F. Brown [Mario Alpi] [Ferruccio Marini]

1892 - ?

Ferruccio Marini was an Italian Communist who arrived in the United States in the 1920s. With some form of mandate from the Communist International he became active in the US Italian-speaking Communist community, including assuming editorship of the Party’s Italian language newspaper, Il Lavoratore, under the name Mario Alpi. In October 1929, after the Lovestoneites were purged from the Party, Alpi was elected a member of the CPUSA Central Committee.

Once Earl Browder secured his position as CPUSA General Secretary he appointed Alpi, now under the name F. Brown (or very rarely Fred Brown), to head the Central Committee’s Organization Department. New England (later New York) CP leader George Blake Charney, who met with Brown in the early 1930s, described him as follows:

“He was a tall, romantic, swashbuckling figure of a man, Italian, with Appalachian features and a scraggly beard—the strangest man in the strangest post—the only one, as I came to discover, who could concoct an imaginative report on membership and dues payments and deliver it with gusto. He could easily have passed as a Caribbean pirate of the eighteenth century or a Metropolitan Opera baritone. He was a most engaging fellow, voluble and full of humor, with the quaintest gestures.”

In the 1930s Brown wrote extensively on organizational questions for The Communist, Party Organizer and the Daily Worker. With the onset of World War II, he again became active in Italian-American Communist activities, now under his real name, Ferruccio Marini. He was secretary of an organization called the Progressive Club, president of the New York state Grand Council of the International Workers Order, and an editor of the CP-aligned newspaper L'Unità del Popolo. Once the war ended, he returned to Italy.

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Works:

1929: For the Bolshevization of the Communist Party of the United States of America, The Daily Worker, August 5, 1929
1929: Jewish Fascists Attack Arabs, [Alpi text starts on second page] The Daily Worker, August 29, 1929
1929: Fascist Development and Proletarian Dictatorship, The Daily Worker, November 2, 1929
1929: The Role of Language Fractions in Party Recruiting Drive, The Daily Worker, November 25, 1929
1929: Save Salvatore Accorsi!, The Daily Worker, December 10, 1929

1930: Resolution of the Sixth Session of the E.C. of the Profintern (and the Next Plenum of Our Party), The Communist, March 1930
1930: Our Language Press Must be a Communist Press, The Daily Worker, April 7, 1930

1931: The Importance of the Last Party Plenum, The Daily Worker, January 1, 1931
1931: Forward to the Lenin Recruiting Drive!, Part I; Part II; Part III; The Daily Worker, January 14-16, 1931
1931: Fighting the New Offensive Against the Foreign Born, Part I; Part II; Part III; The Daily Worker, December 28-30, 1931

1932: Recruit New Members from the Language Mass Organizations, The Daily Worker, February 1, 1932
1932: Down with Passivity - Into Action in the Anti-War Struggle, Party Organizer, May-June 1932
1932: For a Proper Utilization of Party Forces, Party Organizer, November-December 1932

1933: Marx, Founder of Scientific Communism and Organizer of the Communist Party, The Communist, March 1933
1933: The European Atmosphere Smells of Powder, The Daily Worker, March 20, 1933
1933: Lessons of the Paris Commune, The Daily Worker, March 22, 1933
1933: The Reichstag Opens in an Orgy of Fascism, The Daily Worker, March 25, 1933
1933: Gramsci's Life Must Be Saved!, The Daily Worker, June 10, 1933
1933: The Tasks Among the Foreign Born Workers, The Communist, August 1933
1933: Open Letter Clearly and Sharply Outlines Basic Tasks for Party Members, The Daily Worker, August 29, 1933
1933: Through Concentration to a Mass Proletarian Party, The Communist, September 1933
1933: Planned Activity, Mass Work is Road to Build the Party, The Daily Worker, September 13, 1933
1933: Role of Shop Nucelus and Communist Fraction, Party Organizer, December 1933

1934: What Is This About 'Reds'?, The Daily Worker, January 6, 1934
1934: Division of Work Helps Improve Activity of Units, Party Organizer, January 1934
1934: Improve the Fraction Work in the Mass Organizations, Party Organizer, January 1934
1934: Pre-Convention Discussion in the Units, Party Organizer, March 1934
1934: A Reminder on the Thaelmann Campaign, Party Organizer, July 1934
1934: Excerpts from Report by Comrade F. Brown to C.C. on Organization and Fluctuation, Party Organizer, August 1934
1934: Party Recruiting Aided by Close Ties with Masses, The Daily Worker, November 2, 1934
1934: The Recruiting Drive, Party Organizer, December 1934

1936: Prospective Members Put Questions to C.P., The Daily Worker, January 29, 1936
1936: Nuclei Influence, Methods of Drawing Militants into Party Examined, The Daily Worker, February 17, 1936
1936: Trade Union Fractions Still Lack Sufficient Political Life, The Daily Worker, February 18, 1936
1936: Penetrate the Small Industrial and Agrarian Towns, Party Organizer, February 1936
1936: Strengthening the Farmer-Labor Campaign in the Lower Units, Party Organizer, March 1936
1936: New Forms of Party Organization Help Us to Win the Massers, Party Organizer, July-August 1936
1936: Training Personnel - the Need of the Hour, Party Organizer, July-August 1936
1936: Election Rallies Are Recruiting Grounds, Party Organizer, September 1936
1936: Building the Party During the Election Campaign, The Communist, October 1936

1937: The Party Building and Daily Worker Drives, Party Organizer, March-April 1937
1937: The Party Among National Groups, Party Organizer, August 1937
1937: Build the I.L.D., Party Organizer, September 1937
1937: The Importance of the Present Recruiting Drive for the Future of Our Party, The Communist, October 1937
1937: More Attention to Problems of Organization and Leadership!, Party Organizer, December 1937