In favour of a Marxist balance sheet of the CWI split
A response to “The implosion of the ISA: Can the good traditions of the CWI be saved?” by Andros Payiatsos
Andros Payiataos’s article on the crisis in the International Socialist Alternative (ISA) and the reasons for the split in the CWI in 2019, deserves a response. Not primarily because his article is so substantive, but because it throws sand in the eyes of readers who have not been at the forefront of the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) split.
Andros Payiataos (AP) gives the impression of a balanced and critical assessment of developments in the CWI and ISA, and presents himself and his political current as the sole defenders of internal democracy. However, the attentive reader will notice that one aspect is completely missing in AP’s article: a critical stocktaking of his own role as an important part of the leadership of the CWI over decades, as well as a comprehensive political assessment of the content-related controversies that had developed in the CWI and continue to develop in the ISA.
An untrue narrative of the faction fight
Instead, AP continues to use the narrative that he had developed in the factional struggle within the CWI and with his comrades at the time – who went on to form the ISA – and which contributed decisively to the fact that the debate did not focus on the political content as we were striving for (the political documents of the debate can be found at www.marxist.net).
This narrative claims that the crisis of the CWI was not caused by political differences, but by the fact that the International Secretariat (IS – the full-time leadership, based in London, responsible for the day-to-day affairs of the CWI) could not accept being in the minority on a secondary issue – the agenda of the 2018 International Executive Committee (IEC) meeting of the CWI, and a conflict in the Irish section. As a result, the IS “discovered” (i.e. constructed) fundamental differences in the course of this IEC meeting, formed a faction, and ten months later split the CWI.
It is hard to imagine that anyone still believes this narrative after the developments of recent years have made it unmistakably clear that there are major political differences between the ISA and the CWI and that the two organisations have obviously developed in very different directions (see the linked texts at the end of this article).
AP is not only wrong about some minor facts (the date of the 2018 IEC meeting and the number of IEC members, for example, which suggests that he did not write this document very carefully), but also about the reasons for and the course of the factional struggle in the CWI in 2018-19.
Differences of substance with the Irish party
In fact, the outbreak of the factional struggle in 2018 was preceded by a debate between the Irish leadership, and the IS and an IEC member over the election programme for the 2016 Irish general election. The Socialist Party in Ireland (then a section of the CWI) had published an election programme that had a left-reformist character, which was criticised by the International Secretariat. While the content of the programme was not ultimately defended by the Irish section leadership, they rejected the warning that this mistake was due to the strong social, political and objective pressures the Irish party was under given its representation in parliament.
Then, in 2018, the IS asked the leadership in Ireland to discuss the issue of dealing with feminism and their programmatic intervention in the campaign for abortion rights, and proposed a substantive debate on this. Previously these issues had led to a special discussion at the 11th CWI World Congress, held at the start of 2016, where the Irish delegates had agreed to a document drafted by the CWI leadership. The IS also initiated a debate on the national question at the 2014 IEC meeting to encourage the Irish comrades to openly raise differences they were developing but the Irish leadership failed to do so.
This means that differences were not discovered/constructed during the 2018 IEC meeting but had already been identified beforehand. It is true, however, that the dimension of these differences only became apparent during the course of the IEC meeting and then actually in the first months of the faction debate.
In its ‘Resolution on the splits of the CWI and the ISA’, Internationalist Standpoint states that none of the political differences in the CWI and the ISA justified a split, and that these only happened because the respective leaderships in the CWI and ISA were not prepared for a democratic debate and had suddenly revealed themselves to be bureaucratic (here too, the question arises as to why AP had not noticed this feature in earlier debates).
The narrative that the CWI has no tradition of democratic debate and that the CWI leadership cannot tolerate differences of opinion has no basis and we will provide sufficient counter-examples in this response.
Politics is at the heart of conflicts
What is crucial, however, is that AP’s view of the conflicts and divisions in the CWI and ISA is wrong, and ultimately does not correspond to a Marxist approach. Conflicts that appear to have an organisational or even personal character actually usually have a political core. So it was with the split between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks in the RSDLP in 1903. So it was with the break between the comrades who later formed the CWI and the United Secretariat of the Fourth International in 1965 and with the split from the CWI of the group around Alan Woods and Ted Grant in 1992. And so it was with the split of the CWI in 2019. It cannot be otherwise, because revolutionary Marxist organisations are based on a common political understanding, approach, and actions. As long as this fits, organisational or personal conflicts cannot usually develop dominance. However, when political conflicts arise, it often appears that organisational and personal issues dominate, especially when both sides claim the continuity of a common history.
Our approach in this debate has always been to focus on the political issues, analyse them, discuss them, and assess their quality. Our analysis in 2018-19 was that the political differences had taken on a quality that called into question the “good traditions of the CWI”, as AP calls it, i.e. the principles on which our tendency was built, and thus endangered the existence of the organisation. This included the question of a consistent orientation towards the working class and continuous and systematic work in the trade unions; the rejection of petty-bourgeois ideas of identity politics; the defence of a Marxist transitional programme, including in mass struggles; and the defence of the idea of one worldwide Marxist organisation based on a programme, common principles, and democratic centralism.
We warned our opponents at the time that their refusal to discuss and resolve these questions would backfire on them, as they had formed an unprincipled bloc in which different forces that opposed the IS leadership, for different reasons and motives, acted together, but lacked a common political basis. This analysis naturally included the realisation that not all the forces that later founded the ISA had moved as far away from Marxist positions on the substantive issues addressed as the Irish section had already done. But by forming a bloc with the Irish leadership, these un-Marxist ideas were encouraged and now members of Internationalist Standpoint and the current ISA majority have to admit that we were correct in our warnings. AP himself said in a conversation with two CWI representatives on the sidelines of an international conference in Milan in the summer of 2023 that the problem was that we, supporters of the IS majority, had formed a faction too quickly and split too quickly, but not our substantive positions. AP made similar comments in a discussion with two German CWI members who visited Athens in September 2023 as part of a solidarity trip for anti-fascist protests. Only AP can explain why he expresses himself differently to us in person than in his texts.
The course of the conflict
In any case, we can only call on anyone and everyone who wants to take a serious look at the split in the CWI in recent years to look at and analyse the political issues and take stock of the political development of the various organisations since 2019.
However, we feel compelled to reject AP’s account and draw readers’ attention to the actual course and character of the disputes. AP’s depiction of the handling of democratic issues in the old CWI does not correspond to the truth on various levels.
Let’s start with the reaction of a few Irish leaders to launch their own, private, clandestine, investigation after the discovery of systematic hacking of emails in the Irish section, which AP characterises as a secondary issue. In fact, it was a serious breach of democratic principles by members of the leadership of the then Irish CWI section. They acted unilaterally, bypassing the elected bodies of the party.
IS members recall that at the start of the crisis and before the IEC meeting, AP expressed agreement with the IS regarding the mistakes of the Irish leadership. However, after the IS declined his proposal to send an international ‘fact finding’ delegation to Ireland – there was no point in this exercise as the Irish leadership openly expressed their differences, and their political trajectory was defended by them – AP joined the opposition to the IS.
It is striking that our ‘Champion of Democracy’ in Athens apparently still does not regard this high-handed behaviour by individual members of the Irish section’s leadership as a major problem. It was precisely the International Secretariat that insisted that this breach of democratic principles could not simply be ignored but had to be discussed and dealt with. Those forces that later formed the ISA showed their unprincipled character when they passed a resolution at the 2018 IEC meeting mildly criticising the actions of the Irish leaders. The Irish party executive supported the hacking actions and described them as “proletarian and principled” in a resolution that to our knowledge has never been questioned in the ISA.
AP is also less than truthful on other issues. He claims that we, as a minority, have stolen the resources of the CWI. He forgets to mention two things: firstly, that the balance of power between the two camps in the CWI that existed in the membership was not reflected in the elected bodies of the CWI (IEC and World Congress) because the largest section, by far, (England and Wales) was significantly under-represented on these structures (so that this section could not dominate the international bodies). We assumed, justifiably, that the majority of CWI members were on our side. Secondly, AP forgets to mention that some sections that later formed the ISA had stopped sending their international dues to the International Centre in London months before the split. For example, the US section owed just over $14,000 in payments due in 2018 at the time of the actual split in 2019. This theft preceded our decision to re-establish the CWI under the old name and to keep the existing funds, which roughly corresponded to the outstanding contributions from what became the ISA sections.
Factionalism and debate culture – ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating’
It is just as absurd when Internationalist Standpoint invokes factional rights in its resolutions and texts while many of these comrades were involved in making a scandal out of the founding of our faction in 2018. AP and his comrades seem to be in favour of factional rights as long as no one exercises them. The formation of a faction by the majority of the then International Secretariat and a minority of IEC members was the most transparent and democratic way to conduct the substantive debate and achieve a comprehensible separation of the IS and faction.
We also have to smile when AP demands in his text that discussions must be conducted in a calm tone and a comradely atmosphere. It was not the IS or the faction that polarised the discussions at the 2018 IEC meeting, but those who later became the ISA leaders and not least AP himself. From the eve of the 2018 IEC meeting, there was a campaign against the IS and the mood was fuelled by various current ISA leaders in informal discussions they conducted in the corridors. AP ran around the meeting hall shouting during the ominous agenda debate, calling IS members “liars”. When the faction presented a draft resolution on the last day of the session, which all parties could have agreed to and which was intended to clarify further procedure, the opposition to the IS (who later became the ISA leaders) insisted on an alternative vote. They presented an alternative draft resolution that contained secondary wording that they knew we could not agree to. In the explanatory statement, Per-Åke Westerlund said that it was also important who presented a resolution, not just what was in it. The aim was clear: to achieve a majority-minority situation through a vote and thus further the division of the CWI.
I experienced AP himself as duplicitous during this meeting. While trying to draft a compromise resolution, he assured me that the Greek comrades also had substantive criticisms of the Irish leadership and that they would put these forward. But in the further course of the IEC meeting, not a word of political criticism was voiced; instead, a kind of protective wall was erected around the Irish and the lying narrative was developed that the IS wanted to ‘exclude’ or even ‘destroy’ the Irish section.
Debates in the CWI
AP paints a picture of the CWI in which there were no democratic debates, in which the leadership has a claim to sole representation and infallibility and a “the CWI has always been right, is always right and will always be right” attitude. He knows very well that this picture is not true, but if it were, then the question would arise as to what role AP has played as an important member of the CWI leadership over the years. What debates did AP call for that were stopped, what motions did he put forward to change the internal situation?
The fact is that the CWI has a tradition of lively and democratic debates, some of which have even been held in public. In recent decades, this has also included differences of opinion on certain analytical and perspective issues that have existed for years, but which did not affect the foundations of the Marxist programme. These included the class character of China; the question of how far capitalist globalisation went and could go; the prospects for the euro and European integration; the character of different far-right parties; and a Marxist programme on the currency issue in the Greek sovereign debt crisis. However, anyone who remembers this latter debate will also remember that AP himself, of all people, did not act according to the rules of behaviour he formulated in his text: calm and patient. When an IS member dared to question the monetary policy programme of the then Greek CWI section at a summer school, probably in 2014, AP responded with a contribution that surprised and shocked many in the room with its sharpness and personal offensiveness. He also had no patience with an IS member who, when he visited Greece, was in favour of a different tactical orientation with regard to Syriza. AP demanded that this comrade (not withstanding any mistakes this comrade made) should no longer be sent to Greece.
In the CWI, debate and disagreement are not seen as a threat, but as a necessary part of democratic political opinion-forming processes. AP’s assertion that any opinion that differs from the IS would be seen as a “departure from Marxism” is without foundation. The fact that the Independent Socialist Group from the US has politically and organisationally allied to the CWI is evidence of this. Everyone knows that these comrades in the old US section disagreed with how to tactically orientate towards the Bernie Sanders campaign, which was debated internationally. This is an issue still in the process of discussion but the situation in the US has now obviously changed. One hundred percent agreement on this is not necessary because it is not an issue that concerns Marxist principles, even if it is very important. But this example shows that debates are welcome in the CWI and that differences of opinion are tolerated.
This does not mean, however, that there is no responsibility to seriously analyse every debate and every difference of opinion and, in cases where there is a departure from important Marxist principles, to name and oppose it. If there is one phenomenon in the history of the CWI, it is certainly not that a “we’re better off without them” attitude developed quickly in debates – as AP claims – but rather, some may argue, that we spent too long and were too patient discussing with comrades who had often already turned away politically from the CWI; including former comrades in Scotland in the 1990s and opposition groups that developed in the German section at the end of the 1990s and in the 2010s, for example.
I, for example, had conflicts with IS members at a world congress in 2002 over the question of orientation towards the then important international movement against capitalist globalisation. There were controversial and sometimes sharp debates, just as it was at other times when I held an opinion on certain issues that did not correspond to that of the IS. But at no time was I marginalised, put under pressure or anything like that.
If AP now writes that the CWI has underestimated the feminist and environmental movements that is a legitimate opinion. The question is why he did not make any proposals to correct this from his point of view. In fact, we did not underestimate these movements, but we have not allowed ourselves to be blinded by their quantity and we have allowed our approach to these movements to be guided by their class composition. But even if we had done so on these issues, as AP claims, it would not have been comparable with the substantive issues at stake in the factional struggle. Because questions of this or that assessment are something different from the programmatic yielding to the pressure of petty-bourgeois movements. And the Greek comrades really took the cake and ate it when, as part of a campaign against an environmentally damaging gold mine in Chalkidiki, they issued a leaflet effectively calling on the miners to quit their jobs because the environment and the lives of their children were more important. The comrades from Xekinima tried to relativise and defend this statement but did not have the courage to admit that this was a mistake. So much for “always being right”.
Who bears responsibility?
How did this ideological implosion in the CWI come about and what responsibility does the International Secretariat and the former IEC bear? It would of course be wrong for the IS or even the IEC members who remained loyal to the CWI to absolve themselves of any responsibility. Of course, it is true that a self-critical assessment was necessary after the split and the question of what could be done differently in future to counteract such developments as early as possible had to be discussed. This also took place in the CWI after the split. But of course you can only approach this question properly if you maintain a sense of proportion, and if you distinguish the essential from the non-essential. However, if you exaggerate the non-essentials, namely organisational policy issues, and negate the political core of the conflict, you are bound to come to the wrong conclusions.
Therefore, the first thing to say is that the political responsibility for the fact that the leaderships of the former CWI sections in Ireland, Belgium and other countries left the political course of the CWI lies…with the leaderships of the former CWI sections in Ireland, Belgium, and other countries! To pose the question as AP does – ‘who recruited and trained these forces’ – and to blame the IS is undialectical and fails to recognise that there are no guarantees for anyone’s development and that, especially in small organisations, the pressure of objective events on members, including members of the leadership, is immense. The deeper reason for the political differences within the CWI lies in objective developments: the defeats after the upsurge of class struggles and new left parties following the Great Recession and the Euro crisis, especially in Greece and Spain; and the weakness of the labour movement and the fact that struggles and consciousness developed less quickly than we had hoped. Then cross-class protest movements, such as the environmental movement and the women’s protests, alongside a turning away from consistent work in the trade unions, were seen by these former CWI sections as a way out of a difficult situation.
Following AP’s logic, one must ask: Was Lenin responsible for the development of Menshevism? Were we responsible for the path taken by Alan Woods and Ted Grant? What responsibility does AP bear for the big decline of one third in the Greek section’s membership in the years following the Syriza betrayal and before the split in the CWI, during which he repeatedly assured the IS and IEC that the defeat had led to demoralisation and splits among the rest of the Greek left but not significantly affected the Greek section?
Lessons learnt
But yes, there were weaknesses and mistakes that contributed to the factional struggle in the CWI developing more surprisingly than it perhaps should have. However, these faults were not only in the IS, but also in the IEC and the leaderships of the national sections. Above all, the fault lay with those who did not present their criticism and views openly, but conspired behind the back of the IS or, as the former Irish section have now admitted, changed positions in their sections without putting this up for discussion internationally.
At the same time, there was too often a practice of conducting debates bilaterally between the IS and the respective national leaderships instead of involving the entire international leadership in the form of the IEC. This was particularly true of the debate on the 2016 Irish election programme, which was not brought before the IEC. Since the re-establishment of the CWI, the new means of communication have also been used to organise special IEC meetings on specific issues, such as the Covid pandemic or the Gaza war, via Zoom.
And there was undoubtedly too often an attitude of ‘benefit of the doubt’. I, in retrospect, especially with regard to Greece, was too quick to settle for answers where I should have continued to doubt. For example, I often had questions on my mind in regard to the work the then Greek section conducted amongst refugees and asylum seekers. A Marxist organisation should not act as a substitute for NGOs or recruit opportunistically based on NGO-type work. Instead, it should aim to convince refugees, asylum seekers, and all those in struggle of the necessity for socialist change and the importance of a revolutionary party. The refugees I met were recruited on a very unclear political basis and my impression was that they joined more out of respect for the practical help they had received than out of political conviction. As far as I know only a handful remained members.
I also had my doubts about the lack of orientation and united front politics towards the KKE (Greek communist party). And I also had the impression that while the Greek comrades had started activities in some workplaces there was no strategy for the work inside the structures of the trade unions. When I Google-translated Xekinima’s ‘What we stand for’ column in 2018, I was shocked at how little and how superficially it addressed questions of trade union policy and I thought that no left-wing trade unionist could get the impression that this could be an organisation for them. But yes, we could have realised that earlier.
We have also learned, or relearned, other lessons, not least in terms of how to maintain ideological clarity in the organisation, and how to deal with the often high number of new student members, who sometimes join us with illusions in identity politics, and so on.
But all this does not mean that the crisis of the ISA is a crisis of the CWI or a continuation of a CWI crisis. The paths have diverged, and the crisis of the ISA is a consequence of the wrong political orientation and the unprincipled character that this organisation has had from its first day. In fact, the resignation of AP and his comrades from the ISA and the current conflicts in the ISA are a retrospective confirmation of our criticism.
AP says it is bizarre that we claim that our warnings have been confirmed because we did not foresee the separation of the organisations from Spain, Venezuela, Mexico and Portugal from our faction, and the entire CWI, in the midst of the factional struggle in spring 2019. This example shows how dubious AP’s arguments are. He throws something into the room that at first glance seems to strengthen his position, but on closer inspection does not.
Firstly, it is true that there was a conflict in our faction and a group left the faction and the CWI, which then formed the International Revolutionary Left. The fact that we allowed this rupture to occur shows that we did not form an unprincipled bloc but wanted to conduct the factional struggle on a clear political basis. Secondly, this break was not foreseeable because the Spanish leaders and their followers were dishonest. The break developed around questions that had nothing to do with the debates of the factional struggle, but suddenly the Spanish representatives declared that they did not agree with basic CWI analyses of mass consciousness in the period following the collapse of Stalinism and its still lingering impact and our approach to the so-called ‘dual task’.
Dealing with the ISA crisis
Are we rejoicing over the ISA crisis? At least the passages quoted by AP from our article on the ISA crisis do not express so. We would have welcomed enough common ground to have developed on the basis of experience to have allowed us to come together again. But politics and the revolutionary struggle are not a concert of wishes. And it is not about the emotions of members of the CWI or the Internationalist Standpoint in the face of ISA splits. It is about learning from events and developments and drawing all necessary conclusions for the building of a revolutionary Marxist force.
Some members of the ISA in Austria, including former ISA leadership member, Sonja Grusch, have drawn these necessary conclusions after taking the ISA crisis as an opportunity to reconsider the factional struggle and our arguments, positions, and warnings. Individual ISA members in Nigeria, and Britain have also done this and have returned to the CWI. Personally, this was certainly not easy for them, but politics first!
Spinoza once said: “Don’t weep, don’t laugh, understand.” Lenin like to quoted this and it also our approach to the ISA crisis. But why shouldn’t we point out that exactly what we predicted has happened? Marxism is also the science of perspectives. We ask the comrades to consider: Could the correctness of our predictions and warnings possibly be an indication that our other arguments in the factional struggle were also correct? At the very least, comrades from the ISA and Internationalist Standpoint could take this as an opportunity to look at these arguments again with an open mind instead of trying at all costs to find a way to appear as a victim of the bureaucrats in the CWI and ISA, assuming moral grandeur, as comrade AP is trying to do.
Is the CWI always right?
And no, the CWI has not always been right about everything, is not always right about everything and will not always be right about everything. Unlike other currents, we have also publicly recognised our mistakes, be it in some details of the Liverpool City Council struggle, in our initial assessment of the capitalist counter-revolution in East Germany or, in the case of the German section, our tactical mistake of not joining the Left Party in East Germany and Berlin in 2007. But AP rightly points out that the CWI has, or had from his point of view, “positive characteristics”. We would urge all comrades of Internationalist Standpoint to examine whether these characteristics still apply to the CWI today and, if so, how this can be possible if the leadership of the CWI is such a rotten, bureaucratic bunch, as AP claims. Because AP is correct when he writes: “There is a clear link between correct perspectives, political ideas, tactics, slogans etc and the internal regime. Correct and balanced ideas can only be arrived at, through internal discussion and debate in a democratic atmosphere both nationally and internationally”. We ask AP and his comrades of the Internationalist Standpoint: were our perspectives, ideas, tactics and slogans so wrong that they suggest the bureaucratic regime you describe?
We are not right about everything, and we do not have the idea that the CWI will develop into a revolutionary mass organisation in a straight line. We assume that on the way to such a revolutionary mass organisation there will also be unifications with other revolutionary organisations (but it will be crucial to reach the layers of the working class and youth who will enter the struggle anew). We have taken every opportunity, particularly in the last 35 years, to discuss with other revolutionary currents and to find out whether the commonalities are sufficient for a unification, and we are doing this at the moment with organisations in Latin America, Europe, and Asia. However, we are also convinced that this requires agreement on fundamental political and methodological issues, and an honest statement of differences of opinion, should they still exist.
We do not think that agreement on general revolutionary and Marxist phrases is sufficient to come together. However, this seems to be the approach of Internationalist Standpoint. At least that is the impression one must get from reading the joint statement they wrote with the Workers International Network (WIN) – one of whose leading figures is former CWI member Roger Silverman. This declaration is so general and full of Marxist self-evident truths that any Trotskyist organisation could probably sign it. Reading it just doesn’t make you any wiser about the policies, programme, and tactics that Internationalist Standpoint and WIN want to apply concretely in the present period.
At the same time, we are convinced that the “positive characteristics” of the CWI listed by AP still apply (we could think of more) and that these are an important prerequisite if a revolutionary organisation wants to gain mass influence. For this is what sets the CWI apart from other Trotskyist currents: Our ability to lead mass struggles, and also on a small scale our ability to forge links with sections of the class in struggle, without abandoning the transitional socialist programme and a revolutionary perspective.
Democratic centralism
Internationalist Standpoint wants to give the impression that they are the only ones who have rediscovered the true character of democratic centralism as Lenin and Trotsky understood it. The crucial point for Internationalist Standpoint seems to be that minorities in a revolutionary organisation should have the right to publicly express their dissenting opinions.
We have already established above that AP’s respect for factional rights was not particularly pronounced at the moment we founded a faction. He also had no problem conducting the reports and discussions immediately after the 2018 IEC meeting within the Greek section without the presence of representatives of the faction, thus ensuring that the members in Greece had to form their first (and often decisive) opinion on the basis of a one-sided presentation of events and arguments.
The CWI and its sections have factional rights, and no one is prevented from criticising or expressing dissenting opinions; on the contrary, we generally try to encourage this. So what is the advantage of doing this publicly? We have nothing in principle against holding public debates and have done so on various occasions in the past (for example, in the pages of Socialism Today on questions of the state, the class character of China or the transitional programme). However, the Sol’s statutes stipulate that factions must apply to go public. In our view, this is a sensible regulation, because as soon as a debate takes place in public, it can change its character. Publicity can lead to unnecessary escalation, make it more difficult for participants to correct their positions. Therefore, the question of whether a controversial debate that takes place in a revolutionary organisation should also be carried out in public must be made dependent on the concrete situation. However, to make this a principle, as Internationalist Standpoint seems to do, actually raises the question of whether the organisational principle of democratic centralism can still be applied.
For the organisational form of revolutionary organisation is geared both to democratic debate for the development of correct positions, but also to collective revolutionary action. We like to give the example of the strike. Workers who have voted against the strike in a democratic ballot are expected to take part in the strike. Anything else would be strikebreaking and class betrayal. But they would also be expected to formulate their criticism within the workforce and not, for example, give press interviews where they agitate against the strike. Then they would become a Trojan horse. This example should be enough to make it clear that the publicity of a debate should be made dependent on the concrete situation and on whether this publicity helps or harms the organisation and the class struggle as a whole.
AP is outraged by our assessment that Internationalist Standpoint is a loose network rather than a revolutionary international based on democratic centralism. During the faction fight we warned the comrades who later formed the ISA that they had developed a Mandelite outlook (referring to the policies of the late Ernest Mandel, who was a leader of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International) which was characterised by opportunism and an organisational looseness. We see this warning vindicated in the present situation of the ISA (where, for example, three different positions on the Ukraine war exist) but also in regard to how Internationalist Standpoint argues. We are pleased if Internationalist Standpoint have not abandoned the concept of a revolutionary organisation based on democratic centralism, even if we have a different impression. Our understanding is that the validity of democratic centralism is disputed by some comrades in the International Standpoint and that the Leninist concept of the role of the party is rejected within WIN. We do agree that revolutionary and workers’ organisations whose agreement does not yet go far enough for a common organisation must find other forms of cooperation in alliances, networks, and fronts. The CWI is open to such collaboration and has done so in the past, but we would also warn of the danger that this can lead to losing your own identity as a distinct revolutionary organisation.
But that is not the point. It is about the question of the revolutionary programme, the orientation towards the working class, and the building of a revolutionary organisation. AP assumes that there are comrades within the CWI who are open to his criticism and “will have doubts about the perspectives of the CWI, and its lack of growth and forward momentum”. We are not afraid of this debate. The CWI has emerged ideologically strengthened from the 2019 split. We have not split or fallen into a quagmire of internal conflict. A number of sections have grown, others have kept their membership in an objectively difficult and complex situation. We are satisfied with the development of our organisation since the split and at the same time know how far we still have to go to achieve our goals. But it is not a question of judging a political organisation on the basis of short-term membership developments. In Germany we have doubled in size since the split – that doesn’t automatically mean that we are always politically right. The question of which current and organisation represents a programme and methods that are suitable for anchoring a Marxist force in the working class must be judged by each individual on the basis of the political statements and political practice of the respective organisation.
The CWI will continue to collaborate with others on the left where it is practical and principled, including with comrades in International Standpoint, while maintaining our distinct ideas, programme and methods. At the same time, we will always strive for political clarity, including, when necessary, robustly and honestly defending and analysing our history, ideas and methods.
We invite all current and former members of the ISA and Internationalist Standpoint to examine the CWI on this basis and to enter into discussion with us.
To read more on this topic:
International Socialist Alternative in “serious crisis” – the political roots of an impending split | (socialistworld.net)
Women and oppression in class society – CWI 11th World Congress (https://www.socialistworld.net/2016/02/13/cwi-11th-world-congress-2016-women-and-oppression-in-class-society/)
Defending our record of fighting women’s oppression – Socialist Party
Seattle City Councillor Kshama Sawant Not Seeking Re-election – Independent Socialist Group
Struggle and the ballot box – no time to step back electorally – Socialist Party
“It was about our principles” | Socialist Organisation Solidarity (solidaritaet.info)
