Review
INSIDE STORY OF HEALY'S CONFERENCE
HEALY "RECONSTRUCTS" THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL -- DOCUMENTS AND
COMMENTS BY PARTICIPANTS IN A FIASCO. With a preface by
Joseph Hansen. Socialist Workers Party, 873 Broadway,
New York, N.Y. 10003. 40 pp. 35 cents.
This pamphlet contains documentary material of particular interest to partisans of the Fourth International and to revolutionary socialists concerned about the good name of Trotskyism in Britain. It provides an inside picture of what went on at an international conference organized by Gerry Healy of the Socialist Labour League last April with the avowed aim of “reconstructing ® the Fourth International.
The conference, which had been ballyhooed by Healy's weekly publication The Newsletter for some time as a coming major event in the revolutionary-socialist movement, ended in a complete fiasco. Of the three main participating tendencies, one was kicked out and another walked out, leaving only Healy and his group.
The pamphlet includes letters written by representatives of the Spartacist tendency, who attended the conference as observers and who Saw their leading spokesman: James Robertson hustled out of .... the gathering; a letter by Healy trying to justify the dictatorial . way he ran things; an exchange of letters between James Robertson and Tim Wohlforth after the conference; and an article by the Voix Ouvriére group recounting the abysmal political level of the gathering and why they as invited guests and participants were faced with no choice but to walk out.
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In a preface to these illuminating documents, Joseph Hansen indicates the background to the pretentious conference and why it was that the participants -- to their own complete surprise -found themselves at: ioggerheads despite the common views that had brought. them. together in the same: room. Hansen analyzes in detail the organizational procedures followed by. Healy. in expelling Robertson and shows how grossly the norms of democratic centralism were violated.
The Socialist Labour Leagué, under Healy's leadership, has long been notorious in the British labor movement for its lack of democracy. However, it was difficult for revolutionary socialists abroad to: judge how much the rumors and reports night be colored | by factionalism. , ,
This material settles the question. "The facts reported by
the Robertson delegation," as Hansen observes, "are different from anything yet revealed since they come from people who were pathetically loyal to Healy and who could scarcely believe their eyes as they witnessed what. was happening. Their report, of how Healy expelled Robertson, backed. as it.is by Healy.'s own. boasts and admissions, is utterly convincing."
In contrast to the fiasco of Healy's conference, Hansen calls attention to the progress of the Fourth International since its Reunification Congress in 1963. Last December it held another world congress,. marking a new step forward.
While ‘the international Trotskyist movement continues to advance, the few groups like the one headed by Healy, which refused to abide by the rules of democratic centralism, have moved further away from the basic principles. and practices of Trotskyism. The result, in the form of political and organizational degeneration, is to be seen in such revealing documents as those that have been made available in this pamphlet.
SECRET CIA