Biography
Todor Antonoff, also known as Tom Antonoff, was a Bulgarian-born Auto Workers Union organizer in the Detroit-Pontiac district. He left his father's farm at fifteen, went to Canada and entered the United States in 1915. He worked in Ohio steel mills before moving into automobile work and joined the Communist Party in 1924. His organizing included the Fisher Body strike. Held eleven months under $25,000 bail on a criminal-syndicalism charge, he also faced deportation to Bulgaria. The International Labor Defense campaigned against the deportation and obtained a stay. By October 1933 Antonoff was free to tour the country speaking at defense meetings. He subsequently left for the Soviet Union rather than being returned to Bulgaria.
The November 3, 1933 Daily Worker reports that the Labor Department refused to reopen his deportation case and set November 8 for deportation to Bulgaria. The October 3 issue had described a thirty-day stay and an ILD speaking tour. Those announcements do not prove an actual deportation or a new physical detention. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v10-n264-nov-03-1933-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
Page 1 interviews him immediately before a scheduled November 8 departure aboard the Manhattan for the Soviet Union, saying mass protests prevented forced return to Bulgaria. It identifies his migration to Canada in 1915 and subsequent entry into the United States, Communist Party membership from 1924, and arrest following the Pontiac Fisher Body strike, with eleven months held under $25,000 bail. Those eleven months are the reported earlier interval. The interview documents impending departure and his personal farewell, not independent confirmation that the ship sailed or a new custody admission. The separate G. Antonoff record is not merged without explicit identity evidence. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v10-n268-nov-08-1933-DW-LOC.pdf
Labor Defender, May 1934: Writing from the Soviet Union, Antonoff says almost five months had passed since he was forced to leave America, and credits protests with preventing his removal to Bulgaria. He describes a predeparture speaking tour through Boston, Providence, Pittsburgh, Youngstown, Cleveland, Philadelphia and New York. The rounded interval is not converted into an exact departure day. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1934/v10n05-may-1934-orig-LD.pdf#page=17
His autobiographical account in the December 1933 Labor Defender describes a separate Flint police arrest during the June 1930 Fisher Body strike. He reports refusing an offer of $200 a month to abandon the strikers, being beaten unconscious in the police investigation room, and being taken ten miles outside Flint five days later, beaten again and abandoned. He says another arrest in Pontiac on criminal-syndicalism charges followed five weeks later; no exact discharge or completed duration is given for that second episode. The article separately recounts more than eleven months under $25,000 bail after his 1932 organizing and hunger-march activity. An editorial postscript confirms he had since left for a country of his choice rather than being returned to Bulgaria, without supplying an exact physical departure day. These phases are not combined into one continuous term. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1933/v09n11-dec-1933-lab-def.pdf#page=11
His December 1933 autobiography recalls arriving at fifteen and doing railroad construction for $1.25 a day to repay the mortgage used for his passage. At Lorain steel mills he helped organize May Day demonstrations and was fired and blacklisted afterward. In Flint he organized a Sacco-Vanzetti demonstration on August 22, 1927 and helped establish an Auto Workers Union local at Fisher Body. He describes the following year’s strike of 500 workers against a twenty-percent wage cut, further blacklisting, organizing in Pontiac, and then organizing Detroit’s unemployed, especially Black workers. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1933/v09n11-dec-1933-lab-def.pdf#page=11
The June 21 dispatch reports actual release on $1,000 immigration bail. The printing Todar is retained as a source variant; no precise physical discharge day or complete custody duration is inferred. Daily Worker, June 22, 1933, original PDF page 3. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v010-n149-NY-jun-22-1933-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The July 1933 Labor Defender reports that the Labor Department fixed his immigration bail at $1,000 on June 17, 1933, without requiring the previously proposed promise that he abstain from working-class activity. It states that he was then out on bail. June 17 dates the bail decision, while the exact physical discharge day remains unprinted; this supplements the separately retained June 21 dispatch confirming his release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1933/v09n07-jul-1933-lab-def.pdf#page=10
Printed Todar Antonoff, the July1933 report places him in actual Ellis Island deportation detention following Detroit arrest. It says the Labor Department fixed unconditional $1,000 bail June17,1933 and that he was actually out on that bail by publication. June17 is the bail decision, not a proven physical discharge day; it rejects a proposed condition to abstain from labor activity. Page10. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1933/v09n07-jul-1933-lab-def.pdf
A Detroit June 11 dispatch says the federal district court upheld the deportation action against Antonoff, and the ILD sought permission for voluntary departure to a country of his choice with passage paid. The decision and request do not establish actual deportation to Bulgaria, execution abroad, new physical custody or an executed voluntary departure.
The review states he actually sailed for the Soviet Union after winning voluntary departure instead of deportation to Bulgaria; his own letter in this issue is written from the Soviet Union. This establishes completed departure and presence there by publication, beyond the earlier permission alone, but supplies no exact departure day or total detention.
Daily Worker, November 8, 1933; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Printed as Tudor Antonoff, his letters describe an actual November 1933 journey through London and aboard the Soviet ship Sibirsk to Leningrad, followed by a December 3 letter from Moscow. The introduction says the ILD won voluntary departure to the Soviet Union instead of forced deportation to Bulgaria. This is achieved travel after his earlier detention, not a new custody interval. No exact departure day, citizenship, or coerced-exile endpoint is inferred from this account alone.
The Washington delegation report names Detroit author Tom Antonoff among its participants. This documents participation in the September 7 protest; it does not date a physical release from his earlier detention or establish a new imprisonment.
