Speakers Corner (1982)

[ALB]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqlXbJOpYiI

For newer members, the Party speaker is Harry Young.

[hallblithe]

This is a film version of spot the odd one out!   Sorry to say that even though I joined the old Islington Branch just two years after this film was made, I do not recognize any of the other Comrades present….

[ALB]

The comrade selling the Standard is Steve Ross (who actually came from Ross-shire in Scotland). The Irishman heckling the bearded faith-healer is a Party sympathiser, at least he once signed our candidate’s nomination paper to stand for election.

[jondwhite]

Is Speakers Corner worth visiting on a Sunday? Don’t Ashbourne Court group still use it? There are videos of Marxist Platform on Youtube, who are they?

[Anonymous]

‘Mr Barker is the Hyde Park authority on shit!’  Love it!Had Harry up in Seaham a few times. He claimed he was in Russia during the 1917 revolution and  held the red flag high while on horseback.  I would just love to believe that was true

[Anonymous]

I understand Harry later joined the The Judian People’s Front

[Anonymous]

jondwhite wrote:

Is Speakers Corner worth visiting on a Sunday? Don’t Ashbourne Court group still use it?

No and not since the demise of Harry Baldwin.

TheOldGreyWhistle wrote:

Had Harry up in Seaham a few times. He claimed he was in Russia during the 1917 revolution and  held the red flag high while on horseback.  I would just love to believe that was true

Yeah, heard that a few times too; he used to do a talk entitled “The Lenin I knew” !

TheOldGreyWhistle wrote:

I understand Harry later joined the The Judian People’s Front

Actually, he was a ‘founder member’ of the “Ashbourne Courtesans”, having been expelled, along with others, from the SPGB in 1991. 

[alanjjohnstone]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyCmRKNzWnsAn interview featuring Harry Young talking about seeing LeninUnfortunately, despite the claims made by party members, Harry told a meeting in Glasgow that he didn’t get close enough to Lenin to shake his hand.http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spopen/message/8531

[imposs1904]

ALB wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqlXbJOpYiIFor newer members, the Party speaker is Harry Young.

 Look at the Standards they are selling in the clip. That’s later than ’82. Maybe ’86 or ’87. I left a comment to that effect on the YouTube page and the cheeky sod deleted it.

[ALB]

You’re right. Steve Ross has in his hands the September and October 1986 issues of the Standard. If the person who filmed them wants to suppress this fact he’s not just a cheeky sod but a dishonest one. Still, it’s a good video.

[Ed]

is there any more of that peoples century video?  It looked like Harry Young had more to say on the subject.

[ALB]

Ed wrote:

is there any more of that peoples century video?  It looked like Harry Young had more to say on the subject.

There will have been but it wasn’t used. I saw the raw material for an earlier interview for TV and what was interesting was how the producers coached him to say what they wanted to broadcast. Harry kept mentioning the famine conditions then prevailing in Russia and how in these conditions socialism wasn’t possible, but all they wanted to hear was that he had heard Lenin speaking at a meeting of the Comintern. In the version I saw he said that Lenin spoke in German with a heavy Russian accent.Incidentally, Harry claimed to have been present in person when both Trotsky and Stalin spoke. Which is quite possible as he lived in Russia for 8 or 9 years in the 1920s when he was an employee of the Communist Youth International.

[imposs1904]

Ed wrote:

is there any more of that peoples century video?  It looked like Harry Young had more to say on the subject.

 That’s the full clip of Harry Young from that programme. I know this because it was me who uploaded the clip to YouTube. ;-)Btw, as a point of interest, the consultant for that particular episode of People’s Century was Robert Service, who’s best known for his biographies of Lenin and Trotsky. I think a couple of his books have been reviewed in the Standard.

[Anonymous]

… and here’s Harry being interviewed on a Canadian radio station in 1976 -http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/audio/harry-young-radio-interview-1976 

[ALB]

Here’s an interview with another Party Hyde Park speaker (and much more), Les Cox:http://vimeo.com/44421054

[Author]

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