Albert Goldman (politician)

[1] Goldman left before completing his rabbinical studies and transferred to the University of Cincinnati, where he captained the collegiate basketball team and ran track.

He came into contact with the radical movement in this occupation, first joining the Industrial Workers of the World and shortly thereafter the newly formed Communist Party of America.

[1] Goldman made use of the pseudonym "Albert Verblin," under which name he wrote a polemic pamphlet answering a 1921 book by Socialist Party leader Morris Hillquit entitled From Marx to Lenin.

[1] On behalf of the ILD, Goldman participated in a series of cases defending political radicals and trade union activists who had run afoul of the law.

[2] After his expulsion from the CPUSA, Goldman joined the Communist League of America (CLA), the small Trotskyist opposition party headed by James P. Cannon and Max Shachtman.

Goldman became the attorney for Leon Trotsky, in exile in Mexico City, and defended him there in April 1937 against the charges leveled against him by the regime of Joseph Stalin in hearings conducted before a commission headed by liberal educator John Dewey.

In 1941, Goldman was a defendant as well as chief defense counsel in the Minneapolis trial of top Socialist Workers Party leaders accused of violating the Smith Act—a prosecution pushed owing to the SWP's continuing opposition to American participation in World War II.

He gradually grew disenchanted, however, until in 1946 he and a small group of followers bolted the Cannon-led SWP to join the rival Workers Party, headed by Max Shachtman from 1940.

In 1948, the pair developed criticisms of its policies, claiming that the party should support the Marshall Plan and also the presidential campaign of Socialist Norman Thomas.