Harry Wicks: Difference between revisions

'''Harry Wicks''' (16 August 1905 – 26 March 1989) was a [[United Kingdom|British]] socialist activist.▼

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. 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>▼

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, 1938)|Revolutionary Socialist League]]. However, Wicks and the remnants of the former Marxist League soon left and formed the Socialist Anti-War Federation. In 1940, this group dissolved and he joined the Independent Labour Party.▼

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.▼

Not long before his death he wrote an autobiography ''Keeping My Head: The Memoirs of a British Bolshevik'' with the help of Logie Barrow.▼

*Sam Bornstein and [[Al Richardson (historian)|Al Richardson]], ''Against the stream''▼

*Sam Bornstein and [[Al Richardson (historian)|Al Richardson]], ''War and The International''▼