Papers: Weekly Worker: MistrustPapers: Weekly Worker: Mistrust
Click above to turn pageDealing with some of the feedback from my article A modest proposal.
Despite occassional initiatives by both of us to overcome our mutual alienation, I think it's fair to say Marcus and I never really hit it off.
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A few comments on Marcus Strom's letter (January 29) in reply to my article 'A modest proposal' (Weekly Worker January 15):
1. His objections that my proposals were "anarchist" and would "prevent the leadership from acting" were indeed said in a pub, but also repeated in group-wide emails.
2. I've never called him a Stalinist. He refers to an SMS message he received from a mutual friend reading: "Manny says you're too young to be a Stalinist". I was loyally defending him against the charge. The grounds of my defence, I'll admit, were perhaps unsophisticated, but it was my birthday, and we'd all been at the vodka.
3. "What a bastard I must be." Marcus, you mustn't be so hard on yourself.
4. I am not asking the aggregate to approve the PCC minutes "as a true record" - how indeed could we? I am asking them to approve the actions documented.
5. My proposal specifically excludes the minuting of information harmful to the party or identifiable individuals, so objections on security grounds are unnecessary.
6. As Marcus says, comrades may already raise any issue they wish at aggregate. My proposed addition to the aggregate agenda is merely a reminder that they have the right to do so. If they can be trusted not to waste the time of the aggregate with trivialities now, why should we fear that they will in the future? The idea that we should not rattle the members' cage with a reminder of the right (indeed, responsibility) to raise criticisms in case we wake them into doing so is, at best, very dodgy.
7. Marcus complains that I am provoking "organised mistrust". Interestingly, in One step forward, two steps back Lenin specifically defends the notion of "organised mistrust", provided it is applied by the whole of the organisation to any part of it, as in my proposal.
Manny Neira
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