Hymie Lee
Born 1902, as Hyman Lieberman, he joined the Communist Party in 1923 and was active in the Young Communist League and as an organiser of Manchester Young Comrades League (the Party’s organisation for children aged 10-14 years old). He was elected onto the central bureau of the Young Comrades League (along with Becky Goldman), representing Manchester. The first national conference of the Young Comrades League was held in Manchester on 13th and 14th February 1926.
He was involved in the Manchester Exchange Division (constituency) Labour League of Youth, organising the Lancashire section of the first British youth delegation to the Soviet Union in late 1926. Lee was also undoubtedly using his position and influence within the LLY to channel members into the Young Communist League. He served a month in prison in 1926 for being in the possession of copies of a seditious leaflet.
Lee, who has been described as `bespectacled, plump and dynamic’, worked as Communist Party full time organiser in Manchester and then in 1929 became the North East District secretary. In 1932 he organised the Tyneside Unemployed workers march to London. He served two terms on the Communist Party’s Central Committee in the 1940s and wrote for the Daily Worker immediately after the War.
Source: `The Communist Party in Manchester 1920-1926′ by Ruth and Edmund Frow; Michael Walker
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