Benjamin Gitlow

Benjamin "Ben" Gitlow (December 22, 1891 – July 19, 1965) was a prominent American socialist politician of the early 20th century and a founding member of the Communist Party USA. From the end of the 1930s, Gitlow turned to conservatism and wrote two sensational exposés of American Communism, books which were very influential during the McCarthy period. Gitlow remained a leading anticommunist up to the time of his death.

Benjamin Gitlow was born on December 22, 1891 in Elizabethport, New Jersey. The Gitlows were ethnic Jews, an oppressed minority nationality in Tsarist Russia. His father, Lewis Albert Gitlow, emigrated from the Russian Empire in 1888, followed by his mother, Katherine, in 1889. In the United States, his father worked part-time for insufficient hours in various factories, while his mother helped the impoverished family to make ends meet by stitching piecework at home for garment factories.

Radicalism seems to have run deeply in the family. Guests to the family home told stories about their personal and political experiences in Tsarist Russia. Ben later recalled this experience as formative to his own political development:

I would listen intently to the adventures of the Russian revolutionary leaders, of their experiences with the police, the days and years spent in prisons and their exile to the wastes of Siberia. I would grow indignant hearing how the Tsar mistreated the people. I thrilled at the stories of the underground movement, of the conspiring activities, how deeds of violence against the Tsarist oppressors were planned... The stories of personal experiences when raids were made by the secret police upon revolutionists' homes held me spellbound. I anticipated every incident that would be related. I also listened to discussions, very idealistic in their essence, in which the participants showed how Socialism would transform the world, and to arguments over methods of how Socialism would be achieved.

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