- Bertram Wolfe
Bertram David Wolfe (
January 19 ,1896 –February 21 ,1977 ) was an American scholar and formerCommunist best known for writing "Three Who Made a Revolution" (1948), a biographical study ofLenin ,Stalin andTrotsky , and "The Fabulous Life of Diego Rivera" (ISBN 0-8128-1259-X).Early life
Born in
New York City , Wolfe was active with theSocialist Party of America in his youth and was a founding member of theCommunist Party of America and the principal author of its manifesto. He was one of the party's delegates to meetings of theCommunist International inMoscow . He wasJay Lovestone 's chief ally and collaborator and helped develop the theory of "American exceptionalism ". He went to Moscow as a delegate to the Sixth Congress of the Communist International in 1928 to defend the thesis againstStalin 's criticisms and try to persuade the Soviet leader not to remove Lovestone as the American party'sgeneral secretary . Wolfe was expelled from the Communist movement for his troubles and was under virtual house arrest in Moscow for six months before he could obtain an exit visa.Communist Party (Opposition)
Upon returning to the United States, he and Lovestone (who had also been expelled from the party), formed the Communist Party (Opposition) to further their views. Having expected a majority of American Communists to join them, they were disappointed at only being able to attract a few hundred followers. Wolfe became editor of the CP(O)'s newspaper "Worker's Age" and its chief theorist. Initially, Lovestone and Wolfe hoped to eventually be welcomed back into the Communist movement but when changes in the Comintern's line failed to result in a rapprochement, the CP(O) moved further and further away from
Communism . Wolfe and Lovestone were sympathisers ofNikolai Bukharin and helped found theInternational Communist Opposition (also known as the International Right Opposition) which for a time had some influence before petering out.In the 1930s, Wolfe and his wife, Ella Goldberg Wolfe, travelled around the world visiting
Diego Rivera andFrida Kahlo inMexico City in 1933 and spending time inSpain prior to the outbreak of theSpanish Civil War .The CP(O) meanwhile moved further away from the left and went through several name changes finally becoming the
Independent Labor League of America in 1938 before dissolving at the end of 1940 in part because of a break between Lovestone and Wolfe on their interpretation ofWorld War II with Lovestone favouring American intervention and Wolfe opposing support for what he argued was an imperialist war.Cold War
Wolfe's political perspective changed with time, however, and during the
Cold War was a leadinganti-Communist . In the 1950s, he worked as ideological advisor to the State Department's International Broadcasting Office which was in charge ofRadio Liberty andRadio Free Europe . He then joinedStanford University 'sHoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace 's library as Senior Fellow in Slavic Studies and, in 1966, became a Senior Research Fellow at the institution. He also served as a visiting professor atColumbia University and theUniversity of California .Wolfe died at the age of 81 from burns he suffered when his bathrobe caught fire.
External links
* [http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2002/janfeb/features/wolfe.html Life of the Party] article on Ella Wolfe
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