Main LA Index | Main Newspaper Index
Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive
From Labor Action, Vol. 10 No. 28, 15 July 1946, p. 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
It is with deep sorrow that Labor Action and the Workers Party announce the sudden death of comrade Antoinette Konikow of Boston, an honorary member of the National Committee of the Socialist Workers Party and for fifty-eight years an active participant in the revolutionary socialist movement.
Memorial services were held in Boston and attended by old friends and comrades. The ceremonies were quite simple. Representatives of the SWP and Saul Friedman, in behalf of the Workmen’s Circle, spoke at the services.
Comrade Konikow’s participation in the revolutionary socialist movement covered a wide span of years. In 1888, she joined the Social Democratic Party of Russia. In the United States, she was a member of the Socialist Labor Party, the Socialist Party and the Communist Party. During the many struggles which took place in those organizations, Antoinette Konikow was found on the side of the left wing, those groupings which adhered to the revolutionary principles of Marxism. She was one of the earliest members of the Trotskyist movement in the United States.
On the occasion of her fiftieth anniversary in the socialist movement, which coincided with the founding of the 4th International, comrade Konikow wrote:
“I saw the beginning of the Second International and its fall. I saw the beginning of the Third International and its fall. Now together we launch the Fourth International which will accomplish the tasks betrayed by the Second and the Third.”
We can only subscribe to the remarks sent to us by our comrade McCarthy of Boston, who was an old friend of comrade Konikow:
“For all of us – adherents of the 4th International – this was a sorrowful occasion. Antoinette was in her 77th year and 58th in the revolutionary working class movement. Her contribution and loyalty to the movement over this long period of years marks her as an outstanding woman and this life-long devotion is one of the finest inspirations our comparatively young movement can possess. For myself, I feel she belonged not only to the SWP but to the entire 4th Internationalist movement.”
Main LA Index | Main Newspaper Index
Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive
Last updated on 8 July 2019