35 Facts About Alexander Trachtenberg

Alexander "Alex" Trachtenberg was an American publisher of radical political books and pamphlets, founder and manager of International Publishers of New York.

Alexander Trachtenberg was a longtime activist in the Socialist Party of America and later in the Communist Party USA.

Alexander Trachtenberg served as a member of the CPUSA's Central Control Committee.

Alexander Trachtenberg joined the radical movement while attending the University of Odessa School of Electrotechnique as an engineering student from 1902 to 1904.

Alexander Trachtenberg arrived in New York City on August 6,1906, on a ship from Hamburg, Germany, a major port of departure to the US.

From 1908 to 1915, Alexander Trachtenberg was a student at three different universities, earning his bachelor's degree from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1911, followed by a master's degree in education from Yale University in 1912.

Alexander Trachtenberg continued studies in Economics at Yale through 1915 and completed a dissertation on safety legislation for the protection of Pennsylvania coal miners, but he did not complete his doctorate.

Alexander Trachtenberg's dissertation was accepted for publication by the United States Department of Labor in 1917, but delays in preparation of the manuscript and budgetary issues at the Department ultimately ended the project.

Alexander Trachtenberg was very active in student affairs, serving as president of the Yale chapter of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society.

Alexander Trachtenberg joined the Collegiate Anti-Militarism League at Columbia University in 1915, served as treasurer, and contributed to an anti-war petition to President Wilson after the sinking of the Lusitania.

Alexander Trachtenberg left Yale in 1915 to work as an administrator and teacher of Economics and Labor at the Rand School of Social Science, founded by the Socialist Party in New York.

Alexander Trachtenberg directed the school's Department of Labor Research, which conducted studies for other organizations and gathered and published labor statistics.

Alexander Trachtenberg edited various Rand publications, including the first four volumes of the Rand School's encyclopedic American Labor Year Book, as well as a controversial 1917 defense of the Socialist Party's anti-militarist perspective, American Socialists and the War.

Alexander Trachtenberg continued to oppose the war even after the United States entry into the conflict on the side of the Allies in April 1917.

Up to the Russian Revolution in 1917, Alexander Trachtenberg had adhered to the left wing of the Socialist Party of America.

Alexander Trachtenberg embraced the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917, but did not leave the Socialist Party in the summer of 1919 when the Communist movement in America was started.

Goodman reported to the BoI that Alexander Trachtenberg had printed a leaflet for the Communist Labor Party in the Ukrainian language.

Alexander Trachtenberg served as the chairman of the Finance Committee of the group.

At the founding convention of the WPA in December 1921, Alexander Trachtenberg was elected to serve on the Central Executive Committee of the new organization.

At the 2nd Convention of December 1922, Alexander Trachtenberg was re-elected to the same role.

Alexander Trachtenberg was chosen as a delegate of the Workers Party of America to the 4th World Congress of the Comintern, held in Moscow in the fall of 1922.

Alexander Trachtenberg was returned to the governing Central Executive Committee by the 5th Convention of September 1927, at which Jay Lovestone was elected Executive Secretary.

At the 6th National Convention of March 1929, when Benjamin Gitlow became executive secretary, Alexander Trachtenberg was elected as an alternate member of the committee.

Alexander Trachtenberg led the Party's cultural efforts, particularly publication and distribution of materials.

Alexander Trachtenberg who, as head of International Publishers, was the party's "cultural commissar" and had the New Masses and the John Reed Clubs under his wing, and, as an old Bolshevik, was a member of the Central Control Commission.

Alexander Trachtenberg gained support from Nicholas Dozenberg, head of the Workers Party's Literature Department.

Alexander Trachtenberg contacted Charles Ruthenberg, then executive secretary of the Party, to express his intention not to compete but to support the Party's own publications.

Alexander Trachtenberg led the first meeting of the newly formed American Artists' Congress in the art studio of Eitaro Ishigaki on May 18,1935.

Alexander Trachtenberg was subpoenaed and appeared before the Dies Committee on September 13,1939.

Alexander Trachtenberg told Congress that he received payment from World Tourists for his services for only about one year, either in 1936 or 1937.

In 1952, during the McCarthy years, Alexander Trachtenberg faced prosecution in Federal court, based on activities at International Publishers, teachings in communist-led schools, and previous writings supporting communist revolution in the US.

Alexander Trachtenberg was convicted on February 2,1953, for violating the Smith Act.

In 1956, Alexander Trachtenberg was convicted for a second time in Federal court and sentenced to one year in prison.

Alexander Trachtenberg married Rosalind Kohn Alexander Trachtenberg; they chose to have no children.

Alexander Trachtenberg died age 81 on December 16,1966, in New York of a stroke.