Prepared: May 22, 1979.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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May 22, 1979
Irwin Silber
Frances M. Beal
Comrades:
We have received your letter dated April 17.
We are disappointed – although not entirely surprised – that you have decided not to pursue your proposed discussion with us. While we originally suspected that your first letter was not written primarily for our benefit (but rather to consolidate your own supporters), we decided to take you at your word. As a result, we devoted considerable energy to elaborating our views in order that you could use them in preparation for the meeting. We think that your decision to call the meeting off is unfortunate and can only be read as confirmation that your commitment to a discussion with us was half-hearted from the beginning.
Be that as it may, at least you ought to have the decency to face up to the real issues in our dispute. We do not think that anybody’s real interests, let alone the interests of our tendency as a whole, will be served by an attempt to cloud our disagreements.
In this light, let us point out a few distortions in your letter. You argue that we “continue to insist that a decision not to affiliate with the OCIC is inherently sectarian.” Nowhere will you find a statement even close to this that has been made by us. We have never held – and, frankly, could never hold – such an absurd position. To maintain that a decision to stay outside the OC is “inherently sectarian” is tantamount to arguing that it is impossible to have any principled disagreements with that formation.
As you know full well, our critique of your circle spirit is not based on such absurdities. Instead it is rooted in our evaluation that you have no principled basis for your opposition to the OC at this point aniT that therefore your particular decision to remain outside the OC is sectarian. Attempts to dodge this argument will be of no avail.
Second, you assert that “to say that endorsement of the Guardian’s ’general critique’ of the OCIC is sectarian when the heart of that critique is bound up with our differences over party-building line is an attempt to trivialize real political differences and to suggest that all such differences are mere pretexts for what you call the ’circle spirit.’”
Once again you distort our position. We have never ’trivialized’ your differences with the PWOC’s party-building line nor intimated that these differences are but a “pretext” for your circle spirit.
Once again we must remind you of what you already know. Our position is that to uphold the “Guardian’s general critique” of the OC as the basis for a split in the anti-revisionist, anti-’left’ opportunist tendency is to manifest a small circle mentality. Our position is that genuine differences between yourselves and the PWOC on party-building line do exist but that they are not the basis for a split in the tendency at this time. Our position is that the OCIC has not united with the PWOC’s party-building line and that just as we are prepared to struggle within it for our views, so should you be. And our position is that the real interests of the tendency would be best served if the struggle between your line and ours is developed in the context of an organized, centralized and movement-wide process and that disorganized, spontaneous and narrow circle struggle only serves the more backward view.
Do not misunderstand us. We are convinced that your party-building strategy is bankrupt, opportunist and must eventually be defeated if a viable party is to be built. But we also think that more pressing questions of party-building line (such as consolidating our tendency on the basis of a thorough critique of ultra-leftism, generating a process conducive to the forging of a single center, and breaking with a narrow circle approach to our tasks) demand that we unite with you at this point. We are not only certain that common work on these tasks is in the best interests of our tendency. We are also convinced that this common work will create the best political foundation for a principled airing of the genuine differences between us on the relationship between “fusion” and “rectification.”
No, it is not that we desire to “trivialize” important differences between us. It is just that we refuse to allow your fear of a principled discussion of these disagreements prevent you from facing up to your real interests in common work to develop our tendency.
Nor have we ever requested that you cease “criticizing” the PWOC’s party-building line or even the OC for that matter. What we have demanded is that you either demonstrate – and not just assert – your position that the OC has adopted the “fusion strategy” for party-building or give up this deception. What we have demanded is that you articulate a principled basis for your decision to attack the OC from the outside rather than criticizing it from within. And finally, what we have demanded is that you place the interests of the tendency as a whole, in deeds and not just in words, in the forefront of your vision.
In relation to the need to subordinate your circle interests, your remarks concerning unity and splits are disturbing – to say the least. You write: “we will continue to criticize (the PWOC’s) line on its merits – not on whether it promotes ’unity’ or could lead to ’splits.’” Since when is a communist not concerned with whether a line promotes principled unity or not? And since when is the question of whether a line fosters such unity not considered as a merit? A Marxist-Leninist may evaluate a line according to whether it yields principled or unprincipled unity, principled or unprincipled splits. But only someone steeped in the politics of splittism could imply that whether a line promotes unity or not is unimportant.
As for your contention that you do not believe that we “are prepared to deal with the questions (between us) in a thoroughly political fashion,” frankly, it smacks of hypocrisy. In the recent letters between us, it is not the PWOC Political Committee that has sought to distort our real political disagreements. In the nearly four year history of your relationship with us, it is not the PWOC that has failed to pursue a course of discussion designed to promote principled unity and not unprincipled splits. Nor is it the PWOC which has been forced to openly abandon a splittist party-building effort while at the same time scrambling to cover over the party-building line which underlay that effort. And finally, it is not the PWOC which presently fights to preserve the politics of circle warfare.
In closing, we are still of the opinion that it would be worthwhile to discuss these questions along the lines that you originally proposed. And while we would be happy to meet with a delegation from the Club Network, we cannot help but feel that the focus of such a discussion will necessarily be different from a meeting with the two of you – even if it “may be appropriate to take up some of the questions raised in our exchange of letters” as you say. We hope that you will reconsider you decision to abandon the proposed meeting.
Comradely,
Political Committee, PWOC
P.S. Three brief points. We find it somewhat unorthodox for a liaison meeting with the Club Network to be initiated in the context of an exchange between two individual Club members and ourselves. Are we, then, to assume that the Network takes full responsibility for both your original letter and this most recent one? To us, it would seem more appropriate for a liaison to be proposed through an authorized communication from the Network leadership.
Second, as we wrote in our March 20 letter to you, we saw no reason for concealing the discussion between us from the tendency as a whole, but were willing to accede to your request to do so until the proposed meeting. Given that you have abandoned the meeting, we no longer see any reason why our exchange of letters (including yours of April 17 and this one) should not be circulated publicly.
Finally, one of our members informed us that you have raised a question concerning how the Guardian received a copy of your original letter and our reply. We do not know. We did not give it to them and the copies of the exchange that we did distribute were sent with the proviso that they not be circulated further without our consent.
cc: OC members