Manya Reiss (also known as Maria Aerova, sometimes spelled Ayerova, , 1900–1962) was an American Marxist–Leninist and a founding member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA).
Biography
Manya Reiss was born in China to a family of Russian-Jewish origin and then immigrated to the United States in 1912.Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, Kirill Mikhailovich Anderson (1998): The Soviet world of American communism, Yale University Press In the United States, she was a garment worker as well as a communist activist.China reconstructs, Issues 1-12, page 13 In 1931, she attended the International Lenin School. After this, she worked for the Eastern Secretariat of the Comintern and was later sent on missions to Germany and France. She returned to the United States in the late 1930s to work for the propaganda department of the Communist Party USA and to teach at a party school. By 1940, she had returned to Moscow.
In 1957, Reiss moved to China to work for Xinhua News Agency and the Beijing Daily.Mary M. Leder, Laurie Bernstein (2001): My life in Stalinist Russia: an American woman looks back, Indiana University Press
When Reiss became ill with cancer, she was visited in the hospital by Zhou Enlai, Chen Yi, and Lu Dingyi.
Reiss died of cancer in BeijingAnne-Marie Brady (2003): Making the foreign serve China: managing foreigners in the People's Republic, Rowman & Littlefield and was buried at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery. Wu Lengxi, director of the New China News Agency and Sidney Rittenberg delivered eulogies. People's Daily reported on her death and memorial service.
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