DSP and expulsions

["Steve Painter and Rose McCann" <spainter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Alan wrote:
>>Getting expelled from the DSP is hard.>>
Not that hard Alan.
I remember standing on a comrade's doorstep telling her she was expelled for
talking to a former member who had just resigned. I'm sure Pip H and Doug L
would be happy to fill in the details for you, as they were there with me.
Also around that time, I remember delivering a former comrade's stuff from
the party school to her home. She had been at the school. I exchanged her
clothing, books, etc, for the keys to the school. Doug should be able to
enlighten you on details of this as well, and while he's at it, perhaps he
could explain the principle that it's okay to open comrades' personal mail
if it's addressed to a party office, and to go through their stuff and
photocopy any papers, as happened with the comrade who had been living at
the party school.
There were a couple of others who were persuaded to resign around that time.
One because she had a person living at her house who had been a member the
day before and was now a notorious renegade. She said she couldn't throw
this traitor out, and she didn't want to be expelled, so she resigned.
I also got on the phone around that time and told a long-time comrade living
in Adelaide that he was no longer a member. But what about the trials, you
might ask? There were no trials. A sub-committee of the central leadership
met and decided on these expulsions.
Some comrades seemed to get quite enthusiastic about expulsions, describing
them as "like having a good shit" -- much more honest than Stalinists, who
prefer the euphemism, purge.
The people we threw out had committed the crime of talking to someone who
had left, a former national finance director, and some had merely said they
would talk to him if they met him. In the case of the comrade living in
Adelaide, such a meeting was fairly unlikely, but we took his word for it.
There were plenty of others, Alan, as you would have found out if only you'd
had that factional struggle of yours.
Steve Painter


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