Louis F. Budenz
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Budenz in 1947
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| Birth name | Louis Francis Budenz |
| Born |
July 17, 1891 Indianapolis, Indiana |
| Died | April 27, 1972 (aged 80) Newport, Rhode Island |
| Spouse | Margaret |
Louis Francis Budenz (pronounced "byew-DENZ"; July 17, 1891 – April 27, 1972) was an American activist and writer, as well as a Soviet espionage agent and head of the Buben group of spies. He began as a labor activist and became a member of the Communist Party USA. In 1945 Budenz renounced Communism and became a vocal anti-Communist, appearing as an expert witness at various governmental hearings and authoring a series of books on his experiences.
Budenz was born on July 17, 1891 in Indianapolis, Indiana, grandson of German and Irish immigrants, and grew up on the Southside in a mostly German and Irish Catholic neighborhood around Fountain Square.
He attended St. John's Catholic High School in Indianapolis, Xavier University in Cincinnati, and St. Mary's College in Topeka, Kansas as well as the Indianapolis Law School.
Budenz's role in the labor movement began from a Catholic perspective. In 1915, working with the Central Bureau of the Roman Catholic Central Verein, a reform-minded and social justice-oriented organization in St. Louis, he published A List of Books for the Study of the Social Question: Being an Introduction to Catholic Social Literature.
In 1920, Budenz moved to Rahway, New Jersey, where he worked for the ACLU (NY) as publicity director. In 1924 and into the early 1930s, Budenz was managing editor of the monthly magazine Labor Age. He also advised striking workers at a hosiery mill in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 1928; at a silk workers' strike Paterson, New Jersey, in 1930; and the Toledo Auto-Lite strike in 1934. He taught labor organizing and strike management at Brookwood Labor College outside New York City.
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