[Book] Ted Grant Writings: Volume One Index [BOOK] TED GRANT WRITINGS: VOLUME ONE PREFACE INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION TO 'PRE-WAR PERIOD' LESSONS OF SPAIN CONTRIBUTION BY WIL TO THE DISCUSSION ON THE TASKS OF BOLSHEVIK-LENINISTS IN BRITAIN STATEMENT OF WIL TO THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL AGAINST 'NATIONAL DEFENCE' THE ROBBERS QUARREL OVER TIENTSIN WORKERS WANT PEACE - BOSSES PREPARE FOR WAR! DOWN WITH THE WAR! INTRODUCTION TO 'IMPERIALIST SLAUGHTER' OUR WAR IS THE CLASS WAR NOT FOR IMPERIALIST SLAUGHTER HOW TO WIN THE CLASS WAR NO PEACE WITHOUT SOCIALISM THE WORKERS' WAR IS THE CLASS WAR! WORKERS MUST BE ARMED AGAINST CAPITALISM INTRODUCTION TO 'THE INTERNAL DEBATE OF WIL ON REVOLUTIONARY MILITARY POLICY' ARM THE WORKERS! INVASION: ARM THE WORKERS! THE INTERPRETATION OF THE EC MAJORITY A STEP TOWARDS CAPITULATION MILITARY POLICY - OR CONFUSION INTRODUCTION TO 'A TURNING POINT: THE ATTACK ON THE USSR' DEFEND THE SOVIET UNION - FASCISM CAN ONLY BE DEFEATED BY INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM AN ANALYSIS OF THE SOCIAL BASIS OF THE SOVIET UNION - AND WHY WE DEFEND IT DAILY HERALD - A PUBLIC STATEMENT, NOT A PRIVATE ADMISSION THE NEXT STEPS FORWARD - TOWARDS THE RANK AND FILE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY WHY USSR IS SUFFERING REVERSES - INTERNATIONALISM HAS BEEN ABANDONED STATEMENT ON POLICY AND PERSPECTIVES A CHALLENGE TO THE COMMUNIST PARTY ILP AND THE STALINIST SLANDER STALIN THREATENS NEW TURN AN OPEN LETTER TO ILP NATIONAL CONFERENCE LABOUR LEADERS HOLD WORKERS BACK BRITISH REFUSE ARMS TO INDIANS THE ROAD TO INDIA'S FREEDOM LABOUR LEFTS REHEARSED DEBATE WITH TORIES! AN OPEN LETTER TO THE YORKSHIRE MINERS' ASSOCIATION RIGHT WING TORIES FEAR OUR PROGRAMME NEW ALLIES OF COMMUNIST PARTY THE ILP - A SHIP WITHOUT A COMPASS WAINWRIGHT AND DORIOT: BIRDS OF A FEATHER OPEN LETTER TO YORKSHIRE MINERS WAINWRIGHT BLUNDERS AGAIN ON THE CHINESE REVOLUTION INTRODUCTION TO 'WIL'S PRE-CONFERENCE DOCUMENTS AND UPDATES' PREPARING FOR POWER RESOLUTION ON MILITARY POLICY WIL PRE-CONFERENCE APPEAL TO THE INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL CONSTITUTION OF WIL (1942) REPORT OF PRE-CONFERENCE, AUGUST 1942 PERSPECTIVES AND TASKS REPORT ON ILP WORK TO THE INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT CLEAR OUT HITLER'S AGENTS! FACTORY WORKERS: BE ON YOUR GUARD THESIS OF INDIAN FOURTH INTERNATIONALISTS ALL PAGES Publications World War II Fourth International & Trotskyism World War II Page 45 of 57Open letter to Yorkshire minersBy WIL[Socialist Appeal Cortonwood supplement,c. January 1943]Comrades,On Wednesday, December 23, the Council of the YMA carried a resolution which stated:“That this council meeting authorises the officials to take legal advice as to what action, if any, can be taken in regard to the articles which are continually appearing in Socialist Appeal.”This resolution is aimed to silence our criticism of Hall and the present leadership at Barnsley and its policy. It carries the campaign to suppress the Socialist Appeal initiated by Hall last July a step further. It is a police substitute for an open discussion before the miners of Wombwell and Yorkshire.The Socialist Appeal has had some hard things to say about Joe Hall. So also do we say hard things about any working class “leader” whose policy is against the interests of the workers. These are mild, let it be said, in comparison with statements made to the Socialist Appeal by hundreds of miners about their “leaders”.Although Hall has had every opportunity to reply to a public challenge which was issued on July 18 1942, he has not availed himself of the opportunity and attempted to refute our charges.His latest move is an act of desperation.Meanwhile the so-called Communist Party members and sympathisers in the Yorkshire area are peddling the story that the Trotskyists and their paper, the Socialist Appeal, are responsible for the present strike at Cortonwood. Every miner who is familiar with the events leading up to the strike will immediately recognise this as a lie, and will brand it as such.In peddling these lies the “communists” echo the slanders of Joe Hall whose allegations were completely exposed as the lies that they are in Parliament, when the coal owners and Tory representatives attempted to use his allegations to get the Socialist Appeal suppressed.“Why does a political organisation interfere in an industrial dispute?” is the trick question which the fakers ask. Any miner who deludes himself that it is possible to separate industrial from political questions is making a grievous blunder.When the coal owners say that the present strike “holds up production and helps the Nazis,” that is a political action; the coal owners who were responsible for firing the first shot in the industrial field attempt to throw the political responsibility for the outcome of the dispute on to the shoulders of the workers. The action of the government in allowing the courts to be used to intimidate the colliers, is a political action. The action of Hall and his colleagues, of tying the hands of the miners behind their backs, giving up the right to strike, and collaborating with the coal owners and their capitalist government, is a political action. So also is the action of the renegade “communists” who have deserted the workers and appealed to the miners to accept the cut in the interests of the “war effort.”It is no accident that the coal owners who are Tories in politics embrace Joe Hall who claims to be Labour. Nor is it an accident that Joe Hall who was the most bitter opponent of the Stalinists 18 months ago, now embraces them and endorses the political activities of the Communist Party and Young Communist League, while the Stalinists quote Joe Hall with great favour. For all these people have the same political aim: support for the present capitalist coalition and its repressive legislation against the working class. No matter what they may say in private or in the bedroom about “socialism after the war,” their public activities and present day actions is detrimental to the interests of the working class.The Socialist Appeal is the organ of Workers’ International League, a Trotskyist political organisation which continues the policy of revolutionary socialism. The policy which made the Russian revolution. We oppose the present capitalist coalition, its repressive legislation against the workers, and all its other actions detrimental to the working class. We do not believe that this capitalist coalition is interested in conducting a war for democracy nor that it is capable of doing so, since it uses repression against the people in the colonies as well as at home. We believe that the only people who are really interested in or capable of conducting a war against fascism and reaction are the working class, and for that reason we say that political power must be in the hands of the workers.In our view, the only way in which coal production can be thoroughly organised is by the nationalisation of the pits without compensating the present owners, who have sucked the blood of the miners for long enough, and by the operation of the pits under the democratic control of miners and technicians, who are the only people really capable of solving the question of production.In the present dispute we believe that any honest working class organisation must come out openly in defence of the Cortonwood miners and assist them to the maximum in their present struggle.These actions are political acts for which we take full responsibility before the workers.Workers’ International League (Fourth International) Prev Next