Content deleted Content added
m Robot - Speedily moving category Socialist Workers Party (Britain) members to Category:Socialist Workers Party (UK) members per CFDS. |
Flow Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit |
||
(39 intermediate revisions by 22 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{Inline|date=December 2022}}
'''Harry Wicks''' (16 August 1905
Born in [[Battersea]],
▲Born in [[Battersea]], [[London]], he went to work on the railways and joined the [[National Union of Railwaymen]] in 1919. He joined the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]], but after [[Black Friday (1921)|Black Friday]] moved to the [[Communist Party of Great Britain]] (CPGB). After studying with [[A. E. E. Reade]], he came to support [[Leon Trotsky]] and the [[International Left Opposition]].
Elected to the executive of the [[Young Communist League (UK)|Young Communist League]] in 1926, Wicks attended the [[International Lenin School]] in [[Moscow]] and the Sixth World Congress of the [[Comintern]]. He began working with the [[Balham Group]] of [[Trotskyist]]s, and was expelled from the CPGB in 1932. He became a founding member of the [[Communist League (UK, 1932)|Communist League]] and met Trotsky in [[Copenhagen]] but disagreed with Trotsky's advice to join the [[Independent Labour Party]].
The Communist League split with the tendency opposed to joining the ILP continuing as the [[Marxist League (UK, 1936)|Marxist League]] which later worked within the Labour Party. He also chaired the British Committee for the Defence of [[Leon Trotsky]].
Wicks began working with [[C. L. R. James]] of the [[Marxist Group (UK)|Marxist Group]], and in 1938 their tendencies merged to form the [[Revolutionary Socialist League (UK)|Revolutionary Socialist League]]. However, Wicks and the remnants of the former Marxist League soon left soon and to form the [[Socialist Anti-War Federation]]. In 1940, this group dissolved and he joined the Independent Labour Party.▼
In 1936, Wicks and several others signed a letter to the ''[[Manchester Guardian]]'' defending Trotsky's right to asylum and calling for an international inquiry into the [[Moscow Trials]].<ref>The other signatories were: [[H. N. Brailsford]], [[Conrad Noel]], [[Frank Horrabin]], Fred Shaw, Rowland Hill, [[Eleanor Rathbone]], Reg Groves, Garry Allingham and Stuart Purkis. [[Robert J. Alexander]], ''International Trotskyism, 1929-1985: A Documented Analysis of the Movement''. Duke University Press, 1991; {{ISBN|082231066X}} (p. 451)</ref> Wicks was also an active [[anti-fascist]].<ref>Keith Hodgson, ''Fighting Fascism: the British Left and the Rise of Fascism, 1919-39''. Manchester University Press, 2011; {{ISBN|071908055X}} (p. 163)</ref>
At the end of [[World War II]], Wicks joined the Labour Party and became active in [[NALGO]]. In 1971, he became involved with the Trotskyist movement again, joining the forerunner of the [[Socialist Workers Party (UK)|Socialist Workers Party]] (SWP) the International Socialists. He was part of the 1976 split which formed the [[Workers League (UK)|Workers League]]. He would later work with the SWP in various campaigns but never rejoined it.▼
▲Wicks began working with [[C. L. R. James]] of the [[Marxist Group (UK)|Marxist Group]], helping James write [[World Revolution (book)|World Revolution]], his 1937 history of the [[Communist International]], and in 1938 their tendencies merged to form the [[Revolutionary Socialist League (UK, 1938)|Revolutionary Socialist League]]. However, Wicks and the remnants of the former Marxist League soon left
Not long before his death he wrote a brief autobiography Memoirs of a British Bolshevik.▼
▲At the end of
▲Not long before his death he wrote
==References==
{{reflist}}
*Sam Bornstein and [[Al Richardson (historian)|Al Richardson]], ''Against the stream''▼
*Sam Bornstein and [[Al Richardson (historian)|Al Richardson]], ''War and The International''▼
==Sources==
*[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]
▲*[[Sam Bornstein]] and [[Al Richardson (historian)|Al Richardson]], ''Against the
▲*[[Sam Bornstein]] and [[Al Richardson (historian)|Al Richardson]], ''War and The International'', Socialist Platform, 1986
*Harry Wicks, ''Keeping My Head: The Memoirs of a British Bolshevik'', Socialist Platform, 1992.
==External links==
*[https://mrc.epexio.com/records/WIC Catalogue of Wicks' papers], held at the [[Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick]]
*[http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/explorefurther/speakingarchives/harrywicks/ A veteran Trotskyist remembers: interviews with Harry Wicks]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wicks, Harry}}
[[Category:1905 births]]
Line 35 ⟶ 40:
[[Category:British Trotskyists]]
[[Category:British Marxists]]
[[Category:English anti-fascists]]
[[Category:Communist Party of Great Britain members]]
[[Category:Communist League (UK, 1932) members]]
|