'1956 and All That

"It seemed that, as soon as the group began to grow to the point where it could not be controlled by Gerry Healy leaping aboard his “Rififi-type Citroën” (the description is Brian Behan’s) and nipping round the country suppressing dissent, the group needed to be reduced to manageable proportions. In this way a legion of ex-Trotskyists was created. Indeed, if one were inclined to conspiracy theory, one might hazard that all along Healy had been in the pay of the Mikado, the Axis, the State Department and the Deuxième Bureau."

The above quotation is from '1956 and All That', the latest essay from the late Jim Higgins to be added to the Marxist Internet Archive. As I have written previously on this blog, Higgins was undoubtedly one of the most readable of writers on the left in Britain and it is always a pleasure to read his articles. Through the good work of Ted Crawford and Mike Pearn there is a good archive of his writings now being placed on the Marxist Internet Archive, and I would recommend anyone wishing to find out how you can combine political writing with an accesible writing style that employs humour, passion and historical insight than you can't go much wrong in spending an hour or two checking out the archive of his writings.*

From reading the articles and reviews that he wrote in the sixties and early seventies, when he was one of the leading members of the International Socialists, you can see that the caustic wit was always there in his writings but the later pieces are the more interesting because, as well as the illuminating anecdotes and memories that pepper the text, they exhibit a reflection on his politics, both its successes and failures, that is all too rare when reading the writings of those who have spent a lifetime in active politics.**

A critic could dismiss this as merely a reflection of someone who wasn't active in organised left politics for the last twenty years of his life, and had the luxury of acknowledging his own political mistakes and that of his generation, but I would chose his writings with its thoughtful and not so gentle admonishment of both himself, his friends and foes and the politics of the period under discussion, than the hagiography of the Ted Grant or the late Tony Cliff anyday.

* Of course I've spent many enjoyable hours reading his writings, and I still have a saw dust prose writing style so please come back and moan at me if your writing style isn't transformed after reading his work. There is no money back guarantee. ;-)

** The other three British Trotskyist writers - and I have probably mentioned them before - who I greatly admire, whilst, like in the case with Higgins, fundamentally disagreeing with their politics, for that self-same ability to reflect honestly on their political legacy were Harry Ratner, Harry Wicks and David Widgery.