OBITUARIES

Gerrard Van De Berg 1909 -1997
LIFE LONG ACTIVIST and council communist Gerrard Van De Berg died February this year after a long illness. Gerrard was active in the workers struggles in his native Netherlands and across Europe. A member of the communist tendency influenced by Anton Pannekoek, he was a strong opponent of authoritarianism. Lenin's polemic "Left Wing Communism- An Infantile Disorder" was directly aimed against him and his comrades. Gerrard was a carpenter by trade and was active in the workers movement and greatly respected for his integrity and fierce intelligence. He used whatever medium he could to get his message across: broadcasting on the airwaves or talking face to face he gained the respect of those who listened. He was in Paris in May 68 where he denounced the leadership of the student movement for its lack of revolutionary theory. In 1973 he participated in a year long factory occupation in France where he worked to influence the dispute towards a redistribution of wealth. He was a stalwart of the solidarity movement for Spain and later a campaigner against the Vietnam war. Gerrard was always active until ill health restricted his abilities in his last months. He was an inspiration to successive generations of Dutch radicals and his funeral was attended by around 150 mourners who knew him from different times and areas of struggle. He will be missed.

Ono Tozaburo 1903-1996
ONO TOZABURO WAS born in 1903 in the Japanese town of Osaka which was experiencing transformation into one of the great industrial centres. This, of course, was accompanied by great industrial and economic unrest. He attended Tokyo University in 1920, dropping out after 8 months because of his objections to the authoritarian forms of education there. He then came in contact with the growing anarchist movement. He started contributing to the new paper Aka to Kuro (Red and Black) in 1923 writing anarchist poetry for it, which was suppressed in 1924. He founded his own paper Dam-Dam, a Dadaist-anarchist publication, which he was only able to produce for one issue. No publisher would print his collection of poems Hanbun Hiraita Mado (A Half-Opened Window) so he printed it himself in 1926. He published another anarchist magazine Dando (Trajectory) with anarchist poet Kiyoshi Akiyama which they were unable to publish for a year (1930-31). By about 1934 he had moved to a Marxist-realist position, but his poetry continued to be filled with social criticism. He was one of many active in the cultural wing of a vigorous anarchist movement.(See our pamphlet on the Japanese Anarchist movement by John Crump).

Adam Hughes
WE HAVE RECEIVED the sad news of the accidental death of Adam Hughes, at the young age of 18. Adam was one of several comrades who set up a group of the ACF in Northern Ireland two years ago. Later his disagreements over anarcho-syndicalism led him to join the Irish anarcho-syndicalist group Organise! A full obituary can be read in issue 6, Vol. 2 of Organise! The Voice of Anarcho-Syndicalism , 60p plus post from PO BOX 505, Belfast N. Ireland BT11 9EE