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Comrades, the [Nat Weinstein/Lynn Henderson National Committee minority] tendency met during the course of this convention and decided to maintain its existence in preparation for the upcoming international discussion that will take place in our world movement. After the end of this convention, the name that we have been operating under no longer applies, so we have decided to describe ourselves from here on out as the Trotskyist Tendency. It is based upon the general line of the document that we submitted, “The Transitional Program and Method: the Road Forward” [SWP Discussion Bulletin, Vol. 37, No. 18], which I think captures the fundamental premise of the positions that we will defend in the world discussion.
I think that all of us know, and we were careful to make it very clear in our discussions among ourselves, what our rights and our responsibilities are as members of a tendency and as members of the Socialist Workers Party.
Our main purpose for existence, of course, is very, very limited. It is only to prepare ourselves for participating in the discussion when it opens. We will wait until the documents come out. And we will have to make a decision whether one of the points of view expressed in the international discussion adequately represents our point of view. In that case, there would be no need for an independent position presented by the Trotskyist Tendency here in the United States.
We will remain, as we have been, party builders. We will faithfully carry out the line decided by majority vote at this discussion. We think that is the way to go forward in building the party, and we think that is the best way to prepare comrades to give us a hearing when the next phase of the discussion in our party and in the world movement is opened up. Until that time, we pledge ourselves, we urge all of us to go out together to do the best job that we can to build the party of the American socialist revolution, the Socialist Workers Party.
Nat Weinstein
August 7, 1981
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