Life of an Anarchist: The Alexander Berkman Reader

Alexander Berkman

Seven Stories Press, Nov 2, 2004 - Political Science - 372 pages

Alexander Berkman was a twentieth-century American revolutionary. Like the abolitionist John Brown before him, Berkman was hugely idealistic, ready to go to the furthest extreme of self-sacrifice and violence on behalf of justice and civil rights. He decided to assassinate industrialist Henry Clay Frick after reading in the newspaper that Pinkertons hired by Frick had opened fire on the Homestead strikers, killing men, women, and children. Berkman’s bungled attempt cost him fifteen years in a federal penitentiary. Upon his release, he became an effective agitator against conscription and was again imprisoned and eventually deported to Russia, where he saw at first hand the early days of Bolshevism. Berkman’s writings remain a lasting and impassioned record of intense political transformation.
Featuring a new introduction by Howard Zinn, Life of an Anarchist contains Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist, Berkman’s account of his years in prison; The Bolshevik Myth, his eyewitness account of the early days of the Russian Revolution; and The ABC of Anarchism, the classic text on the nature of anarchism in the twentieth century. Also included are a selection of letters between Berkman and his lifelong companion Emma Goldman, and a generous sampling from Berkman’s other publications.

Contents

• The Penitentiary: 35
• 9: 43
• The Basket Cell: 50
• Hiding the Evidence: 56
• For Safety: 66
• The Resurrection: 89
• Agitating in the United States 19061919: 111
• No 1 January 15 1916 Preparedness: 117
• No 9 March 15 1916 Villa or WilsonWhich: 123
• No 15 July 1 1916 More Suppression: 129
• No 19 September 15 1916 The Billings Trial: 136
• No 24 January 1 1917 The Daylight Burglary: 142
• No Conscription: 151
• In and About Russia 19191922: 159
• In Petrograd: 165
• The Market: 171
• On the Latvian Border: 178
• Fastov the Pogromed: 185
• In Various Walks: 191
• Kronstadt: 198
• Last Links in the Chain: 205
• The Kronstadt Rebellion and The Russian Tragedy: 215
• Alexander Berkman to Michael Cohn June 6 1930: 248
• Alexander Berkman to Emma Goldman June 25 1928: 254
• Alexander Berkman to Pauline Turkel March 21 1935: 260
• Introduction: 267
• What is Anarchism?: 273
• Will Communist Anarchism Work?: 280
• Emma Goldman to Alexander Berkman May 2 1927: 339

About the author

GENE FELLNER is an activist and artist living in Jersey City, New Jersey, where he edits and illustrates the GLF Occasional. He has been a staffworker for the Attica Brothers Legal Defense and a founder of the Cold Type Organizing Committee. In 1987 he was named Distinguished Artist by the New Jersey State Council for the Arts.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Life of an Anarchist: The Alexander Berkman Reader
• Author: Alexander Berkman
• Editor: Gene Fellner
• Contributor: Howard Zinn
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press, 2004
• ISBN: 1583226621, 9781583226629
• Length: 372 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Criminals & Outlaws; Biography & Autobiography / Political; Political Science / Political Ideologies / Anarchism