John Byrne Interview

Interview given by John Byrne to Al Richardson in London
September 1976. Sam Bornstein Present.

AR What were your first contacts with the labour movement, roughly what age were you and things like that?

JB Well, I wasn't in the labour movement. I came from Ireland and I was in the republican movement, because the labour movement was so ineffective and played no role in anything going. I was brought up in a very strong trade union family, politically, any young person – and I was very young – entered the republican movement; you didn't go into the labour movement.

AR Did you then come straight over from the republican movement into the Trotskyist movement?

JB No, I didn't, I was in what you would call the left republican movement. There was a split in the republican movement and I was only about nine years old I think, or ten, a group, I think you'd say as being very sympathetic to the Stalinists, broke in 1932 and formed the Irish Republican Congress, and I was more inclined to be with them than the official republican movement, because most socialists and left-wing people, left-republicans you'd call them, formed this organisation, called the Irish Republican Congress, and that would be my first inclination towards left, radical, and socialist views.

AR Can you remember any sort of left-wing activities you went in for, when you were a supporter of theirs, the sort of things they did?

JB I was very young, and this Republican Congress, instead of physical violence, which was the basis of the republican movement after the Civil War and so forth, a whole political pattern had kind of taken shape, and these people, their policy was 'remember the dead, and fight for the rights of the living', which they did, they took part in [opposing!] evictions, because at that time in the early '30s there was terrible poverty in Ireland and people were being evicted from their slum dwellings and they took part in these issues. Also when strikes took place, they put mass pickets in support of the workers on strike. I remember one particular grocery shop which was being organised into the unions and some of the people were sacked, and there were scabs in the shops and on Saturdays mass pickets would be put on the shops, calling on the workers to boycott them, and this was the kind of activity that this Republican Congress took part in.

AR You said that some of the influence was a bit like what Communist Party influence used to be. Did they carry on any joint work with the Irish Republican Congress at that time or were they members or supporters, or what was the relationship?

JB No, I think there was, with some of the leadership in the Irish Republican Congress I'd say that some of them were close, not in an organisational way, but politically they were associated with the Stalinists. There were people who weren't, one particular man, who was a very good type, Michael Price was his name and I believe, Jock Haston told me afterwards, that in his own way, he had socialist or Trotskyist inclinations; although he had never met any of the Trotskyist groups. He was one of the people, the leaders who broke from the IRA and formed the Irish Republican Congress, but he happened to be very independent-minded, and afterwards when Jock Haston came over to Dublin and had discussions with this man told me that this fellow had in his own way, and without any organisation, or meeting anyone, by probably reading, had Trotskyist tendencies.

AR I've seen some old documents, that were printed in the old 'New International' that there were some supporters of the Fourth International in Ireland around 1938. Did you ever hear about them, or know anything about what they did?

JB Well it was Jock Haston and Tommy Reilly and Gerry Healy and a group of them came over to Dublin, I believe that they thought that their organisation was going to be banned here during the war [The Emergency/World War II], because they knew the war was coming and they were setting up an organisation there to get their paper illegally into Britain, they worked for a while there and some came back to Britain. I think Healy came back and I think a chap called Nozeda, but Haston and Reilly stopped for a while [Nozeda came back after Haston], and that's where the paper was printed and getting it over here, and that was my first contact with Trotskyism, these people, Haston and these people, they came into the labour movement, and had a terrible influence. The whole thing was new to people like this, the Trotskyist position and so forth, and made short work of the Stalinists while they were there and that was my first connection with the Trotskyist movement, with Haston, Tommy Reilly and these people first. I was a very young man at the time, very raw.

AR What sort of circumstances did you first meet them? A public meeting or taking part in some activities somewhere? Can you remember roughly where you first met them?

JB Well, there was a friend of mine, more politically advanced than I was, who had met them, he put them up in his home, a chap called Joe Noonan who is dead now and his mother took them in and looked after them, whilst they were there, and that was my first contact with them. It wasn't a political contact, but a personal one, but my orientation was towards them.

AR When you came into contact with their ideas and joined the Trotskyist movement, did you continue activity over in Ireland or did you come here? What exactly did you do then?

JB No, I shortly after that came over to Britain, I became active in the Trotskyist movement. I immediately joined, in Liverpool first, and then I came down to London, and I was active when they had their place up in Northdown Street in King's Cross, that's where I first went, and I was very immature politically. I was just beginning to know, I came from a different background, I came from a different country, the whole political economic position was completely different from here, and I was really raw, and the activity was more or less working in the centre, getting the paper out, the Socialist Appeal, and listening to the arguments and so forth, judging and developing my own intellect, as I went along, and then of course I was active, I used to sell Socialist Appeal every Saturday, down at Hammersmith, we used to sell quite a number and then go round the pubs, and different functions. I'd go and sell the paper and I'd do a lot of work at the centre, parceling papers to send them out, when duplicated documents were produced, pinning them together, all the usual kind of work, I was really engrossed into it, and then of course I was active in the union. I worked at Paddington Station and was in the NUR and I was on the committee of the NUR and played a pretty active role in the union, the National Union of Railwaymen.

AR Did you take part in any industrial action or anything of that nature while you were there?

JB In Paddington, there were several 'stand-two's' on bad conditions. There were also go-slows organised and so on, and we took a leading part, and Stalinists too; strange was it may seem while they were still for the war and so on, but when it came to issues and we battled with them, Syd Bidwell was one of them, we were on the London District Council of the NUR and Syd and myself kept the Stalinists at bay in the NUR over the demagogic pro-war imperialist line, we would oppose them as revolutionary socialists and Trotskyists.

AR What was it like trying to carry on revolutionary socialist activity in the union during the war? I should imagine it was pretty nasty at times.

JB It was very nasty, but strange as it may seem, a lot of the older people didn't seem to fall for it, and a lot of the young ones were in the army and there were a lot of women on the railways at the time, and then you had a lot of old people, who had retired and been brought back, because most of the younger people would be in the army and naturally wouldn't be there, but we would put the issues at the branch meetings, and point out how after the first world war men were treated and so forth, and our theme would be, that things were going to be the same, which of course it wasn't, and it's amazing the amount of support we got, any time we went up for election, I was always elected onto the committee of the union. I was also elected onto the works committee, and not only elected, I got a very big vote, and I was very young at the time, I wasn't quite 18.

AR Did you notice any difference? I suppose you would notice some difference in the way industrial activity happened after the war, obviously the atmosphere must have changed, have you any description of that sort of thing?

JB Well, fortunately or unfortunately just before the end of the war I was deported out of here. I happened to be, Jock Haston , myself and John Lawrence, there were about 100,000 miners out on strike in Wales and we thought it was a good idea for a break-in, a break-through because we didn't have much organisation in Wales, so the three of us went up, with a special issue of Socialist Appeal, and I remember the heading on it – '100,000 miners can't be wrong' – the fakir Horner who was General Secretary of the union, and told the men that they were sabotaging the lads at the front, a real pro-imperialist, Stalinist line. We went up defending the miners and the three of us took different valleys and I was selling the papers outside one of the lodges, and I was attacked by the Stalinists as being a fifth columnist, the usual chauvinist rubbish, I was seventeen or something at the time, and selling papers and doing revolutionary work, to them I should have been in the army, but being Irish I wasn't conscripted and it was amazing the support we got. There were hundreds going into these lodge meetings and one could understand it, and I was putting up the usual revolutionary slogans, against Horner, against the Stalinists, against the coal owners and so on, and the support I got was tremendous. I was picked up by the police at the time, and they took my name and address and all that, and it was then coming to the end of the war, and Heaton Lee and I were coming back to London, I was only up there for the weekend, during the strike and so on, there were a lot of workers getting drafted back to London. building workers. Heaton Lee, who was one of our people in the RCP, he had a lot of contact with Irish workers, and on account of me being Irish, we began organising them against their atrocious conditions, we organised strikes by these workers against the conditions. I was followed by the police, the Special Branch and I was deported back to Ireland. I was given two weeks to leave, so I wasn't there at the end, what developments took place, I don't know, I was back in Ireland.

AR What sort of treatment did you receive from them, when they got on to you? Were they nasty with it? Did they take you to the police station?

JB No, at that time an Irish person only got a permit for six months to stay there, and of course if they wanted to give you an extension they could, but they just didn't, and gave me two weeks to leave the country.

AR Just an arbitrary thing. Well if you were there during most of the war, do you remember anything about the fusion conference, when the WIL and the old RSL came together? Can you tell what your impressions were about that?

JB I thought it was very good, I didn't think we gained much by it, because the people we were fusing with were completely ineffective, they did really nothing, only got out documents and so on, the only thing was, to get them out of our hair kind of thing, they were a nuisance value, but from an organisational value, or what would you say, as a real effective force, they really weren't, and of course it was a good thing the coming together, but I don't think the RCP gained much out of it, but just to get them out of the way and have one organisation, because even when they came into the movement they played no role.

AR Do you remember anything about the attitudes of people at that time about it and what sort of arguments you heard about the fusion?

JB No, from the RCP point of view, they were very fair and friendly, they gave them plenty of freedom and the run of the place and they were welcomed in as comrades, but some of them did really nothing, maybe one or two of them. John Lawrence was about the most active one among that crowd, Harber I think was the best of them, he used to come pretty regularly. I think he was on the executive of the RCP. He used to come in at weekends and do a certain amount of work, but the others played no role at all.

AR Shifting now to slightly later – do you remember when Healy came out in opposition? Do you remember the circumstances that caused his disagreement from 1945 onwards?

JB Healy was another one. He was in the RCP, of course, and when the Revolutionary Socialist League merged into the RCP he got a basis amongst them. But Healy never played, before this, in the Workers' International League, and active role. I think he was more active in the ILP, but as a leading Trotskyist in the leadership of the Trotskyist movement, Healy was very inactive. I used to see him at odd times around, I wouldn't see him a lot. He wouldn't play the same role as Ted Grant, Heaton Lee, Ann Keen, any of those people, he never played a role like them, he didn't merge himself in the movement. And then when he got the opportunity he linked up with this faction when they came in, and tried to get some kind of a basis and when he saw what was happening he went over to their side. I wasn't here in this country when Haston and the others left.

AR With regard to Healy's activity, on that trip when they went across to Ireland, there were all kinds of wild stories going round the left here, quite a few I used to believe. What was the truth about what he did? I've heard some stories that obviously need discounting by somebody who was there. I presume that you have heard some of these tales?

JB I've heard them. Healy worked with them over there, he didn't stay too long, the others stayed longer. Healy did put up a fight. The first in inclination I believe, they went into the CP and used to hold regular meetings and were pretty active. Healy went in and made mincemeat out of them, and there are rumours in Ireland, I don't know if there is any truth in it, that one of the leading CPers tipped off the Special Branch to get them deported, which wouldn't surprise me, they were politically head and heels over the Stalinist element and just tore into them. But no, I don't think that Healy with Jock and them, again I wouldn't say he was as active or as enthusiastic as Haston and the others, but he played a role, but he didn't stay very long, he came back.

AR I notice from looking at the documents, and from your earlier remarks that there was a big scare. I don't know what the scare was about, but there was a big alarm by the WIL at the time of the war that they would be driven to purely underground work. Do you know anything about the atmosphere and

LINE MISSING

JB I think we were surprised that they weren't roped in, and of course we were watched. The head office was watched by the Special Branch and everything was tabbed going into 256 Harrow Road. I think we were always prepared at any given stage to go underground, I think that arrangements had been made in the event of being clamped down on, that preparations would be made to get out illegal documents, but we had full freedom, although we were watched and there were restrictions, like trying to get paper and things like that. No, we just carried on as usual, we did our trade union work. I think we played a very important role. We were the only opposition to the war from a revolutionary socialist point of view. The only ones next to us were probably the ILP and we worked pretty closely with the ILP. I remember in one campaign, I think it was in Acton; most of us worked for the ILP candidate against the official Labour candidate. There were the usual good feelings between us and the ILP and with the rank and file even more so, and I remember going down to Acton and saying I was a member of the Trotskyist movement and I wanted to work for their candidate. The official joint candidate was a semi-fascist old colonel type which you couldn't support, and the CP and Gallagher came out in a van speaking for this fellow. I don't know if you remember it, Sam? He was an obnoxious type, a pro-fascist.

AR The old colonel sounds like Marcus Lipton!

JB No, it wasn't Marcus Lipton.

SB The ILP candidate was Walter Padley.

AR What, Walter Padley!

JB I went in and said I wanted to work, that I was a Trotskyist, and I was received with open arms. The friendship and comradeship amongst us was tremendous. I don't know about the leadership but certainly the rank and file accepted us. I never met a more friendly and comradely crowd in all my life. It gave you heart and took you away from your own isolation to a certain extent, to work with a bigger group than you were, and to get a new political slant on things. Knocking on doors and the usual election work, which brought us out and I think this also helped us in a way.

AR From the look of the documents, the old RSL documents and the WIL documents, there seems to be some very burning debates, round about that time about the proletarian military policy. Do you remember anything about this, or did you take any point of view in regard to it?

JB No, I didn't. I was very young and very raw. I listened mostly, I didn't develop any kind of views at the time, probably I couldn't say who was wrong or right, because I only developed my ideas in the Trotskyist movement and so can't give any points of view on it.

AR There are some documents, one in particular I'm thinking of, in which Bob Armstrong and Matty Merrigan put forward a Shachtmanite position to the conference of the RCP. When you went back to Ireland, did you make contact with them? Did you know them well?

JB Well, they only developed this later on. We had a Trotskyist group in Dublin and a much stronger one in Belfast. And, of course, Bob Armstrong was the theoretician, if you like, at the time. It was amazing the support that we got, because a lot of republican lads who were interned during the war came out. There was a Republican Socialist Party, and Bob Armstrong made great inroads in that, and that time, they used to sell 700 or 800 copies of Socialist Appeal a week in Belfast, which was very good at the time. That only developed later, the Shachtman theory. Of course, most of the people in the Irish movement were young and raw, most of these lads came out of prison and they hadn't any socialist or political or revolutionary ideas. They were only developing them. And of course, Bob could easily influence them on the Shachtman position, but I never accepted it, I was opposed to it all the time.

AR What did you yourself do when you got deported from England? Presumably you kept your links with the British movement, but what did you do in Ireland itself?

JB We formed a Trotskyist group, I became very active in the group. I got a job and joined a union, the Worker's Union of Ireland, the second biggest union in Ireland, and in twelve months I was elected on the national executive, which I think was a tremendous thing, and I get on for about 12 or 15 years on the executive of the union. I was chairman of my own branch. I was a delegate to the trades council, Matty Merrigan and myself. The Trade Council was a wonderful organisation, old comrades on it and young people coming on, and I say we were the most politically advanced, and we just took control of it. I was elected to the executive of the trades council. The older people were just gone, and the younger ones just coming and I happened to be one of the younger people. I think I was the youngest on the trades council, all the others were 70 or 65, just on the verge of retiring at the end of the war, and two years afterwards I was elected president which was a great honour. I was very young to be president of the trades council, it was tremendous, then a political development in 1947, there was an inter party government set up by Labour and Fine Gael, a right wing party. We opposed Labour having anything to do with this crowd, and the political wing, the Labour Party was so demoralised and dead, we used the trades council as a battering ram all the time. Every month we had resolutions on different economic aspects, condemning the government, condemning the leadership of the Labour Party. And we really controlled on everything, the war in Kenya, on all the revolutionary issues of the day, we took a line, and we got tremendous support in the trades council, it was really wonderful, you know, having been active in the trotskyist movement here. I felt terribly depressed at having to leave the country. I was thrown out, there was nothing at home, I thought I would face political stagnation, but the opposite happened, I was elected within 12 months on to the executive of the union. I was chairman of my own branch, I was on the executive of the Trades Council, we formed a group, a Trotskyist group, and held tremendous meetings. At some of the meetings we held we had 100 people at them, Bob Armstrong used to come down, and we used to go up. As a matter of fact every Sunday, the Trotskyist group in Belfast would hold their meetings and get 700 or 800 people at them. Nobody would listen to the Stalinists at the Custom House steps, and I used to go pretty often to speak. And we got tremendous support. It was really wonderful, as we were going back to stagnation, but we weren't, it was really wonderful to go back to it, you know.

AR I wonder if you would take your mind back to the atmosphere in the war, both to begin with when you were in Ireland and later when you came across here. Did you ever come into any physical confrontations with the Communist Party, so example, who appear to have gone in for this quite a lot; both in Britain and elsewhere to the left wing opponents at this time.

JB Well in Liverpool, where I joined the Trotskyist movement first, we were selling the Socialist Appeal; Frank Ward's brother, myself and another comrade, and the Stalinists visibly beat us up, grabbed the papers out of our hands and tore them up and actually one of the Stalinists tried to throw me under a tram. There were only three of us selling the papers, outside the Picton Hall in Liverpool.

AR Was this outside a public meetings or a strike committee?

JB No, they were holding a meeting on the anniversary of the Red Army, of course, and we had the paper Socialist Appeal, and there was a photograph of Trotsky, pointing out that he was the founder of the Red Army and this nettled them, and this was a real Stalinist reactionary. Another meeting we went to, me and this young comrade, at that time they were boosting up the Beveridge Plan (the CP were supporting it), in some part of Liverpool, I've forgotten where it was now, but we got [up] and said this wasn't a substitute for a revolutionary socialist plan, it was reformism and so on. The fellow pointed to us and said, 'these fascist bastards', that was us, 'there was only one thing for them and that was the fist and the boot, and when this meeting is over we'll deal with them'. So we had to leave the meeting first, because they would physically have beat us up. Another time when Mosley was released, it was at Trafalgar Square that we, the RCP got a special leaflet out, pointing out that he was only a front for the real fascists, and there again the CP came out again, physically. I think Sam remembers that, that the CP tore the papers out of our hands and beat us up. They were more vicious against us than anyone.

AR In certain other areas the Stalinists went in for scabbing on strikes. Did you have any experience of this aspect of their activity during the war?

JB On the station where I worked in Paddington some of them did it, but they were really miserable about it. But with this chauvinism, the Union Jack and the Hammer and Sickle, this was part of it, but they didn't get away with it. Many people didn't support them and even when I spoke to them afterwards, they didn't believe it themselves, it was just this line they got from King Street [the CP headquarters in London at the time], and they just accepted it. Just like the Catholic Church, the one true church, you just genuflect and do as you're told. I couldn't see any difference from the thing which I had shoved off from myself when I was about 16, this religious bogey, but they developed another one, and this was what it was as far as I could see.

AR When you were getting out the Socialist Appeal, that is from the time you came to England up to the time that you were deported. What do you remember [about] the way the circulation and the way the paper changed and the sort of material in it, and the reception it got from other people?

JB First of all, there was Millie Lee, she was the key person, the work she did, and so on. We used to go to Brock's the printer, off Harrow Road. Many times we would have to wait for it. The paper wouldn't even be dry and we'd grab it. There was always some interesting articles, and especially during the time of strikes, we supported strikes that we wanted to get it out, so we'd go down to the Head Office and get dug into it, and parcel it up, and some of us would slip over to the different railway stations and put it on the train, going all over the country, and also selling it, we would go to all the market places, where there was a concentration of people, trade union branches, if there was a strike and there'd be an article on it, we would go along and sell it. Our branch was the best London branch, and we used to sell round Hammersmith and round the tube stations, we built up quite a regular circulation, and then sometimes round the pubs and sell.

AR What sort of reception did you get from the people you sold it to? Did you get a very lively, interesting reaction to what you had to say, and†people who had read it before and were anxious to read what you had to say†about things?

JB Yes, you would get that, you'd get people who were, you'd build up a kind of regular, people would look for the paper, you'd know the people who came, not a lot of people, but you'd build a regular, people who were†active in the trade union movement and so on, we'd get them because we always†took a good line on things, and this helped them to develop their political line too whatever position they be on, and you did get that, and people liked
the paper. I'm not saying everyone, sometimes you'd get political hostility towards it because we were swimming against the stream. This chauvinist war and so forth, you can understand people having sons in it, they couldn't understand that we were defending their sons and we pointed out the first world war, that this could be a repetition of it, there could be unemployment there could be all the problems, that they themselves went through. Also I think that what developed in the movement was that the lads that were in the army, I can mention Johnny Williams, Tommy Reilly and people like that, who played a very active role in the army, as a matter of fact it was their political agitation in the ranks, that educational classes were set up, that was chaired by officers and Williams and most of the members put over a revolutionary line and pointed out that whilst they were fighting the Germans now, but they would be fighting them tomorrow. I think there was tremendous developments, and there was the Cairo parliament.

AR The forces parliament.

JB Yes, the forces parliament I think it was, and later on I heard there were queues trying to get in, and most of the activists, the army lads, were Trotskyists and so on, and they used to put over the usual revolutionary policies, appertaining to the conditions in this particular country, and our lads played a very important role. It was Tommy Reilly I think, on some anniversary in Hong Kong, there was a big meeting to be held, and the red caps were waiting for him to arrest him, he still appeared and made a revolutionary speech, after which he was arrested. I don't think you heard about this.

AR No, I didn't.

JB You heard about this Sam, you remember Tommy Reilly?

SB This happened at a number of different places. The story of Doug Garbett, he was addressing a meeting in uniform, of 100,000 people and when the red caps closed in, the workers just stopped them and he got away. This was after addressing a meeting in uniform. There was quite a lot of bits of individual heroism.

JB I think this was a completely new development for this country, and especially in the army, with the political agitation in the barrack rooms, with our people and the Socialist Appeal, that they had to start political discussions under the auspices of the army and our lads always took a leading part, and went for them, the officer caste, they had tremendous support. Johnny Williams was one of the very active people in that, and Frank Ward was thrown out over it, for selling socialist literature. They put special army police on to him and they finally put him out of the army because he was a bigger danger in the army than outside. I think that was another tremendous development in the RCP. All of these people, though in different parts of the world, it didn't stop them they went into the army and carried out their political activity amongst their comrades in uniform, pointing out the role that should be played, that the guns should be pointed at those bastards who were going to walk all over them. I think doing these things was a tremendous development in our movement.

AR I suppose that the work of comrades in the army also got them in contact with revolution abroad. Do you remember anything about that?

JB As a matter of fact, we helped to set up movements in those countries. Our comrades of the RCP made tremendous contacts, and laid the base in all of these countries for a Trotskyist movement. The RCP would send material out, even in Germany towards the end of the war and [one[ of our comrades was getting a special, I've forgotten the lad's name.

SB The RCP was getting a special German language paper 'Unser Wort' out for prisoners of war here. Some of them, when they went back to Germany, became active in the German Trotskyist movement.

JB There were always a number of Germans working at the centre. Kata was one of them, got out this special paper for prisoners of war, and to make contact with Germany. It was a great movement, whether in the army, prisoners of war, in the factories, in strikes, every aspect of life where people were. It was a tremendous wonderful movement.

AR What do you remember about the occasion when the Trotskyist leaders were arrested over the Newcastle case? Were you in England then, and do you know much about it?

JB I remember the whole thing about them, of course. Jock Haston and Heaton Lee, Ann Keen and Roy Tears and a young fellow Bill Davy was involved in it. He was in the YCL, and actually the YCL were supporting putting the young fellows in. He organised these young fellows to refuse to go down the pits. Heaton Lee, Jock Haston and Ann Keen were arrested and Jock Haston went to address a meeting. He was arrested. At that time Ernest Bevin was Minister of Labour, and they were charged under an act, the Trades Dispute Act, which he always opposed, and he had to appear in court to give evidence. They got six months each and they appealed and won the appeal. It gave us great influence at that time among the young people because they saw that the only leadership being given was by the RCP. And Bill Davy joined the movement then. They didn't do time, but appealed and made the court a political platform and gave the reason why they helped these young people refuse being conscripted into the mines. They explained that the Trades Dispute Act of 1927 was always opposed by the Trade Union movement, and it was being used by the present Minister of Labour who was supposedly a trade unionist as he was General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, had them arrested and charged under this very act.

AR Do you remember anything at all about the defence committee that was set up? The one that Jimmy Maxton was on. Do you remember anything about them and their activities and their meetings?

JB Yes, there was them, and a chap called Smith. You know, this fellow from Newcastle, they held collections, and they got good support from the ILP at the time and in newcastle a joint committee was set up between the ILP and our own group, and they gave a lot of help. Maxton was very good, and he asked questions in the House of Commons about it.

AR Can you tell us what you think you got out of it, in the WIL and the RCP? You said a lot about what went on. What do you think you got out of it? What did you learn out of it?

JB Well what I got out of it, it developed me intellectually and politically. It affected my whole personal life, that you're fighting for a cause, in ways that you did before, but of which you weren't politically mature and aware of the whole implications, from an intellectual and political point of view. That you were fighting for your own class, that you were part of the whole world struggle against oppression and imperialism and for a new world.

AR One thing that I noticed that WIN the Workers International News, a theoretical magazine must have sold fairly well for those days, it's quite a difficult thing, it was not a low-level thing at all. Did you sell Workers International News at all?

JB We did, but not as much as Socialist Appeal, as you say, it was highly theoretical, and it was only active people in the labour movement that would buy it off you, political types. It was amazing CP types would buy it off you. They might disagree with you, but I've sold quite a few to political people where I worked, the ordinary working bloke would buy the Socialist Appeal but the more political types, RCP and a few CP, they would argue against it and you would defend your position.

AR What sort of circulation did the Workers International News have? The problem is you never get circulation figures for these things, as far as I could see.

JB I think it would be around 3,000 or maybe less 2,500, somewhere around that figure.

AR For a theoretical magazine, that's reasonable. What sort of relations did you have with other labour movement figures, more on the official side of the labour movement, MPs and that sort of thing?

JB Sidney Silverman was a very good man and very helpful. Any problems we had, and in any way he could, on the business of newcastle (the Bevin Boys thing) he helped and other things he would raise in Parliament, if we ever went over to see him. He was very sympathetic.

AR What do you remember mostly about the people you found in the movement at that time? Nowadays revolutionary politics are a bit exotic, due to student movements and middle-class people in them. What sort of background did people come from that were in revolutionary politics then?

JB A lot of people were put into war work, and a lot of them were, I think, of lower middle-class backgrounds but were absorbed in industry. Most of them were working in [the] engineering industry.

AR A lot of them would be young. Were they?

JB Oh yes, they were all young, especially the leadership.

AR What kind of problems did you get when people were called up and that sort of thing. It must have left the movement with a lot of difficulties considering the age of the people.

JB Well it did. But any time they got off from the army they would be up at the centre working. They had to go, of course, when they were called up and so on, but they always seem to fit in. You did two people's work instead of one, because people were always going but a lot of them were doing war work, specialist work in engineering, and they weren't conscripted and they used to come over. And on Saturday a lot of people used to come over and on odd days during the week.

AR What sort of industries were your members from?

JB Most of them were working in engineering, because that was they key. It was all war work.

AR Off and on during this time you get occasional discussions about the Labour Party and, of course, later in it became important when you were left with entry work and Healy going in. Do you remember any of the discussions on what the attitude towards the Labour Party should be, or any contacts you had or any work that was being done at the time?

JB Well, of course, we didn't know what was going to happen. We thought there was going to be a big influx at the end of the war, when the Labour Party would be independent, there wouldn't be a National government, and so there would be a big entry into the Labour Party. We always thought that, but it would obviously depend on the situation. A lot of people would be released from the army and going into work, taking up jobs and so on, and most of them would join the Labour Party, when they would become in their unions and naturally our position would be to go into the Labour Party, and we would send a lot of people into the Labour Party.

AR In bye-elections whenever they broke out, which was spasmodically, you had a relationship with the ILP rather than with the Labour Party, did you?

JB Yes, indeed we did. I think I said earlier about my experience of working with the ILP in Acton in a bye-election and the candidate who was a dreadful type, a colonel or something and the CP and Gallagher were going around with a loudspeaker van, telling people to vote for this semi-fascist and we were going around supporting the ILP candidate. I think it was Padley and we were working for him.

AR There was a strange group that you see mentioned in the papers at that time, called Common Wealth. Did you have any contact with these people? They seemed to be on a socialist position, as well, they seemed to be opposed to the electoral truce and all that.

JB They were a mixture and I hadn't much contact with these people and they were very confused.

SB Common Wealth was essentially a very middle-class organisation and pro-war but wanted more democratic rights, in that way they began to oppose Churchill and to oppose the electoral truce and so on. They won, during the war years, a number of seats whilst the electoral truce was on. It was led by the chap who became a Labour MP for Gravesend, Sir Richard Ackland, but intellectually and personally a very honest sort of bloke. He gave up all his family land and money, there was no doubt about his sincerity, but we attracted none of the people. They were all middle-class.

AR They didn't operate, then, in your area, you had no contact with them?

JB No, none at all, only what I heard about them.

SB They were closer to the ILP that they were to us, the ILP had many similar types to them, semi-fascists and so on.

JB The ILP would support them really in an election.

AR Apart from the ILP, and of course the Communist Party, whose attitude towards you you mentioned already, what sort of reception did you get in the labour movement generally. I'm not thinking of MPs and official labour people, and I'm not thinking of the politicals on one side. What was the general attitude towards your propaganda as far as you remember it, among ordinary labour movement supporters.

JB The Labour Party was very inactive during the war. I don't believe they held any meetings and the whole thing was caught up with this national government and there was no real independence. People might have had party cards and find their subscriptions, but they played no role at all. I came across very, very little even among left-wing Labour MPs, outside of Nye Bevan, and he supported the war. It was only on certain issues that he would come out, fundamentally he supported the bureaucracy and the right-wing leadership.

AR Do you think there was anything we've forgotten? Or is there anything you want to add to? Or do you think we've covered it basically?

JB I think you've covered it.

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