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Resignations from the Democratic Socialist Party, January 2003
Sean Healy's resignation letter
Dear comrades,
I've decided to resign my membership of the Democratic
Socialist Party.
This has been a very difficult decision for me to make. In
spite of
all my criticisms, the DSP has many positive strengths and qualities:
its members are deeply committed to socialism, its political positions
are principled and nearly always correct, it does much fine political
work — when the barricades go up, it will be on the right side.
Further, I have some 15 years' shared emotional investment in this
party, which is hard to let go of.
But the problem that I see is that on the issue by which it
most
defines itself, its interpretation of Leninism, the party is going in
the wrong direction.
I have watched over the last decade a steady hardening of the
party's conception of its essential foundations: to the point where I
think the central leadership is now convinced that they already know
the "true" Leninist line and all that has to be done is continue
repeating the categories until history somehow turns our way again. To
such a view, even the Socialist Alliance becomes little more than a
long detour back to (an enlarged but otherwise identical) "New DSP".
My view runs in the other direction. If the Leninist tradition
is
going to survive, as it must, then it must reinvent itself. Think Lenin
getting off the train at Finland Station and turning "Bolshevism"
upside down. The Socialist Alliance, to my view, is a point of new
departure, a way for socialists to start to think and act in new ways
and not just follow the same, failed line of march.
But this is not why I'm resigning.
You would think that the one thing that can be debated within
a
Leninist party is Leninism itself. But the conclusion I've come to
after the last 18 months of bitter experience is: no, in this party at
least, it can't be.
There is simply no space left in the party for principled
difference, no space for me to engage in an honest, serious discussion
along these lines. The formal space exists (the counter-report you
allowed me to give, for example), but the real space does not: the
minds of the majority of comrades are firmly closed and there is
nothing I can do to reopen them. The Congress was certainly a practical
proof of this — the venom was particularly chilling.
The roots of this attitude are quite deep. For one, the price
of the
party's high degree of political "homogeneity" and centralisation is an
intellectual culture of conformity.
The result is what we see: nearly every vote is unanimous,
there are
scarcely ever any significantly alternative views presented, there is
hardly any serious debate. Individually, comrades are highly
intelligent and deeply opinionated. Put them together and they will
vote for whatever report the leadership presents. And this in a party
committed to "the overthrow of all existing social relations"!
Further, the attitude to difference is governed by a Cannonist
tradition which holds that "any struggle within the party is a
reflection of the class struggle" and that "the relationship between
the leadership and the party is the same as the relationship between
the party and the class" (or, as it was once described to me in
typically shrill terms by Peter, "leadership is the organised mistrust
of the membership").
From this standpoint, any alternative perspective of any
significance, especially one which comes from outside the central
leadership, can only be treated by the party leadership as a challenge
to its authority and therefore as one brand or another of
"capitulation" to "alien class pressures", a mortal danger which must
be fought against, isolated and ended.
In such a straitjacket, real dialogue, which starts from the
recognition of the truth in an opposing argument, is simply impossible.
Given all that, the only choices I believe are open to me are:
recant, accept permanent marginalisation within the party or resign.
The final straw came with a conversation with the national
secretary, in which it was "requested" of me that I withdraw from
Global Justice work in Sydney under pain of being deemed
"undisciplined". Surely this is the ultimate Random Commitment Test:
choose between either the party or the broader movement. To even be
asked to make such a choice convinces me that I cannot stay.
I remain a communist. I remain convinced of the need for a
revolutionary party. I will remain active in social movement activism
in Sydney and in the Socialist Alliance. I remain convinced that,
whatever our disputes, we are still all on the same side, and I hope
that I will be able to work productively with party members in the
future.
Zanny Begg's resignation letter
Dear comrades,
I am writing to inform you of my decision to resign from the
Democratic Socialist Party. As the US gears up for a second conquest of
Iraq I am only too aware that it was protesting against their last
conquest which lead me to join the DSP. Nothing has happened over the
intervening decade which has done anything to shake the determination I
felt then that this system was deeply immoral and that a better
socialist world was not only necessary but also, more importantly,
possible. In fact that resolve is stronger in me today the it ever was
— both confirmed in a negative sense, by the horror of ongoing war,
poverty and injustice, but also confirmed, in a positive sense, by the
hope that springs a million times out of every act of resistance,
defiance and revolution which I have witnessed or participated in over
the last decade.
So given this is the case why have I come to the conclusion
that I
have to resign from the largest socialist party still operating in
Australia? I come to this position reluctantly — I guess you could say
I feel pushed rather than that I have jumped. I would love to be a
member of a socialist party but I have found participating in the DSP
increasingly more difficult over the last four years, to the point
where my party activity has dropped to virtually zero for a year and
this is obviously an untenable position to remain in. I had hoped that
it would have been possible to become active again as a DSP member and
the criticisms I have raised (with Sean and Marina) were part of trying
to change aspects of the DSP to make that a reality. But I have found a
deep reluctance within the DSP to have a real discussion about the sort
of changes I want to see and I feel that things have degenerated to the
point where parting ways seems to be the most useful solution.
Of course a separation of this sort will never be permanent
(it's
just a bye for now) as we will probably still stand on the same side of
struggle and who knows what organisational forms, with which
combinations of people, that may take in the future. I hope the
Socialist Alliance, if it succeeds, will allow space for this
discussion to continue in a new form and allow a new unity with a
broader range of political opinions to be forged.
I guess there have been many sore points for me. The whole
experience of trying to do the NUS Education Officer was definitely
one. I felt under a huge pressure to not do my job — to not go to
meetings I was elected to, to not spend time relating to other left
forces and trying to build actions and campaigns, to not put energy
into trying to build a left pole which could challenge the stranglehold
of the ALP in Brisbane — as this was all seen as a competition with
building Resistance (I also felt I was greeted with an unreasonable
level of mistrust which culminated in my removal from every Resistance
decision making body before the year was out — making the allegations
that Resistance did not "own" the position ring a little hollow to me).
And there have been others — the dispute over the Activist Left ticket
at Sydney University (then finding myself not elected to the next DSP
executive), the dispute over the existence of the FRC [Free the
Refugees Committee] in central Sydney (with a sudden stipulation that I
could not attend branch meetings when I was not in good financial
standing) and the tensions over relating to the global justice movement
(with Sean and I now being removed from the new global justice
collective). Does anyone see a pattern here? But none of these alone
really add up to leaving.
More seriously over time I have grown to feel that there are
two
DSPs. In one, there is the DSP which is the best movement builder,
democratic, a team, the most principled and internationalist
revolutionary party. It is this vision of the DSP which I joined and
joined others to and which many members believe to be true. But in
another there is the DSP which pits "party building" against "movement
work", which marginalizes and drives out those who disagree with some
aspect of the "line", and which is heavily reliant on hierarchical
leadership structures that are intolerant of independent thinking and
which fears success. It is this DSP which I have encountered more in
the last few years and which has led me to leave.
Every political current must at some point come to grips with
the
legacies of the past. When I attended, on behalf of the DSP, the
International Executive Committee Meeting of the Fourth International
in Amsterdam in 1997 I was impressed with the party building
experiences of those coming out of the Trotskyist tradition in the
period after the crash — particularly the [French] LCR. I found the
serious mass movement work they did in unemployed, anti-racist and
solidarity movements inspiring and the spirit of which I hoped we could
bring here.
We have at times committed ourselves to this type of project —
the
energy that was put into relating to the environmental movement through
building EYA (before we turned it into a mini-Resistance) which
convinced me and a range of others to join the DSP, the base building
perspectives (although never implemented) for campus work in the late
90s and all the short bursts of energy we have put into the waves of
issues which have crashed upon the Australian political landscape;
anti-uranium, wood-chipping, anti-racism, refugees just to name a few.
But for the DSP to seriously grow in size and influence in the
Australian left I feel that we need to look more to living tradition of
party building in places like France then the long gone tradition (with
a dubious outcome) of the US SWP under Cannon. More Latin less Anglo.
Of course in the end the only decider of all these issues will
be
struggle. It is only through the struggle for a better world will we
find out just "what is to be done". So I will see you all at the
barricades and in the meantime I hope in the rough and tumble of the
Socialist Alliance we will work out how to move the left forward in
this country.
Response to Zanny Begg "resignation" letter
Dear Zanny,
We were saddened to receive your letter of resignation from
the DSP.
Technically, it's not a "resignation," since your membership had lapsed
and we had not yet voted on the proposal that you rejoin. In fact, such
a motion had been scheduled for the Political Committee agenda last
Monday, but we received a request from Sydney District secretary Lisa
Macdonald to hold off since she'd heard on the grapevine about your
pending "resignation" letter.
But that's not important It's just sad and regrettable that
you've
seen fit to send such a letter. I just hope that in the course of the
political struggles in the coming years you come round to wanting to
rejoin the DSP again.
I don't really want to use a sad letter like this to debate
with you
on some of the political questions you raised in your letter. No doubt
there'll be opportunities in the period ahead for oral and written
discussion on many of the issues. And most importantly, the test of
practice, both here and around the world, will help decide many of the
issues where we do have differences.
However, I would like to dispute with you on one claim in your
letter, that you were "pushed" from the DSP. In fact, I would assert
that exactly the opposite is the case, that in so much of your time in
the DSP you were encouraged and given more than the usual opportunities
to lead, and actually given special treatment! You certainly weren't
victimised in any way for having dissenting views. For the most part of
last year your membership had lapsed, and comrades in Sydney Central
branch made extensive efforts to try to get your dues up to date so you
could rejoin. Hardly the case of being pushed!
I hope that you will one day decide to rejoin the DSP, and
work
alongside us again in the vital task of building a revolutionary party
in Australia.
Comradely,
John Percy
National Secretary, for the Political Committee
Response to Sean Healy resignation letter
January 21, 2003
Dear Sean,
We received your letter of resignation from the DSP with
sadness.
It's always sad for a comrade to drop out or resign, and especially
regrettable when the comrade, like yourself, has put so many years into
actively building the party. I personally remember you first coming to
the Melbourne Resistance centre as a high school student; older
comrades will remember your reputation as the top seller of Green Left
Weekly for a period, regularly selling more than 100 a week; more
recent comrades will remember your role in the dispute in Perth branch
in 1994, then as Resistance National Coordinator, and as a writer for
Green Left Weekly.
I strongly urge you to reconsider your resignation. Although I
definitely disagree with many of the claims in your letter of
resignation (some of which I'll briefly take up in this letter) none of
them in the least justify a decision to resign. I'd especially urge you
to reconsider since in your letter you reassert your commitment to a
communist perspective, you reassert your conviction of the need for a
revolutionary party, and you state that you expect the DSP to be on the
right side of the barricades. So how really to build that revolutionary
party, if not by building the DSP?
Leninism
You say you have differences with the DSP's interpretation of
Leninism, although you then say "But this is not why I'm resigning."
The party's leadership bodies have been aware for some time that you
have had differences on this question, and that's why we offered you
the opportunity for counter-reports at the Congress on our
International Work, and our Party-building Perspectives, which you
declined, in addition to the counter report you agreed to do on our
Campaigns Work. That's also why I thought it would be useful for me to
write a contribution to the pre-congress discussion on lessons from our
party-building experiences, hoping that you might put down in writing
your own different views on this. (Looking backward, looking
forward: Pointers to building a revolutionary party by John Percy, The
Activist, Vol 12, No 19, December 2002.) I would have hoped such
questions would have been developed further in future discussions in The
Activist,
but your resignation cuts off that prospect. How can you possibly claim
we're unwilling to debate "Leninism itself." We're totally willing to
debate; what the party is not and should not be willing to do is
abandon our views and our implementation until we are convinced.
However, what you show by your letter is a very low regard for
the
DSP membership, your former comrades. You admit the "formal space"
exists for you to argue for your views, in The Activist, in the
pre-congress discussion, at the Congress itself, but when your
arguments don't win, you insult the membership! The problem you should
face up to was that the overwhelming majority of comrades did not agree
with you, not that they had "closed minds" as you claim. You didn't
convince us; that doesn't make us dupes.
Our tendency will continue to discuss the question of the
party, its
relationship with the movements, Leninism, Cannonism, etc, and we'll
examine others' experiences, and discuss with other parties and
currents, and test out our views in practice. But we'll try to steer
clear of such deliberate distortions that you indulge in, when you
"quote" Peter Boyle as describing, "in typically shrill terms", that
"leadership is the organised mistrust of the membership." Now that's
certainly a juicy one to shock younger comrades with, or to turn off
liberals in the movement from contemplating joining a revolutionary
party, the DSP at least. But you mis-attribute and omit context, by
design or forgetfulness — the words are from Lenin approvingly quoting
original comments of Trotsky, not Peter's. Peter's comments on the
circumstances of this discussion with you, and the context of their
original use by Lenin, is attached at the end of this letter. The point
is that the party is not a "model" of a democratic organisation, but
the democracy is for a purpose, to win the political agreement needed
to have unity in action.
"Final straw"
You say that the "final straw" in convincing you to resign was
the
discussion we had on January 15. As I explained at the beginning of
that meeting, I'd asked to meet after the Congress with the aim of
finding a way that you could most constructively contribute to the
party's work, and to reassure you that your views, although
overwhelmingly rejected at the Congress, could still be argued for in
the continuing written discussion in The Activist. I stressed
that although the written discussion on many questions would be
continuing, the majority had a right to test out our line, and we would
be implementing that line. To which you replied "I would expect nothing
less". I took that to be agreement, but perhaps missed the note of
cynicism.
Your letter states that "it was 'requested' of me that I
withdraw
from Global Justice work in Sydney under pain of being deemed
'undisciplined.'" Are the quotation marks around "requested" and
"undisciplined" meant to imply that these were words I used? Because
they were not. I made no request or gave no instruction about your
assignment, saying you should work that out with the district secretary
and central branch secretary. I did express the view several times that
it would be best for both the party and for yourself that we didn't ask
you to intervene in a situation where you'd have to implement the
party's line where it clashed with your own strongly expressed views.
This was even reaffirmed at the end of the discussion, where
you
asked me again whether I was instructing you not to be involved in the
Global Justice group? (set up by comrade Marina Carmen late last year
shortly after she left the party.) I repeated, that's up to Sydney
district to discuss, but it was my own personal view that it would be
best for both you and the party if you were not assigned.
I learnt a few days later that the District Committee was to
meet on
Sunday January 19 and was going to be discussing the global justice
movement, and had invited you to attend for the item. Apparently you
indicated that should be OK, but in the end you didn't make it. That
meeting adopted a report presented by comrade Iggy Kim on perspectives
for our work, which also made recommendations for assignments to the
Global Justice group, stating:
"… it is sufficient to assign no more than two or three
comrades to
the group, to convince the group of the need to help build the anti-war
movement. At present, Simon B, Iggy and Sean H are to be assigned to
carry out this perspective. All other comrades who previously attended
GJ meetings are to be reassigned to anti-war and Socialist Alliance
building work. The GJ group is not the global justice movement. It is
not our political priority to build the group."
As you know, choosing between "the party or the broader
movement" is
not a conflict for us — it's essential to build the movements, and
intervene in them to build the party at the same time, they're not
counterposed. But the Global Justice group is a small, limited group
that in no way encompasses "global justice work", let alone "the
broader movement."
"A steady hardening"?
You claim in your letter that there's been "a steady
hardening" over
the last decade of the party's conceptions, implying we've become more
dogmatic and less open. But you have experienced the actual course of
the party's development in that time, have written about it even, so
know this to be a thoroughly false portrayal. The DSP has continued to
explore new opportunities, continued to think creatively, in no way
become narrow and dogmatic. The only conclusion can be that you have
changed your views significantly, but find it hard to face up to the
fact.
Need I remind you of the positive role you played in the
dispute in
Perth branch in 1994, where you defended the party's perspectives
against comrade Steve Robson, who certainly wanted a less Leninist,
less "dogmatic" party? (and resigned from the party a few weeks after
the party congress in January 1995.) The Activist (Vol 4, No
10, December 1994) contains a report by you to Perth branch titled Why
the Turn to Party-Building Basics?
referring to the measures we had to take following our regroupment
efforts in the 1980s to reaffirm some of our party-building measures.
That "turn" was in 1990-91, and included the idea for Green Left
Weekly.
But as your report stated, it was "not a 'turn to party-building' —
we'd never abandoned Leninism in the 1980s or stopped building a party;
nor was this a rejection of the approach we'd taken in the '80s of
taking every possibility of regrouping some sort of broad fighting
political alternative to Labor, we still have that approach."
We still have that approach in 2003. The claim of the party's
"steady hardening" up only serves to define your own change.
Similarly, your characterisation of our perspectives for the
Socialist Alliance comes close to saying it's a waste of time, and
repeats the slander of those opposed to our efforts to strengthen left
unity within the Socialist Alliance by insinuating that all the DSP is
after in that critically important project is a "rebadging" of itself.
However, I didn't hear you raise this viewpoint in the pre-congress
discussion, or at the Congress.
Finally, was there "venom" at our Congress? This is a strange
charge. In our discussion last week I was surprised when you said you
were "angry and bitter" after it. I was even more surprised when you
claimed that the discussion on the Campaigns report was "a travesty,"
and Peter Boyle's party-building report "even more of a travesty."
Certainly we had a vigorous discussion, but it was extremely political,
and the majority of comrades found it extremely clarifying. But
"venom"? In fact, comrades in the National Office received comments
about the comradely, mild tone of the discussion, including from
comrades who had raised political differences in the past.
"No-one has a taste for harsh words and a sharp tone of
discussion.
But for comrades with less political experience the harshness of a
discussion can often replace the substantive political issues as the
central concern." Who wrote that? Almost a decade ago? In Perth branch,
against comrade Steve Robson? (The Activist, Vol 4, No 14. Sean
Healy.)
Your resignation less than three weeks after our Congress,
after a
thorough discussion, after a decisive vote, and after your election as
a candidate member of the National Committee, shows scant regard for
the substantive political issues, and for the essential and urgent task
of building a revolutionary party in Australia when it is more needed
than ever.
It's extremely regrettable, and once again I urge you to
reconsider.
Comradely,
John Percy
National Secretary, for the DSP Political Committee
Appendix: Sean Healy and Lenin on "organised mistrust"
Comrade Sean Healy's reference to me asserting that Peter
"once
described to me in typically shrill terms" that "leadership is the
organised mistrust of the membership" is a selective and distorted (by
pulling out of context) quoting of an informal discussion I had with
Sean sometime in mid-2001 (well before he, Marina Carman and Zanny Begg
submitted the Renovation document). We were discussing Lenin's
approach to the question of democracy in the party and I was arguing
that the party does not seek to be a model of democracy to set an
example for a better society but that the party's democracy serves
nothing but its greater and more effective united action/centralism. In
that context I said that Lenin looked at the question of party
democracy not as an "absolute principle" but in the context of the real
struggle for a centralised revolutionary party. In emergency
situations, democracy would be temporarily reduced but centralism would
continue in a revolutionary party.
I said that Lenin scorned phrasemongering and posturing
against
centralisation in the party in the name of "democracy". For example,
Lenin didn't shy away from the phrase "organised distrust of the
membership" raised in the debate over centralism at the Second Congress
of the RSDLP.
Of the speeches by Iskra-ists during this debate on the
Rules
(the one preceding the split among the Iskra-ists), particularly
noteworthy were those of Comrades Martov ("association" with my ideas
of organisation) and Trotsky. Every word of the answer the latter gave
Comrades Akimov and Lieber exposes the utter falsity of the
"minority's" post-Congress conduct and theories. "The Rules, he
[Comrade Akimov] said, do not define the jurisdiction of the Central
Committee with enough precision. I cannot agree with him. On the
contrary, this definition is precise and means that inasmuch as the
Party is one whole, it must be ensured control over the local
committees. Comrade Lieber said, borrowing my expression, that the
Rules were 'organised distrust'. That is true. But I used this
expression in reference to the Rules proposed by the Bund spokesmen,
which represented organised distrust on the part of a section of the
Party towards the whole Party. Our Rules, on the other hand" (at that
time, before the defeat over the composition of the central bodies, the
Rules were "ours"!), "represent the organised distrust of the Party
towards all its sections, that is, control over all local, district,
national, and other organisations" (p. 158). Yes, our Rules are here
correctly described, and we would advise those to bear this more
constantly in mind who are now assuring us with an easy conscience that
it was the intriguing majority who conceived and introduced the system
of "organised distrust" or, which is the same thing, the "state of
siege". One has only to compare this speech with the speeches at the
Congress of the League Abroad to get a specimen of political
spinelessness, a specimen of how the views of Martov and Co changed
depending on whether the matter concerned their own group of a lower
order or someone else's. [One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
(1904) LCW Vol 7, pp 253-255]
There is a certain irony that Sean tries to use the phrase
"organised distrust of the membership" to paint the party as
undemocratic and over-centralised and adhering to a "Bolshevism" that
needs to be "turned upside down". The term was used for a similar cause
by the Mensheviks to advance their opportunism in organisational
questions, in Lenin's words from the Preface of One Step
Forward, Two Steps Back:
...their advocacy of a diffuse, not strongly welded, Party
organisation; their hostility to the idea (the "bureaucratic" idea) of
building the Party from the top downwards, starting from the Party
Congress and the bodies set up by it; their tendency to proceed from
the bottom upwards, allowing every professor, every high school student
and "every striker" to declare himself a member of the Party; their
hostility to the "formalism" which demands that a Party member should
belong to one of the organisations recognised by the Party; their
leaning towards the mentality of the bourgeois intellectual, who is
only prepared to "accept organisational relations platonically"; their
penchant for opportunist profundity and for anarchistic phrases; their
tendency towards autonomism as against centralism — in a word, all that
is now blossoming so luxuriantly in the new Iskra, and is helping more
and more to reveal fully and graphically the initial error." LCW Vol 7,
p.207-208)
Peter Boyle
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