In October 1975 we were expelled from IS for our refusal to dissolve the Left Faction. Holding that a process of principled fusion was the only way to regroup the fragmented forces of Trotskyism, we entered into discussion with the Workers Fight grouping. The decision to open discussions with them was not a casual or chance one. In fact we had both independently adopted positions on key points of principle which divided us from the rest of the left (the general strike, abstention on the Common Market, and solidarity with all those fighting British [...]
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Certain programmatic differences remained unresolved — the nature of the 'Stalinist states', the causes of the ideological degeneration and organisational disintegration of the Fourth International since the Second World War. These were agreed as vital scientific questions to be debated in a non-factional manner. Tactical differences remained between the two groups: attitudes to work in the major reformist party and to work within TOM.
Apparent agreement existed on the need to redevelop and re-elaborate the 1938 Transitional Programme in relation to the new period of crisis opening up in the Seventies and the crisis of leadership in the working class and its vanguard nationally and internationally. This was seen as central to the tasks of building the revolutionary party, of building an anti-bureaucratic rank and file movement in the trade unions, and a left wing movement in the reformist party. The WF leadership claimed no differences existed on these questions. S. Matgamna agreed to produce a draft action programme. On production the draft was subjected to serious criticism on the I-CL Political Committee and National Committee.
At this point what was to become a feature of the internal life of the I-CL first manifested itself. The ex-WF PC members held a private meeting and submitted charges to us of unprincipled combinationism over the action programme, of orchestrating 'a cry for perspectives', and organising a personal vendetta against S. Matgamna. Rebutting the charges, we proposed a political debate on our view of the action programme and the manifesto that Matgamna had produced.
Such discussion was soured by new charges of 'catastrophism' and 'programme fetishism'. D. Stocking and D. Hughes produced position papers on the new period of capitalist crisis and the crisis of [...]
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In the pre-conference perspectives discussion, differences emerged principally on the orientation to the reformist party and the priority of this work relative to work in the trade unions. Hughes and Stocking produced perspectives documents arguing their position, M. Thomas produced a document weighted towards work aimed at the reformist party. Matgamna who was commissioned to write a document arguing for such a major turn, failed to produce it.
The differences between the two sides were political. The compatibility — or otherwise — of the positions within one organisation depended on a serious commitment from the ex-WF leadership to an honest and open debate without which no political fusion could be achieved. The conference itself, when held, was to mark the end of the fusion process, the ironing out of common perspectives and the end of federal relations on leading committees.
Less than three weeks before the conference, S. Matgamna and A. Hornung produced a slanderous document aimed at postponing the conference on the grounds of the 'a-political factionalism, cliquism etc,' of Hughes and Stocking and characterising them as wishing to turn the I-CL into a 'semi-syndicalist sect'. Further charges were made of wishing to split the I-CL and enter the IMG or the Workers League.
We agreed to postpone the conference to September on the condition that debates on the political issues took precedence over charges of the type mentioned above. This, however, did not occur. Matgamna did not produce the document on the reformist party. Thomas produced a document reproducing most of the old charges. Only after this did our PC members reply in writing to the charges and express serious doubts as to the success of the fusion.
Two of them attending a PC meeting were [...]
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[...] their willingness to abide by these decisions. This we refused to do, saying that the refusal of the ex-WF leaders to debate political issues, the repeated slanders and the determination of the ex-WF leaders to make them the issue on their side of the debate, put the fusion in question. A meeting of the supporters of this position would be held within a week. However, we accepted the 'normal discipline' of the I-CL, despite repeated charges that we were splitters and were planning to join the Workers League or the IMG.
Two days after this the three ex-WF members of the PC were suspended at a PC meeting to which they were not invited. The Matgamna group thus organised a split which they hoped would only involve Hughes, Stocking and King and a few comrades in London.
They have been disappointed — despite claims of a 'desertion' of between 12 and 20 individuals, some 38 comrades (80 per cent of the Workers Power grouping, all of its PC members, 12 out of 14 of its NC members) have decided to terminate what remains of the fusion. They have done this because the Matgamna leadership had hijacked the leading bodies and had obstructed and undermined all attemptes at open and honest debate. To have gone to the conference would have been to recognise the Matgamna grouping's claim that the fusion was successful and completed.
It should be known on the left that the Matgamna leadership has shown itself politically and organisationally incapable of maintaining a democratic centralist regime, thus turning the I-CL into a hardened sect. It should be known that far from being a factor in 'breaking the log-jam on the left', Matgamna's organisation is one of the most obdurate though not the most significant, logs in the jam. Workers Power will fight for its own politics in Britain and internationally. We are committed to debate, [...]
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