Obituaries

James Patrick Cannon, one of the founders of the international Trotskyist movement, and for decades one of its central leaders, died 30 years ago, on 21 August 1974. Cannon considered himself to be an agitator and an organiser, and first of all a party organiser. He would have believed that his legacy would consist in the Trotskyist organisation he founded and led, not in his writings. The thought that led Cannon to that belief - that revolutionary ideas are not really revolutionary unless embodied in effective activist organisation - was right. Yet the organisation (in the USA) which he...

Bruce Robinson looks at the lives of Ray Charles and Elvin Jones Two major innovators in African-American music have died in the last few weeks. Pianist and singer Ray Charles (died aged 73) was central to the development of soul music. Elvin Jones (76) transformed jazz drumming and played in John Coltrane's 1960s Quartet which was a major influence on subsequent generations of jazz musicians. Their contrasting but parallel lives show the richness of African-American music in a period of rapid musical - and social - change in the late 50s and 60s. Ray Charles learnt music in a school for the...

Des Warren, who died on 24 April aged 66, was one of the "Shrewsbury pickets", a group of building workers who were jailed by the then Conservative government in 1973 after a bitter dispute. Warren was a steel fixer and a member of the Communist Party. He later joined the Workers' Revolutionary Party. In 1969 Warren was a UCATT shop steward on the Barbican site in central London and was involved in a major battle over the "lump" a cash payment system for building workers. Between 1968 and 1969 he was actively involved in the Building Workers Charter, which called for an end to the lump. During...

Ian Row was a committed fighter for working-class people in Hackney. His sudden death from cancer of the oesophagus has shocked and saddened all those that knew him. Aside from his trade union activity (as a GMB shop steward whilst working for Thames Water in the Tottenham / Walthamstow area and a PCS rep in the Benefits Agency in Hackney), Ian was an active member of the Hackney Tenants' and Residents' Federation since its formation, and was Secretary of the Trelawney Estate Tenants' and Residents' Association. Ian was a Labour Councillor between 1986 - 1990 and was not afraid to take a stand...

Saturday 13 March 2.30pm, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London Nearest Tube: Holborn Remembering the Revolutionary History editor who died recently.

Stephen Jay Gould, the scientist and science writer, who died in 2002, wrote on a bewildering series of subjects. Clive Bradley assesses his legacy here . (from the new issue of New Politics magazine )

Cecilia Prosper, former Islington UNISON steward, Socialist Alliance candidate in North-East London in the GLA 2000 elections, and a member of the Socialist Workers Party, has died of cancer at the age of 44. Cecilia was victimised from her job at Islington council after a strike in the late 1990s, but led the appeal which indicted the council. Our sympathy and condolences to her family and many friends. A memorial event will be announced shortly. Details: Socialist Worker website

Hugh McGrillen, a long-time MSF left activist and for many years London regional secretary of the MSF, has died of cancer. Hugh, a qualified chemist, worked as an advice worker at the London Hazards Centre. He was also a member of the Irish national chess team. In 1999 the London Region of the MSF was excluded from voting in the Labour Party mayoral ballot on the utterly spurious grounds of late payment of affiliation. Hugh and his comrades fought the exclusion. The right wing leadership of the MSF under Roger Lyons, decided to pursue a disciplinary investigation into the London Regional...

"It is difficult to think of another intellectual who has had such a real and visible effect on the political climate of their country since the war" said Perry Anderson in his 1988 essay on Norberto Bobbio, the Italian democratic socialist and political philosopher who died on 9 January. Bobbio was a liberal socialist, part of an Italian tradition of radical liberalism represented most notably by the great Piero Gobetti, murdered by Mussolini's fascists in 1926, but also Carlo Roselli, Guido Calogero and Aldo Capitini. From 1942 Bobbio was involved in the radical liberal Partito d'Azione. He...

TOM HURNDALL DIES AS FAMILY RECEIVE NEWS OF THE INDICTMENT OF HIS KILLER Tom Hurndall, the British photographer shot by Israeli troops in Gaza while shepherding young children out of the line of fire, died on 13 January 2004 at 7.45pm. His death came nine months after an incident in which he was shot in the head. More .