Socialist Party members joined the family and friends of Lynn Walsh to celebrate his life on 16 December. Lynn, for decades a member of the leadership of the Socialist Party and its predecessor Militant, sadly passed away on 15 November.
In Lynn’s memory, we publish a letter from Lynn to Eric Segal, jailed for 30 days for his refusal to pay Maragaret Thatcher’s hated Poll Tax – one of 18 million who adopted Militant’s defiant non-payment stance which ultimately won.
Lynn’s political life was rich with experience, taking part in and witnessing significant historical events, that included visiting the Soviet Union in the final months and years of its existence, and as a leading member of Militant during the epic poll tax battle.
Eric Segal
HMP Canterbury
2 September 1991
Dear Eric,
I hope you are in good spirits, and the food is OK, and the routine is not too oppressive. John said that you are getting plenty of visitors, and you are very much in the minds of all comrades for the stand you have taken. It is the fact that you, like other comrades, have always been prepared to go the whole way that ensured the victory of the poll tax struggle.
Thatcher’s big mistake was to base her calculations on her estimate of the Labour leaders, who capitulated even before the struggle began: she overlooked the fact that we have people like you, people of an entirely different mettle.
I have just read in the Telegraph that the government spent £53.5 million holding prisoners in police cells last year. On an average it cost £220 a night, compared to £190 a night for a room at the Ritz. We will be campaigning as energetically as possible for your early release: but perhaps as a transitional demand we should call for your transfer to Piccadilly!
I hope you have access to news, newspapers, etc, so you can follow events in the Soviet Union. Today, with satellite communications, there is no distance between Kent and Tashkent. It is amazing how events can be followed hour by hour, live on television. We are all part of world history, concretely, in a way Hegel could hardly have imagined!
The failed coup spelled the end of the Stalinist apparatus: even they have abandoned the idea of planning (which they distorted and discredited), and accept the market, under their own dictatorship. They were divided and uncertain, but their path was blocked by the workers and youth who came out on the streets. The resistance would have gone much further, too, if the coup had proceeded.
Unfortunately, because there is no socialist alternative there, it is the pro-capitalist party, personified by Yeltsin, who will reap the fruits. It will be a temporary boost for capitalism internationally: the Tories’ 2 per cent lead over Labour is a symptom of this (and the Labour leader’s bankruptcy). However, the boom period is exhausting itself, and the results of the market in the East will not be favourable for the majority of people. There is one consolation in the Soviet Union, however, and that is there will be, at least for a time, open, democratic conditions, which will enable the more conscious sections of workers to organise independently: and there are very good people who are searching for genuine socialist ideas.
Let’s hope you are out very soon. Robbie and your children must be missing you very much. HMP staff should be really embarrassed at holding you there – simply because you are courageous enough to defend social justice, and because you have been victimised under a law which is defeated, discredited, unworkable, and – on a mass scale – unenforceable. You’re there because you have played a vital part in defeating the poll tax, and exposing those who pronounced it unjust but then advised everyone to pay up: your role will not be forgotten: the characters of the councillors and magistrates who are trying to enforce the tax will be indelibly stained.
With Comradely greetings,
Lynn Walsh
