GEORG JUNCLAS ing in her profession in a dispensary of the La Plata municipalicyANA MARIA GUZNER LORENZO She had been a delegate of the Association of University Workers in La Plata. She worked in the university offices for eleven years. She joined our party in 1973. A denunciation issued by the "Ivanissebich Mission" caused her to lose her job. She then entered the Council of Economists in the province of Buenos Aires. ADRIANA ZALDUA She had joined our party in 1971 when she was a student in architecture. She played on important part in the mobilizations in solidarity with the Bolivian workers. Later, she participated in the struggle that drove the fascist groups out of her university. In 1974 she was active in Quilmes among the youth and teachers. This year she returned to activity in the school of architecture. She was 22 years old. PATRICIA CLAVERIE She had been linked to the party in Bahia Blanca as a militant in the student movement. She then came to 1902-1975 Our comrade Georg Jungelos, who was a member of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International from the end of the second world war until the Tenth World Congress (1974), when he was elected to the International Control Commission, died in Cologne on September 11. The entire Fourth International mourns the loss and shares the grief of his companion, Leni. Georg's life embodied the so-tormented history of the revolutionary vanguard of the German proletariat during the past sixty years. Georg was born in a family of Social Democratic convictions that was hostile to the policy of the Social Democracy during the first world war; at the age of 14, he joined a branch of the Socialist Youth in Altona (a suburb of Hamburg) that opposed the imperialist war and the betrayal of the German Social Democratic party. During this period he was active in illegal groups and joined the Spartakusbund, 30
La Plata, where she entered the school of natural science. At the same time, she worked in the provincial senate. CARLOS ENRIQUE POVEDANO In 1971 Carlos Enrique Povedano, called "Dicky" by his comrades, joined our tendency as a student in economic sciences. For a while he withdrew from activity. He became active again in the summer of 1974, seeking the support of the party in organizing his comrades of the delegation of social security workers. A member of the Internal Commission in his work place, he was the best known leader of the social security workers in La Plata during the past several months. At the time of his death he had just entered the leading committee of the La Plata region of the PST. OSCAR LUCATTI He joined the party in the middle of 1972, when we were preparing our activities in the electoral campaign. He worked to build the PST youth group in the Ensenada area. He also worked at the Ministry of Public Works in La Plata, where he was a delegate. by PIERRE FRANK which had been founded by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. He participated in all the revolutionary struggles going on in Germany at the time; most especially, he took part in the Hamburg insurrection of October 1923. Because of his revolutionary activities, he was compelled to live underground in 1921-22 and again in 1924-26. Until 1933, Georg lived most often in Hamburg. A member of the German Communist party, he was part of the left wing led by Maslow, Ruth Fischer, and Hugo Urbahns, the Communist leader of Hamburg. Expelled from the Communist party in 1928, Georg defended the positions of Leon Trotsky within the Leninbund, founded by Urbahns. In 1930 he participated in the founding of the German Left Opposition, affiliated to the International Left Opposition led by Trotsky, which was later to become the Fourth International. He partici-
pated in the international meeting held in Copenhagen when Trotsky visited that city in November 1932. After Hitler came to power in 1933, Georg lived in Germany illegally for several months and then emigrated to Denmark. There he was active in winning German emigrés and Danish revolutionary militants to Trotskyism. Thus, he was at the origin of the Danish section of the Fourth International. He met Trotsky once again in 1936 in Hönefoss, Norway. After the invasion of Denmark by German froops, Georg remained in the country clandestinely and participated in the resistance, particularly by contributing to saving the lives of Danish Jews; after the war his work was officially recognized by the Danish authorities. Arrested in May 1944, Georg was transferred to Hamburg, then to Berlin, and then to Bayreuth in prison freighicars bearing the notice: "Communist, degenerate dog to be slaughtered in case of flight. " Georg escaped death only because of the Nezi collapse. "Liberated" by American troops in April 1945, he was detained until 1946 by the Czech Communists who hod taken over direction of the prison in which he was being held. With his release from prison, Georg again contacted the leadership of the International, a leadership that had been reconstituted that same year at an International Conference held in Paris. He represented the German section or the World Congress of the Fourth International held in 1948. From then on he participated very actively in the leadership of the International and its German section. In 1946 Georg was virtually the only member of the prewar German section who had survived the repression and had not been politically destroyed by the years of exile. Germany was then in ruins. But while the economic recovery of the country was to take place with prodigious rapidity, the political recovery of the German working class and, even more so, the reconstruction of a revolutionary vanguard, have occurred so slowly that even today only a few steps forward have been taken. Georg devoted the best of his strength to the difficult and often thankless task of reconstructing the Trotskyist organization in Germany. For years he travelled throughout West Germany seeking out milifants one by one, working on the elaboration of the policy of the German section and of the International, assuring the appearance of Trotskyist publications, and collaborating with publications in which he expressed the positions of the Fourth International. This was a labor conducted against innumerable difficulties. In spite of all the adverse circumstances, reyalutionary Marxism attracted people who wanted to prepare the overthrow of the capitalist system; but the stifling, apolitical atmosphere in Germany during that time contributed to breaking a good number of those who turned toward revolutionary Marxism. It was during this period — one which was not as tragic as the one that preceded the war, but which nevertheless did not offer fertile soil for revolutionary Marxism
- that Georg gave proof of the greatest tenacity; he never despaired. He was able to take advantage of the smallest opportunities that opened up in his country.
Furthermore, he was one of the first to try to organize the immigrant workers in Germany and to draw the German workers movement toward this task. Finally and above all, he made an exceptional contribution to the support of the Algerian revolution. His house practically served as a political and organizational center for this work, and he particularly collaborated in the Fourth International's establishment of an arms factory in Morocco for the FLN. Georg carried out all this intense and difficult activity, only a faint idea of which is offered by the dryness of such a brief account, with much modesty and humor, even in especially difficult moments." During recent years, when Georg's capacity for work was reduced by age and ill health, he had the joy of seeing the emergence of young forces, even in Germany, who took up the fight and gave unprecedented growth and impetus to the Fourth International. In his eyes, these young forces justified all the years of struggle and his unshakable confidence in the world socialist revolution, which he had maintained ever since his adolescence. In 1971 he participated in the Congress for a Red Europe, held in Brussels, where the breakthrough of the International was demonstrated for the first time. Georg was able to preside over the founding of the Gruppe Internationale Marxisten (GIM - International Marxist Group), German section of the Fourth International, with its forces that, while still insufficient, are greater than ever before. He could say that he had genuinely built this section, in the sense that it could continue to live and develop even after he was gone. I would like to conclude this short biographical sketch with a few personal words. I first met Georg in Berlin almost forty-five years ago; we saw each other again in Copenhagen in 1932 and agoin in Paris during his years of exile. During the postwar years great ties of profound friendship were forged between him and me. I think 1 can say that we were the oldest and best friends in the International. I saw him for the last time a few months ago; he was lying on a hospital bed. He was happy about the victory that had just been won by the peoples of Indoching and was as eager as ever to hear about the activities of the Fourth International. Georg's life was a life of revolutionary combat. in this combat, which the Fourth International is waging, Georg will continue to live. September 12, 1975 An interview with Georg Junclos giving details about his activities before and during the war appeared in Quatrième Interationale, No.3, July 15, 1972.