Volunteers’ Biographies

EINDE O’CALLAGHAN

Einde O'Callaghan

Radicalised by events of May 1968 in France, the Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland and the movement against the Vietnam War I first came into contact with the Trotskyist movement in 1969. Despite some initial bad experiences with the Healyite SLL and its Irish offshoot I eventually joined the International Socialists in Britain in 1975 and have been a supporter of the International Socialist Tendency ever since, first in Britain and since 1992 in Germany. I was active in the WASG (the Electoral Alternative for Social Justice), which merged with the Linkspartei.PDS in mid-June 2007 to form a new all-German united left party – DIE LINKE In September 2007 Linksruck, the IST organisation in Germany, dissolved itself as a membership organisation – former members of Linksruck are organised within the “Sozialistische Linke” tendency of DIE LINKE and publish a magazine Marx21. I was a member of the state executive in Saxony (2007–2011) and of the city executive in Chemnitz (2007–2009).

During the mid-1970s I attended the City University, London, where I learned a lot about Marxism and the joys and pitfalls of being a revolutionary agitator. I also managed to pick up a B.Sc. in sociology – something that has never been of particular use to me in getting a job but which looks pretty good on my CV (resumé for my American readers).

I’ve been working on the MIA since July 2000 and at present I administer the following archives: the German-Language Section of the MIA, the Belfort Bax Internet Archive, the Tony Cliff Internet Archive, the James Connolly Internet Archive, the Hal Draper Internet Archive, the Duncan Hallas Internet Archive, the Jim Higgins Internet Archive, the Michael Kidron Internet Archive, the Christian Rakovsky Internet Archive, the Victor Serge Internet Archive, and last and least the Eduard Bernstein Archive. I am also one of the editors of the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL), contribute texts to several other archives and have my own much neglected bilingual English/German site REDS – Die Roten.

I can be reached at eindeo (at) marxists (dot) org.