Ernest Erber (1913-2009) was a student activist in the 1930s and was elected national chairman of the Young People's Socialist League in 1935. With a majority of YPSL members, he split from the Socialist Party and joined the Worker's Party in 1938. After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, while attending an international student conference in Europe, he was invited to visit Spain. Arriving in Barcelona, he became associated with POUM and worked for a time on their publication, La Battalla . At this time he met a number of other non-Communist American supporters of the Spanish Republic, including Charles Orr. After his return from Spain, Erber became interested in the U.S. Trotskyist movement and eventually joined Max Shachtman's Workers Party. He was an editor of the WP's Labor Action until he broke decisively with Shachtman in 1948. Shachtman replied to Erber's lengthy resignation statement by publishing what some WP members described as the most violent denunciation he ever wrote.
In his later life Erber was a distinguished urban and regional planner, working mostly in northern New Jersey. He continued his political involvement as a member of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee and then of Democratic Socialists of America. He and his wife, Sylvia, lived during most of their retirement years in Red Hook, NY; he died in New York City in 2009.
From the guide to the Ernest Erber Papers, 1940s-2000s, (Tamiment Library / Wagner Archives)
