Background
Joseph Vanzler, known to all who knew him by the nickname "Usick," was born in 1902 in Samarkand, then part of the Russian Empire and today part of Uzbekistan. An ethnic Jew, Joseph was the son of an old rabbi and a 14-year-old girl.
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Joseph Vanzler
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In school, Vanzler studied a variety of languages, including Russian, Latin, Greek, and French. Vanzler attended Harvard University (then Harvard College), where he studied Chemistry for an extensive period.
Career
Vanzler is best known as the translator of a number of the important works of Leon Trotsky — materials which helped to establish to expand the influence of the Trotskyist movement in the English-speaking world. Early years
As he was one of few Jewish children in his hometown, Vanzler was permitted to attend Russian-language school, institutions which strictly limited Jewish enrollment as part of a policy of official anti-semitism under the Tsarist regime. He developed a proficiency for language study which served him throughout his life as a multi-lingual translator.
Following World War I, Vanzler and his mother emigrated to the United States, settling in Boston, Massachusetts.
Although he left without a degree, Vanzler developed a formula for spermicidal jelly for use as a birth control measure and he became engaged in its manufacture and sale. Political career
He began using the pseudonym "John G. Wright" at this time and began to produce a vast array of translations from Russian and French to English on behalf of the political movement to which he gave his allegiance.
Vanzler was a prolific writer for the Trotskyist press, contributing several hundred articles to its weekly newspaper, The Militant, and to its monthly theoretical magazine, The New International (later Fourth International). Death and legacy
Joseph Vanzler died of a heart attack on June 21, 1956 in New York City.
He was 52 years old at the time of his death.
Politics
Vanzler joined the Communist League of America, the main American Trotskyist political organization of the day, in 1933.
Membership
In the 1920s Vanzler married Edith Rose Konikow, the daughter of birth control activist Doctor Antoinette Konikow, a Boston physician and founding member of the Communist Party of America. Vanzler was a founding member of the Socialist Workers Party in 1938. He was a member of its governing National Committee from 1938 until his death in 1956.
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Born
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Died
June 21, 1956 (aged 54) -
Nationality
United States -
Ethnicity
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Religion
Judaist -
Political Party
Communist Party