Before Gerry went mad

Once upon a long ago, Gerry Healy was almost a household word. Healy was the leader of a surprisingly large and seemingly successful "revolutionary" organization in Britain, the Socialist Labour League (SLL), later renamed the Workers' Revolutionary Party (WRP). Healy's party published a daily paper (sic), the News Line, recruited famous actress Vanessa Redgrave to its ranks, and had a (very fleeting) influence among some radical-minded workers. I actually met a Swedish ex-leftist who run into Healyite miners at some point during the 1970's. Despite the WRP's almost comic ra-ra-revolutionary rhetoric, Healy co-operated with Labour Party politicians, including Ken Livingstone and Ted Knight. Unsurprisingly, the British gutter press had a love-hate relationship with this "loonie lefty". The saga of Gerry Healy came to an abrupt end in 1985, when he was expelled by the WRP for physical violence and sexual abuse of party members. At that point, most people considered the Healyites to be a bizarre cult, with Healy seeing CIA and KGB agents behind every bush, especially within the U.S. Socialist Workers Party. It was also revealed that Healy's operations were financed by contributions from Libya, Iraq, Kuwait, Iran and other Mideast regimes. Today, Thomas Gerard Healy has been quietly forgotten by most people.

"Marxism Vs. Ultraleftism" is a book published by the U.S. Socialist Workers Party. It was originally published in 1974, before Gerry and his band of followers went completely mustang. Thus, the book doesn't criticize Healy for his bizarre conspiracy theories about the SWP being agents for the FBI and KGB ("Security and the Fourth International"). I presume they hadn't been invented just yet. However, Healy and his American co-thinkers, the Workers' League of Tim Wohlforth, had already become notorious for physical violence and intimidation of political opponents and internal dissidents.

Most of "Marxism vs. Ultraleftism" deals with political issues, however. Much of the material is reprinted from the SWP's magazine Intercontinental Press (now defunct). A long article by Ernest Mandel, the then-leader of the Fourth International, is also included. One section reprints leaked documents on Healy's factional manoeuvres. Healy's political positions on Cuba, Northern Ireland, Vietnam, feminism and racism are all dissected and criticized from a SWP perspective. There are also articles attacking Healy's notorious crisis-mongering, and his incomprehensible "dialectics". As indicated by the title, the SWP regarded the Healyites as ultra-left sectarians.

All in all, "Marxism vs. Ultraleftism" is a serious political work. It may be of interest to people who study left-wing or Trotskyist politics. Still, the collection nevertheless feels very dated in hindsight.

Healy, after all, soon became notorious for other things...