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Dear Comrades:
We have just received the PC’s November 10 letter containing the agenda for the November plenum. The proposal for a political report doesn’t specify exactly what will be discussed under the first and obviously main point on the agenda, and we would like to propose some specific topics which should be taken up.
1. The party’s intervention in, and press coverage of, the September convention of the National Organization for Women requires a critical assessment. Comrades’ general analysis of the bankruptcy of the NOW leadership, and the strategic problems facing the feminist movement, is certainly correct. But we failed to translate this strategic perspective into specific proposals for action which would present a real alternative. What should women who want to fight for the ERA do? Militant readers would search in vain for an answer to that question, though they would find much advice on what not to do. At the convention itself, our fraction didn’t raise a single proposal for winning the ERA, the most burning issue on the minds of the two thousand women who attended, and tens of thousands more NOW members who didn’t attend.
Though we missed our best opportunity at the NOW convention itself, it’s not too late for us to outline an active campaign to win the ERA. We should take our proposals on this into NOW and into the unions. Over the next months the sentiment for some kind of visible public action is bound to be enormous. This is a crucial political question facing the American working people. The mass feminist and labor organizations should call for such protests. If they do, it will raise the stakes qualitatively for the ruling class. The decision to scuttle the ERA will cost them much more severely. But even if NOW or the unions cannot be convinced to spearhead such an offensive, the fight we wage for it will win us many friends and recruits among the activist women looking for a correct strategic and tactical perspective.
2. The plenum should discuss developments around the PATCO strike, and specifically what kinds of propaganda proposals our union fractions can present for actions in support of it, even at this late date. We were quite surprised, if not to say shocked, at the assessment presented in the November 6 Militant that the strike has been defeated. In the next issue the article on Poland by Suzanne Haig refers to the PATCO strike in the past tense. It is certainly true that a defeat is the likely outcome, given the failure of the AFL-CIO to launch any serious solidarity effort. But we should not be the first to raise the white flag, and we should certainly not do so while the battle is still being waged.
Though the bureaucracy seems to have given up the fight, the ranks have not. And the battle is not all one-sided. The PATCO workers are creating severe financial problems for the airline industry. Even now, a real offensive by the union movement as a whole in support of PATCO could at least salvage something from the situation, and perhaps even win. This is the perspective we should be presenting in the Militant, and in our unions. We have been struck by the fact that no information has been sent out to the NC about what our industrial fractions and other union comrades have been doing to promote solidarity with PATCO. We should have a report on this, and on perspectives for future activity, at the same plenum.
3. The political stakes of the situation in Poland are rising day by day. Sentiment in this country in support of the Solidarity movement remains high. This situation provides tremendous opportunities for our party. We should outline an action perspective to take advantage of them.
In the past, comrades have been wary of proposing anything of this kind for fear of our being identified with the anticommunism of the trade union bureaucracy. We believe that this approach is wrong, and simply leaves the social democracy a clear political field. We would propose two specific focuses for our activity in this area. One would be a campaign for teach-ins on Poland, sponsored by unions, campuses, forums, coalitions, or whatever. The second would be a campaign for action around the role of the U.S. banks in the Polish economic crisis.
Neither of these campaigns holds the dangers comrades fear. Teach-ins can be built and sponsored by a broad array of forces without anyone having to take responsibility politically for the views of others. We have comrades who are well qualified to speak at such events and present our point of view. They would serve as solidarity actions with the Polish workers’ struggle as well as being an educational vehicle. The campaign for pickets or other activities around the role of U.S. banks would set us apart from the union bureaucrats. Bringing proposals on this into the unions will help to expose the hypocritical role of the labor fakers.
4. We need some discussion of the party’s role in the NBIPP [National Black Independent Political Party]. So far as we can tell from the Militant and from NC mailings, there have been no projections made by the party of any perspectives for this organization. What do we think it should be doing? What proposals for action are we introducing? What role are our comrades playing in advancing the consciousness of the activists attracted to this formation?
Given our comrades’ overall experience and understanding, we should be playing a leading role in helping to think out, where possible, the program, strategy, and tactics of the NBIPP. An open and friendly participation by our cadre in this process can only enhance our authority and prestige, and increase our potential for recruiting to revolutionary socialist ideas. The plenum should get a report on our work in NBIPP with this in mind.
5. We should outline a perspective for continuing activity in the National Labor Committee for Safe Energy and Full Employment. Since the Harrisburg demonstration our attention to this has fallen off drastically. The scheduling of our plenum to conflict with this committee’s national conference shows how low in our priorities it has fallen.
Though the unions which sponsored the initial conference in Pittsburgh have pulled back somewhat in their commitment, this committee remains viable, and the sentiment against nukes remains high. We should develop a modest, but real, perspective for continuing activity in this area so that an effective vehicle exists when an upsurge around this issue occurs, as it is bound to eventually.
6. We believe that the NC needs a thorough discussion of the current state of the union movement: What currents and tendencies exist in the ranks and in the bureaucracy? What are the most important tasks that the unions face? Is the call for a labor party all we can propose at the current time? What other slogans and ideas should our union comrades and our press be raising to advance the cause of unionism? Keeping in touch with the real political life of the union movement is an essential continuous task for a proletarian revolutionary party. It keeps us in tune with what and how various layers are thinking, and makes it possible for us to give real vitality and meaning to our propaganda interventions.
Whatever the proposed political report at the plenum is going to contain, it should also discuss these ideas and proposals. We request that a copy of this letter be placed in the kits for all the delegates to read, and that we be given sufficient time during the discussion to further motivate these proposals.
Finally, in relation to point 7 on the agenda, we ask that this report include information on the following questions: How is the international discussion to be organized? What is the PC projecting for the participation of the SWP in this? When will the rest of the IEC resolutions, which were adopted in May, and have been available to comrades in Europe since at least July, be made accessible to the membership of our party? When will the leadership of the SWP present its counterpositions to the IEC resolutions, which it said it was ready to do at the May meeting but has so far failed to spell out for the membership of the International or the SWP? It would have been helpful if some of this information had been presented in writing before the plenum so participants would be better prepared to discuss it.
New York
November 12, 1981
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