Socialist Appeal Index | Main Newspaper Index
Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive
1. Recent developments make clear that our party is threatened with a split. The threat originates both from outside of the party in the vicious campaign of the Communists whose aim is to destroy our party as an independent force; and similarly from the inside of the party, in the increasingly bitter attacks of the right wins against the left, attacks which in many instances reach the point of calling openly for the expulsion of the left.
2. The attacks and the demands for expulsion are formally directed against the “Trotskyists” under which term the right wing and the Stalinists mean all revolutionary Socialists. They are motivated on the alleged grounds that “Trotskyists” (i.e. revolutionary Socialists) cannot be assimilated, are incorrigible “factionalists,” are unwilling to do any party work, and are damaging to the interests of the party.
3. In reality the attack in this form is only a mask. The opposition from the Stalinists and the right wing to the genuine left winders in the party flows from their opposition to the ideas and practices of revolutionary socialism. By formulating the attack as they do they are attempting to hide its true political motivation. They are trying to substitute organizational measures for a political solution of the problems confronting the party. They are in effect proposing to expel the left wing for its ideas, for the ideas of revolutionary socialism. In this way the right win.? of the party, first as it has borrowed its weapons from Stalinism, is playing into the hands of the Stalinist campaign to destroy the party.
4. The Appeal group has consistently opposed a split in the party and continues to oppose a split. The Appeal group would oppose the expulsion of any comrades on the ground of the ideas which they hold. It stands for a united party; and – as an absolutely necessary condition of unity – for full democratic freedom within the party for all groups and individuals to express their ideas and to present them to the party membership. The Appeal proposes to work together with all groups and individuals having the same object of maintaining the unity of the party and assuring that inner-party democracy which is necessary to unity.
5. The surest aid to maintaining the unity of the party and to assure its growth in a revolutionary direction would be through the unification of the left wing-forces into one united left wing (which means above all unity between the Appeal and Clarity groups). The Appeal group has consistently favored and worked for such unity and reiterates the position which it has held on this question. It is ready at any time to meet with the Clarity group in discussions or conferences looking toward the goal of a united left wing.
6. If, however, such unity is found to be impossible during the next period, the Appeal group is ready and willing to collaborate to the fullest extent with the Clarity group in joint efforts to protect our party against the threatened split, to maintain the unity of the party, to guarantee a healthy and democratic regime within the party, and thus to permit the party to go forward on the road of the class struggle toward the goal of workers’ power of socialism.
Socialist Appeal Index | Main Newspaper Index
Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive
Last updated on 16 January 2009