Solomon Regenstreif, better known by the Anglo-Saxon name he later adopted, John Gates, was born in 1913 in New York City, the son of ethnic Jewish parents who hailed from Poland.

Gates first worked with unemployed workers in Ohio, eventually running unsuccessfully for the city council of Youngstown.

[1] When the Spanish Civil War broke out, Gates joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and fought in Spain.

[3] In the summer of 1948, Gates was one of 12 "kingpin Commies" (to borrow a colorful contemporary turn of phrase from Time magazine) indicted under the Smith Act for being "dedicated to the Marxist–Leninist principles of the overthrow and destruction of the Government ... by force and violence.

In that capacity, Gates' editorial policy soon came to set him at odds with the party leadership, he took liberal positions embracing Nikita Khrushchev's criticisms of Joseph Stalin and opposing the Soviet Union's suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

Gates resigned from the Party in January 1958, claiming that it had "ceased to be an effective force for democracy, peace, and socialism in the United States."

Following publication of his memoirs, Gates went to work as a senior research assistant for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU).