Martin "Marty" Abern (; December 2, 1898 – April 1949) was a Marxist politician who was an important leader of the Communist youth movement of the 1920s as well as a founder of the American Trotskyist movement.
Early life
Martin Abern was born on December 2, 1898, in Berlad, Romania, the son of Joseph Abramovitz an ethnic Jewish peddler and Hinda Schwartz and brother of Rita Abramovitz. The family emigrated to the United States in 1902, moving to Minneapolis the following year. He married Lydia Winter in November 1928.
Career
Socialist
The young man was radically inclined from an early age, joining the Socialist Party of America's youth section, the Young People's Socialist League in 1912, He was saved from deportation at the last minute by a court order obtained by his attorney.
Abern was a delegate to the 2nd World Congress of the Young Communist International (YCI), held in Moscow in June 1921, where he was made a member of the Executive Committee of the YCI.
Abern then took an important leadership role in the adult Workers (Communist) Party of America, becoming the District Organizer of the party's important Chicago district in 1928 and sitting on the governing Central Executive Committee of the organization.
Abern was elected to the governing National Committee of the WPUS at the time of its formation in 1940 and remained in the top leadership of that organization for the rest of his life. Abern was 50 years old at the time of his death.
Abern's papers comprise part of the John Dwyer Papers held by Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. A small collection of his correspondence with Leon Trotsky is also housed at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
References
External sources
- Max Shachtman, "Martin Abern: An Obituary," Labor Action [New York], May 9, 1949.
- Wolfgang Lubitz and Petra Lubitz, "Martin Abern," Lubitz TrotskyanaNet. Revised edition, November 2009.
- Finding Aid for the John Dwyer Papers, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University.