Mark Klein (1945–2025)

Mark Klein, a longtime cadre and later supporter of the Spartacist League/U.S., died of pancreatic cancer in Oakland, California, on March 8. The death of his wife and party comrade, Linda Thurston, in April 2023 (see WV No. 1179, 29 September 2023) was a big blow to Mark, impacting all areas of his life.

A history student at Cornell and member of the Young Socialist League (YSL, a campus group around the SL), Mark joined the party in June 1965. He later explained that he had been attracted to the YSL because it was organized “around a series of transitional demands…including: military victory to the Stalinist-led National Liberation Front in its anti-colonial war against the U.S. in Vietnam, for a workers party as opposed to working inside the Democratic Party, and organized, armed self-defense by Negroes against racist violence.”

That summer, Mark went to Bogalusa, Louisiana, and interviewed Charles Sims, leader of the Deacons for Defense and Justice, a largely working-class, black, armed self-defense group created to protect civil rights activists against police/Klan terror. This led to the SL establishing the Committee to Aid the Deacons, which publicized their heroic work and raised funds to assist them. Mark wrote about the Deacons in an article titled “Toward Arming the Negro Struggle” in the November-December 1965 issue of our journal Spartacist. He observed: “Although the Deacons have achieved a new level of militancy, they are still far from the consciousness needed for ultimate success,” noting their heavy reliance on the federal government.

It was Mark’s work in the South that first showed his courage. Throughout the old Confederacy, the KKK and their police allies attempted to crush the civil rights movement. Mark was arrested and jailed overnight in Texas (where even the jail was segregated!) for joining a sit-in at a segregated cafe. He also faced threats “and a lot of local heat” when he gave a forum in Austin to launch a local branch of the Committee to Aid the Deacons.

Mark displayed evident capacity as a writer and propagandist. He was responsible for codifying our extensive internal discussions about the intersection of the struggle for black liberation and the proletarian revolution resulting in “Black and Red—Class Struggle Road to Negro Freedom” (1967). He became a regular writer for Workers Vanguard and took on a wide range of subjects.

After some years in New York as a welfare worker and militant in the SSEU union, Mark trained in computer technology and radio communications. In 1981, he was hired by AT&T as a communications technician. He worked at AT&T in New York and the San Francisco Bay Area for 22 years. Active in the CWA union, he participated in two nationwide strikes (1983 and 1986).

Both his skills in technology and capacity as a journalist are shown in his articles on the Korean Air Lines Flight 007 (see Spartacist pamphlet KAL 007: U.S. War Provocation). On 1 September 1983, Soviet air defenses shot down KAL 007, which had significantly intruded into Soviet airspace. The Reagan administration began spewing a torrent of anti-Soviet war propaganda, labeling the downing an act of barbarism. In short order, Mark exposed the truth: U.S. military intelligence and the NSA had criminally used this civilian plane, carrying more than 200 passengers, to gather electronic intelligence on Soviet defense installations. Mark even examined data he had retrieved from NASA.

In 2006, Mark again demonstrated tremendous bravery, standing alone to expose the government’s spying operation on its own citizens. Shortly after he retired, Mark was the AT&T whistle-blower who revealed that the NSA was spying, intercepting, monitoring and copying internet and telephonic traffic passing over U.S. telecommunication lines. He was well aware that in exposing the NSA he risked both criminal and civil prosecution. For his efforts, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (which helped Mark publicize his findings) awarded him its Pioneer Award. Mark wrote a book about these experiences, Wiring Up the Big Brother Machine…And Fighting It (2009).

So far, the legal efforts of the EFF, based on Mark’s revelations, have hit a brick wall. As Mark stated: “Governments generally take special care to make it virtually impossible for commoners to turn the law against the state itself.” On learning of Mark’s death, the EFF, Washington Post, PBS and numerous blogs have written obituaries noting that he laid the basis for subsequent revelations by Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, all of whom divulged numerous bloody intrigues and atrocities committed by U.S. imperialism worldwide and have paid a heavy price for their courage.

Though Mark resigned his membership in May 1996, he supported the party until his death. In his retirement, he worked for many years with the Marine Mammal Center in the rescue and rehabilitation of seals and other animals. Over the course of his protracted illness, Bay Area comrades assisted him with his living situation and various medical issues and care providers.

Mark will be remembered for his sharp sense of humor and unassuming demeanor. But above all, he will be remembered for his courageous struggles in the service of the working class.