NEWS FROM
THE FOURTH
INTERNATIONAL
WESTERN EUROPE International youth camp THE FOURTH summer camp of youth organizations in political solidarity with the Fourth International was held in July in the mountains of La Verna, Italy, 60 kilometers from Florence.
The camp followed the student mobilizations in Europe last winter — notably in France, Spain and Italy - and proved to be a big success, with over 800 participants. A good number of these were not members of the youth organizations involved. The camp was therefore an occasion to bring together young people only recently involved in politics.
The camp lasted a week, and its programme included forums and exchanges of experience in the recent struggles, as well as commissions where more emphasis was given to information and political elaboration.
The South African revolution was a central theme, including discussions led by an Italian representative of the African National Congress (ANC), as was the subject of Central America, with participants from the Sandinista Youth and the Salvadoran FMLN. Among the many commissions, one was also held on the Middle East with Palestinian militants from the occupied territories. The questions raised by the oppression and struggles of women were also a central feature of the discussions.
A morning was given over to problems of sexuality and AIDS, a subject that particularly affects young people given the moral crusades being led by some governments.
The camp was particularly successful for the Italian youth organization, Rivoluzione, who had one of the biggest delegations with nearly 200 participating. The work that these comrades did in constructing the camp site and the facilities out of practically nothing was exceptional. The success of the camp will undoubtedly help to build Rivoluzione and the other youth organizations that participated. *
OBITUARY Emile Van Ceulen (1916-1987) OUR BELGIAN comrade Emile Van Ceulen, aged 71, died on July 28 this year. He was one of the Fourth International's longest-standing militants, who played a very important role in the history of the POS/SAP, the Belgian section of the Fl.
From the time of his joining the Trotskyist movement in 1934 to the present day, Emile Van Ceulen fought for the ideas that gave a purpose to his life: the struggle against exploitation and oppression in all their forms and the fight for a world-wide socialist revolution.
Emile Van Ceulen belonged to a generation that became involved in revolutionary politics after the experiences of the October revolution, the rise of fascism and the consequences of the capitalist economic crisis. It was after Hitler came to power, and in its turn Austria "fell" in 1934, that Emile Van Ceulen began his life as a militant. At that time, there were few in the left who understood the worrying evolution of the Soviet Union, the "homeland of socialism". Our comrade belonged to those conscious militants who did understand, disgusted by social democracy but refusing to blindly follow the Comintern. They therefore became members of Trotsky's Left Opposition.
From 1944 to 1971, Emile played a major part in the Belgian section. Around him was built the JGS (youth organization of the Belgian Socialist Party), a left wing that was to win a majority against right social democracy in 1954.
The formation of the Ligue révolutionnaire des travailleurs (Revolutionary Workers' Party) after the youth radicalization of the late 1960s — later to become the POS/SAP — fused three generations of revolutionary militants, workers and students from socialist or Christian origins.
So the militant continuity, that was an "obsession" with Emile, was assured. The existence of the Belgian section today is due in good part to the role played by Emile Van Ceulen. *