The Sojourner Truth Organization: Notes Toward a History

One of the defining characteristics of STO was its consistent opposition to Stalinism, but for the most part the group didn’t write extensively on this subject.  However, during a brief period in the mid-seventies, STO participated in something called the Federation of Independent Marxist-Leninist Collectives.  Another participant in this short-lived group was a then-nameless grouping from Boston, which eventually became the core of the Proletarian Unity League, which in turn was one of the founding elements of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization in the mid-1980s.  Whether rightly or wrongly, STO identified the Boston group as a proponent of what STO sometimes referred to as the "Stalin-model" of party-building.  In the course of a series of polemics with the Boston group in 1975, STO produced (from the pen of Don Hamerquist) two of the better articulations of anti-Stalinist Leninism that I have encountered.  The first, from Collective Works #2 (March 1975) concerns the question of democratic centralism.  Here, Hamerquist argued:

"When Boston treats democratic centralism as a desirable, but remote, goal for the [Federation], they are applying a very mechanical, almost arbitrary, notion of what democratic centralism must be.  It must be that internal regimen known popularly as "Stalinism":  assumption of leadership infallibility; assumption that Marxism has already answered all important questions; the banning of "factions"; strict limits on internal debate; and the prohibition of any public manifestations of internal division… [A]ll these points … have little or nothing to do with democratic centralism, in my opinion…" (p.22)

The second quote is even more direct.  In a piece from Collective Works #3 (June 1975), Hamerquist lays out the dangers of Stalinism, again within the context of party-building:

"The Leninist conception of the party must be recaptured from Stalinist distortion.  We take this to involve the following points (at least): (A) Party life must emphasize clear, sharp and critical debate over points of principle.  Furthermore, the maximum effort must be extended to make this debate accessible to the working class.  Fear of public differences and of "factions" is no part of Leninist theory or practice on the question of the party.  (B) The ability of a party to play a vanguard role (and thus to truly be able to exercise discipline) is not given a priori.  It is gained through a process of demonstrating to the masses of people that it is able to define and attack the burning questions of the day, that it is able to articulate and organize popular aspirations in a framework of class struggle, that it can recognize and correct mistakes before they lead it to catastrophe or irrelevance.  (C) The notion that the party leads by virtue of being the guardian of the "science of Marxism-Leninism" inevitably leads to distortion of the scientific character of Marxist theory, and a misunderstanding of the potential of the party to operate "scientifically."  (D) The so-called "party principle" must be cleared of any implication that runs contrary to the central Marxist thesis that the emancipation of the working class is the task of the working class itself." (pp. 8-9)

The Boston group subsequently left the Federation, and in 1976 STO merged with two other groups (Workforce in Kansas City, which had been involved in the Federation from the start, and the Haymarket Organization in the Quad Cities, which was new the discussions), retaining the name STO.  By the end of the 1970s, STO, having maintained its anti-Stalinist stance, had abandoned its party-building ambitions more or less entirely.