OBITUARY • AROUND THE WORLD
OBITUARY
Harry Wicks
HARRY WICKS was one of the founding fathers of British Trotskyism. He was in many ways a personification of the historic continuity of our movement, a living link between the early Leninist Comintern and the Bolshevik Party and those who carry on these traditions today.
Harry became interested in working class politics at the early age of 16 when he joined the Daily Herald Group in 1921. The majority of this group participated in the founding of the Communist Party of Great Britain. He helped to form the
Communist League, where his leadership qualities were recognized. During the General Strike of 1926 he edited a rank-and-file journal, The Signal.
Harry was sent to Moscow for a three year course at the International Lenin School. He arrived a month or two before the 15th Congress of the CPSU, which voted for the final expulsion of Trotsky and the Left Opposition. The school became a platform where the issues that were tearing the Bolshevik Party and the Communist International into warring factions were thrashed out. This experience was to have a life-long influence on Harry, deepening his understanding of the fundamentals of Marxism and his internationalism. The sterile dogma of "socialism in one country" was anathema to him.
Back in Britain he soon found himself in conflict with the party bureaucracy. In Germany the threat of fascism was reaching menacing proportions. Stalinist policies could only lead the German working class — the most powerfully organized proletariat outside the Soviet Union -into the abyss of defeat. Joining with Reg Groves, Hugo Dewar, Henry Sara and others in the Balham Group, Harry fought for the principled Leninist positions championed by Trotsky. Their expulsion from the Communist Party followed. Harry remained true to these principles throughout his life. A high point in his life was when he shared a platform with Trotsky in Copenhagen in 1932, when Trotsky gave his memorable address "In Defence of the Russian Revolution".
Harry had many differences with the leadership of the Fourth International and with other British Trotskyists. Never a docile conformist, he did not hesitate to express these differences forcefully. But in a letter to me a few months before his death here-affirmed his loyalty to the Fourth International and its programme.
We salute his memory and extend our sympathy to his wife and family. Our greatest tribute to Harry is to carry on his political work and to build the Fourth 26 International. *
Charlie van Gelderen International Viewpoint #166 • June 26, 1989
AROUND
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SOUTH AFRICA Solidarity for Upington defendants FOURTEEN of the Upington 26 have been sentenced to death. They have been convicted on the same basis of "common purpose" used against the Sharpeville 6. This means that people could hang for a murder they did not participate in. The same kind of massive international campaign that won a reprieve for the Sharpeville defendants is getting underway.
Of the 26 defendants, 25 were convicted of the 1985 murder of a municipal policeman in Paballelo township outside Upington, a town on the border with Namibia. Most of the accused were convicted on the basis that they were part of a crowd that stoned the home of the policeman before he was killed, also by a crowd of
In South Africa anti-apartheid organizations have launched an international campaign to reverse the death sentences. The South African Council of Churches called the death sentences an outrage that only the apartheid system can produce"
The defence is now in the process of entering an appeal against the judgement - the process will take between 12-18
Those sentenced to death will wait the time on death row. All those convicted have been in prison since April 1988, and now their dependants are in dire financial need.
A "Friends of the Upington 26" committee has been set up in Britain to organize the solidarity campaign. At the same time the British Anti-Apartheid Movement has agreed to take up the campaign. A picket of the South African Embassy in London has already taken place, and defence of the Upington 26 was one of the themes of a demonstration outside Downing Street [the residence of the British Prime Minister] to mark the anniversary of the Soweto uprising on June 16.
In Holland the Women for Peace organization has taken up the campaign. A broad committee has been set up and has
3,000 signatures. France a picket of the South Embassy has been held on the initiative of the JCR [youth organization in solidarity with the Fourth International] and steps are being taken to spread the solidarity. The campaign is also getting underway in Sweden and Belgium.
To get in touch with the support network in South Africa itself contact: Upington 26, c/o The Rural Worker, SACHED, 5 Church Street, Mowbray 7700, South Africa. * FRANCE "Debt, colonies, apartheid ...enough's enough!"
apartheid
dotte
colonies
SINCE the start of 1989, France has been in the throes of the bicentenary celebrations of the French revolution. The French government has chosen July 14, the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, to host the annual summit of the heads of state of the seven richest countries in the world in Paris.
This could not go ahead unchallenged. Several months ago, the Ligue communiste révolutionnaire (LCR), French section of the Fourth International, took the initiative in proposing a united protest against the summit on the weekend of July launched by the LCR has drawn the support of hundreds of personalities, political groups and organizations both in France
The meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Berlin in autumn 1988 was met by repeated demonstrations. This time also the masters of the world economy will not be able to meet undisturbed. Well over 300 well-known figures from 26 countries have responded to the appeal of Gilles Perrault, well-known writer and anti-imperialist militant, who issued a text
"The Third World is the Third estate of today. We call on representatives of the peoples that have been bled dry to come together, in order that July 14 should keep its meaning, dignity and force...Presenting their case to public opinion, they will also do their accounting and will seek together for ways and means to tear down the Bastille of economic imperialism. We also
call on the progressive forces of France and of Europe. We will be demonstrating in the streets of Paris, at the Bastille on July 8, 1989. We will give the platform to those who are fighting for the right of self-determination for the peoples; against the debt, against the last colonies, against apartheid in South Africa."
Signatories in France include six members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party; elected representatives of the Socialist Party; the Communist Youth (JC); the Communist rénovateurs (MRC); the LCR; the New Left; the United Socialist Party (PSU); different antianti-racist committees; figures from anti-colonialist organizations in the remaining French colonies; Harlem Désir of SOS-racisme; and militant Chris-
From other countries the appeal has been signed by, among others, Boris Kagarlitski from the Moscow People's Front; supporters of Charter 77 and other independent initiatives in Czechoslovakia; members of the Polish Socialist Party/ Andras Hegedus, ex-Hungarian Prime minister; Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone and other British Labour MPs; MPs from the West German Greens; Bernadette McAliskey from the North of Ireland; Herri Batasuna, Euskadi (Basque country); leading members of Proletarian Democracy (DP) in Italy; Otelo de Carvalho from Portugal; Danish Euro-MP Else Hammerich; elected deputies from the Workers' Party (PT) of Brazil; Hugo Blanco from Peru; Rosario Ibarra from Mexico; the Chilean Socialist Party in exile; Johnny Clegg from South Africa; Ahmed Ben Bella from Algeria. And the list is growing every day!
An additional dimension to the events will be provided by singers Renaud, Johnny Clegg with Savuka and others who will give a free concert at the end of the demonstration in the Place de la Bastille. On Sunday, July 9, a symposium is being organized around the issue of the remaining colonies on the eve of their integration into "Europe"; on the need for a boycott of South Africa; and on the annulment of the debt of the dominated countries.
President François Mitterrand recently took the initiative to write off the debts owed by the 35 poorest countries to the French state. This has not however undermined the determination of those who want to see the whole of the debt annulled. Mitterrand's "present" only amounts to $2.5 billion of a total of $80bn owed to France, and a total of $1,320bn owed to the industrialized countries as a whole. The recent riots in Argentina and Venezuela should serve to remind us of the depth of the crisis caused by the imperial-
The July 8-9 events will be the opportunity for us to to denounce the scandal of the debt through an international mobili-
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