Barsky is best remembered as the head of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, a Communist Party-sponsored organization which raised funds to aid refugees from the regime of Spanish strongman Francisco Franco in the late 1930s during the Spanish Civil War.

In the 1950s Barsky became a cause célèbre as a victim of McCarthyism when he was imprisoned for refusing to provide information to the House Un-American Activities Committee.

[3] With the outbreak civil war in Spain in 1936, Barsky left Beth El Hospital[1] joined with a group of concerned New York physicians to establish the American Medical Bureau to Aid Spanish Democracy (AMB) -- an adjunct organization to the North America Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, later known as the North American Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy.

Barsky sailed for Spain on January 16, 1937, arriving early the next month with enough equipment to furnish a 50-bed hospital.

[6] As a result, Barsky was charged with Contempt of Congress and brought to trial for his willful defiance of Congressional subpoena.

He was also affiliated with the New York labor movement, working for many years as a security plan panel physician for District Council 65.