Libed to Lojan

Arkhip Libed (Архип Либед; Arhip; Lebed)

Born 1881, Volyn, Russia (present-day Ukraine).Ukrainian. Miner. Migrated to US 1913. Wife and five children in Russia. Union of Russian Workers. Fairmont, West Virginia. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54709/603; FBI file OG 380968

Mike Libeszky

Deported to Austria May 8, 1920. No further information found.

Including on list of deported radicals in INS file 54325/36G

Tito Ligi (aka Augusto Vitaletti)

Born 1894, Sassoferrato, Italy. Miner. Migrated to US 1912. Already an anarchist, along with his brother Adolfo, before both migrated; in the US associated with Luigi Galleani’s Cronaca Sovversiva. November 1920 arrested in Scranton, Pennsylvania, for evading the draft (having taken out a declaration of intent to naturalize, he was eligible for service). After his arrest he briefly became the lead suspect (almost certainly falsely) in the Wall Street bombing of 1920. Deported August 1922. Moved to Rome 1925 with wife Bianchi Angela, where they opened a small shop. Under government surveillance until 1940; although he maintained his anarchist ideas, officials recorded no political activity of note. Meanwhile his brother Angelo, living in Jessup, Pennsylvania, adopted Tito’s name (causing some confusion) and married fellow anarchist Maria Giaconi, who fought in the Spanish Civil War.

FBI file BS 25-63-12-1; CPC busta 2786

See also: The Nation, May 18, 1921; Beverly Gage, The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in Its First Age of Terror; Charles H. McCormick, Hopeless Cases: The Hunt for the Red Scare Terrorist Bombers

Amedeo Lilli (Lillie)

Born 1894, Acqualagna, Italy. Laborer. Migrated to US 1913. Anarchist; member, Circolo Studi Sociali of Milwaukee and subscriber to Cronaca Sovversiva. Arrested September 1917 after Italian anarchist “riot,” during which he was shot in the shoulder by an undercover policeman. Sentenced to 25 years for assault in Wisconsin State Prison; pardoned in 1922 on condition of deportation. Deported February 16, 1922. After return to Italy he became a tailor and, according to government surveillance that lasted into 1932, took no part in radical activities.

INS file 54235/67; CPC busta 2787

See also: Robert Tanzilo, The Milwaukee Police Station Bomb of 1917; Dean A. Strang, Worse than the Devil: Anarchists, Clarence Darrow, and Justice in a Time of Terror

Peter Linecky (Pete; Linieski)

Born 1885, Kyiv, Russia (present-day Ukraine). Migrated to US 1916. Laborer. Wife and two children in Russia. Joined the Communist Party in Detroit. Arrested January 1920; deported March 18, 1921.

INS file 54859/713

Dora Lipkin (Дора Липкин)

Born 1894, Russia. Jewish. Migrated to US 1910. Anarchist and member of the Union of Russian Workers; common-law wife of URW leader Hyman Perkus. Lived in New York with family of Boris Shatz, another URW member and fellow deportee. Arrested October 1919 for “disturbing the peace”; arrested again during the first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Refused to answer questions while detained. Helped lead hunger strike on Ellis Island to protest conditions. Deported, along with Perkus, on the Buford. 1925 estranged from Perkus and described by Fedor Kushnarev as “a poor broken-hearted woman” who was hoping to leave Russia for Mexico. No further information found.

INS file 54709/275

See also: New York Tribune, November 30, 1919; Rose Pesotta Papers, New York Public Library

Samuel Lipman (Самуил Липман; Lippman; aka Schaie Lipzcuk)

Born 1888, Pinsk, Russia (present-day Belarus). Furrier. Jewish. Migrated to US 1913. Belonged to New York’s Frayhayt Group, but considered himself a socialist rather than an anarchist; a pacifist and vegetarian strongly influenced by Leo Tolstoy. Common-law husband of anarchist Ethel Bernstein (who was deported on the Buford). Arrested with other group members in 1918 for writing and distributing fliers opposing US intervention in Russian Civil War. Sentenced to 20 years under the Espionage Act. In prison, became disillusioned with Tolstoy, but (falsely) claimed to have become an anarchist (so that he could be deported). Deported November 23, 1921 after losing landmark Supreme Court free-speech case Abrams v. United States. In Russia, reunited with and married Ethel Bernstein and studied agronomy and became chairman of the Department of Economic Geography at a university in Moscow. “After a period of doubts, struggle with my own self & debating,” applied to join the Communist Party in 1928. In the 1930s, however, he was executed in Stalin’s purges.

INS file 54517/72

See also: Richard Polenberg, Fighting Faiths: The Abrams Case, the Supreme Court, and Free Speech; Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America; Senya Fléchine Papers, International Institute for Social History, The Netherlands

Anton Lipsky (Антон Липский)

Born 1895, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus). Presser. Migrated to the US 1913. “I came to the United States to learn some profession.” Joined the Union of Russian Workers in 1919. New York. Arrested in the first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54709/456

Demian Lisiuk (Демьян Лисюк; Jim; Lisuk)

Born 1894, Russia. Migrated to Canada 1913, then to US 1914. Laborer. Joined the Socialist Party 1919, transferred into Detroit’s Russian Branch No. 1 of the Communist Party. Arrested January 1920; deported to Russia, February 26, 1921.

INS file 54859/772

Nikolai Lisiuk (Николай Лисюк; Nicholas; Nick)

Laborer. Deported to Russia, February 26, 1921. No further information found.

Included on list of deported radicals in INS file 55110/4

Anton Lishkevich (Антон Личкевич; Lichkevitch; aka Anto Cotie)

Born 1887, Kamieniec, Russia (present-day Poland). Laborer. Migrated to Canada 1912; migrated to the US February 1919. “I have been an Anarchist since 1905.” Arrested January 1920 in Detroit. Deported to Russia February 26, 1921, but refused entry on the basis of his anarchism at Libau, along with several other deportees. Coauthored “An Open Letter to the Russian Premier Lenin” in response. Returned to US. Subsequent activities unknown.

FBI file OG 367316

See also: Free Society (New York), October-November 1921

Aftanasy Litvakoff

Born c.1884, Lopatni, Chernihiv, Russia (present-day Ukraine). Migrated to US 1913. Laborer. Lived in Homestead, Pennsylvania for six years. 1917 joined the URW; arrested for handing out radical handbills and spent twenty days in jail. Moved to Cleveland. Arrested February 21, 1921. Claimed, “I do recognize Anarchism, but I feel that I am not worthy enough to be called such, owing to the fat that I do not understand Anarchy enough to be honored by being called an Anarchist.” Apparently a member of the Anarchist Groups of the United States and Canada, although it is not entirely clear. Deported to Russia March 18, 1921.

INS file 55009/22

Anna Loban

Born c.1893, Minsk, Russia (present-day Belarus). Migrated to US 1913. Housewife. Married Konstantin Loban in Akron, 1916. Member of the Union of Russian Workers. Deported to Russia March 18, 1921.

INS file 55009/24

Konstantin Loban (aka Peter Dedka or Dutka)

Born Slutsk, Russia (present-day Belarus), 1893. Migrated to US 1913. Rubber worker at BF Goodrich in Akron. Married Anna Loban in Akron, 1916. Joined the Union of Russian Workers in 1915, in 1919 became secretary of its Lansing, Michigan branch. Later a member of the Anarchist-Communist Groups of the United States and Canada. When asked why he “became antagonistic to this government,” replied: “Because I have been working here for eight years and am still doing hard laboring work and have not enough money to return to Russia, whereas the Americans all have much better jobs, have money and have privileges that I do not have and this country does not belong to Americans any more than it belongs to any one…as it was originally owned by the Indians.” Deported to Russia March 18, 1921.