Ah, whenever I saw Jess and Ernie in Toronto, it brought the greatest
pleasure - partly as Ernie and I shared a birth hospital. He will be
missed enormously - what a fantastic revolutionary career. That's a fine
obit in /SpringMag /... And this is excellent, Louis, especially his
nearly hour-long chat with you, thanks:
https://louisproyect.org/2021/02/06/ernie-tate-presente/
Wikipedia has useful additions:
*Ernest Tate*(1934 - 5 February 2021)^[1]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Tate#cite_note-palmer-1>[2]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Tate#cite_note-proyect-2> was a
long-standing supporter and leading member of Trotskyist
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trotskyism> groups in Canada
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada> and the United Kingdom
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom> and a founder of the
International Marxist Group
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Marxist_Group> in Britain.
Born on Shankhill Road
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shankhill_Road>, in Belfast
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belfast>, Northern Ireland
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland>,^[1]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Tate#cite_note-palmer-1> he
received little formal education.^[3]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Tate#cite_note-horowitz-3> Tate
immigrated to Canada in 1955, where he was recruited by Ross Dowson
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Dowson> into the Canadian
section
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_for_Socialist_Action_(Canada)>
of the Fourth International
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_International>.^[1]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Tate#cite_note-palmer-1> By
1962, he was joint editor of the /Socialist Caucus Bulletin/, the
newspaper of the socialist caucus of the New Democratic Party
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democratic_Party>.^[4]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Tate#cite_note-4>
In the mid-1960s, Tate moved from North America to Great Britain
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain> to work with
supporters of the reunified Fourth International
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reunified_Fourth_International> to
solidify its British section, of which he became a leader, leading
to the founding of the International Marxist Group
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Marxist_Group> in
1968.^[5] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Tate#cite_note-5>[1]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Tate#cite_note-palmer-1> Tate
and fellow Canadian Pat Brain worked side by side with Bertrand
Russell <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell> in the
Russell Tribunal <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Tribunal>
set up to investigate US war crimes in Vietnam.^[1]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Tate#cite_note-palmer-1>
The beating of Tate in 1966 by supporters of Gerry Healy
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Healy> was a cause célèbre
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cause_c%C3%A9l%C3%A8bre> within the
world Trotskyist <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trotskyist>
movement.^[6]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Tate#cite_note-6>[7]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Tate#cite_note-Kelly-7> One of
his recruits to the IMG was Tariq Ali
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariq_Ali>.^[1]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Tate#cite_note-palmer-1> Ali
described Tate as working closely with Pat Jordan
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Jordan>, the two being the
leading supporters of Pierre Frank
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Frank>'s ideas in the UK.^[8]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Tate#cite_note-8>
Tate was one of two members of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_Solidarity_Campaign>
organising committee for the demonstration against the Vietnam war
in London in October 1968 who successfully opposed a proposal to
halt the march in Whitehall, which would have caused unnecessary
confrontation with the police and a degeneration into violence. He
was thus instrumental in ensuring that the 200,000 participants
passed through London peacefully, despite dire prognostications in
the press and on television (who reported the march but also gave
undue coverage to a simultaneous 5,000-strong violent
counter-protest by Maoists attacking the United States Embassy). As
a result, opposition to the war grew enormously in Britain at the
same time as in the United States.^[1]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Tate#cite_note-palmer-1> At the
time of the demonstration, /The Guardian/ described him as "an able
Ulsterman in his early thirties, with unmodishly short dark hair,
the black-rimmed spectacles of an advertising executive, and a
terse, direct, manner".^[9]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Tate#cite_note-9>
Tate was a founder of the Leninist Trotskyist Tendency
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leninist_Trotskyist_Tendency> in
1973.^[10] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Tate#cite_note-10>
He returned to Canada in 1969^[11]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Tate#cite_note-11> and worked
there as a machinist <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinist> until
his retirement. In 2014, the first volume of his memoir,
/Revolutionary Activism in the 1950s & 60s/, was published.^[12]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Tate#cite_note-12>[13]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Tate#cite_note-Sheppard2-13>
After reading the book, David Horowitz
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Horowitz>, who had known Tate
in the 1960s when both men were anti-war activists, struck up a
dialogue him, but noted that their strong political differences
barred any friendship.^[3]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Tate#cite_note-horowitz-3>
Ernie Tate died on 5 February 2021, of pancreatic cancer
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancreatic_cancer>.^[2]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Tate#cite_note-proyect-2>
1. /Palmer, Bryan D. (Spring 2015). "Review: A Tate Gallery for the
New Left: Portraits, Landscapes, and Abstracts in the
Revolutionary Activism of the 1950s and 1960s"
<https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/LLT/article/download/24383/28237>.
Labour / Le Travail. *75*: 231–262. Retrieved April 17, 2019./
2.
3. /Proyect, Louis. "Ernie Tate, ¡presente!"
<https://louisproyect.org/2021/02/06/ernie-tate-presente/>.
Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist./
4.
5. /Horowitz, David (2015). You're Going to Be Dead One Day: A Love
Story. Simon and Schuster. ISBN
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)> 978-1621574330
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1621574330>./
6.
7. /Palmer, Bryan (1988). A communist life: Jack Scott and the
Canadian workers movement, 1927-1985. Committee of Canadian
Labour History. p. 141. ISBN
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)> 0969206046
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0969206046>./
8.
9. Worker's Liberty website
<http://archive.workersliberty.org/publications/readings/trots/militant.html>
10.
11. Marxists.org interview
<https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/icl-spartacists/1986/1966interview.html>
12.
13. /Kelly, John E. (2018). Contemporary Trotskyism : Parties, Sects
and Social Movements in Britain (Routledge Studies in Radical
History and Politics)
<https://books.google.com/books?id=0mJRDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Contemporary+Trotskyism+:+Parties,+Sects+and+Social+Movements+in+Britain#v=onepage>.
Routledge. p. 100. ISBN
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)> 9781317368946
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9781317368946>.
Retrieved 23 April 2019./
14.
15. /Ali, Tariq (2016). Street-Fighting Years. Verso. pp. 237, 303,
326. ISBN <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)>
978-1786636003
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1786636003>./
16.
17. /"The word goes out: no martyrs, please". The Guardian. 27
October 1968./
18.
19. Marxists.org
<https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/fi/1963-1985/usfi/pre-ltt-imt/ltt01.htm>
20.
21. /Sheppard, Barry (2005). The Party: The Socialist Workers Party,
1960-1988, Volume 1. Resistance Books. ISBN
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)> 1876646500
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/1876646500>./
22.
23. /"Revolutionary Activism in the 1950s & 60s. Volume 1, Canada
1955-1965" <http://resistancebooks.org/product/57/>. Resistance
Books. Retrieved 23 April 2019./
24.
/Sheppard, Barry (2015). "A Memoir of Life in Struggle"
<http://search.ebscohost.com.rp.nla.gov.au/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=110604363&site=ehost-live>.
Against the Current. *30* (179): 41–42. Retrieved 23 April 2019./
On 2/8/2021 4:29 AM, Louis Proyect wrote:
By James Clark and Pam Frache
Ernest (“Ernie”) Tate, lifelong revolutionary socialist, died at home
on February 5. He was 86. We send our deepest condolences to Jess
MacKenzie, his companion of more than half a century.
https://springmag.ca/fare-thee-well-comrade-a-tribute-to-ernie-tate
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