Earl Browder

Earl Browder
Chairman of the Communist Party USA
In office 1934–1945
Preceded by	William Z. Foster
Succeeded by	William Z. Foster
General Secretary of the Communist Party USA
In office 1930–1945
Preceded by	Max Bedacht
Succeeded by	Eugene Dennis
Personal details
Born	Earl Russell Browder (1891-05-20)May 20, 1891 Wichita, Kansas, U.S.
Died	June 27, 1973(1973-06-27) (aged 82) Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.
Political party	Socialist Party of America (1907–1920) Syndicalist League of North America (1912–1917) Communist Party USA (1920–1945)
Spouse	Raisa Berkman
Children	Felix Andrew William
Relatives	Bill (grandson) Joshua (great-grandson)
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Earl Russell Browder (May 20, 1891 – June 27, 1973) was an American politician, spy for the Soviet Union, communist activist and leader of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). Browder was the General Secretary of the CPUSA during the 1930s and first half of the 1940s. During World War I, Browder served a sentence in American federal prison as a conscientious objector to conscription and the war. Upon his release, Browder became an active member of the American Communist movement, soon working as an organizer on behalf of the Communist International and its Red International of Labor Unions in China and the Pacific region.

In 1930, following the removal of a rival political faction from leadership, Browder was made General Secretary of the CPUSA. For the next 15 years thereafter Browder was the most recognizable public figure associated with the term Communism in the USA, authoring dozens of pamphlets and books, making numerous public speeches, sometimes before very large audiences, and running as a candidate for President of the United States two times. Browder also took part in espionage activities on behalf of Soviet intelligence in America during his period of party leadership, placing those who sought to convey sensitive information to the party into contact with Soviet intelligence. In 1939, Browder was indicted for passport fraud. He was convicted of two counts early in 1940 and sentenced to four years in prison, remaining free for a time on appeal. In the spring of 1942, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the sentence and Browder began what proved to be a 14-month stint in federal prison. Browder was subsequently released in 1943 as a gesture towards wartime unity.

After Germany's full-scale military aggression against the USSR with Operation Barbarossa, Browder became a strong supporter of 'close cooperation' between the United States and the Soviet Union as well as envisioning it contintuing between them after the war. Intending the organizational role for the Party at that time to that of pressure group pressuring the government and the broader political 'coalition of support' behind it and the Democratic Party, directed the transformation of the CPUSA into a "Communist Political Association" in 1944. The period came to an end towards the end of World War II and the transition to the global Cold War. Browder was expelled from the re-established Communist Party early in 1946, largely due to his Americanism, comparedchanging political realities.

Browder lived out the rest of his life in relative obscurity at his home in Yonkers, New York, and later in Princeton, New Jersey, where he died in 1973. He wrote wrote numerous political pamphlets and books.