Marxist Bulletin No. 4
Expulsion from the Socialist Workers Party
Document 8
Letter to Dobbs By Laurence Ireland
8 November 1963
Farrell Dobbs National Secretary Socialist Workers Party
116 University Place New York, N.Y. 10003
Dear comrade Dobbs:
Your letter of November 2nd conveying the Political
Committees decision to suspend me from membership in the party is
acknowledged.
By a Leninist standard, this suspension is illegal. The Control
Commission, through adroit selection of phrases from the Robertson-Ireland
document, can only weakly conclude that a hostile and disloyal attitude
toward the party is clearly manifested. A wrong attitude comrade
Dobbs! The Control Commission, after nearly two hours of interrogation and
after reading both documents which I submitted (the second half of the
Robertson-Ireland document and What the Discussion is Really About)
can only come up with a hostile and disloyal attitude. This is
false.
I think that mens minds are most clearly read in their
actions. Yet the Control Commission is unable to produce evidence of any
disloyal actions. Why not? Because, Comrade Dobbs, there have been none.
It is left to the Secretariat, in its November 1st motion to the
Political Committee to charge that provisions of the 1938 organizational
resolution, On the Internal Situation and the Character of the
Party, were violated. This charge, Comrade Dobbs, is a lie. This motion
is dishonest because it does not even fairly state what I wrote. This motion is
cynical because it goes beyond the Control Commissions findings. This
motion is disloyal because it attacks a minority tendency member for his
opinions and ideas alone. Here is how a Bolshevik views tendencies and
discipline:
If there are no ... tendencies, if the membership is fairly
homogeneous, there will be only temporary groupings--unless the leadership is
incorrect. And this will be shown best in practice. So, when a difference
occurs, a discussion should take place, a vote be taken, and a majority line
adopted. There must be no discrimination against the minority; any personal
animosity will compromise not them but the leadership. Real leadership will
be friendly and loyal to the disciplined minority.
It is true, of course, that discussion always provokes feelings
which remain for some time. Political life is full of
difficulties--personalities clash--they widen their dissensions--they get in
each others hair. These differences must be overcome by common
experience, by education of the rank and file, by the leadership proving
it is right. Discipline is built by education, not only by statutes.
Organizational measures should be resorted to only in extreme cases.
It was the elastic life within it which allowed the Bolshevik
Party to build its discipline. Even after the conquest of power, Bukharin and
other members of the party voted against the government in the Central
Executive on important questions, such as the German peace, and in so doing
lined themselves with those Social Revolutionists who soon attempted armed
insurrection against the Soviet state. But Bukharin was not expelled. Lenin
said, in effect:
We will tolerate a certain lack of discipline. We will
demonstrate to them that we are right. Tomorrow they will learn that our policy
is correct, and they will not break discipline so quickly. By this I
do not advise the dissenting comrades to imitate the arrogance of Bukharin.
Rather do I recommend that the leadership learns from the patience and tact
of Lenin. [L.D. Trotsky, In the Middle of the Road, pp.
29-30. Some emphases added.]
Do not interpret the use of this quotation as an admission of
having broken discipline. I have not. It is you, Comrade Dobbs, and the
Secretariat who are behaving in an undisciplined fashion. You are penalizing me
for the crime of submitting my views and opinions to a loyal and
disciplined minority tendency for consideration. The question is not even
whether or not these views were adopted by the tendency--which they were
not--but whether or not I had the right to offer dissenting views without the
sanction of the leadership faction.
If I had committed a heinous act against the party, I would have
been tried and expelled. This would be proper. But my alleged crime is entirely
in the realm of ideas. This is a frame-up, Comrade Dobbs, and is unworthy of a
man who has struggled so courageously in the past against similar outrages. No
party member even attempted to speak to me in an informal and comradely fashion
concerning the allegations. There was no attempt to determine if this allegedly
rotten material could be salvaged. Instead, a hard organizational tactic was
pursued. Not to determine the truth, but to silence loyal opposition. This is
not a Leninist tactic.
Your suspension is therefore illegal as it is based on no crime
against the party; only disciplined criticism of certain leadership policies. I
protest this bureaucratic maneuver of the Secretariat and demand my right to
appeal this criminal act before the National Committee at the earliest possible
moment. Meanwhile, ignoring the provocation, I shall continue to abide by party
discipline which flows from the program of the Fourth International.
Leninist greetings, Laurence Ireland New York
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