Marion Bachrach (1898–1957) was the sister of

John Abt John Jacob Abt (May 1, 1904 – August 10, 1991) was an American lawyer and politician, who spent most of his career as chief counsel to the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and was a member of the Communist Party and the Soviet spy network "Ware Gr ...

and also a member of the

Ware group The Ware Group was a covert organization of Communist Party USA operatives within the United States government in the 1930s, run first by Harold Ware (1889–1935) and then by Whittaker Chambers (1901–1961) after Ware's accidental death on Augus ...

, a group of government employees in the

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...

administration of

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

who were also members of the secret apparatus of the

Communist Party of the United States The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...

(CPUSA) in the 1930s.

Career

Bachrach was the personal secretary and congressional office manager to Representative John Bernard of the

Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to i ...

in 1937-1938. Bachrach also was a correspondent for the newspaper ''PM''. Membership and meeting of the Ware group were highly secretive, and many members eventually infiltrated into higher levels of the

United States government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fede ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. After

Alger Hiss Alger Hiss (November 11, 1904 – November 15, 1996) was an American government official accused in 1948 of having spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Statutes of limitations had expired for espionage, but he was convicted of perjury in con ...

was cut out from closer contact with the Ware group, Hiss remained a close associate of Marion Bachrach. On November 20, 1942 Soviet foreign intelligence (Dimitrov to Fitin, RTsKhIDNI 495-74-484) requested a background report on Bachrach from the

Comintern The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet Union, Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to ...

and received a positive report. On December 14, 1948, Bachrach testified in Washington, DC, before the

House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...

(HUAC); the next day in New York City, a federal grand jury indicted

on two counts of perjury in relation to the same line of evidence that HUAC was investigating. In 1951, Bachrach was arrested but got out on bail. (Her attorney was Harold I. Cammer, whose law partners included

Nathan Witt Nathan Witt (February 11, 1903 – February 16, 1982), born Nathan Wittowsky, was an American lawyer who is best known as being the Secretary of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from 1937 to 1940. He resigned from the NLRB after his commun ...

and formerly included

Lee Pressman Lee Pressman (July 1, 1906 – November 20, 1969) was a labor attorney and earlier a US government functionary, publicly alleged in 1948 to have been a spy for Soviet intelligence during the mid-1930s (as a member of the Ware Group), following hi ...

, also both members of the Ware Group). Cammer had represented Abt, Witt, and Pressman during the Hiss Case.)

Personal life

She married Howard Bachrach, who worked at the

Agricultural Adjustment Administration The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was a United States federal law of the New Deal era designed to boost agricultural prices by reducing surpluses. The government bought livestock for slaughter and paid farmers subsidies not to plant on part ...

Works

Bachrach wrote several tracts sold to

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

consumers. Some original publications appear to be quite profitable among collectors and sellers. Among them are ''Amnesty! Proposal of an amnesty program to release the members of the Communist Party imprisoned under the provisions of 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 ...

'', ''This Obvious Violence'', ''You Are on Trial'' and ''The Federal Grand Jury is Stacked Against You''.

References

Sources

Harvey Klehr Harvey Elliott Klehr (born December 25, 1945) is a professor of politics and history at Emory University. Klehr is known for his books on the subject of the American Communist movement, and on Soviet espionage in America (many written jointly with ...

John Earl Haynes John Earl Haynes (born 1944) is an American historian who worked as a specialist in 20th-century political history in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. He is known for his books on the subject of the American Communist and anti- ...

, and Fridrikh Igorevich Firsov, ''The Secret World of American Communism (New Haven:

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Universi ...

'', 1995). * John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, ''Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999). * ''

FBI Silvermaster File The Silvermaster File of the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation is a 162-volume compendium totalling 26,000 pages of documents relating to the FBI's investigation of GRU and NKVD moles inside the U.S. federal government both before and ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Bachrach, Marion American communists 1898 births 1957 deaths

Career

Personal life

Works

See also

References

Sources