HEALY BREAKS WITH VIETNAM SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN IN BRITAIN
[Among that hardy. breed who for one reason or another follow The Newsletter, the weekly organ of the Central Committee of the Socialist Labour League, the June 25 issue looked like a collector's. item. It featured an appeal.by Bertrand Russell announcing formation. of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign,- whose purpose was to seek "to . make clear the basic issues in this struggle and to organise a series of actions in Britain supporting the National Liberation Front and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam against the Americans." Publication of Russell's appeal appeared to mark a decided shift in atti-: tude on the part of the CC of the SLL, which has been following a "eo it alone" policy in supporting the Vietnamese, varied with an occasional "barge in on others" tactic.
[The impression that the CC of the SLL might have decided to participate in an organized united front campaign was given a further boost in the July 9 issue of The Newsletter which reported that the Young Socialists under the influence of the SLL had participated in a demonstration called by the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign and had succeeded in barging in on a demonstration sponsored by the Communist party and other organizations.
LEven more out of character -- to judge solely from the columns of The Newsletter --~ was the action reported in the August 13 issue, that the SLL had participated in a meeting and march sponsored by the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign. To those who may have wondered. if the world was about to see a case of the self-reform of a bureaucracy (if only a microscopic one), two indicators suggested that premature conclusions should not be drawn. The report mentioned only one speaker -- the representative of the SLL; and a front-page... . bulletin signed by the "London Area Committee, Socialist Labour.
League," gave notice that the SLL "is not in any way connected with this united front agreement" of the Vietnam Solidarity Committee.
[Next, the August 20 issue made public a letter from G. Healy, secretary of the SLL, to Ralph Schoenman of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, further dissociating the SLL from the ‘Vietnam Solidarity Campaign.
‘“(Pinally, the September 3 Newsletter published excerpts from Ralph Schoenman's reply, together with a response occupying almost. a page of The Newsletter. The response, signed by Michael Banda, ends with the following affirmation: "To Messrs. Schoenman snd Russell we say: To hell with your rotten ‘united front' of state capitalists, Pabloites, Stalinists and centrists. Your campaign stinks and will continue to do so until you learn to fight in a principled manner. The Vietnamese will win, in spite of you." This put the CC of the SLL back where it was before The Newsletter published Bertrand Russell's appeal.
[Ralph Schoenman has released the full text of the corres-'— . pondence. For the sake of the record, we are making this available below and in our next: issue will offer some comments by. our London correspondent.
[Those who may wish to compare the texts below with what was_ published in The Newsletter, will note some minor discrepancies in ' the two texts of Healy's August 8 letter. We have followed the photostatic copy supplied by Ralph Schoenman. Where The Newsletter went so far as to substitute a word, we have noted it. Healy's August 16 letter is published here for the first time.
[To facilitate comparing the text of Schoenman's August 17 letter with the ¢xcerpts published in The Newsletter, we have underlined and enclosed in brackets what was omitted. ]
* kx x
8th August, 1966.
Mr. R. Schoenman, Jo Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, 3 Staveley Lsic] Place, ~ Haymarket, S.W.1. oe Dear Mr. Schoenman ,
May we take this opportunity to explain the position of the Socialist Labour League towards the Vietnam Solidarity Committee Lchanged to "Campaign" in the August 20 Newsletter], and more especially to its public meeting on Saturday, August 6th.
‘When we mét you towards the end of July, we explained that. we agreed with the Statement of the Committee {changed to "Campaign" in The Newsletter] that it proposed to campaign for the victory of
the National Liberation Front and the complete withdrawal of all American Armed Forces from Vietnam. During the course of this conversation:the role of the 1954 Geneva Agreement came up and you suggested that this should not be placed in the forefront of the campaign at the present time. We in turn agreed with the proviso that this Agreement was in fact largely responsible for the present state of affairs and-that this should be kept in mind, in case the Soviet bureaucracy..should attempt in the future to foist another similar reactionary agreement on the Vietnamese people. We have kept to that agreement. Te oee
ma During our talk we made it clear that we were not affiliated to your Committee {changed to "Campaign" in The Newsletter], but that we would support your public meeting on August 6th and the torchlight procession to the American Embassy at Gosvenor Square, W.L. [sic] afterwards, on these grounds, and these grounds alone.
~ Subsequently, attempts were made by members of your Committee [changed to "Campaign" in The Newsletter] such as E. Taite that Mike Banda, the assistant General Secretary of the S.L.L. should not speak at the public meeting, because he was too forthright in his condemnation of the war in Vietnam, and that he might embarrass any Labour M.Ps. who would be on the platform. Naturally, we did not agree to this, since it is out of the question for anyone, apart from members of the S.L.L. to determine who should speak for our organisation at any meeting.
Then it was agreed that he should speak, so we called upon our members and supporters to attend the meeting and join the demonstration which of course they did.
At that meeting we were faced with an extraordinary situation in which you as chairman tried to determine by your control of the meeting what our people should or should not say in relation to the role of the British Communist Party and the Soviet bureaucracy. You wrongly accused the Socialist Labour League of breaking the united front of the Solidarity Committee.
. We did nothing of the sort, since we were not in the first place members of the Committee and we would never under any circumstances agree not to criticise the British Communist Party and its Soviet overlords who are in our opinion betraying the Vietnamese revolution.
A united front agreement is one that relates the specific issues of agreement whilst enabling those who participate to criticise if necessary, the political shortcomings of others who subscribed to the agreement. Since neither we, the British Communist Party or the Soviet bureaucracy are members of your Committee [changed to "Campaign" by The Newsletter], how could the S.L.L. spokesman from the floor have broken any agreement.
The most charitable conclusion we can draw is that a serious mistake was made by you due to a misunderstanding of your powers
as Chairman. . You must appreciate that the members of the Socialist Labour League are indignant over what they believe to be an unwarranted interference with the rights of their organisation.
They participated in the demonstration when others who are affiliated to your Committee [changed to "Campaign" by The News- | letter] sought refuge in a public house by Baker Street tube station, rather than march. _
Before we decided as to whether or not to continue our support to your Committee [changed to "Campaign" by The Newsletter] we would appreciate your comments.
Yours truly,
G. Healy Lsignature ]
oo G. HEALY GH/JS Secretary
16th August, 1966. Mr. R. Schoenman, Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, 3 Shaveley [sic -- it should be Shavers] Place, Haymarket, S.W.1. Dear Mr. Schoenman,
Since you have not replied to our letter to you dated 8th August, 1966, we would now like to take the opportunity of break-. ing off all relations with the Vietnam Solidarity Committee.
We think that this Committee is not engaged in a reai defence of the Vietnamese revolution but that it consists of a hodge podge of unrepresentative middle class semi-pacifist elements whose main aim is to attack and slander the Socialist Labour League as you did as Chairman of the public meeting on August 6th.
We shall presently speak out publicly in the columns of the Newsletter about the political implications of your action.
Yours truly,
G. Healy [signature ]
GH/JS National Secretary
17 August, 1966.
G. Healy, Esq., Secretary Socialist Labour League, 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4. Dear Mr. Healy,
~ Thank you for your Letter of August 8. I cannot agree with | your account of our meeting last month, for it is at variance with. the facts. You were asked not to attack the Geneva Agreements: from the platform of: the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign. The Solidarity Campaign supports'the Vietnamese revolution and the organs of struggle leading it. It is impossible to make solidarity with the Vietnamese while they are under siege, waging a bitter struggle against their oppressors and, at the same time, attack agreements signed by their leaders as a betrayal of their revolution. The S.L.L. can do this in its own organs, as can other organisations, but the Solidarity Campaign is not a forum for attacking the National Liberation Front and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. You accepted this point during our discussion and agreed that the Geneva Agreements would. not be attacked by you from our platforn. 7
No proviso concerning the responsibility of the Geneva Agreements for the present crisis was entertained, and I can only repeat that this discussion is no part of the objects of the Solidarity Campaign, which is a united front of all those committed to support the Vietnamese in their struggle against aggression.
' You reconstruct and misrepresent the reasons why some members of this Campaign (not Committee) expressed doubts about Mike Banda as a speaker. |No-one ever stated that Banda was "too forthright in his condemnation of the war in Vietnam" or that “he might embarrass: the Labour M.P.'s who would be on the platform". This is a presentation which may suit you, but it is utterly unrelated to the truth. |* The objections were based on something other than fear of consistent support for revolutionary positions or consistent condemnation of the war in Vietnam. The objections about Banda were based on the apprehension that he would place factional considerations before condemnation of the war in Vietnam or support for the Vietnamese revolution. Factionalism was the worry, not revolutionary consistency. If there was any concern about consistency, it was as a result. of recollection that Banda and the S.L.L. condemned in print the Congolese rebels at the time of the Stanleyville inva- Sion and that you condemned the Algerian revolution as a petit-. > bourgeois formation. At the time, the S.L. L. and the Newsletter supported Messali Hadj.
*As indicated above, portions of this letter enclosed in brackets end underlined, were omitted by The Newsletter, which confined itself to making only "excerpts" available to its readers.
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{No-one denies you the right to take these views, but it is a_bit much to both maintain such a position and then contend that it _is your revolutionary consistency which is at issue. Needless to say, many people in this Campaign have evolved in their political thinking, and no-one is interested in demanding qualifications for supporting the Vietnamese revolution other than sincerity and willingness to place that support in the forefront of their minds. The Labour M.P.'s who were invited to Speak on our platform were not being spared by us the revolutionary fervour of Mr. Banda. The point was something quite other, as you know. We asked that they should not be attacked while on our platform, speaking for solidarity. This is a bit different. The whole issue is one of what is the real interest of the organisations participating in the Vietnam Solidarity . ~ Campaign. Are those organisations interested in forging a united campaign in support of the Vietnamese or are they interested in . using the Vietnamese revolution as a vehicle for slating everyone else? The Solidarity Campaign is predicated on the view that a _ united front is possible in support of Vietnam. We shall stand or fall as a Campaign on this premise. ]
I should remind you that you telephoned me for a meeting and ‘ you made the suggestion that the S.L.L. should speak at our meeting and participate in our demonstrations. In response to this overture , I made three points as Chairman of the Campaign:
1. No attack on the N.L.F. and the D.R.V., whether with
' regard to the signing of the Geneva Agreements or any-
thing else, for this was at variance with our raison
d'etre.
2. No factional attacks on other participants in this
Campaign, but concentration upon exposing the aggres-
sor and supporting the victim of the aggression. :
3. No further use of the neo-fascist and colonial term
"Vietcong", which has been used repeatedly in the
Newsletter and by the Young Socialists.
{On all these points you agreed and the Campaign was pleased that the Socialist Labour League was prepared to support a united front minimum programme of solidarity with the people of Vietnam. :
(Indeed, after Mike Banda's effective speech, I congratulated him, as Chairman, and stated that he had spoken with force and clarity, expressing the views of every serious person in this Campaign. There was no animus shown the S.L.L., nor was there any predisposition to deny you a platform. |
The turning point came with your own violation of your word, when you came on the platform to denounce the Soviet leadership, the British Communist Party and all those who work with them. You have been around long enough to know that this was an attack on’all our main speakers and the principle of a united front. In fact, what you did was to give a signal, in effect, to break up our meeting.
As. Chairman, I acted in. support of.the united. front of the Solidarity . Campaign. Individual views concerning the Soviet Union or revolutionary change , or the role of the Communist Party in Britain, are ‘irrelevant to the call. we have made to everyone who takes the minimum ‘Position of supporting ‘the’ Vietnamese’ struggle (against imperialism: “Unite. together’. a
[These were: “the factional. considerations which | had iven rise originally to apprehensions about your presence on our platform. It is too easy to envisage spokesmen from the ¥.C.L., Communist Party in Britain or any other grouping coming on our platform, nominally in support of the Vietnamese revolution, but_actually to denounce "the Healyites" as wreckers or agents of American imperialism. If anyone had done this, I should have stopped them as quickly as I stopped your own attack on members of our platform. We insist that you understand that these questions can be discussed. in all..the ~ . respective organisations vi orousl but to intrude them in a united front campaign is to betray a complete, total inabitit to underand what a united front is, how it is to be run. and how: it can develop.
[You gave assurances that factionalism would not characterise your participation in our Campaign and Mr. Banda's speech conformed to those undertakings. Your own interruption was utterly destructive of this agreement and we would ask your well-disciplined supporters not to shout: "We will smash you", from the audience. We would further ask that shouting out slogans based on the term "Vietcong" should..not- continue articularl rou. agreed that this would be done.] There were many tendencies at that meeting and they are indignant about the tactics that you employed. [Your interest in the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign was late, and I should give you two examples of your behaviour which enforce indignation about your ‘behaviour:
[L. In your report of our meeting in the Newsletter
_ you excluded mention of every other speaker, of
their contributions and of the activities of the
Solidarity Campai Your - Solidarity Campaign. Your -entire report consisted report consisted
Sf the tent of your own sbeakers the text of your own speaker. °
Le. When you were asked to participate in a demon-
‘'. stration against the presence in London of the
Deputy Premier of the puppet government in Saigon,
you_sent two people to sell the Newsletter at the
demonstration.
[All these things, combined with the intolerable behaviour at the meeting, make indignant the different groupings who were | present at the meeting and who were active in the Campaign. You must choose either to participate in united front activity and honour its decisions, or to stay out of the united front and attack it _as opportunist, or whatever you choose. If you come in and speak on its platform, then you cannot attack its very basis, having asked to participate. Here is a very clear political principle. Your con-
tinued support is welcome, but we want support for the aims of our Campaign and with the understanding that there will be no repetition . of your intolerable performance at_our last meeting. We do not want — you to join our ranks for the purpose of attacking imperialism, and then to.concentrate all your fire on other tendencies in our Campaign. The S.L.L. can conduct that struggle outside our Campaign, but _the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign was not set up for faction fighting by the 5.L.L. or by those whom it attacks.
[Yours faithfully,
[Ralph Schoenman
[P.S. Your letter of August 16 calls the Campaign: "A hodge podge of unrepresentative middle-class semi-pacifist elements whose main aim is to attack and slander the Socialist Labour League...". How curious of you to notice it so late. Perhaps it is because unable either to take over this Campaign or wreck it. You might explain that to your supporters. ]