Browder, Earl

Description

Autograph ID: 4655
Condition: Very good, light uniform toning, slightly pale corners
Description: (1891–1973) Led the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) as General Secretary during the 1930s and first half of the 1940s. During WW, he served time in federal prison as a conscientious objector to conscription and the war. Upon his release Browder active in the American Communist movement, working as an organizer on behalf of the Communist International and its Red International of Labor Unions in China and the Pacific region. Following the removal of Jay Lovestone as head of the CPUSA in 1929 and a short interregnum during which the party was headed by former Lovestone faction associate Max Bedacht, Browder was made General Secretary of the Party. Browder became the most recognizable public figure associated with American Communism, authoring dozens of pamphlets and books, making numerous public speeches before sometimes large audiences, and running for President of the United States in 1936 & 1940. He also took part in clandestine activities on behalf of Soviet intelligence while Party leader, placing those who sought to convey sensitive information to the Party into contact with Jacob Golos, one of the USSR’s primary handlers of such material. In the wake of public outrage over the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact, Browder was indicted for passport fraud and convicted of 2 counts early in 1940 and sentenced to 4 years in prison, remaining free for a time on appeal. In the spring of 1942 the Supreme Court affirmed the sentence and Browder began what proved to be a 14-month stint in Federal prison, released in 1943 as a gesture towards wartime unity. He was a staunch adherent of close cooperation between the US and the USSR during WW II and foresaw continued cooperation between the two in the postwar years. Coming to see the role of American Communists as that of an organized pressure group within a broad governing coalition, in 1944 he directed the transformation of the CPUSA into a “Communist Political Association” (CPA). However, after the death of President Roosevelt, a Cold War and internal “Red Scare” sprouted up. Browder was expelled from the re-established Communist Party in 1946, due largely to a refusal to modify his views to accord with changing political realities and associated ideological demands. Browder lived out the rest of his life in relative obscurity in Yonkers, New York, attempting with little success to influence American government policy and public opinion as the author of numerous books and pamphlets.

Signed 3 x 5 card, undated but from mid-1940s.
Type: Signed Card