Joseph Hansen (socialist)
Encyclopedia
Joseph Leroy Hansen was an American Trotskyist and leading figure in the Socialist Workers Party
Socialist Workers Party (United States)
The Socialist Workers Party is a far-left political organization in the United States. The group places a priority on "solidarity work" to aid strikes and is strongly supportive of Cuba...

.

Born in Richfield, Utah
Richfield, Utah
Richfield is a city in and the county seat of Sevier County, Utah, in the United States, and is the largest city in southern-central Utah. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 7,551. It lies in the Mormon Corridor, just off of Interstate 70 about 40 miles east of its junction with...

, Joseph Hansen was the oldest of 15 children in a poor working class family, and he was the only one of them who could attend college. His father, Conrad J. Z. Hansen, was a tailor, originally from Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

.

Hansen became politically radicalized during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 and he became a convinced socialist and joined the American Trotskyist group led by James P. Cannon
James P. Cannon
James Patrick "Jim" Cannon was an American Trotskyist and a leader of the Socialist Workers Party.Born on February 11, 1890 in Rosedale, Kansas, he joined the Socialist Party of America in 1908 and the Industrial Workers of the World in 1911...

.

With his wife Reba, Hansen went to Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 to meet the exiled Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n Communist leader, Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....

, and Hansen served as Trotsky's secretary and guard from 1937 for the next three years. When the Stalinist agent Ramón Mercader
Ramón Mercader
Jaime Ramón Mercader del Río Hernández was a Spanish communist who became famous as the murderer of Russian Communist ideologist Leon Trotsky in 1940, in Mexico...

 struck Trotsky in the head with an ice axe, Hansen, together with Charles Cornell
Charles Cornell
Charles Olney Cornell was an American Communist.Cornell was born on March 14, 1911 in Cochise, Arizona. While a teacher in San Francisco in the 1930s, he became active in the American Trotskyist movement and joined the newly founded Socialist Workers Party in 1938.The SWP proposed that Charles...

, prevented the assassin from fleeing.

Hansen returned to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and started working as a merchant seaman. At this time, he became editor of the SWP's newspaper, The Militant
The Militant
The Militant is an international Socialist newsweekly connected to the Socialist Workers Party and the Pathfinder Tendency. It is published in the United States and distributed in other countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Sweden, Iceland, and New...

 
for a number of years. From 1940 to 1975, Joe Hansen served on the SWP’s National Committee. In 1950, he ran on the SWP ticket for U.S. Senator from New York.

He helped arrange the reunification of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International and the International Committee of the Fourth International
International Committee of the Fourth International
The International Committee of the Fourth International is the name of two Trotskyist internationals; one with sections named Socialist Equality Party which publishes the World Socialist Web Site and another linked to the Workers Revolutionary Party in Britain.-Foundation:The International...

 into the United Secretariat of the Fourth International in 1963. He became a leader of the USFI and an editor of the USFI's weekly English-language news service, initially called "World Outlook" and later changed to "Intercontinental Press
Intercontinental Press
Intercontinental Press was a weekly news magazine produced on behalf of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International between 1963 and 1986. The magazine was founded as "World Outlook" in 1963 under the editorial direction of Joseph Hansen, Pierre Frank and Reba Hansen. A parallel edition in...

/Inprecor
Inprecor
Inprecor is a multilingual monthly Marxist magazine published by the reunified Fourth International. Its name is a contraction of International Press Correspondence and indicates that the magazine translates articles and letters from revolutionaries around the world.Inprecor was established by the...

".

Joseph Hansen strongly supported the Cuban Revolution
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...

 of 1959 and wrote a book about it, Dynamics of the Cuban Revolution. A Marxist Appreciation. He visited Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

 together with Farrell Dobbs
Farrell Dobbs
Farrell Dobbs was an American Trotskyist and trade unionist.He was born in Queen City, Missouri where his father was a worker in a coal mine. They moved to Minneapolis, and he graduated from North High School in 1925. In 1926, he left for North Dakota to find work, but returned the following fall...

 in the early 1960s. They were both active in launching of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee
Fair Play for Cuba Committee
The Fair Play for Cuba Committee was an activist group set up in New York in April 1960. The FPCC's purpose was to provide grassroots support for the Cuban Revolution against attacks by the United States government, once Fidel Castro began openly admitting his commitment to Marxism and began the...

.

Joe Hansen died from infectious complications in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 on January 18, 1979. His wife and close collaborator, Reba Hansen, remained in the Socialist Workers Party
Socialist Workers Party (United States)
The Socialist Workers Party is a far-left political organization in the United States. The group places a priority on "solidarity work" to aid strikes and is strongly supportive of Cuba...

 until she died in 1990.

Publications


External links

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