Jock Haston
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James "Jock" Ritchie Haston (1913–1986) was a
Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a rev ...
politician and
General Secretary Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the organization. The term is derived ...
of the Revolutionary Communist Party in
Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
.


Early years

Haston was born in Edinburgh and went to sea in the merchant navy where he became a member of the
Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...
(CPGB). He moved to Trotskyism in the late 1930s, after splitting with the CPGB in 1934 after watching Soviet ships break the public trade boycott of Nazi Germany. The
Paddington Paddington is an area within the City of Westminster, in Central London. First a medieval parish then a metropolitan borough, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965. Three important landmarks of the district are Paddi ...
group, which he led, joined the
Militant Group The Militant Group was an early British Trotskyist group, formed in 1935 by Denzil Dean Harber, former leader of the entrist Marxist Group in the ILP, as a separate entrist group inside the Labour Party. Initially known as the Bolshevik-Leni ...
led by
Denzil Dean Harber Denzil Dean Harber (25 January 1909, Streatham, – 31 August 1966) was an early United Kingdom, British Trotskyist leader and later in his life a prominent British ornithologist. Denzil Dean Harber was born at 25 Fairmile Avenue, Streatham ...
, and in 1937 when a group of
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
n Trotskyists appeared in
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, it was Haston who moved their acceptance of membership in the Trotskyist group. The South Africans were led by Ralph Lee (born Raphael Levy), hence they were referred to as the "Lee Group," and had been active in that country. A dispute with the
Communist Party of South Africa The South African Communist Party (SACP) is a communist party in South Africa. It was founded in 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), tactically dissolved itself in 1950 in the face of being declared illegal by the governing Na ...
was to follow them to Britain however, and it was alleged that Lee had stolen strike funds from a group of workers. These allegations would in time be proven to be lies, but were reported to the Militant Group by
Charlie van Gelderen Charlie van Gelderen (14 August 1913 – 26 October 2001) was a South African Trotskyist active in the British Labour movement from the 1930s. He attended the founding conference of the Fourth International in 1938, and towards the end of his ...
, an earlier immigrant from South Africa, and led to the split of those members of the group working with Lee. By the time the truth had been established, and the International Secretariat of the Trotskyist movement had exonerated Lee, the damage had been done, and the comrades had formed a new organisation. The new group known as the Workers International League (WIL) was organised in late 1937. In its first days, the small group was led by Lee, but when he returned to South Africa in 1941 Haston became the leading figure within the growing organisation. He also formed a personal alliance with Millie Lee at this time. In contrast to the official British section of the
Fourth International The Fourth International (FI) is a revolutionary socialist international organization consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky, also known as Trotskyists, whose declared goal is the overthrowing of global capitalism and the establishment of wor ...
, the Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL), the WIL was to experience serious growth in this period recruiting supporters from the CPGB, the RSL and from within the Labour Party. Again, unlike the official section, the WIL accepted the Fourth International
Proletarian Military Policy The Proletarian Military Policy was a policy adopted by the Fourth International in response to World War II. It was an attempt to apply transitional demands such as trade union control of military training and the election of officers to transform ...
(PMP) although not without an internal struggle that pitted a minority around Haston, Millie Lee (''né'' Kuhn) and Sam Levy against
Ted Grant Edward Grant (born Isaac Blank; 9 July 1913 – 20 July 2006) was a South African Trotskyist who spent most of his adult life in Britain. He was a founding member of the group Militant and later Socialist Appeal. Early life Grant's father had s ...
and
Gerry Healy Thomas Gerard Healy (3 December 1913 – 14 December 1989) was a political activist, a co-founder of the International Committee of the Fourth International and the leader of the Socialist Labour League and later the Workers Revolutionary Part ...
. Haston emerged the victor from this factional tussle, and the PMP was adapted to the needs of the WIL. Haston was also a member of the delegation which was sent to
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
early in the war to prepare a fall back party centre in the event of being made illegal, and having to function underground as had happened to revolutionaries in the previous war. In the event they remained legal, although they were persecuted at one point and the Government spied on them, and the delegation returned to Britain one by one. While in Ireland, they recruited additional supporters to their cause, aiding in the establishment of an Irish Trotskyist movement. Haston was the last to return from Ireland and was arrested and jailed as he was travelling on false papers, his own having been passed to a comrade evading military service. After 1941, and the turn of the CPGB to support of the war, the WIL recruited a number of militants from the CPGB in large part due to their concentration on industrial work. They also sought and succeeded in recruiting from the declining
Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...
, picking up members in the
Tyneside Tyneside is a built-up area across the banks of the River Tyne in northern England. Residents of the area are commonly referred to as Geordies. The whole area is surrounded by the North East Green Belt. The population of Tyneside as published i ...
region. When an
apprentice Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...
s' dispute developed in that area they were then well placed to intervene and as a result Haston was to find himself in jail. This short term behind bars was because the Trades Disputes Act of 1927 was used against the supporters of the strike among whom the WIL were prominent. Their earlier support for unofficial strikes in the coalfields, particularly in Kent, had also drawn upon them the attention of the authorities.


Leadership

Shortly after this dispute, the WIL was to merge with the Revolutionary Socialist League the factionally divided official section of the Fourth International (FI), to become the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). Haston was by this time seen as the foremost leader of the Trotsky movement in Britain. Like the WIL, the new party was opposed to the electoral truce of the war years between the
Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...
and
Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
parties. However, they had been far too small to be able to break the truce in earlier
by-elections A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...
, so when the Neath Division fell open they sought to take advantage, and Haston was the obvious choice of candidate. Despite the RCP lacking a branch in
Neath Neath (; cy, Castell-nedd) is a market town and Community (Wales), community situated in the Neath Port Talbot, Neath Port Talbot County Borough, Wales. The town had a population of 50,658 in 2011. The community of the parish of Neath had a po ...
at the start of the campaign, Haston was able to poll 1,781 votes in the 1945 Neath by-election. An RCP branch was constructed and literature sales were relatively large. Haston's relations with the Labor candidate, D. J. Williams, seem to have been personally harmonious, so much so that later in 1949 Williams was instrumental in finding Haston a job with the National Council of Labour Colleges. With the turn of the war against the
Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
, the RCP was at pains to look for any signs of the coming revolutionary upheavals that were expected in line with the perspectives of the Fourth International as outlined in the famous
Transitional Program In Marxist theory, a transitional demand either is a partial realisation of a maximum demand after revolution or an agitational demand made by a socialist organisation with the aim of linking the current situation to progress towards their goal o ...
. The leading theoretician of the RCP, Ted Grant, was therefore far seeing when he sought to tailor the political demands of the movement to the actual movement rather than succumbing to a rosy view of events. This realistic view of events was also prompted by the agreement of the RCP leadership with the documents of the Goldman-Morrow-Heijenoort minority in the American Socialist Workers Party.


Fourth International

In 1946 Haston led a delegation of the RCP to a conference of some of the sections of the Fourth International (FI) in Paris; he considered the conference as a congress of the movement. This was motivated in part by the opposition of the RCP to the demoralisation of the German comrades of the
International Communists of Germany International Communists of Germany (Internationalen Kommunisten Deutschlands; IKD) was a Communist political grouping founded in November 1918 during the German Revolution. The small party was, together with the better known Spartacist League, ...
(IKD). Haston and Bill Hunter proposed amendments to the resolutions that the FI's leadership put forward at the meeting. In contrast to the FI leadership, the amendments argued that
Stalinism Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory ...
had emerged from the war strengthened, and that an economic crisis was unlikely in the near future. Therefore, it was argued, political demands and expectations had to recognise these changes, and not pose revolutionary tasks in the absence of a
revolutionary situation In Marxist terminology, a revolutionary situation is a political situation indicative of a possibility of a revolution. The concept was introduced by Vladimir Lenin in 1913, in his article "Маёвка революционного пролета ...
. However, the FI majority around
Ernest Mandel Ernest Ezra Mandel (; also known by various pseudonyms such as Ernest Germain, Pierre Gousset, Henri Vallin, Walter (5 April 1923 – 20 July 1995), was a Belgian Marxian economist, Trotskyist activist and theorist, and Holocaust survivor. He fo ...
and
Michel Pablo Michel Pablo ( el, Μισέλ Πάμπλο; 24 August 1911, Alexandria, Egypt – 17 February 1996, Athens) was the pseudonym of Michalis N. Raptis ( el, Μιχάλης Ν. Ράπτης), a Trotskyist leader of Greek origin. Early activism ...
, backed by the Socialist Workers Party in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, prevailed and the amendnments were rejected. The dispute with the leadership of the FI deepened with time, and came to be centred on three interlinked questions. First, the RCP's position on the role of Stalinism in
Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
was different from the FI's: in particular, when the latter began to support
Josip Broz Tito Josip Broz ( sh-Cyrl, Јосип Броз, ; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito (; sh-Cyrl, Тито, links=no, ), was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman, serving in various positions from 1943 until his deat ...
in
Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
against the USSR the RCP became very critical. This criticism was expressed in documents written by Haston. Second, there was the question of economic perspectives and the growing tendency of the Labour government of
Clement Attlee Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, (3 January 18838 October 1967) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was Deputy Prime Mini ...
to take various industries into state ownership, as was also happening in eastern Europe. Again, it was Haston who, in the pages of ''Socialist Appeal'', opposed the idea that state ownership could be equated with any form of socialism. A complementary document on more general economic perspectives was written for the RCP by
Tony Cliff Tony Cliff (born Yigael Glückstein, he, יגאל גליקשטיין; 20 May 1917 – 9 April 2000) was a Trotskyist activist. Born to a Jewish family in Palestine, he moved to Britain in 1947 and by the end of the 1950s had assumed the pen na ...
, who later acknowledged that he had been greatly influenced by Haston in this period. Finally, there was the question of whether or not the RCP should enter the Labour Party as a body. Haston opposed this idea. In 1947, however, an FI-sponsored minority led by
Gerry Healy Thomas Gerard Healy (3 December 1913 – 14 December 1989) was a political activist, a co-founder of the International Committee of the Fourth International and the leader of the Socialist Labour League and later the Workers Revolutionary Part ...
was granted permission by the FI to join the Labour Party, against the democratically decided views of the RCP. Under pressure from the FI the RCP dissolved itself in 1949. Most of its former members, including Haston, and joined Healy in " The Club". Haston, demoralised by the problems that Trotskyism had been undergoing in Britain since the end of the war, and facing harassment from Healy, resigned from the movement in February 1950. He remained active in the Labour Party for the rest of his life, becoming a lecturer for the National Council of Labour Colleges and then educational director for the
Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union The Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union, known as the EETPU, was a British trade union formed in 1968 as a union for electricians and plumbers, which went through three mergers from 1992 to now be part of Unite the Un ...
(EEPTU).Ted Grant, ''History of British Trotskyism'', London: Wellred Publications, 2002, p. 299


References


External links


Papers of Jock Haston in HullObituary
in Revolutionary History Journal

{{DEFAULTSORT:Haston, Jock 1913 births 1986 deaths British Trotskyists Revolutionary Communist Party (UK, 1944) members Communist Party of Great Britain members Labour Party (UK) people