Walter Lippmann - Speech at my 1983 SWP expulsion trial

INTRODUCTION
This is the transcript of two speeches I made in 1983. The first, May 22, 1983, was given at the conclusion of the political trial I faced in the Los Angeles branch of the Socialist Workers Party. I had been a member of the SWP since 1967, and of it's youth group, the Young Socialist Alliance, since 1962. For the first and only time in my history with the group, I'd been charged with an act of indiscipline, for which the party leadership insisted I should be expelled. I'd had a political conversation inside the party headquarters, with another party member, in which I'd discussed issues under dispute within the organization. The leadership claimed that people who were not members of the SWP could possibly have overheard the discussion, and therefore they said I should be expelled after after 21 years in the organization.

This speech will also give you some idea of the atmosphere inside that organization. Others who have been, and those who are still members of such groups may find my experience interesting.

The Los Angeles branch voted, by 41-40, to find me guilty of a single act of indiscipline, but declined to vote to expel me. The motion to expel me got a tie vote (40-40), and thus was not adopted. Then, in a rather peculiar follow-up, the branch leadership then "appealed" the decision of the Los Angeles branch to a higher body, the California State Executive Committee asking that they "review" the branch decision.

I was permitted to address this august institution which had about fifteen members. My remarks there follow my remarks to the branch. However, I was not permitted to attend or listen to the discussion on my "case". It came as no surprise that that body had voted to expel me. I filed an appeal with the SWP's national convention, but saw no reason to travel to the Midwest to make a presentation and then not be allowed to listen to any discussion of my, uh, "case".

(Some further contemporary reflections follow the transcript.)

Walter Lippmann
August 28, 2005
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STATEMENT IN RESPONSE
TO CHARGES FILED AGAINST ME
By Walter Lippmann, May 22, 1983

(The following is the text of a statement I made in response to charges filed against me in the Los Angeles branch of the Socialist Workers Party. The charges read: “I charge Comrade Walter with violating party discipline on Saturday, May 7 by publicly raising differences 1) with the party’s policy in the movement against U.S. intervention in Central America, and, 2) with the party’s line on the Nicaraguan revolution. This act of indiscipline, which took place in the headquarters after a Militant Labor Forum, violated Article VIII, Section 1 of the party’s constitution.*)

I did not violate party discipline after the Militant Labor Forum which took place here at the headquarters on Saturday May 7, 1983. I did not publicly raise differences with the party’s policy in the movement against U.S. intervention in Central America and I did not publicly raise differences with the party’s line on the Nicaraguan revolution after the forum.

The facts about my public comments and actions prove that I have always loyally presented the party’s policy and line in the movement against U.S. intervention in Central America, and on the Nicaraguan revolution. The facts prove that I have always carried out my assignments with both enthusiasm and effectiveness.

The Sandinista Front for National Liberation, the leadership of the Nicaraguan revolution, invited me to attend the FSLN'S first International Solidarity Conference which was held in Managua. My union then officially designated me to represent it at that conference. I was the only SWP comrade present officially representing a union and the only North American officially representing a labor union.

Since that conference, which was held in January 1981, I have spoken publicly on many occasions about the gains of the Nicaraguan revolution under the leadership of the FSLN. Among the places I have spoken have been: the Militant Labor Forum here, as well as Casa Nicaragua, trade union groups, churches, and feminist organizations. I spoke on KPFK radio, and made a special presentation at the 1982 annual conference of the Southwest Labor Studies Association. Each of these solidarity activities were approved in advance by the party. And no one has ever criticized the way I carried out this party work.

My union chose me to officially represent it at the Tijuana Border Conference last October. I and one other SWP comrade were the only unionists at that conference who officially represented our union. Recently I was assigned to work on the Molina Lara tour. I was asked to secure endorsements and work “on publicizing “ the May 20 meeting. In this area, I got several organizations to endorse the meeting and participated in leafleting brigades.

No one in the party or from the executive committee ever complained once to me about discipline problems in the way I carried out these assignments. I have acted as a loyal and disciplined comrade in all these assignments, not only in terms of party policy and line in general, but down to small tactical matters.

Comrades who were here at last week’s branch meeting may remember that I stood up during the discussion under the Molina Lara tour report and said I would make an announcement about the May 20th meeting at the monthly delegates meeting of the AFL-CIO County Federation of Labor. Two to three hundred delegates, from most of the major unions in the L.A. area, normally attend these monthly meetings. I am the only SWP member in Los Angeles who is a delegate to this important body of the labor movement. I assumed that I was expected to make such an announcement since we’re all working hard to make the May 20th meeting a success, and I have been specifically assigned to that area of work.

After I stated my intention to speak and the County Fed meeting, Jean S. got up and said it was necessary to have a discussion of whether I should speak about the Lara meeting and the County Fed. After the branch meeting, Jean and Seth met with me. I explained why I felt it was a good idea for me to announce the May 20th meeting and urge people there to attend. Over the past fifteen years, I have made similar announcements about many other events which the party was actively building. On a number of occasions, union officials have attended those meetings because of announcements I made.

Jean said she felt that it might provoke red baiting if I, a known member of the SWP, made the announcement, and that therefore, I should not speak. However, she added, if our leafleting outside provoked red-baiting, I should speak up in response. Although I felt it would be appropriate and helpful to our work to announce the May 20th meeting, I acted as a disciplined comrade and did what Jean said. I leafleted the unionists as they went into the meeting, and I did not get up during the meeting and say anything about Molina Lara or the May 20th meeting. I still think that that was a mistake, and that making the announcement would have helped build the Lara meeting – but I acted as a disciplined party member and did not act on my own individual opinion about that particular tactic.

In other recent major campaigns of the party, I have also been a loyal and disciplined comrade. I have carried out many political assignments. No one has complained that I committed any acts of indiscipline in any of these areas of work.

Let me cite a few of these:

PLANT GATE SALES. I have not missed one single plant gate sale since the branch began this campaign on February 8. If our wall chart were up here, you would be able to see that I have a 100% record of actually being at my plant gate – no excused absences, but physically outside the plant gate at Lockheed in Burbank at 6:30 AM in the morning for fifteen weeks in a row.

DEFENDING THE PARTY’S DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS. I was able to get my union to endorse the party’s lawsuit and the Political Rights Defense Fund over ten years ago. My union was the first labor organization in the United States to make such an endorsement, just a few weeks after our suit was filed. It was years before any other union officially endorsed our national lawsuit. In addition, I have gotten nearly 100 endorsements from union officials from among the largest unions in the state, and from local, state-wide, and international union officers.

More recently. Our party was confronted with the challenge of the Gelfand/Pfaelzer lawsuit. Along with all the other comrades, I put in a lot of time and effort on this defense case. I was assigned to get speakers for our first emergency rally in March. On just a few days notice, I got six of the eight speakers including the state-wide president of my local union, which represents over 10,000 workers in California. Just a few weeks ago, I arranged to have Robin Maisel, one of our party’s lawyers in the Gelfand/Pfaelzer case, speak to a plenary session of the statewide executive board of my union, a meeting with about 90 delegates present. When the PRDF Emergency Fund was announced, to help raise the enormous sums needed for our trial, I made a substantial pledge, and paid it in full and on time.

I also arranged for Hector Marroquin to address my union, the first union meeting he ever spoke to as well as the first union to endorse his right to political asylum in the U.S.

PARTY ELECTION CAMPAIGNS. In Comrade Mel Mason’s campaign for governor, I was among the top group of petitioners – those who collected over 200 signatures. When the state ruled Mel off the ballot, I was able to secure signatures from dozens of union officials to protest that violation of our democratic rights. This spring, I arranged to have Virginia Garza speak to the membership meeting of my union during her campaign for City Council. It was the only union meeting to which Virginia was invited.

Since I was carrying out all this party work – and more – without any complaints about my discipline, it was quite a shock when Paco suddenly confronted me with charges on Saturday May 14, eight days after the forum. I tried to think back to the forum to try to figure out how or when I had publicly raised differences.

Paco did not speak to me about any act of indiscipline after the forum on Saturday May 7. He didn’t mention anything to me the next day, nor the next night at the May 8th branch meeting. He didn’t call me, or try to get together with me during the following week to ask me about it. Then, suddenly, seven days later, Paco phoned me at about 2:30 in the afternoon of Saturday May 14, and read the charges to me over the phone. But he still didn’t tell me what I was supposed to have done that violated party discipline.

Late that night, I received a phone message from Jerry F. summoning me to appear before the executive committee the next day, Sunday, May 15 at 12 noon. I cooperated as fully as possible with the executive committee. I explained that I had no statement to make because I had not done any of the things alleged in the charges, and didn’t know what they were referring to.

Jean said she observed Francisco and me having what appeared to be a heated discussion over International Viewpoint. She said she didn’t know how long the discussion lasted, but she added, “But, I could tell there was something going on”. Jean said that she had to get materials from the conference room and she saw us discussing again in the hallway.

Jean stated that there were a number of Black independents from NBIPP, the National Black Independent Political Party, in the forum hall. She did not say – and no one has ever said – that these Black independents were listening to our private conversation – only that these independents were in the forum hall.

Jean came out of the conference room, and told us that that was not the time or place to have our discussion, so I then stopped talking and walked away. This was interpreted by some executive committee members as some kind of admission of guilt on my part. The fact was that it simply wasn’t important enough to have any argument with Jean at that time, or any other time. I didn’t think anything of it. I just said OK, and walked away.

At no time did anyone on the hearing committee say that any non-party person had actually listened in on our conversation, or that any non-party person had overheard our private conversation.

I made it clear, unequivocally clear, during the hearing, and I want to make it clear here: I have never raised political differences publicly and there were no non-party persons close enough to overhear the short private discussion which took place after the May 7 forum.

What might have happened, simply did not in fact happen.

What “presumably could have happened", in fact did not happen.

The only loud argument I can recall in the headquarters that night, which could have been overheard by others, was one which took place among a group of Black independents standing near the podium after the forum was over. As I walked away from Francisco, I saw that these were the only non-party members in the forum hall, and they were completely wrapped up in their own argument while I was having the private discussion with another comrade.

In the hearing, I was asked a lot of detailed questions about my five-minute private conversation with another party comrade. I was unable to remember the exact details of that conversation for several reasons: I was questioned eight days after the event took place. It was such a casual conversation – remember it lasted for just about five minutes – that it hadn’t seemed important or memorable at the time.

Comrades, can you remember all the details of every casual conversation you had eight days ago? If Paco, or anyone else, had talked to me that night at the forum – or the next day – or the next night at the branch meeting – or Monday or Tuesday, I might have been able to remember more of the details. But this was eight days later.

During the hearing, Jean stated that she had discussed differences with me, and that it was our right to discuss differences. That is exactly what happened on May 7 after the forum. Ii was discussing with a comrade as we had the right to do.

During the hearing, I raised some objection to the procedures.

For one thing, I didn’t think it was fair for the person bring the charges against me to be voting on the recommendations. Isn't it obvious, that when someone presses charges against you, that person already thinks you’re guilty? After all, shouldn’t the body hearing the evidence be neutral and impartial?

Throughout the hearing, some executive committee members treated me like an already-convicted criminal, like an enemy agent.

For example, I asked if I could tape my hearing as other hearings had been taped. I felt that a tape recording would help me prepare my statement to the branch trial body. I was told that the National Committee plenum, which had just been held the previous week, had adopted a motion that no internal meetings may be taped without authorization from the Political Committee, and that Political Committee authorization to tape this meeting had not been asked.

I did not object to this explanation, but Jerry then asked if my tape recorder was on at that time. I said it was not. (Of course, I wouldn’t turn it on without having first received permission). Jerry, however, would not take my word for it, but insisted on searching my bag and briefcase. He found that I was telling the truth. My tape recorder was not turned on, and there was no cassette in the machine.

After about two hours, the executive committee asked me to leave Joel and Betsey’s apartment where the hearing was held, so that the Exec could discuss some matters. When I was summoned back into the hearing, Jerry again demanded to know whether I had a tape recorder in my briefcase and again would not accept my word, but forcibly grabbed and searched my briefcase a second time.

You may remember, comrades, that it was revealed recently in the course of the Gelfand/Pfaelzer trial, that Gelfund “had secretly taped discussions he had had with party leaders. The party was outraged over Gelfand’s secret act – and rightly so. Only an enemy of the party would do such a thing. And I was being treated as if I were an Alan Gelfand, a conscious agent of an opponent political group and an objective agent for the ruling class in attacking our party. That gives you some idea of what the hearing was like.

At the end of the hearing, Jerry told me that the executive committee intended to bring its report and recommendations into the branch meeting that night, just 3 ½ hours later. It wasn’t until 4:35 PM that day, that I was told that the report and recommendations would not be brought into the branch meeting that night.

Three days ago, on Thursday May 19, I asked Jerry to tell me, in advance of the trial itself, what the executive committee recommendation would be, so I could know what I was responding to. His response was “We are under no obligation to tell you that”. So, the next day, Friday, I formally asked the executive committee to inform me at least twenty-four hours in advance of what the recommendations would be. Last night at 10:30 P.M. Jerry called me. Jerry told me that the executive committee had, in Jerry’s words “rejected my request” to be informed in advance of what the recommendation would be.

Therefore, comrades, I found out about the recommendation the same time you did: right here in this meeting. Jerry explained that the executive committee had rejected my request to be told in advance because, again in Jerry’s words, “This is not a bourgeois trial” and it would violate party democracy if I had information which other comrades did not have.

But my situation is crucially, qualitatively different from all our other comrades’ situation. I am up on charges, and my membership has been put in question.

Let me repeat here that, as far as facts are concerned, I am absolutely innocent of the charges brought against me by Paco.

As you have all heard, I did have a five-minute political conversation with another party member on the night of May 7. The executive committee has not brought forth the name of even one non-party person who is supposed to have heard our conversation.

Therefore, the fact of the matter is that I have been brought up on charges because of what might have happened, though not one shred of evidence has been presented here to show concretely that what might have happened actually did happen.

I have expressed my opinions, evaluations and suggestions during branch meetings. I have written articles for the party internal discussion bulletins. I am looking forward to the authorized discussion periods when I can speak and write about my political views fully. For now, all I ask is to be able to continue actively and energetically build the party, and not to face charges and hearings and trials because of my minority political opinions.

In closing, let me repeat what I have said before:

I have not, in the words of the charges, “publicly raised differences” with the party’s policy in the movement against U.S. intervention in Central America, nor have I “publicly raised differences” with the party’s line on Nicaragua.

I am a loyal and disciplined member of the Socialist Workers Party, and I was loyal and disciplined on Saturday, May 7.

If this report and recommendations are approved, it will further intensify an atmosphere in which party members feel intimidated about discussing politics with one another.

The lesson will be drawn that if this is the kind of thing which can happen to one member, no matter how active, no matter how loyal, no matter how disciplined, or raises differences during internal meetings or in private discussion with other comrades.

I ask you to protect your own rights as members of our party by upholding my rights as a member of this party,

STATEMENT TO THE CALIFORNIA STATE COMMITTEE OF THE SWP
By Walter Lippmann, June 4, 1983

The constitution of the Socialist Workers Party specifies three conditions which must be met by every person applying for membership. Article III, Section 1, states: “Every person who accepts the program of the party and agrees to submit to its discipline and engages actively in its work shall be eligible to membership.” I want to take up each of these three aspects in relation to this review of the decisions made by the Los Angeles branch on May 22, 1983.

DISCIPLINE

When I joined the SWP in 1967, I agreed to submit to the party’s discipline. On May 14, 1983 – for the first and only time in the intervening fifteen and half years – I was charged with an act of indiscipline. I reacted to the charges being filed against me in a highly emotional manner, but I did try to cooperate with the procedures and I stated during the hearing, and at the trial, that I would be a disciplined member.

At the conclusion of a five-hour trial, a majority of the Los Angeles branch voted to find me guilty of an act of indiscipline as charged. At the same time, however, the branch did not approve the executive committee’s motion to expel me.

In the course of the trial, over half of those present – thirty-two in all – were called upon to speak. I was deeply affected by the discussion. I was convinced by the discussion itself, to re-evaluate the original incident, and also to re-evaluate my initial reaction to the charges.

As branch discussions should do, this trial discussion helped me see many things in a different way. In retrospect, I should not have had that discussion after the forum. It seemed to me at the time that I was doing no wrong, but the branch majority did not agree with me. I stated at the trial that I would not in the future engage in such a discussion in a public setting.

I accept, and will abide by, the democratic decision of the branch which found me guilty of this particular violation of party discipline.

The executive committee recommended expulsion as the only possible action if the branch found me guilty. All other possible penalties were explicitly rejected by the executive committee. This recommendation for expulsion was strongly presented by every single member of the eleven-member executive committee – all of whom spoke during the trial. In fact, almost half of the trial time was devoted to the report and the discussion remarks by the eleven members of the executive committee.

The branch, therefore, had ample opportunity to hear, to consider and to make up its mind, on the recommendation to expel me. The majority of the branch did not approve that recommendation.

In its report to the branch, the executive committee recommended the extreme penalty of expulsion on the basis that I had been publicly warned about my indiscipline on two occasions in the previous thirteen months.

The first example cited concerned a May 1, 1982 meeting called to express solidarity with the Polish workers and to denounce the U.S. government’s hypocrisy on Poland.

It was stated that I had gotten my union to endorse that meeting. The fact is that I did not ask my union to endorse that meeting. The branch organizer, accompanied by a member of the national committee, met with me before that May 1 meeting. They asked me if I had gotten my union to endorse that meeting. I told them that I had not. The branch organizer then reported my statement to the next branch meeting. That was the last I ever heard of it until the May 22, 1983 trial.

I was never publicly reprimanded by the executive committee, nor by the branch, regarding that matter, at that time, nor at any subsequent time.

The second example cited by the executive committee involved a demonstration against Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, which took place in October 1982. I and two other branch members had been assigned to attend the final meeting of the coalition held the night before the demonstration. At the last minute, the coalition's steering committee announced the exclusion of an Iranian student group. At the May 22 trial, the executive committee said that I had not notified the branch organizer of this exclusion, and that I had been publicly warned about my inaction.

The fact was that none of the three of us who were assigned to attend that coalition meeting notified the branch organizer, and none of the three of us was warned about this or disciplined in any way. Specifically, I was never publicly warned on the branch floor about any indiscipline of this matter of information.

Let me repeat this: the executive committee never warned me about any indiscipline in these cases: publicly on the branch floor, privately, or in any other way.

In addition to these two matters, the executive committee further motivated my expulsion by claiming that I had displayed a persistent pattern of raising minority political opinions with new party members.

Here are the facts: Over the past one and one half years, the Los Angeles branch has recruited and brought into full membership two new members. I have never raised minority political opinions in any conversation at any time with one of these members. I did nave political discussions with the one other new member, and he was the member with whom I had the conversation after the forum on May 7.

I never said that I was glad when he became a full member because then I could discuss differences with him – as various executive committee members stated during the trial.

First of all, he became a full member of the SWP in the spring of 1982, and it wasn’t until the end of that year that I had the first political discussion with him regarding differences – many months after he had been functioning as a full party member. Furthermore, he was not new to revolutionary politics, even before joining the SWP . For two years he had been a leader of a student movement with supported a Central American grouping which the SWP characterizes as revolutionary Marxist. His political experiences were already impressive before he came into contact with the SWP. For over a year now, he has been a public spokesperson for the party.

The executive committee said that the most serious violation I committed was not cooperating with the executive committee. Let me respond very briefly to this.

I did not try to avoid coming to the hearing. I received a phone message at 10:20 P.M. on Saturday, May 15, summoning me to a hearing at noon the next day. I immediately rearranged all my weekend plans, appearing at the hearing on time and remained until I was dismissed.

When I went into the hearing, I was in a highly emotional state and I became even more upset during the questioning. For example, I brought along a tape recorder, and asked permission, before the questioning began to record the hearing. Permission was denied, and I accepted that decision. But the branch organizer did not accept my word, and twice searched my briefcase and bag to make sure I wasn’t secretly taping the hearing. His search revealed that I was telling the truth. There wasn’t even a cassette in the machine.

I felt that they were treating me as if I were an Alan Gelfand, an enemy of the party. That was my state of mind during the hearing.

During the branch trial discussion, one member (who found me guilty but voted against my expulsion), hit the nail right on the head when he said that the charge of non-cooperation and hostility was a subjective judgment, but that he could understand my natural reaction – that is, that I was fighting for my political life, fighting to stay in the party. I have devoted my entire adult life to building this party because my membership is my life.

Regarding the facts of the discussion after the May 7 forum, as I told the branch trial body, I fully accept the facts as remembered by another branch member involved in the discussion. And in this respect, it is important to recall that that other branch member (who voted me guilty but abstained on my expulsion), told the branch: “I don’t agree with the description coming out of the E.C. in terms of the facts as I told them. And this member is the only other person who heard our conversation, because he is the person I was talking with.

Let me repeat now, and emphasize, that I accept the democratic decision made by the branch. The executive committee reporter has chosen to ask for a review of those branch decisions.

TWO: ACTIVITY

The second of the three criteria for membership specified in the party constitution is that a person agrees to: “engage actively in its work”.

In the political campaigns laid out by the party, I have been extraordinarily active, and have carried out each and every one of my political assignments with both enthusiasm and effectiveness. Let me now quote briefly from the statement I made to the branch trial:

“The Sandinista Front for National Liberation, the leadership of the Nicaraguan revolution, invited me to attend the FSLN'S first International Solidarity Conference which was held in Managua. My union then officially designated me to represent it at that conference. I was the only SWP comrade present officially representing a union and the only North American officially representing a labor union.

“Since that conference, which was held in January 1981, I have spoken publicly on many occasions about the gains of the Nicaraguan revolution under the leadership of the FSLN. Among the places I have spoken have been: the Militant Labor Forum here, as well as Casa Nicaragua, trade union groups, churches, and feminist organizations. I spoke on KPFK radio, and made a special presentation at the 1982 annual conference of the Southwest Labor Studies Association. Each of these solidarity activities were approved in advance by the party. And no one has ever criticized the way I carried out this party work.

“My union chose me to officially represent it at the Tijuana Border Conference last October. I and one other SWP comrade were the only unionists at that conference who officially represented our union. Recently I was assigned to work on the Molina Lara tour. I was asked to secure endorsements and work “on publicizing “ the May 20 meeting. In this area, I got several organizations to endorse the meeting and participated in leafleting brigades.

“No one in the party or from the executive committee ever complained once to me about discipline problems in the way I carried out these assignments. I have acted as a loyal and disciplined comrade in all these assignments, not only in terms of party policy and line in general, but down to small tactical matters.

Let me cite a few of these:

“PLANT GATE SALES. I have not missed one single plant gate sale since the branch began this campaign on February 8. If our wall chart were up here, you would be able to see that I have a 100% record of actually being at my plant gate – no excused absence, but physically outside the plant gate at Lockheed in Burbank at 6:30 in the morning for fifteen weeks in a row.

“DEFENDING THE PARTY’S DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS. I was able to get my union to endorse the party’s lawsuit and the Political Rights Defense Fund over ten years ago. My union was the first labor organization in the United States to make such an endorsement, just a few weeks after our suit was filed. It was years before any other union officially endorsed our national lawsuit. In addition, I have gotten nearly 100 endorsements from union officials from among the largest unions in the state, and from Local, statewide, and international union officers.

“More recently. Our party was confronted with the challenge of the Gelfund/Pfaelzer lawsuit. Along with all the other comrades, I put in a lot of time and effort on this defense case. I was assigned to get speakers for our first emergency rally in March. On just a few days notice, I got six of the eight speakers including the statewide president of my local union, which represents over 10,000 workers in California. Just a few weeks ago, I arranged to have Robin Maisel, one of our party’s lawyers in the Gelfund/Pfaelzer case, speak to a plenary session of the statewide executive board of my union, a meeting with about 90 delegates present. When the PRDF Emergency Fund was announced, to help raise the enormous sums needed for our trial, I made a substantial pledge, and paid it in full and on time.

“I also arranged for Hector Marroquin to address my union, the first union meeting he ever spoke to as well as the first union to endorse his right to political asylum in the U.S.

“PARTY ELECTION CAMPAIGNS. In Comrade Mel Mason’s campaign for governor, I was among the top group of petitioners – those who collected over 200 signatures. When the state ruled Mel off the ballot, I was able to secure signatures from dozens of union officials to protest that violation of our democratic rights. This spring, I arranged to have Virginia Garza speak to the membership meeting of my union during her campaign for City Council. It was the only union meeting to which Virginia was invited.

This record of party-building work disproved the argument for expulsion: Walter cannot be trusted to carry out the line of the party in the mass movement. This review should verify the fat that the executive committee did not publicly warn me on the branch floor about indiscipline regarding the May 1, 1982 meeting on Poland, nor the October 1982 demonstration against Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. The plain facts of Los Angeles party recruitment and my relations with new members prove no consistent pattern of discussion of differences with new members. Not one of these motivations was given for expelling me hold up as being factually accurate.

PROGRAM

Why then, is expulsion so strongly pursued that a review has been called for after the branch did not approve the recommendation.

I have been singled out for this extreme penalty because of my political views, which are in full accord with the fundamental program of the Socialist Workers Party since its founding in 1938.

I joined the Socialist Workers Party because I agreed whole-heartedly with the basic principles of scientific socialism as formulated in its classic literature, such as the Communist Manifesto, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, State and Revolution, the April Thesis, The History of the Russian Revolution, and The Revolution Betrayed.

Also, I wholeheartedly agreed with the way our party applied the basic principles of Marxism in such documents as the American Theses and the Transitional Program (which was adopted by our party at its founding convention in 1938, and which has never been repealed by any national convention of the SWP since that time).

I enthusiastically agreed with and actively participated in the party’s work in the movement for social change of the 1960s and the 1970s, such as the anti-war, Black Chicano, Women’s liberation, student, gay and civil liberties movements. The principle arena of my party work over the past fifteen years has been the trade union movement, and I have already given you examples of how I carried out party assignments in the labor movement.

Like many in the current party leadership, I was inspired by, radicalized by, and was drawn to the Socialist Workers Party by the Cuban revolution. Today, I continue to be inspired by that revolution, and am enthusiastic about its extension into Nicaragua, Grenada, and Central America.

When I joined the SWP I agreed with, and today I still agree with, the Marxist concept that socialism must be constructed on an international basis or it cannot be constructed at all. The organizational form which has so far, and which continues today to embody this Marxist concept is the Fourth International

Throughout my years in our movement, I have supported, agreed with, and voted for, every single political resolution presented by the party leadership, from the day I joined, up to and including our last national convention, held in 1981.

However, since the 1981 SWP convention, the political line and organizational practices of the party have veered far away from the political line and organizational practices our party has stood for since its inception, and which drew me to and held me in the SWP.

I have developed differences with the current positions and course of the SWP leadership on a wide range of issues: dropping of the theory of permanent revolution, supporting capitalist regimes like that of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran and the military dictatorship in Argentina, not acting to support the Polish workers, and abstention from the concrete struggles which are actually going on in the United States today – including the movement in solidarity with the fighting peoples of Central America.

By its actions, speeches and writings, the party leadership has shown since our last convention that it has departed drastically from the SWP’s historic program and perspectives. Our program and these perspectives are being validated with each passing day as the class struggle unfolds in each of the three sectors of the world revolution.

Today, it is more clear than ever that the interests and struggles of working and oppressed peoples in the imperialist countries, in the workers’ states and in the colonial countries, are completely interlinked, and that an injury to one is an injury to all, and that conversely, that a victory for one is a victory for all.

The struggles of working people everywhere are organically and dialectically interrelated. They cannot be mechanical separated nor artificially counterposed to one another. This is the essence of the transitional approach, of the transitional program, and of the principles of Marxism upon which the Fourth International was and remains based.

In closing, let me say that I have spent my entire adult life building the Socialist Workers Party. I continue to believe in the same ideas I believed when I joined.

In its unsuccessful effort to convince the Los Angeles branch membership that I should be expelled, the executive committee went far beyond the specific event with which I was charged, in order to create the false impression that I have exhibited a consistent pattern of political indiscipline.

I was never warned about indiscipline in the cases cited, or in any other case. Furthermore, the executive committee even cited my votes in internal party meetings as evidence against me and as motivation for my expulsion. This clearly shows the political nature of the case against me.

The act for which I was charged was a mistake, which I admitted and accept. But looked at objectively it did no harm to the party, as was stated during the branch trial by branch members who voted to find me guilty, but voted against my expulsion. What I did was to have a brief political discussion with another member in the headquarters after a forum. On one has ever stated that anyone outside the party ever hear a word of what I said.

If this body decides to overturn the decision of the Los Angeles branch, which did not expel me, it will clearly be an attempt to expel, not me, really, but the political ideas in which I believe and the political ideas on which our movement was founded.

LETTER TO SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY NATIONAL COMMITTEE

July 26, 1983
Los Angeles, CA 90039
July 26, 1983

National Committee
Socialist Workers Party
New York, New York

Dear Comrades,

This is in reply to Larry Seigle's letter to me which was dated July 18, 1983.

"It is impossible for me to respond adequately or completely to the decision of the California State Committee to expel me from the party. This is because the Political Committee denied my request to see the reports and correspondence involved in the decision of the California State Committee to overturn the action of the Los Angeles branch (which did not expel me)."

Therefore, I am submitting the statement I made to the California State Committee for consideration by the National Committee. A few typographical errors in my statement have been corrected in the enclosed copy, but there have been no changes made in the content or wording.

I request that this statement, along with this letter, be distributed to the members of the National Committee at the plenum which will take up my appeal.

Comradely,
/s/Walter Lippmann

http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/fit/rpiiipurge.htm#section6

A FURTHER NOTE WRITTEN IN AUGUST 2005
WALTER LIPPMANN

In light of the 22 years which have passed since then, my thinking has evolved a good deal. When these events were happening and my membership in the Socialist Workers Party was being challenged and brought to and end, I thought that the leadership of the Socialist Workers Party was throwing away all of the Trotskyist thinking in which I'd been trained since joining in 1962, which I thought I was defending.

In the years since expulsion, I've come to a far different and much more positive evaluation of the Cuban revolution and the politics of its leadership, while the SWP, which dropped the label "Trotskyist" from its self-description, has retained much of the Trotskyist heritage. This puts it very much at odds with the politics of the Cuban Revolution. Today the Socialist Workers Party opposes the Bolivarian Revolution led by Chavez, calling him a "bonapartist". They said that the rescue of Elian Gonzalez was a "violation of democratic rights", though they never explained what "democratic rights" the Miami kidnappers were supposed to have. They described Michael Moore's anti-war documentary FAHRENHEIT 9/11 as a "pro-war" movie, and on and on and on. The SWP's attitude toward Venezuela's President Chavez is more or less identical to the one it took to Cuba's Fidel Castro over a year after Cuba's revolutionary triumph: http://www.walterlippmann/catc.html

While I have no regrets for the years I spent in that organization, where I learned a lot, accomplished a lot and met many good people, I'm very happy not to be a member of that group, or any other like it, since then. I still believe that an organization is needed to provide consciousness and direction to lead individual struggles and to unite them in the struggle for a socialist world. I'm not sure now of the precise nature, form and structure such a group requires in the United States of America today.

Expulsion trials for bogus reasons didn't start with mine nor was mine the last. Petty-minded and fearful political and organizational "leaders" invariably resort to organizational solutions when they're unable to argue politically against viewpoints with which they don't agree. They find organizational solutions to political problems.

The SWP thought of itself as a revolutionary vanguard party of the working class which set itself the goal of the organization of the working class in a struggle for state power against the mightiest capitalist class in the world.

Today the internet offers possibilities for discussion, debate and, at times, clarification of ideas. At the same time, by the nature of the medium, the internet offers the possibility for expression of the most extreme and irresponsible views by anyone who has a computer and internet access. We're told by the capitalist rulers that we are "free" and this notion is drummed into everyone all the time. We're free to purchase any one of dozens of brands of toilet paper. We're free to watch any of the national network news shows, even if they all have the same line on the main news events of the day, and often have the identical commercials which also are often broadcast at the same time. We may be "free" to switch from CBS to NBC to ABC, but oddly, in their "freedom", these capitalist news channels provide commercials at the same moment. I guess it's a form of mutual solidarity among themselves.

This seeming freedom on lesser matters, from toilet paper to the writing of discussion and debate documents help reinforce the illusion that we are all "free" because, apparently, we are, but such "freedom" is both limited and illusory. Anyone who doesn't have the money to pay the bill can have their services cut off.

Anyone who irritates a list moderator whose views don't coincide with the moderator's can find themselves the recipient of threats to be placed on moderation or unsubscribed entirely, just at the whim of a single individual with the power to do so. On the Cuba News list which I moderate, discussion and debate are subordinate to the information function. I don't care if posting subscribers don't agree with me, and, after all, I post an extremely wide range of material, for and against the Cuban Revolution. On my list, the main guidelines are courtesy and staying within the purposes of the list, mainly information, secondarily discussion

On the Marxmail list, discussion and debate are primary. It can be a problem on such a list as if a single individual sees fit to answer every message with which she/he disagrees, and to threaten to place on moderation or to unsubscribe those whose views or expressions he or she rejects. This is all the more significant when the individual happens to be the moderator and has the power to moderate or unsubscribe individuals from participation on the list. So far, I've not been unsubscribed, though the steady stream of warning notices I've received over time serves as a constant reminder that if my views are out of what the moderator considers acceptable bounds, the axe is at any time ready to fall.

Something similar to this took place in the Socialist Workers Party, USA, where a leader, or self-designated "leader" could create an atmosphere to discourage discussion, even of the most informal sort. Author Louis Proyect effectively described such an environment in his review of Barry Sheppard's interesting SWP history, "THE PARTY":

"About 3 months into the project, Sheppard had returned from a trip to Brussels where he was representing the SWP at Fourth International executive committee meetings. As I spotted him striding into the 3rd floor offices with a big Cuban cigar in his mouth, I began to walk toward him to shake hands and fill him in on the progress we had been making.

"After walking perhaps 10 feet in his direction, his secretary spotted me and literally jumped out of his chair to block my path. He told me that nobody spoke to Barry without an appointment. I was so shocked by his behavior and the power relationships it encapsulated that I began thinking right then about the need to separate myself from this crazy organization that was more hierarchical and more alienating than anything I had ever run into on Wall Street."
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism/2005-April/024475.html

On the Marxmail list, by contrast, no one pays any money. There are no written rules or membership requirements. Moderation is done basically by a single individual with the power of "virtual life" or "virtual death" over subscribers. Because of the freedom available to us under capitalism, anyone with a computer and internet access can issue virtually any pronouncement they want. They can pass judgement on who is a Real Marxist, who has Truly Assimilated the Lessons of Marxism, and who doesn't quite cut the muster. God, in her infinite wisdom, has provided us with a virtually-unlimited freedom, at least in this circumscribed environment.

Those individuals who are privileged to be able to debate, to discuss and to issue pronouncements on the Internet have a freedom unavailable to others in previous historical epochs. We can write virtually anything, hit "send", and our words are transmitted immediately all over the planet. Future generations will be in a position to evaluate and decide if we used this power wisely or not. Time will tell if history will absolve us.

It's a remarkable capacity and ought to be exercised with some restraint. A sense of modesty, of responsibility and occasionally, a bit of humor, can leaven an at times ponderous rhetorical environment.

This applies first of all to myself, which is why I'm fond of quoting psychologist Lonnie Barbach's advice, "when seeking fault, use a mirror, not a telescope." Everyone else is, of course, free to apply this philosophy as well, should they wish to do so. Or not.

Walter Lippmann
August 28, 2005