Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 22:21:34 +0100
Subject: M-G: A British revolutionary's autobiography


The following should be of interest to anyone who wants to know what it was
like being a working class revolutionary and a Trotskyist and what actually
happened in Britain (and the world) during and after the second world war.
The book gives a very clear account of the battles around the Trotskyist
military policy, the revolutionary upsurge around the world during and
after the war (and the connivance of Stalinism with its deflection and
suppression), Pablo's ideas and policies and the challenges of being a
revolutionary in a period when US imperialism and Stalinism seemed to have
it all cut and dried.

In fact some of the most interesting passages give an account of the
battles between alternative policies for the working class locally and
nationally from the perspective of a shop floor organizer confronting the
reality of support and opposition on these fundamental matters among his
workmates.

This is no ivory tower stuff, it's of the working class, in the working
class and for the working class.

And it's almost *too* easy to read -- Bill Hunter has put an awful lot of
thought into a few clear words, and it's easy to glide over the surface
without realizing how relevant what he has to say is to our situation today.

Cheers,

Hugh



______________________________


Subject:Public Meeting The Life and Times of a Revolutionary, A
        LifeLong Apprentiship, Volume 1 (1920-1959) by Bill
        Hunter.
Date:   Thu, 05 Feb 1998 09:21:43 +0000
=46rom:   Martin Ralph <socvoice-AT-gn.apc.org>

The Life and Times of a Revolutionary
A LifeLong Apprenticeship,
Volume 1 (1920-1959)
by Bill Hunter

Notice of Public Launch and Flyer for the new book.

Speakers: John Archer, Mike Cardin (Liverpool Dock Worker's Shop
Steward)Bill Hunter. Dorean McNally (WoW) will chair the meeting

7pm Tuesday, 10th February
The Unemployed Centre
Hardman Street, Liverpool
********

This is a political autobiography with a difference. Born into the
Durham working class six years before the 1926 General Strike, Bill
Hunter has stayed loyal to his class and dedicated his adult life to the
fight for the independence of the working class against capitalism, and
against capitalism's apologists in the Labour Party and Communist Party.

A Trotskyist from the age of 18, a factory shop steward at 21 and a
borough councillor at 32, Bill Hunter has taken some hard knocks -
including bureaucratic expulsion from the Labour Party in 1954. Here he
recalls these battles with humour, anecdote and documentary evidence.

These pages are crowded with thumbnail sketches of Trotskyist and
working-class fighters of the period, during and after the second world
war: Harry Wicks, Hugo Dewar, Reg Groves, Gerry Healy, Ted Grant and
John Lawrence, and the stalwart dockers' champion Harry Constable. There
is an affectionate portrait of Bill's lifelong campanion Rae. The book's
heroes are the rank-and-file dockers, engineering workers, and miners in
whose struggles Bill played a part, either directly as shop steward or
as editor of the lively left-wing journal Socialist Outlook (1948-54).

This is a major contribution to understanding the development of
Trotskyism in Britain. It is Bill Hunter's second book which follows his
success with his account of the dockers' historic struggle in the Blue
Union - "They Knew Why They Fought".

Lifelong Apprenticeship shows Hunter's part in the international struggles
of the Fourth International against capitalism and Stalinism, and includes
an inside account of the Trotskyists' response to the 1956-57 crisis in the
Communist Party. It ends with the launching of the Socialist Labour League
in 1959. Bill Hunter is now working on a second volume covering the years
since 1959.

The book has 450 pages and 40 chapters with an extensive
cross-referenced index which was done by Peter Fryer.

Special offer =A315.00 for Volume 1 and =A32.50 P&P
- or buy at the meeting.

They Knew Why They Fought, is still available =A35 and =A31 p&p

P&P outside of Britain: =A35 for Volume 1 (Total =A320)
and =A32 for They Knew Why They Fought (Total =A37)
Cheques: Living History Library
PO Box 9, Eccles SO, Eccles, Salford M30 7FX




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