Marxist Bulletin No. 4
Expulsion from the Socialist Workers Party
Document 9
Letter to the Political Committee
By Shane Mage
New York
10 November, 1963
Political Committee
Socialist Workers’ Party
116
University Place
New York 3, N.Y.
Dear Comrades,
The Political Committee resolution of November 1, suspending five
comrades from membership in the Socialist Workers’ Party, constitutes a
crime against the fundamental principles of the Trotskyist movement. I and the
other comrades have been excluded from the party for no other reason than our
consistent, open, and loyal political struggle against the abandonment of
Marxism by the clique(s) in control of the S.W.P. That this Cannon-KerryDobbs
apparatus did not have the courage to declare openly the real motive and ground
for its act, but resorted instead to the familiar Stalinist methods of slander
and frame-up, proves the drastic extent of the political and organizational
degeneration of the S.W.P. leading clique(s).
This is a harsh charge, admittedly, but the texts of the Political
Committee resolution of November 1 and of the Control Commission report on
which it is allegedly based provide more than conclusive evidence that it is
true.
A. The Control Commission report does not charge me or any other
opposition comrade with a single violation of party discipline, with a single
hostile or disloyal act. Why? Obviously because we have engaged in nothing even
remotely approaching such an act.
B. The Control Commission accuses us of one thing alone--a
‘hostile and disloyal attitude’: we are thus accused of
nothing but a thought-crime. Anyone who actually needs to have the
totalitarian nature of this accusation pointed out to him is referred to the
speeches of Cannon and Dobbs on the Smith Act trials.
C. The ‘evidence’ presented by the Control Commission
for its charge of subversive thoughts is drawn entirely from two internal
discussion documents of the opposition dating from mid1962: a series of
fragments wrenched from their real context and strung together with dots in the
fashion of the best schools of falsification. But this mendacious presentation
is the smallest fault in the whole frame-up. The Control Commission concludes
its ‘findings’ with this declaration: ‘In these statements by
the Robertson-Mage-White minority their hostile and disloyal attitude toward
the party is clearly manifested.’ THIS IS A CONSCIOUS, DELIBERATE,
BARE-FACED LIE. The Control Commission knew perfectly well that the documents
signed by Robertson, Ireland, and Harper were personal discussion contributions
and had never been adopted, in whole or in part, by the
‘Robertson-Mage-White minority.’
Why was this LIE necessary? In order to drag comrade White and
myself, as leading figures of the opposition, into the frame-up against
Robertson, Ireland, and Harper; and thus to take the last step before exclusion
of the opposition as a whole. This LIE is prima facie evidence that the
real motive of the operation is the suppression of political dissent.
D. Not content even with the falsifications of the Control
Commission report, the Political Committee resolution introduces still another
cheap swindle by accepting the thought-crime charges of the Control Commission
as evidence regarding luridly and slanderously outlined ‘leadership
practices of the Robertson-Mage-White group.’ It thus can conclude:
‘Those concepts, methods and practices, are alien to our
party, wholly disloyal, and utterly intolerable.’ One can only be amazed
by the cynicism with which the leadership clique(s) cites a Control Commission
report dealing only with ‘concepts’ as evidence for false accusations
regarding ‘methods’ and ‘practices.’
E. Finally, the entire procedure used against us is not merely
dishonest--it is in direct contradiction with the provisions of the S.W.P.
constitution, and therefore utterly illegal. Article VIII, Section 3 states:
‘Charges against any member shall be made in writing and the accused
member shall be furnished with a copy in advance of the trial.’ I have no
way of knowing if charges, written or oral, were ever made against me--I do
know that if such charges exist I was never furnished with a copy of them, and
still less did I ever get a chance to answer these hypothetical charges at a
trial.
If this exclusion of the opposition is allowed to stand, whether
in the hypocritical guise of ‘suspension’ or as open expulsion, the
career of the S.W.P. as a revolutionary-socialist party will have come to an
end. The political degeneration of the S.W.P. has already turned the concept of
workers’ democracy into an empty fetish, at least in the cases of the
majority’s policy on Cuba and Algeria. Now the exclusion of the opposition
within the S.W.P. itself eliminates the basic right of the members of a
democratic proletarian organization -- the right to unite on a common political
program in opposition to that of the existing leadership. Henceforward
opponents of the leading clique(s) will have no rights: at most they can
hope to be tolerated so long as the leadership does not regard their
‘concepts’ as ‘hostile’ or ‘disloyal’.
The duty of the party is clear. These criminal exclusions must
be unconditionally rescinded and those responsible for their perpetration
severely censured. The alternative is irremediable bureaucratic
degeneration.
Fraternally,
Shane Mage
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