Earl Browder

Some of you may have heard of the American born British financier Sir William Felix Browder KCMG, more usually known as Bill. He is the CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management and in a massive long running dispute with Vladimir Putin. He has been cast as Putin’s worst enemy.

His grandfather was Earl Browder, leader of the Communist Party of the USA from 1934 to 1945 when he was denounced as a revisionist and expelled from the Party. Much of what is written about Earl is disingenuous to say the least. His accession to the leadership in 1934 was as toxic a fight as you could imagine and during the 1930s he acted as the American talent scout for various shades of Soviet Intelligence, a position he took over from Max Bedacht who had taken over from Jay Lovestone (né Liebstein) with both of whom Earl had tussled for the leadership. The actual victor in leadership campaigns was chosen by the Comintern, how democratic.

Needless to say, his public utterances have all been designed to minimise the actions of both himself and his Party. The left always like to play the “we are nice and cuddly” card whereas in reality they are little better than homicidal maniacs.

The CPUSA was founded in 1919 and there was a longish list of leaders until 1934. The Party recruited people to be members of the party or as underground workers who had no affiliation. These people in the underground were for use by Soviet Intelligence agencies. One of these underground agents was Whittaker Chambers who later recanted. In its earliest days the CPUSA was full of emigrants from the former Russian Empire and Germany. Many branches held their meeting in languages other than English.

Rather like our very own Crayons, Earl began his career working with the Unions in the newspaper business. He was violently against WW1 and was arrested and charged under the Espionage Act leading to two years in prison, a badge of honour among the left it is believed.  Again in 1919, having started a radical newspaper in Kansas he was again jailed on a conspiracy charge,

Next Earl was selected as a delegate to the 1921 Communist International (aka Comintern) due to be held in Moscow. In 1928 until 1929, Earl moved to Shanghai with his Canadian born girlfriend Kitty Harris who was working as a courier for the Soviets. In 1938 the then estranged Kitty went to London where she acted as courier for Donald Maclean and in 1943 ended up in Santa Fe where she ran a safe house for those spying on the Manhattan Project. Meanwhile back in the USA, wheels were turning in efforts to promote Browder to the leadership.

The rise of the Austrian Corporal led to frantic effort by the commies to counter this. This was until the pact in 1939 where they agreed to divide Poland in 2.

While Earl was leader he was in constant contact with Moscow and received money from them to enable his underground setup. He was a talent scout for Soviet Intelligence, anyone likely to prove useful was directed to the underground side of things. He also denied everything when confronted. The left always lie, it is nothing new. This underground was used by all Russian spies to deliver their intelligence to Moscow, this includes the so called Atomic spies who kept an eye on the Manhattan Project.

During one of his frequent visits to Moscow Earl married Raisa Berkman and they had three sons. Each of these three sons became a professor of mathematics at a US University.

It was a bit of a family business, Browder’s younger sister Marguerite also worked for the NKVD in various European countries as did his half-niece Helen Lowry.

During his time as leader Earl was up to his neck in espionage and even though he had two spells in prison he was never convicted of spying. His offences were mostly concerned with travelling on false passports.

Finally in 1945 he was accused of revisionism, a worse crime is hard to imagine in the commie world and was removed as leader. After this he moved into the literary world, much of his output was Russian drivel translated to English.

Earl appeared before the McCarthy investigation, and while mostly pleading the 5th he denied ever being involved in espionage activities. He appeared on TV in 1957 in the Mike Wallace Interview and denied he had conspired with communists. In 1995 the Venona decrypts confirmed he had recruited people to spy for the USSR and even discussed the plot to assassinate Trotsky. In a 1946 OGPU memo Browder was credited with recruiting 18 agents for the Soviet Union.

Earl’s son Felix is the father of Bill Browder and the next article will concern the hedge fund manager. I always think what are now called hedge funds used to be called asset strippers in the 1960s and 1970s.
 

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