Peter Hitchens returns to the much-told tale of his experience in relation to the Solidarity movement in Poland.
And I do not doubt that that was his experience.
But, like many old Trotskyists from back in the day, he assumes that the battle against the Stalinists was the whole story.
Old Stalinists from back in the day do the same thing in reverse.
In fact, the great bulk of the British trade union movement and the Labour Party were highly sympathetic towards, and where possible more than a little supportive of, Solidarity.
The warring Marxist fringes were precisely that: fringes. People who may formally have moved beyond them and become Labour Party members had by no means necessarily, ordinarily, or even very often, acquired much sense of the culture or ethos of the Labour Movement instead.
Moreover, it is by no means clear that Hitchens's own motivation was the same as that of Solidarity's many Labour and trade union allies.
Like Thatcher, the Trots supported anyone against the Soviet Union, and up to a point, unlike her, against China.
If they were right occasionally, then that was by accident, and not really anything to count in their favour.
And I do not doubt that that was his experience.
But, like many old Trotskyists from back in the day, he assumes that the battle against the Stalinists was the whole story.
Old Stalinists from back in the day do the same thing in reverse.
In fact, the great bulk of the British trade union movement and the Labour Party were highly sympathetic towards, and where possible more than a little supportive of, Solidarity.
The warring Marxist fringes were precisely that: fringes. People who may formally have moved beyond them and become Labour Party members had by no means necessarily, ordinarily, or even very often, acquired much sense of the culture or ethos of the Labour Movement instead.
Moreover, it is by no means clear that Hitchens's own motivation was the same as that of Solidarity's many Labour and trade union allies.
Like Thatcher, the Trots supported anyone against the Soviet Union, and up to a point, unlike her, against China.
If they were right occasionally, then that was by accident, and not really anything to count in their favour.
""the great bulk of the British trade union movement and the Labour Party were highly sympathetic towards, and where possible more than a little supportive of, Solidarity"
ReplyDeleteNot at all. Communist Ken Gill sat on the TUC General Council.
The TUC refused to support the strikers and instead supported the fake Soviet unions to such an extent that the Solidarity leader Lech Walesa nearly exploded when Peter mentioned the TUC.
Peter Hitchens interviewed Walesa in Hotel Morksi, Gdansk, when you were still in nappies.
Afraid of facing what the British Left is really like, are we?
Or is it that you just don't know about any of this, because Peter was actually there-in Gdansk, in Moscow and at the TUC Congress- while you were in a nursery?
You just don't know what you're talking about.
You only know any of this because you have read it in the published works of Peter Hitchens, which do not purport to be a comprehensive account of anything other than his experience.
ReplyDeleteAs he knows perfectly well, there was an entire group of Labour MPs called the Solidarity Group and maintained by the unions, both to support Solidarity and similar movements in Poland, and to combat Communist influence at home.
One of the key players in that is now a Founding Signatory to the Statement of Principles of the One Nation Society.