Contents

Here you can find a feature about Louis Sinclair (1909-1990), author of a monumental bibliography of Leon Trotsky's written legacy as well as of some other bibliographical works which must be considered as unique and indispensable tools with regard to Trotsky research.

• The meaning of Louis Sinclair (biographical sketch)
• Literature about Louis Sinclair
• The works of Louis Sinclair
• Reviews of Louis Sinclair's works
• The Louis Sinclair Collection at Glasgow University Library
• Some illustrations

The meaning of Louis Sinclair
A biographical sketch

Louis Solomon, who officially assumed the name Louis Sinclair only in 1946, was born as one of seven children into a Jewish working class family in Glasgow on July 28, 1909. His father, Hyman Solomon (born Poznanski) had come as an immigrant from Russian Poland to Scotland around 1900 where he got the name Solomon. After school education in Glasgow and studies in Leeds (England), for several decades Louis earned his living as a primary school teacher, specialising in teaching children with impaired hearing. Having abondoned religiousness as well as Zionism he became a Marxist socialist and trade unionist, and eventually was recruited (around 1938) to the Glasgow branch of a tiny British Trotskyist organization affiliated to the Movement for the Fourth International. Already in uniform during the Second World War, he won over some people to the cause of Trotskyism; he took part in fighting the Nazi-German troops in Egypt and Northern Africa, and while on military service in Italy 1943/44 he together with Charles VanGelderen made close contacts with militants of the Italian Trotskyist resistance movement. After the war he became a member of the RCP (Revolutionary Communist Party), the newly formed British Section of the Fourth International. After the RCP had collapsed in 1949, Sinclair did not join any other Trotskyist organization but remained until his death a close non-sectarian supporter of Trotskyism, morally, politically and last not least materially.
He began to correspond with Trotskyist militants, with librarians, archivists, book collectors and book dealers all over the world and held close contacts to Trotskyist veterans and scholars like George Breitman, Pierre Broué, Pierre Frank, Charles VanGelderen, Hillel Ticktin, Wang Fanxi. He was an outstanding Trotskyist intellectual whose very interest was the preservation of the heritage of the International Left Opposition, bringing back to light the truth about the life, ideas and meaning of Leon Trotsky. Sinclair's contribution to the recorded history of the 20th century was excellently summarized in the caption of an obituary by his just mentioned friend and comrade Charles VanGelderen, published in the British daily Guardian on July 30, 1990: "Louis Sinclair - the complete Trotsky collector".

Louis Sinclair, who lived in Glasgow (Herriet Street 13) und who was neither married nor had any descendants, spent several decades of his life collecting extensively and systematically the published writings of Leon Trotsky in more than 40 languages. With no grants from foundations to fund his travelling expenses he visited uncountable libraries and archives in Europe and America and his name was quite familiar to many second-hand book dealers all over the world. In 1972 Hoover Institution Press (Stanford, Cal.) published his painstaking and pioneering work Leon Trotsky - a bibliography, a huge volume of some 1.100 pages. From that time Sinclair's collection and cataloguing activities had to be acknowledged by every serious student and scholar dealing with the life and work of Trotsky. During the next 2 decades and after having retired from his teaching job, Sinclair continued his work on the Trotsky Bibliography as well as on some related bibliographical works, ceaselessly and meticulously searching for more and new material. He also acted as an unpaid adviser and as an honorary research fellow of the Institute of Soviet and East European Studies (Glasgow University), continuing his collaboration with scholars in Britain, the United States, France and elsewhere, thus establishing a worldwide reputation in the field of Trotsky research. Recognition by noted scholars, students and by Glasgow University to which he contributed his personal library and manuscripts (1983), the Louis Sinclair Collection, as well as events like the opening of the so-called closed section of the Trotsky Archives at Houghton Library (Harvard University, Boston, Mass., 1980) or the sensational discovering of parts of another Trotsky archive within the Boris Nicolaevsky Collection at Stanford University (1987) gave him pleasure in the last years of his life after decades of work in which he had to endure a certain isolation. During those last years of his life Sinclair considerably updated his Trotsky bibliography which eventually was published by Scolar Press (Aldershot, Britain) as a two-volume set comprising some 1.350 pages (1989). During the year 1988 Sinclair's health began failing and after a short period of partial recovery he was hospitalized in Glasgow where he died of pleurisy and other complications on July 7, 1990, three weeks before his 81st birthday. A memorial meeting was held in the Adam Smith Building (University of Glasgow) on September 28, 1990.

We, the authors of TrotskyanaNet, did neither know Louis Sinclair personally nor did we enjoy a letter-exchange with him, with the exception of a few business-like letters. Nevertheless we wish to emphasize our deep respect for Louis Sinclair and his life's great work. We studied and used Sinclair's Trotsky bibliography intensively and carefully and always regarded it as an indispensable tool, a necessary prerequisite for everybody doing serious research on Trotsky. Furthermore we always felt a certain Wahlverwandtschaft with Sinclair, considering our own bibliographical work (on the Trotsky secondary literature) as complementary to Sinclair's work (on Trotsky’s primary works) – and users/reviewers have interpreted it just that way [see for instance the quotations from reviews cited in the chapter The Lubitz Trotsky Bibliography].We were deeply impressed by Sinclair's outstanding personality, regarding him as a mentor in spiritu by his great bibliographical labour of love. The entire Trotsky community should honor this quite uncommon, unpretentious and perhaps a bit queer man as one if its most dignified and devoted members whose monumental work will undoubtedly survive him.
We should like to finish this paragraph by a short quotation from the book The ideas of Leon Trotsky (London, 1995):

”This volume is dedicated to Louis Sinclair. Louis was a lifetime Trotskyist who dedicated the last 30 or so years of his life to producing a comprehensive bibliography of Trotsky's writings. He never asked for any recognition, and he even gave his collection of Trotskyana to Glasgow University free of charge, without any indication on the books from whence they came. Louis was a very modest man, who saw himself as making his contribution to the struggle for socialism through his bibliographic work. He provided a chronological list of the works of Trotsky in the various languages, as well as a list of republications of Trotsky's works over the world. The first was probably more interesting to scholars, while the second served the purpose of the revolutionary movement in pinpointing the gradual rehabilitation of Trotsky himself. Louis was very excited that Trotsky was finally republished in the USSR. In a sense, Louis' work was never over." [Ticktin, H. and Cox, M.: Louis Sinclair (1909-1990), in: Ticktin, Hillel and Michael Cox (ed.): The ideas of Leon Trotsky, London, 1995, p.20].

Literature about Louis Sinclair
(obituaries, biographical sketches, etc.)

Following his death in July 1990 some obituaries, biographical sketches and reminiscences were published, providing some details about the personal background, character, and itinerary of the man who was 'the complete Trotsky collector' and the author/compiler of the unrivaled Trotsky Bibliography. Here's a listing of the biographical items about Louis Sinclair which are in our possession.
Perhaps the most interesting biographical contribution is a sentimental but highly informative portrait written by Dutch journalist Igor Cornelissen who had met Sinclair several times and who also made interviews with relatives, friends and comrades; thus his contribution (titled Bibliograaf van de wereldrevolutie [Bibliographer of the world revolution]) mentions a lot of biographical details as well as some facts on family background not to be found anywhere else; unfortunately there is no English translation of Cornelissen's contribution [PDF, 1874 Kb] which we have reprinted here with permission of Vrij Nederland.

• [Anonymous:] A friend and Trotsky scholar dies, in: Spartacist, 1990/91 (45/46), pp. 3, 48 [Obituaries by James Robertson and E. McDonald and an appreciation adopted from Workers Hammer, 1990 (117)]
• [Anonymous:] A friend and Trotsky scholar dies, in: Workers Hammer, 1990 (117).
• Archer, John: Louis Sinclair (1909 - 1990), in: Revolutionary History, 3.1991 (3), pp. 43-44
• Archer, John: Louis Sinclair 1901 [sic!] - 1990, in: Workers Press, 1990 (227), p. 3
• Archer, John: Louis Sinclair 1909 - 1990 / P.J. Barclay [i.e. John Archer], in: Labour Briefing, 1990 (107), p. 14
• [Broué, Pierre?]: Louis Sinclair (1909 - 1990), in: Cahiers Léon Trotsky, 1990 (43), pp. 125 - 126 [Publ. anonymously. Plus correction by Al Richardson, in: ibid., 1990 (44), p.123]
• Cornelissen, Igor: Bibliograaf van de wereldrevolutie : Trotski in Glasgow, in: Vrij Nederland, 1990 (46), pp. 50 - 55 [PDF, 1.874 Kb]
• Foley, Gerry: Louis Sinclair, in: Inprecor : [French ed.], 1990 (315), p. 28
• Foley, Gerry: Louis Sinclair, in: Rouge, 1990 (1414), p. 10
• Lovell, Frank: Louis Sinclair (1909 - 1990), in: Bulletin in Defense of Marxism, 1990 (77), pp. 33 - 35
• Ticktin, Hillel: In memoriam : Louis Sinclair (August 1909 [sic!] - July 1990), in: Critique, 1991 (23), pp. 169-171
• VanGelderen, Charlie: Louis Sinclair : the complete Trotsky collector, in: Bulletin in Defense of Marxism, 1990 (77), p. 35 [Reprinted from The Guardian, 1990 (July 30)]
• VanGelderen, Charlie: Louis Sinclair : the complete Trotsky collector, in: The Guardian, 1990 (July 30)
• VanGelderen, Charlie: Louis Sinclair, in: International Viewpoint, 1990 (181), p. 24
• VanGelderen, Charlie: An outstanding intellectual for the Fourth Inernational, in: Socialist Outlook, 1990 (27), p. 32
• Wang Fanxi: Louis Sinclair (1909 - 1990) : a tribute, in: Against the Current, 1991 (30), p. 48

Books dedicated to Louis Sinclair:

• Cannon, James P.: James P. Cannon and the early years of American communism : selected writings and speeches / Prometheus Research Library. New York, NY, 1992. ISBN 0-9633828-02
• Franzén, Christer: Leo Trotskij på svenska : en bibliografi / Christer Franzén ; Per-Olof Mattsson. Stockholm, 1994 ISBN 91-7362-143-9
• The ideas of Leon Trotsky / Hillel Ticktin and Michael Cox [ed.] London, 1995.
  ISBN 1-89-943804-1
• Lubitz, Wolfgang: Trotskyist serials bibliography : 1927-1991 / ed. by Wolfgang and Petra Lubitz. München [etc.], 1993. ISBN 3-598-11157-6
• Lubitz, Wolfgang: Trotsky bibliography : an international classified list of publications about Leon Trotsky and Trotskyism, 1905-1997 / comp. and ed. by Wolfgang and Petra Lubitz. 3., completely rev. and enl. ed. Vol. 1-2. München [etc.], 1999.
  ISBN 3-598-11391-9

The works of Louis Sinclair

During the last three decades of his life, Louis Sinclair produced a number of outstanding bibliographical works about Leon Trotsky and about the genesis of the (Trotskyist) Fourth International. From these works, only Leon Trotsky : a bibliography (1972) and Trotsky : a bibliography (1989) were printed and published in book form, while the other works only exist as manuscripts (typescripts) in a very limited number of mimeographed copies; that means that apart from Glasgow University Library – the repository of the Sinclair papers – there are only a few libraries and archives which are in possession of them. We are proud that – with the exception of Records of Leon Trotsky – all works by Louis Sinclair listed here are represented in our own Trotskyana Collection.

Here's the listing of Sinclair’s bibliographical works in chronological order and with some short annotations:

• Records of Leon Trotsky : a chronological bibliography of Trotsky's works. - 1-2. - Glasgow : [Author], 1961-62.
  This is a mimeographed, preliminary version of Sinclair's magnum opus Leon Trotsky : a bibliography which was published ten years later (1972).
• Leon Trotsky : a bibliography. - Stanford, Cal. : Hoover Institution Pr., 1972. - X, 1089 pp. - (Hoover bibliographical series ; 50) ISBN 0-8179-2501-5.
  A chronological listing of fairly all of Trotsky's published writings up to 1970 together with references to reprints, translations, quotations in collections and so on, plus references to a certain number of unpublished items (in the open section of the Houghton Library Trotsky Archive). In the second part of the work there are lists of periodicals and of bulletins to which Trotsky contributed as well as a prospectus of Sochineniia, the rudimentary Russian language work edition published between 1923 and 1927. Altogether more than 4.600 items in more than 40 languages are included. In 1978 and 1980 Sinclair provided a supplement and an addendum, both as unpublished typescripts.
• Documents & discussions, 1930-1940 : source material for the history of the Fourth International. - [Glasgow : Author, 1981]. - XXII, 481 pp.
  Typescript, rare, a by-product of Sinclair's work on the Trotsky bibliography. Bibliography and tables of contents of a considerable number of bulletins and bulletin-like publications issued by the Fourth International (and its precursors, respectively) and its national affiliates during the 1930s. Some publications of dissident groups and splinters are included, too. With locations and many cross references. Includes index of countries, names of political organizations, names of contributors. A list of pseudonyms and identifications is provided, too.
• The IS papers. - [Glasgow : Author], 1983. - V, 323 pp.
  Typescript, rare, a by-product of Sinclair's work on the Trotsky bibliography. This is a calendar of documents (minutes, correspondence and the like) of the International (Administrative) Secretariat, the leading and coordinating body of the International Left Opposition, later the Movement for the Fourth International, later the Fourth International, dating from the 1930s and located in the Trotsky papers deposited at the Houghton Library (Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.) and in other accessible Trotsky archives. Includes some indices, for example a name index with references from pseudonyms.
• Trotsky : a bibliography. - 1-2. - Aldershot : Scolar Pr., 1989. - XIX, 1350 pp.
  ISBN 0-85967-820-2.
  This is a completely revised and considerably amended version of the 1972 Trotsky bibliography cited above, covering more than 5.000 published items from Trotsky's pen as well as many thousand unpublished items (mostly letters) from the Trotsky archives at Cambridge (Mass.), Stanford (Cal.) and Amsterdam which became accessible in the 1980s. All types of writings in dozens of languages are considered (books, pamphlets, articles, correspondence), original publications as well as translations, reprints and editions. The arrangement of entries is strictly chronological, each entry bearing a six-digit item number corresponding to year/month/date. Titles are listed in the original language, items which are lacking title are listed with uniform titles and short description of contents, for titles in non-Latin script transliteration is provided. Many entries include references to later editions, translations, reprints, etc. which can be found elsewhere in the bibliography by their respective item number. At the beginning of vol. 1 are to be found lists of abbreviations, cited catalogues, special collections, locations and pseudonyms; vol. 2 contains several appendices, for instance consolidated lists of books, periodicals and bulletins, as well as a list of secondary sources and a 'Prospekt sobraniia sochinenii L.D. Trotskogo'. Some users may be somewhat put off by the extensive employment of abbreviations and cryptic encodings.

Louis Sinclair occasionally contributed to some journals, for example to Soviet Studies (Oxford, later: Glasgow) and Critique (Glasgow). He also contributed an obituary of his very friend and colleague George Breitman which was published in A tribute to George Breitman / ed. by Naomi Allen and Sarah Lovell, New York, NY, 1987.

Reviews of Louis Sinclair's works

Since its appearance in 1972 Sinclair's Trotsky : a bibliography of course has been used by many students and scholars doing research on Trotsky and Trotskyism; there is hardly to find a serious scholarly or academic work on Trotsky which fails to mention Sinclair's bibliography in the list of used sources and literature. Furthermore there is a number of books whose authors have shown their very gratitude towards Sinclair by mentioning his magnum opus in prefaces or introductions. Last not least there are some – chiefly favourable – reviews of his Trotsky : a bibliography (both of the 1972 and of the 1989 editions), published in journals and newsletters.
Here's a listing, arranged alphabetically by author, of those reviews of Sinclair's work which are in our possession:

• Aby, Stephen H.: [Review], in: American Reference Books Annual, 22.1991, p. 303
• Bongiovanni, Bruno: [Review article] / B.B., in: Rivista di storia contemporanea, 1974 (4), pp. 564-565
• Dreyfus, Michel: [Review] Une bibliographie indispensable / Michel Dreyfus ; Jean-François Godchau, in: Cahiers Léon Trotsky, 1979 (4), pp. 79-80
• Felshtinsky, Yuri: [Review], in: Slavic Review, 50.1991 (2), pp. 439-440
• Frank, Pierre: [Review], in: Quatrième Internationale, n.s. 1972 (5=55), p. 64
• Franzén, Christer: [Review article] Trotskij-forskningen går framåt / Christer Franzén ; Per-Olof Mattsson, in: Fjärde Internationalen, 20.1988 (3), pp. 103-105
• Kristof, Ladis Kris Donabed: [Review article] / Ladis K.D. Kristof, in: Slavic Review, 32.1973 (4), pp. 818-820
• Law, David S.: [Review] / D.S. Law, in: Critique, 1975 (5), pp. 115-116
• Nation, R. Craig: [Review article] Approaching Trotsky's written legacy : a selective review of sources, in: Studies in Comparative Communism, 10.1977 (1/2), pp. 216-221
• Novack, George: [Review], in: International Socialist Review, 33.1972 (7), pp. 54-55
• Novack, George: [Review] Massive bibliography of Trotsky's works, in: Intercontinental Press, 10.1972 (28), pp. 844-845
• Rossum, Leo van: [Review], in: International review of Social History, 36.1991 (1), pp. 112-113
• Tosstorff, Reiner: [Review], in: Archiv für die Geschichte des Widerstandes und der Arbeit, 1991 (11), pp. 232-233

Please find here some quotations from a selection of the above-mentioned reviews:

[George Novack, in: International Socialist Review, 33.1972 (7):]

Isaac Deutscher wrote a full-scale record of Trotsky's life in three volumes that set a lofty biographical standard. Now Louis Sinclair has compiled a catalogue of all Trotsky's known published materials that deserves to stand beside Deutscher's trilogy on the shelves of every large library and serious student of his career. [...] Sinclair had to make his way through this obstacle course, tracking down the existence and publication places of the books, pamphlets, articles, speeches, letters, and other Trotsky materials that have been translated into various languages. The result of this tireless and persistent detective work is this bibliography of over a thousand pages. [...] Sinclair's achievement is the more remarkable since, for all the assistance he received from other people and librarians, it was the enterprise of a single individual, carried to completion apparently without subsidy or aid from any academic institution or foundation. [...] Thus the vast and valuable heritage of Trotsky's ideas is made much more accessible and the present generation can verify precisely where he stood on the vital issues of the class struggle. All future students of Trotsky's life and work will be indebted to Sinclair's encyclopedic labors.

[Ladis K.D. Kristof, in: Slavic Review, 32.1973 (4):]

Now Trotsky has found his man in Louis Sinclair, whose bibliography is obviously a labor of love. In scope, Sinclair's work is an ambitious undertaking. [...] The sheer amount of labor invested in this volume is awesome, and virtually every student of the Russian revolution broadly speaking will be able to draw dividends. Yet as a whole the book is disappointing. The system of listing, reference, cross reference, and concordance, though ingenious in certain respects, is difficult to understand and not clearly or sufficiently explained in the preface and notes. There are also some puzzles. [...] The listings of location for various volumes often seem a frivolously useless exercise. [...] More disturbing are innumerable inaccurate or even totally misleading translations of Russian entries. [...] In my opinion, the main weakness of the book is that it has an overabundance of marginal and outright useless information which merely obscures what is really valuable and necessary. On the title page the Hoover Institution Press notes that this volume is 'unabridged and unedited' in order to 'make it available to scholars more promptly and economically'.

[Leo van Rossum, in: International Review of Social History, 36.1991 (1):]

The quantities are impressive indeed, and the method employed, of strict chronological presentation, with references to later reprints and/or translations, also turns out to be a valuable and useful approach in the 1989 summary, which has three times as many items as its precursor. The frequency with which visitors to the reading room of the IISG library resort to Sinclair's book confirms this. Remarkably, as a result of the publication of the reference works by Sinclair and W. Lubitz, there is now more bibliographical material available on Trotsky than on Lenin or Stalin. After nearly thirty years of continued bibliographical research on Trotsky and on the Trotskyist movement of the 1930s it must have been a source of great satisfaction to Sinclair to have had the opportunity to round off his work with this Scolar Press edition. Shortly after it was published he died, on 7 July 1990, at the age of 81.

[Pierre Frank, in: Quatrième Internationale, n.s. 1972 (5=55):]

Alors que telles publications sont généralement l'oeuvre de plusieurs personnes soutenues par des institutions scientifiques disposant de moyens matériels et financiers, la bibliographie a été faite par Sinclair seul, sans aucun collaborateur régulier, en dehors des heures qu'il consacrait à gagner son existence. Le travail minutieux qu'il a accompli, les recherches, les mises au point, les vérifications ont occupé plusieurs dizaines d'années de sa vie. Il l'a fait avec une persévérance infatigable. Il a fallu que son travail commence à atteindre une certaine dimension pour que l'importance et la valeur en soient enfin appréciées. Louis Sinclair a accompli un travail scientifique remarquable sur l'oeuvre de Trotsky dont il est meilleur connaisseur. Plus encore, il a rendu par ce travail un service inestimable à cette oeuvre. A ce titre, les trotskystes lui en sont profondément reconnaissants.

[Reiner Tosstorff, in: Archiv für die Geschichte des Widerstandes und der Arbeit, 1991 (11):]

Der im Juli 1990 im Alter von fast 81 Jahren verstorbene Louis Sinclair gehörte zu denjenigen Privatforschern, die, außerhalb des akademischen Betriebs stehend, sich ganz einem einzigen Gegenstand widmen, über den sie dann mehr wissen als die Fachgelehrten. Sinclair [...] befasste sich mit dem Werk Trotzkis und trug alle seine Schriften zusammen, aus welchem Land und in welcher Sprache auch immer. Ergebnis dieser Arbeit ist eine Bibliographie aller veröffentlichten und - soweit die entsprechenden Archive zugänglich sind - unveröffentlichten Texte Trotzkis, die erstmals 1972 erschien. Nun wird sie in erweiterter Form vorgelegt. [...] Zweifellos handelt es sich um ein unentbehrliches Hilfsmittel nicht nur für die Beschäftigung mit Trotzki, sondern auch allgemein mit der Geschichte des Kommunismus und der Sowjetunion in der Zwischenkriegszeit. Die Neuausgabe war von seinem Verfasser sicher als die auf absehbare Zeit definitive Ausgabe gedacht. Doch in den letzten Monaten beginnt die Wiederentdeckung Trotzkis in der Sowjetunion. Es werden nicht nur seine im Westen bekannten Werke veröffentlicht, zum ersten Mal werden die Archive geöffnet, und sowjetische Wissenschaftler können vor allem bisher unbekannte Materialien aus den Fraktionskämpfen der zwanziger Jahre auswerten.

The Louis Sinclair Collection
at Glasgow University Library

As mentioned in the biographical sketch above, Sinclair spent most of his life at Glasgow and had close ties with the University of Glasgow. During the last years of his life he functioned as an honorary research fellow of Glasgow University's Institute of Soviet and East European Studies (ISEES).
In 1983 Louis Sinclair generously donated his extensive collection of Trotskyana to Glasgow University Library (GUL), insisting that this donation was treated as an 'anonymous' gift and that the books should not be supplied with ex libris or the like indicating whence they came. Thus the Sinclair Trotskyana Collection is hosted as The Trotsky Collection by the Special Collections Department of  GUL. The original gift comprised some 1.800 editions of Trotsky's works in some 40 languages, ranging from his first ever published booklet (1900) to reprints and posthumously published works from the 1970s and 1980s. Additionally the donation comprised hundreds of periodical and newspaper issues, clippings etc. containing contributions from Trotsky's pen as well as a considerable number of secondary items.
During the following years the Trotsky Collection at GUL has been augmented with other gifts, for example with a collection of papers and printed material which was donated by Tamara Deutscher, the widow of Trotsky's biographer Isaac Deutscher. Copies of two Trotsky films shot by Alex Buchman at Coyoacán in 1939/40 are also contained in the Trotsky Collection.
A selection of GUL's rich Trotsky holdings donated by Sinclair was displayed at the University Library in autumn 1987 on the ocasion of the 70th anniversary of the Russian October revolution.
A card index of Trotsky's works arranged by language, together with an index of secondary materials and periodical items is availabe in the Special Collections Department; parts of the Sinclair donation are also to retrieve by browsing through the University Library's OPAC. A copy of Sinclair's Leon Trotsky : a bibliography in the Special Collections Department reference shelves contains the call numbers of the works in the collection, too. According to an information we got from David Weston, Principal Assistant Librarian of the Special Collections Department, some years ago it is hoped at some point to issue a catalogue of the complete collection. General enquiries can be sent as e-mail to special@lib.gla.ac.uk
Sources:
Trotsky : a display of material from the University's Trotsky Collection, Glasgow University Library, 26 October - 18 December / [introd. by David Weston]. - [Glasgow : University Library, 1987]. - [9 pp.]
Trotsky Collection
URL: http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/collection/trotsky.html [Last update: May 5, 2003. - Retrieved July 1, 2004]
Lovell, Frank: Louis Sinclair (1909-1990), in: Bulletin in Defense of Marxism, 1990 (77), p. 34
Contact/address:
Trotsky Collection, Special Collections, Glasgow University Library, Hillhead Street, Glasgow G12 8QE, Scotland. E-mail: special@lib.gla.ac.uk

Some illustrations

Here you can find reproductions of one of the rare existing photographs (taken by Hans van den Bogaard) of Louis Sinclair, showing him in his seventies, and of a pencil drawing from 1983 by Paul Harber,  a son of the late Denzil Dean Harber (1909-1965), a well-known British Trotskyist. Both pictures have been reproduced here by permission of the University Library of Glasgow, Special Collections Department.

Furthermore we reproduce here an autograph [PDF, 55 Kb], i.e. a hand-written business-like letter from Louis Sinclair to Petra Lubitz dated February 19, 1980.

Short note on Igor Cornelissen:
Igor Cornelissen, Dutch Trotskyist and journalist was born in 1935. From 1962 to 1996 he was a staff writer and co-editor of the renowned Dutch weekly Vrij Nederland. He also is author of some books, among others:

• De zender van Polk : roman. - Amsterdam, 1987
• De GPOe op de overtoom : spionnen voor Moskou 1920-1940. - Amsterdam, 1989
• Speurtocht naar de (auto)biografie. - Amsterdam, 1993
• Paul de Groot, staatsvijand nr. 1 : een biografische schets. - Amsterdam, 1996
• Raamgracht 4 : mooie jaren boj het weekblad. - Amsterdam, 1998
• Arbeidersraad of ondernemersstaat : machtenen machtstrijd in Nederland en in Joegoslavie. - [Co-author: Marius Joseph Broekmeyer]. - Amsterdam, 1969
• Alleen tegen de wereld : Joop Zwart, de geheimzinnigste man van Nederland. - Amsterdam : Nijgh & Ditmar, 2003
  About him see also:
• Een trotskist op Raamgracht 4 : voorpubl. van fijf fragmenten uit het tweede deel van de herinneringen van Igor Cornelissen, in: De journalist (Amsterdam), 103.1998 (4), pp. 24-26

Wolfgang and Petra Lubitz
Rev. July 2008