Earl Russell Browder

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Earl Russell Browder
Born	May 20, 1891(1891-05-20) Wichita, Kansas
Died	June 27, 1973 (aged 82)
Known for	Communist Party USA

Earl Russell Browder (May 20, 1891 – June 27, 1973) was an American communist and General Secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1934 to 1945. He was expelled from the party in 1946.

Biography

Early years

Earl Browder was born in Wichita, Kansas on May 20, 1891, the eighth child of an American-born father sympathetic to populism. ^[1] He joined the Socialist Party of America in Wichita in 1907 at the age of 16 and remained in that organization until the party split of 1912, when many of the group's syndicalistically oriented members exited the organization in response to the addition of an anti-sabotage clause to the party constitution and the recall of National Executive Committeeman William "Big Bill" Haywood.^[1] Historian Theodore Draper notes that Browder "was influenced by an offshoot of the syndicalist movement which believed in working in the AF of L (American Federation of Labor)."^[1] This ideological orientation brought the young Browder into contact with William Z. Foster, founder of an organization called the Syndicalist League of North America which was based upon similar policies and James P. Cannon, an IWW adherent from Kansas.

Browder moved to Kansas City and was employed as an office worker, entering the AF of L union of his trade, the Bookkeepers, Stenographers and Accountants union.^[1] In 1916 he took a job as manager of the Johnson County Cooperative Association in Olathe, Kansas.

Earl Browder
Prison photo, 1917

Browder was aggressively opposed to World War I and publicly spoke out against it, characterizing the fighting as an imperialist conflict. After the United States joined the war in 1917, Browder was arrested and charged under the Espionage Act conspiring to defeat the operation of the draft law and nonregistration.^[2] Browder was sentenced to 2 years in prison for conspiracy and 1 year for nonregistration,^[2] sitting in jail from December 1917 to November 1918.

In 1919, Browder, Cannon, and their Kansas City associates started a radical newspaper, The Workers World, with Browder serving as the first editor. In June of that year Browder was jailed again on a conspiracy charge, however, with Cannon taking over as editor.^[2] Browder's second prison stint, served at Leavenworth Penitentiary, lasted until November 1920, putting him out of circulation during the critical interval when the Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party quit the SPA to form the Communist Party of America and the Communist Labor Party.^[2] A series of splits and mergers followed, with the two Communist parties formally merging in 1921.

Released from prison at last, Browder lost no time in joining the United Communist Party (UCP), as well as the fledgling Trade Union Educational League (TUEL) being launched by his old associate William Z. Foster. Browder found employment as the managing editor of the monthly magazine of TUEL, The Labor Herald.

In 1920 the Communist International (Comintern) headed by Grigory Zinoviev decided to establish an international confederation of Communist trade unions, the Red International of Labor Unions (RILU, or "Profintern"). A founding convention was planned to be held in Moscow in July 1921 and an American delegation was gathered, including members of the American Communist Parties and the Industrial Workers of the World. Earl Browder was named to this delegation, ostensibly representing Kansas miners, with the non-party man Foster attending as a journalist representing the Federated Press.^[3] This trip to Soviet Russia incidentally proved decisive in bringing the syndicalist Foster over to the Communist movement.

Throughout the early 1920s, Browder and Foster worked together closely in the TUEL, trying to win over the support of the Chicago Federation of Labor in the establishment of a new mass Farmer-Labor Party that would be able to challenge the electoral hegemony of the Republican and Democratic parties.

In 1928, the estranged Browder and his lover Kitty Harris went to China and lived in Shanghai where they worked together on behalf of RILU's Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat, a Comintern organization engaged in clandestine labor organizing. The pair returned to the United States in 1929.

CPUSA leadership

Browder became General Secretary of the Communist party in 1930 and took over the top position of party chairman in 1932 after William Z. Foster suffered a heart attack. During his term as General Secretary, Browder embraced the popular front tactic and led the CPUSA's tactic of expressing support for the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt, while demanding that it should go much farther in terms of restructuring the capitalist system. Browder was the party's candidate for President of the United States in the 1936 presidential election but received only 80,195 votes. During this time, Browder made at least one and possibly two trips to the Soviet Union on a false U.S. passport.^[4][5] After admitting he had traveled on a false passport in a public statement,^[6] he was tried and sentenced to prison in 1940 for passport violations. Browder was released after 14 months when the United States joined World War II and became an ally of the Soviet Union.

In 1944, perceiving the end of the war and the possibility of postwar tension between Washington and Moscow, Browder made moves to distance the CPUSA from the Soviet Union, declaring that communism and capitalism could peacefully co-exist. This policy became known in the Party as Browderism. However, the CPUSA followed Stalin's instructions to reconstitute itself as the Communist Political Association.

Espionage activities

Browder is alleged to have been involved in constructing an underground branch of the CPUSA, called the secret apparatus.^{[citation needed]} This branch was intended to assist the Soviet Union in maintaining dominance of the CPUSA in policy issues, as well as to recruit potential espionage agents for Soviet intelligence.^{[citation needed]}

In 1938 Rudy Baker (Venona code name: SON) was appointed to head the CPUSA underground apparatus to replace J. Peters, after the defection of Whittaker Chambers, allegedly at the request of Browder (Venona code name: FATHER).^{[citation needed]} According to self-confessed NKVD recruiter Louis Budenz, he and Browder participated in discussions with Soviet intelligence officials to plan the assassination of Leon Trotsky.^[7]

Browder himself ran an agent network, which he turned over to Jacob Golos, then Elizabeth Bentley after he was sentenced to prison.^{[citation needed]}

While in custody, Browder never revealed his status as an agent recruiter to U.S. authorities, and was never prosecuted for espionage. Venona decrypt #588 April 29 1944 from the KGB New York office states “for more than a year Zubilin (station chief) and I tried to get in touch with Victor Perlo and Charles Flato. For some reason Browder did not come to the meeting and just decided to put Bentley in touch with the whole group. All occupy responsible positions in Washington, D.C.” Soviet intelligence thought highly of Browder's recruitment work: in a 1946 OGPU memorandum, Browder was personally credited with hiring eighteen intelligence agents for the Soviet Union.^{[citation needed]}

Members of Browder's family were involved in work for Soviet intelligence. According to a 1938 classified letter from Browder to Georgi Dimitrov, in the Soviet archives, Browder’s younger sister Marguerite was an agent working in various European countries for the NKVD.^{[citation needed]} Browder expressed concern over the effect it would have on the American public if his sister’s secret work for Soviet intelligence were to be exposed: “In view of my increasing involvement in national political affairs and growing connections in Washington political circles”...“it might become dangerous to this political work if hostile circles in America should obtain knowledge of my sister’s work.” He requested she be released from her European duties and returned to America to serve “in other fields of activity.” Browder’s request was followed in short order by a classified letter from Dimitrov to “Comrade Yezhov,” (Nikolai Yezhov, then head of the NKVD) requesting Marguerite Browder’s transfer.^{[citation needed]} Browder's niece, Helen Lowry, (aka Elza Akhmerova, also Elsa Akhmerova) worked with Iskhak Akhmerov, a Soviet NKVD espionage controller from 1936 - 1939 under the code name ADA (later changed to ELZA)). In 1939, Helen Lowry married Akhmerov. Lowry was named by Soviet intelligence agent Elizabeth Bentley as one of her contacts; she and Akhmerov and their actions on behalf of Soviet intelligence are referenced in several Venona project decryptions as well as Soviet KGB archives.^{[citation needed]}

Expulsion and after

With the end of the Great Power alliance at the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, "Browderism" came under attack from the rest of the international Communist movement. In 1945, Jacques Duclos, a leader of the French Communist Party, published an article denouncing Browder's policy. With the Comintern having been dissolved during the war, the "Duclos letter" was used to informally communicate Moscow's views. William Z. Foster, Browder's predecessor and a staunch Marxist-Leninist, led the opposition to Browder within the party and replaced him as party chairman in 1945, with Eugene Dennis taking over as General Secretary. Browder was expelled from the party in 1946.

Browder continued to campaign for his views outside the Party and criticized the CPUSA's domination by Moscow, writing that "The American Communists had thrived as champions of domestic reform. But when the Communists abandoned reforms and championed a Soviet Union openly contemptuous of America while predicting its quick collapse, the same party lost all its hard-won influence. It became merely a bad word in the American language."^{[citation needed]}

In April 1950, Browder was called to testify before a Senate Committee investigating Communist activity. Questioned by Joseph McCarthy, Browder was willing to criticize the American Communist Party but refused to answer questions that would incriminate former comrades. He also lied under oath that he had never been involved in espionage activities.^[8] Browder was charged with contempt of Congress, but Judge F. Dickinson Letts ordered his acquittal because he felt the committee had not acted legally. Browder was never prosecuted either for his perjury before the committee or for his spying on behalf of the Soviet Union.

In March 1950, Browder shared a platform with Max Shachtman, the dissident Trotskyist, in which the pair debated socialism. Browder defended the Soviet Union while Shachtman acted as a prosecutor. It is reported that at one point in the debate Shachtman listed a series of leaders of various Communist Parties and noted that each had perished at the hands of Stalin; at the end of this speech, he remarked that Browder too had been a leader of a Communist Party and, pointing at him, announced: "There-there but for an accident of geography, stands a corpse!" ^[9]

An unsuccessful attempt was made to reinstate Browder to the good graces of the CPUSA following the Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956, a period in which some within the American Communist Party briefly sought to exert its independence from Moscow. This effort at liberalization was soon defeated, however.

On June 2, 1957, Browder appeared on the television program The Mike Wallace Interview, where he was grilled for 30 minutes about his past in the Communist Party. Host Mike Wallace quoted Browder as having recently said "Getting thrown out of the Communist Party was the best thing that ever happened to me" and asked for elaboration. Browder replied:

"That's right. I meant that the Communist Party and the whole communist movement was changing its character, and in 1945, when I was kicked out, the parting of the ways had come, and if I hadn't been kicked out I would have had the difficult task of disengaging myself from a movement that I could no longer agree with and no longer help."^[10]

"I was involved in no conspiracies," Browder adamantly declared to Wallace and his television audience.^[10]

Death and legacy

Although remaining committed to the cause of socialism, Earl Browder remained outside of the Communist Party until his death in Princeton, New Jersey on June 27, 1973. He was survived by three sons, Felix, William, and Andrew, all mathematicians, none of whom followed their father into the Communist movement.

See also

• History of Soviet espionage in the United States
• Popular Front
• Jacob Golos

References

Further reading

Material by Browder

• A system of accounts for a small consumers' co-operative New York : Cooperative League of America, 1918.
• Andrés Nin Struggle of the trade unions against fascism (introduction) Chicago : The Trade Union Educational League, 1923. (Labor Herald Library #8)
• Solomon Lozovsky The world's trade union movement (introduction) Chicago : The Trade Union Educational League, 1924. (Labor Herald Library #10)
• Unemployment, why it occurs and how to fight it Chicago, Ill. : Literature Dept., Workers Party of America, 1924.
• Trade unions in America (with James Cannon and William Z. Foster) Chicago, Ill. : Published for the Trade Union Educational League by the Daily worker 1925 (Little red library #1)
• Class Struggle vs. Class Collaboration. Chicago: Workers Party of America, 1925. (The little red library #2)
• Civil War in Nationalist China. Chicago: Labor Unity Publishing Association, 1927.
• Out of a job New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1930.
• War against workers' Russia! New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1931.
• Secret Hoover-Laval war pacts New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1931.
• The fight for bread: keynote speech New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1932.
• The Meaning of Social-Fascism: Its Historical and Theoretical Background. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1933.
• What every worker should know about the N.R.A New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1933.
• Is planning possible under capitalism? New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1933.
• What is the new deal? New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1933.
• Technocracy and Marxism (with William Z. Foster and Molotov) New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1933.
• Karl Marx, 1883-1933 (with Max Bedacht and Sam Don) New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1933.
• Organize mass struggle for social insurance: tasks of the American Communist Party in organizing struggle for social insurance (with Sergei Ivanovich Gusev) New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1933.
• Report of the Central Committee to the Eighth Convention of the Communist Party of the USA, Held in Cleveland, Ohio, April 2-8, 1934. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1934.
• The Communist party and the emancipation of the Negro people New York, N.Y. : Harlem section of the Communist Party, 1934.
• Communism in the United States. New York: International Publishers, 1935.
• Unemployment insurance: the burning issue of the day New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1935.
• New steps in the united front; Report on the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International, New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1935.
• Democracy or Fascism: Earl Browder's Report to the Ninth Convention of the Communist Party. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1936.
• Debate: Which Road for American Workers — Socialist or Communist? with Norman Thomas, New York: Socialist Call, 1936.
• What Is Communism? New York: Vanguard Press, 1936.
• Red baiting: enemy of labor; with a letter to Homer Martin by Earl Browder by Louis Budenz New York : Workers Library Publishers, 1937
• Trotskyism Against World Peace. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1937.
• China and the U. S. A. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1937.
• Report to the Tenth National Convention of the Communist Party on Behalf of the Central Committee. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1938.
• Traitors in American History: Lessons of the Moscow Trials. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1938.
• The People's Front. New York: International Publishers, 1938.
• Religion and Communism. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1939
• Theory as a Guide to Action. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1939.
• The People's Road to Peace. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1940. — Speech to 11th Convention.
• The Second Imperialist War. New York: International Publishers, 1940.
• The Communist Party of the USA: Its History, Role and Organization. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1941.
• A Lincoln's birthday message to you [U.S.? : Communist Party?, 1944
• Choose between Teheran and Hitler: extracts from the report by Earl Browder to the National Convention of the U.S.A. Communist Party, May 20, 1944. Sydney: Central Committee of the Australian Communist Party, 1944.
• Jew-baiting is cannibalism with William Gallacher Sydney: Current Book Distribution, 1944.
• The meaning of the elections New York: Workers Library Publishers 1944.
• Communists and national unity: an interview of PM with Earl Browder. with Harold Lavine New York: Workers Library Publishers 1944.
• Moscow, Cairo, Teheran New York: Workers Library Publishers 1944.
• Economic problems of the war and peace, New York: Workers Library Publishers 1944.
• The road ahead to victory and lasting peace, New York: Workers Library Publishers 1944.
• Teheran: Our Path in War and Peace. New York: International Publishers, 1944.
• Teheran and America; perspectives and tasks, New York: Workers Library Publishers 1944.
• Shall the Communist Party change its name? New York: Workers Library Publishers 1944.
• On the dissolution of the Communist Party of the United States by Jacques Duclos San Francisco, Calif. : State Committee, Communist Political Association of California, 1945 (foreword)
• America's decisive battle New York, N.Y: New Century, 1945
• Why America is interested in the Chinese Communists New York, N.Y: New Century, 1945
• The press and America's future New York, N.Y: Daily Worker, 1945
• The big three in the Crimea New York, N.Y: New Century, 1945
• How can Soviet Russia and the United States keep the peace? with Theodore Granik and George SokolskyWashington, D.C: Ransdell, 1946
• Appeal of Earl Browder to the National Committee C.P.U.S.A. against the decision of the National Board of February 5th, 1946 for his expulsion. Yonkers: The author?, 1946
• The writings and speeches of Earl Browder: from May 24, 1945 to July 26, 1945. Yonkers?: The author?, 1947
• War or Peace with Russia? New York: A.A. Wyn, 1947.
• Soviet book news, literature, art, science. New York: 1947.
• The Decline of the Left Wing of American Labor. Yonkers, NY: [Earl Browder], 1948.
• Answer to Vronsky [New York? : s.n., 1948.
• Labor and socialism in America Yonkers, N.Y: E. Browder 1948.
• The "miracle" of Nov. 2nd: some aspects of the American elections New York? : s.n., 1948.
• World Communism and US Foreign Policy: A Comparison of Marxist Strategy and Tactics: After World War I and World War II. New York: Earl Browder, 1948.
• Debate : which road for American workers--socialist or communist? with Norman Thomas, Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1949
• "Americus" [pseudonym], Where Do We Go From Here? An Examination of the Record of the 14th National Convention, CPUSA. n.c.: Earl Browder, 1948.
• "Americus" Parties, issues, & candidates in the 1948 elections: brief review and analysis Yonkers, N.Y.: Earl Browder, 1948.
• The coming economic crisis in America New York? : s.n., 1949
• More about the economic crisis New York? : s.n., 1949
• War, peace and socialism, New York? : s.n., 1949
• U.S.A. & U.S.S.R.: their relative strength S.l. : s.n., 1949
• How to halt crisis and war: an economic program for progressives S.l. : s.n., 1949
• Chinese Lessons for American Marxists. n.c. Yonkers, NY: Earl Browder, 1949.
• In defense of communism: against W.Z. Foster's "new route to socialism. Yonkers, NY: s.n., 1949.
• Keynes, Foster and Marx. Yonkers, N.Y 1950
• Earl Browder before U.S. Senate: the record and some conclusions. Yonkers, N.Y 1950
• "Is Russia a socialist community?": affirmative presentation in a public debate Yonkers, N.Y: The author 1950
• Language & war : letter to a friend concerning Stalin's article on linguistics Yonkers, N.Y: The author 1950
• Earl Browder before the U.S. Senate: the record and some conclusions Yonkers, N.Y: Earl Browder, 1950
• Modern resurrections & miracles Yonkers, N.Y: Earl Browder, 1950
• Toward an American peace policy Yonkers, N.Y: The author 1950
• "Should Soviet China be admitted to the United Nations?" debate. s.l. : s.n., 1951
• The meaning of MacArthur: letter to a friend s.l. : s.n., 1951
• Contempt of Congress; the trial of Earl Browder. Yonkers, N.Y: E. Browder 1951
• Four letters concerning peaceful co-existence of capitalism and socialism: together with speech of June 2, 1945 on the same question Yonkers, N.Y. : Issued for private circulation only by E. Browder, 1952
• Should America be returned to the Indians? Yonkers, N.Y. : The author, 1952
• Marx and America: A Study in the Doctrine of Impoverishment. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1958.
• Socialism in America Yonkers, N.Y.: Browder, 1960.

Articles

• Browder, Earl, "Review of American Communism in Crisis, 1943-1957, by Joseph R. Starobin." Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 88, No. 1 (Mar., 1973), pp. 94–97.
• Browder, Earl and Max Shachtman. Is Russia a Socialist Community? The Verbatim Text of a Debate. March 1950 debate moderated by C. Wright Mills. Published in The New International: A Monthly Organ of Revolutionary Marxism, Vol.16 No.3, May-June 1950, pp. 145–176. Retrieved June 6, 2005.

Contemporary material about Browder

• Citizens's Committee to Free Earl Browder, A Comparative Study of the Earl Browder and Other Passport Cases. New York: n.d. [1941?].
• Citizens's Committee to Free Earl Browder, The Campaign to free Earl Browder: A Report. New York: The Committee, 1942. OCLC: 27833380.
• Foster, William Z., On the Question of Revisionism. "Report to the National Committee Meeting of the Communist Political Association, June 18-20, 1945." Archived on Marxism-Leninism Today. Retrieved September 24, 2006.
• Foster, William Z.; Duclos, Jaques; Dennis, Eugene; and Williamson, John, Marxism-Leninism vs. Revisionism. New York: New Century Publishers, 1946.
• Time Magazine, Children of Moscow, Time, September 18, 1939.

Secondary sources

• Haynes, John Earl, "Russian Archival Identification of Real Names Behind Cover Names in VENONA." Cryptology and the Cold War, Center for Cryptologic History Symposium, October 27, 2005.
• Haynes, John Earl and Klehr, Harvey, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
• Haynes, John Earl; Klehr, Harvey; and Igorevich, Fridrikh I., The Secret World of American Communism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.
• Isserman, Maurice, Which Side Were You On? The American Communist Party During the Second World War. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1982.
• Klehr, Harvey, The Heyday of American Communism: The Depression Decade. New York: Basic Books, 1984.
• Ottanelli, Fraser M., The Communist Party of the United States: From the Depression to World War II. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1991.
• Ryan, James Gilbert, Earl Browder: The Failure of American Communism. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2005.
• Ryan, James G., "Socialist Triumph as a Family Value: Earl Browder and Soviet Espionage," American Communist History, v. 1, no. 2 (December 2002).
• Schecter, Jerrold and Schecter, Leona, Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History. Potomac Books, 2002.
• Starobin, Joseph R., American Communism in Crisis, 1943-1957. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972.
• Sudoplatov, Pavel Anatoli; Schecter, Jerrold L.; and Schecter, Leona P., Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness — A Soviet Spymaster. Boston: Little Brown, 1994.
• Weinstein, Allen and Vassiliev, Aleksandr, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America — The Stalin Era. New York: Random House, 1999.

Archival material

• Earl Browder Papers 1879-1967. Syracuse University Library Special Collections. Collection # (NXSV403-A). 52.0 linear ft. Online guide retrieved June 6, 2005.
• Earl Browder Papers, 1891-1975: A Guide to the Microfilm Edition. Edited by Jack T. Ericson. 36 reels of 35mm microfilm.
• Online guide retrieved June 6, 2005.
• Sam Adams Darcy Papers, 1924-1985 (Bulk 1930-1945). NYU Bobst Library Special Collections. Tamiment 124. 4 linear feet (4 boxes). Online guide. Retrieved September 24, 2006
• Francis Franklin Marxist Historical-Philosophical Manuscripts: 1920-1985. NYU Bobst Library Special Collections. Tamiment 182. 6 linear feet (6 boxes). Online guide. Retrieved September 24, 2006.

External links

• "The Mike Wallace Interview. Guest: Earl Browder," Links to video of TV interview of June 2, 1957 and printed transcript. Retrieved October 14, 2009.
• Duclos, Jacques. "On the Dissolution of the Communist Party of the United States.". First published in Cahiers du Communisme, April 1945. Reprinted in William Z. Foster et al., Marxism-Leninism vs. Revisionism.. New York: New Century Publishers, Feb. 1946; pp. 21–35. Retrieved June 6, 2005.
• Constitution of the Communist Political Association: Adopted by the Constitutional Convention, May 20-22, 1944 PDF document. Published in The Path to Peace, Progress and Prosperity: Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of the Communist Political Association, New York, May 20-22, 1944. New York: CPA, 1944. pp. 47–51. Retrieved June 6, 2005.
• Earl Browder Papers at Syracuse University Library.
• Newspaper articles on Earl Browder from the Kansas State Historical Society. Source: Vertical File microfilm reel MF 251. Retrieved August 26, 2006.