Letters from Peter Bloch to Alfonso Ramirez

Alfonso Ramirez and Peter Bloch maintained an epistolary friendship for almost five decades, after they had been introduced to each other by Ernest Mandel, the secretary of The Fourth International. Peter Bloch had worked with Ernest Mandel in Belgium until the 1960's, when he was an active member of the Socialist Workers Party and wrote for the SWP newspapers under the pseudonyms "Trent Hutter" and "James Parker". He broke away from the SWP over the party’s evaluation of the revolution in Cuba.

The historian and writer Peter Rafael Bloch was born on October 19th, 1921 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. In 1939 he escaped to England and later that year moved to Belgium to get reunited with his family. In 1942 he escaped to Switzerland where he stayed until 1949 when he immigrated to the United States. Peter Bloch studied Hispanic culture and history since his youth and became an authority on Puerto Rican culture. Peter Bloch died in New York on July 31st, 2008.