Gus Tyler

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Gus Tyler (born 1912) began his career as the chairman of the Young People's Socialist League, the youth section of the Socialist Party of America, in the early 1930s, making him a key leader in the party's faction fight of that period. After his "militants" won out in 1934, Tyler and many of his comrades were offered staff jobs with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) led by David Dubinsky, a stalwart of the rival "old guard". This co-option appears to have been key to drawing the militants away from their early pro-Communist tendencies to become later some of the leading stalwarts of anticommunist liberalism during the Cold War. Tyler stayed on with the ILGWU for many years and became a leading labor intellectual, writing prolifically and eventually becoming a mainstream liberal syndicated columnist. Today, well into his 90s, he continues to write a regular column for The Forward.