A COMMENT ON THE IRISH WORKERS UNION

SINCE the publication of its manifesto, interest and speculation have been rife about the Irish Workers’ Union because of the manifesto’s apparent attempt to combine socialist aims with aims of a dubious character.

Two paragraphs illustrate the contradiction. The IWU intends to: ‘align the collective strength of Irish workers throughout Britain with the British Labour movement in common struggle against the entrenched power of capitalism.’ Every socialist will agree with this.

But another paragraph says: ‘All members of the IWU must be members of the trade union covering their calling. Members of the Communist Party and its auxiliary organizations or of Fascist bodies are not eligible for membership of the TWU. Auxiliary membership (without voting rights) of the TWU may be granted to non-Irish supporters of its objective, policy and programme.’

Socialists and Marxists immediately take issue with two glaringly deviationist statements here—the ban on the Communist Party and the chauvinistic approach to membership.

(Continued opposite)

On Wednesday, December 16, Joe Pawsey, a life-long Marxist and foundation member of the British Trotskyist movement died in St. George’s Hospital, Hyde Park, from bronchial pneumonia.

Joe was born in West Norwood in 1910. His political career began when, as a schoolboy, he became noted for his outspoken Left opinions.

He joined the Independent Labour Party in 1930 and it wasn’t long before he saw through the loose, middleof-the-road policies advocated by people such as Brockway and Maxton. Joe became one of the founding members of Trotsky’s Left Opposition when its Opinions spread to the I.L.P. He helped to launch the Marxist Group in that organization.

For 29 years Joe Pawsey lived and fought under the banner of Marxism and in these years he suffered the terrible effects of the isolation of Marxists, as well as the chronic evils of unemployment. Joe was one of the large army of unemployed who found it impossible to get a job during the 1930’s. It could be said that the illness which finally claimed him had its roots in the starvation conditions which he had to endure during those terrible years.

Joe was one of those pioneers who refused to bow before the lies and distortions of Stalinism. Day after day, week in and week out, he argued tirelessly for the opinions of Leon Trotsky. At meetings, outside the Labour Exchange and in public demonstrations, Joe could be seen in all weathers selling the literature of the movement. Without such people as Joe Pawsey, the Socialist Labour League would not be in existence today.

During the war, he was conscripted to the armed forces and assigned to the Pay Corps, which eventually landed him on the island of Malta. Things were beginning to change for Joe; for the first time in ten years he was assured of a square meal. In his letters to England during the worst period of the bombing of Malta, he constantly requested literature and information about the activity of the movement.

He was responsible for holding political discussion groups under the very noses of the officers and under the bombs dropped by the Nazis.

From Malta he was transferred to Egypt, where he quickly made contact with the Egyptian Trotskyists. He was responsible for starting the first Trotskyist group in Cairo. A few weeks before he died he spent some time telling me about the fate of some of the members who formed this group and who languish .in Nasser’s jails today.

Joe returned from the army and immediately joined the Revolutionary Communist Party. His army gratuity was generously donated to the movement and he plunged into almost full-time campaigning in the National Council of Labour Colleges.

During these years Joe’s closest friend was Karl Westwood, who lost his life in a motor-cycle accident in early May, 1951. Karl was N.C.L.C. organizer for the southern division and Joe was his leading tutor. Between them they recruited dozens of Admittedly caution must be exercised in dealing with the perversions of Stalinism, but these perversions can only be corrected by explaining true socialist policy to the Communist Party rank and file and not by proscribing and antagonizing members of the Party.

The chauvinist clause is so flagrant and outdated that to comment on it at all is unnecessary. It is enough to say that the idea behind it could create serious social difficulties for the Irish in exile in Britain and elsewhere.

Many people will want to know how such views ever came ‘people to Trotskyism. They covered Trade Union branches and Labour Parties all over the South of England.

When the Revolutionary Communist Party wound up and its members joined the Labour Party in 1949, Joe became a leading supporter of the Socialist Outlook.

At the beginning of the war in Korea, he went to Manchester and assisted in the work which eventually led to the formation of tne Manchester branch of the Socialist Labour League.

During these years Joe earned his living as best he could, working in factories and offices. He was tireless in his efforts to build the revolutionary party in Britain. His library was always at the disposal of all those who wanted to learn what Marxism meant. No journey was too long for Joe to undertake to see a contact.

One of my most vivid memories of Joe was when I met him in 1954 on one wintry January day in the main street of Birkenhead. His clothes were wet through to the skin after having walked a long way in the heavy rain from the station, but Joe was full of excitement over the class on socialism which he was leading for a group of dockworkers. Those dockworkers afterwards led some of the most important strikes on Merseyside and it was with pride that Joe reported their receptiveness to Marxist theory.

He returned to London from Manchester during the summer of 1956. This was a great time for him. Khrushchev’s 20th Congress speech vindicated everything that he had fought for. There were more discussions, more contacts to be visited, more meetings to be attended and he plunged into this activity even though he must have known that he was a dying man.

Joe Pawsey’s recruits for Trotskyism are his lasting monument in the service of socialism in Britain. He threw open his library to all those shaken by the Khrushchev revelations and as a result several important new members were made for the Socialist Labour League.

Even as he lay on his death bed Joe fought the Right-wing bureaucracy at Transport House. He never quit.

He was expelled from the Labour Party six times and six times he went back. A few days before he died he received a letter from the Right-wing telling him that his position was being considered and that he would have to answer for his association with the Socialist Labour League. Joe was so used to the bureaucratic technique that he had already drafted a reply in advance setting forth his political position, as he had done so many times before for the small-minded gentlemen who dominate the top of the Labour Party. They can rest assured that if Joe had lived, whilst they might have put him out of the Labour Party for the seventh time, he would have found a way to get back in and continue the struggle against them.

In this tenacity and devotion Joe Pawsey personified the Trotskyist movement. The Socialist Labour League is proud of such people as Joe Pawsey. He never aspired to leadership. He was one of those in the ranks without whom there could be no movement. His name will live for ever in the history of British Trotskyism.

Goodbye, Joe Pawsey. We who remain will continue your work. to be expressed in the union’s manifesto. The answer is simple. The manifesto is the work of one man who did not reveal its precise content until it was printed. Consequently, the task now before the members of the Irish Workers’ Union is to fight for the positive aims of the manifesto, whilst taking the necessary steps to reject from its programme all that is anti-socialist and against the communist teachings of James Connolly.

If this is done, then the IWU will have a great future as a militant, proletarian party—for socialist victory in Ireland and Britain!