Biography
Maurice Malkin was a founding member of the American communist movement and a furriers' union militant. Maurice Malkin was convicted in the 1927 Mineola trial on assault charges growing out of the victorious 1926 New York fur strike, sentenced to two and a half to five years, and ultimately served his term at Sing Sing. He later broke with the party and became a government witness in the 1940s-50s.
A first-person letter signed M. L. Malkin and introduced in the September 14, 1929 Daily Worker explicitly places the furriers’ activist in Great Meadows State Prison at Comstock, New York. He renounces his former Trotskyist opposition and requests reinstatement in the Communist Party and Comintern; referral to a control commission is not proof the request was granted. The prison number differs or is unclear between address and signature and is not entered. This adds a contemporary prison location without assuming every part of his term was spent at Sing Sing or inventing a transfer day. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n163-NY-sep-14-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=4
The September 8, 1930 Laisve, page 5, reproduces an International Labor Defense political-prisoner directory. Its row prints Maurice Malkin, a term of 2½–5 years, the year 1929 in the sentencing-year column, and confinement or correspondence location Box 51, Comstock, New York. This is an attributed historical directory entry; printed years and nominal terms are not exact intake dates or measured time served, and mailing boxes do not independently identify a prison. The directory contains stale or conflicting chronology, so this row does not override independently established conviction, death or release facts. Source: https://www.spauda2.org/laisve/archive/1930/1930-09-08-LAISVE.pdf#page=5
The fur-strike report says ten months had already been spent at Sing Sing under five-year sentences. Ten months is an intermediate observation, not complete imprisonment or an exact release date. Daily Worker, November 9, 1929, original PDF page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n211-NY-nov-09-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The November 29 report places M. L. Malkin at Great Meadow under a two-and-a-half-to-five-year term in the 1926 fur strike prosecution and describes censorship of Gorky books. This is historical prison-condition evidence, not a fresh admission or a complete measured term. Daily Worker, November 29, 1929, original PDF page 2. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-nat/v06-n228-NAT-nov-29-1929-DW-Q.pdf#page=2
1920s custody review: The Militant, January 15, 1929, printed page 2, explicitly dates Nassau County Jail entry January 10 and Sing Sing entry January 14. Its January 1, 1931 report on page 1 records the December 20 reception at Grand Central upon his release from Comstock, confirming that the announced release occurred. The custody interval begins with jail entry, not the earlier arrest or conviction; the 709-day counter excludes any unresolved earlier detention. Existing photograph retained.
Helen Black’s October 1928 Labor Defender account distinguishes the nine convicted Mineola furriers, including M. Malkin and Leo Franklin, from Ben Gold and Isadore Shapiro, who were acquitted. The February 1929 issue corroborates the already-recorded January 10 jail entry of Franklin and Malkin. The description is corrected so it does not say Malkin was convicted with Gold. Existing independently sourced custody dates remain unchanged.
Labor Defender, October 1928, original PDF page 15 (printed 212).
A reported ten-month Sing Sing custody snapshot
The newspaper prints Morris Malkin; the paired Mineola fur-strike conviction and imprisonment with Leo Franklin match the Maurice Malkin already documented in this profile. This is a source-name cross-reference, not an automatic alias installation. The November 9, 1929 Daily Worker identifies Malkin and Leo Franklin as the two Mineola defendants already imprisoned at Sing Sing and says they had been there ten months to date. This is a contemporary reported duration at a point in ongoing custody, not a completed overall term or a basis for back-calculating admission, transfer or release. The article calls their nominal sentences five years, whereas the earlier independently reviewed accounts describe two-and-a-half-to-five-year terms; that wording difference is retained as attribution rather than replacing the old sentence. The separately supported January 10 jail entry and any independently recorded later release remain unchanged. No new episode or ten-month numerical lifetime total is added.
Daily Worker, November 9, 1929, original pages 1, 3. Contemporary allegations are attributed to the newspaper.
A Comstock letter during the Mineola confinement
The January 3, 1930 Daily Worker prints greetings to the International Labor Defense conference from M. L. Malkin, described as a needle-trades worker then serving a two-and-a-half-year term at Comstock on the Mineola charge. The shared Mineola prosecution and Comstock confinement connect this initialled source reference with the Maurice Malkin already documented here; the initials are not installed as a new alias. This contemporary location and letter complement the November 1929 Sing Sing report and the independently documented later Comstock release, but do not date the transfer or establish that the nominal term had been completed. The January 2 dispatch date is not a prison-entry day. No admission, release, transfer day, numerical duration or new case is inferred; the existing independently sourced custody dates and stored total remain unchanged.
Daily Worker, January 3, 1930, original pages 2. Contemporary allegations are attributed to the newspaper.
Reported denial of books at Comstock
The issue reports that M. L. Malkin, described as the militant furrier imprisoned for the 1926 strike, had been refused a two-volume set of Gorki’s Foma Gordyeef supplied by the International Labor Defense. It quotes a letter from the Reverend Daniel H. Burns, chaplain and censor at Great Meadows Prison, Comstock, rejecting the books. The fur-strike prosecution and Comstock correspondence context identify the Maurice Malkin already documented here; the initials are not installed as a new alias. This adds an attributed prison-conditions and reading-censorship report. Its two-and-a-half-to-five-year sentence wording is nominal, not actual time served. No transfer day, prison-entry date, discharge, measured term or additional case is inferred; existing custody dates and storage remain unchanged.
Daily Worker, November 29, 1929, original pages 2. Accounts and allegations are attributed to the newspaper.
The Comstock, New York letter is signed M. L. Malkin, acknowledges the December Labor Defender, discusses Fred Beal and other Gastonia defendants being out, and thanks supporters from behind bars. The initials, union-defense context and Comstock custody match Maurice Malkin; they do not establish a separate person or new admission or discharge.
