Israel Amter

Israel Amter (1881–1954) was a Marxist politician and founding member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). Amter is best remembered as one of the Communist Party leaders jailed in conjunction with the International Unemployment Day riot of 1930 and as a frequent candidate for public office, including three runs for Governor of New York.

Israel Amter was born on March 26, 1881 in Denver, Colorado to Jewish immigrants. His father, Marks Amter, was originally from Riga, Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire.

In 1901, he became a member of the Socialist Party of America (SPA) until he moved to Germany in 1903. While in Germany he edited the German Export Review and became a member of the Social Democratic Party.

Amter also studied music at the Leipzig Conservatory where in 1912 he created an unperformed opera called Winona. Influenced by the Indianist movement, the story concerns a romance between a United States Army Officer and a Native American woman known as Winona.

Amter returned to the United States when Germany entered the war.

In 1917 he rejoined the Socialist Party and was an active member of the Left Wing Section when it emerged in 1919. Amter was a founding member of the Communist Party of America from its founding convention in September 1919. Amter seems to have followed the faction around C.E. Ruthenberg out of the party in April 1920, becoming a member of the United Communist Party (UCP). In November 1920 he was named to the editorial committee of the UCP. On April 29, 1921, Amter was arrested along with three others in a raid on the UCP's covert headquarters in New York by New York bomb squad detectives and Department of Justice agents. Amter was charged in the incident and released on bail.

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