Obituary: Gwenda Beishon

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The Socialist 1 February 2012

Fight this profit-mad system

Bankers bonus scandal - Fight this profit-mad system

Trade unionists and socialists prepare for May elections

What is the point of Labour MPs?

Dead end in Davos

Them & Us

Don't let the racist EDL divide us

Disabled protesters demand scrapping of 'welfare' bill

Haringey takes action against academies

Coventry: Re-elect Dave Nellist

NUS: name the day for student walkout

Save Derbyshire youth services!

Only one in six 'vacancies' real

Tough conditions for agency workers

South East Wales youth plan new campaigns

EU summit - no capitalist solutions to the spiralling eurozone crisis

Interview: the Tunisian revolution one year on

Pensions battle: Unions must campaign for coordinated strike action in March

London Docklands transport workers win Olympics deal

Unison pensions cowardice

Remploy workers fight privatisation

Jet tanker drivers continue strike action

Workplace news in brief

Debate: Should socialists support the HS2 rail line?

Are the Greens a real alternative?

Smacking not the answer

Obituary: Gwenda Beishon

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Over four decades, from the 1970s until her recent death, Gwenda Beishon was a continuous subscriber to the Militant newspaper and then the Socialist.

Throughout this time she was a left-wing member of Brighton Labour Party, regularly condemning the right-wing leadership of the party. Her father - from a Russian-Jewish family - had emerged from World War One's front trenches to enthusiastically welcome the 1917 Russian revolution and adopt communist ideas, later recruiting her Polish-Jewish born mother to them too.

Gwenda met her future husband John in the communist society at Birmingham University, but along with many others they came to reject Stalinist ideology and join the Labour Party, which then included many left-wing and Marxist activists.

Gwenda twice served as a Labour councillor in Brighton, but the political activity that she liked most was her unrelenting local activism - leafleting, discussing with people on doorsteps and helping to sort out their problems. She was also an active trade unionist in the NUT teachers' union.

Gwenda will be remembered as a very avid reader and a lover of classical music, but also as an ardent socialist whose convictions ran very deep.