It is with profound sadness that I hear about the death of
Alan Gelfand, who truly was a fighter for socialism. I never met Alan, and I
regretfully cannot call him my friend, but his struggle had a profound bearing
on my own political development.
The conclusion of his struggle against the Socialist Workers
Party (US) in 1983 coincided with the year I became involved in the Trotskyist
movement. After a year as a supporter, I finally joined the WRP before the
split, which was, in itself, a seminal moment for me. Although, as a teenager,
I spent well over a thousand pounds on Marxist literature from the then
Militant Tendency, they had nothing on the history of American Trotskyism.
After the split, the then minority held classes on American Trotskyism.
I read James Cannon’s "The Struggle for a Proletarian
Party" and many other works. I still have the books in my Library. Again,
it was during the Split that I became familiar with the history of recent
American Trotskyism, as embodied in the struggles of the Workers League. One
thing that always struck me was the high level of camaraderie among the
American comrades. They were on a different political and intellectual level and somewhat inspiring. Meeting
Jean and Bill Brust was a thrill of a lifetime.
The first time I heard about the Security and the Fourth International (I had purchased a copy of How the GPU Murdered Trotsky but never read it, a bad habit that continues to this day) was when I read David North’s articles on the Death of Tom Henehan. Leon Trotsky and the development of Marxism, 1982, was published in the Young Socialists paper of the Workers Revolutionary Party. These articles were reprinted in the pages of the Young Socialist in 1984. I always read the YS paper as it contained far more interesting articles than the Newsline, which seemed more of a comic to me at the time. I learnt nothing about Trotskyism from it.
It was during the split that I learnt not only about the Security
and the Fourth International investigation, but it was my first introduction to
Gelfand's struggle. During the division, a large number of internal documents
were circulated by the minority. A large number of these documents pertained to
security and the Fourth International. But it was only with the release in 1985
of the two books The Gelfand Case: A
Legal History of the Exposure of U.S. Government Agents in the Leadership of
the Socialist Workers Party - Volumes One and Two (1 and 2/ I and II),
Paperback that I really began to fully understand the havoc caused by the
murderous agents of the GPU.
Gelfand will always have a special place in my political heart. It is inspiring that he faced death with the same approach he had to life, as the great poet Dylan Thomas wrote.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at the close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Finally, as David North wrote, “In his final words to a
comrade and close friend, Alan said: 'It’s hard to say goodbye. But I have joy
in my heart and a smile on my face, and confidence in the movement and in my
comrades.” Alan Gelfand will never be forgotten. His place in this history of
the Fourth International and the hearts of his comrades is secure.”[1]
Notes
Alan Gelfand: A fighter for socialism and historical truth-https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/11/08/eprm-n08.html
Harold Robbins Archive-https://findingaids.library.nyu.edu/tamwag/wag_175/
Register of the Socialist Workers Party records-https://oac.cdlib.org/static_findaids/ark:/13030/tf1k40019v.html
[1]
Alan Gelfand: A fighter for socialism and historical
truth-https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/11/08/eprm-n08.html
