We are leaving WASP and the International Socialist Alternative.

This is why.

It is with deep sadness that we have come to the conclusion to leave the WASP and the International Socialist Alternative (ISA). Our decision to do so comes after more than a year of difficult debates along with serious consideration and reflection. It is impossible to summarise the situation fully in one document, so we will attempt a brief explanation here. However, we urge comrades who have further questions or would like further discussion to contact us without hesitation. Further documents outlining the issues in more detail are also available upon request.

 

Since June 2023, a crisis has taken over the functions of the ISA leadership due to the gross mishandling and cover up of a case involving serious allegations of abuse against a leading member of a section of the ISA. Attempts at correcting and learning from this series of major mistakes in our International only resulted in a campaign to discredit and vilify whistle-blowers and those of us fighting for a course of action in line with a genuine socialist feminist understanding and with our organisation’s international Code of Conduct. The small majority in the International leadership that defended the mishandling of the case, in addition to the section's and international leadership directly involved, have revealed how they fundamentally disagree on the socialist feminist principles upon which we had thought we refounded the ISA after the split in 2019 with the CWI. 

 

This fundamental disagreement played out through, for example:

• The section leadership kept the accused as a member without having any credible grounds to believe his word over those of the complainant, sliding back into the systemic sexism of looking for “hard evidence”. Anyone with basic awareness of these kinds of abuses knows that this is a non-starter. This reflects at the very least a non-application (if not absolute incomprehension) of the understanding of the dynamics of GBV and the struggle against it.
• The section leadership and the majority of the International Executive grossly underestimated the political significance of their safeguarding failure, treating it as a non-issue and “not political”.
• Their callous approach both towards the complainant in this case and all survivors of sexual abuse. This included taunting comrades showing their distress and also condemning the very idea of apologising to the complainant.
• An effective cover up, hiding the case from the scrutiny of international structures for a year, obstructing and obscuring its eventual processing there (including through false claims both verbally and in writing), and keeping it and the massive crisis away from the membership across the world for months and months. Only through the actions of a whistleblower from the section in question was the rest of the International informed of the case.
• Claiming that the minority’s questioning, criticism and attempts to correct the breach with safeguarding and socialist feminism have been driven by opportunist adaptations to “activist layers” (or even “to members”!)  and representing an abandonment of Marxism.

 

The majority also manufactured the argument that this case was being “weaponised” to avoid “more important” debates on topics such as the Ukraine War and the New Cold War. We do not see safeguarding and socialist feminist issues as any less important than the many other issues that affect the working class. Gender-based violence (GBV) and violence against children are scourges that take on an even worse character in times of war and disorder that any socialist must actively combat wherever they appear.

 

The faction to Defend Safeguarding, Socialist Feminism and Internal Democracy (SSFID) was formed in March 2024 when the minority comrades in the International Committee (IC) understood that this campaign orchestrated by the majority was being used to hinder rank-and-file members of all sections from engaging with the safeguarding case at the centre of the crisis in their International. This happened while the IC majority was using a distorted application of democratic centralism to try and prevent a significant minority in the leadership from discussing with the membership. The international leadership clique’s reaction to the initiation of the faction was hostile from the onset and by April set in motion a series of actions that resulted in the faction members’ removal or constructive dismissal from bodies that control the publications, meetings, decisions, and finances of the ISA. At the same time, those responsible for the gross mishandling have not been held accountable, have not been recalled from their positions, and have essentially concentrated their power by driving out those who were in disagreement and pushing for accountability.

 

The “leadership” that has undemocratically consolidated around those at the centre of the mishandled case is holding a World Congress this November. We believe this was intentionally scheduled to potentially clash with the Irish parliamentary election campaign and therefore exclude the full participation of the ISA's second largest section, whose members first came out very strongly against the mishandling. The seizing of control by the majority in the leadership structures along with the strangling of actual discussion in the IC also showed the route to congress was a factional means to push the minority out, not a way to ensure genuine preparatory discussions with space for an informed membership to engage the actual political differences and hold the leadership to account. To date, we are unaware of any documents being circulated to members to engage perspectives, the now multiple crises in the ISA, party building, or reviewing the Code of Conduct. Under the statutes of the ISA, there should be a period of at least six months for discussions in sections leading to a World Congress. In contrast, our faction's proposal (put forward in March 2024) for a World Congress in the 2nd quarter of 2025 was dismissed. For these reasons, we are convinced that the exercise of holding a World Congress is not to engage fully and honestly with the crises of the International and their roots, or even for members to hold their leadership to account. Rather, the purpose of this World Congress is to consolidate a leadership that has presided over and defended the gross mishandling of a safeguarding case, the backsliding and miseducation on socialist feminism, and who, partly as a result of their attempts to justify this disgrace, have also tied themselves into dogmatic knots which they confuse with “defending Marxism”, and driven opposition to this out of the leadership structures, and now out of the International itself. We cannot support this.

 

The fact that the other comrades in WASP’s Executive Committee (EC) are prepared to go along with this approach, which breaks with essential pillars of building a revolutionary party capable of playing its historical role, is a real shame. This in itself points to serious weaknesses also present here when it comes to fully understanding the political significance of the struggle against women’s oppression for the working class. Also, the fact that it was only by June that the EC finally held its first discussion on the crisis in the International, after being informed about the case and crisis in early January, points to the level of dysfunction of WASP’s structures which has hampered and distorted the necessary discussions among members here. This dysfunction had escalated at around the same time as the international tensions broke into crisis, but was driven by clashing approaches to party building - where we have had to conclude that the effective line of the others on the EC is to attempt to skip over the basic fundamentals of building a revolutionary party. Neither of these two main strands of political differences have been discussed fully. This is largely due to the clear push by the others on the EC, since late June, to push out those in and around the party that they perceived as obstacles. The other WASP EC members, and more recently the “interim” EC members, have voiced agreement with our analysis that the case has been mishandled and covered up. However, further contributions in both formal debates and informal discussions from several of these same members leave us unconvinced that they truly mean this. 

 

For example, comrades now on the “interim” EC:

• Have made the point that calling for accountability on the case is essentially calling for a split. This is highly problematic as it implies that whistleblowers should be silenced.
• Have made arguments in defense of the respondent in the safeguarding case, including implications that the complainant would be lying in order to win custody of a child. This is a documented right-wing myth, which has no relevance for the case in question and is also seriously disconnected from reality: statistics show that when a woman makes credible accusations of abuse she is less likely to win custody. The cost and stigma associated with women amassing the courage to speak about experiences of sexual violence is so great that the vast majority, especially women suffering multiple layers of oppression (eg as black, queer, immigrant etc), remain silent. When custody battles do happen, violence against women and children are very prominent drivers.
• Have brought up the issue of “false” accusations and how that could “damage” our organisations in the context of this case, where the only interpretation could be to throw doubt on the very credible testimony of the complainant.
• Have, in the case of one comrade, even argued that there was “nothing wrong” with deciding to keep the respondent in membership, even after the IC majority belatedly accepted the conclusion that expulsion was the correct action.
• Have named the respondent and used identifying terms that fail to uphold the standards necessary to ensure the confidentiality of the victims, and not to play to the authority of the respondent.
• Have demonstrated almost zero regard to the sensitive nature of these “debates”, bringing forward victim-blaming arguments in the context of them, where we as marxists should be aware of the re-traumatizing and harmful impact our words potentially could have on members who are survivors of abuse. 

 

While we were in shock and despair over these extremely disturbing politics expressed, we were prepared to continue engaging to help the comrades reflect on and step back from them. Unfortunately, they instead decided to obsess over our alleged “lobbying” - the fact that we eventually, and openly, started engaging members in discussions on the crisis as both sides in the international released public statements - as an excuse to shut down discussion. And even though some EC comrades did recognise the cover-up and mishandling as we laid these out before them, they still clearly considered this more as an academic or technical issue rather than the key political test that we consider it to be.

 

Collectively, the comrades who now compose the “interim” EC have also failed to take onboard the necessity of paying closer attention to socialist feminism since the 2019 split with the CWI. While we repeatedly argued about the need to address the reality that the majority of women in the country face extreme violence and that we need to be vigilant against all facets of this violence both in wider society and in our party, the leadership of the section has failed to take up lessons on these issues with any real seriousness. As a result, tasks such as establishing a Code of Conduct for the section or venturing into struggles against the oppression of women were in reality sidelined and ignored. The very idea of setting up a socialist feminist caucus in WASP to push forward this crucial aspect of work where we are far behind as a revolutionary organisation, and to play the critical role of developing women and LGBTQ cadre, has been met with suspicion. One EC candidate member even went as far as to argue that femicide - the most extreme form of GBV, killing of women because they are women - is a myth similar to that of “white genocide” purported by right wing, racist organisations like Afriforum. These obstacles have meant that we could not collectively move from statements on GBV to intervening in struggles that are constantly breaking out in communities on this issue - the current mass outrage at a pastor in Wedela, Carletonville, who has been abusing children, is just one such example.

 

The approach by the “interim EC” has underscored to us that socialist feminism is a secondary concern to them in the building of a revolutionary party and our outward facing work. Our difficult and intense struggle to correct the course of our international organisation was not met with support from those who supposedly agreed with our analysis of the situation, but accusations of effectively sidelining the “local” work of a mass recruitment campaign never discussed in our leading bodies and building towards a split. Unfortunately this only confirmed what has been underlying disagreements in the leadership of WASP for some time regarding socialist feminism and party building.

 

The prevailing view among members of the “interim” executive committee is that we should forge ahead towards a mass workers party. While we agree that the need for a mass workers party has never been greater, seeing the need for it alone will not miraculously bring it into existence. It is necessary to take an objective view of where the working class and the broader movement are and to strategise accordingly. Failure to do this will lead to further demoralisation down the road when reality catches up. Conditions today are not the same as in 2018 when there was immense momentum behind the idea of forming a mass workers party, backed by hundreds of workers and community organisations uniting around SAFTU and the Working Class Summit. Unfortunately, neither were able to play the role that had been hoped for. Although there has been much interest in WASP from working class people across the country, the party was not ready to provide a political home that would play the role of a mass based organisation. WASP has been falling deeper into a dysfunctional state and further away from sustainable methods of party building. A particularly sad example of this fact is the loss of all leading and many young or new women members that we worked hard to recruit on a socialist feminist basis, as well as the continued failures to build a functioning trade union caucus that could discuss perspectives and strategy within the trade union movement. We believe that a difference that has crystallised over the years, but not been discussed out fully, between us and leading members on the “interim” EC, is over the distinction between mass and revolutionary parties, the stage we are at, the work required to build them, and the importance of developing cadre that can sustain the work, and the revolutionary approach to financing the party that must fund our work. This is probably most evident in the fact that while Whatsapp groups were growing with “new members”, those taking part in coordinated party activities (meetings, interventions at protests, writing for the paper, selling the paper, recruitment discussions) and paying membership subscription fees became fewer and fewer. Meanwhile, when we raised the alarm of the resulting financial unsustainability of the party, we were met with consistent silence and disinterest.

 

We do not revel in the idea of splintering the already-scattered left further, but unlike the “interim” EC we are also not under any illusions that a split could be prevented in the case of a leadership developing a siege mentality and treating every opposition to them with hostility instead of accountability as elected leadership should. We cannot put our heads in the sand and hope for the tide to pass - just as we cannot allow this behaviour in broader working class organisations like the trade union movement. We are hardly keeping our heads above the water in the defensive fight against GBV and to protect hard-earned rights for women and LGBTQ people. We need to be organised and politically sharp in order to build an offensive against this extremely hurtful and divisive violence, and the entire capitalist system at the root of these problems. That means putting socialist feminist work at the forefront of our work as a revolutionary party, while acknowledging that there is much work to do to “catch up” after decades of neglect of these specific issues in our party and the broader Marxist movement.  

 

Our decision to leave the ISA, and by extension WASP, comes from the recognition that there was no space to make the changes necessary to create a conducive atmosphere for members to grow politically or to correct some of the misguided approaches outlined above in the current structures. There has been no indication that either the IC Majority or the “interim” EC in South Africa are willing to correct their approaches. As a result, along with former ISA members in 26 other countries, we are working on the Project for a Revolutionary Marxist International. This is not a turn away from internationalism or the need to fight against capitalism. Rather, it is a commitment to continue the class struggle, to lay healthy foundations for the revolutionary party that this desperately needs, to get to the bottom of what caused our international to collapse twice in just five years, including through an international review process  looking at our roots, weaknesses, mistakes and strengths. With the Project we are also beginning to engage with deeply exploring world perspectives, Marxist theory, e.g., an assessment of the state of the working class, and updating or filling the gaps in our analysis such as on neo-colonial exploitation and racism, while we are going to the ground taking active part in key working class struggles in workplaces, communities and schools. We are therefore moving to take on the task of establishing an organisation that holds socialist feminism and safeguarding in high regard, guided by the examples of Bolshevik methods. Internationally, the Project is organising a series of international political day schools, mobilising for an international ROSA conference in March, and much more. In South Africa, we hold weekly meetings and are working to build foundations that will last. It won’t be easy, not for us and not for anyone seriously aiming towards the creation of the revolutionary party that South Africa and the world so needs, but we believe that our honest recognition of where we are at is an essential starting point.

 

A luta continua.

Wathint' abafazi, wathint' imbokodo!