Maximilian night

Maximilian ("Max") Nacht (born September 15, 1881 in Buczacz , † April 18, 1973 in New York ), also called Max Nomad , was an Austro-American anarchist , journalist and historian of the revolutionary movements. In the 1920s he was a supporter of the Soviet Union . Nacht also published under the pseudonyms "Podolsky" as well as "Stephen Naft" and "Max Norton".

Life

The family lived in eastern Galicia in Austria-Hungary . The father, Dr. med. Fabius Nacht, and his mother Rosa, nee Rubies, were enlightened ( Haskala ) and wealthy people. German was spoken in the family, not Yiddish . The father was a socialist and the first socialist activities of the sons took place in the local Jewish workers' education association Brotherhood .

Max and his older brother, Siegfried Shlomo Nacht, later in America Stephan Nacht (1878–1958), wrote for the Berlin magazine Neues Leben , Freiheit and Die Anarchy . Max's first book, A History of the Russian Revolution , was published in 1902. In June 1904, he and a college friend published the Polish anarcho-syndicalist magazine Wolny Swiat ("Free World"). Max Nacht went to Zurich in 1906, his brother followed him and they worked successfully with the Viennese tailor Franz Blazek, with well-known anarchists such as Fritz Brupbacher , Senna Hoy and Werner Daya on the magazine Der Weckruf (vol. 1–5, 1903 to 1907) With. The sheet reached a circulation of 4,000 copies, which was also financed by Sacharin smuggling. In 1905 he evaded a major police operation and was able to flee to Geneva with Werner Daya. There he came under the anarcho-communist influence of the Jan Wazław Machhajski group (1866-1926). In London (1908) he married a comrade, Sabine Kampfer, and completed his training as a typesetter. 1908–1909 followed the dangerous (and unsuccessful) underground work in Russia, then stays in Italy and the Ottoman Empire . The brother Siegfried emigrated to the United States in late 1912 , and Max followed him in 1913.

He became a supporter of the October Revolution without joining the party. In 1923 he moved from Chicago to Washington, DC to work under Eugene Lyons on the magazine Soviet Russia Pictoral (the organ of the communist front and propaganda organization Friends of Soviet Russia ) and to do analyzes and translations for the press office of the (unofficial) Soviet embassy. He did not become a party member and his skeptical attitude led to a break with Bolshevism in 1929 . In 1934 he described the Soviet Union as capitalism without capitalists.

Nacht was a Guggenheim Foundation fellow in 1937. From 1946 to 1956 at New York University , the New School for Social Research and the Rand School .

Works (selection)

• Max Nacht: The revolutionary movement in Russia: historical sketch . New life, Berlin 1902
• Arnold Roller (Siegfried Nacht), Max Nacht (eds ,.): Le Chansonnier international du révolté; International Rebel Songbook . Brochure group of the Comm. A.-B.-V., London 1906. 64 pp.
• Machajski, Waclaw . In: Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences . 1932.
• Rebels and Renegades . Ayer Publishing, New York 1932. 430 pp.
• Masters - Old and New. A Social Philosophy without Myths . In: VF Calverton (ed.): The Making of Society: An Outline of Sociology . New York 1937. Reprinted by Black Cat Press, Edmonton Alberta 1979
• Apostles of Revolution: A Century of Social Conflict Told Through the Lives of Blanqui, Marx, Bakunin. Nechayev, Makhno, Most, Stalin . Little, Brown & Co., Boston 1939. 467 pp. Revised edition, New York 1961.
• Communism and the Jews . In: (The Universal) Jewish Encyclopedia . New York 1940
• The Jewish Conspiracy . Educational Dept., Retail, Wholesale and Chain Store Food Employees Union. 1944. 32 pp.
• Communism . In: Feliks Gross (Ed.): European Ideologies: A Survey of 20th Century Political Ideas. Philosophical Library, Inc., New York 1948
• The Evolution of Anarchism and Syndicalism: A Critical Review. In: Feliks Gross (Ed.): European Ideologies. New York 1948.
• A Skeptic's Political Dictionary and Handbook for the Disenchanted . Bookman Associates, New York 1953. 171 pp.
• Aspects of Revolt . Bookman Associates, New York [1959]. 311 pp.
• Max Nacht as Max Podolsky : Political Heretics from Plato to Mao Tse-Tung . University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 1963. 367 pp.
• Dreamers, Dynamiters and Demagogues: Reminiscences . Waldon Press, New York [1964]. 251 pp.
• The Anarchist Tradition: A Hundred Years of Revolutionary Internationals . Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, Calif. 1964. 43 sheets.
• The Anarchist Tradition and Other Essays . 1967. 398 pp.
• White Collars And Horny Hands: The Revolutionary Thought of Waclaw Machajski . Black Cat Press, Edmonton, Alberta 1983, 21 pp. [In: The Modern Quarterly , 3 / Fall 1932]

literature

• Werner Portmann: The wild sheep: Max and Siegfried night . Unrast Verlag , Münster 2008. ISBN 978-3-89771-455-7

Testimonies

• Fritz Brupbacher: 60 years of heretics: autobiography . B. Ruppli, 1935.
• Eugene Lyons: Assignment in Utopia . Harcourt, Brace & Co., New York 1938.
• Samuel Agnon : Ore'ach Nat Lalun. 1939 German: Just like a guest at night. 1964. In this novel, Siegfried and Maximilian Nacht are played by Siegmund Winter.

Web links

• Literature by and about Maximilian Nacht in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Eugene Lyons: Assignment in Utopia, 1991, P. 39. [1938]
2. ↑ Max Nomad's pseudonyms ( Memento of the original from August 29, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . "Max Nomad (1881–1973) philosophic anarchist, author and educator, who also wrote under the pseudonyms Stephen Naft and Max Norton ..." 
3. ↑ "Max Nacht Papers" . Details of his life in the Amsterdam IISG
4. ↑ Guide to the Max Nomad Papers ( Memento of the original dated August 29, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . "Max and Stephen Night Archives" of the communist-oriented Tamiment Library, New York University. 
5. ↑ Siegfried Nacht used the pseudonym Arnold Roller as an author: The General Strike and the Social Revolution. London 1902 (in 17 languages); The general social strike . Berlin 1905; Direct Action London 1906. Soldiers' Breviary , 1906.
6. ^ In: Scribner's Magazine , 1934. This was followed by a debate about this assessment in Paul Mattick's Council Communist magazine International Council Correspondence . Paul Mattick: Dictatorship of the Intellectuals, Vol. 2, No. 7, June 1936, pp. 12-36; Max Normad: The Masters of Tomorrow, Vol. 2, Nos. 9 & 10, September 1936, pp. 16-42. Paul Mattick: Max Nomads 'Masters of Tomorrow', Vol. 2, No. 12, November 1936, pp. 14-41.