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Their Master's Voice: Leaders of the WRP and the ICFI

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Their Master’s Voice: Leaders of the WRP and the ICFI together for one of the last big rallies, the 4,000 strong Karl Maxx Memorial Rally at the Alexander Pavilion in March 1983. The five leaders split five ways after Healy's expulsion in October 1985; Gerry Healy, The Marxist party, Mike Banda, Communist Forum; Cliff Slaughter, WRP, (Workers Press); David North, Workers League (US) and effective leader of the post split ICFI, of which the WL is a sympathising section, Rodney Atkinson, then a YS National Committee member, now inactive; Claire Dixon, WRP (News Line). Contents Preface……………………………..…………...………………………………...Page 3 Introduction………………………………………………...…………………...Page 4 Chapter 1: The Break-up ……………………...………..……………………...Page 9 Chapter 2: The Implosion Continues ………………….…………………...Page 20 Chapter 3: Interregnum & Glasnost 1986 ………………………...……………...Page 32 Chapter 4: Problems of Philosophy………………..……………………… Page 50 Chapter 5: Chauvinism on the Irish Question …………………….…………… Page 63 Chapter 6: Break with the Irish Workers League………………………… Page 73 Chapter 7: Social Relations of the WRP ……………………………………Page 85 Chapter 8: The debate on Stalinism …….……………....…………………Page 92 Chapter 9: The relationship with the LIT …………………………..……Page 115 Chapter 10: Strange Bedfellows……………………………………..…… page 125 Chapter 11: Wasted Journeys ………………………………………………Page 139 Chapter 12: No Question of Principle …………………………………… Page 155 Chapter 13: End Game for the LIT and the WRP……………..…………Page 169 Chronology 1984-90 ……………..……………………………………….……Page 182 Glossary of publications and organisations….………………..…………Page 184 Published by The Socialist Fight Group PO Box 59188, London, NW2 9LJ, [email protected] ISBN-13: 978-1468117073 (CreateSpace-Assigned) ISBN-10: 1468117076 © Gerald Joseph Downing . From page opposite This episode — not simply the developments in the WRP itself, but the way in which other tendencies identifying with Trotskyism related to this process — con- tains important lessons for all who are serious about resolving the crisis of the Fourth International. The RIL is therefore publishing this first draft of comrade Downing's balance sheet, and we invite comments and discussion on this document. Tony Gard for the RIL December 1991 WRP Explosion 3 Preface This publication was originally produced in 1991 when I was a member of the RIL, British section of the ITC. Whilst I would formulate some questions differently now (there never was any proof that photo- graphs of oppositionists were sold to the Iraqi regime which resulted in executions), nonetheless I de- fend all the main political conclusions and characterisations of the WRP and all other political groups made in the work. The WRP Control Commission report by Norman Harding and Larry Kavanagh on Healy’s sexual and physical abuses is now included as an appendix at the end of Chapter 1. This work correctly identified the main gains made by the party in the period of its resurgence, the Inter- regnum and Glasnost of 1986 as told in Chapter 3. These were on Ireland, youth perspectives, women’s oppression and the Labour party. All these issues involved the crucial question of how to relate to the working class. These developments were repudiating the corrupt relationship with both the trade union bureaucracy in Britain and the Arab bourgeoisie in the Middle East and North Africa, the capitulation to the British state on the question of Ireland, the issues of the history of the Fourth International, and the special oppression of women, gays and lesbians. This progressive struggle was brought to an end after December 1986 by a desperate and beleaguered leadership when they opened relationships with Moreno's LIT and installed Leon Perez in the WRP HQ as a LIT plenipotentiary with access to all documents and meetings. The capitulation of most of the leading leftist oppositions to this situation in the January 1987 CC began the process of removing the leftist ele- ments who had provided the epoch of Glasnost with its leadership; Chris Bailey was removed as leader of international affairs, Dave Bruce of Editor of Workers Press and this author as Secretary of the Irish Commission. The crucial desertion was that of Simon Pirani at that January CC, he moved from the lead- ership of the left wing of the party to the leadership of the right wing in just six months. He thereby revealed himself as the man of no principles that some had charged him with all along. The effort he made in 1986 was abandoned as soon as it ran into real difficulties and he was forced either to take a stand on his declared principles or abandon them. After a brief hesitation he forsook them all. Now it was back to unprincipled manoeuvres which demoralised the best elements and saw the terminal degeneration of the WRP back to worse positions on almost all issues than it had before the 1985 split. The WRP (News Line) has a better (though still as wrong as in 1985) position on Libya than almost all the WRP splinters. It can only be hoped that the republication of this book makes possible for some of those comrades from that time to re-engage in the struggle for Trotskyism. Gerry Downing December 2011 Original Preface Gerry Downing joined the Workers' Revolutionary party in 1976. He was one of the very few Irish worker militants in the party, and became one of its leading activists in west London - a well-known militant in the building workers’ union UCATT, a member of Brent Trades Council, a WRP candidate in the 1979 general election and the council elections. In the 1985 split in the WRP Gerry Downing supported the majority (WRP Workers Press) which backed the expulsion of its former general secretary, Gerry Healy. He was elected to its Central Committee in March 1986, which appointed him the first ever Secretary of the Irish Commission. He became a key figure in the fight to assert principled Trotskyist politics in the WRP and later in the Internationalist Faction. He conducted a prolonged struggle against the influence of British chauvinism on the question of Ireland, and in the early months of 1987 he produced the only documents examining and criticising the record of the Morenoite international organisation (Workers International League - LIT), with which the WRP leaders were developing a close relationship. In the Summer of the same year he played a leading role in forming the International Faction in the WRP, which left the party after its February 1988 Congress. The International Trotskyist Committee and its British section, the Revolutionary Internationalist League, responded positively to proposals from the WRP for an international conference of Trotskyists. We saw the debates and struggles opened up by the explosion in the WRP as an important opportunity to engage in a significant fight for Trotskyism. We therefore supported all l serious attempts to fight for principled politics and reassert the Trotskyist pro- gramme within the WRP. See page opposite 4 WRP Explosion Introduction he WRP explosion in October 1985 had a profound impact on all those who regard themselves as Trotskyists throughout the world. The fragmentation of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI or IC) (1), one of the main claimants, historically, to the ‗continuity of Trotskyism‘ was a dra- Tmatic event, whose repercussions are still being felt. This is my political evaluation of the WRP (Workers Press) in the period after it split with and subsequently expelled its founder and long time British Trotskyist and IC leader, Gerry Healy (2), in October 1985. The basic premise that I have set out to demonstrate is, that despite sincere efforts on the part of the rank-and-file of the party‘s members and some of its leaders, it failed in the task it set itself in the immediate aftermath of the expulsion of Healy; that of the regenera- tion of Trotskyism and the orientation to the reconstruction of the Fourth International. The revolutionary impulse of the party to seek out the reasons for the degeneration of the Trotskyist movement in the post-war period was wrecked because those leaders, who had been responsible, with Healy, for many of the betrayals of Trotskyist principles in the past were unable to overcome their own corruption. Obituary The Workers Press now attempts to prove, as Stalin‘s heirs did, that one man was respon- sible for all the crimes and betrayals of the past, while the present leadership had fought those betrayals and had contributed everything positive that there was in the history of British Trotskyism. This is the line taken in their belated obituary of Healy in the paper (10 March 1990). It could be termed the ‗cult of the individual WRP style‘. It is not an official obituary, only the opinion of some unnamed ‗leading comrades‘. Obvi- ously in the three months between Healy‘s death on 14 December 1989 and when the arti- cle appeared, the WRP had failed to agree an official version. It combines historical distor- tions with downright lies, hoping it seems that the membership will not seek out the truth. For instance on page 6 of Workers Press it claims that: ―...Healy, through personal relations separated entirely from the Central Committee and the party as a whole, was stroking the backs of reformists such as GLC leader Ken Living- stone, who, along with (reformist? GD) council leader Ted Knight, was a regular speaker at News Line‘ (3) rallies.‖ This is a lie. As I explain later, it was on precisely this issue that Assistant General Secre- tary Sheila Torrance. Political Committee member Dave Bruce and North London Central Committee (CC) member Richard Price opposed and voted against Healy on the CC. Healy‘s counter-attack was led by Cliff Slaughter (4), who accused the oppositionists of scepticism! WRP Explosion 5 Also in mid 1985 the local Government faction, including Kate Phelps from south London and Liz Leicester and I from Kilburn had an acrimonious confrontation with Alex Mitchell and Paul Feldman, News Line journalists, on the subject.
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