******** atter a workers revolutionary Party public meeting in Basingstoke on 22 May, two members of the IMG were onvsicaiv assau tee o memoers of your organisation, including M. Banda Two comrades had newspapers forcibly taken awav from them and destroved with Banda again taking a leading part in this. The incident was obviously not an accident - during the course of aune meeuno w. canca nad made ureats against our comrades.
The Executive Bureau of the IMG demanos tnat tne eadersnio or tni WRP takes disciplinary measures against those in its ranks who have indulged in this hooligan behaviour (behaviour similar to that introduced by the Stalinists against the Left Opposition in its early days, and roundly denounced by Trotsky)
because orme moonance or tne issues involved, and the need to eliminate violence as a method of 'settling' differences in the worker's movement we nave ceciaec to mane this letter pubrc (togetner with oul We insist on an early reply giving us tne ceraus or wadrseos vou navt taken on this extremely serious matter.
The Executive Bureau of the IMG Un l nursday zz may, iwo members of the International Marxist Group attended a meeting of the Workers Revolutionarv rartv in basinostoke. tney were physically attacked by members Market. Banda's response was to un leash a flood of sanders against the IMG, accusing it of capitulating to Stalinism on issues such as the Vietnam Solidarity Committee.
After another IMG member spoke, the IMG was refused any more speaking rights. Protests to the chairman about this bureaucratic decision were of no avail and the comrades were told that as it was a WRP meeting the WRP would decide who would speak. Banda then boasted of having ejected IMG members from other WRP meetings and advised our members to leave the hall.
- Later the IvG comrades started to sell Red Weekly outside the hall. Several members of the WRP, including Banda, tnen rusned at them, snatcnin their papers from their hands, and Banda and his colleagues started to tear up the Red Weeklies in the process of trvin to retain their papers our comrades were battered, sustaining extensive bruising and cuts The action of the WRP is scandalous. Using physical violence to prevent members of other revolutionary groups trom sering their newspaper and putting forward their ideas has nothing in common with Trotskyism but belongs to the tradition of Stalinism Using slanders instead of political discussion, and refusing to debate ideas helos no one but the Stalinists and the reformists All the experience of the revolutionarv movement snows tndt Inis tvoe of hooliganism has to be stopped as soon as it raises its head This is why we are publicising the details of this disgraceful incident and are asking otner revolution ary journals to publish both this letter and the letter sent to the WRP.
We also ask that everv effort is made to make these facts known to the members of the WRP, so that they can demane mat tel orednisation LaKes acto! against tne noongans in tnel ranks. -The Executive Bureau of the Inter