Louis Sinclair
THE DEATH of Louis Sinclair after a serious illness, on Saturday July 7, 1990, has removed from the ranks of the Fourth International one of its outstanding intellects. Louis entered the Trotskyist movement when he joined the Glasgow branch of the Revolutionary Socialist League, an affiliate of the International Left Opposition in 1937, and for a short time after its founding in 1945, was a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party, then the British Section of the Fourth International.
For the rest of his long life he was not formally a supporter of any organization, but he remained a loyal supporter both politically and materially. He spent the greater part of the next 20 years compiling his massive Trotsky Bibliography.
In pursuit of this project he accumulated an unrivalled collection of Trotsky's writings and books and articles on Trotsky and Trotskyism. This collection is now in the library of Glasgow University and should surely now be named The Louis Sinclair Collection.
He must have visited every major library in Europe and America in his search for material; he ransacked the archives of any Trotskyist or ex-Trotskyist he could get hold of. There can hardly be a secondhand bookshop which he did not enter or write to. It was quite a revelation, when accompanying him on some of these excursions to see how readily he was recognized by the shop-keeper. As soon as he entered the premises the bookseller would say: "Mr. Sinclair, I have the book you have been looking for" and produce it from under the counter.
He corresponded with people in all parts of the world and nearly every post would bring him something. I remember with what pride he showed me a copy of Trotsky's "Germany, What " Next?" in some obscure Indonesian dialect. Louis rarely spoke from a public platform. He was most at home speaking to small groups and especially enjoyed talking to young supporters, probing their brains and helping them with their problems. He was always being consulted by students writing theses on Trotskyism and related subjects and by would-be authors.
He took a great interest in recent events in the Soviet Union, always on the alert for new material on Trotsky and the Left Opposition emerging from the archives. He also compiled an index of prewar internal bulletins of the national sections of the Fourth International which should be a valuable source for historians and students of the period. He will be sorely missed as friend and teacher by all who knew him and learned from him.
Charlie van Gelderen