Harry Wicks was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 socialist activist.

Biography

Born in Battersea

Battersea

Battersea is an area of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is an inner-city district of South London, situated on the south side of the River Thames, 2.9 miles south-west of Charing Cross. Battersea spans from Fairfield in the west to Queenstown in the east...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, he went to work on the railways and joined the National Union of Railwaymen

National Union of Railwaymen

The National Union of Railwaymen was a trade union of railway workers in the United Kingdom. It an industrial union founded in 1913 by the merger of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants , the United Pointsmen and Signalmen's Society and the General Railway Workers' Union .The NUR...

 in 1919. He joined the Labour Party

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

, but after Black Friday

Black Friday (1921)

Black Friday, in British labour history, refers to 15 April 1921, when the leaders of transport and rail unions announced a decision not to call for strike action in support of the miners...

 moved to the Communist Party of Great Britain

Communist Party of Great Britain

The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...

 (CPGB). After studying with A. E. E. Reade, he came to support Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....

 and the International Left Opposition.

Elected to the executive of the Young Communist League in 1926, Wicks attended the International Lenin School

International Lenin School

Situated in Moscow and shrouded in secrecy, the International Lenin School was founded in 1926 as an instrument for the "Bolshevisation" of the Communist International and its national sections, following the resolutions of the fifth Congress of the Comintern. Between 1926 and 1938 the school...

 in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 and the Sixth World Congress of the Comintern

Comintern

The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...

. He began working with the Balham Group of Trotskyists, and was expelled from the CPGB in 1932. He became a founding member of the Communist League

Communist League (UK, 1932)

The Communist League was the first Trotskyist group in Britain. It was formed in 1932 by former members of the Communist Party of Great Britain from Balham and Tooting in South London, including Harry Wicks. They had been expelled after forming a loose grouping inside the CPGB, known as the...

 and met Trotsky in Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

 but disagreed with Trotsky's advice to join the Independent Labour Party

Independent Labour Party

The Independent Labour Party was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932, when it voted to leave...

. The Communist League split with the tendency opposed to joining the ILP continuing as the Marxist League, which later worked within the Labour Party. He also chaired the British Committee for the Defence of Leon Trotsky.

Wicks began working with C. L. R. James

C. L. R. James

Cyril Lionel Robert James , who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J.R. Johnson, was an Afro-Trinidadian historian, journalist, socialist theorist and essayist. His works are influential in various theoretical, social, and historiographical contexts...

 of the Marxist Group

Marxist Group (UK)

The Marxist Group was an early Trotskyist group in the United Kingdom.Its origins lay in the Communist League, the first Trotskyist group in the country. Trotsky advised the group to enter the Independent Labour Party , which had just disaffiliated from the Labour Party...

, and in 1938 their tendencies merged to form the Revolutionary Socialist League

Revolutionary Socialist League (UK, 1938)

The first RSL was formed in early 1938 with the merger of two different parties, the Marxist League led by Harry Wicks and the Marxist Group led by C. L. R. James....

. However, Wicks and the remnants of the former Marxist League soon left soon and to form the Socialist Anti-War Federation. In 1940, this group dissolved and he joined the Independent Labour Party.

At the end of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Wicks joined the Labour Party and became active in NALGO. In 1971, he became involved with the Trotskyist movement again, joining the forerunner of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) the International Socialists. He was part of the 1976 split which formed the Workers League

Workers League (UK)

The Workers League was a small Trotskyist group in Britain.It began as the IS Opposition, formed in 1975 within the International Socialists , and containing many prominent IS members, including Roger Protz and Jim Higgins...

. He would later work with the SWP in various campaigns but never rejoined it.

Not long before his death he wrote a brief autobiography Memoirs of a British Bolshevik.