Harry Winitsky

Harry Mordecai Winitsky (1898–1939) was an American left wing political activist who was a founding member of the Communist Party of America.

Harry Winitsky was born January 25, 1898, in New York City, the son of a painter who had emigrated to the United States from Tsarist Russia.

[2] Although not themselves anarchists, Winitsky was one of five prominent members of the American Communist movement charged under the New York Criminal Anarchy Law of 1902, a piece of legislation hurriedly passed in the wake of the assassination of President William McKinley.

[3] The indictments against Winitsky and his comrades charged under the New York law — Benjamin Gitlow, who preceded him, as well as James Larkin, Isaac Ferguson, and C.E.

[3] Prosecutors used the theory that the Manifesto of the Left Wing advocated the abolition of organized government by unlawful means and that Winitsky, having been present at the Party's 1919 convention in Chicago, had subscribed to the ideas in it.

An agent of the Lusk Committee testified that he had purchased copies of the manifesto from the Party's New York state headquarters at 207 East Tenth Street.

The New York City Board of Elections invalidated both nominations on the grounds that the prospective candidates were convicted criminals and were still imprisoned, and had therefore "been deprived of citizenship.

[1] Winitsky was a delegate to the ill-fated August 1922 convention of the underground CPA in Bridgman, Michigan — a gathering raided by state and federal law enforcement authorities.

[9] Norman Thomas, frequent Presidential candidate of the Socialist Party, was the chief speaker at Winitsky's funeral, held in New York City.