Arturo Van Den Eynde, also known as Anibal Ramos, came of age in fascist Spain, joined the underground movement against Franco, and later the effort of young revolutionaries to turn the fall of Franco into the beginning of a working class and socialist revolution. He also joined forces with anti-capitalist and anti-Stalinist revolutionaries in Eastern Europe, France, and other countries, in the effort to rebuild the Fourth International, the world party of socialist revolution, founded by Leon Trotsky and his co-thinkers in 1938. Arturo, or Anibal as we knew him for so many years, was also a strong supporter of working class and popular struggles in the U.S., of the movement for a Labor Party, of North American revolutionaries, and of Truth. He read Truth (and its successors, New Life and Socialism) with much attention and care, sent us comments, criticisms, and suggestions, and translated many articles from our publications into Spanish.
When the movement began to die down in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when so many young revolutionaries began to abandon all efforts to reach out to working class people, support their struggles, and let them know about their ideas, Arturo/Anibal stood by us and our efforts to do so. He was a constant source of solidarity, encouragement, clarity and inspiration. When we decided to resume publishing Truth in September, 2001, he was pleased. He said, "For me, you have always been Truth."
We last saw Arturo/Anibal at the World Social Forum III in January, 2003 in Porto Alegre, Brazil. He was suffering from a terrible headache. But he was still very much concerned with the struggle and active in it. He was concerned with building the largest possible support for the February 15th global day of action against U.S. war on Iraq; with building support for Chavez and Venezuela; with building an alliance of revolutionaries within the global justice movement. He was concerned about the situation in Brazil, that different assessments of the situation and tasks in Brazil might lead revolutionaries to distance themselves from the Workers Party, before Brazilian workers were prepared to do so.
Arturo/Anibal died on March 4, 2003, after a brief and difficult struggle with cancer, which he faced as he had faced so many things, with optimism, courage, and humor.
Here is a letter we wrote to the revolutionary publication La Aurora at that time, a publication to which Arturo/Anibal and his co-thinkers had devoted many years of their lives.
To readers of La Aurora
Dear friends and comrades,
We want to express our profound solidarity with you in these difficult and challenging times. At the very moment that Bush, the owners of the U.S. oil and weapons industries, and their armed forces are murdering thousands of Iraqi men, women and children, we have to face losing Arturo. We have to learn how to go on without him, how to go forward without him. This is not an easy thing to do.
We first met Arturo, then known as Anibal, in 1975, when we joined the International League/Rebuilder of the Fourth International. Of course we met and talked from time to time as we did with many comrades. But it was only in 1987, when many of us realized that our first effort to rebuild the International had failed, and we were going to have to start all over, that we began to work together closely. Since that time, we have corresponded, talked on the phone, met, and worked on various efforts together countless numbers of times.
We exchanged ideas about what was going on in the world and in our own countries, about various working class and popular struggles and movements, and about what we thought working class and revolutionary militants should and should not be doing. We also exchanged views about different political issues, revolutionary theories and policies, and revolutionaries, especially Lenin and Trotsky. And, of course, from time to time, we debated, we argued. We wish we could tell you we won all those arguments, but we didn't. It wasn't easy to win an argument with Arturo, but we did sometimes.
Arturo was an indefatigable opponent of U.S. imperialism. Whenever the U.S. would intervene against the interests of oppressed peoples in other countries - whether it was Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, Panama, Iraq, Palestine, Bosnia, Kosova, or Serbia - we would receive wonderful articles and letters from him denouncing U.S. imperialism in popular terms. He supported each and every effort to organize mass movements in the United States to stop U.S. attacks on oppressed peoples. One of our favorite pictures of him is one in which he is marching with a banner saying, "Down with the pirate Bush!," during the first war on Iraq, at a demonstration in Barcelona. In another, he's wearing a "Labor Party Advocates" t-shirt.
One of the things we liked best about Arturo was he wasn't content to denounce U.S. imperialism; he wasn't even content to agitate and organize against U.S. imperialism. He was always trying to see very clearly the ways in which U.S. imperialism was and is sowing the seeds of its own destruction, not so revolutionaries can sit back, but precisely so they can best contribute to hastening the process. Today, he would undoubtedly support each and every effort against U.S. war on Iraq; he would be most interested in and favorable to those efforts best capable of waking up and involving millions of workers and oppressed. He was always convinced U.S. imperialism was doomed. If it weren't brought down by the U.S. working class, it would be brought down by forces outside the U.S., or a combination. One way or the other, it was coming down. Arturo was optimistic about the future.
For all these reasons, Arturo was a wonderful friend and comrade to us for many years. It's been a friendship based on common goals, common work, and profound confidence in the ultimate victory of the working class.
Over the years, we have translated many of the things he has written into English. We are working on bringing them together so we can share them with the many young people now joining the movement. There are so many things he has written that can help young people find their way.
We are also working on writing something about him for the North American movement. We hope our friendship with him will encourage young people to seek and find revolutionary friends and comrades in other countries. Indeed, it already has. When we were in Porto Alegre, one of our young friends was asking about Arturo. We explained he was one of our oldest friends. Our young friend said, "I hope when I am your age I will be able to say I have had revolutionary friends for so many years. Maybe the people I'm meeting right now will be those friends."
It seems revolutionaries from different countries have different ways of facing losing a friend and comrade.
Some say: "Comrade Anibal, hasta al socialismo siempre."
One of the things we sometimes say are the lines of the British poet, artist, revolutionary and socialist, William Morris:
"Join in the only battle
Wherein no man can fail
For who so fadeth and dieth
His deeds shall yet prevail."
Fred David
Margaret Guttshall
March, 2003