• AROUND THE WORLD
International Viewpoint #260 October 1994
### DENMARK:
Fourth
Internationalist elected THE left-wing Red-Green Alliance reentered parliament for the first time since 1987, winning 6 seats out of 175 available (3.1% of the national vote).
The Alliance breakthrough was due to several factors including:
• The move to the right by the Socialist People's Party (SF). The Alliance was able to present itself as the real left opposition and won particular support from youth looking for radical alternatives.
• The Alliance was the only group opposing the the European Union, clearly differentiating itself from the SF which had participated in a "national compromise" in order to win a 'yes' vote in the second Danish referendum (see IV, no. 246, June 1993).
In 1987 the Left Socialists (VS) lost their parliamentary representation. Two years later, the Red-Green Alliance was formed on the initiative of the VS, the Communist party (DKP) and the Socialist Workers' Party (SAP, Danish section of the Fourth International). Since then the Alliance has developed into an independent organisation with no special privileges for any affiliated party. However, of the six parliamentary deputies elected one is a member of the SAP, while two each come from the DKP and the VS, and one from the KAP (an ex-
The election campaign included demands for a reduction in the working week to thirty-hours, tax reform paid by the rich, anti-militarisation, a collective transport system, and ecological agricul-
The six represents an important, if small, breakthrough for the European radical left, and a particularly important step forward for the Fourth International with the election of Sören Söndergaard, our first parliamentary deputy in Europe. Further coverage in next month's International Viewpoint. ©
OBITUARIES THE journalist, historian and revolutionary militant ISAAC AKCELRUD died in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 16 September.
Originally from Santa Maria, in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, Isaac was born in 1914 into a family 32 descended from Ukrainian Jews. He began as a militant in the National Liberation Alliance of the 1930s, before joining the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) in 1936. Acting secretly under the pseudonym of Josino Campos, Isaac was party secretary for agitation and propaganda in Rio Grande do Sul.
As a candidate for the State constituent assembly, he emerged as a party member in 1945. In 1950 he moved to Sao Paulo, where he became the editor of Hoje, linked to the PCB
It was in Rio, as editor of Imprensa Popular, that Isaac played a central role in the discussion in Brazil of the Kruschev report, presented to the 20th Congress of the Soviet Union Communist Party, which denounced the crimes of Stalin. Persecuted by the PCB leadership, he left.
He then began to work for the mainstream press in Rio and Sao Paulo, though without renouncing his leftwing ideas. In the 1970s he was a correspondent in the Middle East and it was during this period that he grew closer to "Trotskyism".
A member of the Workers' Party (PT) since it was founded at the beginning of the 1980s, he was also a member of the tendency Socialist Democracy (DS, Brazilian supporters of the Fourth International), in which he played an important role. He contributed to the end to the DS paper Em Tempo, and was one of its fiercest supporters.
He was equally militant in the movement Peace Now, which advocates disarmament in the Middle East and also often contributed to the press of the "Movement of those without land". During the 1980s he wrote works upon the Middle East and upon land reform, as well as a considerable number of articles upon Brazil and international politics.
Despite diabetes, Isaac was still an active militant at eighty years old. In August 1994 he took part in a whole series of meetings in Sao Paulo, including a DS meeting where he forcefully explained his concerns around the PT electoral campaign.
Isaac Akcelrud was, until the last day of his life, a true class fighter. O BORN in Chile on 11 February 1911, ENRIQUE SEPULVEDA QUESADA died in Paris on 18 June 1994. A paediatrician by profession, he dedicated his life to the revolutionary struggle.
While still a young university student, he joined the group "Advance" in the struggle against the dictatorship of
Carlos Ibanez del Campo (1927-1931). He then joined the Left Opposition led by Leon Trotsky. He founded the Revolutionary Workers' Party (POR) in Chile, and ran the general secretariat during the 1930s. In 1965 he founded the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) and was its general secretary until 1967.He then moved away from it.
Under the Allende government he was leader-writer for the daily newspaper El Clarin (with the largest circulation - 200 thousand- in the country and wrote a weekly column in The Nation from 1970 until the coup d'état by Pinochet in 1973. He was imprisonned but was able to escape to Argentina, only to be imprisoned and tortured by its military junta in 1976.
He sueceeded in leaving around 1978/9 and took refuge in France. Author of a number of theoretical works on Marxism, he demonstrated equally great qualities in these as in his political leadership
His ashes have been taken to Chile by his companion Ana. *
BOB SMITH, a well known labour movement and trade union militant, died in April of this year, in Birmingham, England at the tragically early age of 46.
A man of immense energy and personal warmth, he was devoted to the cause of socialism. Every tribute to him at funeral, attended by 250 people, and at the subsequent memorial meeting, made reference to his good humour, generosity and lack of sectarianism.
Bob, who came into socialist politics at the end of the 1970s, found himself excluded from the Labour Party in the early 1980s. It was at this time that he quickly rallied to the Fourth International in Britain.
He will perhaps be best remembered for his work in the anti-racist/anti-fascist movement, both locally and nationally. Combined with consistent trade union activity, as a member of the printers' union, the GPMU, he was the embodiment of the kind of militant which makes the labour and revolutionary socialist movement tick.
After consultation with his friends and comrades in Birmingham, it was decided that his determined work needed a permanent memorial and a fund has been established for that purpose. Part of the money raised will go towards a volume of writings, Here to Stay, Here to Fight', about the struggle against racism and fascism.
Donations can be sent to: 'Bob Smith Memorial Fund' at PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU, England O