John J. Ballam
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John J. Ballam was an English-born American Marxist political activist and trade union organizer. He is best remembered as a founding member and one of the pioneer leaders of the Communist Party of Am
Ballam c. 1939
Ballam c. 1928
C. E. Ruthenberg
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Charles Emil Ruthenberg was an American Marxist politician who was the founder and first head of the Communist Party USA. He is one of five Americans to be buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.
John J. Ballam
…in America. During the bitter factional warfare of the 1920s, Ballam was a consistent supporter of the Communist Party faction headed by John Pepper, C.E. Ruthenberg, and Jay Lovestone. Ballam worked as the Workers Party of America's district organizer for Buffalo and upstate New York state in 1924…
Cover of Ruthenberg's first political pamphlet, published in 1917 by the local Cleveland Socialist Party. According to WorldCat less than a dozen copies are known to exist.
Ruthenberg (top row, third from left) with members of the Socialist Party's War Committee at the 1917 Emergency National Convention.
Ruthenberg speaks at a May Day rally in Cleveland, 1917
Cartoon of Ruthenberg, Alfred Wagenknecht, and Charles Baker in the potato patch of the Canton Workhouse from a 1917 pamphlet collecting speeches from their trial.