Date: 20 Nov 95 11:01:18 EST
From: Left Opposition <103163.3011-AT-compuserve.com>
Subject: Statement of the Left Opposition...


STATEMENT OF THE LEFT OPPOSITION ON THE
EXPULSIONS FROM THE TROTSKYIST LEAGUE/U.S.

Released:  12 November 1995
For Information contact:
     Martin Sayles or
     Lisa Weltman at:  1-313-535-9832  [phone]
                       1-313-535-7161  [fax] 
                       LeftOpp-AT-aol.com [e-mail]


     On 5 November 1995, members of the Left Opposition, a faction within the
Trotskyist League/U.S. (TL) and the International Trotskyist Opposition, were
expelled by the Second Session of the Fourth National Conference for expressing
distinct political positions and arguing for them "in a sharp manner."
     These comrades, members of the TL Central Committee, the Detroit Local of
the TL and the Left Opposition, were expelled in the midst of a struggle against
the growing opportunism and sectarianism of the TL Majority, organized as the
Workers Struggle Tendency (WST).
     The Opposition was declared as a tendency at the First Session of the
Fourth National Conference of the TL, 9 September 1995.  We submitted a
document, "Trotskyist League/U.S. Approaching the Crossroads," raising a
wide-ranging series of issues which we considered to be methodological errors in
the work of the TL.  The Majority responded by organizing itself into a rotten
bloc based on three ambiguous points which any revolutionary, including the
members of the Opposition, could agree with.
    In an attempt to pin the blame for the TL's ongoing paralysis on the
Opposition's "factionalism," the WST passed a resolution to postpone the second
half of the Conference for two months, and to delay voting on the organization's
perspectives and tasks until then.  The  Opposition, while recognizing the
necessity of the political discussion, proposed that the Conference vote on and
implement the perspectives and tasks imediately, since there was no disagreement
around this issue, and conduct a six-month period of discussion to claify the
issues of the debate.  The Majority resolution passed.

The Substance of the Differences

     The internal pre-Conference discussion covered a wide range of political
issues:  critical support to "independent labor candidates," "united fronts"
with Democratic Party politicians, antiwar work, regroupment, building a
workers' party, special oppression, Palestine and permanent revolution, etc.  On
all of these issues, the WST has moved rapidly to the right.
     On the issue of special oppression, the Opposition struggled around the
integration of the organization and building specially oppressed leadership.
The Opposition supported a resolution, which was submitted to the Fourth
National Conference, on implementing concrete steps toward integrating the TL.
The WST vehemently opposed this, using every excuse from "lack of resources" to
accusing the signers of "petty-bourgeois moralism."  Internal documents by
members of the Majority reveal the real reason why they opposed this resolution
-- the desire of the WST to liquidate, organizationally and politically, into a
"larger centrist grouping."  The development of specially oppressed leadership,
which would actively oppose the racism, sexism, homophobia and bureaucratism of
these groups, would be an obstacle to enacting this "regroupment sui generis."
     This goes hand in hand with the WST's position of opposing a consistent
struggle against racism, sexism and homophobia inside a revolutionary
organization and in the workers' movement.  The Majority accused the Opposition
of "moralism" for advocating a consistent struggle against oppression.  One
member of the WST went so far as to accuse the Opposition of wanting to "take
tire irons to backward workers!"
     At the Midwest Anti-Fascist Network (MAFNET,now Anti-Racist Action Network,
[ARANet]) Conference, which has in the past had many problems of liberal racism,
a People of Color Caucus (PoC) was formed.  In the Lesbian/Gay/Bi/Transgendered
Caucus, a member of the PoC raised the idea of creating parity on all leading
bodies of ARANet, including percentages of people of color, women and
lesbian/gay/bi/trans members on these committees.
     She proposed that the L/G/B/T Caucus present a resolution to the Conference
that contained specific and concrete parity proposals.  Members of the WST
present at this meeting opposed this.  However, after a sharp internal
discussion between them and members of the Opposition, who were also present at
this meeting, in which we argued once again the need to fight racsim within
ARANet ,and pointed out that opposing this would put the TL on the right wing of
the Conference, the members of the WST grudgingly agreed to support it.
     Later, the Opposition was told that we were "just lucky" that this proposal
didn't "split the Conference."  (In reality, the resolution passed unanimously.)
As a member of the PoC so aptly said, it looked like the TL's main concern at
this Conference was "protecting the straight, white boys in leadership."
     The rightward shift on the issue of special oppression is only the tip of
the iceberg.  Just as the WST did not see the importance or possibility of
building specially oppressed leadership in ARANet, they also failed to
understand the need to build rank-and-file, working class leadership as a part
of an overall "labor party policy."  Instead, they advocate "critical support"
for almost any trade union bureaucrat that runs for office.  The Opposition took
the position that you must have some criteria for giving critical support:
independence from the Democrats and Republicans, at least lip service to the
independence of the unions and the oppressed from the bourgeois state and
defense of the unions and the oppressed against attacks by the bourgeois state.
     The WST said that if we insisted on applying these criteria, we would find
no candidates to support (or at least, not enough candidates), and therefore
would have no "labor party policy."  To illustrate their point, they used the
example of Al Derey, president of one of the Teamsters locals on strike against
the Detroit Newspapers who has been fingering militants and revolutionaries to
the cops, and said that it would be correct to give him critical support if he
ran for office.  In fact, Derey's running for office, according to the WST,
could help to win the Detroit Newspaper strike.  The Opposition counterposed to
this a labor party policy based on building militant leadership out of the ranks
of the trade union movement.
     Related to the issue of critical support are the questions of calling on
bourgeois politicians to support strikes and calling on the National
Organization for Women (NOW, a bourgeois women's organization) to build a
workers' party.  The first is regarding the TL's call for Jesse Jackson to "jump
start mass picketing" during the Detroit Blue Cross/Blue Shield strike in 1993.
The second, the TL's policy of calling on NOW to have them join Labor Party
Advocates and build a "labor party."
     In fact, the TL has moved away from a Trotskyist position on a workers'
party that would play a role in organizing workers for militant action to
actually advocating a reformist "labor party."  When the Opposition objected to
this change in line, we were accused of being "out of touch" with the "real
world," where the organized labor movement is "dying" and the only reason mass
pickets occur (specifically around the Detroit Newspaper strike) is because the
bureaucrats "fear losing their privileges."  They deny the role of militant
rank-and-file unionists in the strike, and their influence on the bureaucracy.
     These are only a few of the many examples of the rightward shift in the TL.
The fact is, the Workers Struggle Tendency intends to lead the TL into a sharp
rightward turn, and had to rid itself of the Left Opposition in order to clear
the way for this.  This is the real reason for the expulsions of the members of
the Opposition.

Diary of Repression

     The Opposition went into the discussions attempting to keep them on a
political level.  The Majority decided otherwise.  From the first day of the
struggle, the WST used the methods of lies, slander and misrepresentation as
their weapons in the struggle.  They attempted to label the Opposition as the
"sit on our butts faction," and accused members of the Opposition of being
"petty-bourgeois moralists" for wanting to consistently fight racism, sexism,
homophobia and all other forms of oppression.  The WST misrepresented the
positions of Opposition -- and another organization, Workers' Voice, which the
TL has been in discussions with -- to the membership.  Anti-working-class
bigotry (petty-bourgeois arrogance) was also a large factor in the fight.  The
WST's class composition is mostly petty-bourgeois, the Opposition's composition
is working class.
     These issues were aggravated by the WST's conscious and flagrant violation
of the TL Rules, including public censure of a TL Central Committee member --
who was an Oppositionist -- for posting a message on the Internet about an
ex-comrade (who has since gravitated to the RWL) who stole personal property
from his housemates.  The charges were presented only 10 minutes (!) before the
CC (not the Control Commission, but the Central Committee) was to vote on them,
a direct violation of several provisions in the TL Rules.  No prior notice, no
ability for the comrade to respond to the charges, and no investigation into the
charges were made!
     The WST also banned the Opposition from distributing its internal journal,
the Bulletin of the Opposition.  This was also a violation of the Rules, which
state that factions have the right to publish internal journals and organize
themselves.
     As the discussion progressed, and the political issues became crystal
clear, the Opposition concluded that a direct struggle for leadership of the TL
was necessary to preserve it -- and its previous political positions -- for the
future.  Because of this, as well as because of the bureaucratic repression, the
Opposition declared itself a faction struggling for working-class leadership and
politics, against the petty-bourgeois Majority.

"Indulging" in Bureaucratism

     The Second Session of the National Conference convened on 4 November.  It
was something out of a Kafka novel.  As one WST member stated bluntly, the whole
conference was meant to "indulge the Opposition."  In reality, the only
"indulgence" on behalf of the WST was their indulgence in bureaucratism.
Nothing was said (much less done) about democratic discussion.  Only 1/3 of the
entire membership of the TL attended this Conference.  (TL Conferences are not
delegated.)
     The Opposition had 14 resolutions over various issues it wanted to present.
We were allowed only an average of three and one-half minutes to present and
motivate each resolution, and in the end many of our resolutions were struck
from the agenda altogether.  On the second day of the Conference, the Opposition
was given 30 minutes to present its "platform."  The resolutions were then voted
on en bloc.  Obviously, they all failed.  As a result, the TL Majority went on
record agianst:  opposing "united fronts" with Jackson, no "critical support" to
"independent labor candidate" who call for more cops on the streets, and
fighting racism, sexisn and homophobia in a revolutionay organization and in the
workers' movement (along with voting against integrating the organization and
developing specially oppressed leadership).
     Following this sham vote, we were presented with an option of approving a
"painless divorce."  We refused, stating that the Opposition desired to work our
differences out in a common organization, allowing the different positions to be
tested out in the course of history.  We repeated our assurances that we would
maintain democratic centralism, but refused to renounce our political positions.
Because of this, the members of the Opposition who were present at the
Conference were expelled for "factionalism."

You Can Purge the Oppositionists, But You Can't Purge the Opposition!

     The Opposition does not recognize our "expulsion" from the ITO, as this
would have to be done by an International Conference.  We are appealing the
expulsions from the TL to the International Conference, scheduled for Spring
1996.  Nor do we accept the decree of the ITO International Secretariat that the
organization is internationally democratic centralist.
     The International Conference was to decide on the structure and functioning
of the ITO, with the goal of democratic centralist transformation.  The IS,
however, felt it was not necessary to have discussion amongst the sections of
the ITO (the Central Committee of the TL, not to mention the membership, wasn't
even informed of the decision!) and bypassed the organization.
     This has resulted in the purging of minority groups in the U.S. (the
expelled members of the Opposition) and Britain.
     Meanwhile, the Opposition will maintain the spirit of the ITO's regroupment
orientation, exploring, when appropriate, relations with other groups and
tendencies and discussing our political agreement, differences, experiences and
lessons.
     We will be releasing the documents of the struggle within the next few
weeks.

                                 -30-




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