In the last few months, I have been to the archive at Bishopsgate near Liverpool St. My archive is being held there, and I have begun cataloguing items there. Most of the Archive is taken up with my notebooks from my website and blog. On My next visit I shall bring five boxes of internal documents from the ICFI dating from 1984-2008. These will be closed documents, and viewing will be at the discretion of chief archivist Stef Dickers, myself and a consultation with the British section of the IC.
There are some gems from my time in the WRP(Workers Revolutionary
Party. I have the proof copy of One Long Night by Maria Joffe –a devastating
first-hand account of Stalin’s labour camps. Maria Joffe, widow of leading
Bolshevik Adolf Joffe and, with him, a prominent member of the Trotskyist
opposition to Stalinism, survived 29 years in prison camps in the Soviet Union.
This book came curtesy of Vanessa Redgrave after she left the WRP and sold her
library for next to nothing. Suffice it to say my library increased that day. I
should donate to the movement. Maybe next time there will be a meeting in
London.
My workload regarding my website and blog has increased exponentially.
Both reading and research have increased over the last few months. I had
intended to write only once on the Carnival, but I need to answer Diane Abbott's
recent piece in the Guardian. Her main contention is that while it is bad, two
people got killed at Carnival, it is too big and important. People have the democratic
right to dance. Even a few murders now and again are not going to stop it. So
what if 76 people were deliberately burnt to death nearby? Carnival is too
important to be stopped.
It was great catching up with Pam Livesey a few weeks ago. Pam
visited with her daughter Evie to see Taylor Swift in London. In a meeting with
her, she agreed to write some articles for the website. Hence, a new page was created
for her.
I am working on a few book reviews at the moment. The first,
which should be published next week, is a review of John Rees’s new book Marxism
and the English Revolution. As you can imagine, this will take a little while
as it contains stuff that needs more research than normal. The next book review
will be John Kelly’s The Twilight World of World Trotskyism. I am in for a
wretched time if this is anything like his previous attempt at criticising
Trotskyism. I reviewed his last book.
As the Marxist writer David North Points out, “This is not
the time and place for a detailed response to Mr. Kelly, but two points must be
made. While sarcastically dismissing the failure of the Trotskyist movement to
lead a socialist revolution, Kelly ignores the counter-revolutionary actions,
frequently involving murderous violence, taken by the mass Stalinist and social
democratic party and trade union organisations in alliance with the state to
isolate and destroy the Trotskyist movement and defend the capitalist system.
Kelly pretends the Trotskyist movement conducted its revolutionary work in
ideal laboratory conditions.
The second point, actually a question, is this: What are the
great political successes achieved by those organisations and their leaders
that are engaged in what Kelly calls “serious”, i.e., non-revolutionary
politics? Mr. Kelly informs his readers that he was a member of the British
Communist Party during the 1980s. What were the great and lasting achievements
of this party, which was implicated in every crime and betrayal carried out by
the Stalinist regime in the Kremlin from the 1920s until the catastrophic
dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991?[1]
Recent Book Purchases
1.
The Twilight of World Trotskyism-John Kelly
2.
Marxism and the English Revolution John Rees
3.
On Tocqueville-A Ryan
4.
The Tyranny of Merit-M Sandel
5.
The Levellers-G Robertson
6.
Pablo Neruda-The Complete Memoirs- Neruda was a
loyal follower of Stalin; he even collaborated in the plot to assassinate Leon
Trotsky in Mexico City in August 1940. See Evidence presented in the 1973
murder of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda- www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/03/14/agsf-m14.html
7.
A Collection of Essays-George Orwell
8.
Marxism and the Party-J Molyneux
9.
Revolutionary Spring-C Clarke
10. Capitalist
Realism-M Fisher
11. A
Life in politics-Paul Foot. M Renn
12. Dear
Oliver-S Barry
13. Hitler's
People-R Evans
