Thanh Kiem, a 35- -year- old Vietnamese. Trotskyist. leader, died recently in Paris of cancer,’ the April: issue:-of Quatriéme |. Internationale reports. According to the monthly organ of the French Trotskyists, Kiem joined a vanguard Tevolutionary youth organization in ‘south Vietnam when he was very young.
“After the French imperialists ‘launched their. war to reconquer the rebellious colony, Kiem became a guerrilla Fighter, participat-— ing in the struggle for two years.
As a guerrilla fighter, Kiem ran across some of the works of | Leon’ Trotsky. These clarified a whole series of problems for ‘him and determined his subsequent, outlook. :
As. he explained the new concepts: to his comrades-in-arms, he found himself the object of: increasing suspicion and hostility from where he joined the Fourth International. After the Geneva agreement 7 he went to France to study for qualification as an engineer.
‘He participated in the political activities of the French section of the Fourth International while continuing his studies and also maintaining. contact. with his Trotskyist comrades in Vietnam. He was about to return to Vietnam when his | Lingering illness: “began.
~The revolution constituted the essence of his. life, declares : Quatriéme Internationale. He never. spared himself. He was a talented writer, a tireless recruiter and he had an extraordinary number of contacts whom he knew how to bring closer to the revolutionary movement. "His gentle demeanor was linked with the need for the greatest rigor in-his work in which he never spared himself and in which . no task was beneath him."
' Two years ‘ago the French .Trotskyists nominated him to serve as an alternate :on their Central - Committee ‘and he became | a. full mem— ber’ at their eighteenth congress.’ o
His last. article; ‘speaking out against the. war “in 1 Vietnam, a appeared in the October issue of | Suetrieme Internationale under: cthe...pen name of-Long Tuyen. =» colossus:
The Vietnamese Trotskyists sent a cable from Saigon reading: "Vietnamese comrades | regret stunning loss of Kiem. Sincere condo— lences. tt © ; oe ae
‘Besides. relatives. in Vietnam, Kien is, survived byt his wife and a newly. ‘born Gaughter: : i ok a
MALLTKARJUN RAO
Mallikarjun Rao, a leader of the Socialist Workers party of India, died at Secunderabad: iniMarch. Neither his age nor the cause of death were meported:: -Heiis survived -by his wife and: three chil- . dren. Pye as Eber, ie.
Born in ‘the Guntur ‘district,