Browder, Earl (1891–1973)

EARL BROWDER WAS secretary-general of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) from 1930 to 1944 and president of the communist political association (1944–45) that briefly replaced the party on the political scene. Eventually condemned by Josef Stalin and other communist leaders of the Iron Curtain countries as a social democrat, Browder led the CPUSA to its greatest size and, allegedly, directed a ring of spies for the Russian secret police and military intelligence.

Browder, the eighth son of a schoolteacher, was born in Wichita, Kansas. His childhood was plagued by his large family's poverty and ill health. Browder's father was disabled and debts forced the 10 children of the family to leave elementary school. Earl worked as a cash boy for the Wallenstein & Cohen Dry Goods [Page 56]Company and, when he was 15, he joined the Socialist Party of America. He later secured a job as bookkeeper for the Potts Drug Company and started to attend the meetings of the Kansas City union of bookkeepers and accountants. Like many socialist party members, Browder condemned World War I in several public speeches and this caused him to be imprisoned twice for his opposition to the draft and for his continuing campaign (1917–18 and 1919–20).

In 1921, Browder left the Socialist Party and joined the American Communist Party, which had been founded in 1919. Browder quickly moved up the party's hierarchy. He first organized an American delegation to the first Congress of the Red International Labor Unions, held in Moscow, the Soviet Union, in 1921. In the mid-1920s, he became responsible for the organization of illegal Chinese trade unions fighting the Kuomintang government in China. Following Stalin's removal of Jay Lovestone as secretary of the CPUSA, Browder, together with William Z. Foster and William W. Weinstone, formed the troika that led the party until 1932, the year he became the sole secretary-general.

Browder was the party's presidential candidate in 1936 and in 1940, though with limited success. As secretary general, he had the difficult task of managing in the American political arena the shifting policies of the Soviets from the creation of the Popular Front against Fascism and Nazism (1933–39) to their Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler (1939). During the Popular Front period, Browder defined communism as the summary of American radical traditions, enlarging the party membership to 82,000 and including many immigrants and African Americans. It is during these years that, according to several scholars, Browder started to form and manage a ring of spies.

According to Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, Browder was a pivotal figure in Soviet espionage as he was the one to handpick all Soviet “sources, couriers, and group handlers” with the exception of atomic espionage agents. He was able to turn communist sympathizers into spies, convincing them that handing government documents to the American Communist Party was ethically different than passing them directly to the Soviet secret services.

The release of the Venona files, comprising the decryptions of almost 3,000 intercepted Soviet intelligence cables, and the opening of the Eastern Bloc archives have also shed new light on the role of Browder's family in Soviet espionage in the United States. James Ryan has documented that at least six of his family members helped him in his covert actions.

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