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* Obituaries United States Frank Lovell
On May 1st, Frank died of a heart attack at his home in New York City, writes Paul Le Blanc. Frank's political commitment and analytical insight were widely appreciated - as were his, warmth, avid intellectual curiosity, rich sense of humour, and engaging interest in persons of all ages and backgrounds.
In the early 1930s Frank he attended the University of California's radical Berkeley campus, earning a bachelor's degree in philosophy.
Drawn into the socialist movement just after the San Francisco general strike, he join the Workers Party of the United States, led by James P. Cannon and A.J. Muste, in 1935. He subsequently became a seaman and an organiser for the Sailor's Union of the Pacific.
In 1938, Lovell was a founding member of the Socialist Workers Party. For a number of years he served on national leadership bodies of the SWP, writing extensively for socialist publications on labour issues and other matters. For many years he was labour editor for the SWP's Militant, which at one time was among the largest-circulation US socialist weeklies. In Portland, Oregon in the late 1940s he edited The Defender, a rank-and-file paper opposing the conservatism and anti-left purges throughout the maritime industry and unions.
Purged from the Seamans' Union, Frank moved to Detroit in the early 1950s with his wife Sarah and their infant daughter Joan. There he became an auto worker and a member of the United Auto
With close friends George and Dorothea Breitman, Frank and Sarah played a significant role in the Detroit labour and socialist movements of the 1950s and 1960s. They initiated and maintained for many years the influential Friday Night Socialist Forum (later called the Militant Forum), a weekly series that drew a broad range of prominent trade unionists and working-class militants, civil rights and black liberation activists, scholars, intellectuals, students and others.
also ran openly socialist electoral campaigns - such as Frank's campaigns for Governor of Michigan on the SWP ticket in 1954, 1958 and 1964. In the late 1960s they moved to New York City, where Frank served as the Socialist Workers Party's trade union director.
In the early 1980s, Frank and Sarah Lovell were among the hundreds expelled from the SWP, when the group was taken over by newer leaders intent on replacing the historic Trotskyist program with a closer alignment to the orientation of Cuban Communist Fidel Castro. In December 1983 Lovell initiated publication of Bulletin in Defense of Marxism. He was the magazine's first editor, and later continued on its Editorial Board. Before her served as the magazine's treasurer and chief copy editor. 34 International Viewpoint #301
Frank and Sarah were also part of a small group known as the Fourth Internationalist Tendency, which from 1983 to 1992 sought to bring about unification of all U.S. supporters of the Fourth International while at the same time defending the proud traditions of American Trotskyism and seeking to apply revolutionary Marxist ideas to contemporary realities and struggles. After the group's dissolution, some of its members - including Sarah and Frank - joined Solidarity (although Frank eventually allowed his membership to lapse). Impressed by the conferences of Labor Notes, he felt that forces around this publication, as well as such currents as Teamsters for a Democratic Union, represented important trends in the class struggle. He was also active in and hopeful about the prospects of the Labour Party - present at its founding convention in 1996, he planned to attend its second national convention this autumn.
In Frank's final years he gave attention to creating and administering the Thomas Giunta Living Trust, named after a veteran Trotskyist seaman. This fund has provided financial support to the Ernest Mandel Institute in Brussels, Belgium, to the Leon Trotsky Museum at Coyoacan in Mexico City, as well as to the Tamiment Library for the processing of its collection of the late George Breitman's papers. The newlyexpanded Breitman-Lovell Collection at Tamiment promises to be a valuable source on the history of the U.S. Trotskyist movement for scholars and activists
Frank is survived by his companion, Miriam Braverman, and his daughter, Joan Lovell. He will be fondly remembered by those he touched with his generous spirit.
A memorial meeting will be held at the Tamiment Labor Library, New York University, NYC, on Sunday Sept. 20. Aotearoa/New Zealand Geof Pearce After a four-month battle with cancer, Geof Pearce passed away on 19 February,
Geof was drawn into the struggle for a more equal society in his early teens when he became involved with the anti-imperialist Progressive Youth Movement. This lead to his participation in the international movements in support of the revolutions in Cuba, Vietnam, and South Africa.
At the time of his death Geof was a leader of NUPE, a militant public employees' union. His working life had followed a varied path including working as a painter's assistant, sports reporter, factory worker, railway officer, graphic designer, printer and business partner. In his later years Geof taught sociology at university, worked as a researcher in a public health organisation, before gaining employment in
While working on a farm picking raspberries, Geof met Heather, his companion of thirty years. Together they managed a foster home, caring for dysfunctional youth, tor five years, while raising two children of their own Sasha and Nadia. They then ran a shop selling tropical fish, which became a place for philosophical and political debates, especially amongst students. It was during this time that Geof began to realise his intellectual strengths, so he entered university in 1978, aged 32.
Although he had no formal education, leaving school at the age of fifteen, Geof quickly gained confidence and completed a Masters in Sociology, and then a doctorate. Through his studies in education, philosophy and sociology he encountered the work of Leon Trotsky and Ernest Mandel.
Mandel said Geof's 1987 PhD thesis, Where is NZ Going, showed "exceptional capacıty... combining painstakingly detailed analytical research with profound synthetical judgement." It remains the seminal application of the Marxist labour theory of value empirically to Aotearoa/New Zealand.
While at university, Geof organised the small Revolutionary Communist League He argued that the social-democratic Labour Party, elected in 1984, would become the vehicle for the bourgeoisie's solution to the social and economic crisis. Many on the left were still supporting the government when, several months later, it initiated radical structural adjustment policies which amounted to a massive attack on the working class.
To build a bridge between the smal revolutionary nuclei and class-conscious workers, the RCL used a series of articles in the New Zealand Monthly Review, a long-standing left magazine, to argue the need for a workers united front against the attacks on working people and beneficiaries. The call resulted in the formation of Socialist Alliance, which at one point had branches in New Zealand's three main cities. In 1986-89, often against the leaders of the social democratic and Stalinist left, the Socialist Alliance campaigned for a system of participatory democracy and a reduction in working hours without pay.
After the demise of Socialist Alliance, Geof established a Socialist Education centre, which functioned as a forum for debate among the left and the promotion of
Based in the front part of his and Heather's home, these Friday night 'political cafes' occurred on a regular basis for three years, with Geof and Heather providing food and hospitality. The cafes were marked by their non-sectarian nature and the conversations ranged far and wide, often late in to the night.
Geof visited many of the European sections of the Fourth International, to learn and exchange experiences. He also contributed to International Viewpoint.
Geof's rare combination of practical skills and intellectual ability will be sorely missed by his comrades and colleagues in the union and socialist movements in New Zealand and abroad. The manner in which he lived his life and the courage with which he faced his early death is an example for the rest of us. [JC] *
International Institute for Research and
Education (IRE)
Postbus 53290, 1007 Amsterdam, Netherlands
<iire@antenna.nl> fax: +31 20/673 2106
Coming sessions Collaboration on Third World School A majority of IIRE's students have come from the global South. We were founded in 1982, the year the Third World debt crisis exploded. And issues of debt and IMF/World Bank autocracy have grown steadily more important for our activities. In 1998, to deal better with these issues, we are cementing a close working relationship with the Brusselsbased Committee for Cancellation of the Third World Debt (COCAD). COCAD founder and co-ordinator Eric Toussaint is a long-time IIRE Fellow. In 1995 he co-edited our Notebook for Study and Research no. 24/25, IMF/World Bank/WTO: The Free-Market Fiasco, which consisted in part of material also published by COCAD in French and Dutch. In 1998 the expanded IIRE/COCAD partnership will result in two major activities. In June we will coorganise a Seminar on Violence against Women here in Amsterdam. An Uruguayan leader in the movement against violence against women, Estela Retamoso, will be based here at the Institute in the weeks before the seminar, which will bring together women active on the issue from Latin America, Africa and Asia as well as Europe. The seminar will be immediately followed in June and July by the fourth IIRE Women's School. Many of the women who attend the seminar will stay for the school (which will be held in English and Spanish). The school will be co-organized by roughly the same team responsible for the success of last year's school: IIRE Women's Studies Director Penelope Duggan; Tatau Godinho of Brazil, and Nancy Herzig of Puerto Rico. The other major IIRE/COCAD project for the year will be a month-long North-South School in November-December. This session will draw on the IIRE's past "New Questions" Schools, and COCAD's special expertise on issues of global trade and finance. The common core of our collaboration is globalisation, its realities, ideological distortions and challenges. Eric Toussaint's new book on the global financial system, La Bourse ou la Vie is being distributed as a double-issue of the IRE's French language Notebook series.
Economics seminar Long waves and "financialization" Participants from Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands and the Spanish State met at the IIRE from April 17 to 19 for the Ernest Mandel Study Centre (EMSC) Economists' Seminar. The first theme of the seminar was the current economic world situation. Reports were presented on the economic conjuncture and the social and economic consequences of the crisis in Asia for the region as well as for the world economy as a whole; on myths and realities of globalization; and on the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the coming introduction of the euro. While the debates showed a lot of common ground, there were also important disagreements, especially on the importance of and explanation for the growing weight of the financial sector in the world economy ("financialization"). The second major theme of the seminar was to establish where we are in the long wave of capitalist development. The absence of our US participant was particularly regretable, since some Marxists economists in that country do argue that the United States is entering a new long wave of expansion; an idea which merits discussion. Participants analyzed and debated the importance of changes that have taken place in the accumula tion regime (or productive order) since the mid seventies and concluded that our next seminar in 1999 will have to continue this debate. Finally, a report was given on economic policies for full employment, based on recent French experiences and debates. After a first exchange of opinions, particularly about the extent to which French developments are more generally applicable, participants decided to program a continuation of this discussion too at the next In the coming months some of the written reports will be reworked and some of the oral reports written up, to be published in a dossier in International Viewpoint and its French version, Inprecor, after the summer.
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Mexican Labor News and Analysis
A wealth of information for US and Canadian trade unionists, and all those interested in Mexico's labour movement. • Zedillo Cabinet Shuffle: New Secretary of Labor - by Linda Stevenson • Mexican Unions File NAFTA Case Against U.S. Gov't • Mexico's "White Unions" Don't March on May Day Mexican Labor News and Analysis is produced in collaboration with the Authentic Labor Front (Frente Autentico del Trabajo - FAT) of Mexico and with the United Electrical Workers (UE) of the United States and is published the 2nd and 16th of every month. MLNA can be viewed at the UE's international web site: www.igc.apc.org/unitedelect/. For information contact editor Dan La Botz at <103144.2651@compuserve.com> or tel. (+1 513) 961-8722. Sangat Review
The April issue of this Englishlanguage South Asian magazine includes: drug addiction on the streets of Karachi, "The Making of the NeoColonial State in South Asia: The Pakistan Experience" by Hassan N. Gardezi, "Whither Secularism" byJamal Hasan, "The State of Dalit Mobilization:An Interview with Kancha llaiah", The Devdasi Tradition and Prostitution, and Sunaina Maira on Organizing Strategies for the Diasporic South Asian Communities. Poems by Harris Khalique's 1996 volume, If Wishes Were Horses http://sangat.org/review.html Indonesia
Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor has the most comprehensive background material and up-to-date information about Indonesia and East Timor www.peg.apc.org/~asiet.
The Support the Struggle for Democracy in Indonesia web site, maintained by Australia's Democratic Socialist Party, has details of actions and forums, DSP and PRD statements, an index of relevant Green Left Weekly articles, and many useful links. www.peg.apc.org/~stan/dsp/dsp-indo.html
A new English and Spanish discussion space Existing bulleting board topics include • Sindicacion de Empleados Publicos • 25 de Julio • Anuncios 36 International Viewpoint #301
Viento Sur
The April issue focuses on the struggle for the 35 hour week, the unemployed movement, the recent 5th Federal assembly of the United Left, and Spain's apparent wave of violence against women in recent years www.nodo50.ix.apc.org/viento_sur/ Bandera Roja
The May issue of this Puertorican monthly looks at NASA activity on the US colony, envirnmental legislation, and the soverignty-anexation debate.
www.bandera.org info@bandera.org Cuadernos del Sur#26
*150 years of the Communist Manifesto," with articles by U.Eco, E. Gruner, B.Kagarlitsky, M.Bellucci, M.Lowy, A.Dabat, A.Shaik, J.Holloway, A.Bonnet, E.M.Wood and W.Bonefeld
Ana Dinerstein looks at Argentina's unemployed movement, and Dianna Hoshraich examines the vulnerability of continental and global banking and financial systems after the Asian crisis.
Net
Working
(de actividades) • Gays y Lesbianas • Ambientales • Trabajadores Inmigrantes • Mujeres /Feminismo /Derechos Reproductivos • Prisoneros politicos Puertorriqueños • Police Brutality in the U.S. For more information: <CesarAyala@worldnet.att.net> http://forums.delphi.com/m/main.asp
Another useful Puerto Rico address is the website of the island's Frente Socialista, which includes the Fourth International supporters of Taller de Formación Política www.bandera.org Queer Left
A new discussion list for queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people active in movements for prog-
well read