David Lasser

Lasser is remembered as an influential figure of early science fiction writing, working closely with Hugo Gernsback.

Lasser and his writers, who included G. Edward Pendray, founded the American Interplanetary Society on April 4, 1930.

It was the first non-fiction English-language book to deal with spaceflight and detailed how a man could one day travel into outer space.

The Party had founded these to organize the unemployed to demand more relief and to represent workers employed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

Under the new "no enemies to the left" policy, the Communists stopped attacking the Socialist Party and suggested that they merge their unemployed efforts.

He then served as economics and research director of the International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers until his retirement in 1969.

There is an extensive interview with Lasser, covering his careers in both science fiction and the labor movement, in Eric Leif Davin's "Pioneers of Wonder".