SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 27, October 1990
Page 31
OBITUARY/LETTER
An
for
Fourth International
An outstanding intellectual for the
The death of Louis Sinclair after a serious illness, on Saturday, 7 July 1990, has removed from the ranks of the Fourth International one of its outstanding intellectuals.
Louis entered the Trotskyist movement when he joined the Glasgow branch of the Revolutionary Socialist League, an affiliate of the International Left Opposition, in 1937.
In 1943, he was in Italy with the British
Mussolini had been T ousted: The suppressed socialist and communist move- ments emerged from under- ground. From their cellars and attics, booksellers produced the banned works of Marx, Engels, Labriola, Lenin and other Mar- xists; some of them still uncut.
It was a time of political fer- ment.
This was the sort of intel- lectual atmosphere in which Louis thrived. With other Trotskyists in the British and American armed forces, he es- tablished contact with the small Trotskyist group around Nicola di Bartolomea (Fosca. With his fluent French and rapidly aquired Italian, Louis was a big asset in educating young cadres and winning their adherence to e the ideas of the Fourth Interna- tional. On his retum to Glasgow in 1945, he immediately dispatched to the the comrades in Naples his precious collection of Trotsky's works in French.
For a short time after its founding in 1945, he was a member of the Revolutionary Com- munist Party, then the British section of the Fourth International. For the rest of his long life, he was not formally a member of any or- ganisation, but remained a loyal supporter,
Louis Sinclair 1909 - 1990 both politically and materially, of the Fourth International. For him, Trotskyism was the marxism of the second half of the twentieth century.
The greater part of the next twenty years he spent on compiling his massive Trotsky bibli- ography, which is now in its second enlarged edition and has become a standard work of reference. In the pursuit of this project, he ac-
hand bookshop that he did not enter or write to. It was quite a revelation, when accompany- ing him of some of these excursions to see how readily he was recognised. As soon as he entered the premises, the bookseller would say: "Mr Sinclair, I have the book you have been looking for", and produce it from under the counter.
He corresponded with people in all parts of
the world and nearly every
post would bring him some-
thing. I remember with what
pride he showed me a copy of
a Trotsky's Germany: What
Next? in an obscure Indonesian
dialect.
Louis rarely spoke from a
public platform. He was most
at home speaking to small
groups, and especially enjoyed
talking to young comrades.
probing their brains and help
ing them with their problems.
He was always being consulted
by students writing theses on
Trotskyism and related sub-
jects, and by would-be authors:
he was always more than ready
with his help and advice.
He look a great interest in
recent events in the Soviet
a Union, and always on the look-
out for new material on Trotsky and the Left Opposition emerging form the archives.
He also compiled an index of pre-war in- temal bulletins of the Fourth International which should be a valuable source for research for historians and students of the period.
He will be sorely missed as a friend and teacher by all who knew him and leamed from him.
By Charlie van Gelderen
Louis Sinclair
A meeting to commemorate the unique contribu- tion of Louis Sinclair to Trotskyism and the Fourth International will take place at:
Adam Smith Building
University of Glasgow on Friday September 28th at 7.30pm
All communications to:
Tony Southall
67 Gleneff Street
Glasgow, G41
Telephone: (041) 423 7929
cumulated an unnvalled collection of Trotsky's writings, and of books and articles on Trotsky. This collection is now in the library of Glasgow University and should surely now be named The Louis Sinclair col- lection.
It was no easy task. He must have visited every major library in Europe and America in his search for material; ransacked the archives of every Trotskyist or ex-Trotskyist he could get hold of. There can hardly be a second-
pathised with the left opposition in the carly South African Trotskyism
1930s in Cape Town coalesced to launch a
In Soctalist Outlook 26 there is a review by club at which socialist ideas could be dis- Charlie van Gelderen of my book Yours for cussed. That was the Lenin Club. Unfor the Union. In his comments, Charlie ques tunately two factions emerged, and after some tioned the accuracy of my statement that Max discussion the majority broke away to form Gordon, the organiser of black trade unions in the Workers Party. The minority formed the the 1930s in the Witwatersrand, was a mem- Communist League and they retained the ber of the Workers Party of South Africa. Not Lenin Club as an open forum.. so, he writes, Gordon was a member of the
In trying to write the history of those Lenin Club.
groups I interviewed some early activists and
I am not certain whether many of your for some years had to rely on the information readers stopped to ask themselves what these obtained from them. Charlie was most hepiful organisations were - or indeed where Charlie and his account was accepted, with the reser- obtained his information.
vation that oral testimony has to be checked.
Very briefly, those socialists who sym-
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It was only recently that I received a box of papers containing all the records from Cape Town for the year 1935. These are, as far as 1 know, the only records of the early Trotskyist movement in South Africa, and this will now provide documentary evidence of the ac- tivities of those pioneer Trotskyists.
In respect to Gordon the situation is now beyond doubt. In January 1935, Gordon signed a membership form showing that he was a charter member of the Workers Party. I relied on other testimony when I wrote my book - but obviously I was correct.
Baruch Hirson
London
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 27, October 1990