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Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971
1971-02-19 "Ain't I a Woman?" Page 10
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LETTER FROM SEATTLE We received the following letter from SEATTLE RADICAL WOMEN, 2940 36th Avenue South, Seattle, Washington 98144 Dear Sisters: In the past two weeks, we have received several statements concerning the YSA-SWP's participation in the women's movement. Some of the statements vary widely in their factual accounting of specific incidents, but one thing is clear: It is now YSA-SWP policy to actively participate in the women's movement. Many women's organizations have basic and principled differences with the YSA-SWP; certainly that is the case with Seattle Radical Women. Among them are sharp differences on the interconnections between women's liberation and other struggles for liberation both here and in other countries, on the role of women and the women's movement in revolutionary struggle, and on the nature and importance of democratic and straightforward organizational methods. THE SINGLE-ISSUE "VANGUARD" Several of the founding members of Seattle Radical Women left the SWP in 1964 - along with the entire Seattle branch - precisely because of the SWP's consistent refusal to deal with women's issues in any but the most token fashion, their opportunism and reformism in the black movement, and finally, because of the deterioration of internal democracy and Leninist organizational practices of the party in general. These were women who had spent as much as 30 years of their lives as SWP members, spokesmen, and organizers. They left the party after several years of intense theoretical writing and debate inside the party over these issues, and only when it became clear that the entire direction of the party was away from principled politics of any kind. Documentation of this split, and the theoretical writing by the Seattle branch that led to the split, are available from the Freedom Socialist Party, which was later formed by the former Seattle branch of the SWP. After the split, the SWP-YSA imported a new cadre to build a new organization here in Seattle. In the years following the split, they have staunchly maintained that women have no special role in the revolutionary movement, that an independent women's movement would be divisive, and that since our liberation cannot be achieved under capitalism anyway, we should wait until "after the revolution" to attempt it. The new YSA-SWP also claimed that they had "no problem" with male chauvinism in their own organization. Now, presented with the fact of a mass women's movement, and in the face of a declining anti-war movement, the "vanguard party" is simply transferring its policy from the anti-war movement to the women's movement. This does not indicate any change in basic direction on their part, nor does it imply a significant theoretical change in their view of the women's movement. The women's movement is now "acceptable" to the YSA-SWP because it can serve as a feeder movement into the general revolutionary struggle, i.e. their own organizations, and because it is clear that the movement must end if they are to have even an ounce of credibility to anyone. The policy of SWP-led anti-war movement was to maintain a mass movement at its lowest common denominator, to resist any attempts to raise the political consciousness of the movement as a whole, and to confine it to a single-issue rather than recognizing the fundamental nature of the interconnections between racism, sexism, the exploitation of workers, and imperialism. Numbers of bodies at demonstrations were seen as more significant than the political consciousness that was developed among people who were against the war. But coupled with this single-issue policy for the movement as a whole was an intensive recruitment of more politically advanced individuals. This political schizophrenia carried out by a powerful and well-organized national apparatus, was the prime force of the moderate and respectable--and now virtually defunct--single issue anti-war movement. We believe that this method of organizing, and the analysis it flows from, is as wrong for the women's movement as it was for the anti-war movement. PRINCIPLED POLITICS, PRINCIPLED ORGANIZATION But we are disturbed by the alleged threat of YSA-SWP "takeover" of the women's movement. The "threat" is, we believe, due not only to the historical opportunism and maneuver- [hand drawing]the family ism of the YSA-SWP, but also to the lack of organizational clarity and consistency of most women's organizations. We have had no problem with YSA members entering our organization because our program delineates our founding principles: (1) that the woman question is a first-priority political issue of world historical importance, (2) that women, and most particularly black, brown and working women, will (and already have) play a vanguard role in the American revolutionary struggle, and (3) that there is an integral and basic interconnection between women's liberation and all other struggles for liberation, since the most oppressed half of every oppressed race and class is composed of our sisters. Neither the YSA nor the SWP can claim to agree with that program, and since our organization structure stipulates agreement on program as the basis for membership, none of them would bother even to apply. The conflict between the YSA-SWP and many women's organizations is, we think a conflict between the opportunist and manipulative organizational methods that are the result of the opportunist political program of the YSA-SWP on the one hand, and groups of women with no clear program or organization on the other. The vulnerability of these groups to political and/or organizational domination by the YSA-SWP--or anyone else, for that matter--is the result of their own failure to organize themselves in a serious fashion. This failure results not only in the vulnerability of such loose-knit groups to wild changes in direction as new people join them, but also in endless paralysis when there is no agreed-upon method of resolving internal differences about program and policy changes. Whether or not these issues--of organizational seriousness and programmatic integrity--are raised by the intervention of the YSA-SWP, it is still essential to the growth of the women's movement that they be dealt with and resolved. Our organizational methods reflect our politics, just as the YSA-SWP's organizational practices reflect their politics. If we are serious in our belief that women are a a vanguard force, and serious about the priority of winning the liberation of our sex, then it is our responsibility to express that seriousness and determination through our respect for organizational honesty and consistency. Only then can we really fulfill the vanguard function of political leadership that the movement as a whole so desperately needs. Yours in struggle, Jill Severn for Seattle Radical Women Page 10 Vol 1 No 12 Ain't I
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LETTER FROM SEATTLE We received the following letter from SEATTLE RADICAL WOMEN, 2940 36th Avenue South, Seattle, Washington 98144 Dear Sisters: In the past two weeks, we have received several statements concerning the YSA-SWP's participation in the women's movement. Some of the statements vary widely in their factual accounting of specific incidents, but one thing is clear: It is now YSA-SWP policy to actively participate in the women's movement. Many women's organizations have basic and principled differences with the YSA-SWP; certainly that is the case with Seattle Radical Women. Among them are sharp differences on the interconnections between women's liberation and other struggles for liberation both here and in other countries, on the role of women and the women's movement in revolutionary struggle, and on the nature and importance of democratic and straightforward organizational methods. THE SINGLE-ISSUE "VANGUARD" Several of the founding members of Seattle Radical Women left the SWP in 1964 - along with the entire Seattle branch - precisely because of the SWP's consistent refusal to deal with women's issues in any but the most token fashion, their opportunism and reformism in the black movement, and finally, because of the deterioration of internal democracy and Leninist organizational practices of the party in general. These were women who had spent as much as 30 years of their lives as SWP members, spokesmen, and organizers. They left the party after several years of intense theoretical writing and debate inside the party over these issues, and only when it became clear that the entire direction of the party was away from principled politics of any kind. Documentation of this split, and the theoretical writing by the Seattle branch that led to the split, are available from the Freedom Socialist Party, which was later formed by the former Seattle branch of the SWP. After the split, the SWP-YSA imported a new cadre to build a new organization here in Seattle. In the years following the split, they have staunchly maintained that women have no special role in the revolutionary movement, that an independent women's movement would be divisive, and that since our liberation cannot be achieved under capitalism anyway, we should wait until "after the revolution" to attempt it. The new YSA-SWP also claimed that they had "no problem" with male chauvinism in their own organization. Now, presented with the fact of a mass women's movement, and in the face of a declining anti-war movement, the "vanguard party" is simply transferring its policy from the anti-war movement to the women's movement. This does not indicate any change in basic direction on their part, nor does it imply a significant theoretical change in their view of the women's movement. The women's movement is now "acceptable" to the YSA-SWP because it can serve as a feeder movement into the general revolutionary struggle, i.e. their own organizations, and because it is clear that the movement must end if they are to have even an ounce of credibility to anyone. The policy of SWP-led anti-war movement was to maintain a mass movement at its lowest common denominator, to resist any attempts to raise the political consciousness of the movement as a whole, and to confine it to a single-issue rather than recognizing the fundamental nature of the interconnections between racism, sexism, the exploitation of workers, and imperialism. Numbers of bodies at demonstrations were seen as more significant than the political consciousness that was developed among people who were against the war. But coupled with this single-issue policy for the movement as a whole was an intensive recruitment of more politically advanced individuals. This political schizophrenia carried out by a powerful and well-organized national apparatus, was the prime force of the moderate and respectable--and now virtually defunct--single issue anti-war movement. We believe that this method of organizing, and the analysis it flows from, is as wrong for the women's movement as it was for the anti-war movement. PRINCIPLED POLITICS, PRINCIPLED ORGANIZATION But we are disturbed by the alleged threat of YSA-SWP "takeover" of the women's movement. The "threat" is, we believe, due not only to the historical opportunism and maneuver- [hand drawing]the family ism of the YSA-SWP, but also to the lack of organizational clarity and consistency of most women's organizations. We have had no problem with YSA members entering our organization because our program delineates our founding principles: (1) that the woman question is a first-priority political issue of world historical importance, (2) that women, and most particularly black, brown and working women, will (and already have) play a vanguard role in the American revolutionary struggle, and (3) that there is an integral and basic interconnection between women's liberation and all other struggles for liberation, since the most oppressed half of every oppressed race and class is composed of our sisters. Neither the YSA nor the SWP can claim to agree with that program, and since our organization structure stipulates agreement on program as the basis for membership, none of them would bother even to apply. The conflict between the YSA-SWP and many women's organizations is, we think a conflict between the opportunist and manipulative organizational methods that are the result of the opportunist political program of the YSA-SWP on the one hand, and groups of women with no clear program or organization on the other. The vulnerability of these groups to political and/or organizational domination by the YSA-SWP--or anyone else, for that matter--is the result of their own failure to organize themselves in a serious fashion. This failure results not only in the vulnerability of such loose-knit groups to wild changes in direction as new people join them, but also in endless paralysis when there is no agreed-upon method of resolving internal differences about program and policy changes. Whether or not these issues--of organizational seriousness and programmatic integrity--are raised by the intervention of the YSA-SWP, it is still essential to the growth of the women's movement that they be dealt with and resolved. Our organizational methods reflect our politics, just as the YSA-SWP's organizational practices reflect their politics. If we are serious in our belief that women are a a vanguard force, and serious about the priority of winning the liberation of our sex, then it is our responsibility to express that seriousness and determination through our respect for organizational honesty and consistency. Only then can we really fulfill the vanguard function of political leadership that the movement as a whole so desperately needs. Yours in struggle, Jill Severn for Seattle Radical Women Page 10 Vol 1 No 12 Ain't I
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