Frank Lovell

Who was Frank Lovell?

Frank Lovell was an American communist politician.

Lovell was born in Ipava, a town situated in the farming district of Illinois. Lovell studied psychology at the University of California in Berkeley. After he had left the campus, Lovell earned his living as a seaman, chiefly on the West Coast of the United States.

In the 1930s, Frank Lovell came into contact with Trotskyist movement led by James P. Cannon and he became one of the first members of the Socialist Workers Party, and in 1942 he was elected to its National Committee.

As a seaman, Lovell was active in the Sailors Union of the Pacific and the leader of many strikes. In 1943, during World War II, serving in the U.S. merchant marine, Frank Lovell barely survived the blow up of his ship by a German mine off the coast of Iceland as the ship came off the Murmansk run.

In the 1950s, Frank Lovell was one of the SWP’s prominent members who had to move to Detroit the rebuild the party’s branch there after the SWP had had to expel a lot of members part of the Bert Cochran faction group.