Brodsky, Joseph R.

BRODSKY, JOSEPH R. (1889–1947). A founding member of the Communist movement, the International Labor Defense (ILD), and the International Worker’s Order (IWO), attorney Joseph Brodsky was involved in hundreds of political cases from the time of the Palmer Raids through the early years of the Cold War. But he gained his greatest fame for his work on behalf of the Scottsboro Boys.

Born in Kiev, Russia, Brodsky immigrated to New York City with his parents at age two. Benjamin Brodsky, his father, was a shirt-maker and a militant Socialist who was a founder of Branch 1 of the Workmen’s Circle. Joseph Brodsky was a socialist soapboxer by age thirteen and a formal member of the Socialist Party when he began to practice law in 1912. Along with brother Carl Brodsky, Joseph was soon a delegate to the City Central Committee, where they both came into conflict with the Socialist Party’s moderate wing. The brothers joined John Reed, Jim Larkin, and other Left socialists who left the Socialist Party in 1919 to form the Communist Party.

The immediate impulse of the creation of the ILD in 1925 was the government persecution of Communists who had attended the “secret” 1922 Unity convention in Bridgman, Michigan. Drawing on the tradition that had created defense networks for persecuted labor activists such as the McNamaras, Tom Mooney, and the members of the Industrial Workers of the World in Centralia, Washington, the ILD brought seventy-eight delegates from trade unions and fraternal organizations together with twenty-three delegates from the Labor Defense Councils set up by the Communist Party to defend its leaders. One of the first cases taken on was support of Sacco and Vanzetti. The strategy involved massive public demonstrations to buttress the actual legal maneuvers. That defense approach remained a hallmark of a Brodsky defense.

Through the years, Brodsky would be the general counsel of the IWO, adviser to many trade unions, and attorney for Communists such as C. E. Ruthenberg, William Z. Foster, Robert Minor, and Rose Pastor Stokes. His cases usually entailed conspiracy charges that resulted from strikes or demonstrations. His legal thrust was always aimed at exploiting what he considered a fundamental contradiction between the constitutional guarantee of political equality and an economic system that guaranteed social inequality. He also thought it was possible, at times, to appeal to the better instincts of judges who were upset by gross inequities and wished to preserve social stability. One of his assets in arguing a case was a charming personality and an infectious sense of humor. Joseph Brodsky remained a Communist militant his entire life. At the time he suffered his fatal heart attack, he was working on the defense of Eugene Dennis, and he had just raised $24,000 for the United Jewish Appeal in a speech at the Mohegan Colony in rural New York.

Daily Worker, 31 July 1947 and 1 August 1947.