Plenum Speech, 31 May 1953

Unity after the faction fight

Comrade Chairman and comrades: Engels once said that a party proves its right to exist by the fact that it splits and can stand a split. We have seen that law demonstrated in the past history of our party on several occasions. At this plenum, the Socialist Workers' Party has proved that it can stand a faction fight of the greatest severity and intensity and still preserve and even strengthen its unity. In my opinion, we have cemented here a real and genuine unity, which has two antagonistic and yet opposite aspects. On the one side, the plenum has seen the firm consolidation of the leadership of a majority group which can now lead the party with unchallenged authority. On the other hand, the plenum has shown a strong minority of qualified comrades with many talents who have not surrendered or been asked to surrender any of their opinions or any of their normal rights as a minority. Party unity and party peace have been secured at the plenum and guaranteed by an agreement of the majority and the minority after a hard, year-long struggle, on the basis of a definite and clearly established relation of forces. For that reason, I think we have a right to confidence that the party unity and the party peace are firmly based and secure.

In my opinion, we will now have a long peace in the party, and a most beneficent one for the party in two respects. One, the party will be developed unitedly, and with more spirit and energy than ever before for a long time. The party patriotism of the members of both factions will be stronger than ever, and they will compete with each other in friendly rivalry to prove who are the best party builders and party doers. The discussion of questions in dispute, whether fully developed or merely tentative or embryonic, will now be conducted in a calm atmosphere, without factional bias or exaggeration, without insults or denigration on one side or the other, with the aim of clarifying the issues, with the aim of teaching each other and learning from each other. I think we all regard it as a historical plateau [?]. It will be regarded in future times as a turning point, an event of transcendent importance in the socialist revolution in the United States.

The party and its historic mission

For the revolution is not simply the struggle for power and the transformation of the social system from capitalism to socialism. The revolution is also the preparatory period, the period in which we are living now. And the most important part of the preparation for the revolution is the building of a Leninist party, which alone can lead and organize the struggle for power in this country and carry it through to irreversible victory. In the factional struggle which has culminated in this plenum, the party has demonstrated its right to live and its ability, by its own inner resources, to conquer the problems which challenged its claim to a great historic mission.

The most important question of the workers' movement is the question of the party, which is the question of the leadership of the workers' movement. And by the same token, the most important question of the party is the question of the party leadership. Of course we know that the program creates the party. It is not the party that creates the program. It is the program that creates the party as well as its leading staff. But this does not happen automatically, everywhere at the same time. It requires human intervention at the right time. And if this intervention comes at the right time, historical periods are leaped over and much time is gained. And if the human intervention is not available, there are great delays and needless defeats.

The most important party in the entire world is the Socialist Workers' Party. It is a party with the greatest historical mission ever given to a group of people on this planet. Trotsky wrote in 1929, in his first letter to the founding group of our movement, that in the last analysis all the problems of this epoch will be solved on American soil, and that although in order of precedence it seemed that the revolution would come sooner in other countries than in the United States, a change in the historical order was easily possible which might put America in the first rank, and that in any case a social crisis could arise in this country much quicker than anyone assumed and from the beginning have a very feverish development. And he said the conclusion from this perspective is that it is necessary to prepare. And from that point of view, he said, your founding conference, which he was addressing, has a world historic importance.

Now in the present situation, the world shows the revolution marching with seven-league boots on a large part of the planet. The decline of capitalism seems to be symmetrically matched by the rise of the tremendous revolutionary process and the strengthening of the revolutionary currents, especially now in the colonial world. And from all indications a revival of the October Revolution, with all of its spirit and all of its power, is germinating in the Soviet Union again, promising to bring into the arena the unmeasurable power of the new Soviet proletariat, which matches the proletariat of the United States in numbers and social weight. All the revolutionary forces moving in the world now confront as their deadly enemy, their mortal enemy, the great power of American imperialism with its program of counter-revolution and war, designed to arrest the development of the revolutionary process in other parts of the world.

As long as this power remains, with its capacity for military devastation, every revolution throughout the world remains tentative, pending the outcome of a struggle with this monster of American imperialism. The transitional development of China and all the colonial countries to a higher system of organized and planned economy based on the highest technique is threatened and arrested at every step by the necessity to defend itself against the aggression of this monstrous power. We are all convinced that the course of the world revolution is now irreversible. But the speed at which it develops, in the time between the present and the eventual socialist transformation of the entire world, hangs in the balance until the issue is settled in the United States. For the final decision of the issue of capitalism and socialism will be made, as Trotsky said, on American soil. And it's from this circumstance that comes our great historical mission. It is from this that comes our great destiny.

Now, we and our party as at present constituted are not ordained. We are human and therefore capable of error and of failure. But if we fail, if we ossify into sectarianism, or degenerate along the lines of opportunism, or simply succumb to the pressures of our times and let history pass us by, it would simply mean that others, picking up the program and taking hold of the thread of Marxist continuity, would have to create another party of the same type as the SWP. And if we can prevent the breaking of that thread, if we can prevent the degeneration and defeat and disappearance of our party, we will contribute all that history calls upon us to do to the further development of the revolution in this country. For American capitalism, the strongest and last stronghold of the outmoded system of capitalism, will not be overthrown without a struggle of such proportions as to exclude the idea that it can be successful accidentally or without conscious leadership and organization and preparation. Only a Leninist party can organize and lead the revolution that will overthrow American capitalism and bring about the socialist transformation. And from that point of view I say only a Leninist party can do it. And if we fail, we as individuals fail, the idea still retains all its vitality and must be realized by others who prove stronger than we are.

Doubts and resolution

I believe with Trotsky that Marxism is saturated with the optimism of progress. And by that I have an unshakable confidence, grounded on Marxist science and its analysis of social reality, in the victory of socialism in the United States. But I have nothing in common with the optimism of cheerful idiocy in regard to anything that's human, including our own human creation, the SWP.

During the course of the past year, I had serious doubts of the ability of the SWP to survive. At one time, I will frankly admit to you here for the first time, I thought that our 25-year efforts, compounded on top of previous experience and efforts of ourselves and others, had ended in catastrophic failure, and that once again a small handful would have to pick up the pieces and start all over again to build a new cadre of another party on the old foundations. The reasons for my doubts of the party's ability to survive at one time were the following. I saw a power struggle developing in the party. I saw that the central leadership, upon whom the whole weight of responsibility rested, had so many neutrals in it that decision was paralyzed. I saw a lack of a firm majority in the leadership of the party, and consequently the lack of any real authority in the party. The result was a headless, unrestrained and uncontrolled factional battle with no clear goal in sight. A power struggle, as I saw it, without the evidence of a single group capable of winning the power in the party and leading the party firmly with the necessary authority.

My doubts on this score, which again I will admit frankly at one time took the form of pessimism, have all been resolved at this plenum, for the following reasons. A large majority in the leading committee has been consolidated. This majority has shown its conscious understanding of its responsibility and a firm will to lead, without which you can't lead. The minority at the plenum has shown its ability to recognize the realities of the relation of forces, and it has accepted them with discipline and responsibility, and has demanded nothing more than its normal rights as a constructive minority. For these reasons, from the attitude of the majority at this plenum and the attitude of the minority, the responsible, I repeat, the responsible and disciplined attitude of the minority in the close of the plenum, I have confidence in the party unity and the party peace established by the plenum, and I foresee no serious disruption of it for a long time to come.

The plenum shows to me that not only have the younger cadres of our party grown up, but, important as that is, even more important, the party itself has grown up. It is no longer so dependent on the old guard to the extent that it has been in the past. A new leadership of the younger cadres has been consolidated and has established its own authority, without which leadership is impossible. And its authority, in my opinion, can be strengthened rather than undermined by the simultaneous loyal collaboration and friendly competition of the minority. I think after this plenum that the minority will make a serious effort to play such a role in the leadership, the role of loyal collaborators and friendly competitors. And I wish them success.

A new regime in the party

Now, in view of the foregoing, we should recognize the new reality in another field and welcome it, too. The new reality is the inauguration of a new regime in the party. I repeat that: a new regime in the party. The old regime, which I had something to do with, as has been said more than once, had its merits and its faults, but it now belongs to party history. Its duty now is to make way for the new. Not, of course, to withdraw from activity or from participation in the work of the new regime, but to withdraw from the central direction of the party into a supporting and advisory position to the new leadership consolidated at this plenum.

The change of national officers, which you have already ratified, my transfer to the position of chairman and Comrade Dobbs's simultaneous transfer to the position of National Secretary, both registers and signalizes this change and also symbolizes it. Comrade Dobbs steps into the executive leadership of the party as part of the new regime, the new leadership. And there shouldn't be any doubts of the role the plenum and the party expect him to play. In the course of the four-day plenum, there was much discussion of the episode of last summer, what some considered a mistake for one reason, some from another, however it may be. I think it was a mistake. But I think also it was an episode, an episode in the life and work of Comrade Dobbs as a revolutionist [?]. His services, however, his record in the mass movement before he came into the central leadership, his record of service in the party, what he has to give to the party, many things for which he is uniquely qualified and which none other in the leading circle can give, that part of Dobbs is no episode. All that is the solid basis for evaluating and judging him. The new leading group has made this evaluation and judgment, and it has registered it here in his unanimous designation to the central post of executive leader.

My election to the post of national chairman, I take it to signify that I am authorized by the plenum now to make my transfer of residence to Los Angeles, and that you will be satisfied if I contribute to the literary work of the party and an occasional advisory letter, without too much meddling in your affairs, some lectures now and then, and let it go at that, with a specific understanding of all concerned that I understand it, as you must understand it, as a change in the regime. The ending of the party regime as it has been understood up till now, but not a rupture and an overthrow, but a growing over into a new regime where a new leading group takes over the main responsibility and I pass into an advisory and supporting role. And in that capacity, I promise to the new leadership that they can count on my loyal collaboration. They have no need to fear anything else. My sole activity and concern in California will be to write some of the material that I have long projected, for which I have preparatory plans and material gathered, which I think will be useful to the party.

And if the party will accept that from me now, we'll have a complete understanding and we'll go forward from this plenum with an attitude of confidence in the new National Committee as a whole, which, don't forget, includes the minority too, which will also be sharing in the responsibility in the double sense: the responsibility of discipline and loyal collaboration, and no less the responsibility to freely make their criticisms and counter-proposals whenever they think the time has come for them. So with that I'll say this is my last speech to you as a representative of the former Cannon regime.