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, 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.
Page 5 reviews his Workers Library pamphlet Can We Share the Wealth? as an analysis of Huey Long’s program and the relations between political reform, private property and workers’ organization. This adds a contemporary published work and political activity; it supplies no new custody claim. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n102-NAT-apr-29-1935-DW-Q.pdf
National Guardian, October 19, 1953, national page 16: The second Foley Square defendants were reported on restricted liberty awaiting appeal, and Alexander Bittelman, Claudia Jones and Betty Gannett had begun a test case of the Walter-McCarran law in the Foley Square federal court. This reports a legal challenge and appeal status, not a fresh arrest or completed deportation. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/national-guardian/1953-10-19-5-52-nat-guardian.pdf
Daily Worker, April 29, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The July 4, 1951 National Guardian individually named Alexander Bittelman among the New York Smith Act defendants who had been released on bail after their recent arrests. This pretrial release is distinct from any later sentence service; the report does not establish this person’s exact release day or a measured custody total. National Guardian, July 4, 1951, p. 5.
The released FBI file on Claudia Jones, New York file 100-81752, summarizes the federal Smith Act docket and identifies Alexander Bittelman as released on bail on August 1, 1951, during the 1951 bail proceedings. It separately records remand after the January 21, 1953 guilty verdict and actual release on appeal bail on February 10, 1953. These bail interruptions are distinct from the later prison term. Its April 21, 1952 counsel list identifies John T. McTernan as defense counsel for Alexander Bittelman. Source: FBI, released Claudia Jones file, New York 100-81752, sections on bail and sureties, counsel and trial proceedings. The file supplies these individual procedural phases without establishing a new complete custody total.
