A critique of the conclusions of Alex Steiner, Frank Brenner, and Permanent-Revolution.org as they reveal their closeness to the essential positions of Nanobureaucracy.

We see here a stunning friendliness and informality:

“Don’t they also have a responsibility to address a serious challenge to the theoretical and political line of the movement? And leaving aside the substantive issues, weren’t any of the leading comrades troubled by the fact that our documents weren’t responded to for 3 years? This silence is telling. It isn’t just a matter of growing old (Marx and Trotsky made it past 50 with their revolutionary combativeness still intact), it is also a matter of opportunist relations within the leadership.”

http://permanent-revolution.org/polemics/mwhh_ch11.pdf . P. 5

Professionalism depends on consequences to enforce order and discipline. Consequences depend upon factionalism, the intent and the action of replacing failed leaders through organizational procedures: formal investigations, reports, and votes. The US Congress, by no means the greatest of example of a living democracy, follows through on these basic procedures. Why does the Party act lower than the body they claim to oppose? We see the same attitude below as above with general prescriptions but no formal procedure, no declaration of a new faction, and no call for the removal of Party leaders for professional negligence. Furthermore, financial penalties should enter into the discussion for verbal abuse, plagiarism, slander, and harassment. Only a professional organization can punish neglect and other symptoms of a criminal alliance between the party leadership and the capitalist state. The accomplices of imperialism, unwilling or not, must fear the law of the working class in order to turn on their masters.

If this movement is to be renewed and thrive once more we propose that the following steps be carried out:
• Restore the principles of democratic centralism: Hold regular Party conferences and international conferences. Publish perspectives documents and resolutions. Elect delegates to a Political Committee and a Central Committee on a regular basis. Encourage open discussion of differences within the party.
• Restore the International Committee to a functioning collective leadership of the world movement.
• Turn the movement toward a serious training in dialectics.
• Return to the Transitional Program.
• Reaffirm the theory of Permanent Revolution by orienting the movement to building a section of the International Committee in every country.
• Turn toward the working class and the youth. Participate in and provide leadership to the everyday struggles of the working class in defense of its basic rights.
• Develop our own program and our own slogans for ending imperialist war and occupation within the anti-war movement.
• Launch a youth movement that includes working class youth as well as college students
• Launch an intensive educational program in the ABC’s of Marxism. Provide regular pedagogical articles on Marxist theory and history in the pages of the World Socialist Web Site.
• Launch a theoretical journal linked to the World Socialist Web Site that would examine all areas of philosophy, history, psychology and culture from a Marxist perspective. We are confident that if these steps are carried out, they will lead to a revival of Marxism and a revival of the ICFI as the World Party of Socialist Revolution.

http://permanent-revolution.org/polemics/mwhh_ch11.pdf P. 7

A line by line response would be a waste, since 14 years have passed without any action taken on these “principles.” If Permanent-Revolution.org really believed in what they proposed they would call for open factionalism and the investigation of the official ICFI leadership for civil offenses against the revolutionary movement. This would create a financial obligation to the new faction and a real punishment for lack of professionalism.

We have here a legal definition for professional negligence:

The elements of a cause of action in tort for professional negligence are “(1) the duty of the professional to use such skill, prudence, and diligence as other members of his profession commonly possess and exercise; (2) a breach of that duty; (3) a proximate causal connection between the negligent conduct and the resulting injury; and (4) actual loss or damage resulting from the professional’s negligence.” Budd v. Nixen (1971) 6 Cal. 3d 195, 200; Carlton v. Quint (2000) 77 Cal.App.4th 690, 699.

https://www.lalitigationlawyers.com/professional-negligence_2.html

The natural response to this argument from the Nanobureaucracy would draw on anti-semitism. “What is this? You’re suing me? Hey, we’re friends. Don’t do this!” They will find the revolution immune to appeals to anti-semitism, and the revolution will charge them for this real financial obligation a pound of flesh if need be. Negligence and abuse have already cost far more, in the form of lost lives of comrades, disorganization and lost party branches through attrition, and entire countries lost to the revolutionary movement, all inevitable results of the bourgeois occupation of the party chairmanship and other executive positions.