This is an interview with Issam Shukri regarding the response of WCPI leadership to the announcement of the Left Fraction inside the Worker- Communist Party of Iraq - WCPI

 

International: In the 5th. Congress of WPI and on behalf of your comrades, you have announced the Left Fraction inside the WCPI. What was the reaction of your leadership to that announcement?

 

Issam Shukri: I would like to point out first that announcing the fraction inside the congress must be looked at as part of a series of events that occurred after the WCPI politburo took its bias and dangerous decision against their long-time partner, the WPI, and in favor of those who split from WPI based on Right theses in the workers’ movement. For the readers who haven’t followed the struggle in the WCPI, I would like to explain that our proposed fraction was a tool for gaining a political platform inside the party. In the leadership’s view, however, the whole issue was about conspiracy to destroy the party, undisciplined and destructive attitudes by cadres, and so on and so forth. In our view, the fraction was a political necessity to oppose the right wing position that the leadership had taken. For that particular reason; i.e. for not allowing the Left views to gain momentum so as to maintain the status quo and make it an established reality, they had ignored our fraction and struggled against it.

 

Before we announced the Fraction to the public through the congress we had sent a letter to the leadership of WCPI in which we announced in writing our fraction. In that letter/announcement we had outlined in detail our political platform and also our principled commitments towards the party. We had shown our sincere willingness to maintain the unity of the party and we affirmed that the fraction was the best way possible to achieve this unity under the circumstances.

 

We had asked the leadership to promptly publish it inside the party and endorse our fraction, which was then called “the Fraction to Defend the Line of Mansoor Hekmat”. The answer didn’t come promptly at all nor the publication of it to the members. It actually came 5 days late in the form of a request/answer put together; one letter was our announcement of fraction and the other was the politburo answer to it. In other words they did not publish our letter until they had their answer ready. It was clear to us that this was procrastinating and bias position. However the leadership answer was rejection.

 

They mentioned that the rules and regulations did not apply to our fraction. That we did not have a political stance but rather wanted to open an office for another party inside our party, that the name we chose is deceiving as it implies that the party line is no longer on Mansoor Hekmat’s..etc.

 

After our public announcement of the Left Fraction in the WPI congress, a letter was sent by the leadership to all members stating that 5 cadres had breached the “directions” of the leadership in which they had been ordered not to attend the congress and that they illegally announced their fraction one-sidedly. The letter promised to fulfill the wishes of “many” members to “punish us”. Letters were coming from members and cadres that beseech to expel these wrong doers etc.

 

The leadership was maintaining an atmosphere filled with words like punishment, expulsion, and revenge and obviously encouraging it. At this point in time, it became obvious to us that the leadership was determined not to sanction the fraction and further more that it considered our participation in the congress and our candidacy to the leadership of the party of Mansoor Hekmat a wicked conspiracy to destroy the WCPI!!.

 

Unfortunately, they fulfilled their promises they had made to revenge-seekers and expelled 3 of the best communist comrades who were elected in the CC of the WPI and suspended my responsibilities until next CC plenum. That was their reaction to our demand of an open, transparent, sincere attempt to maintain our political differences and debate and to defend Mansoor Hekmat’s revolutionary worker-communism inside our party.

 

They said that we have put ourselves outside the party. In fact, by that position, they had put themselves outside the whole trend of Worker Communism.