This tendency was beginning to have grave doubts about the sectarian nature of the SWP, and felt that the concepts of democratic centralism and the vanguard party were out of place in the context of the United States in the 1950s.
They did not believe that capitalism was heading for a revolutionary crisis, and felt that a socialist educational group for propaganda among the workers was more appropriate at that point than a vanguard party.
[1] A related, but distinct tendency was led by George Clarke, the SWP representative on the International Secretariat and Milton Zaslow, the Organizer of the SWPs New York local.
A final split was "provoked" in late October when the oppositionists boycotted the 25th anniversary celebration of the expulsion of James Cannon, Max Shachtman and Martin Abern from the Communist Party, which they regarded as the foundation of their movement.
When, three or months later this proved to be impossible Pablo asked the ASU to become the new US affiliate of the International Secretariat the Cochranites declined, believing that that would just lead the Socialist Union to become a kind of sect that feared the SWP had become.