Alfred Rosmer

[p037] ALFRED ROSMER (1877-1964) about that period. He did a vast amount of work, reading, listening, following courses—particularly those of the School of Anthropology—and studying languages (he spoke five). Between 1903 and 1905 he worked on the magazine Oeuvre Nouvelle, making summaries of English works. In May 1906 in Les Temps Nouveaux he wrote an article dedicated to Ibsen, on the occasion of the death of the great dramatist whom he fervently admired. It was, of course, from one of Ibsen’s plays that he took his pseudonym, Rosmer, by which history was to know him. It was practically by accident, and through leanings to literary criticism, that this son of a worker came into the labour movement. In 1910 he agreed to do a piece for Vie Ouvriére on a play by Bourget, ‘La Barricade’. He met and became acquainted with Pierre Monatte and became one of the regular contributors to Vie Ouvriére, and later in 1912 to Bataille Syndicaliste. Griot, the old Ibsenist individualist and refined intellectual, dis- covered the warmth of the workers’ movement and gave himself to it without reserve, Rosmer, too, was to remain loyal to this choice for the rest of his life. The cause which he took up was that of the revolutionary trade unionists of the Confédération Générale des Travailleurs inspired by the activity of Pelloutier, who he considered one of the masters of the workers’ movement. He himself later summed up this activity: ‘Struggle for the immediate demands of the working class in order to gather the largest possible number of workers around the organisation, and, at the same time, raising more distant perspectives for social revolution, which, through broadening the horizons of day-to-day struggles, prepares the formation of a grouping able to see the struggle in its entirety and consequently able to serve as a guide to the working class, in its fights of today and tomorrow. A solid base, for any revolutionary movement, that Lenin and the Bolsheviks, starting out from another point; the idea of a Party, were to unceasingly point out to their supporters.” After August 1914, he had the opportunity to show what an indomitable man and militant he had become. Opportunism, cowardice and fear were uppermost in the working class organisations, parties and trade unions, whose leaders, plunging into class collaboration, preached sacred unity for ‘national defence’ and delivered the working classes of Europe bound hand and foot for mass slaughter. Along with Pierre Monatte, Marcel Martinet, Merrheim FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SUMMER 19¢4

[p038] tit Left to right: Bela Kun, Alfred Rosmer, Leon Trotsky, M. Frunze and S. I. Gussev. ALFRED ROSMER died at Créteil hospital on May 6. The younger generation may not readily appreciate what this loss means. After Marguerite Thévenet, his companion, and after Natalia Trotsky, he was the last survivor of the heroic generation of the Bolsheviks, the last surviving companion of Lenin and the old guard, the loyal friend of Trotsky in his greatest days and in his darkest. He was a great militant, whose example can and will inspire those who come to know and consider the history of his life of struggles. Alfred Rosmer—real name Griot—was born in 1877 of a Loire working-class family that had temporarily emigrated to the USA. He pursued his studies right up to his commission and tried his hand at various jobs, notably that of copy-clerk at his local town hall, before ‘becoming a printers’ proof reader. At the close of the last century, he formed part of that ardent body of youth, eager to discover and understand, and came into political life as a result of the Dreyfus case. This was how someone described him at that time: “Tall, thin, with a pale face, high forehead, fine nose, thin lips, his eyes black and burning. His long thick hair fell around his neck. He wore an Inverness with the sides flapping about. In his look there was a little timidness but a lot of decision. He spoke only rarely, but never seemed to miss a word spoken by anyone else. One evening when a speaker was recalling how the Belgian monarchy had two or three years earlier granted universal suffrage to its people, he interrupted with a telling phrase that I can still hear now: “What a present!” So strong was the sarcasm in these words that the speaker seemed suddenly disconcerted and I conceived an unreserved admiration for the man in the black Inverness.’ However, we know little about the lifé of Rosmer, who was always extremely reserved and discreet ALFRED ROSMER (1877-1964) about that period. He did a vast amount of work, reading, listening, following courses—particularly those of the School of Anthropology—and studying languages (he spoke five). Between 1903 and 1905 he worked on the magazine Oeuvre Nouvelle, making summaries of English works. In May 1906 in Les Temps Nouveaux he wrote an article dedicated to Ibsen, on the occasion of the death of the great dramatist whom he fervently admired. It was, of course, from one of Ibsen’s plays that he took his pseudonym, Rosmer, by which history was to know him. It was practically by accident, and through leanings to literary criticism, that this son of a worker came into the labour movement. In 1910 he agreed to do a piece for Vie Ouvriére on a play ‘by Bourget, ‘La Barricade’. He met and became acquainted with Pierre Monatte and became one of the regular contributors to Vie Ouvriére, and later in 1912 to Bataille Syndicaliste. Griot, the old Ibsenist individualist and refined intellectual, dis- covered the warmth of the workers’ movement and gave himself to it without reserve, Rosmer, too, was to remain loyal to this choice for the rest of his life. The cause which he took up was that of the revolutionary trade unionists of the Confédération Générale des Travailleurs inspired by the activity of Pelloutier, who he considered one of the masters of the workers’ movement. He himself later summed up this activity: ‘Struggle for the immediate demands of the working class in order to gather the largest possible number of workers around the organisation, and, at the same time, raising more distant perspectives for social revolution, which, through broadening the horizons of day-to-day struggles, prepares the formation of a grouping able to see the struggle in its entirety and consequently able to serve as a guide to the working class, in its fights of today and tomorrow. A solid base, for any revolutionary movement, that Lenin and the Bolsheviks, starting out from another point; the idea of a Party, were to unceasingly point out to their supporters.’ After August 1914, he had the opportunity to show what an indomitable man and militant he had become. Opportunism, cowardice and fear were uppermost in the working class organisations, parties and trade unions, whose leaders, plunging into class collaboration, preached sacred unity for ‘national defence’ and delivered the working classes of Europe bound hand and foot for mass slaughter, Along with Pierre Monatte, Marcel Martinet, Merrheim FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SUMMER 19¢4

[p039] and a few others, Rosmer was one of the tiny nucleus of internationalists who refused to bend, who did not accept the break-up of the International, who overcame the temptations of discouragement and despair, and who around Vie Ouvriére kept the flag of revolution and proletarian internationalism flying. In his unfinished History of the labour movement during the war he recounts this struggle, playing down his personal role with customary modesty. Rosmer was the mainspring of the group, the indefatigable prime mover of all the attempts to rebuild the international working class revolutionary movement. Called up into the forces, he nevertheless continued his militant activity, but was unable to participate in the international conferences at Zimmerwald and Kienthal which, through his activity, he had helped to prepare. In 1915 he joined up with Trotsky, who was publishing- Nashe Slovo in Paris where he was in exile. Trotsky, he said, ‘brought them ‘the air of the open sea’. In those days there grew up a friendship between them that was never to be broken. It rested on the objective that both these men had fixed for themselves: the construction of a revolu- tionary. International for the victory of socialism. A member of the committee for the resumption of _ international relations, and member of the com- mittee for the Third International in France, he was chosen to represent the group in Moscow, where he went in Spring 1920. He took part in the Second Congress of the Communist International, and was elected a member of the International’s Executive, taking part in the foundation of the Red Trade Union International in which he untiringly fought against sectarian tendencies and defended the idea of work inside the reformist trade unions in order to win over the majority of the workers. A member of the small bureau of the International, he returned to France in 1921, was elected to the management committee, on which he was one of the representa- tives of the Left, and directed the social page of Humanite. But in 1924, the defeat of the world revolution engendered the rise of a bureaucratic apparatus in the USSR. Stalin and his allies began their struggle against the Opposition led by Trotsky, which em- bodied the spirit of revolution, internationalism and fervent attachment to working-class democracy of the Party that had triumphed in October. In the bureaucratised International, Stalin and his kind could not tolerate men like Rosmer. He was deprived of all responsible positions from 1924 onwards. Two years later he was expelled from the party that he had helped to found. In those times of much apostasy, he continued along the path that had been his since 1910. Divided from Trotsky over differences on the evaluation of men and of the means to be used to carry on the common struggle, he avoided any clash which might have worsened the disagreements and provoked splits. He was too well aware of the value of the links which united him to this great exile to FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SUMMER 1964 run the risk of damaging them over minor questions. He did not see Trotsky after his brief stay in France, but when the monstrous purge against the revolu- tionaries, the massacre of the old Bolsheviks and the witch-hunt against Trotsky began in Moscow, he was there once again. He took part in the work of the Commission of Enquiry into the Moscow Trials, demanded by Trotsky and chaired by John Dewey. He lived close to Trotsky in Coyoacan during the last months of the latter’s life. It was he who was appointed Trotsky’s testamentary executor. More recently he prefaced the publications in French of Terrorism and Communism and On Revolution, which comprise some of Trotsky’s fundamental works; ‘an incomparable lesson in Marxist theory and action,’ as he put it, calling upon militants to adapt it to the conditions of their epoch ‘in order to make their own history’. He had written a summary on The History of the Labour Movement _during the war and an admirable collection of reminiscences entitled Moscow under Lenin, which have the rare quality—the privilege of an intelligent man of scrupulous honesty—of bringing back to life what the communist movement was like in the twenties without distorting it a posteriori as a result of hindsight. Those who have enjoyed the privilege of meeting Alfred Rosmer in his last years will never forget this smiling old man, firm and confident, talking about Lenin and Trotsky as if they were old friends who had only disappeared the day before and who still lived in his gestures and his voice, and smilingly scolding anyone silly enough to suggest that they could have been the victims of some ‘illusion’. In 1921, Amédée Dunois had to apologise for having to introduce to the French communists the man who represented them on the International. This is what he said about him:. ‘Here are intelligence, cultivated, well-nourished, subtle and fine, demanding and firm conscience, and an upright and pure heart. During my life, I have walked beside many men of worth, intellectual and moral. I have not met many to equal Rosmer. If he is not conspicuous in the first rank, this is because his modesty is without parallel and because he always prefers positions of devotion and work to posts of honour. Is not, moreover, his friendship with Trotsky who knows all about men the equivalent of an apology? French workers should learn the name Rosmer: it is the name of a man who, having left their class, loyally returned to it; it is the name of a man who, having absorbed a very large part of human knowledge, has placed at the service of his working class brothers all that he had in knowledge and experience; it is the name of a revolutionary bv whom the revolution is deeply honoured, and, when all’s said and done, the name of a real communist.’ It was 43 years ago that Dunois sketched this portrait of Rosmer. There is not a line to be added. Such was the man who has just died, the friend of Trotsky and the working class fighter whom French workers will honour one day as one of the greatest of those from their ranks who have devoted their lives to the development of revolutionary conscious- ness for the socialist revolution. P.B.

[p040] 86 DOCUMENTS NTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL