The following editorial was published in the IWP's newspaper after four Workers World Party organizers (the "Communist Workers Faction" or "Comcad") were expelled from the IWP after they began rallying against the Newmanites upon learning the IWP had presented damaging political information about James Retherford to the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office.

In a Workers World of Their Own: Ultra-Left Split-Off Tail Spins To Right

International Worker, March 1976

Two months of guerrilla warfare led by two former members of the Workers World Party (WWP) and Youth Against War and Fascism (YAWF), who entered the International Workers Party (IWP) over a year ago, come to a conclusion this past week at an emergency Party plenum of the IWP in New York City. At this plenum-held from March 11 14-the Party majority suspended the so-called "Communist Workers Faction" (also known as the Communist Cadre) simultaneous with the resignation of these unprincipled ultra leftists (not before, however, they-in the name of the Communist Workers Faction-expropriated the entire Detroit regional of the IWP, picking the IWP's pocket of all its regional contact lists and equipment).

Ex-Workers World'ers Myron Jefka and Joel Meyers, who had been, welcomed into the party over a year ago after having been expelled from the semi-Stalinized WWP, contributed substantially to the programmatic thrust of the IWP. They, however, continuously failed to provide political leadership on a day-to-day basis, and reverted-in the face of mounting pressure from the alienated U.S. Left-to their ultra-leftist, tailist politics, and, moreover, to their social-democratized Stalinoid mode of factionalization. Under the banner of Trotskyism, these social-democratized Stalinoid gangsters conducted an unprincipled factional struggle, refusing for example, to declare themselves a faction for some time, but instead sabotaging the political work of the organization. Then, applying for factional status on the eve of an emergency plenum called specifically to deal with the political crisis, and denied that factional status largely on the grounds that the Party plenum had the responsibility to decide such a critical question-particularly with the plenum due to convene in ten days. Having been denied that factional status the social-democratized Stalinoids refused to abide by the Central Committee decision and instead brought their clandestine war against the party and the working class out into the open by engaging in activities which violated every principle of democratic centralism known.

The majority persisted in raising the issues to a political level and called for a full Party plenum in order to expose and explore the political issues, recognizing that the likelihood was great that the political differences were such that a split in the party would be the only principled move to make. Such principledness is beyond the understanding of these exYAWF'ers and their sycophants, many of whom were simply looking for a way out of politics.

Thus, instead of a principled political dialogue, the ex-WW'ers and their gang whipped out their credentials by flashing about their years of struggle in WWP and YAWF which-though significant, for example in the radicalizing of the antiwar movement-were likewise marked by their social-democratized Stalinoid, anti-working class character and a methodology which fetishized the "global class war" as still another way of hiding their politics, and, in particular, Sam Marcy's (long-time bureaucratic head of WWP) Trotskyism.

Like so many of the Trotskyist left, these "global class strugglers" shout the name of Trotsky to defend their social-democratic, anti-Bolshevik politics. Indeed, as was pointed out by a leading member of the Party at the plenum, the rallying around the long-dead tactical conception of global class struggle (a tactical conception introduced by Marcy in 1953, in the context of the Korean War and witch-hunts against the CPUSA which played a progressive role relative to the "socialism in a single country" perspective of the CPUSA and the Schactmanite revisionism of the SWP) was brought forth as an alternative to genuine Bolshevik democratic centralism.

The petit-bourgeois ultra-leftists, recognizing the intensification of the class struggle by the critical reading of Newsweek Magazine, were unable to deal with the demands that this intensification must place on serious Bolshevik cadre. They instead moved, rapidly towards the rewriting of history, past and present, to justify their resurrection of YAWF and the "Saturday afternoon" politics that marked the New Left at its worst. While supposedly defending the Left, these ultra-leftists, in point of fact, mistake the Left for the working class and are, therefore, egocentrically defending themselves. In fact, the Party perspective, as is well known, has been one of ruthless united front orientation, and the gate-receipters from WWP were simply unable to deal with the wholly lawful sectarian response of the U.S. Left to a new political formation, indeed a political formation which has displayed obvious competence and leadership in, for example, the organizing of the unemployed, which has had a serious influence not only on the unorganized of the population, but on the Left itself.

The Fourth Party Plenum opened with a one and a half hour presentation by the ex-WWP'er Joel Meyers which was listened to attentively despite the fact that it was nothing more than fifth-rate demagogy. This was followed by a presentation of the proposed strategic and tactical perspective of the IWP by the Party Chairman Fred Newman, which was constantly interrupted by the ex-WWP-led gang violating discipline by chanting from the floor, despite repeated attempts by Comrade Lew Hart, Chairman of the plenum, to bring the meeting to order. They thus made it impossible to continue, which resulted in the meeting being adjourned about a third of the way through Comrade Newman's presentation. The so-called "Communist Workers Faction" hurriedly slunk out of the meeting room, thereby ending their participation in the plenum and. making plain that these so-called champions of democracy, principled political debate, and Trotskyism wanted no part of any of the above, but rather had to insulate their backward ranks from politics. The ten days preceding the plenum had been marked by slanderous internal documents distributed by the illegal faction in which they exposed fundamental criticisms of the Party's perspective which they apparently had been "sitting on' for over a year and never bothered to mention (except in secret factional meetings with "selected" individuals) .When these political differences finally surfaced-in the face of the Party majority's ruthless attack-the illegal faction demagogically obscured the political issues by charging the Party majority with "proto-fascism" and "Nazism."

Following their departure, the meeting was reconvened and the plenum was continued on Saturday and Sunday. A strategic and tactical perspective was adopted which reaffirmed the Party's commitment to a ruthless united front perspective and the organizing of the unemployed and unorganized. As well, an intensification of trade union work and continued activity to proletarianize the Peoples Party was discussed and further tacticized.

The full proceedings of this critical Party Plenum will be published as soon as possible. The articles in this four-page special issue of the International Worker are extracts from internal documents written by the Party majority in the pre-plenum discussion in an attempt to smoke out the guerrillas and their social-democratized Stalinoid tactics and to engage them in serious political discussion-which it is now apparent, is beyond them.