24 January: CLR James and the IS tradition

A friend in Canada writes to ask if CLR James, the Trinidadian writer, activist and historian of cricket, ever had any contacts with the International Socialists in Britain, the Trotskyist party that was a fore-runner to today's SWP? 

Following his expulsion from the States in 1953, James settled first and chiefly in London. He lived in North West London and later in South London. James also travelled and spoke to audiences of radicals in many countries. For example, he was in Trinidad between 1958 and 1963. But for most of his last 35 years James was in London. 

In the 1950s and 1960s, James was close to Jim Higgins, a longstanding member of the IS and later its National Secretary. James spoke on a couple of IS platforms, at big rallies, but no-one that I've asked can recall him addressing or attending local meetings. During at least two periods in the 1960s there were pro-James factions in the IS. 

One ally was James D. Young, in Scotland, who ended up leaving the IS but remained an admirer of James. Young's biography of James has about 10 pages on why the links with IS weren't closer still. 

Part of the answer, I think, is that James's political head was still in the States, with allies including Martin Glaberman and Raya Dunayevskaya (until she broke from him) and Grace Boggs (ditto). 

By c 1980 James was very anti-SWP, as his 80th birthday lectures make clear. Ironically, this was a period when a few more people from the SWP were showing an interest in his ideas. 

Max Farrar argues that James's politics were incarnated in Rock Against Racism, which I describe here.  

There's a very nice account of a meeting between Dave Widgery, the RAR journalist, and CLR James in Widgery's book of essays, Preserving Disorder.