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Special pages :
Letter to the Executive Committee, Fourth International, February 20, 1940
| Author(s) | Leon Trotsky |
|---|---|
| Written | 20 February 1940 |
Factionalism and the IEC
Dear Comrades:
The coming minority convention in Cleveland, twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth of this month, can become decisive for the question of the unity of our North American section. We the undersigned believe that the Executive Committee has the duty to intervene immediately in the internal fight with the purpose of saving the unity of the party. This purpose must be absolutely clear to all the members of the Executive Committee independently of their individual sympathies or solidarity with the [SWP] majority or minority.
We propose an immediate meeting of the Executive Committee and we submit to this meeting the following propositions:
1. The Executive Committee delegates two of its members to the minority caucus in Cleveland with the mandate to act commonly in favor of unity of the party.
2. The minority, as the majority, should take the obligation to safeguard the unity of the party independently of the relationship of forces at the next convention.
3. The Executive Committee proposes to both parts its services in order to elaborate organizational measures which should dissipate the apprehensions of the minority of being treated as second-class party members, etc. (see the letter of Comrade Abern).
No minority can pretend to have in the party the same rights as the majority, but in view of the exceptional situation created by the sharp fight and profound divergences, the future minority can ask for certain reasonable guarantees for its ideological existence and we believe that the future majority should grant these reasonable guarantees in order to prevent a premature and not unavoidable split.
The delegates of the Executive Committee should act in this spirit. Not only in the Cleveland convention of the minority, but of course, also in the decisive meeting of the majority caucus, or at the majority convention if they convoke one.
It is necessary to act urgently and with full energy.
With comradely greetings,