In Memoriam Eric Trevett 1931-2014

New Communist Party of Britain

Eric Trevett, the President of the New Communist Party of Britain, passed away on Saturday, September 6. A life-long communist, internationalist and peace campaigner, Eric worked with Sid French on the Surrey District of the Communist Party of Great Britain for many years fighting for peace and struggling against revisionism within the old communist party.

They opposed the revisionist line of the CPGB as expressed in its programme, The British Road to Socialism. They had fought within the party for many years against this departure from Marxist-Leninist ideology through the CPGB’s internal democratic centralist structure. But in 1977, when the revisionist leaders moved to violate their own rules and basic communist norms and expel Sid and Eric to push through a more blatantly revisionist programme, the formation of a new party became inevitable.

Eric was a founder member of the NCPB in 1977 and he was elected general secretary of the Party following the death of Sid French in 1979. He held that post until his retirement from full-time party work in 1995.

He was subsequently elected president of the NCPB, a post he held until his death last weekend. Eric suffered from Parkinson’s Disease, which increasingly limited his mobility. But only this year he helped to set up a new pensioners’ association in his locality while encouraging the workers to join a union at his residential care-home. He will be sadly missed.

Reprinted from The New Worker, September 12, 2014

Dear Comrades,

Eric was the general secretary when RCPB (ML) first began discussion with the New Communist Party in 1994. Our Party formed a close bond with Eric based on the desire to chart the new path to a socialist Britain in the 21st century. It was to the misfortune of the communist movement in Britain that Eric could not be more involved in the movement to rebuild the unity of the communist movement due to his illness. Nevertheless, this work to build anew the communist movement, which had its common roots in the anti-revisionist movement of the 1970s, was our common aspiration, and our two Parties have made strenuous efforts to make this aspiration a reality.

Our experience of Eric is of a very generous, non-sectarian spirit. He also shared with our Party the concern of building a new culture which represented the new humanity on the soil of Britain.

This spirit has imbued, in our opinion, his successors in the New Communist Party of Britain. Eric, in our experience, was modest to a fault. As I am sure NCP would agree, Eric carried forward the banner and torch of the ideal of communism as the condition for the end of the exploitation of persons by persons.

Personally, I am so sorry we will not have the opportunity to carry forward the discussions on the importance of carrying forward the work of building the unity of the communist movement in Britain. There are so many questions left to be answered at the time of Eric’s death.

But his legacy is to make a mark for the importance of this work. The mass communist party is a subject which, I am sure, would have been at the forefront of Eric’s concerns in our mutual discussions. We well remember the importance he allocated to these discussions when he was well enough to play an active role in this work.

Just as our Party cherishes the memory of our John Buckle, we are sure that NCP also cherishes the memory of Eric Trevett and his unwavering dedication to keeping alive the torch of communist politics, ideology and theory in the present concrete circumstances. In our opinion, there are many obstacles yet to be overcome in combatting bourgeois ideology in the communist and workers’ movement, and no-one would have been more conscious of this than Eric.

May the flag which Eric planted be carried forward in the joint work of NCP and RCPB (ML). There is an urgency to this work which, sadly, Eric was unable to fulfil because of his illness. But this work lives on, and the sincerity with which Eric imbued the work is an inspiration to us all.

One of Eric Trevett’s ongoing concerns was with mobilising the youth as adherents of the revolutionary cause. We feel sure, that to his dying breath this was one of Eric’s overriding preoccupations. This is a concern for the communist movement as a whole in the conditions of the retreat of revolution.

Eric, we pledge to you that this cause of providing successors to the revolutionary cause has not been forgotten. This concern, we believe, is synonymous with opening the path to the New, to the path to the participation of the youth in building the kind of society in which they will flourish, and the rights of all will be respected and put at the centre of considerations.

Our two Parties came together in 1994 in the conditions where the tasks of the communist and workers’ movement in the time of the retreat of revolution was the burning issue to sort out and put on the agenda. We are very sad that, Eric, you did not live to see that dawn when our two Parties were joined together in one mass communist party. But, in our experience, there has always been that genuineness of spirit that you exemplified in our work and discussions together and in our unity of action.

Eric, we address you as a fellow communist. Your contributions will never be erased from the historical record. Let us rise to the occasion and work to realise your most profound aspirations and desires.

We are comrades in arms together in holding high the banner of communism. Together, at Eric’s behest, let us carry this banner forward.

Michael Chant
General Secretary, RCPB(ML)