Tataranovich to Tori

Victor Tataranovich (Виктор Татаранович)

Born 1889, Minsk, Russia (present-day Belarus). Laborer; machinist. Migrated to Argentina 1909, then Panama 1912, then to the US 1913. Employed by the Ford Motor Company. 1918 joined Detroit’s Russian Branch No. 3 of the Socialist Party of America, which in September 1919 transferred into the Communist Party of America. Arrested during the second Palmer Raids, January 1920. “Voluntarily departed” via Canada, October 16, 1920.

INS file 54859/973, FBI files OG 386338 and BS 202600-710-1

Josef Teichman (Joe; Feichman)

Born 1890, Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria-Hungary (present-day Poland). Miner. Migrated to US 1912. Worked in a mine in Vestaburg, Pennsylvania. Joined the Socialist Party of America branch in Vestaburg in 1918; 1919 transferred into the Communist Party of America. Pittsburgh. December 1919 became branch secretary. According to Immigration Inspector in Charge W. W. Sibray, “He is a nice clean-cut appearing fellow and does not impress me as being one who would be implicated in a project against the interest of this government. He does, however, belong to the Communist Party of America and is its secretary, and if it is the policy of the Department [of Labor] to deport persons who belong to that organization, then this man should be deported to the country whence he came.” “Voluntarily departed” to Poland, October 20, 1920.

INS file 54809/281; FBI file OG 386882

Nik Telatitski

Telatitski’s URW membership card

Born 1893, Brest-Litovsk, Russia (present-day Brest, Belarus). Laborer. Migrated to US 1913. Wife in Russia. Union of Russian Workers. Youngstown, Ohio. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Deported on the Buford.

INS file 54709/541; FBI file OG 8000-379688

Afanasy Timonatnko

Deported to Russia, October 16, 1920. No further information found.

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

Jacob Tiomay(?)

The partially illegible name as it appears in the record

Deported to Russia, February 1, 1921. No further information found.

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

Konrad Tkach (Конрад Ткач; Kondrat; Conrad Kachur)

Born c.1888, Volhynia, Russia (present-day Poland). Migrated to the US 1913. Member of the Communist Party of America in Bayonne, New Jersey. Deported to Russia December 23, 1920.

INS file 54810/946

See also: The Morning Post (Camden NJ), December 12, 1920.

Mike Tkach

Member of the Communist Party of America in Pittsburgh. Arrested February 20, 1920. Deported to Russia February 1, 1921.

FBI file OG 8000-193906; list of deported radicals in INS file 54325/36G

Gerasim Tkachuk (Harry)

Tkachuk and his family

Born 1893 in Brest-Litovsk, Russia (present-day Belarus). Migrated to US 1910. Laborer; autoworker. Married wife Maria 1913, had three US-born children. Contracted rheumatism as a tunnel worker. Employed at Ford Motor Company and family lived in Hamtramck. Arrested November 7, 1919 in Detroit. Denied being a member of the Union of Russian Workers, but admitted to attending “over 100” radical meetings in Detroit and “lecturing on socialism.” Deported March 18, 1921.

INS file 54709/289

Benjamin Tobak

Born 1898, Austria-Hungary. Printer. Date of migration to the US unknown. Member of the Communist Party of America in New York. Arrested December 8, 1919 and charged with “criminal anarchy.” Deported to Austria June 19, 1920.

FBI file OG 377698

See also: New York Herald, November 3, 1919

Spas Todorov (Спас Тодоров; Sam; Todoroff)

Born 1898, Bulgaria. Construction worker. Migrated to US 1917. 1918 lived in Toledo, Ohio. 1919 joined the Communist Party of America in Buffalo. Arrested December 28, 1919 in Lusk Committee raid on Buffalo’s CP headquarters. Initially indicted for “criminal anarchy,” but then turned over to Immigration authorities for deportation. Deported September 8, 1920.

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

See also: Ancestry.com; Buffalo Courier, December 30, 1919; Buffalo Evening News, January 10, 1920

Nicholas Torbiak (Nick)

Born 1895, Galicia, Austria-Hungary(?). Migrated to the US 1909. Miner. Wife and infant son in Coal Run, Pennsylvania. Member, along with wife, of the Ukrainian Federation Branch No. 59 of the Communist Party, in Coal Run. Involved in 1919 miners’ strike. Deported to Russia, March 18, 1921.

INS file 54885/74; FBI file OG 8000-385816

Iacopo Tori (Jacopo; Jacob; aka Louis Tori)

Born 1892, Montecarlo, Lucca, Italy. Laborer. Migrated to US with his father circa 1907; both returned to Italy circa 1908; Tori again migrated to the US 1909. 1913 became an organizer for the IWW and an active member of its Latin Branch in San Francisco. Arrested September 19, 1916 for “disturbing the peace” while protesting the conviction of Warren Billings. Active in anti-conscription agitation during World War I; in 1917 he hand-wrote a placard displayed at the IWW’s headquarters in South San Francisco reading: ” The clergy and the capitalists want war but they are not going to war. Imitate them!” December 20, 1917 arrested in San Francisco for avoiding the draft (for which he was not legally eligible!); he was in possession of a false passport and allegedly planning to make is way to Tijuana. Defendant along with 45 other IWW members in federal trail in Sacramento for violating the Espionage Act; engaged with most of the other defendants in a “silent defense” by refusing to participate in the proceedings. Sentenced to ten years in Leavenworth Penitentiary. In Leavenworth he was repeatedly disciplined for refusing to do work. August 1919 authorities at Leavenworth confiscated a letter from Tori to his older brother in Italy, reading: “The penal institutions of this rotten bawdy-house, American democracy, will never succeed in keeping in chains within the walls of shame the spirit of good men; this rises above the walls and goes where it will. I am sorry to hear that you are still a solider. I understand very well, though I have not tried it myself, that being a soldier in a monarchy is a dog’s life. Military life is a dog’s life anyway.” Sentence commuted December 1923 on condition of deportation. On eve of their deportations, Tori and two other IWW members “asserted that they will carry on the work of the Industrial Workers of the World when they are released, whether it be in this country or in a foreign land.”

Deported March 29, 1924. Imprisoned in Italy upon arrival for avoiding Italian military service and conscripted into the 79th Infantry Regiment until October 1925. Returned to Montecarlo, where authorities in 1936 reported his “good conduct in general, without giving rise to any kind of political remarks”; he was removed from the Italian government’s list of “subversives” that same year.

FBI file OG 110181; CPC busta 5160

See also: Kenyon Zimmer, Immigrants Against the State: Yiddish and Italian Anarchism in America; Iacopo Tori, Il processo muto di Sacramento, Cal. (1919); St. Joseph Gazette (St. Joseph MI), December 27, 1923

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *