Leibel Bergman

[4][5] Bergman was born in Grand Forks, North Dakota in 1915, into a religiously observant Jewish family.

[6] With the outbreak of World War II he joined the US Army (consistent with the anti-fascist position of the CPUSA at the time), serving as an Army-Air Force navigator in the Pacific theater.

[8] After the war they settled in San Francisco, where Bergman worked in a drop forge factory.

[6] Continuing his activism with the CPUSA, he participated in union organizing and published a newsletter, The Scriber.

[7] Inspired by the Chinese Revolution, in July 1965 Bergman and his sons left the US for China, where he taught English.

[10] With a group of mostly younger activists (including Bob Avakian, H. Bruce Franklin and Steve Hamilton) Bergman founded the Maoist Bay Area Revolutionary Union (BARU) in Spring 1968.

With Mickey Jarvis, Bergman left the party to form the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters, taking about a third of the RCP's membership with them.