National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico
In 1925, Bertram received a Master of Arts degree in Romance Languages from the University of Mexico (present-day the National Autonomous University of Mexico).
Gallery of Bertram Wolfe
160 Convent Ave, New York, NY 10031, United States
In 1916, Bertram graduated cum laude from the City College of New York with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Gallery of Bertram Wolfe
832 Marcy Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11216, United States
In 1916, Wolfe entered the Faculty of English at Boys' High School in Brooklyn.
Career
Gallery of Bertram Wolfe
Bertram Wolfe as he appeared in 1929 as National Agit-Prop director of the Workers (Communist) Party.
National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico
In 1925, Bertram received a Master of Arts degree in Romance Languages from the University of Mexico (present-day the National Autonomous University of Mexico).
Marxism One Hundred Years in the Life of a Doctrine
(This work analyzes the evolution of Marxist doctrine in t...)
This work analyzes the evolution of Marxist doctrine in theory and in practice, focusing on the tensions, inherent in the application of a nineteenth-century ideology to twentieth-century politics.
An Ideology in Power: Reflections on the Russian Revolution
(Originally published in 1969 and representing a quarter o...)
Originally published in 1969 and representing a quarter of a century's work of one of the United States' most respected scholars in Soviet affairs, this volume discusses the question of what happens to an ideology in power by focusing on the evolution and uses of Marxism in Soviet practice.
Revolution and Reality: Essays on the Origin and Fate of the Soviet System
(Disillusioned by communism as a young man, Wolfe devoted ...)
Disillusioned by communism as a young man, Wolfe devoted his life to the study and writing of Russian history. These essays show how clearly he understood the precious quality of freedom and the durability of despotism as it is experienced under totalitarian governments. His analyses of the contemporary Soviet scene, though often at odds with prevailing opinion, have repeatedly proven to be correct.
(Historian, master of the English language and early Commu...)
Historian, master of the English language and early Communist, Bertram Wolfe, renowned for his writings on politics and culture, recounts the events of his life against the background of the great movements of his time.
Bertram Wolfe was an American scholar, former communist, educator, historian of Soviet Russia and author of biographical studies of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky and Diego Rivera, among other writings.
Background
Ethnicity:
Bertram's mother was a native-born American and his father was an ethnic Jewish immigrant from Germany, who had arrived in the United States as a boy of 13.
Bertram Wolfe was born on January 19, 1896, in Brooklyn, New York, United States. He was a son of William D. Wolfe and Rachel (Samter) Wolfe. Bertram's father ran away from home at the age of thirteen, leaving the town of Kempen, Germany, making his way to New York City, where he worked at a variety of odd jobs.
Education
Wolfe was a good student and, in 1916, graduated cum laude from the City College of New York with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Following graduation from the educational establishment, he joined the Faculty of English at Boys' High School in Brooklyn. Later, in 1925, Bertram received a Master of Arts degree in Romance Languages from the University of Mexico (present-day the National Autonomous University of Mexico).
Revolutionary developments in Russia in 1917 woke up in Wolfe a deepening interest in Communist ideology and radical political activity. In his youth, he was active with the Socialist Party of America and was an active participant in the Left Wing Section, which appeared in 1919. The same year, in June, Wolfe attended the National Conference of the Left Wing and was elected by that body to its nine-member National Council. He helped draft, together with Louis C. Fraina and John Reed, the manifesto of that organization, a proclamation, calling for strikes and direct revolutionary action by unemployed veterans and jobless defense workers.
It was also in 1919, that Bertram participated in the formation of the Communist Party of the United States of America. He devoted himself to working on behalf of the party over the next decade. It's also important to note, that, together with Maximilian Cohen, Wolfe was responsible for The Communist World, the Party's first newspaper in New York City.
Indicted in 1919 under New York's criminal anarchy law, Wolfe fled, with his wife Ella, to California. While there, under the name of Arthur Albright, he engaged in a variety of radical activities, including service as a California delegate to the 1922 Bridgman Convention in Michigan, for which he was indicted under Michigan's "criminal syndicalism" law. In 1920, he also became a member of the San Francisco Cooks' Union and also edited a left wing trade union paper, called Labor Unity, from 1920 to 1922.
Indicted again, Bertram and his wife went to Mexico in 1923. Wolfe worked as an English teacher from 1922 through 1925 in Mexico City. While there, he also became a member of the Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Mexico and was a delegate of that organization to the 5th World Congress of the Communist International, held in Moscow in 1924. Besides, Wolfe was active in the trade union movement during his time in Mexico.
Also, from 1924 till 1928, Wolfe was a leading member the Red International of Labor Unions (Profintern), sitting on that body's Executive Committee.
Expelled by the Mexican government for spreading Communist ideas among railroad workers in July 1925, Bertram returned to New York City. In 1926, he became director of the Party's New York Workers School, the post he held through 1928. The Communist-affiliated school provided instruction in Marxist economics, Communist ideology and the radical organization of workers.
Besides, after his return to the United States, Bertram became a close political associate of factional leader Jay Lovestone, who became the leader of the American Communist Party after the death of C. E. Ruthenberg in 1927. Also, from 1927 till 1928, Wolfe edited The Communist, the official theoretical journal of the Communist Party.
In 1928, Wolfe was appointed the national director of agitation and propaganda for the Workers (Communist) Party of America. He also ran for the United States Congress as a Communist in the 10th Congressional District of New York. In December 1928, when the election campaign was over, Bertram was appointed by the Lovestone-dominated Central Executive Committee of the American Communist Party to serve as its delegate to the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) in Moscow. Holding that office, Wolfe was involved in the attempt of Jay Lovestone to maintain control of the American organization over the growing opposition of Joseph Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov, who ultimately supported the rival faction, headed by William Z. Foster and Alexander Bittelman. When Lovestone, Wolfe and others refused to support the Comintern's official Stalinist line, they were expelled from the Party in 1929.
In April 1929, Wolfe was removed from his post in Moscow and instead was appointed to a dangerous assignment in Korea as part of the campaign against the Lovestone group in the American Communist Party. However, Bertram refused the assignment.
In the early 1930, Wolfe and Lovestone, who had also been expelled from the party, organized the Communist Party (Opposition) (CP(O)) to further their views. They expected, that a majority of American Communists will join them, however, they were able to attract only a few hundreds of followers. At that time, Bertram was the editor of the CP(O)'s newspaper Worker's Age and its chief theorist.
Lovestone and Wolfe wanted to be welcomed back into the Communist movement, but it was never going to happen. It's worth noting, that the two men were admirers of Nikolai Bukharin and helped found the International Communist Opposition (also known as the International Right Opposition), which for a time had some influence before drying up.
In the 1930's, Bertram and his wife Ella traveled around the world, visiting Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Mexico City. In 1934, Bertram collaborated with Rivera on the book "Portrait of America", featuring his commentary and the Mexican artist's work. Before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Bertram and his wife also spent some time in Spain.
Also, in 1934, Wolfe was a visiting lecturer in Spanish literature at Stanford University. Later, in 1937, he published another collaboration with Rivera, titled "Portrait of Mexico". In 1939, he completed "Diego Rivera: His Life and Times" and "Keep America Out of War: A Program", written with the socialist Norman Thomas.
The signing of a nonaggression pact between Stalin and Adolf Hitler in 1939 prompted Wolfe to begin work on a critical study of the Russian Revolution and its meaning. Nine years in the writing, his book, "Three Who Made a Revolution: Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin", appeared in 1948. Highly acclaimed, it was eventually translated into twenty-eight languages.
By 1940, Wolfe and his wife had already been living in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where they became friends with Alfred Kazin. At the same time, the Communist Party (Opposition) moved further away from the left and went through several name changes. In 1938, it finally became the Independent Labor League of America and was dissolved in January 1941.
During World War II, Wolfe continued to speak out against Stalin. He lectured on the dangers of new subjugations in a postwar Europe, dominated by the Soviet dictator. Wolfe and his supporters were attacked by the Communist Political Association as "Trotskyites" and "fascists", whose opposition to Stalin lent support to Hitler.
During the period of the Cold War, Bertram was a leading anti-Communist. In the early 1950's, Wolfe created an Ideological Advisory Unit for the State Department's Voice of America International Broadcasting Division. Its purpose was to fight Soviet propaganda and to undermine its effects in the West and in such Soviet-controlled areas, as North Korea. The unit's radio broadcasts sought to unmask the totalitarian nature of the Soviet system, attacking the alleged morality of Communism itself. Wolfe remained with the State Department through the mid-1950's. During this period, he also was a fellow of the Russian Institute of Columbia University.
After leaving government, Wolfe resumed his career as a freelance author, while holding a variety of academic and research posts. In 1956 and 1957, he served as a research fellow in the Russian History Project, and from 1961 to 1962, he was a distinguished visiting professor of Russian History at the University of California, Berkeley. Wolfe continued writing at a feverish pace, publishing such books, as "Six Keys to the Soviet System" (1956), "Khruschchev and Stalin's Ghost" (1957) and "Communist Totalitarianism: Keys to the Soviet System" (1961), among many others.
In his later years, Wolfe joined Stanford University's Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace's library as a senior fellow in Slavic studies and, in 1966, became a senior research fellow at the institution. Through the late 1960's, he continued to produce books, such as "Marxism: 100 Years in the Life of a Doctrine" (1965), "The Bridge and the Abyss: The Troubled Friendship of Maxim Gorky and V. I. Lenin" (1967) and "An Ideology in Power: Reflections on the Russian Revolution" (1969).
Bertram Wolfe was known as an expert on the Soviet Union and an early foe of Stalin. Also, he gained prominence as the co-founder of the Communist Party of the United States of America and later as that of the Communist Party (Opposition).
During his lifetime, Bertram authored a number of biographical studies of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky and Diego Rivera, among other works. His best‐known book, "Three Who Made a Revolution", remains a classic study of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. Published in 1948, it was translated into 28 languages.
Besides, in 1949, 1950 and 1953, Wolfe received the Guggenheim Fellowship.
In his early years, Wolfe was a member of the Socialist Party of America and in the late 1910's, he joined the Communist Propaganda League. In 1919, together with Jay Lovestone, Louis Fraina, John Reed and Benjamin Gitlow, Bertram created a left-wing faction in the Socialist Party of America, that advocated the policies of the Bolsheviks in Russia. On May 24, 1919, the leadership of the Socialist Party expelled 20,000 members, who supported this faction. Then, the group, including Wolfe, Earl Browder, John Reed, James Cannon, Jay Lovestone, William Bross Lloyd, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Ella Reeve Bloor, Rose Pastor Stokes, Claude McKay, Michael Gold and Robert Minor, decided to form the Communist Party of the United States. By September 1919, it had 60,000 members, whereas the Socialist Party of America had only 40,000.
After Lenin's death, Joseph Stalin became a new leader in the Soviet Union. However, Wolfe and Jay Lovestone supported Nikolay Bukharin. When Stalin emerged as the victor, Wolfe lost a certain amount of influence in the American Communist Party. Later, when Wolfe defended Lovestone against the criticism of Joseph Stalin, he was expelled from the Party and was under virtual house arrest in Moscow for six months before he could obtain an exit visa.
Then, Nikolay Bukharin, Bertram and others, who were expelled from the Communist Party, formed the Communist Party (Majority Group). Later, it changed its name to the Communist Party (Opposition), the Independent Communist Labor League and finally, in 1938, the Independent Labor League of America. Some time later, Wolfe left the movement as he broke with Jay Lovestone over United States involvement in the Second World War. Lovestone favored American intervention, whereas Wolfe argued it was an imperialist war.
During the Cold War, Wolfe stuck to anti-Communist views.
Views
Quotations:
"Mediocrity does not arouse violent reactions, only indifference."
"The education of an artist is one of the most chaotic branches of formal education."
Membership
Bertram was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and PEN International.
Personality
Physical Characteristics:
Wolfe suffered severe burns, when his bathrobe caught fire at his home in Menlo Park, California. He was transported to the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, but his injuries proved fatal.
Connections
Wolfe married Ella (Goldberg) Wolfe, a Spanish teacher, on April 18, 1917. They had no children.
Father:
William D. Wolfe
Mother:
Rachel (Samter) Wolfe
Wife:
Ella (Goldberg) Wolfe
colleague:
Jay Lovestone
Friend:
Alfred Kazin
Alfred Kazin was an American writer and literary critic.
References
Breaking with Communism: The Intellectual Odyssey of Bertam D. Wolfe
"Breaking With Communism" documents the second half of Wolfe's life, drawing from his papers in the Hoover Institution Archives. This volume, consisting chiefly of Wolfe's letters from 1939 on and supplemented by unpublished speeches and writings, illuminates his struggle to uncover the truth about the history of Soviet Russia and his anguish over renouncing his earlier allegiances not only to Lenin, but to Karl Marx as well.
