Socialist activist Lillian Pollak dies at 101
2016Marty Goodman 2016-09Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 8 →
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Hear the Socialist Action candidates!
Jeff Mackler, Socialist Action’s candidate for U.S. president, will participate in a series of panel discussions and debates with a broad range of political activists. For details call: 510268-9429 or contact [email protected].
• Sunday, Sept. 11, 10:30 a.m, Niebyl Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA 94609 • Friday, Sept. 16, Pearl Studios, 500 8th Ave., New York City, 10018, [email protected] or call 212-781-5157 • Sunday, Sept. 18, 2 p.m., Community Room (2nd floor), Albany Public Library, 161 Washington Ave., Albany, NY 12210, 518-2811968 • Monday, Sept. 19, 7 p.m., Encuentro 5, 9 Hamilton Pl. Suite 2a, Boston, MA 02108 (near Park St. Station)
• Wednesday, Sept. 21, 7 pm, DARE (Direct Action for Rights and Equality), 340 Lockwood St., Providence, RI 02907 • Thursday, Sept. 22, 7 p.m., Central Connecticut State University, Camp Room, Student Center. New Britain, Conn.
Sunday, Sept. 25, 2 p.m., William Way LGBT Center, 1315 Spruce St., Philadelphia Karen Schraufnagel, Socialist Action’s candidate for vice president, will speak:
• Friday, Oct. 14, DePaul University Loop Campus, 333 S. State St., Rm. C108, Chicago 8 SOCIALIST ACTION SEPTEMBER 2016 buried on Aug. 10 surrounded by fam ily, friends, and comrades in the Wellwood Cemetery in Farmingdale, Long Island. She was 101 years old.
Lillian suffered a stroke on Aug. 1. She was in a coma ever since. It was her written wish that she not be kept alive by drugs or artifi cial respiration should such a situation occur. Lillian was one of the few remaining radi cals to have been alive during the 1917 Rus sian Revolution. She became active in radi cal politics at age 16, joined the Communist Party, and later joined the Trotskyist move ment—then within the Communist League of America, and after 1938, the Socialist Workers Party. For a few years, Lillian was a member of Socialist Action.
Lillian was an activist until the end. She participated with Women in Black, a group in solidarity with the struggle for Palestin ian rights, in their weekly vigils in Union Square. She often sang with “The Raging Grannies,” an antiwar, anti-racist choir, which performed at innumerable protests and leftist events in New York City. Only two months before her death, Lillian attend ed a Socialist Action film showing on South Africa, and stopped by our book table to dis cuss socialist ideas and buy books. Lillian and her comrades visited Leon Trotsky in Mexico, which was described in her semi-autobiographical novel, “The Sweetest Dream,” published in 2008. “The Sweetest Dream” was the story of her life and loves in the 1930s, and also describes life in the New York revolution ary movement during that period. The book cover shows Leon Trotsky in the rear with Lillian below and to the right in the photo. On the far left is Natalya Sedova, Trotsky’s wife. The book can be purchased on Ama zon.com. If you can, buy the later version for best readability.
For more about Lillian, go to YouTube and enter Lillian Pollak, which lists her reading her poem on occupied Gaza, “Cousin, do not come.” YouTube also features interviews with Lillian. A film is now being made in her honor. We will all miss her terribly. Lillian’s favorite Trotsky quote was, “Life is beautiful … live it to the fullest.” n
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By BILL ONASCH