"Our memorial is not a ritual remembrance of the past but a persistent challenge to face up to the demands inherent in our own share of a shared task" - Istvan Meszaros IN EARLY February, more than thirty people gathered in Leeds for a memorial meeting in honour of the late Bob Pennington. John Archer spoke about Bob's period in Leeds in the fifties and Keith Sinclair took up the story in later ycars Archer explained that Bob had been a colourful, energetic and ingenious character, devoted to buila. ing the Fourth International. After a spell in the RAF, and then working in a coal-mine, Bob had come iaio contact with iroiskyism in Blackpool in 1949. He joined the Revolutionary Communist Party just before it broke up.
He moved to Loeds in 1951 and workcd there intermittently until Bob was active in the Harehills Ward Labour Partv, Tohn re. counted how, at a meeting in the local park, Aneurin Bevan had defended the Chinese Revolution. "Has the Stock Exchange been abolished? Have they got rid of the The audience had no alternauve but to agree that these were positive achievements.
Although American imperialism had restabilised after the war, Bob (like many others) was confident that the revolutionary epoch had not ended and that erentually the Fl would gain a mass base.
1953 split At the time of the 1953 split in che Fourth International, Bob had helped to ensure that the majority of the Trotskyist "Club", supported james Cannon and the Amercan SWP, and all those forces that went on to form the International Committee.
Using astriking imagc, John suggested that "1953 is in this room" and, iaict in tnc miccting, (cala tively floated the idea that one of the Iegactes of the split was a lack of cianty tn handuing alliances Bob played an important role in the carly and mid-fifties, helping to lay tac bests of tne socialist L.abour Leayuc ana Tccrulang many to its ranks.
He eventually parted company with the SLL in 1960. In John's view there were no obvious political reasons for this. Although he had fallen out with the "deeply insecure" Healy and had not been paid his wages as a full-time worker for the organisation, it was likely that there were also other reasons.
John recounted how Bob had lived in the Archer's attic for a while and had been very good to their two sons. Bob had once made a study of the Daily Hronss to learn how it could get across its ideas so clearly. Bob had combined what John described as Anglo-Saxon scepticism with a certain impatience with theory. He had a good sense of practiKeith Sinclair spoke first about Bob's assessment of the dockers' breakaway from the TGWU in the fifties to the National Amalgamated Steredores and Dockers Union (NASDU - the blue union), with which Bob had been closcly inIn a 1960 article, Bob had taken an equal distance from the burcaucracies or botn the lawu and the NASDU, and argued only for che building of rank-and-file committees.
But by the eighties his attitude to the blue union had changed. Noting in interview in 1982 that what became the SL.L had been very cautious about the move to the blue, he concluded that nevertheless it had been right to leave the TGWU at that stage.
But when the 1955 NASDU recognition strike was defeated a few years later, he considered in retrospect that the dockers should have returned to the TGWU.
After a brief flirtation with the Solidarity group, Bob was linked by the mid-sixtios with the international Group, the precursor of the atcmatonal markist uroup.
Reasssment
He moved away from the positions he had held in the fifties. An article published in 1986 - "The fall and fall of Gerry Healy" - critically reassessed that tradition, writing of the opportunism, catastrophism, antiintellectualism that characterised Healr's oreanisations In the carly cighties, during a penou or sertoas tacuonat struggic in the Socialist League (successor to the IMG) he was one of the leaders of the tendency which emphasised the centrality of events in the Labour Party.
He always stressed the key im. portance of the labour movement, of the trade unions and the Labour Party Bob was a militant who made a contribution over a long period, With a leadership role stretching He continued to be over accadcs. active until the end of the cighties, and many of his articies in later ycars stand the test of time.
From the floor, Len Hodgson remembered Bob as a man of tremendous courage he pizyco caras and was well known in his local pub. At onc wmc ac nao worked as a bookie's runner for a Leeds councilWhic nao oeen a hell of a recruiter".
The meeting was a fitting tribute to a fine socialist, with comrades mainly from Lcods, but also from further afield. After the meeting ended, most stayed to renew old acCuanla ane cok totitis. cences of the man they had come to BUHOUEd