Edward A. Wolkenstein

1925-2006

On August 11, Ed Wolkenstein died from leukemia, three weeks after the diagnosis, in his home in Brooklyn, New York, which he shared with his wife of 60 years, Gloria. Ed was a lifelong communist and fighter for black liberation. Ed was a leader in the Young Communist League, editor of New Foundations during the Korean War, worked at Bethlehem Steel in Lackawanna, NY, as part of the Communist Party’s fraction, and was elected as a USW shop steward and convention delegate. Ed was subpoenaed twice to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee, in 1957 for his Communist Party activity and in 1964 as a founding member of Progressive Labor (PL). In 1964, Ed helped build mass protest in Buffalo against the Committee and he appeared in defiant opposition to it. After leaving PL, Ed put out his own newsletter, Spirit and the Sword, dedicated to the fight for black rights. His intervention into the New Left was to establish the John Brown Institute for Marxist Studies in Buffalo, and he founded the Socialist Club at the University of Buffalo, in which membership was based on agreement with Lenin’s The State and Revolution.

In the mid ’70s, Ed withdrew from political activity and taught reading in vocational schools, and he became president of his teachers union local. Later, he considered himself a supporter of the Spartacist League, particularly motivated by the SL’s anti-fascist mobilizations and intervention into the political revolution in the DDR (East Germany). He founded the Buffalo Committee to Free Mumia, supporting the work of the Partisan Defense Committee.

Ed was steadfast in his love, devotion, pride and support of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who gave him much pleasure. He was the father of four children: Rachel, Naomi, Seth and Noah. Rachel’s husband, Gary, joined the family early on. Ed’s three grandchildren, Rebecca, Deborah and Gabriel, and five great-grandchildren, Felicia, Joshua, Zachary, Mia and Ezra Jai, were very much in his consciousness through the last days of his life. Ed welcomed his grandchildren’s spouses, John, Tony and Thoureth, into the family. In the days before his death, Ed’s family, including his brother Jack, was with him.

The onset of Alzheimer’s inhibited Ed from active participation in politics. However, to his death he maintained his disdain of scabs, finks and government agents and never stopped raging against the crimes of American imperialism, at home and abroad.

We extend our deepest condolences to comrades Rachel and Seth Wolkenstein as well as to all of Ed’s family and many friends.