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The British Cabinet discusses the Trotskyists
The first reference (CAB65/41) by the whole
Cabinet to the Apprentices Strike was
on
3 April 1944 where it was said by Ernest
Bevin, then the Minister of Labour,
that
the Apprentices Strike on Tyneside,
on the
Clyde and in Yorkshire had been "instigated
by a group which had broken away from
the
Communist Party when Russia became
our ally"
and "The Trade Unions are doing
what
they can to get the strikers to return."
Bevin had provocatively refused to
see a
deputation and notices calling for
medical
examinations of strikers (prior to
military
call-up) were being issued while the
DPP
was considering the possibility of
using
the Trades Disputes Act of 1927. What
really
seemed to worry the Cabinet was the
problem
of coal supplies and in the document
that
follows some time is spent demonstrating
(with considerable relief) that the
Trotskyists
had little support among the miners.
Two days later at the Cabinet meeting
of
the 5th April there was a discussion
on the
activities of those "fomenting
strikes".
Herbert Morrison stated that he had
information
that the organisation referred to by
the
Bevin numbered about 1-2,000 members.
An
examination of the report shows that
this
was apparently learnt from his press
cuttings.
(It was of course a gross exaggeration,
the
RCP never numbered more than 400.)
The Home
Secretary said that he was examining
documents
with a view to doing something about
this
and submitting a report. On the 13
April
the report on the Trotskyists was submitted
and the Cabinet, after summarising
it, simply
noted it. It was initialled by the
Minister
but was clearly drawn up by the Security
Services. No decisions were taken and
it
seems that the RCP was not considered
important
enough to warrant special measures.
At about
the same time in the preamble to the
suggested
legislation about strikers (CAB/75/19)
Ernest
Bevin wrote about unofficial industrial
action
proposing very savage penalties.
Morrison was clearly much cleverer
than Bevin
and was much more worried about the
Communist
Party. He therefore may have wanted
to maintain
the Trotskyists as an annoyance to
the CP
in the post-war period. He was very
shrewd
when he says "It is too early
to say
what the relations of the party with
the
International will be, but the International
is loosely organised and is not likely
to
have the will or the means to do more
than
advise the party on broad issues; nor
is
the party under its present leadership
likely
to submit to any attempt at dictation."
He knew more about them than they did
themselves.
Ted Crawford July 1998
Secret
WP (44) 202
13th April 1944
WAR CABINET
THE TROTSKYIST MOVEMENT IN GREAT BRITAIN
MEMORANDUM
BY THE HOME SECRETARY
Doctrine
Trotskyism is a body of doctrine based
on
the teachings of Marx, as elaborated
by Lenin
and interpreted and applied to the
conditions
of the inter-war period by Trotsky.
The cleavage
from official Communism, or Stalinism,
originated
in the opposition between Trotsky’s
doctrinaire
views and Stalin’s realism. Trotsky
denounced
the supplanting of the "continuing
world
revolution" by Stalin’s plan to
establish
Socialism in the Soviet Union as a
prerequisite.
He opposed the replacement of democratic
discussion of party policy by the personal
dictatorship of Stalin, the weakening
of
the influence of the Soviets (Councils)
in
the face of a rising bureaucracy, and
the
revival of economically and socially
privileged
classes. The Trotskyists do not regard
the
form of society which now exists in
Russia
as socialism - they believe that true
socialism
can be achieved only by more or less
simultaneous
revolution over the greater part of
the globe;
and they are bitterly hostile to the
Stalinist
regime because it has not only "betrayed
the revolution" in Russia itself,
but
by using the national Communist parties
as
the instruments of its "reactionary"
policy abroad has retarded the development
of the working class towards world
revolution.
The ultimate aim of the Trotskyists
is the
establishment by means of uprisings
all over
the world of Workers’ Governments which
will
introduce common ownership and worker’s
control
of the means of production. They believe
that world revolution will once more
become
possible as a result of the war. Their
immediate
policy on the present "pre-revolutionary
period of agitation, propaganda and
organisation"
is to prepare for this revolutionary
moment
by fostering a militant spirit among
the
working class and establishing themselves
as its leaders. This they seek to do,
according
to the directions of the late M. Trotsky,
by campaigning alongside the workers
on the
issues which most closely concern them,
such
as wages, employment and social conditions.
The Trotskyists, while hostile to "fascism",
regard the war as a struggle between
rival
Imperialisms, a struggle which is being
used
by the capitalist class as an excuse
more
effectively to exploit and oppress
the workers.
The USSR, although degenerate, is still
a
workers’ State and must be helped in
its
resistance to fascism; but the Trotskyist
believes that capitalist Governments
cannot
by their nature effectively oppose
fascism,
and that he can therefore only help
the USSR
if he first overthrows his own Government.
Organisation
The Trotskyist movement has existed
in Britain
since 1929, the year of Trotsky’s expulsion
from the USSR. The movement originally
consisted
of several small groups, from which
there
emerged in 1937 the Revolutionary Socialist
League (the official British Section
of the
Fourth International) and the Workers’
International
League. The Revolutionary Socialist
League
was stultified by internal strife and
the
Workers’ International League outdistanced
it in members and activity. The two
parties
have for some time been urged by the
International
Secretariat to unite, and on the 12th
March,
1944, they at length did so. The new
body
has (to the annoyance of the Communist
Party
of Great Britain) taken the name "Revolutionary
Communist Party" and has succeeded
the
Revolutionary Socialist League as the
British
Section of the Fourth International.
It is
too early to say what the relations
of the
party with the International will be,
but
the International is loosely organised
and
is not likely to have the will or the
means
to do more than advise the party on
broad
issues; nor is the party under its
present
leadership likely to submit to any
attempt
at dictation.
The leadership remains in the hands
of the
former leaders of the Workers’ International
League, James Haston, Mrs. Mildred
Lee, Edward
Grant, Roy Tearse and Harold Atkinson
(see
Appendix A). This group is in effective
control
of the organisation, which is strongly
centralised.
District Committees exist in London,
Scotland,
Tyneside, Merseyside, Yorkshire and
the Midlands,
but do not act without close consultation
with Headquarters. No figures of the
total
membership are available, but in London,
where the movement is strongest, there
are
152 members, of whom thirty-two are
in the
forces. Outside London the party has
about
twenty branches. A branch rarely has
more
than twenty members and sometimes has
less
than ten, and the total number of members
in the forces is unlikely to be more
that
a hundred. On this basis the total
membership
is probably well below a thousand.
Membership,
however, is confined to those who have
served
six months probation and proved themselves
active workers, and sympathisers are
probably
more numerous than official members.
Even
allowing for people who are prepared
to work
for the movement from outside, the
number
of active Trotskyists in the country
is very
small. The party is strongest, outside
London,
on Clydeside, and the weakest in the
Midlands
and South Wales. It hardly exists outside
the larger industrial areas.
The Trotskyists, like the Stalinists,
attempt
to increase their influence by penetrating
other organisations. Attempts to penetrate
Trade Unions have met with little success,
but some progress has been made in
the ILP,
which the Trotskyists regard as the
party
commanding the largest following of
militant
workers. This progress is most marked
on
Tyneside, where the divisional representative
on the ILP National Committee is also
a member
of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary
Communist Party.
In the Autumn of 1943 the Militant
Workers’
Federation was formed to co-ordinate
the
activity of militant groups which had
arisen
spontaneously among dissident Communists
and members of the ILP and WIL. The
Federation
is directed by the Revolutionary Communist
Party; its secretary is Roy Tearse,
who claims
that it now has nine regional Committees.
The most important of these are the
Clyde
Workers’ Committee and the London Militant
Workers’ Committee. There is a committee
at Sheffield and possibly also at Huddersfield,
Barrow and Rugby; and there are small
groups
of sympathisers on Tyneside, Merseyside
and
in Nottingham, which Tearse may count
as
committees. The federation is not much
more
than a paper organisation, but it is
useful
to the Trotskyists as a source of contacts
and as an instrument of their individual
policy, particularly among engineering
workers.
The Revolutionary Communist Party has
three
papers, Socialist Appeal, a fortnightly
publication
of which 8,000 to 10,000 copies are
printed,
Workers’ International News, a theoretical
organ of which 2,000 copies are printed
at
irregular intervals, and The Militant
Miner,
a small local sheet which has been
taken
over from an independent group in Lanarkshire
on its fusion with the Workers’ International
League. The Ministry of Supply refused
last
October to continue to supply the Workers’
International League with newsprint
pending
the production of satisfactory evidence
of
their pre-war consumption. This has
not been
forthcoming, and the party has been
forced
to reduce both the size and the circulation
of Socialist Appeal.
Finance
There are no indications that Trotskyist
organisations receive money from abroad.
The members are expected to contribute
liberally
and are apparently prepared to do so.
Haston
is reported in the Daily Telegraph
of the
10th April, 1944, as saying: "Most
of
our members pay 5s. a week when they
can,
and those who can afford it pay a 25
per
cent. levy on their wages."
The Movement’s income for 1943 was
£2,654.
Sales of Socialist Appeal brought in
£781,
and it is believed that Mildred Lee
contributed
most of her private income of £350.
There
were a few substantial subscriptions,
including
sums of £30 - £50, believed to have
come
from a Cumberland mill-owner, but the
greater
part of the total was received from
branches
and anonymous individuals in amounts
varying
from a few shillings to £5.
Policy and Methods.
While the British Trotskyists follow
the
line of the sect in regarding the war
as
a struggle between rival Imperialisms,
their
policy is not directly aimed either
at stopping
the war or at procuring the defeat
of their
country. They point out that the suffering
the war brings is the fruit of the
greed
and cruelty of the capitalist "boss";
but they do not agitate for peace,
and their
programme (see Appendix B) includes
a pledge
of full support for the Soviet Union.
Their
propaganda appears to be intended rather
to stir up class feeling among the
workers
than to have any direct effect on the
war.
The main object of Trotskyist policy
is to
stimulate and focus discontent and
to obtain
the leadership of the group of militants
thus formed. The party seeks not only
to
take the place vacated by the Communist
Party
as the leader of the normally discontented
elements, but to attract to itself
the larger
body of workers who, while not yet
ready
to take up a militantly anti-government
attitude,
are suspicious of their employers,
doubtful
of the sincerity of the Government’s
promises
of post-war reform, and tiring of the
industrial
truce and the leaders who seek to enforce
it. The party’s appeal to these groups
is
somewhat similar to that of the Communist
Party before June 1941. There are the
same
bitter attacks on the callous, profiteering
"boss," on "anti-working-class
legislation," on the sacrifices
demanded
of the workers, and on the "imperialist
war." On the latter subject the
Trotskyists
are, however, less persistent and less
defeatist
than were the Communists.
To carry out this policy they campaign
on
issues and in areas where there is
already
strong feeling among the workers. Although
the party is always ready to exploit
grievances
in any factory or mine where it has
contacts,
it is too small and scattered to be
able
to start trouble on any considerably
scale
by itself, and it can make more progress
by clinging to the fringes of a big
strike
than by leading a small one. It secures
a
wider field for its propaganda, a field
already
well prepared by the mere existence
of a
grievance strong enough to cause a
strike;
and in the bitter aftermath of a big
dispute
it may hope to start a new branch of
the
party or a committee of the Militant
Workers’
Federation. The party’s technique is
accordingly
to fasten on an area where a strike
is threatening
or has broken out; one of the leaders,
or
the local group if there is one, makes
contacts
among the strikers and sells literature;
the cause and course of the strike
is reported
in Socialist Appeal; and, whatever
the outcome,
the moral drawn is that only by militant
activity under new leadership can the
workers
secure their rights. But the effect
is small.
Socialist Appeal devotes a good deal
of its
space, though by no means all, to discussing
strikes and industrial grievances.
It attempts
to discredit the Government, the employers
and the trade-union leaders; but, while
it
undoubtedly fans discontent and encourages
strikers, it seldom explicitly incites
to
strike and it makes no attempt to foment
sympathetic strikes. The party’s slogan
is
not "Strike!" but "Break
the
coalition: Labour to power." It
desires
the establishment of a Labour Government
because it believes than any post-war
Government
must fail to fulfil the workers’ expectations,
and that the failure of a Labour Government
will produce a disillusion strong enough
to throw the working class into the
arms
of the extremists.
Influence on Industry
The influence of the Trotskyists in
industry
is still slight. In connection with
the recent
strike of engineering apprentices,
there
is evidence that Roy Tearse and Heaton
Lee,
the party’s organiser on Tyneside,
advised
and directed the boys’ leaders and
that on
the Clyde the apprentices were working
in
conjunction with the Clyde Workers’
Committee.
At Barrow in September 1943 Trotskyists
had
some part in directing the strike committee
during the early days of the strike,
but
the cause of the strike was a strongly
felt
industrial grievance and not Trotskyist
agitation.
Trotskyists also took some part in
the strikes
at the Rolls Royce aircraft works,
Glasgow,
in August 1941 and July 1943, in a
strike
at the Barnbow Royal Ordnance Factory
in
June 1943 and in the Yorkshire Transport
strike in May 1943, but their activity
has
consisted in advising and encouraging
the
strike leaders rather than in provoking
the
strikes.
Trotskyist influence in mining is considerably
less than in engineering. There is
no evidence
that Trotskyists have ever started
mining
strikes or exercised any appreciable
influence
on their course. They are drawn to
the coalfields
by a desire to make converts and they
are
rarely in touch with strike leaders.
In South
Wales the Workers’ International League
had
at the time of this recent strike two
contacts,
each of a fortnight’s standing, and
no organisation.
The intervention of the leaders was
confined
to two visits by Haston, one on the
10th
March, four days after the strike had
begun,
the other on the 18th March, two days
after
the majority of men, including those
in the
area Haston visited, had returned to
work.
The mid-March issue of Socialist Appeal,
the smallest that has yet appeared,
was devoted
entirely to the strike but was not
out until
it was almost over.
In Yorkshire the Trotskyists have only
two
groups, at Leeds and Sheffield. Each
has
about twenty members, most of whom
have no
connection with mining. During the
recent
strike small-scale propaganda has been
carried
on in her spare time by a local leader
(Betty
Hamilton) with a handful of assistants.
Five
hundred copies of Socialist Appeal
have been
sent to the area and pamphlets have
been
distributed. No national leader has
covered
the strike, but Edward Grant, editor
of Socialist
Appeal, who is suffering from a break-down,
interrupted a rest cure to address
one meeting
and do some canvassing. It was attended
by
fifty people, few of whom showed any
enthusiasm.
Victory Gavzey - aged 19 - the only
other
person of Trotskyist sympathies who
is known
to have addressed meetings, moved a
resolution
at one of them that the men should
return
to work and then ask for an increase
in pay.
The Trotskyists were certainly not
responsible
for starting the strike, and there
is no
evidence that they have been responsible
for prolonging it. Considering their
limited
strength in the area and the small
scale
of their activity, their influence
on the
situation must have been very small.
The only Trotskyist mining group of
any significance
is that organised in Lanarkshire by
Hugh
Brannan, secretary of the national
miners’
group of the ILP and a Trade Unionist
of
standing. The group is, however, very
small
and its influence is limited.
The Trotskyists are attracting workers
whose
discontent and desire to hit out at
the employer
and the Government can find no other
outlet.
They have achieved a small and localised
but recognisable influence; and they
are
confident that the appeal of their
militant
programme will become stronger as the
strain
and friction inseparable from prolonged
industrial
effort increases. They have a closely
knit
core of energetic leaders and a membership
which makes up in enthusiasm what it
lacks
in numbers. They are helped by the
absence
of competition, except from the ILP,
which
they hope to use as a conscious or
unconscious
ally, the lack of normal political
and trade-union
activity, and the sense of frustration
which
is alleged to be produced in the absence
of marked progress towards either victory
in the field or reconstruction at home.
These
advantages are temporary and, unless
the
Trotskyists can exploit them much more
rapidly
than at present, it seems unlikely
that they
will ever rise to a greater position
than
that of sparring partners to the Communists,
who would very much like to see the
Trotskyists
and their small paper suppressed.
H. M
Home Office, Whitehall
13th April 1944
Appendix A
Officials of the Revolutionary Communist
Party
James Ritchie Haston, National Organiser,
aged 32, describes himself variously
as an
aero engineer, a builder and a journalist.
He has been an active Trotskyist since
1936, and from August 1941 until the
amalgamation
was employed as National organiser
of the
Workers International League. He is
in grade
4. Several attempts by the Ministry
of Labour
to place him in other employment have
failed.
Mildred Lee, Secretary, aged 31, is
a South
African and a milliner’s buyer by trade.
She came here in 1938 with her husband,
the
founder of the Workers’ International
League,
and she remained as the League’s Secretary
when her husband returned to South
Africa.
She devotes most of an income of about
£350
a year received from South Africa to
the
cause.
Edward Grant, Editor of the Socialist
Appeal,
aged 30, is also South African and
has been
connected with the Workers’ International
League since its inception. He was
posted
to the Pioneer Corps but fractured
his skull
before joining up and was discharged.
It
has proved impossible, owing to the
effects
of his injury, to find him alternative
employment.
Roy Tearse, Industrial organiser, is
25.
He served four years in the Royal Navy
and
was discharged in 1937 on medical grounds.
He suffers from the effects of infantile
paralysis. From 1941 to 1943 he was
employed
as an aero engine tester at De Havillands,
Edgware, but was again discharged on
medical
grounds and has been certified by the
medical
referee unfit for regular employment.
He
was for two years a secret member of
the
Workers’ International League under
an assumed
name while acting openly as an energetic
member of the ILP but has lately resigned
from the latter and avowed his Trotskyist
allegiance. He is secretary of the
Militant
Workers’ Federation.
Harold Atkinson, Chairman and Treasurer,
aged 31, has been associated with Trotskyism
since 1938. He is employed as a draughtsman
by Messrs. Griffin & Tatlock. He
devotes
most of his spare time to the business
side
of the organisation but does not often
appear
in public.
Heaton Lee and Ann Keen, who have been
associated
with Tearse in the Tyneside apprentice
strike,
are trusted and experienced Trotskyists;
both are believed to be members of
the Central
Committee. Lee was born in South Africa
on
the 19th January, 1916, and came to
England
in 1937 already a convinced Trotskyist.
He
is a civil engineer by profession and
since
1938 has been employed by Messrs. Wimpey
on works in London, Glasgow and Tyneside.
He is reported to have met Mrs. Keen
in the
course of his voyage to England. She
became
converted to Trotskyism and has lived
with
Lee and collaborated in his Trotskyist
activities
ever since. While they were in Glasgow
Lee
acted as Workers’ International League
district
organiser and Keen as literature secretary;
when they moved to Newcastle they continued
to work in these capacities. On account
of
his work Lee appears little in public,
and
confines himself to organisation, making
and developing contacts, and lecturing
on
political subjects under the auspices
of
the National Council of Labour Colleges.
Mrs. Keen regularly sells Socialist
Appeal
and other literature in the streets.
(Heaton
Lee is not believed to be any relation
of
Mildred Lee’s husband.)
Appendix B.
PROGRAMME OF THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST
PARTY.
An end to the coalition with the Bosses.
Labour Trade Union Leaders must break
with
the Capitalist Government and wage
a campaign
for power on the following programme:-
Industrial and Economic Policy
1. Nationalisation of the land, mines,
banks,
transport and all big industry without
compensation,
as the prerequisite for a planned economy
and the only means of ensuring full
employment
with adequate standards of living for
the
workers, and the operation of the means
of
production under control of workers’
committees.
2. Confiscation of all war profits,
all company
books to be open for trade union inspection,
control of production through workers’
committees
to end the chaos and mismanagement.
3. Distribution of food, clothes and
other
consumers’ commodities under the control
of committees of workers elected from
the
Co-ops distributive trades, factories,
housewives’
committees, and small shopkeepers,
and allocation
of housing under the control of tenants
committees.
4. A rising scale of wages to meet
the increased
cost of living with a guaranteed minimum;
the rate for the job, and industrial
rates
for all members of the armed forces.
Democratic Demands
5. Repeal of the Essential Works Order,
the
Emergency Powers Act and all other
anti-working
class and strike-breaking legislation.
6. Full electoral and democratic rights
for
all persons from the age of 18 years.
Full
democratic and political rights for
the men
and women in uniform.
7. Immediate freedom and unconditional
independence
for India, Ireland and all the colonies
of
Britain; immediate withdrawal of the
British
armed forces from these countries;
full economic
and military assistance to the Indian
and
colonial peoples to maintain their
independence
against all imperialist attack.
Military policy
8. Clear out the reactionary, pro-Fascist,
and anti-Labour officer caste in the
armed
forces and Home Guard; election of
officers
by the ranks.
9. Establishment of military schools
by the
Trade Unions at the expense of the
State
for the training of worker-officers;
arming
of the workers under the control of
workers’
committees elected in the factories,
unions
and in the streets for the defence
of the
democratic rights of the workers from
reactionary
attacks by the enemies of the working
class
at home and abroad.
International Policy
10. Against race hatred and discrimination
of all forms (Vansittartism, Anti-Semitism,
and the Colour Bar); for the fraternisation
and co-operation of workers and soldiers
of all countries.
11. Unconditional defence of the Soviet
Union
against all imperialist Powers; despatch
of arms, food and essential materials
to
the Soviet Union under the control
of the
Trade Unions and factory committees.
12. A Socialist appeal to the workers
of
Germany, Europe, Japan and the rest
of the
world, on the basis of this programme
in
Britain, to join the Socialist struggle
against
Nazism, Fascism and all forms of capitalist
oppression and for a Socialist United
States
of Europe and a Federation of Asiatic
Soviet
Socialist Republics.
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Evans Experientialism 
