April 9, 1954
Dear Comrades,
At its meeting of April 7 the Toronto group passed a motion that the national convention called for April 10, 11, 12 be temporarily postponed and a letter to this effect be circulated immediately throughout the movement.
At that meeting the Pabloite minority split from the party in the persons of all of its active supporters in the Toronto branch —Fitzgerald, McAlpine, Ford and Houston.
First item on the agenda of the April 7 meeting, held just three days before the convention date, was a letter from the so-called Committee for the Socialist Regroupment of Canada applying for membership in the branch. This is the group that Kelly (Rose) took out of the party some 9 or 10 months ago. Fitzgerald immediately moved a motion of acceptance. Prior to the vote being taken on this motion Comrade Kane read a motion that he said he would present should the meeting turn down the Fitzgerald proposal. His motion read: "In view of the fact that the leaders of the minority and majority had jointly agreed to freeze the membership of the party until after the convention which would actually prohibit acceptance of this application until then, and in view of the past relations that these comrades have had with the movement— only two months ago they called for a split from our movement to their Committee for the Socialist Regroupment of Canada —with Comrade Kelly in particular having a long record of disruption of the Canadian sec. tion and its work; that we refuse this application at this time with the understanding that following the convention should these comrades still signify their wish to become part of the Toronto branch that we are prepared to go through a series of experiences to test their adherence to a discipline of an organization based on the principles of orthodox Trotskyism."
Immediately upon the defeat of his motion, Fitzgerald, in defiance of the chair that he speak on the motion now confronting the meeting, announced that the four supporters of his motion were leaving the meeting. When asked about the convention and their delegates, they answered that they would let us know, and that anyway, the convention was our worry, not theirs. With this they walked out of the meeting about 30 minutes after it had started.
This development comes as no surprise following the finalization of their whole previous conduct at the March 31 meeting. At that meeting they presented a statement to the branch which said that "We refuse to be a part, even as an objecting minority to any actions" that would commit the Canadian section to what they call the Cannonite International Committee. This crude attempt on the part of the Canadian Pabloites to blackmail the party into submitting to its will with the threat that it will split the party is probably without precedent in the history of the Bolshevik movement. Despite this extreme provocation the Toronto branch continued on in its preparatory work for the convention. At this same meeting Fitzgerald replied to a question as to what the minority would do should the convention come out for support of the International Committee with a statement that the minority would immediately reconstitute itself the Canadian section of the F.I.
Even this scandalous statement was merely a summarization of a whole series of previous attempts to frustrate the democratic processes of the movement which they commenced as soon as they became aware that they were a pitifully small minority —one that, as the discussions were proceeding on the political issues at dispute, was moving from weakness to weakness. As time went on they openly opposed the convention, attempting to take advantage of the difficulties that confront us due to lack of finance, distances separating us, etc. When the majority finally met all its terms —even that of holding the convention in Toronto and assuring them at the March 31 meeting that despite the fact that their strength did warrant it we were prepared to give them 2 of the 5 delegates apportioned to Toronto — two days prior to the convention they used the ruse of a membership application of the Kelly clique to split from the party.
The Toronto branch, what with the split of the Pabloites, feels that it is justified in asking for postponement of the convention. The irreconcilable hostility of the Canadian party to Pabloite revisionism of orthodox Trotskyism has been clearly established in the process of the pre-convention discussion. Through their split the Pabloites have removed the pressure upon the party to formally establish it through a convention at this time. We are of the opinion that the party can now digest this last, final lesson of the incompatibility of Pablism with Trotskyism and go about the business of making more rounded preparations for its 3rd convention. The April date as you know was set entirely to meet the schedule of Fitzgerald's leaving the country and the date of the Pabloite rump Fourth World Congress. We suggest that following close consultation of all sections of the party a new date for the convention be arrived at.
The Toronto branch, the only place in the party where the Pabloites had any real strength, comes out of this dispute with higher spirits, increased confidence in itself and increased strength. The defection of the 5 Pabloites will have no deteriorating effect on the branch other than for a short period of financial difficulties. The branch is firm and has developed in political stature considerably. At this juncture it has more contacts around it than it has had for years. In only a few months it should be back again at its previous numerical strength and with a considerable addition to its hitting power.
We warn the party to take no heed of the grandiose claims that the Pablists will no doubt be making of their strength. They are a miserable and demoralized handful. They will probably be claiming, as their British counter-parts did, to be in some way the majority of our party. They will possibly be claiming the support of two persons in Windsor who have been nothing more than sympathizers for several years, three persons in Montreal (2 who themselves recognize their status as merely sympathizers of the movement) the Kelly group (4) which Fitzgerald-McAlpine themselves declared in a PC letter dated February 6 (2 months ago) to be sectarian opponents to our entry into the mass movement and disrupters of our work in the unions and mass movement who have merely "seized upon the dispute in the International to further disrupt the Canadian party and its work."
[p. 191]
This unprincipled combination is without perspective and doomed in short order to blow apart. The Canadian section of the Fourth International moves forward going about its task of building the forces for the mass party of the Canadian proletarian revolution.
Fraternally, Kane