Jay Lovestone

Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone circa 1917
Born	Jacob Liebstein December 15, 1897 Moǔchadz, Grodno gubernia, Lithuania (then Russian Empire)
Died	March 7, 1990(1990-03-07) (aged 92) Manhattan, New York City, United States
Alma mater	City College of New York
Occupation	political activist
Years active	1919-1982
Political party	Socialist Party of America, Communist Party USA, AFL-CIO
Opponent(s)	Joseph Stalin, William Z. Foster, James P. Cannon
Partner(s)	Louise Page Morris

Jay Lovestone (December 15, 1897 – March 7, 1990) was at various times a member of the Socialist Party of America, a leader of the Communist Party USA, leader of a small oppositionist party, an anti-Communist and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) helper, and foreign policy advisor to the leadership of the AFL-CIO and various unions within it.

Lovestone was born Jacob Liebstein into a Litvak family in a shtetl called Moǔchadz in Grodno Governorate (then part of the Russian Empire, now in Grodno Region, Belarus). The territory of present-day Belarus was considered a "Lithuanian" area at the time. [1] His father, Barnet, had been a rabbi, but when he emigrated to America he had to settle for a job as shammes (caretaker). Barnet came first, then sent for his family the next year. Lovestone arrived with his mother, Emma, and his siblings, Morris, Esther and Sarah at Ellis island on September 15, 1907. They originally settled on Hester Street in Manhattan's Lower East Side, but later moved to 2155 Daly Avenue in the Bronx. The family did not know their dates of birth precisely, but they assigned Jacob the date of December 15, 1897.

Young Liebstein was attracted to socialist politics from his teens. While imbibing all the ideological currents in the vibrant New York Yiddish and English radical press, he was particularly attracted to the ideas of Daniel De Leon. It is not known whether he ever joined de Leon's Socialist Labor Party, but he was one of the 3,000 mourners who attended his funeral on May 11, 1914.