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Core Argument¶
This chapter reproduces a letter dated 17 November 1945 from Jock Haston, General Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) in Britain, to the leadership of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the United States. The letter constitutes a sharp internal polemic against the factional manoeuvring of Gerry Healy, a leading RCP member, and exposes what Haston regards as the improper involvement of SWP leaders in encouraging and directing that faction.
The core argument is that Healy and his supporters are conducting a secret, unprincipled factional campaign within the RCP, in collusion with leading members of the SWP. Haston insists that if genuine political differences exist, they should be debated openly and through the proper channels of the International, not via private correspondence and behind-the-scenes plotting. He rejects Healy’s claim that the RCP leadership avoids open discussion, pointing to the written resolution on the European question adopted at the RCP’s August National Congress, against which Healy’s faction offered no amendments and on which Healy did not speak. The letter thus frames Healy’s faction as evading democratic debate while accusing others of doing so.
Key evidence includes Healy’s own letter to SWP leaders, a copy of which was forwarded to the RCP by Felix Morrow. Haston highlights Healy’s question—“When shall we form our faction?”—as proof of a premeditated and externally directed factional project. He further reports that Healy accused Morrow of stealing documents from the SWP office, a charge Haston treats as a serious slander against a leading comrade, and one that implicates Healy’s SWP allies by association.
The letter draws on the organisational norms of the Fourth International, asserting that factions should only be formed after public discussion reveals deep and irreconcilable differences, and that one national section should not encourage factions in another without pressing reasons. The polemic is directed squarely at Healy and at those SWP leaders who, in Haston’s view, are maintaining “clique relations” with the Healy grouping rather than airing differences openly between party committees. The tone is one of disciplined fraternal rebuke, demanding clarification and an authoritative statement from the SWP leadership.