BOB WOOD reviews Keeping My Head The autobiography of HARRY WICKS was surely unique. A founder member of the Communist Party at the age of 15, he was expelled as one of a tiny band that initiated the British Trotskyist movement, the Balham Group. He remained active until his death in 1939.
Atage 14 he was told by building worker Jack Clancy "we need to question every thing'. This was advice he took to heart in his odyssey from workine class Battersea. to the international Lenin School in Moscow, to OUR HISTORY Not everyone will agree with his observations on the carly history of the Communist Party or the disputes among British Trotskyists in the 1930s, but his memories are a welcome addition to our knowledge of these things.
Harry came to the early Communist Party, via the Battersca Herald group which was present at the CP's founding congress. His view is that over-concentration on organisational questions and 'Bolshevising' the party led after 1922 to a declining political level and a drift to the right: the first signs of later popular front strategies began to appear.
From the perspective of a rail worker. Harry has some sharp comments on the performance of the CP during the 1926 general strike and the baleful influence of syndical.
He concludes that 'there has always been a tendency for trade union consciousness to boil up without any broader political conclusions being drawn" and many working class militants had assumed that their class had only to strike and power would flow to it.
The CP added to general political confusion 'sometimes praising left leaders, somereliability:
Victimised after the strike. but not sacked, he soon became the youngest student at the Lenin school in Moscow, despite his self-confessed prefcrence for 'practical work Toice mi the so working Remis to London Di cover that his closest friends in the Youne Communis: league had left the party and cists'.
Slowly forming links with other dissidents inspired by Trotsky's critique of the USSR, be was eventually expelled in 1932.
The CP was then its ultraleft 'third period", which led to disaster in Germany. The Trotskyists, organised in the Communist League, took up the debate with the CP on the united front, attacking the ultra-left 'united front from helow.
In 1932, the 40 or so mostly unemployed members of the Communist League scraped together enough to send harry to Copenhagen where Trotsky was due to speak. leaders of the Fourth International - Pierre Frank, Pierre Naville, Raymond Molinier. Henk Sneevliet and others.
Typically it was with Hamburg docker Georg Jungclas, until his death in the carly 1970s a leader of the Fourth International, that Harry formed a life-long friendship.
With some trepidation he reported to Trotsky on the dire situation in Britain. 'You start with what is Trotsky told him sympathetically.
In the final chapter the Byzantine intricacies of the disputes in 1930s Trotskyism are the campaign against the Moscow trials. ( The book finishes with a one-page end-note on Harry's laser years. He joined the International Socialists in the late 1960s, and left with the International Socialist Opposition in the mid-1970s. I can add further details.
The expelled ISO rapidly and published first Workers News and then Socialist Voice. This WL then became part of the International Socialist Alliance in 1978.
When this fell apart in 1979, Harry became part of the Revolutionary Unity Caucus, which fused with the International Marxist Group in carly 1980.
Unfortunately Harry's renewed membership of the less coincided with the partial paralysis of his wife Marjorie, and he was never abie to pare ticipate in the life of the IMG as he wished.
The honesty, integrity, modesty and courage of Harry Wicks shines through on every page of this autobiograpay. Ials oook can Do warty recommended to everyone Willing to beneat trom the les sons of more than half a century of struggle.
THE SUCCESS of Spike Lee's film Malcolm Xhas generated a wide debate on the relationship between socialism and the different currents of black nationalism. This contribution, by Polish Trotskyist ZIGNIEW KOWALESKI, continues the debate WITHIN THE general framework of nationalism of oppressed people American black nationalism possess certain very important distinct features. It is a nation without its own territory. Once dispersed through the countryside of the South black people became concentrated and homogenised within the great urban ghettoes and the modern industry of the North.
The North saw a formidable expansion of the black nationalist movement led by Marcus Garvey in which Trotsky saw 'a sign of a serious moral and political awakening' of black people. In the 1950s the Nation of IsLam arose, led by Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm In 1969 an opinion poll conducted by Newsweek revealed that 33 per cent of blacks thought that they should have their own state or were scriously exMalcolm discusses with Elijah Muhammad in Spike Lee's film SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No.41. May 1, 1993. Page 11