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Earl Browder was the General Secretary of the [[Communist Party of the United States of America]] from 1932 to 1945.  During [[World War II]], when the United States and [[Soviet Union]] were allied fighting [[Nazi]] Germany, Browder publicly took the position that Communism and capitalism could coexist, which was the position the Soviet Union had taken during World War II.  After the war, when the position of the Soviet Union had changed and the Cold War had begun, Browder was expelled from the party for his past statements.

Earl Browder was the General Secretary of the [[Communist Party of the United States of America]] (CPUSA) from 1932 to 1945.  During [[World War II]], when the United States and [[Soviet Union]] were allied fighting [[Nazi]] Germany, Browder publicly took the position that Communism and capitalism could coexist, which was the position the Soviet Union had taken during World War II.  After the war, when the position of the Soviet Union had changed and the Cold War had begun, Browder was expelled from the party for his past statements.

Browder was an active spy for the Soviet Union in the 1930s and '40s, recruiting agents, as was revealed by the [[Venona]] project.

Browder, as CPUSA General Secretary, long benefited from the dogma of the [[liberal]] and [[leftist]] intelligentsia that the CPUSA did not participate in Soviet espionage against the United States. These assertions continue, despite the presentation of substantial contrary evidence over the years by [[Elizabeth Bentley]] and others <ref>John E. Haynes, ''Red Scare or Red Menace'', Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996, p. 61. </ref><ref>Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and Fredrikh I. Firsov, ''The Secret World of American Communism'', New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995, p. 233. </ref> the [[Venona]] cables, the [[Judith  Coplon]], [[Alger Hiss]], and [[William Remington]] trials, as well as dozens of articles and books.

 

An indication of Browder's cooperation with the [[KGB]] can be derived from a discussion [[Jacob Golos]] had with Browder in November 1943 regarding a group of KGB informants he was running. Browder became involved in the operation, and after Golos's death that same month, Browder arranged with Bentley to take over the group. She met the members in [[John Abt]]'s apartment in New York. <ref>FBI Report, New York #65–14913, 8 November 1950 and 65–57913; SI 304 Venona 588 New York to Moscow 29 April 1944. </ref>

 

Earl Browder's close association with the KGB was further borne out by the fact that he was the recipient of classified data. KGB Case Officer [[Iskhak Akhmerov]] and [[Nathan Gregory Silvermaster]] agreed that Akhmerov would pass intelligence on the [[Chinese Communist Party]] to Browder through KGB Rezident [[Anatoly Gorsky]] or CPUSA organizational secretary [[Bernard Schuster]].  Browder's niece, [[Helen Lowry]] was married to Akhmerov and was a KGB spy, too.

 

As early as May 1943, Browder cabled to Moscow U.S. armament production statistics on tanks, anti-tank guns, machine guns, battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyer and merchant vessels. <ref>Venona 774, 775, and 776 New York to Moscow 26 May 1943. </ref>

 

 

[[Category:KGB Agents and Sources]]