User:CWH/Frank Glass (Trotskyist)

Not to be confused with Frank Glass).

Frank C. Glass
Born	1901 Birmingham, England
Died	1988(1988-00-00) (aged 86–87) Los Angeles
Nationality	South African
Other names	Li Fu-jen; Cecil Glass; Ralph Graham; Frank Graves

Frank Glass, C. Frank Glass, or Cecil Frank Glass (b. 1901 Birmingham, Warwickshire, England d. 1988 Los Angeles) was a South African journalist, editor, and international revolutionary activist known for supporting Leon Trotsky. He was a founding member of the South African Communist Party and helped organized the the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union of Africa (ICU), the first black trade union there.

In 1930 Glass left South Africa for Shanghai, where he co-founded the Communist League of China a Trotskyist organization that opposed Stalin and the Chinese Communist Party. His correspondence with Leon Trotsky led to a visit with him in Mexico in 1938. Glass then settled in the United States, where he edited the Trotskyist newspaper, The Militant and published widely on topics of revolutionary interest and social progress.

Early life and radical activities in South Africa

Glass's parents, Ernest Edward and Gertrude Emily Glass, moved the family to New Zealand in 1911, including his older brother, Norman, Frank himself, and his sister Madge. He served briefly in the British Army toward the end of World War One, but the social agitation around the 1917 Russian Revolution drew his attention to the unjust treatment of New Zealand's black majority population.

China

In Shanghai he befriended the American journalist Harold Isaacs and worked with him on his account of the Chinese Revolution of 1925-27, The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution, the first edition of which was published in 1938 with a preface by Trotsky. Among his other colleagues were Alex Buchman, an American Trotskyist, aeronautical engineer, and amateur photographer who recorded many of the personalities in the movement. There he met and married Grace Simons (1901-1985), whose older sister was Rayna Simons Prohme (1894-1927), a radical journalist and organizer.

In the United States

Glass relocated permanently to the United States on the eve of World War II. There, he was a prominent member of the Socialist Workers Party, but did not follow the

Writings

For a more extensive list, see "Frank Glass Bibliography". Encyclopedia of Trotskyism. Marxists' Internet Archive.

• Glass, Frank (1990), "The Communist League of China", Revolutionary History, 2 (4) Reproduced from Glass's report found in the Trotsky Archive, Houghton Library, Harvard University. Reprinted, Marxists Encyclopedia of Trotskyism Online

References

• "Frank Glass (Li Fu-jen) (1910-1988)". Encyclopedia of Trotskyism. Marxists' Internet Archive.
• Alexander, Robert Jackson (1991), International Trotskyism, 1929-1985: A Documented Analysis of the Movement, Duke University Press, ISBN 9780822310662
• Benton, Gregor, Prophets Unarmed
• Drew, Allison (2019), Discordant Comrades: Identities and Loyalties on the South African Left, ISBN 9781351768566
• Lubitz, Wolfgang and Petra (2004). "C. Frank Glass". Bio-bibliographical sketches of selected Trotskyists (PDF). Trotskyana.net.
• Hirson, Baruch (1988), "Li Fu-jen (Frank Glass, John Liang) 1901-1988 (Obituary)", Revolutionary History, 1 (2) reprinted, Marxists.og
• Hirson, Baruch (2003). Frank Glass: The Restless Revolutionary. London: Porcupine Press. ISBN 9780952364863.
• -- (2005) History of the Left in South Africa
• van der Walt, Lucien (2011), "Anarchism And Syndicalism In An African Port City: The Revolutionary Traditions Of Cape Town's Multiracial Working Class, 1904–1931", Labor History, 52 (2): 137–171, doi:10.1080/0023656X.2011.571464
• Weissman, Suzi (2004). "Alex Buchman, the Last Survivor of Trotsky". Critique. 32 (1): 151–162. doi:10.1080/03017600409469481.

External links

• Register of C. Frank Glass Papers Hoover Institution Archives.