Documents 3 to 17 and 19 to 24 originally published in Internal Bulletins of the SWP and the International Bulletins of the International Committee
(The following report from Seattle relates the concluding chapter in the pro-Stalinist degeneration of four comrades who started out as Cochranites in the internal party struggle. The circumstances of their departure from the party, with the crassest declarations of support to Stalinism and the most despicable attacks on the SWP, are without precedent in our movement. As the report indicates, a review of the history of their degeneration and a political evaluation of this development will be prepared soon.)
Sept. 7, 1953
Dear Farrell:
Sylvia, Bud, Roger and Jim O. finished neck and neck at our Thursday night's branch meeting, in their race to leave the party of revolutionary socialism and enter the party or the milieu of counterrevolutionary Stalinism.
Sylvia in her statement said that she repudiated all concepts of Trotskyism and considered the CP a historically revolutionary party.
Roger said that he was never fully integrated in the Trotskyist movement because he never considered the CP to be a counterrevolutionary tendency.
Bud said that after six years in the SWP he decided he must take himself out of the movement that is unreal with wishful thinking about the world today. Our party, he said, feeds on anti-communist sentiments of the masses.
They announced that they were also speaking for Jim O. He came in later after they had left and confirmed this.
In answer to a question at the meeting Sylvia said she considered the murder of the Left Oppositionists in the Soviet Union progressive and necessary because it served the needs of defence of the Soviet Union.
At the conclusion of each statement they announced their resignation from the party. Dan spoke, pointing to the miserable role they played. He made a motion that they be dropped from membership and be considered as enemies of the party. This motion passed.
I reported at the branch meeting the gist of their opinions as I got them from a discussion I had with them the Monday (Aug. 3) before the meeting. They first tried to deny strikebreaking by the Stalinists during the war, but when confronted with the facts they justified it. Support of the Second World War they justified. Working of Stalinists together with the FBI they tried to deny, but when confronted with the facts they tried to squirm out of it. Finally Roger said we do more harm with our criticism of Stalinism than they do by working with the FBI.
Murder of Trotskyists in the Soviet Union they considered progressive.
I pointed out the difference between these people and Stalinist rank and file workers. The Stalinist misguided workers are worth while talking to. They blame the openly counter-revolutionary politics of Stalinism during the war on Browderism. In the case of some individuals if we could show that these counter-revolutionary acts were inherent in Stalinism we have a chance to win them over. However, these people know better.
To all this Bud mumbled something about us calling him counterrevolutionary but they, in going to Stalinism, were probably going to end up in a concentration camp.
In my opinion the underlying cause for the complete change of opinions on the part of Bud and Sylvia lies in their spinelessness in whatever milieu they happened to be. Sylvia on Monday night told me that she first realized how ridiculous Trotskyism was when we urged her, when she was on the grievance committee in her shop, to talk to workers in the shop about socialism and the party. We didn't urge her to this everywhere and indiscriminately, but to single out those who would be more receptive and break down their prejudices against socialism and against the party. This she never did. She enthusiastically supported the Cochranite line of directing our propaganda to the politicals (that is, the Stalinists) and within that milieu didn't want to be 'ridiculous' either.
Incidentally, when I came back from New York in July Sylvia and Roger were no longer in the Cochranite faction. Bud, however, was; he still called himself a Cochranite. To his knowledge, as of Monday night he still hadn't been dropped.
Comradely,
George Flint
P.S. Dan left the day after the meeting for L. A. Frank, Clara and Betty are already there. When they come back, I believe Clara is planning an article which will describe in more detail the development of the four from an allegiance to Trotskyism, then to Cochranism, now to Stalinism.
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Last updated 13.2.2005