Harrison George was a senior Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) leader. He is best remembered as the editor of the official organ of the Profintern's Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat (PPTUS) as well as the party's West Coast newspaper, People's World.
The Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat (PPTUS) was established by the Red International of Labor Unions (Profintern) in 1927, with Earl Browder as its General Secretary. Documents from the Comintern Archive in Moscow reveal the relationship between Browder and George, who at the time was an Industrial Workers of the World leader and Communist mole in the Wobblies. The minutes of a PPTUS meeting were signed by George and Tsutomu Yano, who would later recruit people for the Richard Sorge spy ring in Japan.
Intercepted Soviet intelligence traffic is alleged to reveal a covert relationship George had as a cutout transmitting information from James Walter Miller, who worked in the U.S. Post Office's Office of Censorship to the San Francisco KGB. [1]
Harrison's role receives mention in the memoir of Whittaker Chambers:
The "Old Man" {Isaac Folkoff} is a California businessman and lifelong Communist of Russian birth, very active in party affairs on the West Coast . At the time I met him, he was also connected with my old comrade from the Daily Worker , Harrison George, who was then heading the West Coast office of the Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat, an international Communist organization, which among other activities, was running couriers on the ships to Australia, Japan and Asiatic mainland ports. [2]
George was Earl Browder's brother-in-law. [2]
The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), also known as the American Communist Party, is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revolution.
Earl Russell Browder 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 time in 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.
Kitty Harris was a Soviet secret agent and "long-time special courier of the OGPU-NKVD foreign intelligence during the 1930s and 1940s." Although mentioned by name in Walter Krivitsky’s book I was Stalin’s agent, Harris was identified only in 2001 when her code name "Ada" or "Aida" was found in declassified files from the Venona Project. This was a counterintelligence program initiated by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service that ran from February 1, 1943 until October 1, 1980.
In political ideology, a deviationist is a person who expresses a deviation: an abnormality or departure. In Stalinist ideology and practice, deviationism is an expressed belief which does not accord with official party doctrine for the time and area. Accusations of deviationism often led to purges. Forms of deviationism included revisionism, dogmatism, and bourgeois nationalism.
Isaac "Pop" Folkoff also known as "Volkov," "Folconoff," and "Uncle" (1881–1975), was a senior founding member of the California Communist Party and West Coast liaison between Soviet intelligence and the Communist Party USA (CPUSA).
Solomon Adler worked as U.S. Treasury representative in China during World War II.
As early as the 1920s, the Soviet Union, through its GRU, OGPU, NKVD, and KGB intelligence agencies, used Russian and foreign-born nationals, as well as Communists of American origin, to perform espionage activities in the United States, forming various spy rings. Particularly during the 1940s, some of these espionage networks had contact with various U.S. government agencies. These Soviet espionage networks illegally transmitted confidential information to Moscow, such as information on the development of the atomic bomb. Soviet spies also participated in propaganda and disinformation operations, known as active measures, and attempted to sabotage diplomatic relationships between the U.S. and its allies.
John Jacob Abt was an American lawyer and politician, who spent most of his career as chief counsel to the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and was a member of the Communist Party and the Soviet spy network "Ware Group" as alleged by Whittaker Chambers.
Rudy Baker, a Communist Party USA (CPUSA) official, is today best known for his role as head of the CPUSA's underground secret apparatus. He succeeded to the position in 1938, after the removal of J. Peters.
Iskhak Abdulovich Akhmerov (1901–1976) was a highly decorated OGPU/NKVD (KGB) Soviet security officer, best known to historians for his role in KGB operations in the United States 1942–1945. His name appears in the Venona decryptions over fifty times, often as signatory, and on his return to the Soviet Union in 1945/46, he rose to deputy chief of the KGB's 'illegal' intelligence section.
Harvey Elliott Klehr is a professor of politics and history at Emory University. Klehr is known for his books on the subject of the American Communist movement, and on Soviet espionage in America.
John Earl Haynes is an American historian who worked as a specialist in 20th-century political history in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. He is known for his books on the subject of the American Communist and anti-Communist movements, and on Soviet espionage in America.
Mikhail Abramovich Trilisser, also known by the pseudonym Moskvin, was a chief of the Foreign Department of the Cheka, i.e. the State Political Directorate or GPU, and then the OGPU of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Later, he worked for the NKVD as a covert bureau chief and Comintern leader.
Browderism refers to the variant of Marxism–Leninism developed in the 1940s by American communist politician Earl Browder, who led the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) from 1930 to 1945. Characterized by deviations from orthodox Marxist–Leninist policies and principles, it sought to revise Marxism to align the party with mainstream American politics and present events; this involved incorporating Americanism and its nationalist values into the party's message, shifting away from the revolutionary socialism previously touted by the CPUSA. Moreover, Browderism rejected class conflict entirely, instead advocating for class collaboration with the bourgeosie under a popular front.
The OMS, also known in English as the International Liaison Department (1921–1939), was "the most secret department" of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. It has also been translated as the Illegal Liaison Section and Foreign Liaison Department.
The Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat (PPTUS) was a regional subdivision of the Red International of Labor Unions, the trade union organization associated with the Communist International. Established in Hankou, China, in May 1927, the PPTUS attempted to coordinate communist activity in the organized labor movement of China and the Pacific basin, including particularly Japan, Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia, and the United States.
Allan Robert Rosenberg was a 20th-century American labor lawyer and civil servant, accused as a Soviet spy by Elizabeth Bentley and listed under Party name "Roy, code names "Roza" in the VENONA Papers and code name "Sid" in the Vasilliev Papers; he also defended Dr. Benjamin Spock.
Charles Dirba was a Latvian-American co-founder of the Communist Party of America (CPA) and Communist Party USA (CPUSA).
Roy Hudson, also known as Roy B. Hudson, served on the national executive board of the Communist Party USA and national trade union director and trade union expert.
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