Out of Bondage
by Elizabeth Bentley
Category: Political Science

In 1934, Elizabeth Bentley came home from Fascist Italy to an America still shattered by the Depression. Like countless others, she was drawn to the anti-Nazi rhetoric of the Communist Party. This hypnotic book is her detailed and intimate story of how she joined the Communist Party and rose to become a key Soviet agent in New York and Washington. She reveals the organization, tactics, and strategies of the party, and names her espionage contacts: an assistant secretary of the Treasury, the President’s executive assistant, Julius Rosenberg, high officers in military intelligence, and Communist spies in the media. Finally, she describes her anguish and anger on realizing that the American Communist Party was only the tool of the KGB—the Soviet Secret Police—and the Soviet Union...and how, manipulated and threatened by Soviet agents, she chose to destroy her whole world rather than continue. Out of Bondage is one of the most readable and valuable firsthand descriptions of the Communist underground in America. It is also a moving personal story—of courage, love, betrayal, and loss.