Thoughts on the Logan Issue

I would like to talk about the expulsion of Bill Logan. First of all, I want to answer why Bill Logan was expelled from the International Spartacist Tendency (now the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist)). Bill Logan was quite effective in recruiting people. When he and Adaire Hannah were head of the New Zealand section of the tendency, the section increased by five times. When they headed the british section they oversaw the largest regroupment in the history of the tendency. Bill Logan and Adaire Hannah also could not be expected the follow each and every order of the international leadership of the tendency. The leadership was fearful that Logan and Hannah were capable of carrying a large minority or even a majority in a potentional internal dispute with the international leadership. Jim Robertson and co. were fearful that the their rule could be threatened.

Now to answer why Bill Logan is heading the International Bolshevik Tendency. The fact is Bill Logan and Adaire Hannah recognized and repudiated their own mistakes thirty years ago and for the last twenty years have been building an organization that operates in a very differently than the New Zealand section of the International Spartacist Tendency in the 1970s.

Now for the allegations against them. Logan and Hannah were accused of forcing a women named Vicky to have an abortion. After extensive research I have come to the conclusion that this is a malicious fabrication on the part of the ICL/IST. This women Vicky was, according to her doctor, likely to have a miscarriage and the doctor had perscribed her medication that would prevent a miscarriage. Logan and Hannah advised her not to take the medication and let nature takes its course. After she had the child they tried to persuade her to give up the child. Was their behaviour an unreasonable intrusion into Vicky's personal affairs, yes. Does that mean Logan and Hannah are sociopaths, no. As for the allegation that they ripped apart couples this is a fabrication too. Their were constant transfers throughout the organization on an international level. Logan headed the New Zealand section. These constant transfers led to couples being seperated.

In terms of women being expected not to have children this was quite typical of the International Spartacist Tendency (now the Internation Communist League (Fourth Internationalist)) You have such attitudes as the following:

"This is even evident from the materials included in the “dossier.” In Joel’s condemnation of Bill, for example, he wrote:

“What made the Logan/Hannah regime a caricature of Spartacism and sometimes worse was that it usually began with a correct point, for instance, babies are not good for the revolutionary party, and then carried it to an extreme for one reason or another, usually creating the rationale of organisational necessity and there was no internal corrective.” [LD I, p56]

At one point in the trial, Bill asked Jim Robertson whether, during his visit to New York in 1972, they had discussed how to handle members having babies:

“Robertson: Then there is no necessary reason that this would have come up—except that I—except I recall that we generally had rather full, extensive and informal discussion, and I was in some state of trauma. It’s likely, but by no means inevitable that we would have discussed such a thing because I was running around saying ‘goddamned babies.’” [LD II, p67]

In an April 1972 letter on the question of members having children, Nancy R. observed:

“Furthermore, the SL does not ‘demand such a sacrifice as having no children.’ Most party members do discourage it, but the official position of the party is that having children is a personal decision.” [LD I, p30]

Joel’s off-hand observation that “babies are not good for the revolutionary party” and Jim’s expostulations regarding “goddamned babies” exemplify attitudes that prospective parents might indeed have found discouraging."

(Sited in On the Logan Show Trial, International Bolshevik Tendency, www.bolshevik.org)

Jim Robertson also advised Patrick of the International Spartacist Tendency:

"He said 'I love to fuck her.' And I said, 'Then she's coming back. But she's Irish, she'll give you babies, lad. Why don't you get your tubes tide?' And that was all. And then we killed the rest of the bottle. And I reported whatever to Logan, and I said, 'Well they're gonna do what they're gonna do."

(ibid.)

There is no question that Vicky was subjected to entirely illegitimate pressure to give up her baby, but as the ICL “dossier” documents, this was well known to the iSt leadership in New York. In his 30 November 1977 letter to the SL/ANZ, for example, John Sharpe, the iSt’s International Secretary, wrote:

“My understanding of the origins of the Vicki [sic] question, at least as far as the party is concerned—having her baby when David was away, her fundamental ambiguity over a long period of time about giving it up, the strong and protracted pressures on her to give it up—would indicate that that problem has existed for years. In hindsight, we may have put a pressure on her that she cannot handle, namely to choose between the organization and her kid.” [LD I, p47]""

(Sited in On the Logan Show Trial, International Bolshevik Tendency, www.bolshevik.org)

Now was the international leadership innocent? Well several leading cadre from the main section in the U.S. including Jim Robertson, the head of the international tendency spent considerable time the New Zealand section when it was headed by Logan and NONE of them saw ANYTHING amiss. NONE of them blew the whistle. Quite a few prominent members from the main section were in regular contact with members of the New Zealand section when it was headed by Logan. Also, Vicky husband, David S., (Vicky was the women who was pregnant) was transferred to the American secton where Jim Robertson (the head of the organization) was two years after the incident started up. David S. was a drinking buddy of Robertson when he was in the U.S. and even lived in the same New York flat with Robertson. However, Robertson claims he didn't know about the Vicky issue until five years about Vicky was pregnant. Also, Robertson when he visited the New Zealand section had half an hour alone with Vicky. Bill Logan even sent letters about what was going on in New Zealand to the American section of the tendency (which doubled as the international leadership). Their was the whole Control Commission where an individual named John E. brought up concerns in about what was going on in the New Zealand section including the Vicky issue. This was several years after Vicky was pregnant but years before Jim Robertson claims to have know anything about the issue. One of the prominent members from the leading section even held Logan purge John E.

Andrew M. claimed that when prominent members from the main section, including the leader of the international tendency Jim Robertson, visited the New Zealand section that Bill Logan made sure that no one said anything and made sure no one was their when they came. This excuse has been tried before by Stalinists:

"During the Stalinist purge trial in the Smolensk province their was a trial of the first secretary of the party in Belyi named Kovalev. During the trial "Questions from the floor pointed out that everyone approved of Kovalev at the time and asked why they [his accusers] had not said anything earlier. But one of Kovalev's more sophisticated accusers claimed he had been silent because Kovalev had, for four years, forbidden him to speak!" (Robert Conquest, The Great Terror, page 334)