Joel Shubin (died March 24, 1942) was a
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
agronomist
An agriculturist, agriculturalist, agrologist, or agronomist (abbreviated as agr.), is a professional in the science, practice, and management of agriculture and agribusiness. It is a regulated profession in Canada, India, the Philippines, the U ...
, journalist, and an alleged
Communist International
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by ...
representative to the
American Communist Party
The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...
. At one time, he served as the
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
Deputy Minister of Agriculture.
Biography
Born
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...
ish, Shubin edited the
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
-based ''Peasant Gazette'' in the 1930s. A widower with a teenage daughter, he married the
American journalist
Anna Louise Strong
Anna Louise Strong (November 24, 1885 – March 29, 1970) was an American journalist and activist, best known for her reporting on and support for communist movements in the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.Archives West,Anna Loui ...
without ceremony in 1931, and they remained married for the rest of his life. At the time, Strong edited the English-language version of another Soviet newspaper, ''
Moscow News
''The Moscow News'', which began publication in 1930, was Russia's oldest English-language newspaper. Many of its feature articles used to be translated from the Russian language ''Moskovskiye Novosti.''
History Soviet Union
In 1930 ''The Mo ...
''. While Shubin often accompanied Strong during her trips back to the United States, the two were often separated due to work commitments. According to
Rewi Alley
Rewi Alley (known in China as 路易•艾黎, Lùyì Àilí, 2 December 1897 – 27 December 1987) was a New Zealand-born writer and political activist. A member of the Chinese Communist Party, he dedicated 60 years of his life to the cause a ...
's account, Strong later said: "perhaps we married because we were both so doggone lonely...but we were very happy."
Shubin died of a lung disease under mysterious circumstances on March 24, 1942. Strong, who was working in
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...
at the time, didn't learn of her husband's death until that August. It was reported in 1949 that an unnamed Soviet official suspected that Shubin was "liquidated."
References
Notes
*See Judith Nies. ''Nine Women: Portraits from the American Radical Tradition'', University of California Press, 2002, p. 166
*Claimed in the following non-peer reviewed publication: Herbert Romerstein, Eric Breindel. ''The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors'', Washington, DC, Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2000, p. 71
Further reading
*"Anna Louise Strong, American writer in
China", in ''Notable Women of China: Shang Dynasty to the Early Twentieth Century''. New York, M.E. Sharp, Inc, 2000 p379.
*David Caute. ''The Fellow Travellers: Intellectual Friends of Communism'', Yale University Press, pp. 79–80
Russian journalists
Soviet journalists
Russian male journalists
Year of birth missing
1942 deaths
Russian Jews
{{Russia-journalist-stub