An Ally against Healy
Socialist Outlook2000sScanned print read by OCR, and not yet proofread: expect run-together words, dropped letters and, where a piece began partway down a page, a few lines of its neighbour. The printed page is the authority.
I first met John Archer in 1974, when we were conducting a faction fight inside Gerry Healy's WRP, which eventually got us expelled in the December of that year.
We had been getting help from the Bulletin Group, and had drafted a document, but needed to get it typed. John's name was given to me, and I took the manuscript to his house in London, where he typed it up on stencils for us.
Sitting here with a word processor and sending in the text by email reminds me again how much the world has changed since then. Not that a word processor would have made conducting a faction fight against Healy any more pleasant an experience, which is why we needed all the help we could get.
At the end of the 1980s/early 90s I was in the same organisation as John again, after the regroupment between the ISG and the SLG. Unfortunately he left us after a short time to form a small group in solidarity with the Lambertists, which, I think, is where his main political loyalties had been for a long period of time.
The last time I saw him was when he spoke at the event we organised a couple of years ago around the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Fourth International.
As you know he spoke along with Charlie van Gelderen, Bill Hunter and Harry Ratner on the history of the movement, and it was all fascinating stuff.
Obviously John and I have not always seen eye to eye. But the contribution he has made to the movement over a very long period of time has clearly been of great value.
The workers' movement will be the poorer without him, although, of course, it can draw strength from the legacy he has left behind.