Stephen Owens elucidates the conditions of his departure from Socialist Appeal, the British section of the International Marxist Tendency, revealing the pitfalls of building insular, sectarian organizations.
Jenny Holzer, ‘Truisms [Abuse of Power Comes as no Surprise],’ 1994
The current state of the International Marxist Tendency appears, particularly to those who have recently been recruited in its British section, as being undeniably positive. The organization appears to be growing at a faster rate than before, and there is an immense energy and determination running through the organization at the moment. This in part reflects a much wider positive development, the immense growth in the appeal of communism toward the youth in particular, and toward the working class more generally. However, this conceals a number of severe problems in the organization which have to be confronted if the IMT is to be an international that is truly the vanguard of the working class.
Last year, a scandal in Fightback, the Canadian section of the IMT, occurred, with a now ex-comrade called Jamie’s blog post alleging that the organization was mishandling abuse cases. In response, Fightback argued that this was an existential threat to the organization itself and sought to demonize Jamie and all those who were anything but entirely supportive of Fightback’s response. They claimed, contrary to a growing amount of evidence, that all of these cases were handled entirely appropriately, and that the abusers were expelled from the organization promptly.
This only becomes more troubling when you recognize that this is the latest in a significant history of similar allegations occurring in the British, Swiss, Taiwanese and previously in the Canadian sections, among, I suspect, other sections. And now, with the expulsion of Alex Grant, one of the founders of the IMT’s Canadian section, the idea that the account of the Canadian section, which featured the intervention of Grant at many stages, can be treated as presumptively true is increasingly difficult to argue.
On this basis I am resigning as a member of the organization. I don’t do this lightly, as a branch secretary and someone who strongly believes in the need for a revolutionary party of communists. I do, however, feel that the events discussed below constitute a total failure of the organizsation on what should be basic questions. On this basis, I find it very difficult to fulfill what responsibilities I have as a secretary, or on a basic level, to recruit people into the organization.
This will likely appear as a surprise to many of my comrades. I would hope the nature of the events themselves, and in particular the way in which the leadership in the US and Canadian sections, backed by the IEC, will explain my concern about who I voice these concerns to. I also have little faith in the democratic processes of the organization in this regard.
What Happened in Fightback?
First, we must begin with what has happened in Canada. To be very clear, what I do not aim to do is give a full account of everything that has been alleged to have occurred last year in Fightback. There are detailed accounts from ex-members that are far more comprehensive, all of which I would urge you to read critically, above all else the blog post from an ex-comrade named Jamie titled “Why I Left Fightback”. So, to begin, the contents of this post described three abuse cases within the organization, two of which involved Jamie themselves as the victim and the other being a friend. The allegations concerned three relatively senior members and consisted of severe transphobic sexual harassment and subsequent bullying of the victim, severe domestic violence, and rape respectively. In each case, Jamie alleged that the process in attending each of these three cases was at best unclear and at worst seemingly hostile to the victims.
Amongst the specific allegations concerned a meeting between Alex Grant, another CC member Marco La Grotta, Jamie, and a branch chair in Toronto who was also a social worker. Jamie alleged that this meeting devolved into Grant browbeating them and the social worker comrade. This treatment reduced the social worker to tears, and Grant also forced Jamie to recount experiences of rape and domestic violence in relation to what was described as Incident Two in Jamie’s letter. This was despite the meeting having initially been organized to discuss Incident One. Another was that Grant attempted to push a victim into a “restorative justice solution” which would have allowed their rapist to remain within the organization, on the basis of a lie that the rapist was entirely remorseful. Grant was alleged to have said of Jamie, “you aren’t letting people get better”, in relation to their abusers.
In each of the three cases described, the process was alleged to be lengthy, unclear to the victims, and with none of the cases ending in more than a suspension with the possibility of re-admission for “proof of having changed”. The statement also contained some more overtly political critiques of the organization, claiming that Ted Grant had argued that “homosexuality was a capitalist aberration that would disappear under socialism”, for instance, though this was not the main content of the statement.
Fightback responded initially in an internal bulletin by claiming that they were either unaware of the allegations made in Jamie’s statement, or that they had dealt with all of these cases perfectly, and those cases they hadn’t acted upon they weren’t aware of. Along with this was the claim that Jamie’s statement was an “identity politics-motivated attack” on the organization, primarily based on the political criticisms. It was this response initially which led to an opposition developing in a significant section of the membership of the Canadian and US sections. A few days later, a public statement was released which ramped up this aspect of the response, arguing that to accept Jamie’s statement and the response of a group of comrades to the statement would be to lay the groundwork for something akin to the FBI’s COINTELPRO operation within the Black Panthers, or the antisemitism smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn. This launched a campaign to discredit Jamie as a “postmodernist trying to destroy the biggest Marxist organization in the country”.
They then responded to the aforementioned opposition by holding aggregates to discuss the account of the leadership and, consciously or inadvertently, isolate the opposition which had developed across branch lines in many cases. They also circulated a “model resolution” for branches to vote on which essentially was a vote of confidence in the leadership. This also rejected calls for an emergency conference to recall the existing leadership.
They also had the social worker comrade, who initially joined the meeting with Grant and La Grotta to support Jamie, put out a different account of the meeting. This, in short, claimed that Grant had not acted inappropriately, and that Jamie had refused to discuss the issue at hand and instead attacked the organization politically. Following this, the US section, despite initially being more reluctant to support the Canadian leadership, and the International Secretariat, supported the actions of Fightback’s leadership.
The issue with all of this is how little of it is consistent with existing evidence. In fact, all of these cases, in exactly the same terms as in the statement, were detailed in a letter to the EC by Jamie, the social worker comrade, and three other members in February 2022. The letter argued that the disciplinary process in Fightback was inadequate and unclear, so any claim that some of the details of these cases were not made known to the EC would be thoroughly incorrect.
Fightback claimed that all of these cases saw the perpetrators swiftly and appropriately dealt with. In this case:
- Why was Incident Three in Jamie’s letter, initially raised to the EC in December 2021, not “resolved” until April 2022 – only resulting in a year’s suspension with the possibility of returning after getting clearance from a therapist? Why was the individual involved allowed to continue working in the organization whilst under investigation for rape?
- Why was Mitch Thompson (the accused in Incident One, who sexually harassed Jamie previously) planned to do a talk on LGBT liberation – despite the organization being aware of the entirely transphobic nature of his sexual harassment of Jamie, before being pulled once the statement was released?
- Why was he then suddenly suspended from the organization and removed from the CC and his role leading student work after the statement was published, and how can this be anything other than an admission that they had attempted to minimize what he had done until it became untenable after the statement?
- If the social worker comrades’ account was correct, then why does Jamie have message receipts showing the anger of the social worker comrade at the conduct of Grant after the meeting? And why did this same social worker comrade message Jamie in the aftermath of their initial statement saying that they “share similar critiques and problems” and that on Alex Grant, Jamie “knew I found it unacceptable?”
Put simply, there are a host of serious questions that have to be asked about Fightback’s approach. How can any of these individuals be given the opportunity to return to an organization like this? In all three cases, if we go by Jamie’s account, this was hardly the first time the individuals involved had engaged in similarly unacceptable behavior. The idea that the safety of the vast majority of comrades within the organization should be placed behind the possibility of, in some cases, serial abusers becoming entirely changed individuals is farcical.
To make matters worse, it is troubling enough what is admitted in the official accounts in some cases. First of all, Fightback admitted in the internal bulletin that branch meetings continued to be held at the house of someone being investigated for rape. They also admitted that they argued that a form of “restorative justice” was appropriate to punish a rapist, because of “limited resources”, immediately before the resignations or expulsions of dozens of members in Canada and the US, which surely will have stretched these already limited resources. They now proudly display Mitch Thompson as a leading member of the organization, who repeatedly sexually harassed Jamie, even saying he would self-harm if they refused his advances. He then tried to socially isolate and ridicule Jamie within the branch they both attended. Again, the idea that individuals like this should remain within the organization seems entirely unjustifiable.
Another issue concerns Alex Grant. Whilst more generally the organization views the recent expulsion of Grant as unrelated to the events last year, I think it is hard to believe that with any certainty, particularly given the allegations made in Jamie’s letter, and the nature of Grant’s expulsion, which occurred in part because of an allegation made by a member. At the very least this surely requires a reinvestigation, in part because of the significant role played by Grant not just in the three cases in Jamie’s letter, but in the section for over two decades now.
It is also notable what occurred after a group of comrades in Fightback and Socialist Revolution, the US section, gathered in support of the ex-comrade. An opposition formed – many of whom were cadres within their regions or nationally in the US and Canadian sections. This was primarily in the aftermath of the internal bulletin on Jamie’s statement. An initial group organized within a Discord server, and others drew similar conclusions independently in different sections. This group of comrades were portrayed as a “secret faction”, acting outside of the democratic channels of the organization. Seemingly, there was never at any stage consideration of why these comrades, many of them highly experienced, felt the need to organize in this manner.
Even in 2023, entire branches in Portland, Pittsburgh, and the Bay Area were kicked out of the organization, in some cases with no explanation given to the wider membership. Notably, the Chicago branch was told after Mitch Thompson was publicly reintroduced into Fightback leadership in November 2022 that they should leave the organization if they disagreed. In most of these cases, this came after discussing these issues through the democratic channels. This blatantly undermines this argument against the faction, who cannot now feel anything but complete vindication in ignoring these structures.
In Portland in particular, the branch objected to the placing of the 2018 World Congress document “Marxism vs. Identity Politics” as a central document to be read prior to joining, which formed a part of the reaction to what had occurred a few months prior in Canada. This was a branch who had initially accepted the response of the leadership to the open statement, but were disturbed by how this response had developed. In doing so, they placed a host of amendments to the documents for the 2023 National Congress, some of which were related directly to the scandal in 2022. This was also a consistent theme of discussion between the branch and the center for months previously. Along with this, they called for the recall of their CC contact, who they had spent months essentially battling with.
Now there are many things in these documents and amendments that personally I strongly disagree with, but the way this was handled by the leadership was clearly wrong. They had in fact initially accepted the organization’s version of events in Canada, and yet were still treated as enemies of the organization. Even two months prior to the conference, the same CC contact had attempted to have the branch dissolved, and in the immediate aftermath of the conference Portland was effectively delisted from the organization in one email.
This speaks to a total closing of ranks on this issue. Any opposition to the account of Fightback’s EC necessarily became petit-bourgeois and influenced by identity politics. Even if this were true, which I would argue is fanciful, the idea that this leads therefore into the witch-hunt atmosphere the US and Canadian leadership whipped up last year is bizarre. Insofar as these comrades were incorrect, patient and open discussion was necessary. In my opinion, it would have also been necessary to correct the initial account, which seems implausible even where it isn’t contradicted by factual evidence. Instead, we had the leadership argue that “it would be better to lose half the organization than bend to identity politics” – a mad sectarian delusion that allowing discussion on this issue amounted to “bending to” identity politics.
What are the implications of this?
Now, of course, discussing this has to be linked to a wider perspective as to why this happened. An open, truly democratic centralist organization does not end up in this position. It does not attempt to subdue what was hardly a grouping formed around disagreement on a fundamental question. It instead seeks to bring these comrades back into the organization’s democratic structures and engage in genuinely rigorous, open discussion of the issues themselves. That this did not occur is ultimately a product of a sectarian approach to these disputes, an inability to have genuine internal debate involving rank-and-file members and the reliance on organizational tricks to maintain the control of leadership. In this regard, unfortunately far too many Communist groups have fallen into this same trap, and while I would argue Socialist Appeal and the IMT are by no means the worst for this, these issues are certainly present.
In short, I would argue the errors that occurred last year had their root in the fundamental method of party-building that the IMT and many other organizations rely on – namely that of a small, politically homogeneous organization. This of course has some positive implications, represented in the IMT in the effort to rigorously politically educate, something which has created a relatively broad base of cadres that makes the current turn possible in the British section. The basis for achieving this however is, in practice, total subordination to a very narrow set of perspectives, based on the classic sect type of the lone theorist with the answer to every question. Whilst there are differences in each of these cases, where the SWP had Tony Cliffe and the Socialist Party has Peter Taaffe, the IMT had Ted Grant and now has Alan Woods. From top to bottom, this is reinforced through leadership, teaching the overwhelmingly fairly inexperienced new comrades in one form of Trotskyism. I am expected to do this as a secretary, having been taught by the secretary in the first branch I joined, who was taught by their secretary who is now a member of the CC, and so on and so on.
The often-thorough theory that the organization produces in its publications is turned from a very useful contribution to a wider movement into a form of doctrine. Discussion on most issues of theory and perspectives becomes the effort to subdue other tendencies rather than an actual discussion itself. Inevitably this doesn’t produce cadres in any sort of rounded way, but produces communists who are experts in regurgitating the perspective of the organization. When disagreements inevitably occur, there is a genuine need for open discussion of the political difference that clarify. In these organizations, this turns into a purity spiral where the inevitable outcome is a split, and the waste of existing cadre, as we saw last year. The homogeneity which was a source of unity in one moment becomes its opposite the next.
And indeed, all of this cannot be separated from the abuse cases that caused the crisis last year. It is important to note first of all that abuse of this kind is endemic throughout capitalist society. This being said, when a leadership is largely not likely to be easy to hold to account, as is the case in the IMT, and they are consistently portrayed as an almost exclusive source of political understanding, this is ripe for exploitation of all kinds, including abuse. This is not solely a problem of Marxist organizations, but the result of the domination of a bureaucratic leadership.
A Marxist organization should be incomparable to a bourgeois or reformist party, but instead you see the same familiar pattern. If anything, the isolation created by the small, isolated propaganda group and the tendency for centralization to in practice mean putting faith in leadership over anything else, intensifies the abuse. Leadership is not just given authority but is put in such a position on the basis of understanding “the true ideas of Marxism” and teaching new, inexperienced layers – often those who have just joined university and have few other social ties. Inevitably, this is ripe for abuse. This can be seen in the whole host of similar stories in organizations of this type, from the “Comrade Delta” scandal in the UK SWP, the scandals which led to the dissolution of the International Socialist Organisation and the Maoist group Red Guard in the US, and of course the numerous allegations in the IMT, from 2018 in York University to Taiwan just this year. It is no surprise that in every allegation I have seen within IMT sections, the same story as the cases in Fightback essentially repeats; of a comrade in a leadership role taking advantage or trying to take advantage of young and sincere but inexperienced communists, feeding off of a genuine respect and admiration for those who are leading them.
And the responses are almost all the same as well, of denial, accusations of malicious intent and then the doubling down of the leadership. The problem when looking at the crisis in Fightback last year was of course not merely that abuse occurred but how it was handled.
It became a situation where if you did not take the Canadian EC at their word regarding the scandal you were asked to leave the organization and barred from discussion without a member of leadership present. Rather than dealing with this promptly and openly in order to win back those who spoke out about the misconduct of Grant and the Canadian EC as a whole, the repression of open discussion and the total condemnation of ex-members was the result.
This is not to say the response was purely organizational. The opposition to the IMT’s response to “Why I Left Fightback” was argued to be a “political attack” based on “alien class ideas”, and therefore entirely inadmissible. First of all, we as Marxists must genuinely consider the effects these events had in Canada and the US last year, and question how it is that our politics may be contributing to these patterns of abuse cases. We must also consider why these cases were being handled at best retroactively by a leadership that considers taking up preventative measures “identity politics”. Irrespective of the political arguments made by some ex-members, the issue is not something that can be written off as purely the manifestation of a different set of class interests.
In addition, what does it matter if it is a political attack? A revolutionary organization has to be able to respond to the criticisms of its membership or external society openly but without compromising on political content. Neither Lenin nor Trotsky in the early years of the Comintern, in far tougher conditions and with a lot more to lose, resorted as readily to the bureaucratic methods of the Fightback EC.
Finally, how is it that a wave of members, some of whom had been members for a decade or longer, had suddenly at the flick of a switch become “petit-bourgeois wreckers?” This in practice was a desperate and cynical attempt to create an “enemy within”.
The crisis last year also highlighted issues with many of the rules that characterise the IMT’s conception of democratic centralism. Should it actually be that discussions on abuse cases, or indeed anything else, be entirely internal in all circumstances? Surely an open discussion of these issues matters if the IMT is to be a major part of the wider workers’ movement globally. In addition, how can an actual faction not be created “secretly” if discussion is initially unable to be had outside of the branch? These rules, when applied in this manner and in this context, appear hard to justify beyond to make it as hard as possible for opposition to be organized, discuss their perspectives, and actually win over anyone beyond the small groups in their branches, outside of indirectly being able to do so the month or two before National Congress.
These rules are also in practice broken frequently. How many comrades have defended the IMT on social media and in the process discussed decisions in the party that were meant to be internal? How many times have groups organized around certain issues and perspectives outside of branch, just not on the basis of changing the positions of the organization? These rules are not just needless in the current circumstances, but in reality have very little to do with ensuring unified action, which any member can do whilst being part of a minority faction in a functioning democratic organization.
Ultimately, this also is the kind of shortcut which unfortunately characterizes far too much of the modern Marxist left. There is a logic to the building of organizations on which unity is based not just on common action and general direction, but of effectively a homogenous class of cadre whose task is to educate the next layer in a single theoretical perspective. This is viewed as a sort of Bolshevism which skips now unnecessary stages in the development of that organization. The primary problem with this is, of course, that what are apparently unnecessary stages in the development of previous revolutionary parties are in fact essential to preserve the gains of these organizations, let alone have them lead the working class in a revolution. Actual discussion between different perspectives as open, recognized factions is essential; I would argue the Bolsheviks would not have been the force they were without it. Discussion within an organization can only be clarifying if it is actually allowed to happen, is understood by the wider membership and is not on the basis of the correct position being essentially pre-ordained before most discussion even begins for the average member.
All in all, the events in Canada last year have very significant implications for the IMT and can be generalized for much of the wider Marxist left. On this basis, I have put forward a small set of proposals around which I would argue comrades should organize within the IMT. These concern primarily the scandal in Fightback last year, and the internal and external approach of the organization. This may be argued as being an inward look when the organization needs to be built – this claim I would thoroughly reject. The question of how the organization functions cannot be slurred over more generally, and the events of last year placed this question at the forefront. The abuse cases themselves and the way they were then handled by leadership were expressions of the fundamental weakness of this method of party-building, as similar scandals have been expressions of the same weakness for every other group of this broad type. Therefore, I would argue that alternatives have to be considered. The demands would be the following:
- To open an investigation into how the leadership of Fightback handled this crisis, ideally composed of a group of comrades from other sections. Previous allegations made towards individuals in the British, Pakistani, Taiwanese, Swiss and Canadian sections should also have investigations opened or reopened, where the individuals implicated remain in the IMT. The beginning of this investigation and its outcome should be publicly announced. All internal and external statements on the Fightback allegations should remain or be published but given a disclaimer explaining first that these events are being investigated again, and then the outcome of the new investigation when it has finished.
- That all of the perpetrators of acts described in Jamie’s letter be permanently expelled.
- That factions within the organization be allowed to organize outside of branches, and to exist publicly, unless there is a genuine necessity that can be argued against either of these things being allowed (immense state repression for instance)
- That all who left or were expelled in relation to the Fightback crisis in all sections of the IMT be publicly offered the opportunity to return to the organization.
- That the situation with Alex Grant be communicated publicly, and for his actions in particular be heavily scrutinized within any reinvestigation.
- The introduction of a revised “norms of conduct” document to be discussed in the branches. This should explain in precise terms the justification for certain rules and the processes of the organization. Whilst this is covered briefly in the joining documents, a more detailed explanation is necessary both to hold leadership to an agreed standard and actually facilitate debate on a proper footing. This should also relate in particular to disciplinary questions, such as allegations of abuse.
Finally, to quote Alan Woods in his biography of Ted Grant, The Permanent Revolutionary:
The oldest trick in the book is to describe an opposition as people who wish to destroy the organization and appeal to the Party to “unite” against an alleged “external threat”. They played on the comrades’ sense of loyalty. The comrades had been psychologically prepared by years of fighting to defend the organization against the Labour bureaucracy, and the leadership cynically based themselves on this natural desire of the comrades to unite to “defend the organization.”
