Letter

Esperanto and the Left

Dear Editor

The letter from Ralph Dumain (Revolutionary History, Volume 7, no. 4) gave some out-of-date information about the left’s involvement in Esperanto and the organisation SAT. Its journal Sennaciulo is not specifically Anarchist, although the Stalinist-inspired split in the 1930s left the Anarchists in a predominant position. Although this has continued until the present, there is now an official Communist Fraction within the organisation with the right to publish its communications in Sennaciulo. It is unfair to describe the journal as ‘Anarchist’ as all members of SAT have the right of publication. Although some of the Anarchists are still in a 1930s mindset, this is not the case for the whole of the left in the organisation. The author of the original article on the Spanish Civil War (Petro Levy) is a member of the French Communist Party and a leader of the Communist Fraction of SAT. Even so, he recently advised a young Austrian Trotskyist who had enquired about Trotskyism in SAT that he could join the Communist Fraction! It was not intended as a joke.

Ron Lynn