Greg Oxley of the French Marxist journal, La Riposte, pays tribute to the outstanding revolutionary, Pierre Broué.
Pierre Broué, French historian, Trotskyist militant, and editor of the Cahiers Leon Trotsky,
passed away in the early hours of Wednesday morning. His loss will be
mourned by working class militants and revolutionaries everywhere.
In Spanish: En memoria de Pierre Broué (1926-2005)
J'ai connu Pierre il y aura 4O ans dans quelques semaines. J'arrivais à Sciences Politiques Grenoble. Déjà étudiant en économie, venant ici pour tenter de comprendre ma propre histoire, ce professeur m'offrait, de mon point de vue, la meilleure introduction à ce que je venais chercher. Un professeur étonnant. Il n'arrivait pas pour nous lire ce qu'il avait écrit auparavant. Il prenait place devant nous pour un moment de création imtellectuelle. Pour moi, les cours de Broué c'était la pensée vivante en action.
With profound sadness we learned of the death of comrade Pierre
Broué, the outstanding Trotskyist historian and veteran revolutionary
militant. After a long and painful battle against cancer, Pierre passed
away at 03h04 on Wednesday July 27, at the age of 79.
In Spanish: La muerte de Pierre Broué - Una perdida irreparable para el marxismo
In German: Der Tod von Pierre Broué, ein unwiederbringlicher Verlust für den Marxismus
From the very beginning of the crisis in the Balkans back in 1992 In Defence of Marxism has maintained a firm internationalist approach.
The different imperialist powers and the local former Stalinist bureacrats used the poison of nationalism to gain power and spheres of influence. Their manouevres had nothing to do with the rights of the people's of the Balkans but with naked self interest.
We have insisted that the poison of nationalism (be it Albanian, Serbian, Bosnia, Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Greek, Turkish, or whatever) offers nothing to the peoples of the Balkans but a future of fratricidal war, ethnic cleansing, economic ruin, poverty and despair.
The entirely artificial frontiers that divide the living body of the Balkans have long since ceased to play any progressive role, if they ever did. Reactionary nationalism divides brother from brother, and sister from sister, creating ethnic hatreds and never-ending strife.
We think that only a policy of internationalism and class solidarity between the workers in the different countries in the Balkans would provide a lasting solution to this conflict. Only a Socialist Federation of the Balkans could actually guarantee full democratic rights for all national groups.
Many will say that this is an utopian policy and demand a more "practical" solution. But since the start of the conflict back in 1992 the "practical" policies have solved nothing and in fact have increased the amount of combustible material in the area. Maybe it is time that a genuine socialist internationalist approach is adopted.
Here we offer a collection of our material relating to this question. We think that these texts should be studied by all labour movement activists in the region and worldwide and we hope they will help open a fruitful discussion.