Paul Montauk

Who was Paul Montauk?

Paul Montauk was an American communist and lifelong member of the Socialist Workers Party.

Paul Montauk was born in Staten Island, New York, in 1922. His father was a jeweler and watch repairman, whose small business collapsed under the impact of the Great Depression of the 1930s. After his mother remarried following his father's death, Montauk was raised by an aunt in the Bronx. Montauk was 16 years old when his impoverished aunt threw him on the street. He soon quit school and tried to find full-time work.

Montauk joined the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party's Brooklyn branch in 1939, when he was 17 years old. It was at the outbreak of the Second World War. Faced with the draft, Montauk enlisted in the Navy after discussing his options with party leaders. The Socialist Workers Party’s official stance was to oppose the "imperialist war" and party members who were drafted actively spread socialist propaganda to the other soldiers.

In the early 1950s, Montauk moved to Detroit to build the SWP branch there. The SWP faced the state of Michigan's 1952 "Trucks Law", which made membership in organizations deemed "subversive" by the government a crime.