Out of the Red Closet: Gay and Lesbian Experiences in the Previous Communist Movement
A pamphlet put out by the defunct Kasama Project, detailing accounts of former members and supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Party in the USA who were homosexual and the treatment they received by the party. The accounts contain mental and emotional abuse and bigoted language.
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A short biography of May O…
A short biography of May O'Callaghan, author of the Sinn Fein article enclosed within this Number:
Callaghan was born in Wexford. She studied Modern Languages at the University of Vienna and between 1901 and 1914 taught English and gave lectures on the Irish Literary Revival.
In 1916 she was writing letters on behalf of East London Federation of Suffragettes. This was a Socialist suffragette organisation that broke away from Women's Social and Political Union.
Along with Nellie Cohen (sister of Rose Cohen), between 1919 and 1921 she ran the office of the People's Russian Information Bureau (established by Sylvia Pankhurst). She was also working as the sub-editor of the Workers' Dreadnought at this time. In 1919 the Communist Party (British Section of the Third International) was founded in the flat that she shared with Nellie Cohen and Daisy Lansbury.
In 1924 she travelled to Moscow where she stayed until 1928 and worked in the Translation Section of the Comintern Press Department.
In other words, she stood firmly in the authoritarian camp.