MIA: History: ETOL: Documents: International Communist League/Spartacists—PRS 5
Resolution on the Organizational Report of the
National Committee30 November 1934
Written: 1934
Source: Prometheus Research Library, Prometheus Research Series No. 5, New York, 2000
Transcription/Markup/Proofing: John Heckman.
Public Domain: Encyclopedia of Trotskyism On-Line 2006/Prometheus Research Library. You can freely copy, display and otherwise distribute this work. Please credit the Marxists Internet Archive & Prometheus Research Library as your source, include the url to this work, and note the transcribers & editors above.
The outgoing National Committee has been in office for three years since the Second National Convention of the League and is virtually identical with the Committee that has led the organization during the entire six years of its existence. As such it must be judged from the standpoint of its achievements as well as of its shortcomings.
I. On the positive side, the Third National Convention records the following facts of outstanding importance:
a. The National Committee led the organization throughout the whole period of its existence, maintained a continuity of leadership, avoided the organizational splits which have disrupted and disorganized so many of the other national sections, conducted a firm political struggle against disintegrating elements (Weisbord, Field, etc.), succeeded in isolating them by political methods and eliminating them from our ranks without serious convulsions, such as similar elements introduced into various European sections;
b. The National Committee directed the work of the organization in such a manner as made possible the increase of the League membership from a scattered handful at its inception, to its present strength, and finally established it as a national organization, together with a national youth organization;
c. It maintained a firm line of principle and led the work of consolidating a strong cadre of Bolshevik-Leninists well-equipped with our basic ideas and principles for the task facing them in the new party;
d. It enormously aided the development of these cadres and a broad group of sympathizers around our organization by the systematic publication of the fundamental documents and works of Comrade Trotsky;
e. In the face of the greatest difficulties and sacrifices, it continued uninterrupted the publication of the Militant as our weekly organ, an achievement which proved to be beyond the power of any other independent political groupings;
f. It firmly supported the progressive revolutionary current in our international organization and gave timely assistance in the solution of the internal crises in other sections on the Bolshevik-Leninist basis;
g. It led the organization unitedly and without internal difficulties in the turn from the position of a faction of the CI to the road of an independent organization working for the creation of new revolutionary parties and a Fourth International;
h. It overcame, at the same time, with the aid of our international organization, the deep internal crisis and factional fight which threatened the existence of the League, succeeded in liquidating the old factions as the resolution of the International Secretariat demanded, and in effecting a working political and organizational collaboration of the most responsible and influential comrades from all the former factions (Cannon, Shachtman, Carter groups)—an accomplishment which alone made possible the fruitful progress of the past year and without which the League would have fallen victim to disintegration and splits and a complete impotence for the great tasks facing it. Without the liquidation of the old faction fight and the loyal collaboration of the leading members of the National Committee from both sides on a political basis, such as has been effected during the past year, our three main accomplishments—the Minneapolis strike, the launching of our theoretical organ, the work for fusion into a new party—would have been impossible;
Above all, the convention establishes the fact that the policy and leadership of the National Committee has brought our organization today to the point of fusion with the American Workers Party on a satisfactory principled basis for the launching of the first party of the Fourth International—an event of the greatest international historical significance.
II. On the negative side, the National Convention is obliged to register a series of defects and shortcomings on the part of the National Committee which require the criticism of the membership of the League:
a. The Committee failed to attain a good and necessary collective work which would have made it possible for it and for the organization to react more promptly and effectively to situations and problems confronting it, tolerated individualistic methods, gave way to internal dissension which at one time endangered the unity of the League and adversely affected its striking power;
b. Throughout the six years of our existence, the leading Committee carried on the administrative work of the organization poorly and inefficiently, failed to give the branches the necessary organizational and informational guidance, or else failed to give it in time;
c. Adequate contact was not maintained between the National Committee and the membership, to the detriment of the work of both, so that the National Committee was not sufficiently sensitive to the feelings and requirements of the membership and the latter was left without the necessary political aid in the solution of their problem and the organizational direction of their work;
d. The Committee was especially lax in its international duties, failing to give the international organization sufficient information about the development and problems of the League, failing even to supply the International Secretariat with a minimum of material aid so imperative for its functioning;
e. The National Committee was slow in reacting to events and issues, often giving its position after the event and in many cases failing to take a position at all. This sluggishness communicated itself to the membership and contributed to the development of tendencies towards passivity and routine in the organization. In addition, the NC gave inadequate attention and aid to our youth movement which was thus compelled to develop its activity largely by itself;
f. In general the National Committee throughout the six years of the existence of our organization did not function as a rounded and well- organized collective leadership, which would have served enormously to consolidate the League and to enhance the prestige of the NC itself. The National Convention, therefore, demands of its leading body, individually and collectively, that it make a radical correction and improvement in its habits and methods of work, and above all that systematic collaboration, politically, and organizationally, be established in the new party.
III. The foregoing criticism is directed at the National Committee as a whole, not merely at its functioning members in the National office. Comrades Swabeck, Shachtman and Cannon, who carried the main political responsibility since the Second National Convention and led the struggle for the political line of the League and who, together with Comrade Oehler, carried the entire burden of the administrative responsibility for the National Committee, are herein specifically criticized for grave faults of commission and omission in the conduct of their work.
But the other members of the National Committee—Abern, Spector, and Glotzer, Edwards (alternate), Morgenstern (alternate), Dunne, Skoglund, and Coover (alternate)—each and every one of them must also be taken to account by the organization at this convention.
As for Comrades Dunne, Skoglund and Coover—the convention declares that these comrades have conducted systematic and unremitting activity in the trade-union movement, have thereby brought credit and glory to our organization, not only on a national but on an international scale. At the same time, although far removed from the center and unable to function in it directly, they have at all times carried out their responsibilities as non-resident members and have given the center loyal support in its work. If they have not functioned directly in the center, it has not been because of a refusal on their part, but because they were not called upon to do so. As for Comrade Oehler the convention records that he carried out functions assigned to him by the NC, quitting private employment on two occasions for this purpose and, in general collaborated with other functioning members of the NC. Even during the heated struggle between him and the majority of the NC over important and clearly defined political questions, a measure of responsible collaboration with him was possible. Against Comrade Oehler the convention records the fact that he formed a faction in the League despite the fact that normal democratic processes were never denied to him.
As for Comrade Morgenstern who was elected at the last convention to the responsible position as an alternate to the National Committee, the Third Convention records the fact that his personal conduct was not in keeping with such a responsibility and called forth the severe censure of the National Committee and his simultaneous resignation from it. Following that, his conduct in the Philadelphia organization and his entirely inadequate personal activity deprived that organization of the political and organizational contribution which he owed to it and contributed heavily to impeding its growth.
As for Comrades Abern, Glotzer, Spector and Edwards (alternate)—these comrades were guilty of greater derelictions than any other members of the Committee. Comrade Abern failed to collaborate with the other members of the National Committee in a comradely manner, although no political differences among them were discerned which would in any way justify the sharp and even poisonous antagonism which he continually engendered, even after the unanimous adoption of the resolution of the International Secretariat calling for a cessation of the old factional fight. He refused to take any kind of responsibility, either political or organizational, assigned to him by the National Committee. Even his present post was assumed by him, only after the most vigorous intervention of other Committee members who for months encountered his stubborn refusal. He stirred up antagonism against the National Committee without any established political foundation. He absented himself regularly from general membership meetings at which the most serious problems of the League [were dealt with], with or without excuse, and repeatedly and persistently refused to speak for the League at public meetings, although constantly requested to do so by the New York organization. He gathered around himself a clique of discontented comrades without visible political grounds. His whole destructive, negative and spiteful position is epitomized in his attitude towards the present convention, the final gathering of the organization at which a six-years’ balance sheet is being drawn.
Comrade Glotzer, who has been one of the most insistent critics of the most obvious shortcomings of the National Committee, failed to preserve his position as a responsible functionary, together with others, at the center, to which he had at first been summoned for the purpose of strengthening the weight, the collectivity, the functioning and the efficiency of the Resident Committee. As a member of the National Committee, having no serious differences with its political line and presenting none contrary to it, he nevertheless failed to maintain his solidarity with the Committee which, from a Bolshevik standpoint, would logically follow from such a relationship. Devoting himself mainly to criticism, in itself largely justified, he directed his attacks exclusively at those comrades who carried responsibilities and tried to function, even if poorly, while completely ignoring or shielding from all criticism the scandalous conduct of Abern with whom, indeed, he associated himself. At this convention, he even went so far as to associate himself with Abern, who has no right to speak at all on this matter, in a condemnation of the functioning Committee members. He appeared at the convention not as a member of the National Committee with which he is presumably in political solidarity, but as a leading spokesman for a clique which includes Abern and which has no political platform of its own.
Comrade Edwards, whose political knowledge and experience in the revolutionary and labor movements entitled us to expect the political attitude of a leader, completely failed the National Committee in this respect, concerned himself with minor grievances, refuses to give the Resident Committee the solidarity and support which ought to follow from his membership on the National Committee and its agreement with its main line, and instead associates himself with the conduct of Comrade Glotzer and through him of Comrade Abern. In addition, he was far from measuring up to the activity on a local scale which the Chicago organization was entitled to receive from an alternate to the National Committee who has the political qualifications of Comrade Edwards.
Comrade Spector, even if excused from direct participation in the work of the Resident Committee, by virtue of his leadership and work in the Canadian section, nevertheless owed the Resident Committee the obligation of political solidarity and the influence of his prestige and personal relationships with other individual members to facilitate that loyal and comradely collaboration without which all talk of a collective leadership is a mockery. The convention regretfully establishes the fact that Comrade Spector appears to have exerted his influence in a contrary direction, devoting himself to attacks on the Resident Committee shielding Abern from criticism and identifying himself with a clique against the National Committee which has no political platform or basis.
IV. The convention condemns clique tendencies, personal combinations, the shielding of individuals from just criticism, and the one-sided criticism of others cut of personal considerations and out-worn factional reminiscences. The convention categorically demands the dissolution of any clique or factional grouping and the consolidation of the entire League and of the entire leadership on the basis of the political decisions of this convention.
James P. Cannon
Arne Swabeck
Max Shachtman