Melvin Harris 1930-2004
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I thought I'd post this in the off topic section of the forum. An obituary dating from 2004 for an SPGBer Melvin Harris:
http://www.casebook.org/authors/obituaries/mharris.html
It looks like he lived a full life. Looks like a fascinating bloke. I don't remember an obituary appearing for him in the pages of the Socialist Standard at the time, so I'm guessing he wasn't a Party member at the time of his death.
A couple of his Socialist Standard articles are on the Socialist Standard Past & Present Blog:
http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/search/label/Melvin%20Harris
Melvin Harris was the first Party member I met. We were both born in Newport, Mon. At the time I was living in Newbridge in one valley and he was living in Cwmbran in the next one. He was working as a night telephonist (in those days women weren't allowed to work at night).The obituary is inaccurate about his relationship with the Party. He first became associated with it as a schoolboy and was one of a number who formed the Newport branch of the party just after the War (the Second World War, that is). During this period he engaged in a lengthy correspondence with Anton Pannekoek which unfortunately has been lost. He did later leave and lectured for the old National Council of Labour Colleges not the Labour Party. I don't think he ever joined the Labour Party or ever had any illusions about it. He was also an expert on the DeLeonist SLP of America (there's an article somewhere about "socialist industrial unionism").He remained a member after he moved to London and wrote a few articles for the Standard but eventually dropped out.
Was the correspondence lost at Pannekoek's end as well?I'm prompted to ask: any idea how he came to know of Pannekoek in the post-war period? After reading the biog of Mattick, it appears it wasn't exactly a fruitful period for Council Coummunists to reach a wider audience. Would it have been via The Western Socialist? I know some of Pannekoek's work was published in the WSPUS's journal in the 40s.
You are probably right. He will have got in contact with Pannekoek via the WSPUS. It's Pannekoek's replies that are missing. Melvin's letters to him may well be amongst the Pannekoek papers at the IISH in Amsterdam. I found searching their archives too complicated but may be you have more patience and a higher degree of computer literacy?
https://search.socialhistory.org/Record/ARCH01030Scroll down to Number 22 in the list. It doesn't look like they are accessible online, but it looks like there are 12 items of correspondence between Pannekoek and an M.C. Harris that dates from 1947/48. PS – If you scroll down to number 53, you'll see that there is an item of correspondence from Rab to Pannekoek that dates from 1936.
That's good. It sounds as if Pannekoek's replies might be there too. I'll contact the Instituut to see I can obtain copies. I did it before for something, an article from 1853 by Marx in Afrikaans for his brother-in-law for a South African publication. Not a lot of people know that Marx knew Afrikaans but then his mother was Dutch (not a lot of people know that either).
"Not a lot of people know that Marx knew Afrikaans but then his mother was Dutch (not a lot of people know that either)."Imagine if he had lived til the Boer Wars. What a treat it would be to have read his observations on it. Kudos to you both in furthering the search for documents important for the wider socialist movement outside the SPGB. The eventual publication of them, is something i look forward to
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