APPEALS FOR SUPPORT AGAINST INTIMIDATION BY HEALYITES
In a letter which he sent to the press of the labor movement November 20, Ernest Tate provides further details of the circumstances in which he was set upon by a gang of young toughs at the entrance to a Socialist Labour League meeting in London at Caxton Hall on November 17. [See World Outlook December 2.]
The meeting, he reports, had been scheduled by the SLL to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the uprising of the Hungarian workers against bureaucratic misrule. He arrived early in order to offer Trotskyist literature for sale at the entrance. The two items which he thought would prove of particular interest were the International Socialist Review and a pamphlet, Healy "Reconstructs" the Fourth International. Others were also present at the entrance selling various publications. These included a group of Irish Communists and a partisan of the English Militant.
Tate found himself singled out for special attention by supporters of the SLL and was subjected to some heckling. He did not mind this, however, as no one sought to prevent him from continuing to hawk his literature.
About one-half hour later, Gerry Healy, the general secretary of the SLL, accompanied by Michael Banda another top leader of the SLL arrived. They went inside.
A few moments later, Healy appeared at the entrance.
As if they had been given a signal, six or seven individuals known by Tate to be supporters of the SLL, attacked him in gang fashion.
"My literature was knocked from my hands," he writes; "I was punched and thrown to the ground, my glasses were smashed, and as I lay on the ground I was kicked repeatedly in the groin and stomach.
"After the attack I had to attend the casualty department of the Middlesex Hospital and I was forced to stay in bed for the greater part of the next day. At the moment of writing I am still badly bruised."
As to the reason for the attack, Ernest Tate offers the following opinion: "The issue is a simple one. The Socialist Labour League leadership hope by their actions to prevent me selling my literature outside their meetings. They hope to take away my freedom of speech. This attack comes after a number of threats against me and my friends by members and supporters of the Socialist Labour League. At Brighton during the Labour Party Conference, my comrades were physically threatened and prevented from selling our literature. The same was true at the recent antiwar demonstration in Liége, Belgium, where I was threatened."
Tate ends his letter by declaring that he refuses to be intimidated. "Neither a fascist Mosley nor an ultraleft sectarian Gerry Healy, who imagines himself to be a Trotskyist should be allowed to curtail our democratic rights. I intend to be present at the next public meeting of the Socialist Labour League to sell my literature. I ask for full support from all people on the left to ensure I do it without interference from the misguided followers of Gerry Healy."