Marzani, Carla

Carl Marzani (1912-1994), an Italian-American immigrant radical, was a writer, editor, publisher, and also produced political documentary films. During the late 1930s he received a degree at Oxford University, joined the anarchist Durruti Column during the Spanish Civil War to fight against the fascists, hitch-hiked around the world with his first wife, Edith, and then served briefly as a Communist Party, USA, organizer on New York City's Lower East Side. During World War II, he worked in the United States government's Office of Strategic Services; he also worked for the State Department in 1945 and 1946. He served almost three years in prison, from 1947-1950, for concealing his prewar Party membership during the period of his government employment. He lived and worked in New York City most of his life.

Carl Aldo Marzani (1912-1994) was born in Rome, Italy, but after the rise of Mussolini, he and his family emigrated to the United States in 1924, settling in Scranton Pennsylvania. In 1931, He graduated from Scranton High School and received a scholarship to Williams College, where he became a socialist, joined the League for Industrial Democracy, and met his first wife, Edith Eisner. He graduated in 1935, and in the summer of 1936, went to Oxford University on a fellowship. Following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Marzani briefly fought on the Republican side in the anarchists Durruti Column. Returning to England, he joined the British Communist Party, received a BA degree from Oxford in June, 1938, the traveled with Edith through Europe and Asia, using his Communist contacts to meet Nehru and other leading radicals. In May, 1939, Marzani moved to New York City's Lower East Side, where he served as the Communist Party's district organizer through August, 1941, when he resigned from the Party. During this time he also briefly was an instructor in the Economics Department at New York University. In 1942, Marzani moved to Washington, DC where he worked for the Office of Strategic Services Analysis Branch under Colonel William J. Donovan, where his responsibilities included picking the targets for the 1942 Doolittle raid on Tokyo. In 1945, he moved to the Department of State, where he worked as the Deputy Chief of the Presentation Division of the Office of Intelligence.

In 1946 Marzani left government service and founded Union Films, to make documentaries for the labor movement, most notably Deadline for Action, a 40 minute documentary made for the United Electrical Workers of America, which placed major responsibility for the beginning of the Cold War on the United States and linked this to growing attacks on labor unions. The documentary was released in September 1946, five weeks before Marzani resigned from the State Department. In January, 1947, Marzani's past membership in the Communist Party led to an eleven-count indictment on charges of fraud for receiving his government pay while concealing his pre-war membership in the Communist Party, and later that year he was convicted, and subsequently served thirty-two months in prison. Union Films folded in 1949, after having also produced The Great Swindle (1947), Dollar Patriots (1948), and Our Union (1949). After his release from prison, Marzani self-published his first book, We Can Be Friends: Origins of the Cold War (Topical Books, 1952), and was the editor of the United Electrical Workers' UE Steward from 1951-1954. He then joined Cameron Associates, a radical publishing firm headed by Angus Cameron. Together they ran the Liberty Book Club. After Cameron left, the venture became Marzani & Munsell which operated the Prometheus Book Club. Notable titles included False Witness (1955), Labor's Untold Story (1955), Marzani's autobiographical novel, The Survivor (1958), The Open Marxism of Antonio Gramsci (translated and annotated by Marzani, 1959), and Inside the Khrushchev Era (another Marzani translation, 1959), and Dollars & Sense of Disarmament (co-authored by Marzani, 1960). In 1966, a fire destroyed Marzani & Munsell, and Marzani was divorced, and then married to Charlotte Pomerantz, a children's book writer. Marzani also wrote The Promise of Eurocommunism (1981), several pamphlets, and a five volume autobiography, The Education of a Reluctant Radical (1992-1994, 2001).