Alfred Rosmer (born Alfred Griot, 23 August 1877 – 6 May 1964) was an American-born French Communist political activist and historian who was a leading member of the Comintern. Rosmer is best remembered as a political associate of Leon Trotsky and a memoirist. Early life Alfred Griot was born in 1877 in Paterson, New Jersey. His father worked as a barber in the United States, returning with the family to France in 1884. Having learned English as a child, Rosmer remained fluent in the language for the rest of his life. French syndicalist He took the political pseudonym Rosmer from the hero of a play by Henrik Ibsen.<ref name=Tosstorff858>Reiner Tosstorf, The Red International of Labour Unions (RILU) 1930-1937. [2016] Ben Fowkes, trans. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2018; pg. 858.</ref> Rosmer was a syndicalist leader before World War I, active in the Confédération générale du travail (CGT), the French general federation of unions. Together with Pierre Monatte, he issued a journal called La Vie ouvrière (Worker's Life), which was terminated as a result of French entry into World War I. The antiwar French syndicalists had been represented at the Zimmerwald Conference in 1915 and then organised as the Committee for the Resumption of International Relations in which Rosmer participated. After the end of the war, a strike wave swept France in which the syndicalists played an active role. La Vie ouvrière was resurrected by Rosmer and Monatte in March 1919. In May 1919, Rosmer and Fernand Loriot transformed the former Committee for the Resumption of International Relations into a new organization, known as the Committee for Adhesion to the Third International. The group remained isolated and without significant influence, however, largely removed from active communication with Moscow. A friendship with Leon Trotsky dated from that period, when the latter was briefly living in France. Communist Party leader After the war, he became a leading figure in the Communist Party of France (PCF). He was sent to Moscow in 1920 as a representative of the French left, being assigned there to positions in the Communist International (Comintern) and the Red International of Labor Unions (RILU). In 1923 and 1924 Rosmer was one of the top leaders of the PCF, until his expulsion in the fall of 1924 along with Boris Souvarine and Monatte for opposing the organised campaign against Trotsky. Trotskyism After his expulsion from the PCF, Rosmer helped found the journal La