From: The Earl Russell, O.M., F.R.S., Plas Penrhyn, Penrhyndeudraeth, Merioneth.
27 July 1966.
To: A. Manchanda, 58 Lisburne Road, London, NW3.
Dear Sir,
Your letter of 24th June has been received. I have read it with astonishment and utter distaste. Those you abuse so frantically are people in whom I have trust and whose political views are my own. This esteem is held also by the Vietnamese. There (sic) representatives in London have made this emphatically clear. The news agency of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam has asked The Week to act as the representative of all Vietnamese publications in the Western hemisphere, indicating their own confidence in the Week.
Our Campaign is not merely one of clear and proven support for the struggle of the Vietnamese but a rational and serious political movement for that purpose.
The enclosed “bulletin” which arrived with your letter is a vicious compilation of slanders, half-truths and lies. Its language is reminiscent of the Stalin purges and I regard the whole of this extraordinary communication as the issue of a twisted and unbalanced mind.
Yours faithfully, Russell.
Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation
29th July, 1966
A. Manchanda,
58 Lisburne Road,
Sir,
I have been asked by Lord Russell to inform you that it as the Vietnamese Export Agency, Xunhafaba, who asked The Week to act as an agent for its publications.
Yours faithfully,
Janet Viney
Asst. to Miss Wood
Britain Vietnam Solidarity Front
58 Lisburne Road
Dear Lord Russell,
Thanks, indeed, for your letter of July 27, 1966, in reply to our letter of June 24, 1966, as well as your subsequent message through Miss Janet Vinny on July 29, 1966.
The Organising Executive Committee of the Britain-Vietnam Solidarity Front, in its meeting on Sunday, August 7, 1966, gave serious consideration to your two communications and have the following to state:
1. We are glad that you did not delay in informing us of the incorrect claim, in your letter of July 27, that “The news agency of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam has asked The Week to act as the representative of all Vietnamese publications in the Western Hemisphere, indicating their own confidence in The Week.
2. You have further informed us that The Week is in fact acting as ‘an agent’ and not a representative as you first claimed for the Vietnamese publications, through arrangements with Xunhafaba, the Vietnamese Export Agency.
This commercial arrangement, according to you, is the evidence ‘indicating their (Vietnamese) own confidence in The Week.
We are sure you are well aware that many bourgeois firms, including booksellers and newspaper dealers, who have been hostile to the Socialist countries, have carried on commercial deals with these countries. If The Week is trying to make political capital out of this commercial deal, it only proves that, having no prestige of its own, it is desperate to use a commercial arrangement with the Vietnamese Export Agency to present a progressive image to the people who admire Vietnam and are interested in its publications. Unless you have some other evidence to indicate the ‘confidence’ The Week claims to enjoy of political institutions in Vietnam, the aforementioned conclusion is the only one we can draw.
3. We are well aware, from their newspapers, that the Vietnamese leaders justly appreciate your bold condemnation of the US atrocities in Vietnam and your move for an international trial of the US imperialist aggressors for their war crimes against the heroic Vietnamese people. But from this it does not follow that since The Week is associated with the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation it automatically enjoys the esteem the Vietnamese have for you.
4. You mention that the Vietnamese “representatives in London” have emphatically made clear their esteem for those who are associated with The Week and whose “political views are my (your) own.”
Perhaps you are referring to the two Vietnamese journalists who are in London in pursuit of their professional responsibilities. They were also present on June 4 and 5, at the Mahatma Gandhi Hall “Vietnam Solidarity Conference.” When the 78 delegates and participants as well as observers disassociated from the conference and walked out, these two journalists also left the hall. We wonder what significance you would attach to this event. However, we are sure you will agree that it will be an unfriendly act to involve them in our British political controversies.
5. The eight and a half page report, entitled “Russell Foundation Directors and The Week Disrupt Vietnam Solidarity Conference, was drafted after the discussion in the afternoon of June 5, at the meeting of 78 delegates, participants and the observers who had walked out of that conference.
6. This report quoted concrete facts and the statements made by those who are connected with The Week and Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, which clearly established that these gentlemen had accused the Vietnamese leaders
of surrendering to imperialism at the 1954 Geneva Conference; like the UK imperialists, they refused to accept the South Vietnam National Front for Liberation as the sole genuine representative of the South Vietnamese people; and they opposed the resolution that the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign in its aims should support the four-point stand of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the five-part statement of the South Vietnam National Front for Liberation.
We are astonished, indeed, to say the least, that with you experience and scholarship and without refuting a single charge that the 78 delegates, participants and observers levelled at The Week and the directors of the Russell Foundation that you have rushed into abusive language.
These delegates and observers responded to the call for solidarity with Vietnam and because of your bold condemnation of US barbaric aggression and atrocities, they attended the Solidarity Conference at the Mahatma Gandhi Hall on June 4, as it was associated with your own personal appeal. But when they discovered from their own experience that those who ran The Week and the Russell Foundation and were controlling the conference were opposed to the resolution supporting the four and five points stand of the Vietnamese people as one of the aims of the ‘solidarity campaign’, they walked out on the morning of June 5, thus exposing this sham solidarity.
They discovered that those who associated with you were in fact taking a contradictory stand to your own. With your particular expertise and experience, this, indeed, is a strange logic.
7. We stated in our report:
8. “While working along with other organisations on a common platform, there must be a minimum agreed programme of aims, which should be strictly adhered to. Any sectional activities on the common platform and in contradiction to the agreed aims can only lead to disunity and disruption and the defeat of the agreed aims of that common movement.”
9. And, further, regarding the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, we stated: The crucial test of honesty and genuine solidarity with Vietnam is the unequivocal support for the aims of the Vietnamese people’s struggle for liberation, namely the four point stand of the DRV and the five-part statement of the NLF.
10. But those in whom who have trust and whose political views are your own, had different objectives. As, for example, Ken Coates and David Horowitz used the platform of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign on March 25, 1966, at the public meeting at the Welsh Association Hall, London, for ‘fighting Stalinism’ and ‘building a world revolutionary movement on Leon Trotsky’s themes’ despite protests from the audience who had come to the meeting to support Vietnam.
11. Without consultation with and against the protestations of other organisations on the preparatory committee of the Campaign, your associates tried to link the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign with the Trotskyite magazines like The Voice naming the May 1, 1966, issue The Vietnam Voice.
12. All these actions were against the unity of diverse elements with different political views who were ready to work together in support of the Vietnamese people in the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign. Yet you abuse those who upheld the principles of unity and true solidarity with Vietnam as having ‘twisted and unbalanced’ minds.
13. Even though many people wouldn’t agree with your political views on other issues and your interpretation of various historical events, yet they fully support your condemnation of US atrocities in Vietnam. For example, many were horrified at your suggestion seriously made some years ago, that the West should drop atom bombs on Moscow in the interest of world peace.
According to many, that preposterous suggestion was the product of a ‘twisted and unbalanced mind.’ We are glad that later you changed your views.
Being the great philosopher that you are, perhaps you would care for ordinary people like us, and tell us concretely what our mistaken views are and which are the ‘half truths and lies’ in our report. On hearing from you, we shall certainly circulate your reply to our members. With kindest regards,
Yours respectfully, A. Manchanda. Secretary BVSF.
CONCERNING THE VIETNAM SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN
Provisional address: 58, Lisburne Road, London, NW3.
"The following is a statement issued by all those who found it necessary to walk out from the conference called on June 4-5, 1966, at the Mahatma Gandhi Hall, Fitzroy Square, London W.1. to launch a Vietnam Solidarity Campaign in Britain...."
"We found ourselves in a position of being unable to participate in the conference when a faction sought to impose on the movement a set of aims which were contrary to the views expressed by Lord Russell in his opening statement to the conference and as agreed previously in the Preparatory Committee.
"We, as always, dearly wish to co-operate with all those who desire to see a successful conclusion to the just struggle of the Vietnamese people, which can only end in complete victory for the National Liberation Front, the sole representative of the people of Vietnam.
"At the same time, we must resolutely oppose all those who refuse to accept the programme of the Vietnamese people as the only basis for waging a successful campaign for solidarity in Britain, and so contributing to the inevitable victory of the Vietnamese people and a just and lasting peace.
"While those who disrupted the conference are a faction organised around the Nottingham journal "The Week", those of us who found it necessary to disassociate ourselves from their unprincipled stand included trade unionists, members of peace committees and delegates from solidarity with Vietnam committees, and members of organisations from Asia, Africa and the Carribean. In addition, all of the fraternal representatives from Belgium, Holland, Italy, Switzerland and Haiti, unanimously decided to withdraw from the meeting and to continue to give full support to a genuine solidarity movement in Britain, based on the aims of the Vietnamese themselves.
"In order to ensure the carrying out of this work, the above-mentioned 78 delegates met in conference and elected a Provision Committee. They unanimously adopted this statement.
We are confident that our principled stand will contribute to the development of a powerful movement in Britain, capable of cementing the friendship of the British and Vietnamese people, whose fundamental interests are the same."
27 July 1966.
To: A. Manchanda, 58 Lisburne Road, London, NW3.
Dear Sir,
Your letter of 24th June has been received. I have read it with astonishment and utter distaste. Those you abuse so frantically are people in whom I have trust and whose political views are my own. This esteem is held also by the Vietnamese. There (sic) representatives in London have made this emphatically clear. The news agency of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam has asked The Week to act as the representative of all Vietnamese publications in the Western hemisphere, indicating their own confidence in the Week.
Our Campaign is not merely one of clear and proven support for the struggle of the Vietnamese but a rational and serious political movement for that purpose.
The enclosed “bulletin” which arrived with your letter is a vicious compilation of slanders, half-truths and lies. Its language is reminiscent of the Stalin purges and I regard the whole of this extraordinary communication as the issue of a twisted and unbalanced mind.
Yours faithfully, Russell.
Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation
29th July, 1966
A. Manchanda,
58 Lisburne Road,
Sir,
I have been asked by Lord Russell to inform you that it as the Vietnamese Export Agency, Xunhafaba, who asked The Week to act as an agent for its publications.
Yours faithfully,
Janet Viney
Asst. to Miss Wood
Britain Vietnam Solidarity Front
58 Lisburne Road
Dear Lord Russell,
Thanks, indeed, for your letter of July 27, 1966, in reply to our letter of June 24, 1966, as well as your subsequent message through Miss Janet Vinny on July 29, 1966.
The Organising Executive Committee of the Britain-Vietnam Solidarity Front, in its meeting on Sunday, August 7, 1966, gave serious consideration to your two communications and have the following to state:
1. We are glad that you did not delay in informing us of the incorrect claim, in your letter of July 27, that “The news agency of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam has asked The Week to act as the representative of all Vietnamese publications in the Western Hemisphere, indicating their own confidence in The Week.
2. You have further informed us that The Week is in fact acting as ‘an agent’ and not a representative as you first claimed for the Vietnamese publications, through arrangements with Xunhafaba, the Vietnamese Export Agency.
This commercial arrangement, according to you, is the evidence ‘indicating their (Vietnamese) own confidence in The Week.
We are sure you are well aware that many bourgeois firms, including booksellers and newspaper dealers, who have been hostile to the Socialist countries, have carried on commercial deals with these countries. If The Week is trying to make political capital out of this commercial deal, it only proves that, having no prestige of its own, it is desperate to use a commercial arrangement with the Vietnamese Export Agency to present a progressive image to the people who admire Vietnam and are interested in its publications. Unless you have some other evidence to indicate the ‘confidence’ The Week claims to enjoy of political institutions in Vietnam, the aforementioned conclusion is the only one we can draw.
3. We are well aware, from their newspapers, that the Vietnamese leaders justly appreciate your bold condemnation of the US atrocities in Vietnam and your move for an international trial of the US imperialist aggressors for their war crimes against the heroic Vietnamese people. But from this it does not follow that since The Week is associated with the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation it automatically enjoys the esteem the Vietnamese have for you.
4. You mention that the Vietnamese “representatives in London” have emphatically made clear their esteem for those who are associated with The Week and whose “political views are my (your) own.”
Perhaps you are referring to the two Vietnamese journalists who are in London in pursuit of their professional responsibilities. They were also present on June 4 and 5, at the Mahatma Gandhi Hall “Vietnam Solidarity Conference.” When the 78 delegates and participants as well as observers disassociated from the conference and walked out, these two journalists also left the hall. We wonder what significance you would attach to this event. However, we are sure you will agree that it will be an unfriendly act to involve them in our British political controversies.
5. The eight and a half page report, entitled “Russell Foundation Directors and The Week Disrupt Vietnam Solidarity Conference, was drafted after the discussion in the afternoon of June 5, at the meeting of 78 delegates, participants and the observers who had walked out of that conference.
6. This report quoted concrete facts and the statements made by those who are connected with The Week and Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, which clearly established that these gentlemen had accused the Vietnamese leaders
of surrendering to imperialism at the 1954 Geneva Conference; like the UK imperialists, they refused to accept the South Vietnam National Front for Liberation as the sole genuine representative of the South Vietnamese people; and they opposed the resolution that the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign in its aims should support the four-point stand of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the five-part statement of the South Vietnam National Front for Liberation.
We are astonished, indeed, to say the least, that with you experience and scholarship and without refuting a single charge that the 78 delegates, participants and observers levelled at The Week and the directors of the Russell Foundation that you have rushed into abusive language.
These delegates and observers responded to the call for solidarity with Vietnam and because of your bold condemnation of US barbaric aggression and atrocities, they attended the Solidarity Conference at the Mahatma Gandhi Hall on June 4, as it was associated with your own personal appeal. But when they discovered from their own experience that those who ran The Week and the Russell Foundation and were controlling the conference were opposed to the resolution supporting the four and five points stand of the Vietnamese people as one of the aims of the ‘solidarity campaign’, they walked out on the morning of June 5, thus exposing this sham solidarity.
They discovered that those who associated with you were in fact taking a contradictory stand to your own. With your particular expertise and experience, this, indeed, is a strange logic.
7. We stated in our report:
8. “While working along with other organisations on a common platform, there must be a minimum agreed programme of aims, which should be strictly adhered to. Any sectional activities on the common platform and in contradiction to the agreed aims can only lead to disunity and disruption and the defeat of the agreed aims of that common movement.”
9. And, further, regarding the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, we stated: The crucial test of honesty and genuine solidarity with Vietnam is the unequivocal support for the aims of the Vietnamese people’s struggle for liberation, namely the four point stand of the DRV and the five-part statement of the NLF.
10. But those in whom who have trust and whose political views are your own, had different objectives. As, for example, Ken Coates and David Horowitz used the platform of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign on March 25, 1966, at the public meeting at the Welsh Association Hall, London, for ‘fighting Stalinism’ and ‘building a world revolutionary movement on Leon Trotsky’s themes’ despite protests from the audience who had come to the meeting to support Vietnam.
11. Without consultation with and against the protestations of other organisations on the preparatory committee of the Campaign, your associates tried to link the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign with the Trotskyite magazines like The Voice naming the May 1, 1966, issue The Vietnam Voice.
12. All these actions were against the unity of diverse elements with different political views who were ready to work together in support of the Vietnamese people in the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign. Yet you abuse those who upheld the principles of unity and true solidarity with Vietnam as having ‘twisted and unbalanced’ minds.
13. Even though many people wouldn’t agree with your political views on other issues and your interpretation of various historical events, yet they fully support your condemnation of US atrocities in Vietnam. For example, many were horrified at your suggestion seriously made some years ago, that the West should drop atom bombs on Moscow in the interest of world peace.
According to many, that preposterous suggestion was the product of a ‘twisted and unbalanced mind.’ We are glad that later you changed your views.
Being the great philosopher that you are, perhaps you would care for ordinary people like us, and tell us concretely what our mistaken views are and which are the ‘half truths and lies’ in our report. On hearing from you, we shall certainly circulate your reply to our members. With kindest regards,
Yours respectfully, A. Manchanda. Secretary BVSF.
CONCERNING THE VIETNAM SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN
Provisional address: 58, Lisburne Road, London, NW3.
"The following is a statement issued by all those who found it necessary to walk out from the conference called on June 4-5, 1966, at the Mahatma Gandhi Hall, Fitzroy Square, London W.1. to launch a Vietnam Solidarity Campaign in Britain...."
"We found ourselves in a position of being unable to participate in the conference when a faction sought to impose on the movement a set of aims which were contrary to the views expressed by Lord Russell in his opening statement to the conference and as agreed previously in the Preparatory Committee.
"We, as always, dearly wish to co-operate with all those who desire to see a successful conclusion to the just struggle of the Vietnamese people, which can only end in complete victory for the National Liberation Front, the sole representative of the people of Vietnam.
"At the same time, we must resolutely oppose all those who refuse to accept the programme of the Vietnamese people as the only basis for waging a successful campaign for solidarity in Britain, and so contributing to the inevitable victory of the Vietnamese people and a just and lasting peace.
"While those who disrupted the conference are a faction organised around the Nottingham journal "The Week", those of us who found it necessary to disassociate ourselves from their unprincipled stand included trade unionists, members of peace committees and delegates from solidarity with Vietnam committees, and members of organisations from Asia, Africa and the Carribean. In addition, all of the fraternal representatives from Belgium, Holland, Italy, Switzerland and Haiti, unanimously decided to withdraw from the meeting and to continue to give full support to a genuine solidarity movement in Britain, based on the aims of the Vietnamese themselves.
"In order to ensure the carrying out of this work, the above-mentioned 78 delegates met in conference and elected a Provision Committee. They unanimously adopted this statement.
We are confident that our principled stand will contribute to the development of a powerful movement in Britain, capable of cementing the friendship of the British and Vietnamese people, whose fundamental interests are the same."
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