Grace (b. Maul) Granich (1895-1971) was a key administrative figure in the national office of the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA) from 1930 to 1945, serving as secretary to CPUSA General Secretary Earl Browder and as a member of the Organization Department. On behalf of the CPUSA and the Communist International (Comintern), she traveled to the Soviet Union in 1930-1931, and in 1935-1937, to Shanghai, China, where she served as a liaison to Chinese radicals, notably Agnes Smedley. She also edited The Voice of China (her husband Max Granich was its publisher), the organ of the League for National Salvation, headed by Mme. Sun Yat Sen. During World War II she headed Intercontinent News, a CPUSA news agency, and served as a foreign agent for Service Universel de Presse (Moscow).
Max (Manny) Granich (1896-1987) was the younger brother of writer Michael Gold (b. Itzok Granich). He joined the Industrial Workers of the World in 1917, participating in several agricultural organizing campaigns in California. He joined the Communist Party sometime in the late 1920s, married Grace Maul and accompanied her to Soviet Union, where he did engineering work, and to China. Upon their return, he served as chauffeur and bodyguard for Earl Browder, and (through 1942) as Managing Editor of China Today . Following the postwar expulsion of Earl Browder, the Graniches distanced themselves from the CPUSA and in 1946 founded Higley Hill Camp (Wilmington, Vermont), a left-wing summer camp for children, which they ran until 1964. Grace Granich died in an automobile accident in 1971. In the 1970s, Max Granich was active in the Chinese-American Friendship Association and led tours to the People's Republic of China. In the early 1980s, he recorded a lengthy oral history and began work on a memoir. He died in 1987.
From the guide to the Grace and Max Granich Papers and Photographs, 1920s-1998, (Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive)
