Alexander Bittelman was born in Berdichev (Berdychiv), in the Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine) on January 9, 1890.
In September of that year, he was a founding member of the Communist Party of America (CPA) and editor of the Yiddish-language newspaper, Der Kampf (The Struggle).
He saw the way that the internecine struggle between the two organizations was sapping the strength of the revolutionary socialist movement, however, and came to be an advocate of organizational unity between the CPA and the UCP.
[4] Merger was finally accomplished at a convention held in May 1921, and Bittelman was welcomed back into the newly unified Communist Party of America.
In September 1946, Bittelman authored a paper for the Communist Party's National Board predicting economic collapse and a return to depression-like conditions within two years, as wartime government spending was curtailed.
[6] Imminent economic collapse and the rise of fascism in America was seen a likely scenario, and the Communist Party girded itself for a political assault.
[6] Following the end of World War II, the government of the United States quickly moved away from its wartime ally against Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union.
A Second Red Scare swept the country, fueled by the partially-justified fear of conservative politicians that a network of spies on behalf of an aggressive and expansionistic USSR had penetrated various branches of American government, education, and popular culture.
By the end of 1947, internal pressure had grown to the point that public opinion demanded for the authority of the state to be brought to bear upon the Communist Party's members and supporters in what was seen as a campaign of national self-defense.
[7] The most simple mechanism at the government's disposal was to make use of deportation proceedings against radical resident aliens, with a view to shattering the foreign-born leadership of the Communist Party and disrupting the organization.
[8] The government charged that Bittelman had repeatedly violated federal law during the 1930s by traveling to the Soviet Union by means of fraudulently obtained passports and that he had maintained illegal contact with the Communist International in Moscow.
"[10] Angered by Bittelman's speedy release and defiant public comments, U.S. Attorney General Tom C. Clark was soon in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee to reiterate his desire to use deportation statutes "to remove from among us those aliens who believe in a foreign ideology.
In the wake of the death of Joseph Stalin and the exposure of the excesses and crimes of his regime as well as the working class revolt in Hungary, a movement grew for liberalization in the Communist Party.
A hard-line faction headed by Gus Hall had by this time consolidated its hold of the CPUSA, however, and Bittelman's planned memoir was condemned by the new party leadership on October 14, 1959.
Bittelman was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee to provide testimony about his former organization on November 21, 1961, but he refused to testify, citing his rights under the First and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Bittelman left an unpublished memoir, Things I Have Learned, which resides at the Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives of Bobst Library at New York University.