Alexander Berkman

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Alexander Berkman in 1892
Alexander Berkman and Helen Harris in 1914

Alexander Berkman , originally Owsei Ossipowitsch Berkman (born November 21, 1870 in Vilnius , Russian Empire , † June 28, 1936 in Nice , France by suicide ) was an anarchist and writer . He was a leading activist of the anarchist movement in the USA , where he worked closely with Emma Goldman , organizing campaigns for human rights and against the war . His ABC of anarchism is published to this day.

Life

Early years

Berkman was born Owsei Ossipowitsch Berkman to a wealthy Jewish businessman. The family received permission to settle in Saint Petersburg , although Jewish influx into the city was stopped at the time. This may also explain why Berkman took the Russian-sounding name Alexander. Later he was best known among his friends as Sascha (the Russian short form for Alexander). With the death of the father in 1882, however, the right of residence expired and the family moved to Kovno . His uncle Natanson introduced him to the world of nihilism . In 1884 Berkman wrote a school essay with anti-religious content and was moved back one class as a punishment. In 1886 he joined a revolutionary group of students and was now expelled from school. He was blacklisted , which prevented him from entering other schools or studying at a university.

Emigration to the USA

When his mother died in 1888 , Berkman emigrated to the United States at the age of 17 . In New York City he became an apprentice in Johann Most's print shop and learned the craft of typesetting .

He participated in the campaign for the release of those involved in the 1887 Haymarket uprising in Chicago . In 1889 he met Emma Goldman , who became his partner for a while and with whom he later became a lifelong friend.

Influenced by Johann Most's concept of propaganda deed , he attempted to shoot industrialist Henry Clay Frick in 1892 . Frick had hired strikebreakers from the Pinkerton detective agency on a strike at his steel mill . During the clashes between strikers and strikebreakers ten people were killed in one day and sixty wounded before finally the governor of Pennsylvania , the martial law imposed.

After going into Frick's office, Berkman shot him three times and stabbed him twice with a poisoned knife, unsuccessfully. Berkman was sentenced to 22 years imprisonment for attempted murder as a result of which he spent 14 years in prison, many of which were in solitary confinement.

He owed his release after a few corrupt politicians tried to help imprisoned friends who had defrauded the state of millions of dollars with a law that cut all sentences by a third. The convicted politicians were sentenced under federal law and remained in custody. Berkman was released on May 18, 1906.

Deportation to the Soviet Union

Physically challenged, Berkman contacted Emma Goldman again after imprisonment. From 1906 to 1915 he wrote articles for her newspaper Mother Earth . The publication stood up in particular for the birth control , which is why Emma Goldman was sentenced to prison, so that Berkman briefly took over the editing of the magazine.

Between 1906 and 1914 Berkman made lecture tours through the USA, where he was repeatedly arrested or hindered in other ways, e.g. B. its meetings were dissolved. He later reunited with Emma Goldman and contributed to the Mother Earth Bulletin . During this time he continued his lectures, helped organize workers and the unemployed and carried out various campaigns for human rights.

From 1914 onwards Berkman and Emma Goldman showed opposition to the First World War , when the USA took part in 1917, they fought against recruitment by calling for conscientious objection, among other things . In the bomb attack on the "Preparedness Day Parade" on July 22, 1916 (a kind of war parade of the USA) they were given the spiritual complicity and both were arrested several times between 1917 and 1919. In 1919, after the Anarchist Exclusion Act was passed and at the height of the Palmer raids , Berkman, Goldman and hundreds of other radicals were deported to the Soviet Union with the UST Buford .

Both Berkman and Goldman initially supported the Bolsheviks . In 1920, Berkman met in Moscow with Augustin Souchy . After Berkman and Goldman saw the consequences of the October Revolution first hand , they became increasingly disaffected. The brutal suppression of the Kronstadt uprising in 1921 finally led to their break. Berkman and Goldman had campaigned for the sailors when the uprising was put down, and both emigrated to Berlin via Sweden .

Their attempts at libertarian criticism of Bolshevism were only moderately successful. In Germany in 1922 they raised funds for the imprisoned anarchists in the Soviet Union.

death

In 1923, Berkman and Goldman obtained entry permits to France with the help of Romain Rolland , Bertrand Russell , Thomas Mann and Albert Einstein . Berkman spent his last years in poor living conditions as a publishing editor and translator in Saint-Tropez and last lived in Nice. After never really getting over the health problems of his imprisonment, he has been plagued by prostate cancer in recent years . He suffered from constant pain and had to rely on financial help from friends. On the night of June 28, 1936, two weeks before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War , he fatally injured himself with a pistol with suicidal intent. After a night call from friends, Emma Goldman hurried from Saint-Tropez to Nice to Berkman and reached him, dying, in complete paralysis. In the afternoon, Alexander Berkman fell into a coma and died that same evening.

Works

In addition to his numerous magazine articles, u. a. in The Syndicalist , Berkman published several books. In his prison years he wrote the Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (German: prison memories of an anarchist ). The Bolshevik Myth (German: The Bolshevik Myth ), a book that was recognized for both its literary qualities and its documentary value, emerged from the experience of the October Revolution in 1925 . His main work, The ABC of Communist Anarchism (German: ABC of Anarchism ), he finally wrote in exile in France.

literature

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Berkman, Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Lithuanian anarchist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH November 21, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Vilnius , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH June 28, 1936
Place of death Nice , France