Lots of fun

Sir—If Mr C. A. Fyson were exceptionally literate he might have noticed that there were some differences between the letter on Trotskyism he signed and the reply he received. Naturally, it is to be expected that be should have a mental block about the dissimilarities between his letter and the reply to it. Since our letter spelled out concisely the reasons why Mr. G. A. Fyson and his friends are fake Trotskyists.

What he really objects to about our reply is that it showed up his letter as a joke-that it deflated the false pseudo-legal rhetoric of Mr Fyson's solicitor friends to point out that when it came down to fundamentals the signatories were abject supporters of the Cuban government. Mr G. A. Fyson has never read the major position statements of the Spartaeist League. I doubt if he has ever read a book of Trotsky's He has never even read the crucial policy statement of his own 'organisation'-the proceedings of the 1951 congress of the Fourth International. But he has the intellectual shamelessness to set himself up as an authority on who is and who is not a Trotskyism. This might appear to be complete moral dishonesty; but I prefer to think that Mr Fyson and his friends, rather than being dishonest were merely having a little innocent fun.

It really is funny when Mr Fyson follows up the original joke by suggesting that the question of whether a letter and the reply to it should be published in the same issue has something to do with the question of whether he is or is not a Trotskyist. I congratulate Mr Fyson on his sense of humour; I could never aspire to such peaks of inanity.