Organisational Principles and Constitutional Amendments counter-report
By Doug Lorimer, on behalf of the LPF
[The following is an edited report and summary to the 23rd DSP Congress, January 3-6, 2008 presented by Doug Lorimer on behalf of the LPF. The report and summary were rejected by the Congress. The general line of the report and summary received the votes of 12 out of 57 regular delegates and 8 out of 38 consultative delegates with one abstention.]
Comrades, in the report on proposed changes to the DSP constitution given on behalf of the NE majority to the September 2007 National Committee plenum, Comrade Graham Matthews stated that the proposed changes were “not aimed at limiting discussion on disputed questions with the party” or at recommending “any new restrictions on the rights of members of a faction”. He claimed that the proposed changes were “minimal and primarily educational in intent”.
In the counter-report to the September NC plenum that I presented on behalf of the LPF I pointed out that “Up until our 1986 Congress, we did not have any rules in our constitution dealing with factions. This fact was reflected in the November 1983 Control Commission report into the secret Barnesite faction in the DSP, which stated `In accordance with the statutes (constitution) of the Fourth International, members of our party have the right to form tendencies and factions at any time they may wish’.
“We did, however, have an organisational principles resolution (adopted at the 1977 DSP Congress) that set out our Leninist principles {i.e., guiding ideas] of party organisation, including organisational norms relating to factions. Our 1977 organisational principles resolution was modelled on a similar document adopted by the US SWP in 1965.”
Noting that “Our 1986 Congress rescinded the 1977 document”, I pointed out that the “reason for doing this was that we had seen the US SWP leadership headed by Jack Barnes interpret the ‘organisational norms’ – that is, the stated expected standards of average organisational functioning – set out in the US SWP’s 1965 organisational principles resolution as obligations and rules, that is, as binding requirements and, on the basis of accusing members of ‘violating’ these organisational norms, use them to expel all known dissidents from the US SWP.
I pointed out that “this experience began to give us doubts about having a formally adopted resolution on organisational norms that might be regarded as having the same authority as the constitution because it had been formally adopted by the party congress. As the party-building report to the 1986 Congress presented by Jim Percy observed: ‘We began to think that this was the wrong way. That this was not the educational way. That this was not the correct way to organise the party. If you’re going to have rules that you want to stick to – that are rules – that are a bottom line, you’d better put them in the constitution and make it clear that these are the things that you must have. That you can’t really function without this degree of rules. Put them in the constitution’.”
I pointed out that “we did not consistently apply this approach of only including in our constitution the ‘rules that you want to stick to – that are rules – that are the bottom line’. Our 1986 constitution still contained norms presented as rules, as binding requirements. We only really resolved this problem, when we adopted a preamble to our constitution in January 1995, a preamble giving a summary of our Leninist organisational principles that made quite clear the distinction between such a statement of organisational principles and norms on the one hand and the articles of the constitution on the other, which the preamble noted “define the organisational structure of the party, the rights and responsibilities of party units and of individual party members, and set out the rules governing their functioning’.”
I went on to point out that the changes to the constitution proposed in Comrade Matthews’ NC report went”in the opposite direction to that proposed in the 1986 party-building report”, that they sought to insert statements of organisation norms which could be wrongly misread as “rules”, as binding requirements subject to disciplinary action if violated.
In his NC report (and again here in his report to the Congress), Graham acknowledged that this was in fact behind the thinking for some of the proposed changes. He stated:”It is the opinion of the NE that some of the articles of the constitution removed since 1986 were not norms and should be re-inserted in an edited form to better reflect the set of rules that the party needs to adequately function as a democratic centralist combat party”.
Dropped from the set of proposed amendments was the proposal approved by the NC majority in May 2006 that it “should be made explicit” in the constitution “that there can be no exclusive meetings or caucuses around positions during a PCD or at a congress unless a faction has been declared”.
In the May 2006 counter-report on the constitution and organisational principles that I presented on behalf of the LPF, I pointed out that if such a proposal was adopted it would mean that only platform groupings that had declared themselves to be factions would have the right to hold such meetings during a PCD period and at a congress. Conversely, platform groupings that had not declared themselves to be factions would be regarded as secret factions, subject to possible disciplinary action, if their supporters held such meetings.
Such a ban on caucus meetings by any platform grouping that had not declared itself a faction would make it illegal under party law for any minority platform grouping to meet to work out the content of its reports to a party congress.
In his September 2007 NC report, Graham acknowledged that the May 2006 NC majority’s proposal was an attempt to turn our norm of opposition to systematically organised, privately organised discussions of disputed questions among a select group of members who are not part of a declared faction into a rule, into a binding prohibition.
Graham noted that “the NE recommends that we should not attempt to formulate this norm as a rule”, adding that there “are simply too many grey areas for this norm to be formulated as a rule in a way that does not violate the principle of democratic discussion and collaboration”.
Unfortunately, this conclusion has not been applied by the NE majority in relation to all of the amendments that they are proposing be adopted by this congress. Thus, the NE majority proposes to insert into the constitution as a rule a statement of a norm taken from the 1986 DSP constitution. In the section of the 1986 constitution on the “Principles of the party’s organisational structure and functioning”, Article 22 stated in part, “Discussion within party bodies should be conducted in a manner that respects the right of the majority not to have the work of the party disrupted…”
The NE majority proposes that this congress amend Article 5 of our existing constitution which sets out “Rules of procedure”, to add to the existing paragraph 5 (which states that “The time, form and limits of discussion in DSP bodies shall be determined by those bodies”) a new rule that.”Discussion of disputed questions in party bodies shall be conducted in a manner that respects the right of the majority to conduct the work of the party without disruption.”
Changing the formulation from “should” to “shall’ changes the statement from an exhortative norm whose purpose is essentially educational to a binding requirement, violation of which will be grounds fordisciplinary action.
At the September NC plenum, the NE majority proposed to make two amendments to Article 4, Paragraph 1 (i), which deals with factions. One of these was to insert the statement that, “In general, once the issues around which a faction has been formed have been voted on by the party the faction should dissolve itself.”
In his September NC report, Graham motivated this proposed amendment as aimed at “defin[ing[ factions as essentially temporary internal groupings within the DSP, whose aim is to clarify issues at dispute and then to dissolve into the party as a whole when these issues are either resolved or superseded”.
The key problem with this proposed amendment was that it conflated the resolution of a disputed issue with a party vote on it. A vote determines who has a majority and therefore whose position is to be implemented. It does not resolve a dispute. A dispute, a disagreement, is resolved by comrades changing their opinion on the disputed issue, not by a vote.
Perhaps partly recognising this, the NE majority has now reformulated the proposed amendment to read:”In general, once the questions around which a faction has been formed have been resolved by the DSP the faction should dissolve itself.”This formulation however still falsely implies that a disagreement is resolved when a vote is taken on it by the DSP.
The second amendment to Article 4, paragraph l (i) that was proposed by the NE majority at the September NC plenum was to insert the rule, “Unilateral canvassing for members outside of outside of pre-Congress discussion/Congress periods shall be prohibited.”
In my counter report to the September NC plenum, I notedthat in his report Graham said this would not mean that a faction cannot recruit new members outside of PCD/Congress periods. I then posed the question, “what does ‘canvassing for members’ mean?”
I noted that the alleged authority for this proposed new rule was s the following point made in the 1983 Control Commission report: “… members of our party have the right to form tendencies or factions at any time they may wish. What they don’t have the right to do is unilaterally decide the time and form in which they may canvass for support for their tendency or faction. This is solely the right of the authorised party bodies. That is, a comrade or group of comrades, who in the course of an authorised discussion in the party find themselves in political agreement on some disputed question, have the right to constitute themselves as a tendency or faction. However, this does not give them the right to decide unilaterally to circulate their platform or other documents to anyone outside their tendency or faction. They may do this only when the official party bodies authorise a discussion.”
Further clarifying this point, the 1983 Control Commission report added: “As we have already explained, comrades who have differences with the party’s policy have no right to open unilaterally an organised discussion of those differences. They may raise them only through the channels, in the forms and at the times decided by the authorised party bodies.”
What the Control Commission report was pointing out was that, as Article 5, paragraph 5 of our existing constitution states: “The time, form and limits of discussions within DSP bodies shall be determined by those bodies.”
I pointed out that the NE majority’s proposed amendment to prohibit “unilateral canvassing for members outside pre-Congress discussion/Congress periods” was simply a poorly formulated way of saying the same thing, but with the danger that it could be misinterpreted as a ban on factions recruiting new members outside such periods.
Now the NE majority proposes that this new rule read: “Canvassing for members outside of pre-Congress/discussion/Congress periods shall be prohibited.” The dropping of the qualification “Unilateral” from the formulation of the new rule makes it an entirely different proposition. Taken at face value, this would negate the right of DSP bodies to decide when and through what forms any declared faction may “canvass for members” (i.e., present its views), outside of PCD/Congress periods.
If this rule had been in effect since our last congress, for example, the Majority Resolution Faction’s circulation via DSP e-lists of its platform a week before the opening of the PCD period would have been a violation of party law. (I should also point out that this action was also carried out unilaterally, no official DSP body having approved it.)
If this new rule banning factions from “canvassing for members” outside of PCD/Congress periods is not intended to prohibit comrades joining a faction if they so wish outside of PCD/Congress periods, or a faction having its platform, or its NC counter-reports published in The Activist, as Graham in his September NC report, assured us it wasn’t, then was is the intention behind it?
Is the intent of this new rule to make it a violation of party law for individual members of a faction to present their views to other individual party members in occasional private discussions? That would be a monstrous restriction on the rights of party members. As the 1983 Control Commission report noted:”Obviously, comrades do not require the authorisation of the governing bodies of the party to meet and discuss political questions with any other comrades in the party they may wish. Comrades discuss politics with each other all the time, including their assessment of the line adopted by the party.”
That report went on to note that “there is a difference between occasional and chance discussions, even of disputed questions, with a variety of comrades and a systematic serries of privately organised and exclusive discussions among a select group of comrades”, adding: “Of course, there is always a grey area where the former begin to pass into the latter, when quantity begins to turn into quality. It is a matter for the judgement of the party, through its governing bodies, and of each comrade, to decide when this has definitively occurred and the normal processes of casual political discussion has developed into secret factional activity.”
Is the intent of the new rule to discourage systematically organised private discussions outside PCD/Congress periods. But then, as Graham pointed out in his September NC report, “There are simply too many grey areas for this norm to be formulated as a rule, in a way that does not violate the principle of democratic discussion and collaboration” between comrades.
The NE majority proposes to add to the constitution the preamble removed by the 21st DSP Congress. but with the word “organisation” replacing the word “party”, so as to reflect the majority’s line that the DSP continue define itself as a “tendency’ in the Socialist Alliance, rather than a public Leninist party.
While the LPF does not support the DSP continuing to be “a tendency” of the Socialist Alliance, and is for the restoration of the preamble in its original form, we will not vote against the proposal to reattach the modified preamble to the constitution, if a separate vote is taken on each of the proposed amendments.
The NE majority’s proposes to amend Article 4, paragraph 2 [c] of the constitution to add the words “the constitution” and “even if they have argued and/or voted against those decisions” to the existing obligation of members to “carry out their political activity to the best of their ability in accordance with the decisions of the national and local governing bodies of the DSP”. Since no-one has argued that any member should act in a contrary manner, the LPF regards this proposed amendment as unnecessary, but we will not be voting against it.
Nor will the LPF be voting against the NE majority’s proposal to remove the requirement that where branches are organising into a district the Nomination Commission representative must be elected by a district conference.This proposal has been motivated solely on the grounds that it is “needed” to enable the Sydney West branch to have a NomCom representative at the next congress. The amendment would allow for this, though I would point out that this could also be achieved by not having the two Sydney branches formally constituted as a district.
The LPF will also not be voting against the NE majority’s proposal to insert the words “and by elected members of the National Committee and National Executive to plenaries of those bodies respectively” into the sentence dealing with absentee votes in Article 5, Paragraph 3 of the constitution.
However, delegates should be aware that what is not spelled out in this amendment is that the NE majority has decided that the grounds on which absentee votes may be rejected should be widened beyond the “reasons for the submission of an absentee vote”, i.e., the reason the comrade is absent from the meeting.
The NE majority has decided that acceptance of absentee votes shall also be dependent upon a judgement by the body concerned that the comrade submitting an absentee ballot is casting a “sufficiently informed” vote. But the NE majority has failed to propose an amendment to the constitution that would clearly spell this out, so that when comrades submit absente votes they are aware that they need to provide not only the reason why they are absent from the meeting at which the vote is being taken, but also a statement about their level of knowledge of the issue being voted on.
The NE majority proposes that this congress vote to make the DSP’s internal information and discussion bulletin “publicly available through our bookshops”.
In his September NC report, Graham motivated this proposal as a “way of sharing the DSP’s internal discussion with those who are looking to join a serious revolutionary party”. But that is already provided for in the constitution. People who are seriously looking at joining the DSP are encouraged to become provisional members of the DSP. Such applicants for membership are constitutionally entitled to “purchase internal DSP-bulletins”.
In the September NC plenum counter-report on the organisational principles, the LPF stated that we were opposed to the proposal to make The Activist, and therefore the DSP’s written internal discussions, available to the general public. We expressed our concern that this would tend to inhibit the free and frank exchange of political views among DSP members in charting the best course forward for building our organisation. Similar concerns have been expressed by some other comrades in the pre-Congress discussion.
However, in the period since the September NC plenum a more serious concern than possible self-censorship has arisen. The NE majority voted to ban the publication in the Activist of two comrades’ PCD articles on the grounds that they expressed political views in these articles that did not reflect the DSP’s official view on the July split in the Indonesian Peoples Democratic Party.
One of these suppressed articles was a reply by Comrade Max Lane-to the accusation made by Comrade Peter Boyle in his party-building report to the September NC plenum (which was published in the Activist), that Max had proposed that the DSP “take a stand in support of a minority in a recent split in the PRD”.
The other suppressed article was a written PCD contribution by Comrade Sam King, in which he presented his personal view of the political course being pursued by the PRD Central Committee majority, based largely on a transcription of comments made by Dita Sari her presentations to the October Latin America Asia Pacific Solidarity conference and material from the Indonesian public press.
If the NE majority feels the need to ban the publication of certain PCD articles whose political content is not to its liking when the Activist is not publicly available, this raises a serious concern about the prospect of more far ranging censorship of the written PCD if the Activist is made available to the general public.
The preamble that the NE majority proposes to reattach to the constitution notes that democracy in a Leninist organisation includes “scrupulous respect for the rights of minorities”. What that means in pre-Congress discussion was spelt out very clearly by James P. Cannon in a January 1940 letter to the US SWP’s membership that is included the Resistance Books edition of Cannon’s book The Struggle for a Proletarian Party. In that letter, Cannon wrote: “During the pre-convention discussion period the Bolshevik organization system assures full rights and facilities to a minority to present its case, freely and fairly, for the consideration and decision of the party membership… All resolutions and articles submitted by the minority are published without censorship and discrimination in a jointly edited internal bulletin which reaches every party member. At all branch and membership meetings where the disputed questions are under discussion an equal division of time is the uniform rule.”
Cannon noted that in the course of fierce 1939 faction fight in the US SWP, “This tradition and unvarying practice of our movement – the best and most honestly democratic tradition and practice the labour movement has ever known – has been fully adhered to in the present discussion.”
Regrettably, we cannot say this of the conduct of the recent pre-Congress discussion in the DSP. And if the proposal to make our internal discussion bulletin available to the general public is approved by this congress, I fear we will be even less able to make such a claim at the DSP’s next congress.