BY ELLEN BERMAN
SAN FRANCISCO - Stanley Lipman, a former member and lifelong supporter of the Socialist Workers Party, died in Santa Cruz, California, on November 1 after a lengthy illness. He was 85 years old.

Born in Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1913, Stanley was the son of Jewish immigrants. He lived in Lynn for most of his life. A graduate of Lynn Classical High School, he spent just one year in college at Boston University, leaving because his family ran out of money.

Like many other youth in that period, Stanley's experience during the depression of the 1930s drove him to look for political answers to the stark conditions facing workers. Along with a group of friends and several family members, he joined the Trotskyist movement in 1937. During this period, the Workers Party, the predecessor to the Socialist Workers Party was in the process of entering into the Norman Thomas-led Socialist Party.

The left wing of the Socialist Party was attracting large numbers of young people who were looking for a revolutionary program. James P. Cannon and the other leaders of the Workers Party wanted to recruit these youth, workers, trade unionists, and unemployed fighters to communism as part of building a revolutionary party. While in the Socialist Party, Lipman helped organize the Food Workers Union.

In 1938, led by Cannon, many workers and revolutionary- minded youth were expelled from the Socialist Party and formed the Socialist Workers Party. Lipman was one of the founding members of the SWP.

With the party's turn to industry in 1939, as part of preparing for the imminent war, Stanley got a job in the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Navy Yard where he worked as a sheet metal mechanic and coppersmith until 1945. After moving back to Lynn, he worked as a plumber and was a member of the Plumber's Local 12 until his retirement in 1972.

Lipman was active in a number of campaigns during his years in the Socialist Workers Party. One of the earliest was the American Committee for European Workers Relief in the 1940s, a group that raised funds to send support to antifascist fighters during World War II. Many of these fighters were members of the Fourth International, who were refused assistance by other relief organizations because of their political views.

Stanley left the party during the McCarthy period, remaining a sympathizer during that time. He rejoined the Boston branch in 1961 shortly after the Cuban revolution and became active in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. He also participated in the Committee to Aid the Monroe Defendants in the 1960s. This committee was formed to oppose the police frame-up of Robert F. Williams, a leader of the NAACP in Monroe, North Carolina, who organized self-defense in the Black community against Ku Klux Klan activity in their neighborhood.

Most of Stanley's political life was in the Boston and Lynn branches of the SWP, except for a brief period during 1973-74 in the San Diego branch.

In the 1970s, Stanley participated in the Women's National Abortion Action Coalition (WONAC) and in the struggle for school desegregation in Boston. He helped found the North Shore Committee to End the War in Vietnam Now and participated in many antiwar organizations in Boston, including National Peace Action Coalition (NPAC) and attended many antiwar marches in Boston and New York.

Bringing a young carpenter and electrician with him from the Boston area, Stanley joined a team of comrades and supporters for one of the first restructuring projects at the Pathfinder Building, where Pathfinder books and the Militant are published.

Stanley was married to Mary Lipman, who remains an at-large member of the Socialist Workers Party in Santa Cruz. They had three children, Carol, Steven, and Beth. In 1980, he retired from active party life, remaining a party sympathizer.

Lipman read Pathfinder literature voraciously over the years. Family members said just two weeks before his death, he was reading Cosmetics, Fashions, and the Exploitation of Women, and urging his grandson's companion to read the book as well.

Contributions honoring Stanley's life and work can be sent to Pathfinder Press to help produce the books he so valued. Send to Pathfinder, 410 West St., New York, NY 10014.  
 
 
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