The Socialist Equality Party, led by the cult leader David North, is among the most prominent faces of Trotskyism internationally. Its website, the World Socialist Website, has a gargantuan output of articles containing a Marxist analysis of films, books and world events. I have been in awe of just how much stuff they put out. It is much more impressive than the outfit we had in the IMT, the attractive graphic design of the website notwithstanding. I have since learned that North (which is his pseudonym) is in fact a multi-millionaire businessman named David Green, who uses the money he makes from exploiting the working-class to live a plush lifestyle and hire staff to write all those articles. The organisation is almost certainly wealthier than any Trotskyist group on the planet today. Interestingly enough, the SEP used to be the American section of Gerry Healy’s loathsome sect, before North and his comrades broke with the organisation in the 1980s.
Back in April 2021, it emerged that the SEP had bureaucratically expelled one of its members, Shuvu Batta, for the crime of distributing criticisms of the SEP’s stance on trade unions from another member. It then expelled another member who tried to defend him, then slandered them both internally to other members of the organisation. This is par the course for all of these utterly disreputable sects, whose moral and intellectual bankruptcy is always on full display when faced with challenge or criticism. Batta exposes the hysterical and cultish internal regime of the organisation:
Kishore is completely unable to answer the criticisms I have raised above and in previous letter exchanges with the party leadership. Thus, he has been forced to resort to character assassination. However, no amount of lies and conspiracies will erase the fact that the reason for my expulsion was that I shared a critique of the Socialist Equality Party to other members and refused to stay quiet.
The party leadership actively attempts to suppress all political differences and maintain a cultish homogeneity of thought. The “center” (the party leadership based in Detroit) keeps close tabs on the branches through weekly minutes and swiftly intervenes as soon as any significant disagreement arises. Members who express disagreement are subjected to interrogations by branch leaders, aimed not at fostering a true discussion but at “correcting” the faulty opinion of the dissenting member.
Members are told that a “principled” political intervention means patiently waiting for any disagreement to pass through the local branch, until gradually and through some unspecified procedure, it works its way up to a higher body. Any attempt to raise a disagreement during a meeting outside of the branch or engage other members one-on-one is regarded as “disruptive” and even “sabotage.” The SEP claims that it allows factions, but how can anyone possibly build a faction if they have to take their marching orders from the branch, which in turn reports directly to the “center?” Is the “principled” approach for a member with a disagreement to convince their entire branch of their position and form a dissenting branch?
….The Socialist Equality Party is able to maintain such a dictatorial inner-party regime because the power within the party is centralized in a tiny clique. During the 2020 National Congress of the US Socialist Equality Party, the rank and file had virtually no power to elect their leaders. Members submitted a slate of nominees for the National Committee to a three-man election committee. Using COVID-19 as an excuse, the SEP leadership stacked the election committee with its “outgoing” leadership: David North (the National Chairperson), Joseph Kishore (the National Secretary), and Jerry White (the Labor Secretary). Per the SEP constitution, the election committee collates the nominees and produces their own slate, which the membership then votes up or down all at once. In preparing its slate, the election committee is not bound, even on paper, by the nominations of the membership, and no vote tally is ever released.
The undemocratic regime in the SEP is sustained, above all, by a culture of groupthink in which members are encouraged to make “contributions” to discussions which consist of endless recapitulations of party doctrine. Any attempt to insert a critical thought is met with widespread derision. Members are made to feel that any disagreement with the party line reflects a serious shortcoming on their own part, which will cause them to lose the respect of their comrades.
Members are thus gradually taught to build up an atmosphere in which any serious disagreement is viewed with suspicion and hostility. An example from the youth group will serve to illustrate this point. In February, Peter was slated to give a report to the IYSSE, and was instructed to focus on a recent article, but chose to devote the bulk of his report to a discussion of a teachers’ struggle taking place in Chicago. This unleashed an outright firestorm.
The national secretary of the IYSSE worked behind the scenes to ensure full attendance at the next meeting—a surprise public takedown launched by Eric London and Lawrence Porter, two leading members. London began the meeting with a half-hour-long speech misrepresenting and denouncing Peter’s statements and making incessant references to his “attitude.” Over the next two hours, almost every member of the committee saw fit to parade themselves out to declare that they “agreed with all of the points” and thought the meeting to be “very significant,” and the meeting concluded with London stating that it was a “turning point!” This truly bizarre spectacle, amounting to a kind of watered-down show trial, can only be interpreted as an attempt to ostracize and intimidate anyone with an oppositional view.
This is word for word exactly my experience in raising disagreements with the party line in the IMT. The SEP sounds even worse, however. What a cult!