Shachtman - Marxist Politics or Unprincipled Combinationism?

Marxist Politics or Unprincipled Combinationism?
Internal Problems of the Workers Party

by Max Shachtman

Written: January 1936
Source: Prometheus Research Series No. 5, Prometheus Research Library, New York, September 2000
Transcription/Markup/Proofing: John Heckman.
Public Domain: Encyclopedia of Trotskyism On-Line 2006. You can freely copy, display and otherwise distribute this work. Please credit the Marxists Internet Archive as your source, include the url to this work, and note the transcribers & editors above.

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The Origin of the Weber Group

The origin of the Weber group, like its political position in general, is shrouded in that obscurity and mystification which are characteristic of cliques that operate in the dark, shamefacedly, without banner unfurled, without candidness, without principled platform. Of the five recorded official statements on the origin of the faction made by various representatives of it—five recorded statements are all I have been able to gather to date—not one of them jibes with the other. And that, as we shall see, is not hard to understand, because all of them are untrue.

The minutes of the CLA convention read, after recording the statements of Oehler and Cannon announcing the dissolution of their respective factions, as follows: “Weber announced that he had no caucus prior to the convention, dissolves the Weber caucus and pledges loyal collaboration with other members of the new party.” Statement I, therefore, is that while the faction was, by divine power of attraction of similars, constituted right at the convention, none had existed up to that time.

The same minutes record the following indignant statement made by the other Weberite delegate from New York, the noted activist and statesman, Sterling: “I wish to protest vigorously the statement of Shachtman that I was or am (!) in any kind of a faction with Comrade Weber ever since the breakup of the so-called Shachtman faction. I consider that this statement of Shachtman is maliciously intended to create the impression that such a faction did exist for the purpose of an unprincipled struggle against the NC.” Statement II, therefore, is that, contrary to Weber’s assertion, there was no Weber faction even at the CLA convention—Sterling denied that he either “was or am” in one, or that it ever existed.

In his November 20, 1935, letter to the I.S. of the ICL, Glotzer explained: “The Cannon letter declared falsely that the Weber group formed a sort of opposition to the fusion. The Weber group constituted itself only immediately before the CLA convention (November 1934) and at the convention.” Statement III, therefore, is that the faction, contrary to both Weber and the vigorously protestant Sterling, did exist and was organized (on what platform? Stupid question!) before the CLA convention.

In his letter to the I.S., dated December 29, 1935, Weber writes that “we” felt “that it had become necessary after March to open up the discussion on the French turn so as to bring about ideological clarification. There was everything to gain by achieving political understanding first, and everything to lose by resorting only to organizational measures. This position we made perfectly clear in a statement to the New York district after the March Plenum.” Statement IV, therefore, is that in the WP, the Weber faction was formed only after the March Plenum (Pittsburgh) when “we” had a “position” which “we made perfectly clear.”

But in his speech to the New York party membership on July 27, 1935, later sent out as a caucus document, Gould, in his unterrified bid for leadership, declared: “We, and we alone, are the only group that can come before the party at this juncture and honestly place before the membership for examination the history of the work, the attitude and the work of the Weber group: as the group that foresaw (!) and exposed (!!) the trickery of Cannon at the Pittsburgh Plenum.” To foresee, one must exist before the event foreseen. Statement V, therefore, is that the Weber group not only existed, but also foresaw things and exposed them before the March Plenum.

Now, as previously indicated, none of these statements on the origin of the Weber faction corresponds to the truth. The fact is that it was established under the auspices of Weber and Abern (the same Abern whom this same Weber once proposed to Shachtman to run out of the movement because he was a menace to it! and to run him out for anything but political reasons...) almost exactly two years ago—established essentially by do-nothing grumblers, impotent malcontents, retired tent-sulkers and the like, and based upon gnawing personal antipathies and anticipated but non-existing differences of opinion.

The CLA was essentially a propaganda group which, for a whole series of historical circumstances chiefly beyond its control, had to suffer all the maladies of a circle, a sect. All its progressive features combined—and they were many—were not strong enough to eliminate entirely these maladies, brought on basically by its enforced isolation from the health-giving flow of the broad class struggle. Just as it would be philistinism to ignore the great contributions to the revolutionary movement which even this small propaganda group was able to make and did make, so it would be gross sentimentalism and misplaced patriotism to ignore the negative aspects of its existence. Among these negative aspects are tendencies to routine conservatism; to personal frictions which become exaggerated beyond all proportion to their real importance; to yielding to isolation and becoming ingrown and contented with things as they are; to bitterness with your isolation becoming transformed into finding fault with this or that comrade, this or that group for objective difficulties basically beyond anyone’s control; to a dozen and one other of the evils attendant upon the life of a propaganda group.

In the course of the early years of the CLA (1932-1933), these negative aspects of the League’s life were manifested in an increasingly violent struggle in the leadership and the ranks which divided them into two groups, the Cannon and Shachtman factions. It would lead us too far afield to go into the details of this internal struggle. Nor is it necessary, if only because of the facts that it has long ago been outlived and effectively liquidated and that it had no basis in political or principled differences. It appeared to revolve around accusations of organizational abuses on the one side and similar delinquencies on the other, for both sides repeatedly stressed the absence of serious political differences as the basis of the fight. What is necessary is that a political explanation be given of why the fight took place, what was its nature, and how it was and why it had to be settled. The Weber group today lives essentially on poisoned reminiscences of that obsolete struggle; it still circulates the faction accusations of Shachtman against Cannon and vice-versa as the material with which it “educates” its supporters. It tears situations and arguments right out of their context and in a thoroughly absurd—not to say criminal—manner applies them to present-day situations which have no kinship with those of the past. The clearest summary of what the CLA internal dispute was, at bottom, was made in a letter to the International Secretariat written by Comrade Trotsky on March 7, 1933. We quote a lengthy excerpt from it because it is not only a political explanation of the League’s internecine strife but because it will help to lay bare the falsity of the whole Weber faction’s foundation.

For several years the action of the League bore mainly a literary propagandist character. The number of members vacillated around the same figure, varying according to the improvement or worsening of the work at the center. The absence of progress in the movement, as has always been the case, aroused all sorts of personal antagonisms. The same absence of progress in the movement does not permit these antagonisms to take on a political character. This has given and still gives to the struggle an excessively poisoned character in the absence of a principled content clear for everybody. Members of the organization do not learn anything from such a struggle. They are forced to group themselves according to personal attachments, sympathies and antipathies. The struggle of the groups becomes, in its turn, an obstacle to the further progress of the movement....

It is quite possible that in this struggle there are contained plausible principled differences in embryonic form. Nevertheless, it is unfortunate that the two groups anticipate too much and sharpen the organizational struggle between the groups and persons altogether out of proportion with the development of the political work and of the questions raised by the latter.... A genuine solution of the internal difficulties can only be found along the path of expanding the mass work.... Of course, it is theoretically possible that with the transition to broader work, the potential differences can assume an open and active political character. But up to the present, this has not at all been expressed in anything. More or less full-fashioned, serious and firm differences have not been revealed in any of the three fields of work mentioned above. There remains another explanation: the aggravation of the crisis has been called forth by the mechanics themselves of the transition from one stage of work to another. This does not exclude the birth of serious differences in the future, but these do not necessarily have to correspond with the lineup of the present groupings.... It is quite possible that the leadership, after some regroupments, will be constituted from elements of both the present groups.... Given the absence or, at least, the non-obviousness of the principled basis in the struggle of the groups, conciliationism is quite justified and progressive in the internal life. It is necessary now, at the present stage, to support this tendency with all the authority of the international organization.

The point of view contained in this letter finally met with the agreement of the representatives of both factions who visited Trotsky to discuss our internal situation (Swabeck and Shachtman), and was finally embodied in the resolution on the American situation adopted by the 1933 plenum of the ICL, which further proposed that “the factional organizations should be dissolved.” Both representatives pledged themselves to carry this resolution into effect to the full extent of their powers, and to win their partisans to its support. There are no clear political differences; conciliationism is healthy and justified; dissolve the factions; plunge into mass work; if there are latent political differences they will show themselves when they emerge as political reactions to problems of the class struggle; but they need not necessarily manifest themselves organizationally in the old factional lineup—a new one may appear. This was the line which both the old factions—Cannon, Shachtman, Swabeck, Glotzer, Oehler, Abern, Stamm, Weber—formally declared to correspond to the realities of the situation, formally declared themselves ready to support.

Yet “the mechanics themselves of the transition from one stage to another” provoked a sharpening of the situation for a time. Instead of the situation being improved, the League reached a point where it was threatened with a split. In a letter to Shachtman, Trotsky wrote on March 8, 1933:

You are marching towards a split there and that would mean the catastrophe for the League. It is actually all the same, regardless of what side is more in the wrong, for both sides will be in no position to explain to the workers what caused the split. And that will completely compromise both groups. In one of your letters you gave expression to the hope that the next conference would settle the disputes. This is by no means my opinion. If your group gets 51 percent, it would change nothing in the matter.

And, referring to this letter, Trotsky wrote Glotzer on March 14, 1933:

I can only give you the same counsel: In no case and under no circumstances to sharpen the situation in the League. The I.S., I hope, will intervene in a few days in the American question. Any impatience on the part of your group would bring closer a split. And a split without political physiognomy is the most dangerous miscarriage, which may inflict death upon the mother as well as upon the child. Also the hope for an early national conference could, under the given conditions, call forth only an insignificant shifting of the relationship of forces. Whether your group has five representatives in the National Committee and the others four, or the reverse, remains pretty insignificant, since the one group is dependent upon the other if one is not to drive to a split, that is, to a catastrophe. No impatience, dear Glotzer. You must prepare yourself for long work. You will say to me: “And the others, the Cannon group?” Naturally, it goes for both groups at the same time.

Precisely in order to prevent the split “without political physiognomy,” in order to ameliorate the League situation, to make possible collaboration, to facilitate the turn to mass work, Shachtman had proposed to his friends the liquidation of the group. And for a time it was in effect liquidated. (The same proposition was made by Cannon in his group where, interestingly and significantly enough, resistance was offered to dissolution primarily by Stamm and Oehler.) Led by Weber and Abern, however, a number of comrades, still agitated by reminiscences of yesterday’s sharp antagonisms, demanded the reconstitution of the faction—a direct violation, it goes without saying, of the formal pledge made to dissolve the groups—and, at a meeting where Shachtman was present, he was lustily indicted for having let the faction go to pieces. Shachtman pointed out that a group can exist under then-obtaining circumstances only if it has a distinct platform of its own and is ready to fight in the organization for leadership as against another group.

But not only did we not have a distinct platform of our own, but, with all the denunciations of the “Cannon regime,” nobody in the group was prepared to “take over leadership.” Spector had retired again to Canada; Glotzer had found the responsibilities of leadership at the center a bit onerous and had retired to Chicago, from behind which he kept up a systematic criticism of the Resident Committee for its “lack of functioning”; Abern had retired from all leading activity and refused to undertake any work, either under instructions from the League or from the faction. Of the more or less leading comrades, only Shachtman and Lewit were carrying on any responsible activity in the center.

In order to achieve the dissolution of the group in an indirect way—by demonstrating the baselessness of it, its futility, its pretentiousness—Shachtman cut the ground from under the Abernites who were insisting on the perpetuation of the faction by proposing that only those can be members of the group who are subject to its discipline and ready to do work for the League which the group would decide they must do. Abern voted against this motion, thereby placing himself outside the group. The minutes of our January 13, 1934, meeting read: “Group to meet Sunday, January 20, at 10 a.m. Letter from Marty (Abern) to be read.... Settle group once for all.” At the January 20 meeting it was settled, “once for all.” It was the last meeting of the “Shachtman group.” But it is from that time that dates the birth of the Weber-Abern caucus!

The decisive reason why neither the Cannon nor the Shachtman groups could ever be reconstituted on the old basis lay in the fact that in the course of the year 1934, the progressive forces in both groups found a common political basis, which not only broke down the old lines effectively and made a reality of Trotsky’s prediction that “the leadership, after some regroupments, will be constituted from elements of both the present groups”—but which facilitated the great advances made by the League in practical work and wiped out for good the impending danger of a split. Cannon and Shachtman worked out jointly, and in complete harmony, the whole line and perspective of the fusion with the AWP, and together carried the burden of the work of effecting the fusion and defending it in the membership. Cannon and Shachtman achieved a complete harmony of view with regard to the essential “international” question facing the League that year—the so-called French turn and its endorsement by the CLA. Cannon and Shachtman achieved a complete unity of view and conduct in the course of the famous Minneapolis strike, which was the high-water mark of the League’s activities.

In the face of this political and working solidarity, it would have been criminal—and worse: stupid—for Cannon to have based his attitude towards Shachtman on what he had said about him a year or two before, or for Shachtman’s attitude towards Cannon to retain the same old basis. Kentucky feuds are fought that way—unto the seventh generation. Gang fights are conducted on the same principle (“I’ll get him for what he did to me if I have to wait ten years”). Bolsheviks detest feudism and gangsterism in politics. They base their collaboration on political agreement, regardless of whom they agree with; they base their antipathies on political disagreement, regardless of whom they disagree with. No more violent philippics can be imagined than those hurled back and forth between Lenin and Trotsky for 14 long and feverishly polemical years. Yet the moment they met in the Russia of 1917 and discovered that they had arrived at political agreement, they reestablished the firmest and most durable political and organizational collaboration seen since the days of Marx and Engels. Don’t imagine for a moment that there weren’t Russian Weberites in those days who were discomfited by this resumed solidarity and who insinuatingly whispered the old stories about what Lenin once said about Trotsky and what Trotsky once said about Lenin. But during Lenin’s lifetime these feudists never dared raise their voices above a whisper, else they would have received the answer they deserved and which Lenin was quite capable of giving in his own crushing way. They had to wait for Lenin to die before their type of politics could be shouted in public and finally be made to prevail in the Soviet Union.

Now, we need no muttonhead to remind us that neither Cannon nor Shachtman is a Lenin or Trotsky. What is important is the essence of the comparison. At least between Lenin and Trotsky there had been serious, deep political differences before 1917; between Cannon and Shachtman there had been only organizational differences, and of a minor temporary character at that. The fact that they were able to collaborate organizationally after having found such indisputable political agreement on every important question facing the CLA, should have been welcomed by every serious League member, not only because it made possible a liquidation of the bad state of affairs in the organization and a leap forward in its work, but because it showed that the responsible leaders of the League did not act in their disputes like Kentucky feudists or Chicago gangsters. The Weberites did not welcome it, however, and they translated their dissatisfaction with the ending of the old war they had enjoyed so much into the formation of a clique that would continue circulating the old caucus documents and fighting the old battles, regardless of the fact that, as the months went by and new problems arose to be solved, the membership, especially the new comrades, came to know less about the origin and nature of the old disputes and—properly enough—cared less. They were like the aged imperial warrior in Dryden’s “Alexander’s Feast”:

Soothed with the sound, the king grew vain;
Fought all his battles o’er again;
And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.

They were—and though there is nothing either imperial or warrior-like about them, they still are.

You will ask: What was the political platform of the Weber group which distinguished it from other groups or tendencies and thereby warranted the formation of a faction? It had no political platform.

You will ask: What political differences did it have at that time with the NC? It had no political differences, but it hoped they would develop.

You will ask: What political differences did develop in the last year of the CLA’s existence to justify their anticipations? None really developed, for, as pointed out previously in this document, the Weberites found that on the main line of the main questions facing the League that crucial year, they were in avowed agreement with Cannon and Shachtman.

You will ask: Can this be called a political group contributing anything positive and healthful to the movement? No, it can only be called by its right name: an unprincipled clique without a platform of its own, skulking in the dark, operating surreptitiously, envenoming the party with its letters containing accusations which they dare not make in the party publicly, seeking to undermine by any means at its disposal those comrades upon whom they insist the responsibility of leadership must fall, lying in wait for an opportunity to pounce upon those who take responsibility and discharge it by allying or blocking up with anybody who, for whatever reason, is also opposed to this leadership.

What a perfect portrait Weber draws of himself and his faction in his revolting letter to Glotzer on October 26, 1934!

Papcun came to New York intending to get together all the “honest” elements for a discussion. He proposed that I sit in the same room with Oehler for a serious discussion. Valuing Papcun I stated my willingness for undertaking such an impossible discussion, although I told him plainly that no group could be formed on any such notion as “honesty.” (It wouldn’t be bad as one of the ingredients, however!—MS.) Oehler refused to discuss and Papcun has now become convinced that one has to work with a homogeneous group. I think I brought him over to my view on the French question and he is willing to start a group more or less in accord on ideas. Marty—possibly in view of the Daily Worker matter—was scared off even from discussion. But I am now convinced that a new group is necessary. I believe we can start with the French question as a club and prevent the Oehlers from falsely corralling the sentiment of the League against the NC majority and its methods of doing business.

What good tidings to bear to the countryside! After waiting for almost a year, Weber had found an issue on which to fight the NC, on which to recruit members for his woebegone secret caucus. “We can start with the French question as a club”—there is a sentence that should go down as a classic of political abomination! And what “French question” would serve as “the club”? “Organic unity”! Shachtman and Swabeck had come out against it, and, said Weber, Trotsky had come out for it in a recent article (“at least, so I think,” said Weber about an article signed “Linier” which was a pseudonym selected by Molinier by dropping the first two letters of his name!). Now, thinks Weber, we’ll also come out for “organic unity,” Shachtman and Cannon will oppose it, we’ll have Trotsky on our side, we’ll have our yearned-for issue, we’ll have a club and—praise Allah!—our chance at last to smash the “regime.”

“I am still chuckling and smacking my lips, some would say of me that I am licking my chops, over your letter to the inestimable Max,” Weber writes gleefully.

You scored him at every turn and on every point, showing a new skill with that rapier, the pen. (This is what is known as the art of choking a cat with butter!—MS)...There is a logic of action when once one takes a certain road that drives willy-nilly straight towards the end of that road. It is only the great mind—greater than Max possesses—that knows how to change a false course in time. Starting by “suppressing” effectively through the gentle art of delay the documents of an Abern, a Glotzer and a Weber in a discussion, the Shachtmans may end by beginning to suppress the documents of a Trotsky. And that has already happened! The NC has voted against printing in the Militant an excellent article by “Crux” (the Old Man) printed in Unser Wort because it is “wrong” from the NC standpoint on organic unity. Of course they offer to mimeograph it for the members—but we can place no trust in them at all. And the Old Man did not take the steps he did in France without the clearest kind of warning that this is a matter on which he will break with who disagree. Are the Shachtmans and Swabecks ready to break? Obviously not, and hence the greater their demolition of the position of organic unity*, the greater will be the abjectness of their capitulation when the proper time comes—if they do not pursue the course too far on which they are now headed.

*The “organic unity” position we were going to capitulate to is detailed by Weber further along in the letter; it is simply too unique to let go unquoted. “In France, one way or another, we must bring about the formation of Soviets.... In a sense, and certainly in the sense in which all groupings can agitate freely for the adoption of their point of view, the Soviet may be called an ‘organic unity.’ The question is: would not the formation of Soviets, which do not fall from heaven, be greatly facilitated by the formation of a single, united party with its roots reaching into the remotest corner of France and involving all sections of the masses? In fact one could say that the ‘organic unity’ would itself bring about the All-national Soviet which would in turn help to spread the Soviets everywhere. Fanciful? Not a bit. It is not even fanciful to say—as I do—that to oppose organic unity is to oppose a strong weapon that can be utilized for the creation of Soviets—to oppose organic unity is to oppose the Soviets!” This is not merely enough, as Stalin would say, to make a cat laugh, or even a horse. It is our contention that it is enough to make the stone image of the Sphinx laugh. An impossibility, you say? Or as Weber would put it: Fanciful? Not a bit!

This letter sums up the character of the whole Weber caucus and the basic point wherein it differs from us: Our “organizational methods” flow directly, logically, conformably from our political line, from which they are inseparable. With Weber, however, his political line flows directly from his “organizational requirements,” that is, from his unprincipled platformless factional antipathy towards us. The difference is that which exists between a Marxian group and a reactionary clique. Hating us intensely on the basis of old, half-forgotten disputes, Weber formed his clique, lay in wait for months looking for a “club” and then finally, “smacking his lips,” he discovered or manufactured one. But does this mean that Weber was ready to take over the responsibilities then borne by those whom he was going to “club” out of leadership? Not for a moment, for with all its disadvantages, life is too comfortable as it is, and surreptitious sniping is far easier than carrying on the work at the center. Let us read a little more from this revealing-revolting letter:

Finally, let us ask, why are our “leaders” opposed to having the Stalinists enter into an organic unity with our own forces and the SP in France? Evidently because they were thinking not so much of France, of which they knew so little, as of America. And here they would probably take a similar stand under similar conditions (which are not in sight yet). They are opposed under all conditions! Hence there is no point in looking elsewhere than right here for the reasons. One must conclude that the answer lies in—careerism. Evidently joining the SP or any other party after it has become centrist (and even this they ignore) involves the possibility of gaining leadership or at least important posts. And we don’t want too many competitors, especially when backed by a large following. One cannot explain their stand otherwise.

It is only with the greatest restraint that we refrain from characterizing in the only way he can be characterized the comfortably placed author of the above lines who, though a tractor could not draw him into the not over-lucrative post of a party worker, writes so intimately and expertly about careerists hunting for posts. What is politically important—and those are the things we want to concern ourselves with in this document—is the fact that Weber and his caucus, who qualified a certain group of comrades as careerists (in the cowardly safety of a confidential poison-pen letter which was circulated throughout his faction’s ranks), nevertheless insisted that these same careerists should have the majority of the leadership of the organization to which he belonged—insisted on it at the CLA convention held a bare five weeks after this letter was written. A revolutionist does not propose to give the leadership of the movement to careerists, who are its worst enemies; it is better to give the leadership to the youngest and most inexperienced militant in the ranks. Instead of leadership, he should give them a fight to drive the careerists out of the movement, or else stand doubly condemned as an irresponsible scoundrel who knows better but holds his tongue.

* * * * *

To the extent that the Weber group has support in the party, it has not gained a single partisan by the methods of open, honest ideological confrontation of its opponents. Its methods are different: it says one thing in letters, in poisonous “information notes” sent out secretly by Abern but which they would never dare put before the party publicly, and says another thing openly. When Satir declares in his statement to the Pittsburgh Plenum that “factionalism is unwarranted at this point and can only impede the party’s growth. All factionalism must therefore be checked”—he neglects to add to this pious declaration that there is a Weber faction operating clandestinely, hiding in the bushes and preparing against the day when it can find another “club.” When Weber declares in his statement on April 7, 1935, that “it is our duty at this time to prevent any exaggeration of differences to the point where encouragement is given to the building of hard and fast groupings”—he neglects to add to this piece of hypocrisy and sham that he already has a hard and fast faction which is preparing against the day when some differences—any difference!—will enable it to bob up triumphantly as (to quote Gould) “the only group that can come before the party at this juncture and honestly place before the membership for examination” its “record.”

When Weber writes to the I.S. that “We felt...that it had become necessary after March to open up the discussion on the French turn, so as to bring about ideological clarification,” he neglects to add that not Weber, not Glotzer, not Gould, not Satir, nor any other Weberite, ever translated that “feeling” into a single proposal to have a discussion on the French turn, or a discussion on anything else. When Weber warns pompously in his statement of April 7 against the party being “dragged into pursuing a tail-endist course only to be avoided by the prompt reaction of our leadership to all important events,” he neglects to add that not one of the Weberites on or near the National Committee ever made one single motion in the PC or the NC, as the minutes testify by elaborate silence, that was calculated to put the party “ahead” of events and stop it from being “tail-endist,” so that the leadership, of which they were a part, would “react promptly.” (Literally! Not one single motion on any phase of party work was ever made by Weber-Glotzer-Satir-Gould up to the June Plenum, i.e., during those six months when, Weber said, the party leadership was following an “opportunist course.” Aren’t they the men chosen by nature to call us “tail-endists”?)

To the extent that the Weber clique has any political coloration, it represents political sterility, passivity, negativeness, timidity, fear of bold innovation—a species of conservative sectarianism. Not one single political move has been initiated from their ranks in the two years of their existence, not one singe positive proposal in any field (oh yes, with the exception of Glotzer’s motion to cable our greetings to the conference of the new Dutch party...) has emanated from them. We initiated and carried through the fusion with the AWP in all its stages, with never a positive idea contributed by the Weberites, unless one can designate as such the utter skepticism they manifested throughout that period towards the negotiations and the unity. We initiated and carried through, on a sound basis, the fight to endorse the French turn in the CLA. As for the practical work of the organization, up to and including the Minneapolis struggles, they were conspicuous by their absence in body and in ideas, and contributed only the most grudging half-approval of the results after the fact.

In the WP, similarly. Every forward step made by the party was initiated by us or by Muste—in no case by the Weberites. The progressive steps taken by our party on the international field were initiated, in every case, by us, from the January 10, 1935, motion by Cannon to notify the sympathetic parties and groups of our desire to establish fraternal relations with them, down through the Pittsburgh, the June and the October Plenums; at best the Weberites trailed along, with eyes to both sides of the road in the hope of finding another “club” in some ditch. The progressive steps taken by our party in the fight against the Oehlerite cancer were initiated, in every case, and at every stage, by us; at best (only from October on, i.e., at the end) the Weberites trailed along; at worst, i.e., as a rule, they not only interposed themselves between us and the Oehlerites as a shield for the latter, but helped the sectarians to strike us a few treacherous blows.

The fight to get the party to come out in favor of a left wing in the SP and to do something about it was initiated by us; at best we got perfunctory aid in June from the Weberites; at worst, i.e., as a rule, they joined in the cheap Oehlerite clamor about our “liquidationism.” The fight for a realistic, Marxian unity policy in the unemployed field was initiated by us and sabotaged by the Musteites; the Weberites either played possum on the whole issue or else—as is now the case—they sign their names to the shameful avowals of indiscipline and defiance of the party made by the Musteites, to the policy which plays into the hands of the reformists and Stalinists. The fight against Stalinist influences in our party, manifested so crudely in Allentown, was initiated and carried through by us, for a long time together with Muste; when his factional interests caused him to make a 180-degree turn on the Allentown situation, he found the Weberites on hand to help him shield the microbe-bearers of Stalinism.

Now, when we have initiated a new step forward for the forces of the Fourth International in this country, when we propose entry into the SP and YPSL, the Weberites again come forward with their sterile, negative position, in the same dead spirit and with the same arguments—reeking of sectarian timidity (to say nothing of the same factional distortions)—they advanced a year and a half ago against fusion with the AWP. Is it any wonder that the branch they have dominated for two years—Chicago—which they have “led” without contest, continues to suffer from that terrible stagnancy and sterility which is a reflection of the leadership of Weber-Glotzer-Satir; that, with Chicago our second most important political center, the branch simply does not recruit; that it has no contacts at all in the trade unions; that its sale of literature is poorer proportionately than that of any other important branch; that its public meetings are few and far between—in a word, that the pseudo-intransigent conservatism and sterility of the local leadership is like a dead hand on a branch which nevertheless contains a good many virile, healthy elements, especially among the younger comrades, who, once liberated from the lack of initiative and wordy passivity of the Weberite clique, could bound forward towards effective participation in the stream of the living movement.

If we were commanded to give a summary characterization of the Abern-Weber faction, our formula would confine itself to two words that describe its political predisposition and its organizational methods, a conservative clique. The existence of a tumor and the dangers it represents are not made any the more tolerable by the fact that the tumor is a small one. Be its forces large or small in our party—and fortunately they are small and are getting smaller every day that its position is dragged up into the open—it represents an unhealthy and sinister current in our bloodstream—the stream of revolutionary Marxism, which bases itself on principled considerations and operates with tested and honored political methods, which detests clique politics and personal combinationism. Its morals, it manners, its customs, its methods make it an alien system in our movement. We did not combat Oehlerism only to suffer it silently in another form and under another name, but which, in some respects, is worse. If our movement is to grow to its full stature, if it is to measure up to its grand tasks, the Weberite system of politics must be ruthlessly eradicated from the minds of those comrades in our ranks who have been made its victims.

A Final Note: The Muste Group

From every point of view, the Muste group represents a far more significant quantity and quality in the labor and revolutionary movements than do the Weberites. This is not so because Muste knows more than, or even as much as, Weber does about the theory of the permanent revolution, but because he represented to a considerable degree an authentic movement of class-conscious militants who have evolved from general labor education, trade union progressivism and activism in the class struggle to the ranks of the Bolshevik political movement. Each one of us has evolved in his own way to the point; important is the fact that, despite halts on the road and even excursions into bypaths, the Muste group did not remain standing still but moved to a left-wing position with greater or lesser consistency. Its evolution is, I think, a unique one in modern world labor history, if only because of the fact that it developed to the point that it did principally on the basis of the lessons drawn from empirical experience (in the best sense of the term) in the class struggle, and not so much on the basis of Marxian theory and perspective more or less developed in advance. Precisely therein, however, lies an essential weakness.

Just as we never objected to the Stalinist phrase “social fascism” because many socialists considered it abusive, but because we considered it false, so in every other designation of groups and tendencies we seek to follow the established Marxian precept of applying that term which most accurately describes the political physiognomy of the given movement, always bearing in mind that the term which was invalid yesterday and valid today may become invalid tomorrow, even if for other reasons. In qualifying the AWP and its leadership (more than a year ago) as centrist, we not only did not designate them thus for the purpose of “abuse” (the very concept is absurd in this connection) but, quite the contrary, as an indication of their progressive character. Just as the centrism of Stalin is reactionary, for it marks a departure to the right of the Marxian position of the Russian Communist Party of yesterday, so the centrism of the AWP was progressive, for it marked a departure to the left of the position of its precursor, the CPLA. That is why we only smiled patiently at those pseudo-intransigents in our own ranks at that time who appealed to us (presumably “old Bolsheviks”) to be on our guard against fusing with “people who will never become communists” (Glotzer), just as we had to shrug our shoulders impatiently at the same pseudo-intransigents who made a bloc with “people who will never become communists” against...us.

Our course with regard to the Musteites was at all times grounded on a clear line, worked out with a long-time perspective, of the closest and most loyal collaboration for the purpose of jointly advancing the movement for the Fourth International, of steering it carefully through its first difficult period, of protecting it from its numerous foes both outside and inside the party. From the point of view of straightforward progress, the first six months of the existence of the party were undoubtedly its most fruitful ones. That was made possible by the loyal collaboration of the Musteites with the Marxian core of the CLA. Our standpoint was, throughout the whole first period (we expressed it more than once), that while we were anxious to facilitate the utmost cooperation with the Weberites, and even with the Oehlerites, the main basis for the progressive development of the party consisted in the collaboration between the elements grouped around Muste and those grouped around us, not the whole basis, but the main basis. It was on the foundation of this joint, intimate work that the Muste group, in that period, made a consistently progressive contribution to the advancement of our movement.

The sharp, totally uncalled-for rupture of this collaboration which was effected on Muste’s initiative at and after the June Plenum indicates above all—and we are perfectly ready to acknowledge the fact—that we had overestimated the speed and the quality of Muste’s development from an uncertain centrist position on political questions to the more sure-footed and consistent position of Marxism. Muste, brought face to face with the need of drawing another, and more significant, logical conclusion from the whole course he had been pursuing in common with us, drew up short, balked, stood stock still, then moved backward, and, because we were pressing for another step forward, the breach necessarily occurred. And it occurred on the most crucial question then confronting the party: the need of taking another step against the insolent provocations of the reactionary current in our party, the Oehler anti-Trotskyists.

That our collaboration with Muste was indisputably loyal and free from any trace of deception has already been adequately established. Muste only puts himself in a rather dubious position when he charges us with disloyalty, concealment and duplicity on the basis of that very letter of Cannon to him in Toledo in which Cannon sets down, clearly and unambiguously, the facts of the situation and the course which he proposes the party shall take, and invites Muste to talk things over with him upon his return to the Center. Not until the open break at the plenum itself did Muste ever so much as hint to us his feeling that we were guilty of those wildly-hurled, irresponsible charges which he subsequently levelled at us. After six months of unbroken collaboration with us, he did not think it possible, or necessary, between his return from Toledo and the opening of the plenum, to draw us aside in conference and, by comradely discussion, at least attempt to arrive at an understanding and mutual agreement.

Instead, he turned to those whom he had denounced three months ago as “sectarian and factional” and whom he would be compelled to denounce three days later as “slanderers”—the Oehlerites—for the purpose of carrying out an action on the eve of the plenum which self-restraint advises us to qualify as...not quite loyal and hardly responsible. What we refer to is dealt with at length in the statements made by Muste and McKinney concerning their conference with the socialist Y., as recorded in the minutes of the control commission of the June Plenum. The Oehlerites had whispered a venomous lie in Muste’s ear about Cannon. It apparently never occurred to Muste to report this to Cannon and ask him for an accounting, or even to report it, more formally, to the PC and demand an accounting from Cannon there. Merely on the say-so of a couple of proved calumniators, Muste and McKinney proceeded to meet with the non-party member Y., without notifying the party or its PC, without obtaining their permission, and, to top it all, together with Stamm and Oehler. Even after this meeting was held, Muste did not report it either to the PC or to Cannon. We heard of it secondhand, confronted Muste with it on the eve of the plenum, and only then we were told of the whole sordid action. The interesting minutes read:

West: Did you report your conference with Y. to Cannon?

Muste: No, M., the contact with Y., mentioned to Cannon subsequently the fact of our conference, and when this question was brought up at the conference at Cannon’s home a few nights ago I reported on it in the same manner that I have now done.

West: Did you believe that holding a meeting together with Oehler and Stamm served this purpose?

Muste: Yes, there was no other way to check up on Oehler’s and Stamm’s statements except in the presence of Y. where discrepancies would have been revealed and could have been immediately followed up.

Yes, there were at least two other ways “to check up.” One was to ask Cannon for his version of what had happened; the other was to invite Cannon to this conference with Y. After all, it was Cannon who was really being “checked up on.” But it seems that it never occurred to Muste, who took Oehler and Stamm along to meet with Y., to invite Cannon along so that he too might see to it that “discrepancies would have been revealed and could have been immediately followed up.” In two blunt words, Muste’s conduct was irresponsible and disloyal.

That there is nothing maliciously disloyal in Muste’s conduct we are perfectly ready to acknowledge. For that matter, it is not very important. What is important is the fact that, especially during and since the June Plenum, Muste revealed a relapse into the centrist vacillations from which, when collaborating with us and our line, he had been progressively moving away; he revealed an inability to analyze clearly so as to have a political line that would carry him in one consistent direction for a measurable period of time; he revealed an inability to connect his yesterday logically with his today, so that every morning he had to make a sharp turn, unload the responsibility for everything he did and said yesterday, and hunt about for somebody to blame for having “misled” him. These are not the traits of a man with a consistent political position.

Reflect on the following telling gyrations:

In March, he stood firmly with us, designating Oehler as sectarian and factional, and rejecting Cohen’s criticisms for what they really were: formalistic, unreal, sterile.

In June, he was almost indistinguishable from Oehler, would not allow a single, even mildly critical resolution to be adopted against him, poured all the abuse at his command at us, and a week later organized not merely a bloc, but a faction with...Cohen.

A couple of weeks after standing like a Horatius at the bridge against any censure of Oehler, he was compelled to make a motion in the PC to censure Oehler.

Two months later, he broke with Cannon and found himself allied—O fate!—with the Weberites. A couple of weeks thereafter, at the October Plenum, we all joined in a bloc, based on unanimously adopted resolutions, against Oehler. Before a month had passed, the bloc was once more disrupted by Muste and Weber, who launched first a sly and then an open caucus campaign against us.

What political consistency would the graph of this mercurial line reveal?

Take the case of the struggle against the Oehlerites. We joined issue with the Oehlerites in Pittsburgh and adopted, together, a political resolution, clear, plain, simple, obvious, of condemnation of the factional sectarians. A brief three months later, Muste declared at the June Plenum: “A number of Plenum members, not being acquainted with the past history of the CLA and with Comrade Cannon’s organizational methods, voted for this resolution in ignorance of its full implications. Duplicity in Comrade Cannon’s procedure insofar as the former AWP comrades are concerned was, in our estimation, involved in this action.” Three months after this statement, Muste had to expel the Oehlerites, who, politically speaking, wrote this statement for him, because in it was contained their line, their arguments, their attack.

At the June Plenum we stated that the Oehlerites represented an anti-Trotskyist faction, i.e., anti-Marxist. This entirely correct, 100 percent confirmed and purely political estimate was denounced by Muste in his statement: “The attempt of the Cannon-Shachtman faction to make it appear that the plenum is now confronted with the issue, e.g., of ‘Trotskyism’ vs. ‘anti-Trotskyism’ is another illustration of the utterly unprincipled way in which these leading comrades constantly twist issues.” (By the way, what did Weber & Co., who knew then that our estimate of the Oehlerites was correct, just as everybody, including Muste, knows today that it is correct, what did Weber & Co. do to correct Muste’s view at the plenum? Did they solidarize themselves with us? Of course not!)

We proposed a bloc with Muste (and Weber) to fight Oehler and Oehlerism, on the basis of a common political line of solidarity with the main stream of the Fourth International. They replied by drawing up a common resolution with Oehler, acceptable to the latter but not to us; in other words, they made a bloc with Oehler against us.

We proposed to direct the fire of the plenum against the Oehlerites as the main danger to the party. Muste answered our proposal by writing about us in his statement: “No solution of political questions is possible, nor healthy party activity of any kind, so long as these stupid, factional, brutal, individualistic and unprincipled methods are used by party leaders.” No censure of Oehler—God forbid—for that might offend him; but not abuse strong enough to characterize those with whom Muste had worked in perfect harmony for six months. Where was Muste’s fire directed? Read his statement over again today: all the attacks are against us, but not one single word even of implied criticism of Oehler! Read the January 10, 1936, Internal Bulletin of the party: 19 solid pages of the Muste line between June and October, and every one of the 19 pages filled exclusively with attacks on us—every page, every paragraph, every line. (To be strictly accurate, at the bottom of page 8 is one single sentence of uneasy apology: “In order to avoid all misunderstanding (!) I wish to state again that I am not arguing for the Oehlerite political position.” It’s a good thing he does “state” it; otherwise....) In a word, Muste lost all sense of proportion and of political value and concentrated all his fire against us, who were fighting the Oehlerite cancer. Again, to be strictly accurate, not all his fire, because he had none of his own; he merely repeated two-thirds of the Oehler platform and signed his name to it.

In his latest Internal Bulletin articles, Muste charges us (another plagiarism from the Oehlerites!) with having “deliberately started a series of measures beginning with the public attack by Cannon on Zack calculated to bring about the expulsion of the Oehlerites from the party.” But on June 4 he voted for, signed and sent out a statement of the PC which specifically refuted this charge! How does Muste make the two contradictory statements to which he put his name jibe? He does not seem to attach any particular importance to the political position to which he commits himself when he signs his name to a political document. In June he repudiated his March position on Oehler; in October he repudiated his June position on Oehler; in the Internal Bulletin article he repudiated his June 4 position on the Zack affair; on May 27 he “postponed until after the (June) Plenum so that it may consider the political line of the Plenum” and now in the Internal Bulletin (page 4) he complains that “Cannon-Shachtman insisted that it must be a political convention for dealing with political issues”; at one meeting he voted for the system of proportional representation and voting we proposed for the district convention, and a few meetings later he proposed to rearrange it entirely so as to get another delegate or two; etc., etc.

What happened in all these cases? Was this innocent Gretchen always “misled” by the Mephistophelean Cannon? Assuming that he has the unfortunate habit of slipping easily into sin, may we be pardoned for pointing out that it is not the business of leaders to be misled, but to lead? And that in order to do that, they must at least try to maintain a consistent line for a given period of time, otherwise they will not lead, but flounder? And that in order to have a consistent line, they must be guided by considerations of Marxian principle, and not by psychological considerations and considerations of personal prestige?

Another qualification for consistent leadership is a fairly good memory, that enables one to recall today what he said yesterday, so that he is not constantly in conflict with himself. In the January 10, 1936, Internal Bulletin Muste presents the following (thoroughly Oehleristic) version of the origin of the internal struggle in our party:

The Oehlerites were by no means alone in instigating whatever turmoil existed in the party in the early weeks of their existence. Their open aggressiveness dated from the West resolution and the Shachtman-Swabeck support of it—in other words, from the time when the disputed political issue was first definitely posed in the party. Furthermore, the party press from the outset had carried material implying approval and support of the French turn.

Wrong on both counts! And the most direct refutation of this Oehlerite version is offered by none other than Muste himself—but by a different Muste, by one—how shall we put it?—whose memory of the “early weeks” was somewhat fresher and more than somewhat more accurate. In a report and discussion at the PC meeting of April 1, 1935, on the New York membership meeting of the preceding day, taken down in stenographic summary by Muste’s secretary, Comrade D. Prenner, from whose file copy I quote, Muste had the following to say:

It has been suggested by Oehler (and repeated faithfully by Muste four months later!—MS) that controversy was not aroused in party until West resolution came up. This is incorrect. West resolution came up at first meeting after my return from tour when already over the New Militant and other matters a terrific uproar had been created in the party. Oehler, Stamm, etc. were guilty of direct violation of discipline in making the West resolution known to membership and in not openly and vigorously combatting outrageous misstatement as to its contents. I opposed the W. resolution. Its perspective is in my opinion thoroughly incorrect. He did not, however, propose that the party go into the SP and definitely provided for no watering down of WP principles.

Oehler, Stamm, etc. permitted a disgraceful exhibition of those in political agreement with them at beginning of Active Workers Conference in Pittsburgh, thus violating their responsibility to the NC and made impossible the objective discussion of the political issues which they are constantly demanding. Rightly or wrongly the Plenum made a decision. It was their business to accept the decision and, particularly after they were given an opportunity to present minority viewpoint at the NY membership meeting, to make it clear to the membership and particularly to their own political supporters that the Plenum decision must nevertheless be accepted. They once again openly violated NC and PC discipline in stating that sending Oehler to Illinois was an organizational measure against him. Their line would mean not taking into the party any worker not already completely trained in Bolshevik-Leninist theory and by struggle forcing out of the party any such worker. This is an impossible conception for building the party. Workers have to be drawn in and their education carried on within the party. This can be done and a disciplined revolutionary party rather than a sect created provided the leading elements in the party are thoroughly trained, disciplined and loyal to the conception of a Leninist party. The course being pursued by Oehler and Stamm means forcing healthy elements away from the WP rather than creating the atmosphere in which they are trained in correct principles and firmly attached to them. If the course succeeds, then by weakening the WP they will force it into the SP instead of accomplishing the purpose they claim to have in mind.

How different in approach, in fact-stating, in analysis and in conclusion, how infinitely correct was Muste when he was being “misled” by a Marxian line! How pathetic it is to see him now, warming over the cold and soggy potatoes of Oehlerism!

As for the second count, his memory fails him again. It is true that after the June Plenum, just before Weber’s eloquence finally convinced Muste in favor of the French turn, Muste, jointly with Oehler, censured us for printing articles “supporting the French turn” (by the way, what does Weber, who opposed the censure and the arguments Muste made for it, say now to the fact that his partner continues to charge us with this “crime”?). But the censure was adopted not for objective reasons, but for purely factional ones. Before Muste had a factional axe to grind against us, he paid no attention to the groundless repetitions by the Oehlerites that under our editorship the French turn was being favored. Thus, the PC minutes of April 15 record a protest by Stamm against an article on the French situation in the New Militant of April 13, a protest similar to the one on whose basis we were censured a few months later. But at that time Muste made no motion to censure Cannon, nor did Stamm make a motion to censure Cannon, because he knew he could not then get Muste’s support. Muste’s (read: Oehler’s) version No. 2 simply will not hold water against his entirely objective version No. 1 last April!

Or take the situation in Allentown. Muste now seeks to present matters as if we had, somehow, invented a “situation” in Allentown for the purpose of hounding “honest workers,” or that whatever trivialities may have been involved there, our “arbitrary” decisions kept making them worse. Yet the Allentown problem is as old as our party, and has always revolved around one central point: the inability or unwillingness of some of the local comrades to resist the infiltration of Stalinist ideas into our movement, their lack of understanding of how dangerous to the working class Stalinism is, their lack of understanding of how to combat it, and the fact that at times they become the direct bearers of Stalinism in our ranks.

As early as January 13, 1935, the PC heard a report from its representative, Oehler, as to the situation in Allentown, and established the need of “assisting the comrades in clarification on the question of united-front activities with the CP and the Unemployed Councils and particularly against the CP labor party agitation.” Time and again, the PC concerned itself with the Allentown situation, and always with the same problem: how to combat Stalinism, or more accurately, how to get Reich and Hallett to stiffen a bit against Stalinist encroachments. Up to October 28, when the PC sent out a statement on Allentown to all party branches, and even as late as November 11, the problem continued to occupy us all. And what is more, without a single exception, the PC was always unanimous in its decisions. We made no proposal that Muste ever rejected as “arbitrary,” or for any other reasons; Muste never made any proposals that we rejected on any grounds.

Now, however, confronted with the fact that his faction strength is melting away from him, Muste sacrifices the interests of the party for the presumed interests of holding together his Allentown caucus and rushes to the defense of the same Reich from whom the PC found itself compelled, time and time again, to dissociate itself. He covers up, shields, condones the most defiant violations of elementary communist discipline. Instead of helping the Allentown comrades advance towards a revolutionary Marxian education, he coddles them, tickles them, tells them what fine, upright, sturdy proletarians they are and that, being honest workers, they have a right to make grave errors and to strike stiff blows at the party, especially when they have caucus leaders who will shield them not merely from disciplinary measures, but from any efforts to correct their wrong line, dispel their suspicions and prejudices, and help in their education as revolutionary Marxists. Muste doesn’t educate his followers; he flatters them. And workers, however honest they are, require not flattery from their leaders, but a correct and straightforward line of policy. And centrist vacillation, doubling on your own tracks, constant self-repudiation, are hardly a satisfactory substitute for a consistent revolutionary line.

Conclusion

Those who find in what has been written here only an account of a faction fight, of sectarian-circle strife, of a tempest in a teapot, will only cause the author to doubt the efficacy with which he brought forward his central point. Yet we believe that it is sufficiently clear for most if not all our militants, above all our youth, to discern and understand. Precisely because we want to uproot the last remnants of what has become the reactionary features of sectarian-circle existence, precisely because we want to crush the spirit and methods of intrigue, precisely because we want to redouble the preparations for embarking on the broader field of the class struggle, do we stress so much the main point of this document. Dozens of the details in the document are, in themselves, unimportant. They are adduced here for two reasons: to put an end to some of the corridor versions of events, and to illuminate or illustrate a far more important point.

We have before us a truly breath-taking job: the building of a powerful Bolshevik party in the citadel of world reaction. But this party will never be built—or if it is built, it will never stand up in a crisis—unless it has as its spinal column a steel cadre: hard, tough, firm, flexible, tempered. The two are inseparable: a cadre without a party is a skeleton without flesh or muscle; a party without a cadre is a mass of gelatine that anybody’s finger can go through. And how else will the Bolshevik cadre be tempered unless, on every occasion, it has hammered into it more and more of the wisdom we have tried to learn from the great teachers: a deep respect for principle and a hatred for cliquism and intrigue, an equally deep regard for objective judgement of problems and a suspicious intolerance of subjective and personal considerations, a political approach to all political problems and a political solution for them. Now more than ever before are these indispensable, for the revolutionists function today amid a veritable sea of corruption and decay of the old movements, the poisonous fumes of which cannot but be felt in our own ranks unless we constantly counteract them.

Slowly, but surely, the basic elements of the Marxian cadre are being assembled; it has not been a work of days or even months, and it is yet far from completed. In the decisive leadership of the party today are represented not merely the best traditions and forces of the American communist movement, and the revolutionary movement before it, but also the strongest concentration of forces of those, old and new, who have entered the movement of the Bolshevik-Leninists in this country in the last seven years. The fact that the ranks of our group comprise elements from the old Cannon faction, the Shachtman faction, the Carter group (even such “splinter” groups as the old Field faction, the Garrett-Glee faction, etc.), plus such elements from the old AWP as Selander, Ramuglia and West (of the NC), the Toledo militants, half the Allentown militants, most of the NY activists—all these indicate that you have here no personal combination, no chance clique that the first real wind will disperse, but the concentration of determined Marxian forces on the basis of a consistent, principled, political line. The scattering of the Muste group to the four corners of the political globe is a warning sign of the inefficaciousness of a vacillating line as an integrating force. The melting away of the Weber group is a sign that a clique can hold together only when it operates in the dark, that combinationism, however clever it may appear for a time, has a disintegrating effect.

Unless all indications are false, our party is preparing in its overwhelming and decisive majority to take an audacious step forward. Audacious, and at the same time hazardous. Taking this step will not diminish our problems, but multiply them, with this advantage, to be sure, that we shall have a far larger arena in which to solve them. This step would prove our complete undoing, however, and no problem would be solved, if we did not proceed, tomorrow as today and yesterday, like the revolutionary Marxian internationalists we aim to remain. If we do, we shall make great progress, and if we fail we shall be hurled back for years. If the stress we have repeatedly laid on those main lines that have divided our party’s ranks for the last year, and the CLA before it, serves to clarify our problems in the minds of comrades who have not always understood them fully, then this document will have accomplished its purpose of being an additional guarantee that the bigger problems we shall face tomorrow will prove easier of solution.