| Eva Shafran | |
|---|---|
 First page of Start: a Play In Seven Scenes by Beckie Friedman and Eva Shafran at Brookwood Labor College, 1928 (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Libraries) | |
| Born | (1906-09-06)September 6, 1906 |
| Died | November 17, 1944(1944-11-17) (aged 38) Los Angeles County, California, U.S. |
| Burial place | Mount Carmel Cemetery, City of Commerce, California, U.S. |
Eva Shafran Burton (September 6, 1906 – November 17, 1944) was a Communist Party promoter who worked in New York and California in the early 20th century. She was known for her expertise in Marxist theory.
Biography
Shafran was born in Poland or Russia in 1906. She immigrated to the United States in around 1915, when she was about nine years old. At the time of the 1925 New York State census she lived in the Bronx and worked as a bookkeeper. Shafran was naturalized a citizen of the United States at the District Court for the Eastern District of New York at Brooklyn on August 25, 1925. According to her passport she was 5 ft 2 in (1.57 m) with brown hair and brown eyes.
In February 1931 she was picked up by the LAPD Red Squad as she left the CPUSA offices and "was beaten so severely by the police officers that she was admitted to a local sanitarium". She was reportedly hit over the head "with an automobile crank". According to the Chicago Daily Worker, "A couple of weeks ago she spoke at a meeting of Trade Union Unity League metal workers, and, returning home alone, was suddenly attacked by one of the patriotic thugs of that city. The gangster leaped from an automobile, struck her down with a club, and, while she was lying in the street, kicked her in the mouth and knocked out all of her front teeth. She was in a hospital for ten days, but is now improved." In 1938 she worked as a millinery worker in Los Angeles and lived with her brother, Abe Shafran, a furrier, and his wife on Cummings Street. All three were registered to vote Communist Party.
A California state legislature investigation into Communism in California, published in 1945, put a spotlight on Shafran's biography:
"Eva Shafran merits particular notice in this report. For some time she was the active organizer of the Communist Party in Los Angeles County. She was registered as a Communist in Los Angeles County in June of 1940. She wrote for the Western Worker, West Coast Communist predecessor to the Communist publication, The People's Daily World. In October, 1936 , she wrote an article for the Western Worker entitled 'The Socialist Party and Trotskyites.' In December of 1936 she wrote an article for the Western Worker entitled 'Unity of Negro and White Urgent in Maritime Strike.' Eva Shafran is known among Communists as an outstanding Marxist. For many years she has taught advanced classes on Marxism-Leninism in the Communist Workers' School in Los Angeles. According to the testimony of John Leech, former Secretary of the Communist Party in Los Angeles County (before the Los Angeles Grand Jury, 94369-8-15-40) Eva Shafran was transferred to Los Angeles by the Communist Party from the New York Workers' School in 1935 or early in 1936. She was immediately assigned to the California State Committee of the Communist Party and has devoted herself to the task of raising the political level of Communists in Los Angeles. Her name is variably spelled Shafran, Shaffron, and Shiffman."
California Communist Dorothy Ray Healey recalled in the 1970s, "I became a part of what in the post-Browder period was derisively called the Gods' Committee. That was the Communists who were in the top leadership of the CIO, who had a group together; it was mainly a class, as a matter of fact, taught by a woman by the name of Eva Shafran who died in '45. Really a wonderful woman, the only woman I've ever known who could take a current question and relate it back to Marxist classics."
Shafran was struck and killed by a streetcar in November 1944. At the time of her death her husband Don A. Burton was serving as a sergeant in the U.S. armed forces in China. Her friends organized a memorial in her honor.
References
- ^ New York State Archives; Albany, New York; State Population Census Schedules, 1925; Election District: 35; Assembly District: 03; City: New York; County: Bronx; Page: 9 Description District: A·D· 03 E·D· 35 Source Information Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State Census, 1925. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012. Original data:State population census schedules, 1925. Albany, New York: New York State Archives.
- ^ "Scope of Soviet Activity in the U.S. : hearings before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee To Investigate the Administration ... PT.11-25". HathiTrust. hdl:2027/umn.31951d021206379. Retrieved 2024-05-14.
- McClellan (2011), p. 178.
- "Girl in Mystery Attack Injured". Los Angeles Evening Post-Record. June 27, 1930. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-05-14.
- "Eva Shafran Knocked Senseless by Gangster". The Daily Worker. July 14, 1930. p. 2. Retrieved 2024-05-14.
- ^ California State Library; Sacramento, California; Great Register of Voters, 1900-1968 Source Information Ancestry.com. California, U.S., Voter Registrations, 1900-1968 . Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2017. Name Miss Eva Shafran Residence Date 1938 Street Address 527# N Cummings St. millinery Residence Place Los Angeles, California, USA Party Affiliation Cst Occupation Worker
- ^ Un-American Activities in California (1945), p. 138.
- Healey (1974), p. 243.
- "Eva Shafran, Civic Leader Killed by Car". Eastside Journal. November 29, 1944. p. 9. Retrieved 2024-05-14.
- "Eva Shafran's Death Is Shock". California Eagle. November 30, 1944. p. 11. Retrieved 2024-05-14.
- "Plan Memorial for Late Eva Shafran". Eastside Journal. April 4, 1945. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-05-14.
- "Workers' School Head Lauds Shafran Tribute". Eastside Journal. May 2, 1945. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-05-14.
Sources
- California Legislature Joint Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities in California (1945). Second Report: Un-American Activities in California. Sacramento: Senate of the State of California – via UC Libraries, HathiTrust.
- Healey, Dorothy (1974). "Interview of Dorothy Healey: Tradition's Chains Have Bound Us" (Interview). Interviewed by Joel Gardner. Oral History Research Center, University of California, Los Angeles. Archived from the original on 2024-05-14.
- McClellan, Scott Allen (2011). Policing the Red Scare: The Los Angeles Police Department's Red Squad and the Repression of Labor Activism in Los Angeles, 1900–1940 (Thesis). University of California, Irvine. OCLC 837684679. ProQuest 3442998.