Bill Mandel

William Mandel was born in New York on 4th June, 1917. When Mandel was 14 he went to the Soviet Union with his father, a civil engineer. Mandel returned to the United States in 1932.

Mandel joined the American Communist Party and eventually became a teacher of Marxism at the Workers' School in New York. Mandel's book, The Soviet Far East and Central Asia, was published in 1944. This was followed by A Guide to the Soviet Union (1946).

Howard Zinn has said of Mandel: "We are in serious need of the stories of those who challenged authority, those dissenters whose words and actions kept alive the hopes and dreams that we might build a just society, a peaceful world. Part of his youth was spent in the Soviet Union where his father had taken a job as an engineer, and his knowledge of Russia and the Russian language enabled him later to become an expert on Russia and its history."

After the Second World War Mandel taught at Stanford University. He was also a member of the Paul Robeson defence force at the Peekskill Concert and participated in the 1951 Freedom Riders campaign. Mandel was called before Internal Security Security Committee in 1952. The following year he appeared before Joseph McCarthy and his Senate Committee. Mandel refused to testify against fellow members of the American Communist Party and was blacklisted.

Unable to work in universities and colleges, Mandel worked in journalism before being employed by KPFA radio station in 1958. After the blacklist was lifted Mandel taught at the Sociology Department of the University of Berkeley. He later taught at San Francisco State University and San Jose State University. Books by Mandel included Russia Re-Examined (1964), Soviet Women (1975), Soviet But Not Russia (1985) and Saying No To Power (1999).