Victor Granovsky

1952-2019

Our comrade Victor Granovsky died on 15 May 2019, at age 66, in New York City after an eight-month struggle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). A veteran cadre, Victor was instrumental in the International Communist League’s Trotskyist intervention against the 1991-92 capitalist counterrevolution in the former Soviet Union.

Growing up in Los Angeles, Victor was radicalized by the Vietnam War and the state terror against the Black Panther Party. He and his cothinkers formed the Communist Working Collective, a Maoist group that, after being won to Trotskyism, fused with the Spartacist League in 1971. That fusion was crucial for the SL’s ability to launch Workers Vanguard. In the mid 1970s, Victor moved to our center in New York, where he joined WV’s Composition department. He was a graphic designer by profession.

Victor served as the ICL’s main public spokesman throughout the existence of our Moscow station, which lasted until the mid 1990s. At a gathering in December 2018 at the Prometheus Research Library in New York, Victor emphasized, “Comrades can be proud that we were the ones who planted the flag of Trotskyism, defended October to the very last.”

Victor’s astute political understanding and linguistic skills were exceptional assets that facilitated our publication of Russian-language propaganda over the years. As an editorial board member of the English edition of Spartacist, Victor made many and far-ranging contributions, from initiating and drafting the article on the counterrevolutionary 1921 Kronstadt uprising in issue No. 59 (Spring 2006) to conducting critical historical research and producing documentation for numerous other articles.

Victor was known as the party’s funniest and most dramatic storyteller, and we miss him deeply. We extend condolences to his sister and our comrade Irene, her husband Tom and Victor’s family, and to his many comrades and friends around the world.

A fuller obituary for Victor was printed in Workers Vanguard No. 1157 (21 June 2019).