Constant Reader ictor Grayson

Veterans of the Labour movement are recalling today the long, hard struggle that had to be waged before the party could be got, in 1918, to include in its constitution that famous phrase about common ownership, which the Gaitskells, on their way back to “Lib-Lab” politics now wish to strike out.

A landmark in that struggle was the election for the Colne Valley division of Yorkshire, in 1907, on a straight socialist ticket, of a young man whose name became for a few years an inspiring symbol to advanced workers. This was Victor Grayson. His election threw the official leaders of Labour into consternation. But in a comparatively short time he eliminaicd himself from the political scene owing to personal weaknesses.

Grayson drank heavily and was a womanizer. After accepting £3,000 from one of his admirers he suddenly married another, a lady whom it would be polite to call amoral. in {913 he had a nervous breakdown and went off on a long voyage to get better. Not only, however, did he return a confirmed drunkard, but after the first world war he appeared on public platforms as a paid propagandist against strikes.

In 1920 he disappeared without trace. But the movement he had served for a while went on, the richer for his contribution, the poorer for his defection.

Carr on Soviet History In the second volume, just published, of his ‘Socialism In One Country, 1924-1926’ (Macmillan, 45s.), Professor E. H. Carr takes his story down to the eve of the coming-together of Trotsky with Zinoviev and Kamenev in the united opposition of 1926. The book inchudes valuable studies of the administrative developments of the period, in the party, in focal’ government (‘Revitalizing the Soviets’), the Red Army and the security organs. These. should be compulsory reading for all who talk learnedly about ‘Stalinism’ without any knowledge of the actual historical and geographical conditions tn which. that phenomenon took shape.

‘Of Trotsky alone,’ writes Carr, analyzing the party crisis of 1925, ‘could it be said that his attitude would be determined, and his actions directed, by a profound and unchanging conviction of the correct course to pursue and by an indifference to personal factors if they seemed irrelevant to this conviction. This quality was a source of political weakness as well as of strength. But it won respect and gave him a unique position.’

Trotsky is indeed one of those who in Cornford’s phrase, throw a longer shadow as time recedes. The newspapers now planning what anniversaries to commemorate in 1960 will certainly be commissioning articles on the 20th anniversary ~ of Trotsky’s murder, in August next. What will the Daily Worker do about it, I wonder? When the murder happened, the Daily Worker of August 23, 1940, carried an article by J. R. Campbell, in which Trotsky’s role in the revolution and civil war was dismissed as a ‘few ultra-revolutionary con_ tortions’ and the general tone was set by the title : ‘A CounterRevolutionary Gangster Passes.’

Words Fail Me

‘Driven to despair by the theft last week of £5,000 of her jewellery, Dorothea, Lady Ley, was, faced yesterday with a further tragedy.

‘Her 10-year-old white pekinese Brumas disappeared in Belgravia while being taken for a walk by the maid, who believed someone had stolen him.

““T was quite overcome,” Lady Ley told me. “I began to think someone was deliberately trying to ruin my life. The person who. broke into my flat knew exactly where the key to my wardrobe was, and took all my diamonds and _ rubies.”

‘Luckily, Lady Ley’s luck changed. During the afternoon her Peke was found and returned to the police.’

(William Hickey in the Daily Express, December 14.)

During the last war public transport could always get the public through because everything else was restricted. Year by year since then we have been suffering the indignities of second-class citizens travelling like cattle in roads and tubes growing ever more congested. Only today I heard of some-