized party bodies as governed by the SWP constitution, the 1965 resolution on organizational norms, and all other relevant decisions, including the NC motion on relations with Socialist Action. I reject the actions of any and all SWP members who do not adhere to these norms. In saying this, I am merely restating and reaffirming the long-standing Leninist norms of the SWP.
I am not a supporter or adherent of Socialist Action or any other political organization other than the SWP I consider the SWP to be the only viable, authentic revolutionary Marxist organization in the U.S. and the only one I would recommend to a revolutionary-minded worker as worthy of support.
This will continue to be my position regardless of the outcome of the trial to be conducted by the Political Committee on January 5. I have no reason to believe that the outcome will be anything else other than the contrived expulsion of eight loyal members of the Twin Cities branch of the SWR
I and my comrades here belong in the ranks of the SWP, which we have devoted most of our adult lives to building. I protest the convening of this trial based on contrived charges directed toward the predetermined end of expulsion and urge that I be found not guilty of the charges.
It is a violation of communist integrity to demand a repudiation of the actions and views of others on command as a price for membership in a revolutionary party. It never has been so before in the SWP. It has never been necessary or possible to safeguard the loyalty and centralism of the party by demanding self-abasing rituals such as you propose to conduct.
Just the opposite is true. Your method is drawn from the arsenal of Stalinism, the antithesis of revolutionary Marxism. The parallel between your demand and the demands placed on the Minneapolis communists in 1928 that they approve the expulsion of Cannon, Shachtman, and Abern as a price for continued membership in the Communist Party is plain to anyone.
What is inevitably also involved in this method is the ultimate demand for renunciation of one's own political views, in a demonstrative public way, as a price for membership.
The conclusion that will be drawn and is being drawn is that political views at variance with those of the leadership will of themselves lead to disloyal action. Therefore renunciation of all dissident and minority views is an a priori test of the capacity to be a loyal member.
This is why it is a matter of principle to reject the demand you have placed on me regardless of my opinions of the actions involved.
I don't take this action lightly.
A cadre organization of revolutionary workers that can meet the tests of struggle that will be posed in the course of the American revolution can be composed only of self-reliant, independent-minded, contentious, and combative individuals. Only people of this type can impose on themselves the kind of iron discipline necessary for the fight ahead.
These are not the kinds of people you are going to keep or attract. By pursuing the methods you are currently using, you will end up with an illusory and complacent “homogeneity.”
A party membership assembled along the lines you are now pursuing will blow apart at the first serious pressure exerted on it by the ruling class.
People selected for leadership and membership on the basis of political passivity and willingness to change views on cue are not the human material out of which American Bolshevism will be constructed. It is not accidental that the founders of our party were stiff-necked rebels and militant defenders of their right to hold and defend their opinions.
What the party needs now is not bureaucratic optimism and homogeneity but frank and open discussion and debate—not for the benefit of a few dissident individuals in need of personal self-expression, but in order to grapple in a serious way with why the party, in the midst of the gravest attack on the working class in fifty years, is losing ground in terms of members, periphery, circulation of the press, and most other objective indicators of our influence. We need to answer the question of why so many party campaigns projected to reverse this trend have been dropped without explanation after rosy promises of success. Even the frantic efforts around plant gate sales have made no appreciable impact on our influence among the organized workers.
These questions have to be ruthlessly debated out regardless of whose toes are stepped on. The atmosphere inculcated in the party over the past period precludes this. Unless the current leadership is infallible, the road ahead will have to be charted through vigorous polemics, debate and, yes, even factional struggle. These are the tools that must be used to fashion the party program. They are not burglar's tools used by alien invaders to disrupt our “homogeneity” and “revolutionary unity.”
I urge the Political Committee to reverse the course the party is on by rejecting these charges, reinstating comrades expelled for political reasons, and leading the organization of a real Bolshevik debate over the course the party must take in the period ahead.
The first step is to, as Comrade Cannon said fifty-five years ago,
break down the disruptive expulsion policy, and to reinstate the expelled communists with the right to express their views in the party by normal means. The worker communist must be able to feel at home in his own party. He must have the right and feel the freedom to open his mouth and say what he thinks without being called into the office of some petty official or another like a recalcitrant workingman in a factory, and threatened with discipline. All talk of party democracy in the face of suppression on all sides and the wholesale expulsion of comrades for their views is a swindle. [Platform of the Communist Opposition, 1929]
/s/David Riehle
Twin Cities Branch
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