ALEXANDERBERKMAN A Biographical Sketch Alexander Berkman was born in November 1870, at Vilno. Russia at that time was the scene of the most heroic activities against the 6!ack reaction of Tsari_sm. The young Berkman was from the first strongly influenced by the idealism and self-sacrifice of the revolutionists' struggle. His unde, Maxim, was exiled to Siberia for revolutionary activity, and was an inspiration to his nephew. At fiifteen he was already a member of a group engaged ip. the study of revolutionary literature-at that time, ;is now, a treasonable activity. He was expelled from school on account of his rebellious spirit, and was given a "wolrs passport" which closed every profession to him. He was thus, at the age of sixteen, compelled, like so many others in the revolutionary movement, to emigrate to America. On November 11th, 1887, the leaders of the anarchist movement in Chicago had been judicially murdered after the frame-up in the Haymarket at the May Day demonstrations. Berkman arrived in America at the beginning of 1888--only a few months after this crime on the part of the State.' He naturally threw himself into the revolutionary struggle, first in a Yiddish speaking group called the Pioneers of Liberty, then in the German Anarchist movement which was at that time led by J_ohnMost. Berkman's part in this struggle is described by Emma Goldman in the following terms : It was in the year 1892, at the time of the Homestead Steel Strike-the first and greatest life-and-death struggle of the steelworkers of the State of Pennsylvania against their feudal lord, Andrew Carnegie. It aroused the whole country to the slavery and -exploitation in the steel industry. That great struggle, powerfully described by Alexander Berkman in his " Prison Memoirs," was acccompanied by the -importation· to H<;>mestead 3 BibhotecaG no Bianco
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTExMDY2NQ==