Biography
Alexander Trachtenberg was the founder and longtime publisher of International Publishers, the principal U.S. publishing house of Marxist literature for most of the twentieth century. International Publishers issued the first English-language collected edition of Marx and Engels, the works of Lenin, the writings of W. E. B. Du Bois on Reconstruction, and a wide range of American radical and labor history.
Trachtenberg was indicted in the Foley Square Second String in June 1951 and convicted alongside Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and the rest of the CPUSA national board in January 1953. He was sentenced to three years and served two years at the federal prison camp at Danbury, Connecticut, before being released on bond pending appeal. After the Supreme Courts 1957 Yates decision the government retried him; the second jury hung, and the prosecution was abandoned in 1958. He continued to run International Publishers until his death in 1966.
The March 11, 1924 Daily Worker names Trachtenberg, Ludwig Lore, Constant Chriss and David Kaplan as Workers Party members arrested at Newark’s February 1 Lenin memorial and fined $20 each at the February 14 trial before Police Judge Horace Grice. It identifies Trachtenberg as a former Yale economics instructor. The thirteen-day gap between arrest and trial is not treated as thirteen days continuously jailed. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1924/v01-n361-mar-11-1924-DW-LOC.pdf#page=4
The official House Clerk returns for the November 4, 1930 congressional election list Alexander Trachtenberg as a candidate for New Yorks14th Congressional District; the table prints his name without a party designation. This corroborates electoral activity rather than a fresh arrest or custody endpoint. Source: https://clerk.house.gov/member_info/electionInfo/1930election.pdf#page=16
The July 1931 account names Trachtenberg in the elected presidium of the June 14 Workers Cultural Federation conference in New York. It reports 265 delegates representing 190 organizations and about 20,000 workers. This is a documented cultural-organizing role, not another arrest. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1931/v07n02-jul-1931-New-Masses.pdf#page=23
The July 4, 1951 National Guardian individually named Alexander Trachtenberg 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 Trachtenberg as released on bail on July 25, 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 11, 1953. These bail interruptions are distinct from the later prison term. Its April 21, 1952 counsel list identifies Frank Serri as defense counsel for Alexander Trachtenberg. 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.
