Alexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman (21 November 1870 – 28 June 1936) was a Jewish social anarchist and a leading member of the social anarchist movement in the early 20th century, known for both his writing and for his political activism, such as being imprisoned for 14 years for the attempted murder of industrialist Henry Clay Frick.
Life
- Berkman was born into a wealthy Jewish family in Vilna in the Russian Empire (present-day Vilnius, Lithuania) and emigrated to the United States in 1888. He lived in New York City, where he became involved in the anarchist movement. He was the one-time lover and lifelong friend of anarchist Emma Goldman. In 1892, undertaking an act of propaganda of the deed, Berkman made a failed attempt to assassinate businessman Henry Clay Frick during the Homestead strike, for which he served 14 years in prison. His experience in prison was the basis of his first book, Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist. After his release from prison, Berkman served as editor of Goldman's anarchist journal, Mother Earth, and later established his own journal, The Blast. In 1917, Berkman and Goldman were sentenced to two years in jail for conspiracy against the newly instated draft. After their release from prison, they were arrested—along with hundreds of others—and deported to Russia. Initially supportive of that country's Bolshevik revolution, Berkman and Goldman soon became disillusioned, voicing their opposition to the Soviets' use of terror after seizing power and their repression of fellow revolutionaries. They left the Soviet Union in late 1921, and in 1925 Berkman published a book about his experiences, The Bolshevik Myth. While living in France, Berkman continued his work in support of the anarchist movement, producing the classic exposition of anarchist principles Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism. Suffering from ill health, Berkman took his own life in 1936.
After briefly visiting the Soviet Union, he became disillusioned, writing The Bolshevik Myth. He was a close associate of the also Jewish social anarchist Emma Goldman. Berkman and Goldman were arrested during a raid of their offices on 15 June 1917, during which police seized what The New York Times described as "a wagon load of anarchist records and propaganda material". The pair were charged under Espionage Act of 1917 with "conspiracy to induce persons not to register", and were held on $25,000 bail each. Berkman and Goldman defended themselves during their trial. Berkman invoked the First Amendment, asking how the government could claim to fight for "liberty and democracy" in Europe while suppressing free speech at home:
- Will you proclaim to the world that you who carry liberty and democracy to Europe have no liberty here, that you who are fighting for democracy in Germany, suppress democracy right here in New York, in the United States? Are you going to suppress free speech and liberty in this country, and still pretend that you love liberty so much that you will fight for it five thousand miles away?
The jury found them guilty and Judge Julius M. Mayer imposed the maximum sentence: two years' imprisonment, a $10,000 fine, and the possibility of deportation after their release from prison. Berkman served his sentence in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, seven months of which he spent in solitary confinement for protesting the beating of other inmates. When he was released on 1 October 1919, Berkman looked "haggard and pale"; according to Goldman, the 21 months Berkman served in Atlanta took a greater toll on him than his 14-year incarceration in Pennsylvania.
Berkman and Goldman were released at the height of the first U.S. Red Scare; the Russian Revolutions of 1917, combined with anxiety about the war, produced a climate of anti-radical and anti-foreign sentiment. The U.S. Justice Department's General Intelligence Division, headed by J. Edgar Hoover and under the direction of Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer, initiated a series of raids to arrest leftists. While they were in prison, Hoover wrote:
- "Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman are, beyond doubt, two of the most dangerous anarchists in this country and if permitted to return to the community will result in undue harm."
Berkman and Goldman spent much of 1920 traveling through Russia collecting material for a proposed Museum of the Russian Revolution. As the pair traveled around the country, they found repression, mismanagement, and corruption instead of the equality and worker empowerment they had dreamed of. Those who questioned the government were demonized as counter-revolutionaries, and workers still labored under severe conditions. They met with Lenin, who assured them that government suppression of press liberties was justified. Berkman and Goldman left the country in December 1921. Berkman moved to Berlin and almost immediately began to write a series of pamphlets about the Russian Revolution. "The Russian Tragedy", "The Russian Revolution and the Communist Party", and "The Kronstadt Rebellion" were published during the summer of 1922. Berkman moved to Saint-Cloud, France, in 1925.
Death
Berkman tried to commit suicide. In the early hours of 28 June 1936, Berkman tried to shoot himself in the heart with a handgun, but he failed to make a clean job of it. The bullet punctured a lung and his stomach and lodged in his spinal column, paralyzing him. Goldman rushed to Nice (France) to be at his side. Berkman recognized her but was unable to speak. He sank into a coma in the afternoon, and died at 10 o'clock that night.
