Published: Guardian Clubs Newsletter, November 1978.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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October 31, 1978
It is a pity it has come to this–but Irwin Silber has elected to stage a bitter confrontation. The pity is not in the clash of ideas or a 2-line struggle. Such things are entirely normal in the course of political development and are generally positive in nature.
The pity is that Silber has resorted to distortions, malicious innuendos, slanderous attacks on the staff of the Guardian newspaper and transparent flattery of members of the Guardian Club system in order to legitimize his views.
Above all, even in his lengthy position paper Silber still refuses to get down to the politics of the matter and still continues his practice of not being entirely open and aboveboard about what his real political position amounts to.
By mixing all these elements together, Silber has created considerable confusion–not within the Guardian, where his line is basically understood and has been rejected –but within the Club system, where it has evidently not become clear, at least not to all Club comrades.
A number of questions have arisen in the last several weeks which I will attempt to discuss In the following reply–from the Guardian’s view of the future of Guardian Clubs to why the Guardian voted 18-1 with one abstention to reject the idea of publishing Silber’s column announcing his resignation and attacking the Guardian in the pages of the paper. Some of the points I would wish to interject have already been published in the past Club Newsletter, although Silber (and some Club members who have since responded with new position papers) refuses to deal with them. Since I do not intend to fully repeat some of these arguments, I suggest Club comrades re-read the last Newsletter carefully, especially the introduction to the amendment which the Guardian newspaper adopted overwhelmingly.
Since you have Silber’s latest position paper before you, I propose to reply on a point-by-point basis. Before doing so, however, I’ll make a few general statements about building a Guardian organization, the left trend and what is meant by a limited political organization and how this relates to Guardian Clubs.
The principal question is do we or do we not build an organization around the Guardian’s political line, recognizing this is a very difficult process that will take a long time and that we are talking about a limited political organization at this stage–not a political party or an all-rounded property organisation. The Guardian decided unanimously in June 1977 when it published the 29 principles of unity that it was a political responsibility to make the effort to build such an organization. “The 29 principles offered by the Guardian,” we stated at the time, “is an attempt both to codify such a set of principles and to advance a particular political trend within the party-building movement–The Clubs would be an organizational vehicle for helping to develop a distinct political trend within the Marxist-Leninist movement, a trend based on the 29 principles of unity.”
The Guardian reaffirmed this decision in the party-building paper just published, again unanimously at the time. Irwin Silber now disagrees with this position, although he never articulated such disagreement within the Guardian until several weeks ago.
To lend some credibility to his turnabout, he now–opportunistically, in my opinion–attacks the argument that there are two trends within the independent Marxist-Leninist movement and that, further, the Guardian is the left trend. His real reason for opposing the development of a Guardian political organization goes deeper, and if he didn’t attack it on the basis of differing about whether the Guardian constitutes a trend, he would have done so on the basis of several other arguments. What then is the real issue?
Silber opposes the development of Guardian Clubs into a limited political organization because he opposes the development of political organizations in the preparty period. He has evidently not made this position clear to all the people in the Clubs. Characteristically, he avoided the question in his most recent polemic. He likewise avoided making his position completely open within the Guardian for a long time–but it finally emerged in the discussion engendered by the Club responses to our original party-building document.
The Guardian is now aware, although not everyone else appears to be, that Silber believes “consolidated organizational forms” are a “mistake” at this period, that they “freeze” the development of the ideological struggle and theoretical advancement. He does not want organizations getting in the way of party-building. He thinks that incorrect lines can be defeated by theoretical weapons only at this stage and that “Marxist-Leninists do not need an organization to defeat an incorrect line.” This is the trade mark of a one-sided intellectual’s approach to the class struggle. It is also extremely unrealistic because it is so poorly argued it will have no impact whatever on the development of political organizations In the preparty period–except, perhaps, to impede or even destroy the Guardian’s efforts to build a limited political organisation to express its views in the political struggle to develop a correct line which would unite all Marxist-Leninists.
I wonder if the Club people who appear to be defending Silber–by either rejecting the idea of trends or in concentrating strictly on the “process” of how we published the party-building document–fully realise that the principal argument is whether or not political organizations are legitimate within the preparty phase and that the question of whether the Guardian develops a political organization is subsumed within this larger theoretical framework. Aside from a handful, I tend to think not.
Why does Silber oppose the development of political organizations in the preparty phase? This he still has not revealed, but my assumption is that he is basically guided by a struggle-compromise-unity approach to party-building and that this process is hampered by the existence of political organizations which have (or will have) developed political lines to the extent of being able to resist unprincipled compromise–or manipulation by “leading” Marxist-Leninist intellectuals. I also think it might also stem from gross overemphasis on theory to the virtual total exclusion of organization and practice in the preparty phase.
Perhaps Silber has other reasons for denouncing the idea that Marxist-Leninists form political organizations at this stage. These he has buried too deeply to even speculate about. But the essential point– the number one point in the dispute he is contriving to build to monumental proportions in the Club system through obfuscation and confusion–is his opposition to the formation of any political organizations at this point.
So it is not just a question of this or that expressed argument against developing the Club system into a political organization, it is a deeply considered (though not frankly communicated) theory about party-building which eliminates political organizations from any constructive role in party-building and indeed views such organizations as sectarian and divisive.
By extension, of course, he characterizes the Guardian as sectarian and divisive for suggesting the formation of a limited political organization. Is this because the Guardian has in its practice over the last 30 years demonstrated a sectarian, divisive attitude toward party-building? Is it because those who publish the Guardian are divisive sectarians, kept in check single-handedly by Silber until he was finally overwhelmed by the forces of evil? Hardly, it is because he believes only nonaffiliated “leading” Marxist-Leninists. independent of political organizations, are capable of resisting the lures of sectarianism, of being “above” the battle, so to speak.
I think this theory stems not only from an elitist and one-sided theoretical stand but from a misreading of history. Recognizing as we all do the sectarian mistakes of the “new communist movement,” Silber has evidently concluded that the way to avoid such mistakes in our movement is to eliminate the role of organizations. In this be is making the error of seeking an organizational (or rather anti-organizational) solution to what is in essence a political problem. Sectarianism is a political problem, not an organizational problem. Political organizations can push forward the party-building movement. They have in the past and win m future. They are not inherently sectarian and divisive. That certain political organizations have become sectarian and divisive is a fact, but the answer is not to oppose organization but to oppose sectarianism.
The 2-line question before us is whether political organizations will or will not have an important role in developing a leading line for the anti-revisionist, anti-dogmatist 4th tendency around which Marxist-Leninists can unite. Silber says no. The Guardian newspaper says yes.
In this particular struggle, all else is commentary–but it’s worth getting into some of that commentary.
Take the tread question. Silber now states the Guardian trend is not a trend, much less a left trend. And he now questions whether the OC trend is a tread. I think this is playing with words in order to rationalize a preparty anti-organizational theory that is without foundation. Any objective political observer (without an anti-organizational axe to grind or a secret longing for the Guardian Cubs to join the OC at this stage and have done with all this “divisive” and “sectarian” infighting) would detect two relatively concrete political lines within the independent Marxist-Leninist party-building movement at this particular point. These two lines stem from two treads within the movement– from two different relatively developed political positions summed up in the Guardian’s 29 principles and the OC’s 18 principles.
We alt seem to agree that the OC principles contain some major right errors and that the Guardian position is more consistent with the necessary struggle which must be waged within our movement against both dogmatism and revisionism, this struggle is a good thing and its result–eventual principled unity–will propel our movement ahead. The Guardian believes the right errors involved here must be straggled against and corrected before unity is possible.
Perhaps one can twist Lenin out of context to the point where the word trend–and thus the need to wage sharp struggle against right errors–is allegedly inapplicable, though I wouldn’t advise it. Time, circumstance, objective conditions and the stage of the party-building process are all operative here, if we wish to creatively apply Marxism-Leninism to the concrete conditions we face and not merely wave around quotations as a substitute for facing the realities of political struggle.
(If the word “trend” is offensive–though no one questioned its application when it referred to PWOC and the groups which first formed the OC or dug deeply for quotes from Lenin to deny the reality–it would be easy to substitute the word “current,” as long as it does not hamper the building of a limited political organization to give expression to the left point of view within the 4th tendency.) The best word, though, is trend, as in “a general course, inclination or direction.”
These political trends exist in fact within our movement. They are based on certain important political differences. How can Silber deny this or belittle the political differences which have given rise to two trends by asking whether a trend could come into existence by pronouncement? Does Silber disagree with the critique of the OC contained in the Guardian’s position on the party-building movement–or at least that aspect of the critique which goes beyond criticizing fusion? This latter point deserves amplification because if one actually holds that the only principal political contradiction is with fusion while maintaining that fusion has already been “defeated theoretically,” as Silber says, then one really doesn’t necessarily think the Guardian should be outside the OC. If Silber does agree with the Guardian’s full critique, then he must agree that the OC line is seriously flawed by right opportunism.
If the OC trend is flawed by right opportunism, where does this place the Guardian–which has put forward the only other set of relatively well-rounded unity principles within our movement–vis-a-vis the OC? It places the Guardian on the left. I don’t think it is a question of creating trends by pronouncement but a question of eliminating political differences by pronouncement.
Political line basically determines a trend at this stage in our movement. The Guardian trend is summed up in the 29 principles, which we hope will be further developed in the next year or two through political dialog between the Guardian and the Clubs. The Guardian’s assumption is that this line will gather a number of adherents within our movement. We are not going to find out until we develop a political organization. This is what we set out to do before becoming sidetracked by the novel suggestion that organizations are a mistake in the preparty phase and all the false argumentation that is going into promoting this position.
Political trends–different lines expressed in rather broad and distinct unity positions–in the preparty stage are not necessarily permanent. Trends develop, trends dissolve, trends split, trends merge, new trends form. Our struggle with the OC may be resolved in a relatively brief period or it may take longer.
Many organizational forms develop in the preparty stage–advanced political organizations guided by full democratic centralism; limited political organizations united around a distinct and relatively sophisticated set of principles and a form of organizational discipline, study groups, regional associations, federations, “centers” of individuals and so on.
The main purpose of this entire process of political and organizational ferment, however, must be the formation of a single party when the political struggles are sorted out. The Guardian is committed to this. Not to experience these struggles, to bypass this stage, is to set in motion the development of a party that will contain within it so many contradictions that it’s hard to see how it could hold together for long without splitting. Compounding this error would be to have a grouping of “leading” Marxist-Leninists substitute themselves for the entire party-building process and develop the “correct line” in isolation from existing organizations and practice.
Silber mocks the idea of having Guardian Clubs develop into a limited political organization. He seems to have created some confusion in the Club system as well.
What, then, is a limited political organization? It’s not complex. It is an organization that has unit around political line, a form of discipline that is not absolute democratic centralism and circumscribed political practice.
At present Guardian Clubs are not political organizations, even though all the members are very political people and they do political work. Guardian Clubs are basically service affiliates of the Guardian newspaper with study group work. Until we achieve unity around line, which means eliminating the differences between the Guardian’s 29 points and the Clubs’ 10 points, and until we establish a more advanced organizational relationship between Club members and the Guardian, the Clubs cannot be political organizations.
The Guardian intends to further develop the Clubs into political organizations by reaching agreement around line and organization. Silber opposes this. He does not want the Clubs and Guardian to share the same principles of political unity. He doss not want Club members to share, even in part, the kind of organizational commitment Guardian workers have toward the Guardian, This does not stem from Silber’s fears that a Guardian political organization would be sectarian and divisive but from his conviction that political organizations in the preparty period are a mistake. To us, this makes no political sense. It may to some Club people–but this is not going to convince the Guardian newspaper to oppose the development of political organizations.
I’d like to now get directly into Silber’s paper.
To begin with, the introductory section would be stricken from the record were there ever such a thing as a Marxist-Leninist court of justice. It is an attempt to pander to the sympathies of Guardian Club members by resorting to insincere flattery. (“...some of the best, most developed Marxist-Leninists in our movement, people who have demonstrated a hundred times over both in their theoretical contributions as well as their practical work a deep-seated commitment to party-building and to the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism–You understood and grasped the challenge–There were many individuals and organizations who jeered at the Clubs and at your decision to join and build them....So you in the Guardian Clubs who read this constitute one of the most precious assets of the party-building movement–”)
Isn’t that laying it on a bit thick, comrades? But it does serve a purpose–that of putting Irwin Silber firmly on the side of the angels and establishing a framework of “us” vs. “them.” with the “us” (Silber and some Club members) now not only struggling against the incorrect line of the OC but that of the Guardian (“them”) as well. How many angels will dance upon the head of this pin and who will call the tune?
A little further on Silber dismisses from consideration the question of whether or not it is true or false that a “leading center” of Marxist individuals “absolutely must be placed in the center of our vision of forging a party.’’ Silber says this idea’’ may be good or bad or in between.’’ Well, is it good or bad or in between? This is but one of a score of examples the Guardian staff has accumulated where Silber is not being entirely candid about his own views.
The first time the Guardian became aware of what the “leading center” approach amounted to was in the paper presented by comrades Max Elbaum and Melinda Paras of the Bay Area last month. Even though Silber had been named to the position of chairman of Guardian Clubs and was charged with the responsibility of keeping the Guardian informed about such matters, he never discussed it with the Guardian staff. We have subsequently learned he has discoursed on the topic at length many times over the past year with some Club members and others in the independent Marxist-Leninist party-building movement. When the issue was finally raised during our discussion of amendments to the Guardian paper on party-building, Silber indicated he had “considerable unity” with this position –but he still refuses to make his views clear. Now the “leading center” question is dismissed as “irrelevant” to the debate at hand. This is not a fruitful way to conduct political struggle. It is deceptive.
The significance of our emphasis on the “leading center” idea must be understood in the context of this debate. Standing by itself–even though excessively built up in the paper by the two Bay Area comrades who incorrectly say it must be at the “absolute center” of a strategy for building a party–the “leading center” idea deserves investigation and consideration. Such a center, as one of several organizational forms, is a legitimate possibility, as was indicated in the amendment that was approved by the Guardian staff. But in connection with Silber’s thesis of opposing the development of political organizations in the preparty period, the “leading center” approach becomes virtually the only possible avenue for developing a general line for the party-building forces. As such it is elitist sad cannot advance the party-building movement. This is why clarity from Silber is required.
For all I know, the two Bay Area comrades who submitted the paper about the “leading center” may not at all rule out the development of political organizations in the preparty period, including the maturation of Guardian Cubs into a limited political organization. But our argument is with Silber who does rule out the development of political organizations at this stage. A “leading center” of “leading” Marxist-Leninists (leaving aside for the moment who would decide who was a “leading” M-L or the excess about it having to be at the “absolute center” of our vision) may be able to do some useful work; but in combination with discouraging, opposing or ignoring the contributions that can and must be made by organizations and practical work (as Silber does) it is a negative contribution.
Silber’s position paper then goes on to imply that it is the intention of the Guardian to “arbitrarily and on its own develop the line for the future of the Guardian Clubs.” This is not consistent with the facts. Guardian Clubs were founded on the premise of building an organization around the paper’s political line. Silber so longer agrees, but this hardly means that our insistence upon upholding it amounts to “arbitrarily and on its own” developing the line for the future of Guardian Clubs. The future line for Guardian Clubs will be developed by the Guardian in close collaboration with the Clubs. A sketch of this procedure was included in the amendment published in the last Club Newsletter and the Guardian Club Subcommittee is now working on the draft of a paper on the future of the Club system which will be circulated to Club members.
Guardian Clubs, however, were established on the premise that they would develop into political organizations around the Guardian line. This is not up for debate. It is the very reason we formed the Clubs. We wisely did not establish the Clubs as limited political organizations during the first year in order both to train ourselves and to help train Club members in building such an organization. Now we are going to develop unity around the 29 principles (as to be amended and further refined) and around precise degrees of organizational responsibility and discipline. Our plan is to cooperate with the clubs in working out political and organizational line questions.
Continuing in his paper, Silber says that the process of promoting a widespread rectification movement among Marxist-Leninists should “not be bound or defined by existing organizational forms but would develop in a wide variety of forms,” of which Guardian Cubs are one. How does the Guardian proposal on party-building contradict this?
We all agree that many forms will develop. What we do not agree on is Silber’s position that “consolidated organizational forma are a mistake at this stage” and that trying to develop the Clubs into a limited political organization around the Guardian’s line must be halted, presumably at all costs, including a possible split. In our opinion, an organization active around the line the Guardian is proposing will give considerable strength to the process of promoting a widespread rectification movement.
Silber then points to a paper signed by five Guardian staff members, reflecting their own additional views about the party-building process, twists these views and then by implication tries to depict them as the position put forward by the Guardian as a whole. “If these comrades–or the Guardian staff–already have a ’correct road in party-building,’” Irwin Silber says, “they have managed to keep it a secret from anyone else up until this point.” But as everyone knows, the Guardian has never made such a pronouncement. Unfortunately, this type of distortion permeated Silber’s entire paper.
A few paragraphs later Silber slanders the Guardian when he says, “to be absolutely blunt about it, what is involved is a conception that the Guardian staff as presently constituted is, in effect, a Central Committee (and its Coordinating Committee a Political Bureau) capable of putting the finishing touches on an already developed leading political line in order to provide a viable basis for establishing a national, democratic centralist preparty organization.” Any honest person familiar with the Guardian’s views knows this is not true. I discussed the question of the development of Guardian Clubs into a limited political organisation is the last Newsletter and I suggest that those whom Silber has succeeded in confusing on this issue go back to it and give it a thorough reading. Silber here is trying to score a few points by departing from the truth, “to be absolutely blunt about it.”
In the following paragraph Silber asks whether the Guardian staff should be allowed to play “the leading role in bringing into being” the organizational form that will formulate the general line of the independent M-L movement. This is dishonest, again, I fear. Whoever suggested such a thing? Not the Guardian. At the most we have suggested that a limited political organization around the Guardian would play a positive role along with many other forces in helping to develop a political line to unite Marxist-Leninists. The Guardian repeatedly has emphasized that its organization is intended to do precisely the opposite of what Silber alleges. Unfortunately, those who have not had the opportunity to become as fully acquainted with the Guardian’s views as with Silber’s presentation of them are bound to be confused. But I will say it once again for the record; speaking on behalf of the Guardian, this is not the truth, Needless to say, Silber’s plea that “there are dozens of capable Marxist-Leninists in other organisations–and many not in organizations–who should be involved in the process” of formulating the general line is a statement of the Guardian’s position, not a contradiction to the Guardian’s position.
Silber goes even further when he implies that the Guardian staff desires to constitute itself as “the decision-making body of the ’left trend’ of the party-building movement.’’ Let’s examine this: At this stage, the Guardian does articulate the politics of the left trend of the 4th tendency and it is because we recognize the limitations inherent in this situation that we intend to build Guardian Clubs into a modest political organization. A Guardian political organization would eventually become part of the decision-making body for the left trend.
In my opinion, Silber exposes the distorted nature of his arguments when he asks permission to “anticipate one response” to his innuendos about the Guardian staff seeking hegemony in the party-building movement. “Namely,” he continues, “that none of what I have been describing has actually been proposed and that the Guardian staff is only planning to establish a ’limited’ political organization.” What kind of Marxist argument is this when Silber finally acknowledges that “none of what I have been describing has actually been proposed” by the Guardian? He then tries to justify this indefensible technique by surmising that our Intention is “to stake out a claim on this process (of developing the party) in anticipation of the time when the organisational strength of each of these ’trends’ will determine not only the correct leading line for the tendency as a whole, but–and here organizational questions indeed come to the fore–the allocation of positions and designation of personalities to the Central Committee of the party.”
Who ever said that “organizational strength” will determine whether a line is correct or not? The Guardian has never hinted at such an absurdity. And the nonsense about seats on a Central Committee is a low political gesture.
Silber then comments that the Guardian trend (i.e., the political line put forward by the Guardian newspaper and those who agree with it in distinction to what we have identified as right opportunism) “is clearly not a trend at all [but] a political invention designed to promote organizational cohesion and institutional loyalty before the proper foundation has been laid. Loyalty to a particular organization under these circumstances becomes primary over loyalty to the interests of the communist movement as a whole.” Loyalty? What does he mean? We are discussing developing an organizational expression of the Guardian line, a political organisation to further develop the party-building movement, not patriotism. A Guardian organization could play a big role in helping to build the party-building movement. Theoretical development alone will not do it. In our opinion, it is demeaning to have our politics described in terms of trying to win loyalty.
Is this what Silber is trying to convince members of Guardian Clubs to believe, that we are nothing but political fakers frantically trying to seek hegemony, to push everyone else aside and set back the party-building movement? Is this what characterizes our Guardian newspaper? Is this the line we articulate is the paper? Is this a line anyone can find the smallest bit of evidence to prove actually exists? To make such an argument is indeed to participate in political invention. Perhaps Silber accidentally left out a paragraph repeating his earlier admission that “none of what I have been describing has actually bees proposed.”
The scene shifts. Silber now belittles the Guardian staff’s astonishment in September when he changed his (public) line, “the only thing surprising, however, is their surprise,” he says, “since they are well aware of the fact that there has been a developing struggle within the Guardian CC and Club Subcommittee for almost a year on questions that are clearly related to the overall conception of Guardian Clubs and party-building questions in general.”
Silber notes, “true, it was not possible to begin to summarize these differences in a more thorough fashion until recently” and that it was only through the discussions over the Club responses to the party-building paper “that I began to grasp the full significance” of what he had been in agreement with. “It simply went by me.”
Come, come, comrade. We’ll have to go back a bit.
I proposed establishing the club system several years ago and raised the question periodically. It was always opposed on practical grounds, not theoretical grounds. Finally, in early 1977, I raised the question again, this time in conjunction with our development of the 29 principles of unity. My argument at the time was that it would be improper to hurl such a thunderbolt of wisdom from Mt. Guardian without us at least trying to form an organization of a limited nature to demonstrate we were more than just talkers about “uniting Marxist-Leninists” but doers as well. Finally, the idea of forming Guardian Clubs was accepted on the basis of a proposal I made March 13, 1977, which argued, among other points, that the time was ripe for such a move, especially since we were taking a big step in going ahead with publication of the 29 principles, because of “the growing isolation of the ’new communist’ forces [and] the rightward tendency of some other party-building forces and our own investigations around the country. An organization formed around our political line will maximize our contribution to the party-building movement.”
We then decided to move ahead with the idea and in the June 1977 supplement containing the principles we also announced our intention to build such an organization– Guardian Clubs. There was no expressed disagreement. The Guardian Coordinating Committee named Irwin Silber chairman of Guardian Clubs and Bill Ryan as coordinator. The coordinator had no political power. Silber then proposed and named members to the Club Subcommittee. At that stage the Guardian staff was under the impression the Clubs were the first step in the construction of a political organization around the Guardian’s line, one reason for the existence of which was to pose an alternative to the “rightward tendency” mentioned earlier. We all agreed that for the first year or possibly two the Clubs would be kept very limited–both in organization and politics and we decided to temporarily put forward only 10 points of unity for the Clubs.
Over the next few months it became apparent things were not going as we thought were intended, but it was hard to put one’s finger on it.
In late December Silber suggested in preparation for the upcoming “trend” meeting that Guardian Clubs become a part of local and regional committees to be set up by the “trend” and that we should support PWOC’s proposal for an Organizing Committee. The CC decided against having the Clubs join the regional committees but agreed to support formation of the OC, stipulating that the Guardian was not to become part of it. The Guardian staff was not at ease about this entire development and many doubts were raised as to whether the Clubs were being guided in the direction the staff had decided in lengthy discussion earlier in the year.
I was quite ill during this time but as soon as I was able to write I drafted a memo to the Guardian CC and Club Subcommittee and staff people putting down on paper just what my own views were on party building, the “trend” and the Guardian’s role. Most of the staff people I was able to speak to at that point were in agreement. In fact, I wrote the paper, entitled “The 4th Tendency,” at the request of staff people who felt the need to get these ideas down in writing in one document. Silber never disputed any of those ideas–which constitute the basis of the present argument. “He indicated “90% agreement” but would never disclose what his apparent 10% disagreement consisted of.
Months went by; no discussion, no struggle, no voiced disagreement. Pressure was mounting on the Guardian to make a public assessment of the party-building movement–largely because the PWOC and OC people were saying the Guardian was in “basic agreement” with “the trend,” although we all realized we had big disagreement with this current. The CC decided late this spring to draft a paper on party-building and the OC. Silber wrote the draft. With the support of the entire staff–and no disagreement from Silber–some of my ideas from the “4th Tendency” paper were incorporated. Two visiting members of Guardian Clubs raised some objections but no one supported them, including Silber.
At that stage it appeared we had complete unity on one of the most important questions of the day via the process of full participation of the entire staff. I don’t recall the exact circumstances, but I think Silber proposed sending the document to the Clubs and OC members and we all took off on vacation. I agree that it was a bad decision not to send the paper to the Clubs first. It was a foolish mistake.
The Club Subcommittee then began discussing how to further develop the Club system in the next year. Many ideas were put forward and a number of lively and enthusiastic meetings were held about making 1979 a “year of organization for building Guardian Clubs,” fulfilling our expectation that after the first year of experience we would be able to graduate to a higher level of organization. No objections were raised by Silber, who participated in these meetings. I was asked by the Subcommittee to produce a first draft summing up the ideas expressed at our meetings where we seemed to have unity. Some of the ideas were rather too ambitious, of course, but the only way to sum up our thinking was to put them down on paper for further discussion and revision. In late August, or early September, Silber announced his change of line–saying he had just realized the implications of what it meant to build the organization. Now, these ideas he opposed first were put in written form in February. We held exhaustive discussions in the staff. Then discussions in the Subcommittee. At no point did Silber indicate opposition until late summer, after the party-building paper had gone out.
The staff was shocked by this turn of events. Genuine political transformations do take place, often suddenly, of course. But we have subsequently learned that many of the ideas Silber said “just occurred” to him in late summer were ideas he had discussed in great detail with people off our staff throughout the year. He never raised them with us. He never openly opposed a line he evidently disagreed with from the beginning. True, we had an inkling something was wrong during the late winter and spring when people off the staff who are associated with Silber began talking about a “split” on the Guardian over party-building–but there was not a trace of a split within our staff that we knew of.
In reality, Silber apparently decided to withhold his views from the Guardian staff, where he knew they were in a distinct minority, while advocating them off the staff, especially with some Club people and some forces outside the Clubs.
We were quite astonished at some of the responses we received from the Clubs about party-building because these views were unknown to us before, though the Club chairman kept us apprised of every line of difference within the OC, then in formation. And needless to say, “shock” is a mild description for our response to Silber’s “new” line. What seems to have happened, I speculate, is that Silber was trying to build a base of support for his views off the paper which he never enjoyed on the staff and this base finally became operational a couple of months ago, which emboldened him to make his move. But even at this stage, it is obvious, at least some of those Club members who think they agree with Silber may not actually possess knowledge of the full line he’s pushing about organizations.
Club people have a perfect right to their own views. My point here is that (a) we never knew about them before; (b) our own views on the principle of forming a political organization around the Guardian line now seems to have been–at the least–imperfectly communicated to some Club members by the Club chairman and (c) we believed we had fundamental unity with Silber (and the Club members who now oppose the further development of the Clubs) because we were never led to believe otherwise.
Now, of course, we are under intense pressure from some Club people to change our line–a hardly spontaneous development, at least from a few quarters–and there is even the danger that the Club network will break apart if we don’t. This is what happens when things are not open and aboveboard. Had these disagreements been brought to our attention many months ago the struggle would probably have been more fruitful and creative.
We hope it is not too late and that the Clubs won’t fall apart. It will make the process of building a limited political organization that much more difficult and will set us back a year. But it must be understood by all: when we announced in our party-building paper in July our intention to “proceed with our own organizational efforts–concretely, to build, expand and consolidate the Guardian trend on the basis of the political line summed up by the Guardian and as a means of giving that line firm organizational expression,” we not only put forward an idea we intend to pursue but we honestly believed we were united; that this was not a controversial statement; and that we thought all Guardian Club people fully understood that the very reason we initiated the Clubs was to form s political organization around our line.
To make it appear we slipped a fast one over on the Clubs by restating this u disgraceful. The Guardian does not claim to possess the Alpha and Omega of party building strategy, ideological enlightenment, theoretical brilliance or, most certainly judging by the rather poor job we’ve done with Clubs the first year, organizational skills. There is plenty of room for disagreement on many questions. But the tone of some of the discussion has assumed unfortunate dimensions. Not all of it can be erased.
After Silber says he finally grasped the “full significance” of our party-building statement, he alleges we made an error by publishing the revised document in the Guardian. While I agree we should not have sent the original paper out to the Clubs and OC simultaneously, I disagree on this. Here’s why:
The Clubs received the original document in late July or early August. Despite the fact that the Guardian was under pressure to make an honest disclosure of its views on party-building, we waited six or so weeks until we received all the papers from the Clubs we thought would be forthcoming before holding a debate within our staff about the critiques. Near the end of the period Silber put himself on record as agreeing with the criticisms. Two lines (finally!) developed and came out fully in our first staff discussion. These lines were encapsulated in two amendments. Silber’s amendment was intended to eliminate any reference to further developing the Clubs, organizationally or politically, thus concealing the Guardian’s concrete plans in relation to the very movement we were criticizing, Smith’s amendment was intended to strengthen the aspect about organization while making certain changes to conform to Club criticisms. This issue was decided by a whopping majority of the people who put out the leading revolutionary paper in the country, not the collection of fools and sectarians Silber is trying to depict.
We decided to publish the polemics involved in our “cadre” paper–the Club Newsletter so Club members would have the full benefit of seeing both sides in print, and go ahead with publishing the document in the paper.
This was a decision only the Guardian staff could make, not the Clubs, because it concerned a principle of organization and political line we had agreed upon before the Clubs were formed. At issue was reversing the verdict that all but a handful of our staff wanted to keep intact and believed in, and to leave the door open to having a service affiliate with study group responsibilities determine Guardian policy.
Guardian Clubs are not a political organization. They are neither in political nor organizational unity with the Guardian. The Guardian’s responsibilities toward the Clubs are not any more fully developed than the Clubs’ responsibilities toward the Guardian. We believe that we fulfilled our political obligations toward the Clubs as they are presently constituted by asking for and receiving criticism of the original paper and by struggling over the lines represented in those criticisms. But if the Clubs are to expect a more elaborate process of political intercourse, wherein we would have participated in considerably more debate and discussion before publishing the revised document on party-building in the paper, they must develop into more elaborate organizations – limited political organizations with unity around line and commitment to the line and the organization.
Ironically, this is precisely the type of situation the Guardian seeks to create by building the Clubs network. When such a more sophisticated political organization is developed, so with it must develop our mechanisms of political dialog. Were Guardian Clubs united with us politically and organizationally, there would not only have been several more rounds of communication regarding the amendments but there would have been direct political input as wail. But for responsibilities toward a service organization, we think we did as well as possible under the circumstances. The alternative would have been to allow the Clubs a degree of political influence that their organizational responsibilities did not merit, particularly when the issue is about a position the Guardian established before the Clubs were formed and to which we at the Guardian are dedicated.
Let’s build Guardian Clubs into the type of political organization I’ve talked about in this paper, in the introduction to the amendment and undoubtedly in the paper we will soon submit on the future of the Clubs–and then our mutual responsibilities, politically and organizationally, will be much greater.
But as to whether we should have continued the debate on this question after we debated the various Club criticisms, struggled over them and voted on them, the answer is “no,” not at this organizational stage.
The Guardian is a newspaper with responsibilities to tens of thousands of people in the broad progressive movement and within the M-L movement. It has been a beacon of light for many people for three decades. A number of Guardian staffers have been with the paper for a great many years and our newer staff members are not political novices.
The Guardian cannot permit a very loose organization of some 70 individuals nationwide with whom we are not yet in political unity on the basic questions of the day in any formal sense–individuals whose commitment to the paper and the Guardian organization which puts out the paper is hardly comparable to that of those who devote themselves more than full-time to the task–to have a bigger voice in the paper’s affairs. And this is precisely wiry we want to build Guardian Clubs! Build the Clubs with us into a limited political organization and much of this problem will be resolved. Thus, yes, we made a mistake in sending the original paper to the OC and the Clubs at the same time. The Clubs should have gotten it first. Aside from this being correct, it would have saved us some embarrassment in having to make changes when it was finally published in the paper. But no, once we decided on the changes, the issue was decided.
To go on. How, I wonder, can such political infants–as the Guardian staff has been depicted by implication–manage to put out such a good newspaper? Are there those so naive who think it is especially because of Irwin Silber’s involvement? One would almost think so, considering a couple of communications we’ve received lately from some Club people.
The Guardian is the product of an entire group of people who work at it as a full time responsibility and many others who help out.
It is a fiction to review the Guardian’s political line and identify one person as the ”principal exponent” unless what is meant is the person whom the Guardian staff assigns to represent its line in public. To equate one or two staff people with the staff as a whole and find they weigh as heavily as the entire collective is to seriously misread the internal dynamics of our political and organizational life. All Guardian positions are the product of the collective as a whole, whether on the question of Eritrea or China or Angola or trade unions or the question or the Afro-American question or whatever. Silber is considerable latitude in his column to express his views. He has made many important political contributions. But Guardian line is expressed in Guardian Viewpoints and in official position papers, not in columns.
Whether people realize it or not, the question of Irwin Silber’s resignation as executive editor is not at all the most important problem we face. As you must know, our paper is in very serious danger of going out of business within a couple of months. We are deeply in debt. Silber’s reluctance to do more work in helping to strengthen our financial base has not eased this difficulty. Indeed, for those who may be shocked to learn Silber has resigned over the question of organizations in the preparty stage, it may be informative to learn that he not too long ago implied he’d resign if the CC assigned him to handle more administrative work, which was one of the options we had considered to help deal with the financial crisis.
Survival is our biggest problem. It cannot have been helped by the timing of Silber’s resignation, coming as it did just as our 30th anniversary fund-raising events were getting underway, creating an impression of instability at the precise moment it was important to give the opposite impression. Silber was asked to delay announcement of his resignation until at least after Oct. 27 when our New York event was scheduled and if possible until our fund-raising banquet was over in mid-November. But he said he could not do this in “good conscience.”
This brings me to the question of why the Guardian voted overwhelmingly against printing Silber’s column attacking our position in the paper. There were several reasons. First, we thought it was a completely one-sided attack, replete with distortions. It would have necessitated a quite lengthy reply, a counterattack. Aside from the bad timing–just before the celebrations–this is simply not the kind of thing a mature political organization does in its mass newspaper. Most of our readers would have thought we had taken leave of our senses to print such a bitter exchange. And most of them probably wouldn’t have grasped the issue anyway.
Another reason was that Silber is still a member of our staff. It’s one thing to print attacks on the Guardian from organizations and individuals off our staff. We do relatively frequently. We also have had occasion to publish debates between two staff people on an issue where the Guardian had not yet established a firm line. But it’s quite another thing for us to publish an attack upon a line agreed to by the great majority of our people by a person representing a distinct minority who was on the losing end of a 2-line struggle. We have some organizational integrity. Such an exchange would have hurt the paper. Irwin Silber has demonstrated he has ways to make his views known within the movement, even if we don’t always know about them, much less publish them. We most assuredly are not concealing those views from the Club people. The Club Newsletter is the proper vehicle for such an exchange–not the pages of the country’s largest-circulation left weekly. Should we receive criticism of our position from Guardian readers we would consider publishing them–as we would from Silber had he left the staff instead of just resigning from an elective post within the organization. There are many occasions when people lose 2-line struggles in the Guardian and remain on staff. Are we to publish their views in the paper, especially if they were one-sided and demanded a reply; when they charge the paper with sectarianism; when, perhaps, it all takes place before several important fund-raising events? No, we don’t do things like that.
Hopefully, when we build the Club network our Newsletter will transform into a publication of some merit and might even circulate outside the Club system, specifically to the party-building movement. We have the ability to produce such a publication, directed at the advanced M-L movement, but we’d have to build the Clubs into a serious political organization before we could undertake putting out a second publication.
In his paper, Silber criticizes the Guardian because it decided first on a “principle” (building the Guardian Club network) and then on implementation” (how we’re going to do it). Although Silber goes into great length about this, I don’t think the argument merits much attention. Politics was in command when we decided it would be good to form Guardian Clubs, just as it was in command when we decided to build the Clubs bigger and better. Political realities– as well as the survival of the paper, in my opinion–dictated that it would be a positive thing for such an organization to be built. We agreed then and agree now. No, we haven’t figured out the best way to build it. That’s why we are going to circulate a draft soon to the Clubs to get their feedback. But it’s entirely proper to decide something in principle first and work out how to implement it later. What’s at stake here is an effort to reverse the principle vs. an effort to implement it.
Continuing, Silber argues that any further development of the Club network into a limited political organization, would likely be “commandist,” basing this on the experience of the first year when, it should not be forgotten, ha was chairman. Again, one of the very reasons it is critical to further develop the Clubs is to break down the commandism that is virtually inherent in the organizational structure now dominating the Clubs, a structure imposed because the Clubs and Guardian are not in political or organizational unity. No matter what the bylaws say about the fact that “Guardian Clubs are organized around the general political line of the Guardian newspaper,” we are not in political or organizational unity. The Clubs are service organizations, badly directed from the center. This must change–but it can only change when the Clubs and Guardian develop political unity, when the Clubs become true political organizations. Some indications as to how this change might take place are included in the amendment in the last Newsletter. The Guardian does not want to create a “commandist” organization. We are not political idiots.
Silber also makes something of the fact that we feel uneasy because various documents ate being circulated throughout the Club network without first going through the center. It’s true. The Club bylaws stipulate “The Guardian OC is responsible [for] circulating internal Club documents.” Silber knows this. He wrote the bylaw. My own opinion is that there’s nothing much we can do about it at this stage of Club development. If we ever manage to develop a more sophisticated political organization, this rule will be observed.
Silber continues by offering the thought that It would, be food for dub people to “receive the views of people with tome measure of experience la the Marxist-Leninist movement,” implying that the principle objective of the Guardian newspaper is to keep people la ignorance. Absurd. Look back to the last issue of the Newsletter regarding the idea of upgrading the Newsletter, especially where it says we should publish party-building material from other sections of the 4th tendency. Also, in the same section Silber alleges that the Guardian staff has goes on record as saying that I do not have the ’right’ to put my views before the Clubs on the present questions.” I recall no such ”record.” In rejecting publication of Silber’s one-sided attack in the paper, the CC offered Silber the pages of the Newsletter not only to publish his column but his extended remarks, At the same time, the Club Subcommittee most certainly intends to retain some discretion over what is published in the Newsletter. Silber is one staff member among many–and he will be treated as such.
On another point, referring to a statement I wrote that says one purpose of the new organization will be to “sharpen the struggle organizationally as well as theoretically against right opportunism in our movement,” Silber asks: “Is the Guardian now announcing a plan for defeating its rival organizations?... [Are] different ’trends’ so consolidated that one must vanquish the other in order for Marxist-Leninists to unite?” This is either another straw man or Silber doesn’t have the slightest idea about organization. To sharpen the struggle organizationally–as he should know because he’s heard the explanation–is to struggle on the local level with various organizations and on a one-to-one basis to correct wrong ideas. Just to publish Fan the Flames columns or occasional position papers from Mt. Guardian is hardly adequate to the task of fighting right opportunism within our movement or dogmatism, revisionism and Trotskyism outside our movement. None of us would especially mind being able to “vanquish” either CP, but it is hardly what is intended by saying we want to conduct an organizational as well as a theoretical struggle within our movement. We have gone to great pains to point out do antagonistic contradiction exists between the members of the 4th tendency. It’s just a fact of life, which Silber refuses to acknowledge, that a bad line isn’t defeated just because one announces it has been defeated in theory (a la the “defeat” of fusion because of our theoretical attacks). A better Club organisation would enable Club people to engage in dialog sad struggle with, for instance, OC local groups m their regions. Vanquish? No. Win people to correcting their mistakes? Yes, And it takes more than words in print to accomplish this.
It must be kept in mind, however, that virtually all these arguments against developing an organisation stem not from any inside knowledge that the further development of Guardian Clubs would necessarily be sectarian, dogmatic, hegemonistic, etc., but from the utterly wrong view that ”consolidated” organisational forms are a mistake at this stage.
Near the end of his paper, Silber makes several points shout the future of Guardian Clubs sad their role which are not dissimilar to points the entire Guardian accepts and which were contained in one form or another in my amendment to the party-building paper. He presents them as though they were in contradiction to the Guardian’s “sectarian” and “divisive” position. And from all this Silber deduces that the Guardian has “consolidated a sectarian line on party-building and is moving toward organizational steps that would set back the movement as a whole.”
In my opinion, Irwin Silber is concocting an elaborate ruse. He has made many, many charges but has provided very little substantiation aside from distorted innuendos and self-serving speculation. He’s trying his best to make it appear his defeat in the Guardian staff is a big blow to the party-building movement, an entity for which he appears to substitute himself. He has slandered the Guardian’s views and has drawn and promulgated implications that are dangerous not only to the Guardian but to the movement he, personally and one would think singlehandedly, is seeking to protect from the barbarians. On another level, I find it disturbing that he has such a low opinion of the Guardian newspaper and for his fellow workers.
Be that as it may, this reply is already too long–but I’ve had to spend much of my time trying to untangle the web of confusion Silber is spinning. I suggest comrades enthusiastically get behind the plan to build the Clubs and reject the underlying theory that opposes political organization in the pre-party period. I frankly think that many Club people will be pleased when the document on the future of Guardian Clubs is distributed in a few weeks. Not everyone will be pleased, of course, especially those who may share Silber’s antagonism toward the role of political organisations at this stage, but at least those comrades will who have been misled into thinking that the Guardian they have come to know, appreciate and learn from over the years may somehow have fallen into the hands of sectarian fanatics, as our former executive editor is trying to suggest.
It will take yean to form the limited political organisation we are talking about. We may succeed, and this would push forward the party-building movement. We may not succeed, but there’s no shame in that. At least we will have tried, la our view, it is our duty as Marxist-Leninists to make the attempt.