Pat Jordan

Pat Jordan was a British Trotskyist who was central to founding the International Marxist Group. He had been a full time organiser of the Communist Party of Great Britain in Nottingham who had left the party with Ken Coates after the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary. After a brief period working with Socialist Review Group in 1956, they joined the Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) briefly in 1957. Jordan became the RSL's organisational secretary, before and then leaving to form the Internationalist Group. Based in Nottingham, he launched, edited and printed a weekly duplicated magazine, The Week, at his tiny bookshop. It was largely financed by his skill in retailing second-hand books and comics.

A shortlived reunification with the RSL in 1964 ended early in 1965, partly in protest at the RSL's support for the expulsion of members of the Socialist Labour League from the Wandsworth Labour Party.

Working with Tony Southall, Charlie van Gelderen, Ken Coates, and a group students from Nottingham University he formed the International Group, which would eventually evolve into the International Marxist Group. He helped build the relationship between the Fourth International and New Left Review.

In the 1970s Pat worked full time for the International Marxist Group as its national secretary and then for the Fourth International, when he helped in the work of the Africa Commission.

In 1985 he was struck by a chronically disabling stroke, and removed from active political involvement. He died in August 2001.

External links

• Tony Southall, Obituary