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From Socialist Appeal, Vol. II No. 15, 9 April 1938, p. 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
Arthur Sharfin, member of Section XV of the Communist Party in the Bronx and “fall guy” for the G.P.U. in the Robinson-Rubens frame-up plot which was and may still be intended to involve the Trotskyist movement in this country in some kind of “conspiracy,” has been indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in connection with a series of passport frauds Sharfin, who has been an employee of the Royal Egyptian Consulate in New York City, helped Adolph Arnold Rubens (alias Robinson), a G.P.U. agent now imprisoned in Moscow, secure the phony passports made out in the name of Robinson on which he and his supposed wife, also a prisoner in Moscow, travelled last fall to the U.S.S.R.
Along with Sharfin, a Fifth Avenue photographer named Ossip Garber, also a Stalinist and formerly of Springfield, Mass., has been indicted on a similar charge. He is one of the few persons who has admitted publicly that he knew the mysterious Rubens.
The Grand Jury returned a third indictment which is sealed, and which presumably will remain so until the persons named in it are arrested. There is reason to believe that the contents of this indictment will confirm statements made from time to time in the Socialist Appeal ever since the case began – statements backed up by well-authenticated facts – that all trails in the Robinson-Rubens “mystery” lead straight to the lair of the American branch of Stalin’s G.P.U. – the Communist Party.
The indictments made public show that Garber had used the name of Jacob Schulman, falsely attesting he had been naturalized in New Haven, Conn., on May 27, 1923. He also had declared that he was married to Massa Woloch, that he had two children, and that he lived at 2427 Matthews Avenue, Bronx. His present address is 2420 Bronx Park East, an expensive apartment house where many Stalinists reside and where the Stalinist Unemployed Councils, of which Sharfin was formerly a leader, once conducted a rent strike.
The Sharfin-Garber combination is linked by the indictments to passport activities carried on in the names of Jacob Rosenberg, 28 E. 55 Street; Gerald Mark Moren alias Marko Filipovie; Ernest Wekin of “Chiles” Street; Carl Westerdahl of 468 W. 148 Street; and Max Schulman of 2802 Olinville Avenue. Government officials did not reveal just who these people are or even whether they are alive or dead.
It is known that Sharfin was intimately acquainted with one Max Wershow, alias Marshall Shaw. Under the latter name, Shaw was active in the Friends of the Soviet Union. Wershow is the husband of Muriel Wershow, also a Stalinist, who is active in the Bookkeepers Union, having formerly been active in the Stalinist Office Workers Union. It was apparently in the latter organization that she became acquainted with a Stalinist employed by a New York publisher, who has never before been publicly mentioned. Whether this Stalinist, who was acquainted with Rubens, is mentioned in the sealed indictment cannot yet be learned.
Last week Sharfin, who is still at liberty in the custody of his attorney, M. Edelstein, was brought before a Federal Judge and ordered to answer questions put him by the Grand Jury. He particularly desired to avoid questions relating to his connection with Harry Zukerman, who has charged that it was Sharfin who passed to him the phony Robinson-Rubens passport applications.
Sharfin apparently knew not only Zukerman but also Attorney Peter Targun, of the Tenants Research Bureau Inc., 401 Broadway. Zukerman was employed by that Bureau, and on occasion Sharfin used its address.
Whether Targun has political connections is not yet known, but it is already clear that at the heart of the whole affair are 14-karat Stalinists – Rubens himself, his wife (who is still in Butirky Prison while the G.P.U. tries to decide what to do with its latest frame-up), Sharfin, Garber, Shaw, Helen Ravitch (who accepted the phony passports sent from Washington to “Donald L. Robinson”), Rubens’ attorney, and others.
In view of these facts, the Daily Worker naturally continues silent as the grave on the subject of the Robinson-Rubens-G.P.U, case. And the “fall guy”, Arthur Sharfin, continues equally silent.
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