[ Eby, pp 141-2] ]He went to Spain in 1937, and was initially political commissar of the Lincoln Battalion of XV International Brigade. He became commander of the battalion on the first day (6 July 1937) of the Battle of Brunete, replacing Martin Hourihan who was badly wounded. [Eby, p 184]
In 1950, Nelson was confronted with the well-known jurist Michael Musmanno, whose career was taking a sharply anti-Communist turn. Nelson was at the time leading a regional branch of the American Communist Party, one of whose activists sold Musmanno a tract for $5.75. Musmanno declared that "this store is the equivalent of an advance post of the Red Army", got Nelson charged with sedition and used the resulting publicity to secure his own election to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
Nelson initially received a 20-year prison sentence, $10,000 in fines and $13,000 in prosecution costs, and was for a time jailed in Pittsburgh. However, in 1956 the Supreme Court threw out the case, saying federal law superseded the state law under which Nelson was prosecuted (( [http://supreme.justia.com/us/350/497/case.html Pennsylvania -v- Nelson] ), 350 U.S. 497 (1956)).
Nelson was in 1956 also a party to another Sureme Court case arising out of his membership of the Communist Party ( [http://supreme.justia.com/us/352/808/case.html Mesarosh -v- United States] ) which was of a more technical nature.
He became national commander of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade at its 1967 convention. [Eby, p 435]
Notes and references
*Eby, Cecil; "Comrades and Commissars", 2007
* [http://supreme.justia.com/us/350/497/case.html Pennsylvania -v- Nelson, 350 U.S. 497 (1956)]
* [http://supreme.justia.com/us/352/808/case.html Mesarosh -v- United States, 352 U.S. 808 (1956)]
