L Gumberiand 8+.-,
Toronte 6, ONT.
danuary 1,1967
Comrades: We are astonished to see that you have not responded in any positive way to the appeal issued by the Socislist Workers Party of the United States, and which you acknowledge receipt of in the Dacembar 3} issue of your official organ, Tie Newsletter. Thay asked you to place your national secretary on trial and that you expel. from your ranks everyone involved in the hooligan attack against Ernest Tata outside your meeting at Caxton Hall on November 17. For our part we do not question for one moment thet Comrade Ernest Tate is talling the truth when he states that he was yicioualy assaulted as he was attempting to ancovraga those attending the meeting to purchase, so they could study, a pamphlet ontitled Healy Rooconstracts the Fourth International. Aa o leader of our movemant, the League for Booiel ist Action, he informed us that a group of persons known to him and. other witnessea as menbers of the SLL, and undor the direction of your naticnal secretary, amsaulted him and gave him such a working over thet he had to be hospitalized. I+ was only by good chmce tht he was not killed and appeara to have suffered no permanant injury- You sae, we know comrade Tate- We know him aga ravolutionary aooiallst, as a Trotskyist of the highest integrity and the firmest dedication to the cause of the international working olass Bovyemant that bears tho naze of Leon Trotaky and numbers within its ranks such fem leas fighters as Hugo Blaneo. Aside from the political and moral credentials of the secusaer - and thay are impesoable - your political committes publighed a pitino stal in your official organ on dugust 26 that suataine his charge. J4 ia in fact a directive to menbers of your movement to ect aa Tate olaime they did against him. It deolared publicly in your name that: "We shall not hesitate to deal appropriately with the hadful of United jesretarlat agents who hawk it around the cynical foke-left in Englend." Sinoe then your paper, in its November 12 iasue, reported an incident where 4 revolutionsry was beaten up and thrown out of a meeting where your national secretary was the featured speaker becausa he wanted to defend his organisation from the attack and revilement that hed been Levelled at it throughout the seating- Inatead of denouncing the asaault of this revolutionary and his associates, tha Newsletter approved: I+ sees clear to us that these incidents sustain Tate's charges. Even should you balieve that Tate has sonoooted hie story, and. that others, such as the Voix Ouvriere, have consoctad their atorics for
resgons unknown to ua, 26 ia obvious that you yourselves oust initiate
the action suggested by the SWF, or some alternative action which will
make it impossible to ascertain the truth of Tate's charge.
Failure to do so, you must aimit, tends strongly to affirm the truth of
the charges levelled against your national secretary and certain members
of your movement.
Do not think thet this is a seal) matter, an incident that will blow
over or that can be permitted to be overlooked by serious revolutionary
socinlists committed to the hertulean task of building « new society. And
do not justify your failure to act along the lines of the SWP proposal
with any kind of rationslisation that to do so would ba a form of sapit-
ulation to the pressure of the SWP, that it would amount to some kind of
‘vin" for the SWP, which for many months now you haye been abuaing in the
columns of your press.
This would truly be spite that amounts to cutting off your own nose
to save your face.
Even should you feel that the SWP has taken up this matter, not at all
in the interests of world Trotekyiem,but for some petty factional consider
ation = and nothing whatsoever in our long and close aasociation with the
SWP permite of such an interpretation - you should seriously consider how
your failure to act will be interpreted by all those acrosa the world who
consider themselves to be Trotskyists. Think what it means to those
sections of the British left who have already head or will yet hear of
this accusation. Think what it means to the internal life of your move=
nent.
We take it for granted that you are familiar with the longatanding and
teated policies adhered to by any movement that calls itaelf Trotakyist
in respect to the democratic rights of manbera of this movement, of work-
ing class opponenta and even of exponents of views that can be said to be
potty bourgeois opposition views. Qur movement has always stood for «
full and free discussion of ideas. It hga alwaya rajocted absolutely all
attempts of any kind to infringe on, to curtail, or to suppress this
process in any way, not to speak of violent physical suppression. We have
taken this stand, not at all because it has long bean the Trotskylats who
haye been denicd a hearing, whose rights haye been trampled on, auppresesed,
and whose activists have been beaten up and even surdered. We have taken
this stand because the movement required to carry cut the task that we
have set ourselves cannot be built on any other principle = because no
characterization of uz or our ideas hold any terror fer us, beosuse we
have nothing, not anything to hbide-
if you have any doubts in this respect we would refer you to tha
conduct of the SWP in collaboration with Trotsky hinsalf in respect to one
James Burnham. And sinte the NEWSLETTER on occasion has seen fit in its
porsonal yondettas against leaders of the Unitad Secretariat to dip far
back in the history of such sections as the Franch - we would refer you
to Trotaky's intervention in the Molinier inoldm t.
Instead of responding ta the SWP's very simple and logical requeat
that you face your national sooretary with Tata's charges, that you place
him on trial, you have allowed your leadership to go to the courts. Not to
a court of labor and socialist opinion composed of trade unionists, social-
ists whose sollactivity would assure impartiality and the determination
of the truth,. but to the bourgeois courte, the courts of the olass anemy.
The first: result of this violation of elenantary working class principle has already heaped ignominy on you. What satisfaction there must ba in knowing that you have succeeded in wringing 21° guineas out of working olasa papers for haying published a letter by Tate protesting the essmlt on hin, and in winning the thread of worse should they comment on the Tate inoident+
We oannet tut help recall to your mind when you were teken to court, and the capitalist judges handed down awards agalnst yous Im the tralition of working class solidarity with victima of capitalist wmurt injustice, when you were the victim we responded to four appeal to the full limit of our resources. We weloomed your national secretary on aur platform. We launched a spesial financial drive through the ranka of our members and sympethigera and pave you a very lage sum of money: And now having foreed, with bourgeois court orders, the working class press of Britain into silence, your victorious solicitors have, upon the advice of Gerry Healy, threatened our comrade with a court injunetion, restraining nim froe ciroulating information relevant to kis case, including the contents of thia letter, we assume, or suffer the consequencea. You should know that no single issue in Canada today,not wagea, not working conditiona, but court injunotions unite the ranks of the working clags opposition to capitalism. Let us apsyre you that we are as Pully behind comrade Tate as we were behind you when you were being harassed by the courte. We will not have hin silenced ani we will aid him in his efforts to the fullest axtent of Our resources. What a legacy of hatred for your movasent, what awful precedents are being set by the course that your leadership lamched upon you by their action in front of your meeting just laat November at Saxton Hall. Where will you go from here? What was the logic of the course that was set ther? Are you prepared to send comrade Tate to jail for defiance of'a court injunction? Stop now! Turn back! Ast on the suggestions of the SWP - or you will be forever lost to the ideslogy of which you claim to be the aole practitioners.
Comradely,
Ross Dowson,
Executive Secretary,
League for Socialist Action.
ae ee ee ee Se Se
RAT THE