LONDON — Rose Knight, a 50-year veteran of the communist movement, died June 26 after a yearslong illness. She was 76. Knight was a founding member of the Communist League in 1988 and served on the party’s Central Committee in its early years.
She had joined the League’s forerunner, the International Marxist Group, in the early ’70s, while she was active in the movement for women’s liberation, Nick Beeton, her husband and lifelong companion, told the Militant.
Knight was part of the successful struggle to build communist parties in the U.K. and internationally that are working class in program, course of conduct, and composition, taking jobs in rail and in meatpacking.
When declining health prevented her from continuing to sustain work in industry, Knight shouldered responsibility for distributing the Militant and getting books on revolutionary working-class politics into commercial outlets around the U.K.
A full appreciation of her life and political contributions will be run in a forthcoming issue.