Harry Wicks: Difference between revisions

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>