Marxist Bulletin No. 4
Expulsion from the Socialist Workers Party
Document 4
Political Committee Motion Suspending
Robertson-Mage-White-Harper-Ireland (plus cover letter and appended Control
Commission Report)
November 2, 1963 James Robertson 305 West 103rd St.
Apt. 3 New York 25, New York
Dear Comrade Robertson:
You are hereby officially notified that, effective immediately,
the Political Committee has suspended you from membership in the party.
As stated in the PC decision, you are barred from internal party
meetings, denied access to internal party material, and excluded from
participation in any and all forms of internal party life and activity.
Copies of the PC decision and the Control
Commission report of October 24,1963, dealing with this matter are attached for
your information.
Comradely yours, Farrell Dobbs, National Secretary
Excerpt from P.C. minutes #4, November 1, 1963 Attch. #1
Motion by Secretariat
The basic organizational resolution, On the Internal
Situation and the Character of the Party, adopted by the 1938 Founding
Convention of the Socialist Workers Party, contains the following provisions:
The party requires of every member the acceptance of its
discipline and the carrying on of his activity in accordance with the program
of the party, with the decisions adopted by its conventions, and with the
policies formulated and directed by the party leadership. Party membership
implies the obligation of one hundred per cent loyalty to the organization, the
rejection of all agents of other, hostile groups in its ranks, and intolerance
of divided loyalties in general... The party as a whole has the right to demand
that its work be not disrupted and disorganized, and has the right to take all
the measures which it finds necessary to assure its regular and normal
functioning... All inner-party discussion must be organized from the point of
view that the party is not a discussion club, which debates interminably on any
and all questions at any and all times, without arriving at a binding decision
that enables the organization to act, but from the point of view that we are a
disciplined party of revolutionary action... The decisions of the national
party convention are binding on all party members without exception and they
conclude the discussion on all these disputed questions upon which a decision
has been taken. Any party member violating the decisions of the convention, or
attempting to revive discussion in regard to them without formal authorization
of the party, puts himself thereby in opposition to the party and forfeits his
right to membership. All party organizations are authorized and instructed to
take any measures necessary to enforce this rule.
As indicated in the Control Commissions report of October
24, 1963, the foregoing provisions of the 1938 resolution are violated by the
leadership practices of the Robertson-Mage-White group. Assuming the guise of a
study circle the group leadership projects a discussion policy that
disregards convention decisions to close discussion or disputed issues and goes
ahead factionally on a business-as-usual basis. In external activity they
purpose to function as united blocs, seeking to work as free
lancers in areas where they are unhindered by the presence of comrades loyal to
the party. They undertake the recruitment of outside contacts into the group on
the basis of the groups program, methods and practices. New people
recruited into the group are considered ready to apply for party membership
only after they have first been indoctrinated against the program, convention
decisions and organizational principles of the party.
Group discipline is put before party discipline. Group work within
the party is cynically projected as the best possible opportunity for
building our tendency and not through any mistaken concepts of loyalty to a
diseased shell.
Such are the concepts, methods and practices with which the
Robertson-Mage-White group is indoctrinated by its central leaders and by the
Harper-Ireland propagators of the leadership policy. Those concepts, methods
and practices are alien to our party, wholly disloyal and utterly intolerable.
Because of their violations of party loyalty the Political
Committee hereby suspends from party membership Comrades Robertson, Mage,
White, Harper and Ireland. Although suspension from membership does not
constitute outright expulsion from the party it has the same force and effect
concerning the exercise of membership rights during the period of suspension.
Those suspended are barred from internal party meetings. They are denied access
to internal party material. They are excluded from participation in any and all
forms of internal party life and activity.
The Political Committee refers to the plenum of the National
Committee the question of further disciplinary action against the
Robertson-Mage-White group.
Adopted by Political Committee, November 1, 1963
October 24, 1963
To the Political Committee:
Report of Control Commission on Robertson Case
As requested by the Political Committee in its motion of August 2,
1963, we submit on behalf of the Control Commission the following findings in
our investigation of the Robertson-Mage-White tendency:
I.
During our investigation we obtained the text of the
Robertson-Ireland document, I. The Centrism of the SWP (and) II. The
Tasks of the Minority, which had previously been withheld from the party.
A copy of the document is attached. (Appendix # 1). We call your attention to
the following statements contained therein:
12. The majority rank and file ... contains many valuable
elements who will more and more become disgusted ... One of our major tasks
must be to recruit these comrades to our tendency. This in fact is our first
line of recruitment ... But this process ... is but one of the ways in which we
will increase our numbers; it is by no means the only one and we must seriously
begin to consider the possibility that we will not gain a majority following
within the party...
13. We seek to recruit to the tendency. All organization
tasks must be undertaken with this concept in mind ... At present, largely
because the SWP is the ostensible revolutionary party in the eyes of the
radical public and the party membership, we work through the SWP. But we can
have no intention of building centrism. We work within the party because it
provides us with the best possible opportunity for building our tendency and
not through any mistaken concepts of loyalty to a diseased shell.
14. ...our discipline must be with the minority until that
time when program and form are again united... but... it is likely that this
will take some time. In the interim, we must not allow ourselves to drift back
and forth confusing, now, discipline with the form of the SWP and, then, with
the minority.
15. Ours will be a problem of double
recruitment. As we seek to build the tendency, therefore, and as we have the
perspective of working within the SWP in the coming period, recruitment of new
cadres from outside the party will involve considerable effort. There can be no
question of meekly handing this raw material over to the party for conversion
into careerists or a probable speedy disillusionment... this source of cadres
for our tendency is second only to recruitment within the party and is
therefore of the utmost importance.
16. As our tendency builds its ranks, the SWP will become
more and more reluctant to accept members... who are evidently supporters of
the minority... We cannot drop these comrades! On the contrary, we must keep
them in as close a contact as possible with the functioning and activities of
the Socialist movement. Under no conditions must this vigorous new material be
allowed to wither up and drift away because of insufficient political and
organizational contact with revolutionary Marxism...
19.
there is no reason why we cannot act as united
blocs within the party when approaching some outside activity as a strike,
campus activity or the like. This will always be a highly difficult proposition
because of our position with the SWP, but we must attempt to utilize every
opportunity possible for recruitment...
21. The situation facing our forces is qualitatively the
same in the youth as in the party. But in the youth a more open and revealing
process takes place, paralleling the course of the SWP... at no time must we
fall into the trap of lending other than critical or conditional support
to the various proposals and activities...
24.
a latent or explicit desire for minority
comrades to shirk from mass contact and (centrist) party building concomitant
with a preference to discuss revolutionary work as abstractly as possible...
One of the most noteworthy complaints of these comrades is not that they do not
wish to do party work, but that they do not care to be reduced to cogs in an
autocratically managed centrist party, that is, a party which limits the areas
of political usefulness. Our comrades want to be active, but they want to be
active as revolutionary Socialists. Therefore, one of our major tasks at this
moment is to become a study circle! ... The carrying out of these tasks
necessarily presupposes study on all problems facing the proletariat as
a class engaged in struggle as well as on all problems before its
vanguard. (Emphasis in original.)
II.
The Robertson-Ireland document also states: 22. The document
submitted by Comrade Harper (Orientation of the Party Minority in Youth Work
[draft]) on 8 August 1962 to the New York Tendency contains our basic position
in regard to youth work. This document should be supported, developed and
implemented at every opportunity. The text of the Harper draft is
attached. (Appendix # 2.) It contains the following statement which we call to
your attention:
6.
we should pick and choose, channeling our
energies into that work which will be most fruitful for our purposes. Examples
of this sort of fruitful activity would be work on campuses and in
organizations where we are relatively free from the hindrance of large majority
fractions and actions where we can independently bring in contacts, work with
them, and offer them our views of whatever struggle we are engaged in.
III.
In these statements by the Robertson-Mage-White minority their
hostile and disloyal attitude toward the party is clearly manifested.
(signed) Anne Chester (CC member) John Tabor (CC
representative)
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