[After “Some Brief, Provocative Notes” was distributed in the collective, two other WV members – P/Q – wrote a response. This is X/Y’s answer to P/Q written in July, 1974]
#2 – We did not argue that the “main audience of the paper should be viewed as ’agitators’ ”. Rather, it is our view that agitators are the key link with the main audience of the paper: working people. We intend the paper to be a mass paper.
#3 – We do not see the Western Voice as a communist paper of a communist collective, but a collective which has a lower level of unity in which communists are one element (not necessarily the majority numerically). We would modify what we stated earlier as the ideological basis of unity. We still contend members of the collective must support anti-imperialist struggles (which may not be anti-capitalist struggles); but we have changed from calling for support of anti-revisionism to calling for support of anti-capitalist struggles. (People who, according to a communist analysis, hold parliamentary illusions still may be members of the collective if they are opposed to capitalist economic and political and cultural organization of our society).
#4 – There must be flexibility about the level of agitational material we print. Agreeing fully that articles must be written with a clear idea of the audience and the political points to be made; agreeing fully that we should encourage militants to produce their own material – we recognize that frequently this is unlikely and that where it is unlikely, that is material will not be produced unless we produce it, we should print such agitational material.
The primary weakness is that we do not summarize our investigation for the collective. Once we have summarized for ourselves, this will express itself in clearer writing, that is, in a more precise choice of stories, in a sharper structuring of information and argument within stories. The connecting of struggles, issues by means of an editorial statement always must be based on investigations which demonstrate that the connection is a practical one whose realization will be promoted in the specific circumstances by a theoretical clarification. (The AUCE certification victory and the importance of the women’s movement was an ideal opportunity for summation.)
#1 – Articles need not be short to be read. It is more a question of the overall balance of the newspaper than the length of any particular article that is crucial – though it is desirable visually to break up the text of a long article into component parts.
It does not follow from the proposals for changes that the paper requires more hands. If a larger collective is seen as necessary it must be justified on other grounds than those stated on P/Q’s pp. 1-3.
#1 – as argued above (I, #3), the WESTERN VOICE is not the paper of a communist collective. Consequently, agreement to an anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist ideology is sufficient for membership, along with conditions 2 and 4. As regards condition 3: while the majority determines what movements and tendencies within movements to support, one can still be a member of the collective without agreeing to all majority positions. Opportunity should be given to the reopening of debate. (This must be distinguished from disagreements being used as a wrecking tactic.) Common sense tells us that a person who disagrees with a majority of the specific political positions of the collective will leave the paper. Or a majority of the collective present can vote someone out, the same way they vote someone in.
A primary reason for collapse of the networks was idealism: the setting of too many tasks, with no clear priorities for the time and hands available. Furthermore, members of the network need not participate in the same way. Allowance must be made for their other organizing commitments. Oreganizing commitments need not exclude people from regular participation in networks, writing, etc.
#a – The reconstitution of the committees is essential, but they should be reconstituted primarily around the progressive movements, tendencies we already have relations with, to consolidate and extend those relations, so that those activists use the paper more consciously and we advance their activities more efficiently. By starting with existing networks we will be less likely to drift quickly into idealism again, biting off more than we can chew.
#d – Here again the proposal for a communist collective reappears with a two-tier notion of networks: the communist WESTERN VOICE collective recruits other communists (whose primary work is outside the paper) and this last group of communists is our link with ordinary working people. A number of questions (somewhat rhetorical) arise: who specifically are these other communists? how many are they? why have we not been working with them and why have they not been working with us before now?
Network committees and network are not the same. The first is an organizational unit of collective members, not a front group, responsible for a certain area of work. The basis of unity of the committee is the same as for the collective as a whole. This does not mean it is ’closed’. The committee can hold any kind of meeting with anyone they want, though the collective as a whole has ultimate authority.
Basically what P/Q are proposing is consolidating communists as a priority. We are not. This is not the only, or the best way to ground our relations with non-communists on a political basis. There is even less reason for the networks to be a “communist circle” than there is for the collective to be exclusively communist – if our priority is to build mass movements. If this is our priority, the WESTERN VOICE must be seen as a democratic (not democratic-centralist) popular organ whose political unity is anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, with support for specific movements (a listing of which we will continue to modify as struggle advances) and a style of work in which communists may at times be a majority (numerically) and at other times a minority (numerically), but in which they will always try to exercise leadership.
We agree that people may contribute to the WESTERN VOICE in a wide variety of partial ways and tbat we should encourage those who are serious to participate in network activities. But, if for reasons of other commitments or preference, they wish to restrict participation to partial tasks, they should be free to do so.
Study is important, study being systematic reading and critical discussion. We all should study, but not all our study need take place in the WESTERN VOICE collective. What we do inside the collective should be more specific, more partial, than that outlined by P/Q. Two current examples: the role of the CP in the CLC and the IWA rank and file situations can lead on to a more comprehensive analysis if needed, but the starting point is the CLC currents and IWA strike not an “assessment of the main political tendencies”. Similarly, the new NDP mining legislation and confusion about CAIMAW’s mining locals is part of a “ study of the political economy of BC’, but the starting point is the miners’ concern not political economy. This starting point also leads concretely ino an assessment of part of the social democratic “political tendency“.