Alex Gumberg, who headed the Soviet textile buying commission to the United States and is now vice-president of the American-Russian Chamber of Commerce in New York, is charged with being a deserter in today’s “Pravda.” “Gumberg was sent to the United States by the Soviet to buy textiles, but instead of helping our textiles he helped himself, becoming rich and adopting American citizenship and having the audacity to visit Moscow last summer as the representative of American firms,” says the paper.
In the same article, “Pravda” accuses Gumberg’s brother Victor, who is vice-president of the Soviet Chemical Trust here, of defrauding the Soviet government by dealing with German firms against the interests of the Soviet. The paper discloses that Victor abandoned the Jewish religion 25 years ago and accepted Christianity, becoming an officer in the Czar’s army. After the Revolution he joined the Soviets and became a Red chemist, playing a leading role in the Soviet chemical industry.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.