SWP leadership sends ominous statement to Socialist Action

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retreat from its current course. If it does not, it will only discredit itself and do harm to the broader socialist and labor movements.

The following statement was issued by the Political Committee of Socialist Action on April 24, 1990.

On March 28, 1990, Socialist Action received an ominous letter from the Political Committee of the Socialist Workers Party. It contained grave threats, which, if carried out, would reintroduce into the workers' movement the Stalinist practice of using strong-arm methods to settle differences among organizations on the left.

The SWP letter was reprinted in an SWP Information Bulletin titled "Socialist Action Fink Book Campaign." It is the SWP response to a bulletin produced by suspended SWP member and former SWP National Chairman Malik Miah. Miah's bulletin documents his bureaucratic removal from the SWP and his political differences with the SWP's trade union policy. It has been distributed to SWP members and supporters in the United States and internationally.

The SWP Political Committee letter characterizes Socialist Action and Miah as "finks." The dictionary definition of a fink is a police informer or strikebreaker. Union militants have always regarded finks as class enemies who were to be dealt with accordingly. This is exactly the conclusion the SWP Political Committee draws, stating that Socialist Action members are not "to be treated as fellow workers."

The SWP Political Committee also states will not "accept" distribution of Miah's •The SWP political bulletin "Documentation on the Expulsion of Malik Miah from the Socialist Workers Party" to SWP members and supporters, nor the "soliciting of names and addresses" of such members and supporters by Socialist Action.

The SWP letter concludes with a final implied threat: "Socialist Action bears full responsibility for the consequences of any continuation of this course."

Socialist Action does not yet know what "consequences" the SWP Political Committee threatens us with, nor do we know what they mean by not "accepting" distribution of the Miah bulletin to SWP members and supporters. So far, the SWP has limited its actions to banning SA members from attending SWP public functions and election campaign headquarters and bookstores.

This, in itself, is bad enough, for such bans are a blow to the workers' movement as a whole. They restrict workers' democracy and foster the idea that political differences among organizations of the left should be settled by walling off organizations from each other rather than by comradely discussion and debate; that is, using organizational, and not political, methods.

Socialist Action rejects the false and harmful charges made against it by the SWP Political Committee. Our record in the workers' and socialist movements is sufficient refutation that we are not "outside the workers' movement"-to be dealt with as "finks."

We have written to the SWP to refute each and every charge falsely leveled against Miah and Socialist Action. In particular we have responded in detail to the SWP's false charge that Miah's bulletin, which uses the first names of some SWP members and the full names of public SWP leaders, constitutes a "hit list" for the government.

Miah's bulletin follows the same tradition of the SWP in regard to the use of members' names. Furthermore, the material published by Miah was first widely circulated by the SWP itself.

Socialist Action has defended—and will continue to defend—the SWP against every form of government intervention and attack. We have actively defended SWP member Mark Curtis against the government's frame-up conviction. The SWP's victory in its historic lawsuit against the U.S. government's COINTELPRO operation, and its subsequent victory in the Gelfand case, are victories for the entire workers' movement which we have enthusiastically hailed.

Hopefully, our response to the SWP will be sufficient to deter them from carrying out their implied threats.

Socialist Action believes that the SWP action, which takes place on the eve of its national convention, is designed to prevent a discussion inside the SWP of the political questions raised by Miah prior to his suspension from the party. The action is also designed to prevent the continuation of comradely discussions which have begun on an informal level between members of the two organizations over the past year or two.

With the recent events in Nicaragua, Eastern Europe, and the USSR, many SWP members have indicated a new interest in the Trotskyist program which the SWP has retreated from in the past decade. They have also indicated a need to reassess the positions adopted by the SWP over the past 11 years.

Implied threats of violence are no substitute for fraternal discussion of political differences. Rather, they are a sign of lack of confidence in one's ideas and fear of one's own membership's eagerness to hear all sides of a dispute.

The SWP Political Committee should retreat from its current course. If it does not, it will only discredit itself and do harm to the broader socialist and labor movements.

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