Samuel (or Semyon) Barkovsky (Сэмюэл or Семён Барковский, Samuel or Samion Barkowsky)
Born 1893, Chernihiv, Russia (present-day Ukraine). Machinist. Migrated to US 1913. Member of the Socialist Party of America, the IWW, and the Ansonia, CT branch of the Union of Russian Workers. Chairman of “Luch,” a URW organization disguised as a mutual aid society, delegate to 1919 URW convention. Arrested in Ansonia June 1919 for “breach of the peace” for agitation in connection with URW-organized strike. Arrested Hartford, CT, November 1919; a trove of anarchist literature found in his home. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.
INS file 54709/405; FBI file OG 8000-364023
Stanislaw Bartesiewics (aka Stanley Barton, aka Joe Rink, aka Joe Rynkiewich)
Born 1888, Lithuania. Laborer. Killed a woman in Russia (circumstances unclear) and fled to US in 1899; extradited back to Russia that year where convicted and served three years and seven months in prison. Migrated to US again 1915. Member Lithuanian Branch of the Communist Party of America. His own wife, as well as his brother (George) and sister-in-law, all gave sworn depositions against him to the Bureau of Investigation. Arrested Detroit, January 1920. Deported 1921.
FBI file OG 382016
Ivan Baskevich (Иван Баскевич; John; Basskevich)
Born 1897, Russia. Immigrated to US 1913, laborer. Held socialist ideas in Russia but not a party member. Joined the Socialist Party within “a few days” of arrival in US, became financial secretary of Cleveland’s Russian Branch No. 1 of the Communist Party. Arrested January 1920. Deported to Russia February 26, 1921. Subsequent activities unknown.
INS file 54859/943
Aleksandr Ivanovich Batura (Александр Иванович Батура)
Born Russia, year unknown. Anarchist; IWW member. Deported 1924. In Russia, “openly declared that it is only Commissars and not workers that live well here,” and sentenced to Solovetsky prison camp, then internal exile. Wrote to comrades in US circa 1927: “The main thing is that I have no work and it is so hard to get anything. I have been actually starving here, moreover, I am sick.” Received aid from anarchists abroad 1929-1931.
See: Senya Fleshin Papers, International Institute for Social History; G. P. Maximoff, The Guillotine at Work: Twenty Years of Terror in Russia (Data and Documents) (1940)
Morris Becker
Born 1885, Kiev, Russia (present-day Ukraine). Migrated to US 1906. Married, wife in US. Anarchist; supporter of Alexander Berkman’s The Blast; member of No-Conscription League. One of the first two people arrested under the Selective Service Act of 1917; sentenced to a year and eight months in Atlanta federal penitentiary for interference in the draft, and repeatedly disciplined for “misconduct.” Admitted he was an anarchist and “a man without a country,” “but I am an advocate of peace and not of force.” Deported on the Buford. After a long period of unemployment secured a factory job in Petrograd, but when he complained of “the unbearably putrid air in the shop where he was working, the unnecessary filth and dirt,” he was told he was “a pampered bourgeois” who “pine[d] for the comforts of capitalist America.” 1931 wrote a coded letter to Alexander Berkman after a decade of silence.
INS file 54235/32
See also: Emma Goldman, Living My Life; Alexander Berkman Papers, IISH
Max Belesky or Belessky
Born 1888, Odessa, Russia (present-day Ukraine). Jewish. Migrated to US 1913; carpenter. Wife and three children in Russia. Joined Russian Branch No. 3 of the Socialist Party in Detroit, which became a branch of the Communist Party. Arrested January 1920. “Voluntary departure” to Russia October 16, 1920. Subsequent activities unknown.
INS file 54859/752
Emelyan Belesta (Емельян Белеста, aka Michael Belesta, Andrew Belesta, Andriev Belesta)
Born Russia, 1886. Wife in Russia. Laborer. Migrated to Canada 1912, then US (without inspection) 1916. Joined the Union of Russian Workers in Pittsburgh around 1918; took “more or less of a prominent part in meetings of Russian radicals in the district.” Arrested 1919 in possession of “a considerable amount of extremely radical literature.” On bail, arrested again for writing and distributing handbill calling for a general strike of American workers “to enforce the lifting of the blockade against Russia.” Deported on the Buford. Died of typhus in Ufa.
INS file 54616/134
See also: INS file 54616/89; New-York Tribune, October 4, 1919
Bezil Belousov (Бэзил Белоусов, Basil Belusoff, aka Basil Bibusoff)
Born 1881, Russia. Wife and three children in Russia. Joined Union of Russian Workers in 1919. Arrested Fairmont, West Virginia, November 1919. Claimed to have been drunk when joined URW. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.
INS file 54709/593
Demyan Belowky
Born 1882, Russia. Immigrated to US 1915; laborer. Joined Communist Party in Detroit. Deported March 18, 1921. Subsequent activities unknown.
INS file 54850/994; FBI file OG 382092
William Bendik (Бендик, Bendick)
Born 1894, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus). Laborer. Migrated to US 1912. Claimed to have joined Russian Branch No. 2 of Socialist Party of America, Cleveland, January 1919, but in possession of Socialist Labor Party literature when arrested June 1919. Membership in neither qualified as grounds for deportation. Instead, deportation based on the alleged fact that, after he participated in 1919 May Day demonstration broken up by police, he reportedly stated, “We only gave them a demonstration of what we will do July 4th; we will be prepared and have ammunition and everything, and we will show them what we will do.” Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.
INS file 54616/235; FBI file OG 372982
