Ed Merrill

Workers World Party lost a wonderful comrade on Jan. 27. Ed Merrill, 80, died in a hospital here after a long battle with illness. He had been a founding member of the party, a National Committee member, and for many years an organizer and member of the Steering Committee of the Buffalo branch.

Ed Merrill

An outpouring of Buffalo comrades and friends, family, neighbors and hospital workers gathered on Jan. 29-31 at a local funeral home to honor Ed's life and to support Jeanette Merrill, his partner of 50 years, their daughter Mallory and grandson Tim.

It was a beautiful tribute to Ed. There was almost as much laughter from joyful memories as tears of loss. A spectrum of generations took part. Many young people visited all three days to talk about how much Ed meant in their lives.

When word had spread in the hospital of his death, his room began to fill with staff of all ages and nationalities. They came from other floors and departments; some came in early for their shifts or stayed later to pay their respects to this remarkable human being who had touched their lives. Ed had the courage, even from his hospital bed, to take on George Bush, the imperialist war and the occupation of Palestine.

Ed was born in 1924 in Old Town, Me. In his childhood, his family moved across the Penobscot River to Bradley, Me., an area so rural that, as he explained, "If you walked out our farmhouse door you'd have to walk two weeks before you'd come to a town." He recalled, "I was young when I first went into the woods. We were poor. We cut roads into the forest for the lumbermen. In the summer there was no air in the woods. Biting flies, mosquito stings. At night we slept on long boards with a little hay on them."

'Socialism sounds good!'

During World War II, Ed was stationed on a Navy minesweeper in the North Atlantic. After he came back from the war, Ed walked six miles every day to the University of Maine, getting a bachelor's degree in history and government with a minor in philosophy.

In 1951, he moved to Buffalo looking for work. He recalled, "I got a job making ice at the old Statler Hotel. I was complaining about the Korean War so loud that another worker asked me: 'What do you think about socialism?' I said: 'I like the idea.' She asked me if I'd like to meet a top socialist. That was Sam Marcy." Marcy later founded Workers World Party.

The first meeting Ed attended was invaded by some plainclothes cops. Someone took pictures of the audience, but a comrade quickly wrested the camera away. Since no one at the meeting was intimidated, the cops left. This was Eddie's introduction to the movement. That night and throughout his life, he met repression and intimidation with quiet strength and humor.

Ed worked outdoors on a track gang at Bethlehem Steel in Lackawanna and later at the Wickwire Division of Colorado Fuel & Iron in nearby Tonawanda--both industrial suburbs of Buffalo.

In those days, before the high-tech revolutionizing of the means of production, Buffalo was a center of industry and transportation. Until the 1950s anti-communist witch hunt, the group with Marcy was deeply rooted in key industrial plants--Bethlehem Steel in Lackawanna, Westinghouse in Cheektowaga, and Bell Aircraft in Tonawanda. But with the rise of McCarthyism, they were swept out of the factories, early victims of the Cold War. Their political struggles became defensive in character.

After the world war, U.S. imperialism had emerged as the Number One superpower and soon launched the Cold War against the Soviet Union and the socialist camp. It was hard to build and sustain a revolutionary tendency in that climate of political reaction. But the group in Buffalo held on to their revolutionary political world view, seeing their work as part of the global class struggle.

Ed held on to his job at Wickwire until the plant closed in 1964. The union there had remained strong during the anti-communist witch hunt of the 1950s, and he remained a shop steward and activist. He credited the militancy of the Black workers for the union's strength.

After Wickwire closed, Ed was hired and fired from a succession of four jobs in small non-union sweatshops. He had given Wickwire as a job reference. A letter from a bogus employer requesting a reference uncovered the reason for the firings. Wickwire wrote back: "Edward Merrill has a satisfactory work record. However, he was periodically checked by the FBI. We suggest you contact the local FBI office for further information." And as if that weren't enough, the FBI visited each shop to inquire about Ed.

In 1946, Ed had signed up with the Naval Reserve, thinking to pull in a little extra income--like so many in Iraq today. In 1952, he received a letter from the U.S. Commandant of the Third Naval District in New York City reminding him that he had not signed a loyalty oath.

In 1954 he received another letter outlining the terms he must meet to avoid a dishonorable discharge from the Naval Reserve. They referred to "alleged conduct, associations, casting doubt on your loyalty." There were 10 pages of questions: "List names and organizations associated with advocacy of revolution, and economic, social and political change ... classes attended, or led, names of instructors and attendees," and so on.

No more veterans' benefits for Ed, which at that time were more substantial than today.

Bringing Marxism to new generations

During the 1960s and 1970s factories were closing. Ed recalled, "The workers weren't moving but the students were." Ed and Jeanette organized meetings that inspired students on the restive campus of the University of Buffalo, injecting a class-conscious world view of the anti-war struggle. Together they helped kindle a chapter of the militant Youth Against War & Fascism. Many soon joined the Buffalo branch of Workers World Party.

Ed read the revolutionary classics of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky over and over, making these great ideas part of his nerve and fiber. He paid similar attention to the thinking of Sam Marcy. He swallowed up books on the labor movement, on Black, Latin@ and Native American history, on the communist movement, on world and U.S. history. He was an avid student of the Civil War.

In the house of Merrill, frugality went out the window when it came to books. He was always eager to listen and engage in discussions, from an elementary level to advanced political economy. Many benefitted from his countless classes and educational talks and recall his beautiful soft tenor voice and gentle manner--never formidable or bombastic.

All this understanding and knowledge would have meant little if kept to himself. The richness and value of his historical and theoretical knowledge lay in the life-changing influence he had sharing it with all who thirsted to understand their world. But knowledge and understanding are worth little without the spark which inspires an individual to commit to the struggle. Eddie, by his own life and being, provided that spark.

Many party leaders in New York, Philadelphia, Buffalo, San Diego,
Roches ter and San Francisco, who remain steadfast in the struggle, name him as their mentor or as the primary person who influenced them to become Marxist revolutionaries.

For five decades Ed never wavered. He took up the fight against racism--supporting the Mothers Alliance in its fight to stop racist school segregation and to end discrimination in hiring at Grant's and Woolworth's. He struggled to free fighters for liberation in the Black Panther Party as well as Mae Mallory, Robert Williams and the Deacons for Defense, Martin Sostre and Geraldine Robinson. Robin son, now Geraldine Pointer, spoke at Ed's funeral, recalling that Ed and Jeanette, representing the Martin Sostre Defense Committee, had supported her and her children during the frameup of the African American bookstore owner.

Ed was an anti-war activist--from Korea to Vietnam to the wars of aggression against Iraq. He longed to see Cuba, but sadly never got there. He defended women's rights and the rights of transgender and transsexual, lesbian/gay and bisexual people from the early stirrings of those movements.

And when he carried the heavy weight of illness, over the span of many years, he did so with courage, optimism and a sense of humor, remaining a loving husband, father and grandfather. He continued doing political outreach the whole time he was ill, giving perspective to all around him, from the road workers outside his home to the hospital workers at his bedside.

In the struggle for a communist world, all that Comrade Ed Merrill brought lives on.

Comrades and friends of Ed Merrill in Buffalo and New York contributed
to this article.