MIA: History: ETOL: Documents: International Communist League/Spartacists—PRS 5
Marxist Politics or Unprincipled Combinationism?
Internal Problems of the Workers Partyby Max Shachtman
Written: January 1936
Source: Prometheus Research Series No. 5 Prometheus Research Library, New York, September 2000.
Transcription/Markup/Proofing: John Heckman.
Public Domain: Encyclopedia of Trotskyism On-Line 2006/Prometheus Research Library. You can freely copy, display and otherwise distribute this work. Please credit the Marxists Internet Archive & Prometheus Research Library as your source, include the url to this work, and note the transcribers & editors above.
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The “French” Turn and Organic Unity
The minutes of the Third National Convention of the CLA, which took place in New York at the end of 1934, directly on the eve of the fusion convention which launched the Workers Party, are, unfortunately, so tersely summarized that, without further elucidation and commentary, they do not afford the reader the possibility of getting a rounded picture of how the internal developments culminated in that organization before its dissolution into the new party. On all divisions in the convention there were not just two groups casting identical ballots, as was to be expected from the two fundamentally different lines of principle that separated the League, but three. It is with this third group, as we shall see, that we must occupy ourselves in greater detail, all the more so because its origin, its political existence and position are more often than not shrouded in obscurity.
The position of the Oehler faction—formed months before the convention on a national scale and steadily nursed by an unceasing flow of factional documents—was entirely clear, more or less open and avowed, and, considering the fact that it proceeded from fundamentally wrong premises, the element of ambiguity in it was reduced pretty much to a minimum. The Oehlerites took a flatfooted stand against the so-called French turn on the grounds that the entry even of a small group or faction (what they called the “embryo party”) into a reformist or centrist organization, regardless of the principled platform upon which it entered or for which it fought once inside, was equivalent to capitulation to social democracy, the furling of the revolutionary Marxian banner, liquidation of the organized Marxian movement, and consequently objective aid to the social patriots.
Like Bauer in Germany and Lhuillier in France, they opposed the “turn” on grounds of principle. That this sectarian view was not accidental or episodic was demonstrated by the policy they advocated with regard to the fusion. The Oehler group, therefore, on the touchstone questions before the CLA—the “international” and the “national”—represented a fairly consistent, ultraleftist sectarian current. Because it was so flatly and openly avowed not only orally but in recorded documents, it was possible to deal with this group politically. Its position being clearly discernible, one could give it political support, or political opposition.
The position of the CLA leadership (Cannon, Swabeck, Shachtman)—which formed a group in New York only one month before the convention and never formed a group at all on a national scale—was equally well known and (in our opinion) even more consistent. Proceeding from conceptions already set forth on previous pages of this document, it took just as firm a stand for the entry of our French (and later our Belgian) comrades into the social democracy, as it did in favor of a policy which would make possible the speedy fusion with the AWP for the purpose of founding an independent Marxian party in the United States. And as has already been made clear, these were the two decisive questions facing the CLA during the last year of its existence.
Yet, while the great majority of the members of the League could not but support the basic position of the CLA leadership—and did in fact support it—and at the same time could not but reject the position of the Oehlerites—and did in fact reject it—the leadership found itself in the convention with a minority of the delegates supporting it. Why? Because in addition to the two groups referred to there was present a bloc of delegates representing a third group—Abern-Weber.
Another group? But a group must justify its organizational existence by a political platform. It is of the essence of political irresponsibility to form groups or factions on this, that or the other triviality, for such a course would inevitably end in the complete disintegration of the movement into light-minded cliques to whom politics is a sport. The “normal” state of the revolutionary movement is that in which each member presents his standpoint freely, and is thus able to influence other members and be influenced by them. A revolutionist does not recoil in moral horror from the prospect of forming a faction, even in a revolutionary Marxian organization, but only when political differences with other comrades, or aggregations of comrades, are so clear as to make the joint presentation of a platform or a systematic point of view, and its common, disciplined advocacy and defense, unmistakably advisable; or else, when bureaucratic repression in the organization so constricts the normal democratic channels of expression that a viewpoint can be effectively presented and defended only by the concerted action of a group.
Now, the latter situation did not obtain in the CLA and nobody made such a contention. No comrade submitted a document on his point of view which was not presented to the membership for discussion and decision (for example, the Weber and Abern statements on the French turn, a statement on the same question by Oehler, another by Glee); an internal discussion and information bulletin was at the disposal of the membership; membership discussion meetings of the broadest and most democratic kind were provided for throughout the country and, in the city where the leadership exercised the greatest political and organizational influence—New York—discussion meetings of the membership were held almost week in and week out for a solid year, at which all comrades, with all points of view, had the most ample conceivable opportunity to debate their positions; a nationwide tour was organized in which a National Committee member (Shachtman) held membership discussion meetings with every single branch in the country for the purpose of presenting the NC position and discussing contrary positions, etc., etc. What, then, was the political basis upon which Abern-Weber-Glotzer organized a faction in the CLA?
It should be borne in mind, furthermore, that factions cannot, must not be organized because they agree with the basic political line of other factions, but because they disagree with those basic lines in so clear-cut a manner as to warrant the formation of a new group.
Now we have already seen that politically the Weber faction declared its agreement with Cannon and Shachtman on the policy pursued with regard to the fusion, i.e., with one of the two main and decisive questions before the League. When our motion to endorse the NC policy on the fusion and to reject Oehler’s policy was defeated because the Weberites dared not offend their Oehlerite allies by a political characterization of their fusion position, it was nevertheless Weber who introduced the motion which endorsed “the main line of the NC in the course of the negotiations as basically correct and making possible the realization of the fusion.” To add that Weber & Co. had this or that incidental criticism to make (and what else could it be but incidental?) of our conduct during the year in connection with the fusion question does not eliminate the decisive political fact that he was compelled to endorse our main line; and what counts, or what should count with Bolshevik politicians, is precisely the main line.
On the other of the two principal and decisive questions before the League, namely, the entry of the French comrades into the SFIO, documents and oral statements again attested to a political solidarity between the NC and the Weberites. Both took an identical position on what was decisive in the dispute: they endorsed the entry of our French comrades as tactically correct, permissible from a principled standpoint, and both rejected the sterile yawpings of the international Bauerites.
Where, then, was the political difference of the Weberites with us that justified their formation of a separate faction?
If it is understood (and we shall prove it up to the hilt!) that the Weber group was not formed to fight for the French turn or against it; that it was not formed to fight for the fusion or against it; that it was formed in the dark of night without a political platform and without ever, in the two whole years of its existence, having drawn up a clear political platform; that its basis of existence is that of an unprincipled personal combination, of a clique that refuses to live down ancient and completely outlived personal and factional animosities; that its principal aim is to “smash Cannon” (and Shachtman, because of his association with the latter) without at the same time having the political courage to take over the responsibilities of leadership—if those things are understood, it becomes clear why, even without political differences, the Weberites came to the CLA convention with a faction and—O God help us!—with a “platform” on which to justify their politico-organizational existence.
And what was this “political platform?” Nothing more and nothing less than...“organic unity.” A more wretched (and at the same time thoroughly false) cloak for the organization of an unprincipled clique could hardly have been chosen. This document has no intention of developing into a treatise on the general question of “organic unity,” or even on “organic unity” insofar as it affected or affects the present situation in France. It deals with the question only to the extent required to cast some light on an otherwise unclear side of the matters under consideration.
One of the arguments advanced by those favoring entry into the SFIO was this: the movement for organic unity of the Stalinist and socialist parties has taken on serious proportions; the organic unity party can only be a reactionary party under the aegis of Stalinist ideology; in the process of effecting the organic unity of the two parties into one, the question of the program for the new party will be advanced; the Bolshevik-Leninists, on the outside looking in, will be unable to influence the direction which the workers, thinking of the new program, will take; as a constituent part of one of the parties (the SFIO), the Bolshevik-Leninists will be able to advance their revolutionary Marxian position as the programmatic base for the new party—not the new party of the Stalinist-social democratic “organic unity,” but the new revolutionary party that will be constituted in the course of the regroupment of forces.
So strong was the “organic unity” wave in France, that some of the Bolshevik-Leninists were swept away by it. They took an uncritical attitude towards it. In the early days of the discussion on the question of entry (and even later), some of our comrades took the inadmissable position of becoming advocates of the slogan, thus making themselves, willy-nilly, the objective assistants of the dupery planned by the old-line leaders. Some (notably Molinier, as per his article in the New International for July 1934) replied to the question—“Organic unity?”—with the simple, enthusiastic affirmation: “Yes!”
Neither the French Ligue nor Comrade Trotsky ever advanced such a position, despite the assertion of the Oehlerites, who condemned this untaken position, or the Weberites, who approved this untaken position. In a criticism of some of the youth comrades who also picked up this reactionary slogan—the essence of which is and cannot but be, both theoretically and concretely in the minds of the masses, a sloganized affirmation of the possibility of reformism and Bolshevism coexisting in one party—Comrade Trotsky wrote [Summer 1934]:
The aim of this text: to correct the slogan of organic unity, which is not our slogan. The formula of organic unity—without a program, without concretization—is hollow. And as physical nature abhors a vacuum, this formula fills itself with an increasingly ambiguous and even reactionary content. All the leaders of the Socialist Party, beginning with Just and Marceau Pivert and ending with Frossard, declare themselves partisans of organic unity. The most fervent protagonist of this slogan is Lebas, whose anti-revolutionary tendencies are well enough known. The Communist leaders are manipulating the same slogan with increasing willingness. Is it our task to help them amuse the workers by an enticing and hollow formula?
The exchange of open letters of the two leaderships on the program of action is the promising beginning of a discussion on the aims and the methods of the workers’ party. It is here that we should intervene vigorously. Unity like split are two methods subordinated to program and political tasks. The discussion having happily begun, we should tactfully destroy the illusory hopes in organic unity as a panacea. Our thesis: the unity of the working class can be realized only on a revolutionary basis. This basis is our own program.
If fusion takes place tomorrow between the two parties, we place ourselves on the basis of the united party in order to continue our work. In this case the fusion may have a progressive significance. But if we continue to sow the illusion that organic unity is of value as such—and it is thus that the masses understand this slogan and not as a more ample and more convenient audience for the Leninist agitators—we shall be doing nothing but making it easier for the two conjoined bureaucracies to present us, us Bolshevik-Leninists, to the masses as the great obstacle on the road of organic unity. In these conditions unity might well take place on our backs, and become a reactionary factor. We must never play with slogans which are not revolutionary by their own content but which can play a quite different role according to the political conjuncture, the relationship of forces, etc.... We are not afraid of organic unity. We state openly that the fusion may play a progressive role. But our own role is to point out to the masses the conditions under which this role would be genuinely progressive. In sum, we do not set ourselves against the current toward organic unity, which the two bureaucracies have already cornered. But while supporting ourselves on this current, which is honest among the masses, we introduce into it the critical note, the criterion of demarcation, programmatic definitions, etc.
The position of the majority of the NC of the CLA was formulated in the instructions to Cannon who was delegated to represent us at the 1934 plenum of the International Secretariat of the ICL:
...to oppose the standpoint that “organic unity” as such is a “progressive step,” and that the Bolshevik-Leninists shall become the proponents of such a slogan. That in all conditions and with all developments that may take place in the ranks of the working class or in the bureaucracies of the two principal parties, the Bolshevik-Leninists shall under all circumstances point out the illusory and reactionary character of “organic unity” as such (even under present “French conditions”) and emphasize instead unity on a revolutionary program and in a revolutionary party.
At whom was this sharp formulation directed? Not only at some of our French comrades who had made this slogan of bureaucratic dupery their own (a year and a half later, the logical conclusion of their error was manifested in the treachery of Molinier & Co.!) but at the American Weberites who took, if anything, an even falser position in the belief that...that was LD’s position. At the CLA convention we were treated to learned and mocking disquisitions on our (!) conception of “organic unity as such” and informed that outside of Kant there was no such thing. But it is precisely against a metaphysical, uncritical, tail-endist subservience to organic unity “as such” that the NC majority was compelled to polemicize. Again let us refer to the documents.
In the statement in favor of the French turn already referred to, Weber wrote on August 20, 1934: “It is no accident that this in itself would indicate the progressive character of the move for organic unity.” “This in itself” referred to the fact that “it is necessary to protect the vanguard by enlisting the support of the organizations of the working class.” And the vanguard whom this “progressive organic unity” would protect was the French Bolshevik-Leninists and Comrade Trotsky, then being hounded by French reaction! Will Abern, Glotzer, Spector and Edwards, who voted for Weber’s statement (it is reproduced in the October 1934 Internal Bulletin No. 17 of the CLA) kindly tell us where and how this “unaccidental” thing finally “indicated the progressive character of the move for organic unity”?
Further on, Weber wrote: “From our point of view it would seem that there is no other choice—that we must choose the progressive road of organic unity.... At present the interests of the French proletariat, of the French revolution, make mandatory that we hail the move for organic unity and put ourselves at its service.” (My emphasis—MS)
That is precisely what we would not consent to do! We refused to join in the enthusiastic “hailing” of organic unity which was (and is) helping to deafen the French proletariat to the call of its class interests. We refused to join in putting the Bolsheviks “at the service” of this reactionary conspiracy of Blum-Thorez bureaucracy. If they are so inclined, will Weber, Abern, Glotzer, Spector, et al. tell us if they still hold to the position they voted for in August and September?
But, it will be said, the Weberites considered the move for organic unity progressive only because the Bolshevik-Leninists would be inside it fighting for a revolutionary Marxian program for this unity. Unfortunately, they do not even have this straw to grab hold of. Let us read the famous Abern motion, to be found in the same CLA Internal Bulletin, which endorsed the Weber exposition of the question and proceeded to enlarge upon it:
Should a merger of organic unity between the Stalinist and Socialist Parties of France emerge as a result of the development of the present united front, Comrade Swabeck’s conception (cf. his statement) that it must be the deliberate object of the French Left Opposition to engineer a split in this merged party in order thereby to achieve the new Communist Party of France, in case it should gain admittance into the French Socialist Party as a bloc, is wholly false. (Oh scoundrelly Swabeck!—MS) He thereby conceives our object in endeavoring to join the French SP in the narrowest sense of a maneuver and fails to realize properly the gigantic objective factors which impel a move in this direction, and further fails to realize the revolutionary potentialities for the Left Opposition in the event of such an organic unity.... It must be recognized that, despite Stalinism and the SP, the achievement of organic unity, after a period of united front action between the SP and CP, even if temporarily excluding the Bolshevik-Leninists, would be a progressive step at this stage, representing the healthy will of the masses for revolutionary unity. (My emphasis—MS)
Do Weber-Abern-Glotzer-Spector, who voted for the Abern statement too, still support this standpoint? Do they still think that this reactionary conspiracy of the two old bureaucracies, this organic unity of social patriotism, with the Marxists expelled, is a progressive step? Do they still think that now, with our youth and party comrades expelled by Blum-Cachin, the “organic unity” would represent the “healthy will of the masses for revolutionary unity” (what sticky, liberal sentimentalism!)?
Do they still agree with the Glotzer amendment made in the name of their faction to the Cannon-Shachtman resolution on the French situation—made as late as December 1934: “The striving of our French League to bring about the regroupment of the militant workers in both parties as well as those outside these parties in a single revolutionary party through the gateway of ‘organic unity’ is a progressive step in the direction of the creation of the French party of the Fourth International”?
Do the most recent events in France confirm their prognoses and proposals, or ours? Do they still “hail” organic unity? Do they still put themselves “at its service”? Do they still propose to support as a progressive step the idea of forming the new party in France “through the gateway of ‘organic unity’”? Or is it necessary, as we declared a year and a half ago, to denounce the reactionary conspiracy of “organic unity,” as such, for what it is and “to emphasize instead unity on a revolutionary program and in a revolutionary party”?
* * * * *
To the extent, therefore, that “organic unity” was an “issue” in the CLA, the Weberites were, to put it with restraint, hopelessly muddled. But the plain truth of the matter is that it never was a real issue in the CLA. It was picked up and inflated by the Weberites in order to give them a “plank” for their platform of differences with us, in order to give them an ostensible basis for a separate faction. And conclusive evidence of how little the Weberites were really interested in the question one way or the other is supplied by this fact: At the pre-convention membership meeting in New York where resolutions were being voted on, Weber offered to withdraw entirely from the floor his resolution in favor of “organic unity” if we would consent to withdraw from our resolution the paragraph on the same subject quoted above in the instructions to delegate Cannon! Weber’s resolution had served its purpose; he had formed his ludicrous “organic unity” faction on the basis of it and had gotten a quota of delegates from New York in the proportional representation provided for by the NC voting regulations.
As is the rule with us, we had a position, we argued for it, we put it to a vote and we were not prepared to dump it down the drain just because Weber, whose position had been battered to bits in the discussion, was ready to “forget all about it.” How serious shall we say a politician is who, after fighting for three months in defense of a special position which distinguishes him from all others in the organization, ends up at the decisive moment, when positions are to be adopted (i.e., at the final voting), with a proposal to let the whole matter drop? And to let drop a matter which, in the course of the whole year of 1934, constituted the one and only point of political difference, anywhere recorded in the organization, between the Weberites and ourselves!
Anywhere recorded in the organization, we repeat. For, though the Weberites differed with us in their whole conception of the fusion, as we have showed, and were wrong on the question, they nevertheless recorded themselves finally in endorsement of our “main line.” Their only recorded political difference with us was on “organic unity” and this constituted the ostensible political basis for organizing their faction. What the real basis for the faction was, and what led it ever deeper into the morass of clique politics and combinationism, we shall see presently. For the moment, however, let us proceed to the CLA convention itself.
Blocs and Blocs: What Happened at the CLA Convention
The division at the CLA convention was as follows: The Oehlerites had 10 regularly elected delegates, organized long before the convention as a tight faction. The Weberites, also with a faction of long standing, had 13 delegates. National Committee supporters amounted to 17. Two unaffiliated delegates completed the total of 42 voting delegates. In their efforts to put us in a minority without themselves taking the responsibilities of a majority (that would be too much of a burden for people who must travel light!), the Weberites overreached themselves.
The small Davenport branch—which had been organized on the twin slogans “Up with organic unity! Down with Cannon!”—carved a niche for itself in communist history by sending a blank credential to be filled in by the Weber caucus! When this—shall we say, unusual?—procedure was challenged, the caucus leaders hastily wired Davenport which promptly wired back that what the blank space was supposed to represent was the Weberite, Comrade Ruskin—a not entirely groundless supposition. Carried away though they were by their position as a majority in combination with the Oehlerites and against us, the Weberites nevertheless bethought themselves that this was too raw and they themselves withdrew the Davenport credential. The same held true of another “delegate,” Papcun, a young militant whom they rendered virtually useless to the movement by systematically poisoning him with their methods and practices. Papcun came to the convention with a forged credential. When it was exposed by us, the Weberites, Papcun included, shamefacedly withdrew his credential and declined to contest our challenge of his right to vote. The control commission elected to look into Papcun’s action reported the “decision of the commission that Comrade Papcun be censured for credential irregularity.” For that proposal, too, the Weberites were compelled to vote, as did every other delegate to the convention. In revenge for our communist action on their two fraudulent delegates—actions they were compelled to support—they joined with the Oehlerites to unseat a delegate regularly credentialed by the San Francisco branch, who had committed the crime, not of forging a credential, but of supporting the NC!
This disgraceful overture to the convention had its counterpart at the final session in an episode which, while not edifying, throws a glaring, merciless light on those unprincipled combinationist practices that have characterized the course of the Weber caucus ever since that time.
Not being anarchists, bohemians, sewing circle habitu�s or syndicalists, we lay great store by the question of leadership. Without a leadership, the revolutionary movement is headless. With a bad leadership, it is in just as fatal a position. A revolutionary leadership is not created overnight. It is constituted in the course of years; it grows and learns and is tested in the course of political struggles—on the arena of its own organization and in the broader theater of the class struggle. In an even higher sense than the cadre as a whole, the leadership is the product of a selection made jointly by events in general and in particular by those it leads. While the Leninist conception provides for the steady introduction into the leadership of new and fresh elements and the sloughing off of decayed elements from the leadership—contrary to the American syndicalist who rules that a man can occupy an official position for only one term—Lenin stresses the idea of the continuity of leadership, so that it may become trained and experienced in the tremendous and exceedingly difficult task of leading the movement of the proletarian revolution.
The Lenin view has nothing but scorn for amateurish prejudices and “democratic” panderings to “rank and file-ism” or for the hypocritical coyness of those “reluctant” and “modest” gentry who are eager to be coaxed into the responsibilities of leadership. It has proper respect for those who insist on the Bolshevik idea of leadership, who, having a firm political line, fight for this line and for a leadership qualified to execute it. The Stalinist practice of “making” a leader overnight has nothing in common with Lenin. Neither has the Stalinist practice of “unmaking” leaders overnight. Although, it should be added, the kind of “leaders” produced in that school are, after all, just as easily unmade as they are made.
A party without a firm majority in its leadership, following a consistent political course, especially in a situation where there are clearly two basically different lines counterposed to each other in the organization, is a ship without sail or rudder, torn and tossed about by every wind that strikes it. The same holds true of the highest authority of a party—its national convention. It is the shortest irresponsibility to hold a convention of the revolutionary organization at a time when it must decide upon basic questions of far-reaching significance and when two irreconcilable views on these questions exist in the convention, without seeking to establish a firm majority for one basic view as against the other. Unless this is done, you court the risk of having the questions involved settled by chance, by accidental combinations.
The problem of giving direction to a convention does not end, naturally, with the adoption of formal resolutions; it ends with the selection of a leadership standing on those resolutions and qualified to execute them in life. The CLA convention was faced with two questions of vital importance, on both of which two distinctly different tendencies were manifested. One question (the so-called French turn) involved either the organizational and political rupture of our League with the world movement for the Fourth International (specifically, the ICL) or continued political solidarity with it. The other question (fusion with the AWP) involved either laying the ground for a speedy disruption of the fusion, of the new party, or the consummation of the fusion on a proper and healthy basis. In both cases the Oehler faction represented the former tendency, and we the latter.
Faced with the anomaly of this political situation and a division of the delegates to the convention which did not correspond to it organizationally, it was the duty of the NC to make efforts to solve the difficulty. At the very outset of the convention, therefore, we called a private conference with the entire Chicago delegation and proposed to them the formation of a political bloc which would establish a majority in the convention, thereby giving it the indispensable political direction, and which would jointly select the new leadership to represent the CLA contingent in the fused party. Our opinion of the unprincipled origin and conduct of the Weberites did not, it goes without saying, alter the following facts: 1) they represented a measurable group of delegates in the convention and consequently among the membership, whose existence had to be taken into consideration; 2) they asserted their political solidarity with the NC on the two decisive political questions before the CLA. These objective facts entirely warranted the formation of the bloc which we proposed, because of the simple reason that it would be principled. Whatever minor differences might exist between the two component parts of the bloc, and especially organizational differences, could and should be decided within the bloc, which had a common basis in principled agreement.
“It was revealed in the discussion at the CLA convention that the Cannon group had proposed a bloc to Oehler in order to fight the Weber group with whom they were in supposed political agreement,” writes Glotzer in his November 20, 1935, letter to the I.S. of the ICL.
If this were the case, then our proposal to the Chicago Weberites would indeed stand exposed as a shabby, unprincipled maneuver on our part to establish a majority at any cost and with any body. But Glotzer’s assertion is simply—to use a long word where a shorter one would sound better—a falsehood and a deliberate one. Like every delegate and visitor to our convention, Glotzer knows that while the highly “principled” Oehlerite J. Gordon, and one or two others, did approach Cannon and Shachtman with the proposal to form a bloc for the purpose of keeping Weber off the new National Committee, Cannon and Shachtman and their whole group promptly and categorically rejected any idea of any sort of bloc with a faction with whom they were in absolutely no principled solidarity whatsoever. If the fantastic bloc about which Glotzer speaks did not come into existence, it was not because of the reluctance of the Oehlerites—quite the contrary!—but because of our unhesitating rejection of it. What purpose does Glotzer think to serve with this stupid invention? The purpose of muddying things up and of covering up the actual, verifiable facts about what took place.
Now, what was the reaction of the Chicago statesmen to our proposal for a bloc? They rejected it out of hand! Because they disagreed with our main political line on the main political questions? No, as has already been shown by documents, they endorsed it. Because they disagreed with the continuation of the same majority in the leadership, and proposed that a new majority, a new leadership should be elected? No, not even that! Difficult as it is to believe about these people who, both then and now, inveigh so violently against the “Cannon-Shachtman leadership,” they not only insisted that the subcommittee of Cannon and Shachtman should continue with the final official negotiations with the AWP (without the slightest proposal to change the composition of this subcommittee, which, according to Gould, did such an “opportunistic” job of it), but they protested their firm intention to vote, at the end of our convention, for a new National Committee in which the old NC majority (the same scoundrels, Cannon and Shachtman) would continue to have a majority. We thus have the following indisputable political facts—not inventions, but facts:
1. The Weberites did not challenge our main line with regard to the fusion; on the contrary, they endorsed it.
2. The Weberites did not challenge our main line with regard to the “entry” in France; on the contrary, they endorsed it.
3. The Weberites did not even contest our leadership of the CLA; despite this sniping criticism and that one, they insisted that we continue to predominate in the leadership.
What would a Bolshevik politician conclude from these facts? If you intend to vote for a leadership to continue in office; if you have no intention of replacing that leadership with one of your own; if, in other words, despite minor criticism, you insist that a certain group continue to take the political and organizational responsibility for the party’s leadership, it is your political duty to solidarize yourself politically with that group, with that leadership, and to defend it from the attacks of another group with which you are fundamentally in disagreement (in this case, the Oehler group). If you do not fight for the leadership yourself (and we insisted in our conference with them that if they do not support us, then they should themselves take over the responsibility of leadership), it is your political duty to make a bloc with that group and the leadership for which you are going to vote in order to establish a firm political majority in a convention where the relationship of forces threatens to have questions settled by chance. But we said this is what a Bolshevik politician would conclude. The Weberites came to an opposite conclusion.
An opposite conclusion because they were (as they still are) animated not by political and principled considerations, but by pettifogging personal antipathies, by the yearning to revenge old, outlived, unimportant scores, by fear of tying themselves down politically in such a way as to interfere with their desire to fish around for unprincipled combinations in every direction.
The bloc with us was clearly indicated by the situation: by political agreement, by agreement on decisive leadership, and by the anomalous relationship of forces at the convention. But the Weberites would not take the step that was clearly indicated. They were interested in “taking a crack” at the outgoing NC majority for its “organizational methods” and its “delinquencies,” and in getting J. Weber elected to the incoming NC.
So far as the latter point was concerned, we stood firmly opposed to putting Weber on the NC for the two good reasons that (1) in the preceding six months in particular he had more than sufficiently demonstrated his political irresponsibility, lack of seriousness and balance, and (2) we saw no reason why the convention should put a premium on the kind of clique politics which, especially to the New York comrades, Weber symbolized. That our opposition to Weber was not aimed to “disfranchise” a “political tendency,” as some would try to claim, is evidenced by the fact that we proposed that Satir and Glotzer, or any two chosen from their ranks by the Chicago delegation, should be placed on the incoming NC; and by the fact, further, that it was Shachtman who insisted that Glotzer stand as candidate for the NC when the latter sought to decline when nominated. (And, let it be added parenthetically for the benefit of those who have been victims of the Weber caucus lie-factory story that we kept Abern off the NC. Abern had not only announced months before the convention that he would not accept being on the next NC, but not all the efforts of his caucus colleagues at the convention could prevail upon him to take up the responsibilities devolving upon any NC member; he did not choose to run.)
So far as the first point is concerned, there were, beyond any dispute, more than enough grounds for complaint against the manner in which the outgoing NC of the CLA had functioned. It was far from a model of efficiency. But for members of the NC like Glotzer, Edwards, Abern and Spector to lead the “fight” against the “Cannon-Shachtman-Swabeck NC” was nothing more or less than brazen impudence. So far as the actual functioning of the old NC was concerned, it was confined exclusively to the three members whose “regime” the Weberites tried to make their target, with the possible addition of Oehler, who at least took his share of the responsibility for the organizational work of the League and did not retire to his tent to sulk. The whole burden of the League’s work, conducted under the greatest of handicaps, and the whole burden of the League’s political line fell upon the shoulders of the three comrades named.
If they did not discharge themselves of their tasks in an exemplary manner, they were nevertheless the only ones who did carry out the responsibilities of leadership: the work of administration, of editing the periodicals, of doing the writing, speaking and touring for the League, of representing it publicly and defending its line in the working class, of laying down the political line (and a correct one!) of the League on the decisive questions facing it. And this was done under the “terrible regime” of the three comrades without the slightest assistance from Spector, who left his responsibilities in the Resident Committee to return to Canada; from Glotzer, who also left his responsibilities in the Resident Committee to return to Chicago; from Edwards, who never came to New York, it is true, but who was systematically passive in the Chicago organization; from Abern, who absented himself from committee meetings for months at a time and who took over the management of the theoretical organ only after he had literally been beseeched for months to take over some responsible post.
The whole Weberite attack on the “regime” was exploded into thin air when we presented our resolution on the organizational report of the NC. In this document, which we do not hesitate to call a model of revolutionary self-criticism, the actualities of the situation in the leadership were presented to the membership in so trenchant and incontrovertible a manner that, minority though our group was in the convention, the resolution was adopted by a majority vote. Not only for its intrinsic value, but because of the true and revealing picture it gives of the situation in the CLA leadership and ranks, we reproduce the full text of the resolution as an appendix to this document.
And now back to the question of the “blocs.” We refused to make a bloc with the Oehlerites because we had no political agreement with them. The Weberites refused to make a bloc with us although they did have political agreement with us. But we do not imagine that their refusal was based on any opposition to blocs “as such.” Just as we and Marxists in general argue that any bloc is good if it has a common political basis, even, as Trotsky once put it, a “bloc with a Sancho Panza” like Kamenev, so the Weberites argue that any bloc is good if it has a common basis of opposition to Cannon-Shachtman and their “organizational methods.” So that at the end of the convention, after having voted together with the Oehlerites on one organizational point after another, even to the extent of supporting Stamm’s resolution on the NC organizational report, the Weberites finally consummated a formal bloc with the Oehlerites against us!
Time and again the Weberites have of course sought to deny this fact, which we made so uncomfortable for them. When they do not deny it, they try to pass it off blandly as a trifle, as a matter of course, as something that causes them honest puzzlement when it is attacked. “It is also stated,” writes Glotzer in the aforementioned letter to the I.S., “that the Weber group made a bloc with the Oehler group at that time. The bloc consisted in this: Oehler’s agreement to vote for Weber as a member of the NC and the rights of all viewpoints to be represented on the NC.” So far as the second point in this unprincipled pact was concerned, there was never any ground for it, for nobody challenged the right referred to. We had made adequate provisions in our NC slate for representation for both the Weber and Oehler groups. The basis for the bloc was simply a cheap horse-trade in which the Weberites pledged themselves to vote for Stamm on the NC in return for the Oehlerite pledge to vote for Weber on the NC.
This piece of unprincipled vote-swapping was officially endorsed by the two caucuses, and formally arranged by MacDonald, the Weberite fraternal delegate from Canada, who acted as intermediary in the negotiations for the bloc and who, in general, played, to put it bluntly, a shabby and not very glorious role in the whole miserable business. Just how putrid the deal really was may be seen from the CLA convention minutes, which we quote hereafter.
On the first vote, the following ten were declared elected to the National Committee: Cannon (42 votes, unanimous), Shachtman (42), Oehler (42), Skoglund (41), Swabeck (41), Dunne (40), Satir (39), Lewit (26), Sam Gordon (23), Stamm (23). Glotzer, Giganti and Weber, with 22 votes each, were tied for the eleventh place. What had happened? The 13 Weberites, loyal to the bargain, had joined with the 10 Oehlerites to elect Stamm. But the Oehlerites did not stay so loyal: one of their ten, out of spite against Weber, voted instead for Sam Gordon, thus electing him and...double-crossing the Oehlerite ally, Weber! The honest indignation of the Weberites knew no bounds. How could people be so dirty! The convention minutes then read:
Chairman proposed that the three names (i.e., Glotzer, Giganti, Weber) be placed before the convention for voting. Comrade MacDonald of Canada objected to procedure, stated that it was clear that the results of the election did not represent the wishes of the majority (!!) of the convention and proposed re-opening of nominations and elections.... Proposal by Oehler that the Weber group should choose which of the three tied nominees should be a member of the NC. Objection by Cannon—proposal that the three should be voted on. Accepted by MacDonald.
In the discussion that followed, lasting through the night, we hammered away so powerfully at this unprincipled bloc that the majority was finally broken! Kotz, until then affiliated with the Weber group, could not stomach the deal; nor could Morgenstern, till that point a supporter of the Oehlerites; Weiss, another Weberite, finally decided to abstain. When the vote was finally cast, it stood: Glotzer 21, Weber 20, and 1 abstention. In the voting for the alternates, however, the shattered bloc rallied somewhat, with the result that Weberites and Oehlerites together made Basky the first alternate and Weber the second.
What were the political basis, the essence, and the lesson of the bloc? It should be emphasized that this must be understood not only in order to realize what happened at the CLA convention, which is of comparatively remote importance, but to realize the political character of the groupings now appearing before our second national convention.
1. The Oehlerites denounced the Weberites as representing the right wing of the CLA; Oehler declared he had nothing at all in common, politically, with Weber; if anything, said Oehler, he had more in common with us, presumably because of our position on “organic unity” with which he agreed; finally, the Oehlerites had proposed to us a bloc against Weber.
2. The Weberites denounced the Oehlerites as representing ultraleft sectarianism in the CLA; Weber declared, as he still does, we take it, that he had nothing at all in common, politically, with Oehler, and everything in common with us, except for the secondary point on “organic unity”; finally, the Weberites insisted that we retain the leadership of the organization.
Is it permissible, then, for the right and the ultraleft to form a bloc—oh, not a very big one, of course, just a little organizational bloc—against, let us assume for a moment, the “center”? In our opinion, and in the opinion of every Marxist who stands on principled grounds, it is impermissible! But it will be said—and it was said in greater detail later on, in the WP—they both had organizational differences with the “center” and the bloc was “only” on an organizational question; they both disagreed with the “organizational methods” of Cannon-Shachtman, and that consideration justified the bloc. The argument is fundamentally reactionary. Let us see what the established Marxian view is on this question.
In 1928-1929, the Bukharinist right wing broke with the Stalinist center and started secret negotiations for a “little organizational” bloc with Left Oppositionist elements in order jointly to combat the detestable organizational methods of Stalin. Politically, the right had much in common with Stalin and nothing in common with the left; politically, the left has much in common with Stalin (at that junction) and nothing in common with the right; both right and left, however, had, or seemed to have, something in common “organizationally” against Stalin. Here is what Trotsky wrote at that time concerning the bloc proffered by Bukharin & Co.:
Shall we make a bloc with the right wing to revenge ourselves upon the Stalinists, for their rudeness, their disloyalty, their expulsions and abuse of loyal revolutionists, for Article 58, for the “Wrangel officer”? No, we the principled Bolshevik-Leninists can never make a bloc with the right wing against the centrists. On the contrary, insofar as the centrists fight the right wing we support them, while criticizing their half-heartedness and putting forth our own line. Blocs between the right and the left have been made in other revolutions, but they have also ruined these revolutions. (“Appeal to the Sixth Congress of the Comintern” [12 July 1928])
And again, in his polemic shortly afterward against the leader of the German Left Opposition, Urbahns, who proposed a “little organizational bloc” with the right-wing Brandlerites against the Stalinists, Trotsky wrote:
How can factional collaboration with the right wing, who adopt an opposite principled position, bring the left closer to the conquest of the party? It is clear that the only thing that could be produced here is an organizational combination which breaks into the principled position. A group could enter into such a combination only if it strives and hastens to adopt a place in the party which absolutely does not correspond to its ideological-political strength. (Note that well, Weber!—MS) But this is the road to suicide and nothing else. I have more than once been forced to observe that political impatience becomes the source of opportunistic policy.... The factional mechanics of the struggle must never stand above its principled content, even if only for a single hour.
Finally, writing about the case of Mill, who had also made a “little organizational bloc”—just a temporary one!—with a group in the French Left Opposition which he had defined as non-Marxist, against another group which, although he called it Marxist, was charged by him with having bad “organizational methods”—Mill, who logically concluded this political practice by passing over to the Stalinists, Trotsky summarized the situation in a letter written October 13, 1932:
For Mill, principles are in general clearly of no importance; personal considerations, sympathies and antipathies, determine his political conduct to a greater degree than principles and ideas. The fact that Mill could propose a bloc with a man whom he had defined as non-Marxist against comrades whom he had held to be Marxists showed clearly that Mill was politically and morally unreliable and that he was incapable of keeping his loyalty to the flag. If he betrayed on that day on a small scale, he was capable of betraying tomorrow on a larger scale. That was the conclusion which every revolutionist should have drawn then.
Is it any wonder, therefore, that we who had been taught for years in the school of Lenin and Trotsky to shun and combat the kind of politics described so bitingly by the above quotations should have fought so bitterly against the unprincipled Weber-Oehler bloc at the CLA convention? What was decisive with us was not the question of one more or one less “opponent” on the NC the majority of which was already conceded us. What was decisive was the necessity of smashing this conception of politics as soon as it showed its ugly head, of preventing such poison from entering the system of our organization, of educating the membership to detest unprincipled combinationism and clique maneuvers and of teaching it how to struggle against them, even on a small scale, so that when our revolutionists face such practices on a bigger scale in the class struggle, they will more effectively be able to deal them mortal blows.
One need not go to quotations from Trotsky. Picture a situation in a trade union which is led by a more or less “progressive” leadership which carries on reprehensible organizational machinations against the extreme right as well as against the revolutionary left wing of the union. Such situations have existed and do exist in this and other countries—by the hundreds. Each from his own (i.e., from opposite) principled standpoint fights against the bureaucratic progressive administration which, while progressive in comparison with the right wing it has replaced, nevertheless resorts to bad “organizational methods” against both its opponents. (The Lovestone-Zimmerman administration of Local 22, striking at the extreme right and at the proletarian left at the same time, might serve as a good case in point.) Election time arrives. Neither the right nor the left is strong enough, by itself, to oust the administration. Is it conceivable for Marxists to agree under any conditions to an organizational bloc—be it even for one or two more members of the two oppositions on the incoming executive board—between the left and the right? For Marxists, no, no, no! The Stalinists have made such blocs and do make them today. But that’s precisely why we denounce them as traitors to revolutionary principle.
We are not now even arguing whether or not Weber and Oehler were right in condemning our “organizational methods” or our “regime.” We contend of course that they were wrong. But let us assume for a moment that there were grounds for their condemnation of us. Even in that case, the bloc was absolutely impermissible. The Weberites, had they been principled politicians, would have had to say: The organizational methods and regime of Cannon and Shachtman are indubitably bad. Furthermore, by their false position on “organic unity” they are able to fight the Oehlerites only half-heartedly and half-successfully. Yet on the decisive political questions, we agree with the main line of C-S, and with the main line of their fight against the ultraleft sectarians, international splitters, the anti-Trotskyists, that is, the Oehlerites. We must therefore ally ourselves at every point with the NC which is fighting the menace of Oehlerism; if it is weak, we must strengthen it; under no circumstances, however, will we give the Oehlerites the slightest bit of comfort, either political or organizational. Our organizational differences with the NC majority we will settle—but within the sphere of our principled agreement with it, in our own way, and without allying ourselves for this purpose with those elements with whom we have nothing at all in common politically, with whom we are irreconcilable in principle.
Had this been the Weberite attitude, had they not been animated above all by the contemptible urge to get another vote on the NC even if they had to pay for it by voting for an opponent in principle (and ending by being double-crossed!), their line might have been clear and would not have the stigma of unprincipledness branded upon it. They would have helped educate the party and youth comrades, and their own faction members to boot; they would have helped prepare the CLA comrades for the eventuality of a struggle against the anti-Trotskyists in the new party instead of preparing them to serve as shield-bearers for this reactionary tendency. They might have served as a progressive factor; they served instead as a retrogressive one, as an obstacle to the advance of the movement, as the mud in every clear stream.
Yet, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good. If the Weberites, by their shameful conduct at the CLA convention, contributed nothing positive to the movement, they at least created a situation which afforded us the concrete opportunity of drawing a living contrast between Marxian politics and unprincipled combinationism, between admissible blocs and inadmissible blocs, between revolutionary principle and clique intrigues. It is this contrast which facilitated the solution of the internal problem with which we were soon to be faced inside the united party.