AROUND THE WORLD
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USA Rally for Moscow trials' rehabilitations ON SATURDAY, March 19, over 200 people attended the first public rally in the USA held under the auspices of the Moscow Trials Campaign Committee in New York. The US committee is part of an international effort to seek the exoneration and rehabilitation of all the victims of the infamous Moscow show trials, which were organized by Stalin in the 1930s as a means of wiping out his political opponents.
Naomi Allen, one of the co-editors of the Writings of Leon Trotsky, chaired the meeting. Speakers included Paul Siegel, professor emeritus of Long Island University and author of several books on cultural subjects from a Marxist viewpoint, who represented the committee. He dwelt on the history of Stalinism, the monstrous purges during the Moscow trials, and the need to support the courageous people in the Soviet Union who are demanding the rehabilitation of all the victims of the Moscow
Siegel was followed by Morris Schappes, editor of Jewish Currents. Schappes, who was fired from his job as a teacher at New York City College in 1941 and then imprisoned for over a year for his refusal to become an informer, and who recently achieved vindication when City College formally apologized for its wrongful behaviour and honored him with a dinner. Schappes devoted his remarks to examples of anti-semitism in the Soviet Union and also pointed to recent progress being made there for cultural Jewish life.
A brief statement by Juliet Ucelli, representing the New York Marxist School, stressed her support for the objectives of the rally and expressed concern that the full historical truth of the Moscow trials and their origin be revealed. Conrad Lynn, former counsel to the NAACP and now 80 years old and still active as an attorney in civil liberties and civil rights cases, was also a featured speaker.
Marilyn Vogt-Downey, translator from the Russian of Notebooks for the Grandchildren (the memoirs of Mikhail Baitalsky currently being serialized in the Bulletin), related some aspects of the memoirs which refer to the victimization of Left Oppositionists and others under Stalin. Her appeal 20 to the audience for funds to help carry on the work of the committee resulted in over International Viewpoint #141 • May 16, 1988
$1,600 being raised on the spot.
The final speaker was Esteban Volkov, the grandson of Leon Trotsky. Volkov did not speak of the personal tragedies that beset his family but of the political ideas which Trotsky and the other Bolshevik leaders fought for and the potential that exists to raise them again the USSR.
Messages of support to the campaign were read from such figures as Noam Chomsky, Phillip Berrigan and Bill Henning. Anyone who would like to participate in the work of the Moscow Trials Campaign Committee should contact it at: PO Box 318, Gracie Station, New York NY 10028, USA. *
(From the May issue of Bulletin in Defense of Marxism.] INTERNATIONAL Moscow Trials Campaign THE CAMPAIGN to clear the names of the accused in the Moscow Trials has been collecting signatures from all over the world (see /V 129). You can contact the campaign c/o Michael Löwy, 34 rue des Lyonnais, 75005, Paris, France. Latest signatories:
Canada: Richard Fidler, translator.
Spanish state: Valentín Redondo,chair GERESAS factory council; Vicens Ballester, POUM; Manuel Vázquez Montalbán; Juan de Dios Cañete, PSOE councillor; Raimón; Carmen Sansa, actress; Raúl García, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona; Victoriano Cremer, national poetry prize winner; Josep M. Cardanell, journalist; Agapito Ramos, Madrid councillor; Eduardo Mangada, Madrid councillor; Empar Pineda, feminist; José Mariano Benítez de Lugo, lawyer; Pablo Castellano, general councillor, judicial branch; Pelai Pagès, historian; Mariano Sánchez, journalist; Jaime Pastor; Miguel Angel Rodríguez Lorite, Chair Ministry of Culture enterprise committee for Workers' Commissions; Enrique del Olmo; María Teresa de Andrade; Francisco de Cabo, POUM CC; Wilebaldo Solano, POUM CC; Jorge Gordon Nuevo, journalist; Adolfo Fernández Marugán, biologist; Fernando Savater, philosopher; Javier Maestro, historian; Enrique Rodríguez Arroyo, POUM CC; Enrique Calduch, journalist; Eugenio Fernández Granell, artist; Carles Girbau, journalist; Alejandro Arizcun Cela, historian.
Uruguay: Raúl Tupamaros; E. Fernandez Huidobro, MLNTupamaros; Hugo Cores, Partido por a Victoria del Puebo-Frente Amplio; Guillermo Chiflet, Partido Socialista-Frente Amplio; Mario Rossi, Movimiento Revolucionario Oriental-Frente Amplio (MRO-FA); Sergio Napoli, MRO-FA; Fernando Rodríguez, MRO-FA; Alejandro Quiroga, MRO-FA; Elena Lequio, MRO-FA; Rodolfo Lares, MRO-FA; Rosalia Sanles, MRO-FA; Díaz Stefano, MRO-FA; Mesio Falcón, MROFA; Juan Herterreche, Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores (PRT); Marita Silvera, PRT; Héctor Rodríguez, Izquierda Democratica Independence-Frente Amplio (IDIFA); Víctor Semproni, IDI-FA; Héctor Díaz, IDA-FA; Eduardo Rubienes, IDAFA; Daniel Parada, IDA-FA; Marcelo Pereira, IDA-FA; Helio Sarthou, IDA-FA; Juan Manuel Rodríguez, IDA-FA; Eduardo Rubio, IDA-FA ; Daniel Coll, IDA-FA; Zulma Nogara, Frente Amplio; Prof. Washington Estellano; Rubén Correa, architect; Adolfo Cortategui, accountant; Prof. Conrado Petit; Hugo Rodríguez Filippini, Partido Socialista EC; Miguel Bracesco, architect; Prof. José Luis Parodi. * OBITUARY Frank Glass (Li Fu-jen) 1901-1988 AFTER A LONG illness, Frank Glass (better known in the world Trotskyist movement by his adopted Chinese name Li Fujen) passed away on March 21 in Los
Frank Glass was a true internationalist and revolutionary communist. During his long life, he played important roles at different times in various countries - South Africa, China and the USA — and in the International as a whole.
He was born in Birmingham, England. He spent his boyhood in London, and moved to South Africa with his parents in his early teens. He served briefly in the British army at the end of World War I, and was influenced by the Russian Revolution.
Back in South Africa, he joined the Social Democratic Federation, but before long he and other comrades broke way to found the Industrial Socialist League. In 1921, together with many other supporters of the Third International, he was a founding member of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA).
At the Second Congress of the CPSA in1923, Frank was elected as the organizer of the party. In December 1924, at the Third Congress, he led an opposition group fighting against the party's opportunist right wing. Thereafter he spent most of his time and energy leading the South African Association of Employees' Organizations (later renamed the South African Congress of Trade Unions, SACTU). He had long sympathized with the Left Opposition in
LCR and JCR celebrate the anniversary of May 68 the Soviet Union, and became South Africa's first Trotskyist in 1928.
In 1929 or 1930, Frank left for the USA, where he met James Cannon, Max Shachtman, Are Swabeck and other pioneers of American Trotskyism. Then he proceeded
AROUND THE WORLD
AT THE END of May, the Ligue communiste to the Far East. He was denied entry to Japan, and finally settled down in Shanghai, révolutionnaire (French section of the Fourth probably in 1931.
International), and the youth organization, the
Frank did not immediately get into con-
JCR, are organizing a weekend-long fête to tact with the Chinese Trotskyists. Having achieved unification at their First National celebrate the twentieth anniversary of May 68.
Congress (May 1-3, 1931), they had suf-
The event will be held on May 28/29 in Paris, fered very grave setbacks as a result of
Guomindang repression. Successive arrests and is centred around the theme of 68-88, of their leaders had plunged the movement with meetings and workshops around the into disarray.
struggles in 68 and today.
Frank earned his living in Shanghai as a journalist. He independently continued his
Speakers include Tariq Ali, Hugo Blanco, revolutionary activity, mainly among
Regis Debray, Jeanette Habel, Pierre Juquin,
Western intellectuals sympathetic to the
Alain Krivine, Anne Tristan and Henri Weber.
Chinese revolution. He won some of them to Trotskyism, including Harold Isaacs
There will also be a "Grand ball between two
(who later wrote The Tragedy of the Chibarricades" (f), music, cinema, theatre, stalls, nese Revolution) and Alexander Buchman, who became one of Leon Trotsky's guards a book city and regional food. * in Mexico nearly ten years later.
Frank's direct participation in the activities of the Chinese Trotskyists began in
1933. He played a rather important role in restoring and maintaining our underground organization. He was elected to the Provisional Central Committee (as secretarytreasurer) at a conference of representatives of Shanghai comrades in the winter of 1935.
As a foreigner working under conditions VERMINE FASCISTE of Guomindang repression, Frank's contribution to the movement was inevitably restricted. Financially, he and his wife, Grace, supplied nearly all the needs of our printing operation and the living expenses of the two comrades who operated it.
Politically, it was through Frank that the Chinese comrades maintained relations with Trotsky in Norway and later in Mexico, and with the centre of the world movement in Paris.
In May 1937, Frank left China to visit Trotsky in Mexico and discuss the Chinese action civique situation with him on the eve of the SinoJapanese war. He took with him a resolution drafted by me and adopted by the Provisional Central Committee. On the basis of Frank's report and this resolution, Trotsky and Frank held a long and important talk on August 11, 1937. (The record of this discussion is published in Leon Trotsky on China).
Frank finally left China on the eve of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He spent the next few years in New York. I believe he helped run the affairs of the Fourth International, which had moved from Europe to the USA as a result of the occupation of France by the Nazis. He wrote a lot, particularly about China.
After the Japanese surrender in 1945, Frank was very keen to return to China and rejoin his old friends, but his dream was never realized. He continued to watch developments in the Chinese revolution, but he paid more and more attention to the problems of the Philippines. For a long time, he edited a magazine for Filipinos.
After the victory of the Chinese Communist Party and the persecution of the Trotskyists in China, I restored contact with Frank. We exchanged opinions on nearly every turn in the CCP's policy. We saw eye to eye on most issues and disagreed on some. We remained very good comrades and friends.
Among Frank's virtues as a communist internationalist and revolutionary was foremost his complete lack of personal ambition. He was a man of conviction: he had his own opinion on nearly every major political question.
Once he had formed an opinion, he fought for it stubbornly. However, he was never opinionated, and still less selfserving. He defended his views honestly and fairly. He fought only on issues, never on personalities In internal struggles, he was magnanimous in victory and gracious in defeat.
Frank's last wish was to live to see Trotsky restored to a place of honour in the Soviet Union. Sadly, he did not get his wish.
Sooner or later, however, not only Trotsky but all Trotskyists will be rehabilitated: not only in the USSR but in China too, and in all those "socialist" countries where Trotskyists have been persecuted. *
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Wang Fanxi
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