ABSTRACT
Lovestone was born in Lithuania, then part of Russia, and came to the United States at the age of nine. His boyhood was typical of that in poor Russian-Jewish immigrant families whose talented, ambitious sons were thrown at an early age into the uphill battle for livelihood and recognition. From the outset, Lovestone had cast his lot with Ruthenberg. He followed him in all the early splits and sought recognition only as his trusted aide. Lovestone's rival as Ruthenberg's successor, William Wolf Weinstone, was strikingly similar in background but not in temperament. In the party's factional wars, Lovestone, Weinstone, and Wolfe labored under the handicap of a college education. Lovestone skillfully succeeded in making loyalty to the Comintern the issue and making loyalty to his group the test of loyalty to the Comintern. In the Bukharin-Stalin period, the Comintern flaunted its power openly.
