James S. Allen

James S. Allen
Born	Sol Auerbach 1906 Philadelphia
Died	1986
Other names	Jim Allen, James Allen
Citizenship	American
Alma mater	University of Pennsylvania
Years active	1928-86
Employer	International Publishers
Predecessor	Alexander Trachtenberg
Political party	CPUSA

James S. "Jim" Allen, born Sol Auerbach (1906–1986), was an American Marxist historian, journalist, editor, political activist, and functionary of the Communist Party USA. Allen is best remembered as the author and editor of over two dozen books and pamphlets and as one of the Communist Party's leading experts on African-American history.

Allen is credited with helping to save young black men charged in the Scottsboro case from execution through his prompt and relentless publicity of the case, which helped to make the trial a cause célèbre.

Sol Auerbach, later known by the pseudonym James S. Allen, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1906, the son of ethnic Jewish parents that arrived in America from the Russian empire in that same year.

Upon completion of high school, Allen enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League university in Philadelphia, where he studied philosophy.

A committed radical from his collegiate days, Auerbach traveled to the Soviet Union in 1927 as part of the first American student delegation to the Soviet Union.

Auerbach was expelled from college 1928 for radical activities. He joined the Communist Party and began writing for the party newspaper, The Daily Worker. Auerbach succeeded Whittaker Chambers as "foreign news writer," who had in turn succeeded Harry Freeman.

The intelligent Auerbach was soon promoted to the editorship of Labor Defender, official organ of the International Labor Defense — the Communist Party's mass organization dedicated to civil rights and legal aid matters.

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