U.S. Communists were in a swivet. Earl Browder, the guy they had booted off their top pedestal, was staying longer & longer in Moscow, hobnobbing with Soviet bigwigs. What was he up to? What was going on?
Last week the Browder star was shining even brighter. Off to Russia to join Fallen Angel Browder was his most ardent disciple, a shy, little-known, well-heeled U.S. businessman named Abraham A. Heller, who was also the longtime financial angel of U.S. radicals.
For 40 years Abraham Heller had moved unobtrusively in the shadowy half-world of the U.S. far left wing. Born in Minsk, Russia, 71 years ago, he turned up in the U.S. in 1891, started a jewel-importing business, married a New York girl. He made money fast. Soon he opened a Paris branch, moved to France.
Before long he was back in the U.S., hip-deep in Socialism. The money he made from his business he poured into the Party coffers, and into the Socialist New York Call. As his conscience prospered, so did his business. He started the International Oxygen Co. and once more his profits soared.
When the infant Bolshevist regime started its climb to power, Abraham Heller was quick to give a helping hand. Again radicalism paid off. In 1919 he set himself up as Russia's purchasing agent in the U.S., claimed $200 million in gold to start trade relations rolling. In 1920, already a Party member, he financed the first U.S. Communist convention.
The next year he visited Russia, won rights for the sale of liquid gases to the U.S.S.R. Back in Manhattan, he organized the International Publishers Association (51% Comintern-owned), spent $115,000 in the next decade on the publication of left-wing books and pamphlets. He dug deep into his jeans to bolster the shaky finances of the Daily Worker.
But when the great schism came, and Earl Browder fell, Abraham Heller resigned from the Party, cut off his financial support. While Browder and Heller were getting together on schemes for a new Soviet-U.S. publishing venture, the dead-broke Daily Worker began beating its drums for new contributors.