Daniel Bensaid was a veteran French socialist activist and theoretician. A member of the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA), he was also a leader of the Fourth International. In the article below, slightly abridged from www.internetionalviewpoint.org Francois Sabado, an NPA activist and FI leader, pays respect to his friend and comrade.
Daniel left us today, January 12, 2010. Born in 1946 he gave his life to the cause of defending revolutionary Marxist ideas right to the end.
He was one of the founders in France Revolutionary Communist Youth (JCR) and the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR)
A leader of the May 1968 movement, when France was rocked by a student and worker uprising, he was one of those people with a very sure feeling for political initiative.
Grasping the dynamic of social movements, in particular the link between the student movement and the workers' general strike, he was also one of those who understood the necessity of building a political organisation, of accumulating the forces for building a revolutionary party.
The quality of Daniel's intelligence was to combine theory and practice, intuition and political understanding, ideas and organisation. He could lead a stewarding force and write a theoretical text at the same time.
He was one of those who inspired a fight that combined principles and political boundaries with openness and a rejection of sectarianism. Daniel, his own political convictions deeply rooted in him, was always the first to want to discuss, to try to convince, to exchange opinions, and to renew his own thinking.
As a member of the daily leadership of the LCR from the end of the '60s to the beginning of the '90s, he played a decisive role in building a project, an orientation that combined daily activity with a revolutionary outlook.
A good part of his theoretical and political work was focused on questions of strategy, and the lessons of the main historical revolutionary experiences.
Daniel was profoundly internationalist. He played a key role in the building the LCR in the Spanish state during the Franco dictatorship. In those years, he played a major role in the Fourth International, in particular following developments in Latin America and Brazil.
He contributed largely to renewing our vision of the world and to preparing us for the upheavals of the end of the '80s.
From the '90s until the end, while continuing his political fight, he concentrated on theoretical work: the history of political ideas; Marx's Capital; the balance sheet of the 20th century and its revolutions; ecology; feminism; identities and the Jewish question; and developing new policies for the revolutionary left faced with capitalist globalisation.
He regularly attended and followed the World Social Forum and the global justice movement.
Daniel ensured the historical continuity of open, non-dogmatic, revolutionary Marxism and adaptation to the changes of the new era, with the perspective of revolutionary transformation of society always in his sights.
Although seriously ill, he overcame it for years — thinking, writing, working on his ideas, never refusing to travel, to speak at rallies or attend simple meetings.
Daniel set himself the task of checking the solidity of our foundations and passing them on to the young generation. He put his heart and all his strength into it.
His contributions, at the International Institute in Amsterdam, in the summer universities of the LCR and then of the NPA, at the Fourth International youth camp, made an impact on thousands of comrades.
Transmitting the experience of the LCR to the NPA, Daniel decided to accompany the foundation of our new organisation with a relaunch of the review Contretemps and forming the "Louise Michel" society as a place for discussion and reflection of radical thought.
Daniel was all that. And in addition he was warm and convivial. He loved life.
Although many "68ers" turned their coats and abandoned the ideals of their youth, Daniel abandoned none of them; he didn't change. He is still with us.