Split in the CWI is imminent
The recent declaration from the Non faction faction, (NFF) IEC members demands that the IS majority convene a meeting of the IEC in August 2019. This declaration follows a meeting of the NFF which took place in London between May 28th and 29th.Once again, the hypocritical dishonesty of this grouping is revealed. Having protested for six months that they are not a faction they now issue a demand signed by NFF full members of the IEC, based on a “resolution” agreed at an international secret meeting of their leading members. For six months, this opposition grouping to the IS majority has been “co-ordinating” their activity and production of documents, holding at least two international meetings. Yet they still try and maintain the pretence they are not an organised faction. This totally dishonest approach is a reflection of the politically unprincipled opportunist nature of this grouping.
They claim to invoke the CWI constitution by demanding that the IS majority convene an IEC in August but completely ignore the fundamental political differences which have been revealed in the debate over the last six months. As we have argued since the outbreak of this crisis in November 2018, there are decisive political differences, of a fundamental character, relating to perspectives, programme, orientation, the trades unions and the centrality of the working class; how to intervene in the movements relating to women, LGBTQ+ and the environment, the transitional method and methods of building the revolutionary party.
These issues have been debated in numerous meetings and the production of over 100 documents. However, in the proposed agenda the NFF have circulated for an IEC meeting in August, these central questions are absent. This dispute in the CWI began on the question of the method of work and political orientation and programme of the Irish section. The recent election results in Ireland represent a severe electoral set- back for the Socialist Party. Again this is omitted from inclusion on the NFF proposed agenda. Once again the NFF, as it has throughout this dispute, proposes to evade political debate and discussion on these and related questions.
Now, after six months of debate the NFF have now finally admitted that important and fundamental differences exist on these issues. This was made clear in recent debates by their spokespersons and in their factional platform produced six months into the debate: (‘The world at a crucial conjuncture: new phenomena and tasks – the crisis in the CWI’). This we have replied to in our statement ‘Mass political consciousness, the current stage of the class struggle and the revolutionary party’. Now towards the end of the debate, the NFF supporters in England and Wales have publicly declared a faction.
It is evident a political rupture has taken place in the CWI. The leadership of the NFF have broken from the political orientation and methods that the CWI was originally founded on. They have moved in a right-ward opportunist direction.
The NFF deny this and hide behind the mask that they represent the “IEC majority”. This “majority” in no way represents the overall balance of the CWI membership, as a whole, in which the NFF is clearly in a minority. The NFF argue they are in a “majority” on an IEC in which the Russian section has two full members with a claimed membership of only 25; the Israeli section has two full members and 45 members, and the Cypriot section has 1 full IEC member with a claimed membership of 21. The Polish section has 1 alternate IEC member. 5 members attended the recent debate on the CWI crisis! To claim a ‘majority’ of such a gathering brushes aside the real balance of forces of the CWI membership.
The NFF have a clear political objective - to shift the CWI and its leadership, including the International Secretariat, in a right-ward opportunist direction. It is for this reason they are demanding that an IEC be held in August. Generously, some of them have stated in the debates and some documents that they will not make any changes to the IS at an August IEC meeting. Their intention is clear however. An August IEC meeting would be used to politically shift the CWI in the opportunist direction defended by the NFF leadership. They would then then either remove or change the political balance of the current IS majority at a World Congress in January 2020. It is clear the current, unrepresentative IEC, is split into two political blocks which have already ruptured on a political basis. There are currently two international organisations functioning in one with diverging political analysis and method.
The political rupture is now also reflected organizationally by NFF led sections. The US currently is indebted to the CWI to the tune of US$30,000; the Belgian subs are being paid into an account in Belgium which the IS has no access to; the Australian section has failed to pay subs for the current quarter and the latest subs from Sweden have not arrived. This also breaches the CWI constitution and clearly indicates that the NFF is in the process of breaking from the CWI not only politically but organizationally. In such a situation, the IS majority is not prepared to convene a meeting of an IEC as it is currently constituted.
It is not justified to convene such a meeting, at the cost of thousands of pounds, where no political agreement exists on the fundamental issues that have been debated, when a political rupture has already occurred. The convening of a meeting on the basis of a reconstituted IEC and CWI congress, which reflect the real balance of the CWI membership and viable sections, where there is the prospect of genuine debate and discussion, and the prospect prospect of reaching political agreement on the fundamental issues under debate, is the only basis such a meeting could be justified.
An international meeting of the faction has been convened by the IS Majority for July22-25th with the sponsorship of the English and Welsh and Scottish sections, with the support of the German NC and others, to debate all of these issues and decide on the next steps to go forward and build the CWI, on the basis of the Trotskyist methods and principles it was founded on in 1974.
International Secretariat (Majority) 5/6/2019