Biography
Alexander Bittelman was one of the founding members of the Communist Party USA in 1919 and the partys leading internal theorist for more than three decades. Born in Berdichev in 1890, he emigrated to New York in 1912 and helped found the Workers Party of America in 1921, which became the CPUSA. He was the partys most senior intellectual at the time of his 1951 indictment in the Foley Square Second String.
Convicted with the rest of the second string in January 1953, he was sentenced to three years in federal prison. After his release he became one of the most influential voices urging the party to confront the implications of Khrushchevs 1956 speech, and was expelled from the CPUSA in 1960 after publicly arguing for democratic reform of the party. He died in 1982.
