Juliet Poyntz
Encyclopedia
Juliet Stuart Poyntz was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution
(DAR), and a founding member of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA). After resigning from active work with the Party, she disappeared in 1937, never to be seen again. She is believed by several sources to have been abducted and murdered by a Soviet NKVD
assassination squad.
. She moved to New York City
as a young adult, where she earned degrees at Barnard College
and Columbia University
. She subsequently studied at the University of Oxford
and the London School of Economics
before lecturing in the History Department at Columbia.
in 1909 and began working in the labor reform movement after leaving Columbia in 1913. She was instrumental in labor-Left reform organisations such as U.S Immigration Commission, The American Association for Labor Legislation and the Rand School of Social Science
.
Later, Poyntz was employed by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union as director of the union's Worker's University. She continued to work within the Socialist-oriented ILGWU after siding with the fledgling CPUSA. During the 1920s, Poyntz was on the staff of the Friends of the Soviet Union
and International Labor Defense
. She later quit her outside work in favor of intelligence activities for the Soviet OGPU during the "Third Period
". In November 1926, she ran for New York State Comptroller
, and in November 1928 for New York State Attorney General
, both times on the Workers Party
ticket.
According to a book by Benjamin Gitlow
, a founding member of the CPUSA, Poyntz was a delegate to several consecutive American Communist Party conventions, and was a member of the Party’s Central Executive Committee, besides being on New York’s District Executive Committee. She had even gone to China on a Comintern (Communist International) mission, and had dropped out of the CPUSA in 1934 in order to work for the OGPU (Soviet military secret police) in gathering scientific information for the Soviet Union. In 1936, Poyntz secretely traveled to Moscow to receive further instructions from Soviet authorities, and was seen there in the company of George Mink (alias Minkoff), an American later implicated in the disappearance of several Trotkskyists during the Spanish Civil War
. While there, Poyntz witnessed the purges instigated by Stalin, in which people she had known and worked with were killed. She returned to the U.S. disillusioned and unwilling to continue spying for the OGPU (later the NKVD
).
In early 1938 Carlo Tresca
, a leading Italian-American anarchist, publicly accused the Soviets of kidnapping Poyntz in order to prevent her defection. He said that before she disappeared, she had come to him to talk over her disgust at what she had seen in Moscow
in 1936 in the early stages of Joseph Stalin
's Great Purge
.
Testimony by former Soviet agent Whittaker Chambers
tied Poyntz' disappearance to the shadowy Soviet Comintern agent Josef Peters
. As an inside member of the Soviet Comintern
and OGPU espionage network, Peters is believed to have participated in the planning of the kidnapping and alleged murder of fellow CPUSA member Juliet Poyntz by a Soviet assassination squad.
Chambers later stated that he heard Poyntz had been killed for attempted desertion, and this rumor contributed to his caution when he defected in 1938. Elizabeth Bentley
stated she was told by Jacob Golos
in the late 1930s, and later by KGB
officer Anatoli Gromov in 1945 that Poyntz had been a traitor and was now dead. Both Chambers's and Bentley's defection were probably in part motivated by fear of the example set in the Juliet Poyntz case.
It is known that Poyntz told some acquaintances about plans to write a book in which she would expose the Communist movement. Author Benjamin Gitlow wrote that Poyntz was disillusioned by Stalin's purges and was unwilling to continue as an espionage agent for the USSR. Gitlow relates that the OGPU/NKVD used Poyntz’s former lover, a man named Shachno Epstein, the associate editor of the Communist Yiddish daily Morgen Freiheit
(and an OGPU/NKVD agent himself), to lure Poyntz out for a walk in Central Park. "They met at Columbus Circle and proceeded to walk through Central Park...Shachno took her by the arm and led her up a side path, where a large black limousine hugged the edge of the walk. [...] Two men jumped out, grabbed Miss Poyntz, shoved her into the car and sped away.” Gitlow relates that the assassins took Poyntz to the woods near the Roosevelt estate in Dutchess County, and killed and buried her there. “The body was covered with lime and dirt. On top were placed dead leaves and branches which the three killers trampled down with their feet.”
Before his own mysterious death, the GRU
defector Walter Krivitsky
suggested another motive for the NKVD kidnaping of Poyntz. During one of her sojourns to Moscow, Juliet had become a mistress and lover of Red Army Corp Commander Vitovt Putna
. In August 1936 the NKVD arrested Putna and accused him of maintaining contacts with Leon Trotsky
, from whom he had allegedly received "terrorist directives." Under torture, Putna testified to the existence of a "nation-wide" center of Trotskyists, and to his involvement in a "parallel" military organization. On June 11, 1937 a military tribunal, in camera, condemned Putna and other high-ranking officers to death in the judicial frame-up known as the Moscow Trial
of the Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization
. The NKVD, according to Krivitsky, may have abducted Poytnz one week before the trial out of fear that she would defect once the execution of Putna became known, or simply because she was a known friend of the "enemy" Putna.
Daughters of the American Revolution
The Daughters of the American Revolution is a lineage-based membership organization for women who are descended from a person involved in United States' independence....
(DAR), and a founding member of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA). After resigning from active work with the Party, she disappeared in 1937, never to be seen again. She is believed by several sources to have been abducted and murdered by a Soviet NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
assassination squad.
Early years
Poyntz was born on November 25, 1886 in Omaha, NebraskaOmaha, Nebraska
Omaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River...
. She moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
as a young adult, where she earned degrees at Barnard College
Barnard College
Barnard College is a private women's liberal arts college and a member of the Seven Sisters. Founded in 1889, Barnard has been affiliated with Columbia University since 1900. The campus stretches along Broadway between 116th and 120th Streets in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough...
and Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. She subsequently studied at the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
and the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
before lecturing in the History Department at Columbia.
Political career
Poyntz joined the Socialist Party of AmericaSocialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
in 1909 and began working in the labor reform movement after leaving Columbia in 1913. She was instrumental in labor-Left reform organisations such as U.S Immigration Commission, The American Association for Labor Legislation and the Rand School of Social Science
Rand School of Social Science
The Rand School of Social Science was formed in New York City by adherents of the Socialist Party of America in 1906. The school aimed to provide a broad education to workers, imparting a politicizing class-consciousness, and additionally served as a research bureau, a publisher, and the operator...
.
Later, Poyntz was employed by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union as director of the union's Worker's University. She continued to work within the Socialist-oriented ILGWU after siding with the fledgling CPUSA. During the 1920s, Poyntz was on the staff of the Friends of the Soviet Union
Friends of Soviet Russia
The Friends of Soviet Russia was formally established in the United States on August 9, 1921 as an offshoot of the American Labor Alliance for Trade Relations with Soviet Russia...
and International Labor Defense
International Labor Defense
The International Labor Defense was a legal defense organization in the United States, headed by William L. Patterson. It was a US section of International Red Aid organisation, and associated with the Communist Party USA. It defended Sacco and Vanzetti, was active in the civil rights and...
. She later quit her outside work in favor of intelligence activities for the Soviet OGPU during the "Third Period
Third Period
The Third Period is a ideological concept adopted by the Communist International at its 6th World Congress, held in Moscow in the summer of 1928....
". In November 1926, she ran for New York State Comptroller
New York State Comptroller
The New York State Comptroller is a state cabinet officer of the U.S. state of New York. The duties of the comptroller include auditing government operations and operating the state's retirement system.-History:...
, and in November 1928 for New York State Attorney General
New York State Attorney General
The New York State Attorney General is the chief legal officer of the State of New York. The office has been in existence in some form since 1626, under the Dutch colonial government of New York.The current Attorney General is Eric Schneiderman...
, both times on the Workers Party
Workers Party of America
The Workers Party of America was the name of the legal party organization used by the Communist Party USA from the last days of 1921 until the middle of 1929. As a legal political party the Workers Party accepted affiliation from independent socialist groups such as the African Blood Brotherhood,...
ticket.
According to a book by Benjamin Gitlow
Benjamin Gitlow
Benjamin "Ben" Gitlow was a prominent American socialist politician of the early twentieth century and a founding member of the Communist Party USA. From the end of the 1930s, Gitlow turned to conservatism and wrote two sensational exposés of American Communism, books which were very influential...
, a founding member of the CPUSA, Poyntz was a delegate to several consecutive American Communist Party conventions, and was a member of the Party’s Central Executive Committee, besides being on New York’s District Executive Committee. She had even gone to China on a Comintern (Communist International) mission, and had dropped out of the CPUSA in 1934 in order to work for the OGPU (Soviet military secret police) in gathering scientific information for the Soviet Union. In 1936, Poyntz secretely traveled to Moscow to receive further instructions from Soviet authorities, and was seen there in the company of George Mink (alias Minkoff), an American later implicated in the disappearance of several Trotkskyists during the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
. While there, Poyntz witnessed the purges instigated by Stalin, in which people she had known and worked with were killed. She returned to the U.S. disillusioned and unwilling to continue spying for the OGPU (later the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
).
Disappearance
Poyntz disappeared after leaving the Women's Club in New York City on the evening of June 3, 1937. A police investigation turned up no clues to her fate, and her belongings, all of her clothing, and hand luggage in her room appeared to be untouched.In early 1938 Carlo Tresca
Carlo Tresca
Carlo Tresca was an Italian-born American newspaper editor, orator, and labor organizer who was a leader of the Industrial Workers of the World during the decade of the 1910s. Tresca is remembered as a leading public opponent of fascism, stalinism, and Mafia infiltration of the trade union movement...
, a leading Italian-American anarchist, publicly accused the Soviets of kidnapping Poyntz in order to prevent her defection. He said that before she disappeared, she had come to him to talk over her disgust at what she had seen in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
in 1936 in the early stages of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
.
Testimony by former Soviet agent Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...
tied Poyntz' disappearance to the shadowy Soviet Comintern agent Josef Peters
J. Peters
J. Peters was the most commonly known pseudonym of a man who last went by the name "Alexander Stevens" in 1949. Peters was an ethnic Jewish journalist and political activist who was a leading figure of the Hungarian language section of the Communist Party USA in the 1920s and 1930s...
. As an inside member of the Soviet Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
and OGPU espionage network, Peters is believed to have participated in the planning of the kidnapping and alleged murder of fellow CPUSA member Juliet Poyntz by a Soviet assassination squad.
Chambers later stated that he heard Poyntz had been killed for attempted desertion, and this rumor contributed to his caution when he defected in 1938. Elizabeth Bentley
Elizabeth Bentley
Elizabeth Terrill Bentley was an American spy for the Soviet Union from 1938 until 1945. In 1945 she defected from the Communist Party and Soviet intelligence and became an informer for the U.S. She exposed two networks of spies, ultimately naming over 80 Americans who had engaged in espionage for...
stated she was told by Jacob Golos
Jacob Golos
Jacob Golos, , was a Ukrainian-born Bolshevik revolutionary of ethnic Jewish heritage who became a secret police operative on behalf of the USSR in the United States...
in the late 1930s, and later by KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
officer Anatoli Gromov in 1945 that Poyntz had been a traitor and was now dead. Both Chambers's and Bentley's defection were probably in part motivated by fear of the example set in the Juliet Poyntz case.
It is known that Poyntz told some acquaintances about plans to write a book in which she would expose the Communist movement. Author Benjamin Gitlow wrote that Poyntz was disillusioned by Stalin's purges and was unwilling to continue as an espionage agent for the USSR. Gitlow relates that the OGPU/NKVD used Poyntz’s former lover, a man named Shachno Epstein, the associate editor of the Communist Yiddish daily Morgen Freiheit
Morgen Freiheit
The New York city-based Morgen Freiheit was a daily Yiddish language newspaper affiliated with the Communist Party, USA, founded by Moissaye Olgin in 1922. After the end of World War II the paper's editors developed criticisms of the Soviet Union and thereby clashed with the leaders of the...
(and an OGPU/NKVD agent himself), to lure Poyntz out for a walk in Central Park. "They met at Columbus Circle and proceeded to walk through Central Park...Shachno took her by the arm and led her up a side path, where a large black limousine hugged the edge of the walk. [...] Two men jumped out, grabbed Miss Poyntz, shoved her into the car and sped away.” Gitlow relates that the assassins took Poyntz to the woods near the Roosevelt estate in Dutchess County, and killed and buried her there. “The body was covered with lime and dirt. On top were placed dead leaves and branches which the three killers trampled down with their feet.”
Before his own mysterious death, the GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
defector Walter Krivitsky
Walter Krivitsky
Walter Germanovich Krivitsky was a Soviet intelligence officer who revealed plans of signing Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact before defecting weeks before the outbreak of World War II....
suggested another motive for the NKVD kidnaping of Poyntz. During one of her sojourns to Moscow, Juliet had become a mistress and lover of Red Army Corp Commander Vitovt Putna
Vitovt Putna
Vitovt Kazimirovich Putna was a Soviet Red Army officer of Lithuanian origin. A World War I veteran of the Imperial Russian Army and Bolshevik since 1917, Putna was a komdiv during the Polish-Soviet War and commanded a variety of divisions...
. In August 1936 the NKVD arrested Putna and accused him of maintaining contacts with Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
, from whom he had allegedly received "terrorist directives." Under torture, Putna testified to the existence of a "nation-wide" center of Trotskyists, and to his involvement in a "parallel" military organization. On June 11, 1937 a military tribunal, in camera, condemned Putna and other high-ranking officers to death in the judicial frame-up known as the Moscow Trial
Moscow Trials
The Moscow Trials were a series of show trials conducted in the Soviet Union and orchestrated by Joseph Stalin during the Great Purge of the 1930s. The victims included most of the surviving Old Bolsheviks, as well as the leadership of the Soviet secret police...
of the Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization
Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization
The Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization was a 1937 secret trial of the high command of the Red Army, orchestrated by Joseph Stalin as part of the Great Purge.-Defendants:...
. The NKVD, according to Krivitsky, may have abducted Poytnz one week before the trial out of fear that she would defect once the execution of Putna became known, or simply because she was a known friend of the "enemy" Putna.
Further reading
- Benjamin Gitlow, The Whole of Their Lives; Communism in America—a Personal History and Intimate Portrayal of its Leaders, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1948.
- John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.
- Whittaker Chambers Testimony before HUAC 3 August 1948
- Gary Kern, A Death in Washington: Walter G. Krivitsky and the Stalin Terror, New York: Enigma Books, 2005.
- Elizabeth McKillen, "The Culture of Resistance: Female Institution Building in the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, 1905-1925," Michigan Occasional Papers in Women's Studies, vol. 21 (Winter 1982).
- Elizabeth McKillen, "Juliet Stuart Poyntz," Encyclopedia of the American Left. Paul Buhle, Mari Jo Buhle, and Dan Georgakas, eds. 2nd Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 631–632.
- Kathryn S. Olmsted, Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley. Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
- Richard C.S. Trahair and Robert Miller, Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, Spies, and Secret Operations. New York: Enigma Books, 2008.
- Carlo Tresca, "Where is Juliet Stuart Poyntz?" Modern Monthly, Vol. 10 (March 1938).
- Allen Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss–Chambers Case. New York: Random House, 1997.
- Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America—The Stalin Era. New York: Modern Library, 1999.