Gil Green (politician)

Gil Green (1906–1997) was a leading figure in the Communist Party of the United States of America until 1991. He is best remembered as the leader of the party's youth section, the Young Communist League, during the tumultuous decade of the 1930s.

Gil Green was born Gilbert Greenberg in Chicago on September 24, 1906. His parents were working class Jewish immigrants from the Russian empire. Green's father, who worked as a tailor, died when Gil was about 10, leaving his mother to support the family as a garment worker.

Green was a successful student, graduating high school in the spring of 1924 as his class president and valedictorian.

Green joined the Young Workers League, youth section of the Communist Party, USA, in 1924. He went to work full-time for the Young Workers (Communist) League in 1927 when he was named the organization's district organizer for Chicago.

In 1928 Green spent several months in Massachusetts raising funds for striking workers embroiled in the 1928 New Bedford textile strike. He was moved to New York City by the Communist Party the following year to work at national headquarters as a full-time youth section functionary. He worked as the editor of the party's youth newspaper, Young Worker, and in 1930 was named New York state organizer for the renamed Young Communist League (YCL). In 1931 he was promoted to the position of national secretary of the YCL.

Green was named one of three communist youth leaders named to the Executive Committee of the Communist International in Moscow in 1935. In that capacity he attended the 6th World Congress of the Young Communist International (YCI), which elected him to the Executive Committee and Secretariat of that body.

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