An initial reply to the CWI’s criticism of “The implosion of the ISA: Can the good traditions of the CWI be saved?”

Andrοs Payiatsos

The first question that comes to mind after reading the article posted on the CWI website [1] as a response to the ISp article on the crisis of the ISA [2] is why the CWI went to such lengths, to write an article of 6250 words to reply to a few hundred words of criticism to the CWI leadership. Particularly so, as most of the points taken up in the CWI article have already been discussed exhaustively, and in writing, at the time of the faction fight from the autumn of 2018 until the summer of 2019 when the split of the CWI became official.

The second, truly impressive characteristic of this article is the personal character of the attacks against the author of the ISp article, also the author of the present one. This method has a name, it’s called “character assassination”. This point will be taken up again, later on, in the present article. But it should be stressed from the beginning that this kind of personal attacks and characterisations, combined with distortions, are often a sign of political uncertainty and weak lines of arguments which the author struggles to stand over. If the political arguments are strong there is no need to resort to such methods. They also show disrespect to the reader: no evidence, no proof, nothing is provided to convince about the correctness of the allegations and the supposed “facts”; so, the reader should accept what the author/s of the article claim only because they say so.

Answering all the details in the CWI article would be impossible. So, it’s better to direct our readers to some of the original documents that cover the debate between the Greek section and the IS of the CWI in the winter of 2018. That is, a document by the Greek EC (January 4, 2019) [3] responding to similar attacks then, a document by Peter Taaffe (signed personally), [4] and the reply of the Greek EC to PT’s attack. [5]

The undersigned has no option but to respond to some of the key points now. And aim to come back to the 2018-9 crisis and split of the CWI with a follow up article in order to clarify the issues and to answer the CWI’s assertions, providing at the same time the necessary documentation from both sides of the conflict.

The CWI article is signed by S. Stanicic, but it seems likely that the article is the result of a collective discussion with other members of the CWI leadership, because he refers to issues that he would have little knowledge of otherwise.

It should be stressed from the beginning that the character of the CWI article, does not change the ISp’s approach of collaboration and a united front approach towards the CWI (and to other similar organisations and currents) as already made clear in conference decisions of the ISp. But such an approach towards the CWI cannot and will not mean that we compromise our right to criticise the CWI for what we think were or are very serious mistakes, particularly in the handling of the disastrous 2018-9 crisis and split.

A coup or not a coup?

In the initial article of the undersigned [6] the criticism is raised that the Minority of the CWI international leadership (IEC) launched what can only be described as a coup: the Minority usurped the name of the CWI and its financial reserves and, essentially, “expelled” the Majority.

S. Stanicic tries to deny this by a series of “arguments” which, in the end, only prove that it was indeed a coup.

One of his arguments is that despite the fact that the International Secretariat (IS) and its supporters were in a minority in the leading body of the International (the IEC – International Executive Committee) in reality the Minority were the majority, because the England and Wales (E&W) section had a big membership and was under-represented.

However, the same was true of other sections (they were “under-represented”), e.g. the US or the Spanish sections, but the CWI article fails to mention it. Also, the CWI article fails to mention that apart from the E&W representatives in the IEC, the E&W section also had a huge presence in the IS: out of 8 full members of the IS, 7 came from E&W (and the 8^th from N. Ireland). All IS members were also members of the IEC.

Despite this, the IS lost the vote in the IEC by 24 to 21 votes. Soon after the IEC, the Minority split and lost the sections of Spain (which had as many representatives in the IEC as E&W) Venezuela, Portugal and Mexico. We do not have the precise figures, but this meant that the Minority was down to around 35% of the IEC, despite the “over-representation”, as described, of E&W.

Leaving these calculations aside, however important they are, the main political point is the following: in the revolutionary international organisations there is no simple proportional representation of the national sections in the leading bodies (e.g., one representative for every 100 members, for all sections) because if this was the case then one or two big sections would decide for everybody else; the opinions of the small sections and groups would simply have no way of being represented or even expressed in the discussions.

For this reason, the Statutes of the CWI, as of other international revolutionary organisations, have clauses by which there is a limit to the number of delegates per section (a maximum of 5) however big some of the sections may be. In this, they follow the Bolshevik tradition.

The Statutes provide that the highest body after the Congress is the IEC – the decisions of which have to be respected by the whole International. So, what is indisputable is that the Statutes of the CWI were trampled over by the Minority. The CWI article “explains” that that was correct and that actually it was a manifestation of real democracy inside the CWI. Interesting acrobatics, but then the question is: why do Statutes exist? What does democratic centralism mean if the decisions of the elected bodies are ditched once the biggest section which controls the party apparatus, supported by a small number of other sections, disagrees?

Confiscating the CWI funds

The CWI article raises additional arguments to justify the usurpation of the CWI resources. They claim that the money they confiscated was more or less equal to the debts of some of the sections of the Majority which were behind in their dues – and they give the example of the US section which was 14,000 USD in arrears (which actually was a small amount, given the finances of the CWI).

But the references to finances provided in the CWI article are abstract. Can they give concrete figures about what was owed, what was confiscated, etc? What happened, for example, to the 100,000 euros that the late Nikos Remoundos, of the Greek section, left in his will to the CWI a few years earlier? In 2019, we were informed that the Minority bought new premises to host the E&W and IS centers. Is that correct? If yes, can they inform us how much they costed?

But the essence of this controversy is not only about the sums themselves. There is another issue, more fundamental: did the national sections which were behind their dues owe this money to the Minority or to the CWI? The same holds for comrades who made donations. The answer is simple: to the CWI. Therefore, the Minority had no right to take it.

The substantial difference between the Majority and Minority Resolutions

S. Stanicic claims that there were no substantial differences between the Majority and Minority resolutions at the end of the IEC meeting and that the Majority insisted on a vote in order to establish the division of majority-minority. He goes as far as to link this to some kind of conspiracy theory:

“…the fault lay with those who did not present their criticism and views openly, but conspired behind the back of the IS…”.

This is another false claim. In reality there was, one very important difference between the two resolutions as can be seen in the links below. This difference was condensed, essentially, in one sentence.

The Majority resolution stated that: [7]

“While important differences of approach have surfaced the IEC does not believe these represent fundamental issues of principle, and believe such an organised discussion in the best democratic traditions of the CWI can result in principled agreement and strengthening of our forces to face the historic challenges facing Marxism in the next period”.

In other words, the Majority believed that the differences, although serious, did not justify a split.

The Minority refused [8] to include anything similar to this in their resolution. This was not accidental. There were repeated calls/appeals to the IS by representatives of what would become the Majority, to take a clear stand on this: i.e., that the differences did not justify a split. The IS refused all the way to do so.

This essential difference is what was reflected in the two resolutions. The Majority was formed on the basis of opposing the split.

The CWI leadership today argues that the differences, in the end, did justify a split, because the future trajectory of the ISA proves this.

We do not agree with this, for one very important reason: once one or more sections leave the collective effort it is possible or even probable that it/they will develop in a different and often wrong direction. This is because of the loss of collective checks on everybody by everybody.

However, the fact that the ISA was not able to hold together as one organisation (as was the case with the CWI) doesn’t mean that there aren’t important, “healthy” forces, which left or may still be in the ISA, which can or are playing a positive role in building Marxism – maintaining their differences with the present CWI.

Is the CWI the only Marxist organisation?

The ISp article claims that the CWI leadership essentially considers themselves as the only real Marxists. The author/s of the CWI article protest about this (our emphasis throughout):

“…AP’s assertion that any opinion that differs from the IS would be seen as a ‘departure from Marxism’ is without foundation…”.

But the CWI article provides ample evidence to the opposite. For example:

“…AP’s view of the conflicts and divisions in the CWI and ISA is wrong, and ultimately does not correspond to a Marxist approach…”

“…these un-Marxist ideas were encouraged and now members of Internationalist Standpoint and the current ISA majority have to admit that we [i.e., the CWI] were correct…”.

“…Internationalist Standpoint is a loose network rather than a revolutionary international based on democratic centralism…”.

The view of the CWI is quite clear – it is even reflected in the title:

“The creative historiography of ‘Internationalist Standpoint’ – In favour of a Marxist balance sheet of the CWI split”

If the present CWI is treating its ex-comrades in this way (as un-Marxist) one can easily imagine how they look at other international organisations/currents.

Formally the CWI accepts that in the future it will join forces with other revolutionary currents and S. Stanicic repeats that in his article. That is welcome. But everything is judged by deeds not by words. The CWI proved incapable of keeping a united organisation with comrades that they worked together for decades. It couldn’t even keep the Minority faction united as was explained above. So how can they succeed with forces that come from different traditions?

After working together for decades…

S. Stanicic’s accusations, let’s repeat, go against comrades who for many decades were working closely together.

This is clearly true of the Greek section, as part of the CWI in the past (since the 1970s). It was one of the sections (certainly not the only one) that the CWI was very proud of (and that was repeated quite often). There were of course frequent political differences, which we’ll address in a future article. In the footnotes a number of links are provided that show examples of the standing of the Greek section in the CWI. [9]

Suddenly, however, after we disagreed with the IS’s methods, everything changed. Reading the CWI article, one thinks there is/was nothing positive in the work of Xekinima. The same is true of other sections that disagreed with the Minority.

How can anybody take seriously the new narrative?

The method of degrading the opponent

The CWI article is full of attempts to denigrate the undersigned. To site a few,

“…Only AP can explain why he expresses himself differently to us in person than in his texts…”, “…our ‘Champion of Democracy’ in Athens…”, “…AP ran around the meeting hall shouting … calling IS members ‘liars’…”, “…AP is also less than truthful on other issues…”, “…I experienced AP himself as duplicitous…”, etc, etc…

Having abandoned Marxist analysis and the concept of a revolutionary International, the “champion of democracy in Athens” is also guilty of the above and many more…

What a method of discussion! Once you slander and denigrate your opponent on a personal level, then, obviously, nobody should believe or accept anything they say. After all who would like to associate themselves with a mad person who “runs around” shouting “liars”, “liars”?

To conclude

This article is already too long and should end soon. But there are many points raised by the CWI article that will have to be taken up later. Such as:

democratic centralism;
whether the formation of the IS faction (which controlled the party apparatus) “was the most transparent and democratic way” to proceed;
the parallels the CWI article draws between the Majority–Minority and the Bolsheviks-Mensheviks;
On S. Stanicic’s false assertion that “…after the IS declined his proposal to send an international ‘fact finding’ delegation to Ireland AP joined the opposition to the IS”;
on whether the Minority split was a principled whereas the Majority was unprincipled;
on S. Stanicic’s allegation 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”;
on the gold mines of Chalkidiki – which show that the CWI had and still have no idea of what was taking place there;
on our work with refugees that the CWI suddenly and scandalously describes as NGO work;
on the ridiculous allegation that Xekinima does not have a united front approach to the Communist Party;
on whether AP was lying in 2015 that the Greek section was not impacted by the 2015 capitulation of SYRIZA only to admit in 2023 in individual discussions with CWI members that it was, etc…

There are two points however that need to be taken up now, even if very shortly, so as to put a full-stop to SS’s attempt to throw mud at ISp.

First, the ISp never and nowhere implied that we consider everybody wrong and only ourselves right – either in the internal crisis of the CWI current, or in the Trotskyist left. Exactly the opposite is the case, and this is easily understood if one reads our materials (e.g., see here [10] and here [11]). The same is true of the undersigned and the leadership of the Greek section who in the past have accepted mistakes, not only in internal discussions but also in public.
Second, ISp is not a network. It is a revolutionary international organisation based on democratic centralism, which collaborates with other organisations and currents. The CWI base their allegations on the fact that we have relations with WIN. With WIN there is collaboration (in campaigns, exchanging articles, etc) but no unification. The CWI also has relations with WIN, e.g., in Newham-London and through TUSC, but misses mentioning it…

As mentioned before, the present article will be followed by another one at a later stage to answer the false allegations and distortions. But there is something we will never do: resort to character assassinations. It is not our method. Arguments based on oral narratives that cannot be proven, unsubstantiated allegations and personal characterizations, are a method we consider hugely damaging to the revolutionary cause. We will answer with political arguments and use as much as possible actual documents from the 2018-9 debate as background.

Our aim, as ISp, is to draw lessons from the 2018 crisis of the CWI in order to contribute, in whichever way possible, to building the revolutionary movement internationally. The lesson that the CWI has drawn from the 2018 crisis is that they did everything right, despite losing by some inexplicable factor the majority of their sections; and that all those who were “kicked out” of the CWI should now accept that they were wrong and the CWI was right. This approach offers nothing to the revolutionary movement internationally.

[1] The creative historiography of ‘Internationalist Standpoint’ – In favour of a Marxist balance sheet of the CWI split

[2] The implosion of the ISA: Can the good traditions of the CWI be saved?

[3] Resolution by Greek EC in relation to the crisis of the International – Jan. 4, 2019

[4] In Defence of a Working-class Orientation for the CWI – 14.01.2019

[5] A reply to Peter Taaffe – 19.01.2019

[6] The implosion of the ISA: Can the good traditions of the CWI be saved?

[7] IEC 2018 – Resolution carried by IEC

[8] IEC 21018 – IS / faction’s resolution rejected by IEC

[9] Some links which show the positive reception of Xekinima in the CWI’s tradition and proceedings