Al Richmond (1914?-1987) was an American writer who co-founded and served as executive editor for the ''

People's World ''People's World'', official successor to the ''Daily Worker'', is a Marxist and American leftist national daily online news publication. Founded by activists, socialists, communists, and those active in the labor movement in the early 1900s, th ...

'' San Francisco.

Background

Al Richmond was born in 1914 in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

. His mother, a revolutionary left for the USA after six years in a czarist prison, returned to Russia in 1917 to retrieve her son, faced arrest by German soldiers. They came back to the United States in 1922. Worked as Union Activist

Career

In 1929, age 15, Richmond joined the

Young Communist League The Young Communist League (YCL) is the name used by the youth wing of various Communist parties around the world. The name YCL of XXX (name of country) originates from the precedent established by the Communist Youth International. Examples of YC ...

(YCL). After high school, he moved to Philadelphia and helped unionize factory and dock workers. In the 1930s, he wrote for ''

Daily Worker The ''Daily Worker'' was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, attempts were m ...

'' and then moved West to co-found what was originally the ''Daily People's World'' (now ''

'') newspaper. Richmond also edited the ''Sunday Worker'', a weekly newspaper launched in January 1936 to try to reach more broadly than the ''Daily Worker'', with

James S. Allen James S. "Jim" Allen, born Sol Auerbach (1906–1986), was an American Marxist historian, journalist, editor, activist, and functionary of the Communist Party USA. Allen is best remembered as the author and editor of over two dozen books and pamph ...

as foreign editor. After a 1951 raid by the

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...

on ''People's World'' offices, Richmond and 13 other CPUSA members in California were tried, convicted, and sentenced to five years in prison under the

Smith Act The Alien Registration Act, popularly known as the Smith Act, 76th United States Congress, 3d session, ch. 439, , is a United States federal statute that was enacted on June 28, 1940. It set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of th ...

for advocating violent overthrow of the US Government. Richmond served one year. After criticizing the USSR for invading

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

in 1968, Richmond faced censure by CPUSA leaders, quit the Party, but remained a

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

Personal life and death

With wife Merle, Richmond had two children. Al Richmond died age 73 on November 9, 1987, of pneumonia in San Francisco.

Works

In his 1973 memoir ''A Long View From the Left'', Richmond criticized the CPUSA. * ''Dangerous Thoughts'' with Mike Quin (1940) * ''A Long View From the Left'' (1973)

References

1987 deaths 1914 births Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States {{US-writer-stub