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[Submitted to the August 1983 SWP plenum, for the agenda point: “Appeals and Reviews.”]
“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.” — James P. Cannon, The Left Opposition in the U.S. 1928-31.
The recent wave of expulsions is the clearest indication of a fundamental change that has taken place in the Socialist Workers Party.
Bolshevik organizational norms are summed up in the formula “democratic centralism,” and every organization that lays claim to the heritage of the October revolution—be it revolutionary party, ultraleft sect, or counterrevolutionary Stalinist apparatus — also swears fidelity to democratic centralism. For the vast majority, of course, this is an empty phrase used to justify a thoroughly undemocratic organizational structure — bureaucratic centralism, with all policy tightly controlled by a small, self-perpetuating leadership.
At least two organizations in the history of the working class movement have demonstrated that democratic centralism is not a Utopian, unattainable ideal. One was the archetype itself: the Bolshevik party before its Stalinist degeneration. Another has been the Socialist Workers Party.
Over the past two years, however — since the last convention — a fundamental change in the organizational character of the SWP has become evident. The democratic traditions and norms of the party are being sliced away, salami style. The most obvious symptom of this trend is the unprecedented plague of expulsions, which is, if we are to call things by their right names, a purge.
Most party members are unaware of the scope of this purge because their knowledge has been restricted to what has happened in their own branch. The restriction of information concerning expulsions has been a deliberate policy of the central leadership. That was conclusively demonstrated by the May 1983 NC meeting, which voted to uphold a number of expulsions, but not to report these actions to the membership. The censored single-faction branch reports that followed this plenum represented an unprecedented violation of Bolshevik and SWP organizational norms.
“The foundation of party democracy,” Trotsky wrote, “is timely and complete information, available to all members of the organization and covering all the important questions of their life and struggle” (Writings 1932-33, p. 57). But such information became a casualty of the “new norms.”
The purge has been orchestrated by the national office and has aimed at ridding the party of members with political views that differ from those of the national leadership. This process has gone under the false heading of attaining “political centralism.”
The expulsions, however, are just the tip of the iceberg. Kicking a comrade out on flimsy grounds not only eliminates a dissident directly, it also intimidates others from defending their own independent views, or even questioning leadership decisions. It introduces a “chilling effect” into the internal life of the party. As a result, the rank and file has been effectively blocked from even discussing and expressing an opinion about what is happening to the party.
At the same time as the rights of the ranks are restricted, the central leadership has arrogated a new freedom to do and say anything it pleases, no matter how alien to party tradition or contrary to convention decisions. Two salient examples are Doug Jenness’s ISR articles and Jack Barnes’s speech at the last YSA convention in Chicago (now in print in the first issue of New International). With no discussion and no vote in any formally constituted party committee (not to mention the party as a whole) they publicly turned the ideological foundations of our movement upside down and inside out. Anyone with the temerity to protest this after the fact or to attempt to defend our traditional perspectives in the party was charged with “unauthorized discussion,” or some other crime, and expelled or threatened with expulsion. In this way a leadership which has lost its confidence in the Marxist program and method has attempted to line up the party in support of its new perspectives without having to openly confront those who reject their new ideas.
The postponing and downgrading of the 1983 national convention was a body blow at party democracy, and yet another example of the cavalier attitude with which the national leadership violates the real democratic norms and traditions of the Socialist Workers Party.
The participation of the party as a whole in all important decisions, and particularly in any decision on basic program, is absolutely essential for the maintenance of a healthy political atmosphere in the party. Cannon explained this point in a letter to the Akron branch of the SWP in April 1942: “No important decision of a programmatic nature has ever been made in the history of the American Trotskyist movement without ample discussion of the membership. There has never been a time when the party refused to reopen discussion on old decisions when the necessity for a new discussion was manifest to a reasonably numerous section of the party membership” (“Criticism and Discussion of Current Party Policy,” The Socialist Workers Party in World War II, pp. 235 -236). It is the repeated and militant refusal of the present leadership of the SWP to open discussion on its new theoretical perspectives to the party as a whole, attempting to use its formal positions of authority, its formal right as a majority of the leadership to “regulate” discussion, to in fact strangle and suppress any and all objective consideration of these basic ideas by the party ranks. This is the fundamental source of all of our recent problems with “violations of norms.”
Although it would be fruitless to try to pinpoint an exact moment when the internal democracy of the SWP went off the track, the National Committee plenum of February-March 1982 was obviously an important turning point. That plenum heard a series of charges from the Control Commission and issued a list of warnings that have been used in part as a juridical basis for further actions, including expulsions. Since that plenum, an “educational” campaign has been underway designed to convince party members that these charges and warnings represent nothing new; that they are no more than a reaffirmation of the historic organizational norms of our party, as codified in particular in the 1965 document, “Organizational Character of the Socialist Workers Party.” But this is completely false.
If anything has been proven by this experience it is that democratic central ism cannot be guaranteed by a legal code, no matter how well and how sincerely written. For the code to serve its function requires a leadership commitment to defending proletarian democracy and this is now lacking in the SWP.
“The present leadership and teachers of the party,” James P. Cannon wrote in 1928, “substitute the idea of discipline in the formal mechanical sense for the Leninist doctrine of democratic centralism” (Left Opposition in the U.S., 1928-31, p. 72). It is ironic that these words, written during the struggle that gave birth to our movement, so precisely describe the situation in the SWP today.
The 1965 organizational document did not intend to set forth a rigid legal code. The February-March 1982 plenum abused the spirit of that resolution by turning the general principles it articulated into an ossified list of “thou-shalt-nots.” Subsequent practice has shown that even unintended transgressions of these commandments as interpreted by the party leadership — or still worse, even imagined transgressions — lead to summary expulsion. The expulsion procedures themselves have exhibited a quality of justice that completely fails to protect the basic rights of party members.
To gauge the extent of the erosion of internal democracy, let us compare some of the recent expulsions with the historical attitude of our party toward this ultimate disciplinary action, as described by James P. Cannon: “This is such an easygoing party that some people who haven’t been in any other party don’t know what a paradise they’ve got. So easygoing, so democratic, so tolerant. Never bothers anybody for anything, never imposes any discipline. Why our National Control Commission has gone by three conventions without having anything to report. The only time the good-natured somnolence of the SWP begins to stir into action on the disciplinary front is when somebody gets disloyal. Not if he makes a mistake, not if he fiddles around, but if he begins to get disloyal....
“But it’s a literal fact that the only time we ever expelled anybody for anything was for violating discipline after repeated warnings not to do it. That’s the only time” (“Internationalism and the SWP,” May 1953, Speeches to the Party, p. 76).
In saying this, Cannon was, in fact, arguing for the expulsion of Felix Morrow. Morrow had been discovered leaving SWP Political Committee meetings and heading straight for the headquarters of an opponent group, the Shachtmanites, and reporting to them on SWP internal matters. Cannon felt it necessary, even in such an extreme and obvious case of disloyalty, to patiently, politically motivate kicking Morrow out, because expulsions have never been treated lightmindedly by the SWP.
The recent wave of expulsions has been carried out in total violation of that tradition. Loyal comrades have been expelled on the most trivial grounds imaginable. And these expulsions have not been for disloyalty, and particularly not “after repeated warnings” to use Cannon’s words, but for some alleged overstepping of the arbitrary bounds of the new norms.
There have also been undemocratic disciplinary actions other than expulsions; the prime example of which was the “censure” of Asher H. When Asher’s branch refused to vote the censure, the leadership took it to the Bay Area District Executive Committee which did do so. But when the district membership refused to endorse that decision, it was taken to a National Committee plenum, where a factional mechanical majority upheld the district EC. What a sordid, degrading affair; not for Asher H., but for the Socialist Workers Party.
The exclusion of Peter C. is of unique significance, because Peter was a central leader and one of the best known public spokespersons for the YSA and SWP for many years. He was refused readmittance to our party on flimsy organizational pretexts, despite the SWP leadership’s recognition that Peter was a member of the Fourth International. (They voted for his inclusion on the IEC as a full member.) Such an exclusion has no precedent in our movement’s history. Whatever political differences comrades may have had with Peter, and whatever Peter’s subsequent political trajectory has been, the correct approach required debating out our differences within a common organizational frame work.
The aim of the new norms and their attendant disciplinary actions has been to stamp out any points of view in the party that are not in agreement with the central leadership’s by ostracizing, harassing, slandering, and ultimately expelling those who hold those views. This is done in the name of the “right to regulate” internal party life. This right is not in dispute. What is in dispute is the political wisdom of the measures taken by the majority leadership, which attempts to “regulate” internal life in order to smother it. This can only smother the party. Along with the right to regulate internal life goes the responsibility to do so wisely, in the best interests of the party as a whole, and not in the narrow, factional interests of the current leadership.
“The principle of Bolshevik organization,” Trotsky wrote, “is ’democratic centralism,’ assured by complete freedom of criticism and of groupings, together with steel discipline in action. The history of the party is at the same time the history of the internal struggle of ideas, groupings, factions” (August 1935, Crisis of the French Section, p. 47).
A ban on internal party groupings strangles the internal life of the party and eventually destroys its revolutionary character. In the SWP at present the rank and file is rigorously prohibited from participating in any such groupings.
This ban on factions was exemplified by the expulsions of Jake C., Harry D., Gillian F. To be sure, these comrades violated a technicality of procedure in mailing out their platform directly to party branches, but this is hardly the basis for an expulsion. Their real crime was attempting to form a faction.
An even clearer manifestation of the present ban on internal groupings was the response of the majority party leadership to eighteen comrades (including five past and present National Committee members) who announced their intention to participate as a tendency in the pre-World Congress discussion of the Fourth International. In denying permission, the SWP leadership directly violated the statutes of the Fourth International.
“Without temporary ideological groupings,” Trotsky wrote, “the ideological life of the party is unthinkable. Nobody has yet discovered any other procedure. And those who have sought to discover it have only shown that their remedy was tantamount to strangling the ideological life of the party” (Third International After Lenin, 1928, p. 149).
“And, indeed,” he later added, “how could a genuinely revolutionary organization, setting itself the task of overthrowing the world and uniting under its banner the most audacious iconoclasts, fighters, and insurgents, live and develop without intellectual conflicts, without groupings and temporary factional formations?” (Revolution Betrayed, 1936, p. 95).
The SWP leadership presently holds that the rights of tendencies and factions are restricted only to preconvention discussion periods. That is in complete contradiction to the true history and traditions of the SWP and of Bolshevism.
The real Bolshevik tradition is one of internal disputes and groupings at all times when this was made necessary by new events in the class struggle, by the development of new disputes in the party, and in extreme cases even as a continuation of old disputes. The real pace of political life does not always follow a pre-set timetable corresponding conveniently to the schedule for SWP conventions.
Lenin would have had a few things to say about the schematic notions of the present SWP leadership. In 1906, as a result of a dispute in the reunified Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, he commented on the necessity for the continued right of discussion and criticism of party policy by the ranks even after the decisions of the party congress, “We must and shall fight ideologically against those decisions of the Congress which we regard as erroneous. But at the same time we declare to the whole Party that we are opposed to a split of any kind. We stand for submission to the decisions of the Congress. Rejecting boycott of the Central Committee and valuing joint work, we agreed to those who share our views going on the Central Committee, although they will comprise a negligible minority on it. We are profoundly convinced that the workers’ Social Democratic organizations must be united, but in these united organizations there must be wide and free discussion of Party questions, free comradely criticism and assessment of events in Party life” (“Appeal to the Party by Delegates to the Unity Congress Who Belonged to the Bolshevik Group,” C.W., Vol. 10, p. 314).
“I will remind the reader that in my pamphlet, Social Democracy and the State Duma (published together with an article by Dan), I pointed out before the Congress that the trend that remained in the minority must be insured freedom to criticize the decisions of the Congress and freedom to agitate for another Congress” (“Report on the Unity Congress of the RSDLP,” Ibid, p. 372n).
“Against this tendency of our Right Social Democrats we must wage a most determined, open and ruthless ideological struggle. We should seek the widest possible discussion of the decisions of the Congress. We must call upon every member of the party to take a conscious and critical stand on these resolutions. We must see to it that every workers’ organization, after making itself thoroughly familiar with the subject, declares whether it approves or disapproves of any particular decision. If we have really and seriously decided to introduce democratic centralism in our Party, and if we have resolved to draw the masses of the workers into intelligent decision of Party questions, we must have these questions discussed in the press, at meetings, in circles, and at group meetings. “But in this United Party this ideological struggle must not split the organizations, must not hinder the unity of action of the proletariat...” (Ibid, p. 380).
No one, of course, would hold this up as a model of proletarian functioning for all times and for all places. But the fact that Lenin considered this kind of discussion an acceptable mode of functioning within the context of democratic centralism speaks volumes in opposition to the rigid and narrow concept of party organization, defined by the current SWP leadership as a set of dos and don’ts spelled out in the 1965 resolution and schematically applied to all situations.
It is, of course, correct to say that under ordinary circumstances it is normal (i.e., a norm) for internal party groupings to dissolve after the end of a discussion, and for new internal groupings to wait until regularly constituted discussion periods. But these are norms, not rigid laws carved in stone; and it could not be otherwise. It is also normal for the party leadership to present its thinking on all major questions to the party as a whole during the course of the regularly constituted discussion period and not wait for the day after the close of the convention to launch a major revision of our basic program. It is this abnormal action by the central party leadership which created the necessity for the reopening of discussion and the pressure for the formation of internal groupings in the party in an abnormal fashion. The adamant refusal of the majority leadership to recognize this fact — its retread behind abstract formulas about “norms” — demonstrates its complete default as a Leninist leadership.
When challenged on this point, the SWP majority leadership’s supporters have an almost invariable response: “The SWP is not a discussion club.” Those who mouth these words are obviously unaware of their history. James P. Cannon, during the struggle in which our movement originated, replied to them: “’The Communist Party is not a debating society.’ Behind this statement, true enough in itself, all the bureaucrats who fear discussion seek to hide their incompetence” (December 1928, Left Opposition in the U.S., 1928-31, p. 53).
Trotsky often described the internal life of the Bolshevik party, and his description stands in marked contrast to the image of Bolshevism which the present majority leadership of the SWP is attempting to apply to our party: “We must not forget that even if we are centralists, we are democratic centralists who employ centralism only for the revolutionary cause and not in the name of the ’prestige’ of the officials. Whoever is acquainted with the history of the Bolshevik Party knows what a broad autonomy the local organizations always enjoyed; they issued their own papers, in which they openly and sharply, whenever they found it necessary, criticized the actions of the Central Committee. Had the Central Committee, in case of principled differences, attempted to disperse the local organizations or to deprive them of literature (their bread and water) before the party had had an opportunity to express itself—such a central committee would have made itself impossible. Naturally, as soon as it became necessary, the Bolshevik Central Committee could give orders. But subordination to the committee was possible only because the absolute loyalty of the Central Committee toward every member of the party was well known, as well as the constant readiness of the leadership to hand over every serious dispute for consideration by the party” (“The Crisis in the German Left Opposition,” February 1931, Writings 1930-31, p. 155).
We must reconquer this conception of Bolshevism and of Bolshevik leader ship and organization if we are to resolve the present organizational and political crisis in our party. “Hand over every serious dispute for consideration by the party.” This is the key to putting an end to the so-called “violations of discipline” by individual members, not a further clampdown on discussion and disagreements.
The expulsions and other repressive organizational measures have enforced an internal party life where individual comrades cannot express their political differences under any circumstances. This “new normality” is diametrically opposed to Leninist norms, Bolshevik practice, and the historical tradition of the Socialist Workers Party.
Since the organizational question cannot be separated from political questions, the underlying political causes of the erosion of party democracy must be identified.
As previously mentioned, the central leadership of the SWP has made a sharp ideological and political turn away from the party’s historical program. While claiming “continuity” with the past, it is in fact now promoting a qualitatively different program from that to which most of the current membership was recruited. The differences include such questions as the theory of permanent revolution, our view of Stalinism, and our attitude toward the Fourth International.
In the context of our Trotskyist heritage, the leadership’s new program is simply indefensible. The only honest course it could pursue would be to openly acknowledge its break with the historical program of the SWP and argue for the necessity of that break.
Instead it has chosen to falsely cloak itself in the authority earned by the American Trotskyist movement in more than a half century of struggle. Since an open and democratic discussion would quickly reveal this cloak to be as insubstantial as the emperor’s new clothes, the leadership is compelled to stifle party democracy in order to defend its indefensible policies.
Trotsky explained, “A correct class policy is the main condition for a healthy party democracy. Without this, all talk of democracy and discipline remain hollow; worse, it becomes a weapon for the disorganization of the proletarian movement.” These words describe precisely what has happened in our party over the last two years — the gradual and progressive erosion of party democracy because of the attempt by the leadership to introduce an incorrect and indefensible political line, which has led to the transformation of party discipline from an instrument which can weld together the proletarian vanguard in united action into its opposite — a means for the disorganization and increasingly the disintegration of that vanguard. This is the inevitable result of centralism divorced from democracy.
The campaign to stack the deck against a democratic discussion began on day one after the last convention in 1981. The attack on the ideological roots of Trotskyism took the form of a proposed “reexamination” of Lenin’s view of the Russian Revolution, and the leadership’s revised ideas about Lenin were to be transmitted to the party ranks in the form of classes. The demagogic claim that the classes would study Lenin without any preconceived notions or interpretations was belied by the immediate emergence — and dominance — of the classic anti-Trotskyist line, later spelled out in Doug Jenness’s second ISR article, and further developed in Barnes’s Chicago speech.
If someone were to forthrightly state: “We’ve decided that the Stalinist ’theoreticians’ from Radek to Basmanov were right about Trotsky all along,” then the basis for a discussion would be clear. But to pretend that the majority leadership’s new revelations are in continuity with the traditional SWP view, and that it simply emerges from an unbiased reading of Lenin’s works, is a hypocritical and cynical cover-up.
The announcement of this new “educational” effort at an expanded PC meeting the day after the 1981 convention closed reveals that the leadership deliberately acted to avoid a discussion on this subject. The ranks of the SWP were swindled out of their democratic right to discuss and vote on a 180-degree change in the fundamental ideology of our party—the foundation upon which our political program stands. It is hard to imagine a greater perversion of party democracy.
Nonetheless, the campaign proceeded. The Lenin classes were organized. Doug Jenness’s articles appeared in the ISR. How did the party membership react? On the surface, the reaction seemed relatively calm. But the superficial calmness was illusory, just as water approaching boiling appears no different from cold water to the eye. In fact the ideological revision has had a profound impact on the party ranks.
Quite a few gradually became aware of what was happening and consciously opposed the revision. But since they were unable to state this opposition to the party as a whole, it appeared that only an insignificant handful in one’s own branch was “out of step.” By launching this campaign the day after the 1981 convention, the leadership gave itself two years before the next scheduled preconvention discussion to strengthen the prejudice that its internal opponents were an isolated fringe element. (And apparently even two years weren’t enough; hence the postponement of the 1983 convention.)
On top of that, oppositionists were framed up and undemocratically expelled, creating the prejudice that to oppose the new ideology was to be disloyal to the party.
But the effects have gone deeper than the layer of conscious oppositionists. A considerable number of comrades have become confused and demoralized by the strange goings-on in the party. They may not be able to put their finger on it, but they feel in their bones that something is not quite right; that the party is no longer the same kind of party they joined, and that the change has not been for the better. This category is partially represented by a wave of resignations, the scope of which the party hasn’t seen since the witchhunt years of the 1950s.
These comrades typically resign “for personal reasons” and “with no political differences.” But whether they recognize it or not, they have been affected by the qualitative change in the party’s political direction. It is evident that the party, at the very least, has failed to inspire them to retain their membership and remain active. Included in this group are quite a few who played key cadre roles in leading the party during the anti-Vietnam war movement.
The expulsions and resignations, combined with a negligible recruitment rate, mean, of course, that the party is diminishing at a rapid rate. Ordinarily, this in itself would give pause for reconsideration. Building a revolutionary party is not a straight-line process, but whenever a serious backward trend sets in, the natural question should at least be raised: Might our shrinkage be a result of an erroneous political course?
Instead, the leadership would seem to prefer that those who defend — and even those who merely remember — the program of the SWP drop out, hopefully to be replaced by a new levy of recruits to the new program (a new program which is characterized in practice mainly by revolutionary phrase mongering and abstentionism).
In fact, for those comrades too confused and disoriented to make the break themselves, a new effort has been launched to help them leave the party. Certain dropouts have been hailed as “model” resignations to be emulated. In some places branch committees have been formed to encourage opposition comrades to leave, and threaten them with disciplinary action if they don’t. These committees, where they exist, seem to be more energetic than the recruitment committees.
Furthermore, for the first time a quantitative standard of activity has been adopted. It is now supposedly a norm of party membership to participate in a Militant sale once a week at an industrial worksite. Although as of this writing nobody is known to have been expelled for directly violating this “norm,” it has been used as a source of pressure to convince members to resign because their contributions to the party are allegedly insufficient.
In sum, the Socialist Workers Party is disintegrating. Both the cadre and the program of the revolutionary party are under attack, and are in danger of being destroyed. For the first time in its history, the SWP faces a liquidationist challenge not from a minority tendency but from the central leadership itself. This liquidationism is born of impatience: the familiar quest for shortcuts and dramatic breakthroughs has led to an opportunistic adaptation to Castroism.
While Castroism has proved itself in action to be a revolutionary current, it nonetheless possesses an inadequate and incorrect ideology for a revolutionary party in the United States.
“The stand taken by the Socialist Workers Party towards the Cuban revolution,” wrote Joseph Hansen in 1978, “can be summarized in three points.” Point one is “for defense of the Cuban revolution against all its enemies.” Point two is “for the development of proletarian forms of democracy in Cuba.” Point three is particularly relevant to the present question of organizational forms and norms: “For the formation of a Leninist-type party that guarantees internal democracy, that is, the right of critical opinion to be heard. The power of a party that safeguards the right to form tendencies or factions was demonstrated by the Bolsheviks” (Dynamics of the Cuban Revolution, p. 16, emphasis added).
How peculiar these words must seem to a recently recruited member of the YSA or SWP. Was this Hansen fellow some sort of reactionary? Five years ago Hansen could write that the stand taken by the Socialist Workers Party was that the Cuban Communist Party was not a Leninist party; was not the kind of party we aspire toward. Today, however, our party press promotes the Cuban and other Castroist parties as models of revolutionary organization. The gulf between these two viewpoints is immense. No one can honestly pretend not to notice that a profound ideological shift in our leadership’s attitude toward organizational forms has occurred.
This should not be too surprising. Since politics and organization are inseparable, adapting to the Castroist political program has led to emulating its organizational forms as well That is what is happening in the Socialist Workers Party today. Political methods of resolving differences of opinion have been replaced by an organizational lawbook designed to discourage opposition. That is the essence of the new norms.
There are, of course, two crucial differences between the Castroist leadership and the current majority leadership of the SWP: first, Castro’s team earned its authority by leading a revolution; and second, it now holds state power. For the SWP to copy the Castroists’ organizational forms is not merely an error, it is downright quixotic.
Cannon, and the other founders and leaders of our party, well understood the interconnection between politics and organization. And they also under stood that for Leninists, organizational questions are always subordinate to political ones. Cannon consistently rejected any disciplinary solution to problems when this would get in the way of a necessary discussion and clarification of political differences. Even after consistent disloyal behavior by Albert Goldman and Felix Morrow, for example, he rejected their expulsion from the party before the political questions were resolved.
In May 1946, Cannon explained, “First, the political issues which were latent in the struggle from the beginning have broken through in full flower finally at this plenum. These are important issues, in the discussions of which not only our party but the whole International will be educated. You can’t learn much just from expulsions, [or] from personal fights, except that one person is good, another bad, etc. That only creates demoralization and discouragement. But from the discussion of great political questions — the French constitution, the national question in Europe, the theses of the international conference, wages and prices — from the discussion of such questions the whole new generation of party members can learn great lessons. And we want that discussion. The discussion between orthodox Marxism and revisionism has to unfold not only in our party but in the International. We sincerely desire to have it conducted within the framework of our party and the Fourth International” (“Report on the Internal Party Situation,” The Struggle for Socialism in the “American Century,” p. 249).
This understanding of Cannon, in complete consonance with the revolutionary and democratic-centralist traditions of our movement, stands in marked contrast to the attitude of the current leadership of the SWP. The time has come to put an end to the policy of expulsions and disciplinary actions. Let us begin the discussion which has been put on the agenda by the central leadership itself through its public pursuit of the new line. We must do this because “from the discussion of great political questions the whole new generation of party members can learn great lessons.”
The expulsions, the threats, the new “norms,” the ban on tendencies and factions, the single-faction plenum reports, the arbitrary convention postponement — all of this adds up to an extreme unwillingness of the majority leadership to allow any discussion of its policies. The aversion to discussion demonstrates a lack of confidence in its ability to defend those policies. It is well aware of the fundamental incompatibility of its present course with the historical revolutionary-socialist program of our movement.
Unable to justify their policies, they have opted to stonewall. In that direction lies the sure destruction of the revolutionary party; the end of the line for American Bolshevism. It is way past time to call a halt. Reject the “new norms“! Return to the “old” norms of democratic centralism!
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