Monthly Archives: April 2020

Orlov to Papadogiannis

Red Scare Deportees, , , , , , , ,

Mikhail Orlov (a.k.a. Mike Orloff)

Born: 1889, Mogilev, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Miner
Migration: Immigrated to US 1909
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined the Union of Russian Workers in Homestead, Pennsylvania in 1915. Authorities suspected he was “one of the moving spirits” of a URW branch believed to exist in the Bertha mines in Morgantown, West Virginia. He was also a member of the United Mine Workers. Received anarchist and IWW literature from Max Maisel’s anarchist bookstore in New York. Arrested December 1, 1919 during the miners’ strike and deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/608.

Samuel Orlov (a.k.a. Sam Orloff)

Born: 1889, Mogliev, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Miner
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined the Union of Russian Workers in Monessen, Pennsylvania circa 1915. Also a member of the United Mine Workers. Arrested December 1, 1919 during the miners’ strike and deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/609; FBI file OG 8000-248688.

Albert Osborn

Born: 1898, Førde, Norway
Nationality: Norwegian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Sailor; laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1909
Affiliation: IWW

Migrated to the United States with his stepmother in 1909 to rejoin his father. Joined the IWW in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota in 1915, though he later claimed he joined only under pressure from other members. Arrested in Everett, Washington in 1917 for failing to register for the draft and served thirteen days in jail. Arrested again May 23, 1918 in Seattle as an IWW member. Diagnosed on June 6, 1918 as “insane” due to “dementia praecox” attributed to a childhood head injury. Deported September 20, 1919 as “likely to become a public charge,” for entering without inspection (upon his return from a sailing voyage in 1915), and for alleged insanity. According to Commissioner General of Immigration A. Caminetti, “the charge against him does not arise, even remotely, from his connection with the I.W.W.”

Sources: INS file 54414/81.

Anton Ostopchuk

Born: c. 1886, Russia (in present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Metalworker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

His wife and two children remained in Russia. Joined Detroit’s Russian Branch No. 3 of the Communist Party. Arrested January 1920 and deported to Russia March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54859/719.

Nikolai Ostreiko

Born: 1877, Lida, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration: Immigrated to US 1910
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

A member of the Russian Branch of the Socialist Party of America in Flint, Michigan, later transferring to the Communist Party of America. Arrested January 1920 and deported to Russia March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54860/739.

Osip Otroschyk (or Otrozttzek; a.k.a. Joe Trocki)

Born: 1880, Vilnius, Russia (present-day Lithuania)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Polish
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

His wife remained in Russia when he emigrated. Employed at Fisher Body Company in Detroit and a member of Russian Branch No. 3 of the Communist Party. Arrested January 1920 and held at Fort Wayne. “Voluntarily departed” to Russia via Canada January 24, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54859/989.

Yakov Ozols (a.k.a. Jacob; Ozal)

Born: c. 1887, Riga, Russia (present-day Latvia)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Sailor; laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1917
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Joined the Socialist Party and later the Russian Branch of the Communist Party of America in Philadelphia. Arrested January 7, 1920 and deported February 1, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54811/944; FBI file OG 8000-276616.

Peter Paich (or Paick)

Born: 1897, Požega, Austria-Hungary (present-day Croatia)
Nationality: Hungarian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Socialist Party of America; Workers’ International Industrial Union

Joined the Socialist Party in Detroit in 1915 and the Workers’ International Industrial Union in Lorain, Ohio in 1918. Arrested August 1917 for distributing socialist literature and jailed four days. Arrested again April 1918 for distributing socialist and anti-conscription literature, then interned at Fort Oglethorpe as an “alien enemy.” Detained for deportation upon release in September 1919 and deported May 8, 1920 on the charge of being “likely to become a public charge,” as Socialist Party membership did not meet the legal definition of anarchism.

Sources: INS file 54379/474; FBI file OG 8000-203962.

Alexandr Palukevich (or Palukovich; Pavlukoich)

Born: Russia, year unknown
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration:
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Member of the Communist Party in Bayonne, New Jersey. Deported to Russia December 23, 1920. No further information has been found.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G.

Pavel Panasuk (a.k.a. Paul; Panosik)

Born: Russia, year unknown
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration:
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Member of the Communist Party in Chicago. Arrested during the second Palmer Raids January 2, 1920. “Voluntarily departed” to Russia October 10, 1920.

Sources: FBI file BS 202600-149-1.

Joseph T. Pandack

Born:
Nationality: Yugoslavian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration:
Affiliation:

Deported to Yugoslavia as a radical on August 1, 1920. No further information found.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G.

Dimitri Panko

Born: 1890, Minsk, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Mechanic
Migration: Immigrated to US 1914
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined Branch No. 2 of the Union of Russian Workers in Newark, for which he distributed literature. Deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Later employed in Moscow at the Russian-American Tool Plant, where he helped form a factory committee and appears to have joined the Communist Party of Russia.

Sources: INS file 54709/112; B. Ratner, Istoriia Moskovskogo instrumental’nogo zavoda.

Pavel Pankov (a.k.a. Pual Panko; Pankoff)

Born: 1886, Mogliev, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Moulder; bartender
Migration: Immigrated to US 1907
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Joined the Socialist Party in 1914, then Detroit’s Russian Branch of the Communist Party in 1919. Worked as a bartender at Detroit’s House of the Masses. Arrested January 1920 and deported to Russia February 26, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54859/634.

Kostas Papadogiannis

Born: 1885, Greece
Nationality: Greek
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Printer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1908
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Secretary of New York’s Greek Socialist Union and printer of its newspaper Phone tou Ergatou (Voice of the Worker), founded 1918. Later became a member of the Communist Party of America. Deported to Greece in early 1921.

In Athens he wrote for the Greek Socialist Workers’ Party newspaper and established a leftist publishing house that printed Communist literature and distributed Greek-language Marxist texts from the United States, including the first Greek translation of Lenin’s The State and Revolution. After 1924, however, he left the party and published dissident radical literature, such as Trotsky’s biography of Lenin.

Sources: Kostis Karpozilos, Red America: Greek Communists in the United States, 1920–1950; additional information supplied by Kostis Karpozilos.

Paredes García to Penske

Red Scare Deportees, , , , , , , ,

Eduardo Paredes García

Born: 1895, A Coruña, Spain
Nationality: Spanish
Ethnicity: Galician
Occupation: Sailor; bookkeeper
Migration: Immigrated to US 1916
Affiliation: IWW; anarchist

Emigrated Cuba and then, in 1916, to the United States. An anarchist, he joined the Industrial Workers of the World’s Marine Transport Workers in 1917 and edited the IWW newspaper Defensa Obrera. During the federal IWW trial, he served as an assistant to the IWW’s attorney, George Vanderveer. He was also a member of Philadelphia’s anarchist Pro-Prensa group. Arrested in Philadelphia, he was deported to Spain on December 20, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54648/28; Peter Cole, Wobblies on the Waterfront: Interracial Unionism in Progressive-Era Philadelphia.

Luigi Parenti

Luigi Parenti in 1918. National Archives.
Luigi Parenti in 1922. Archivio dello Stato, Italy.

Born: 1887, Calcinaia, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer; union organizer; journalist
Migration: Immigrated to US 1910
Affiliation: IWW; anarchist

Initially a Christian democrat and completed two years of seminary study in Lucca before abandoning religious training, marrying, and assisting an Italian streetcar drivers’ strike.

He emigrated to the United States with his wife Maria in 1910 and soon became an anarchist, joining the Industrial Workers of the World in San Francisco in 1911. He became a lecturer and organizer for the IWW and was arrested several times for leading strikes and demonstrations. Italian consular authorities described him as “one of the most dangerous propagandists in the anarchist movement across the United States,” calling him “taciturn in character, educated, intelligent, [and] cultured.” A defendant in the mass IWW trial of 1917–1918, he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and a $30,000 fine. From September 1917 to June 1919 he was denied permission to communicate with his wife and three daughters, one of whom was born while he was incarcerated. Released on bail pending appeal, he worked as an organizer for an independent Italian fishermen’s union in San Francisco and later as a correspondent for La Voce del Popolo. After losing his appeal in May 1921, he reentered prison, but in 1922 his sentence was commuted on condition of deportation. He “voluntarily departed” with his family on October 26, 1922.

Back in Italy, he settled in Lucca, joined the syndicalist Unione Sindacale Italiana, and attended its illegal 1926 convention. He later withdrew from overt radical activity and worked for a Fascist state-created union and as a reporter. Official reports alternately described him as obedient to Fascist directives (1929), secretly receiving radical publications from the United States (1930), and again demonstrating “good moral and political conduct” aligned with the regime (1932). The true nature of his political beliefs in these years is unclear. Died in 1961.

Sources: INS file 54235/61; CPC busta 3732; Industrial Workers of the World Collection, Walter P. Reuther Library; Kenyon Zimmer, Immigrants Against the State: Yiddish and Italian Anarchism in America.

Feodor Pasiuk (a.k.a. Theodor, Paschuk)

Born: c. 1880, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

His wife and child remained in Russia when he emigrated. Became a member of Detroit’s Russian Branch No. 3 of the Communist Party of America. Arrested January 4, 1920, he was deported to Russia on March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54859/967.

Lev Paskevich (a.k.a. Levi Paskevick; Paskovich)

Born: c. 1889, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Ship rigger
Migration: Migrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Joined the Socialist Party of America and later Philadelphia’s First Branch of the Communist Party of America. Arrested January 7, 1920, he was deported to Russia on February 1, 1921 aboard the SS Estonia.

Sources: INS file 54859/134; Philadelphia Enquirer, February 1, 1921.

John Paskvalick (or Pashvalisk)

Born: Austria-Hungary, year unknown
Nationality: Austrian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration: M
Affiliation:

Deported to Austria as a radical on June 19, 1920. No further information has been found.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G.

George Pasukow

Born: Russia, year unknown
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration: M
Affiliation:

Deported to Russia as a radical on October 17, 1920. No further information has been found.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G.

Peter Pavlas (a.k.a. Pete Pawlas)

Born: 1885, Warsaw, Russia (present-day Poland)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Czech
Occupation: Machinist; laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1917
Affiliation: Socialist Party of America

The child of Czech (“Bohemian”) immigrants in Russia, he returned with his parents to Bohemia in 1894. In he 1909 migrated to Argentina; then to Mexico in 1915.

Entered the United States in 1917 without inspection as a contract laborer to work in a sugar factory near San Francisco. An immigration agent described him as “a peculiar character, being somewhat of a ‘globe trotter’, and a student of Esperanto…He is believed to be more intelligent than he would represent.” Arrested in Cleveland on January 31, 1919 while distributing Socialist Party literature and was reportedly in poor health while detained at Ellis Island. Because Socialist Party membership was not a deportable offense, authorities acknowledged they could not substantiate anarchism charges, but he was nevertheless deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919 on the grounds that he had entered the country without inspection and was “likely to become a public charge.”

Sources: INS file 54616/16.

Artemy Pavluk (or Pauluk; Paulik)

Born: 1885, Kamianets-Podilskyi, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Miner
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

He served four years in the Russian Army before emigrating.

Drafted into the U.S. Army, he served six months at Camp Lee and Camp Shelby before being discharged. Became secretary of the Union of Russian Workers branch at the Dakota Mine in Fairmont, West Virginia. Arrested December 2, 1919, he was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/605.

Josef Penske (a.k.a. Joseph Penski)

Born: 1886, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Polish
Occupation: Autoworker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Worked as an autoworker while living in Hamtramck, Michigan. He joined the Socialist Party of America in 1914 and later the Communist Party. Arrested in January 1920, he “voluntarily departed” to Russia on October 16, 1920.

Sources: INS file 54859/541.

Perkus to Petruccioli

Red Scare Deportees, , , , , ,

Hyman Perkus (a.k.a. Khaym Perkus; Nikofor Perkus)

Hyman Perkus, 1919. National Archives.

Born: 1888, Riga, Russia (present-day Latvia)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Jewish
Occupation: Carpenter; editor
Migration: Immigrated to US 1915
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

A Social Democrat in Russia before emigrating to Paris in 1912, he then immigrated to the United States in 1915.

In America he became an anarchist and joined the Union of Russian Workers in Cleveland in 1916, later transferring to the organization’s First Branch in New York. He was also a member of the Anarchist Red Cross and the partner of fellow URW member and ddeportee Dora Lipkin. Became national secretary of the URW and succeeded Peter Bianki as editor of its newspaper Khleb i Volia. During questioning, he delared: “Why did I become an anarchist? I have suffered from injustices and oppression and have seen that the people in general also suffer from injustices and oppression.” He also stated, “I think the only way is to use the same methods that the United States people used against England in 1776 when the United States people got their freedom…You know what they did.” Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919 and deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

In Russia he became a “Soviet anarchist” who critically supported the Communist dictatorship as a temporary necessity, and in 1921 he founded the Union of Russian Anarchist Workers Repatriated from America. In February 1921 he spoke at the funeral of Peter Kropotkin, upsetting many present by mentioning and criticizing Kropotkin’s wartime support for the Allies. In March 1921 he joined Berkman and Emma Goldman in an unsuccessful attempt to mediate between the Red Army and the Kronstadt sailors. Arrested several times after the uprising, he later studied at the Moscow Institute of Journalism, and by 1930 had joined the Communist Party. He was killed at an unknown date during Stalin’s purges.

Sources: INS file 54709/116; Victor Serge, Anarchists Never Surrender: Essays, Polemics, and Correspondence on Anarchism, 1908–1938; Alexander Berkman Papers, International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam; The J. Abrams Book: The Life and Work of an Exceptional Personality, trans. Ruth Murphy, ed. Brian Moen; Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America.

Filippo Perrone (a.k.a. Vincenzo Lentini)

Filippo Perrone, c. 1922. Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Italy.

Born: 1881, Agrigento (Sicily), Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity: .
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Migrated to US 1901
Affiliation: Anarchist

Lived in Tampa, New York, Chicago, and Milwaukee. Closely associated with Luigi Galleani’s newspaper Cronaca Sovversiva, he joined a group of Italian anarchists who in 1911 participated with the Partido Liberal Mexicano in Tijuana during the opening phase of the Mexican Revolution, but he soon became disillusioned and returned to the United States, where he openly criticized both the PLM and the revolution. On September 25, 1911 he was arrested in San Francisco after he “spoke disparagingly about the American flag, condemned law and order, denounced all forms of government and ended with a tirade against the Pope”; the case sparked a successful free speech fight supported by anarchists and IWW members, and charges were dropped. Around 1922 he was arrested again in Seattle and deported on August 8, 1922.

In 1923 he was arrested in Ventimiglia while attempting clandestine emigration. The following year he illegally emigrated to France and then to the United States under the alias Vincenzo Lentini, and remained active in the Italian-American anarchist movement. After World War II he was deported again and died shortly thereafter in Sicily.

Sources: CPC busta 3875; Michele Presutto, La rivoluzione dietro l’angolo gli anarchici italiani e la rivoluzione messicana, 1910-1914; Kenyon Zimmer, Immigrants Against the State: Yiddish and Italian Anarchism in America; Un trentennio di attività anarchica (1915-1945).

Pietro Giovanni Perruchon (a.k.a. Ursus)

Pietro Perruchon, 1918. National Archives.
Pietro Perruchon in the year following his deportation. Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Italy.

Born: 1885, Arnaz (Aosta), Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity: .
Occupation: Miner
Migration: Migrated to US 1907
Affiliation: Anarchist; IWW

Migrated to the United States in 1907, returning to Italy in 1910 before coming back to the U.S. in 1911. His wife Maria Rosa Joly joined him in 1912, and their daughter Lotta was born in 1914. Worked as a miner in Colorado and Arizona and became an anarchist before his second migration. He distributed literature and correspondence for Galleani’s Cronaca Sovversiva, published a militant antiwar article in La Questione Sociale in 1915, and belonged to the IWW’s Metal Mine Workers Industrial Union. Participated in the IWW’s 1917 miners’ strike in Globe and Miami, Arizona. Arrested March 26, 1918 in Globe for distributing radical literature and was convicted under the Espionage Act at a Tucson trial in May 1918 after a jury deliberation lasting only ninety seconds. Sentenced to two years in Leavenworth, he was detained for deportation after release and denied permission to visit his wife and daughter before removal. Deported March 27, 1920.

Back in Italy he founded the Gruppo di emancipazione in 1920 and was sentenced to five days in prison that June for violating Article 19 of the criminal code. Subscribed to Carlo Tresca’s Il Martello and Errico Malatesta’s Pensiero e Volontà. Arrested in April 1921 on suspicion of involvement in the La Diana Theater bombing, he was released in June. Migrated to France for work in 1923, returned to Italy in 1924, and went back to France in 1925, working as a chauffeur in Paris, where his adult daughter joined him. Italian authorities described him as having “demonstrated a specific tendency toward terroristic action.” In 1937 he briefly returned to Italy to claim an inheritance, was arrested, claimed to have abandoned radicalism, and was released. He spent his remaining decades in France, corresponding with Italian anarchists in the United States until his death there in 1967.

Sources: INS file 54379/192; CPC busta 3877; Cronaca Sovversiva; Harry Weinberger Papers, Yale University; http://www.bfscollezionidigitali.org/entita/14402-perruchon-giovanni-pietro/; Il Fondo L’Adunata Collection, Boston Public Library; L’Adunata dei Refrattari, October 14, 1967.

Paraliett Kutzman Petcoff (a.k.a. Kuzman; Huzman)

Born: 1887, Bulgaria.
Nationality: Bulgarian.
Ethnicity: .
Occupation: Laborer.
Migration: Migrated to Canada 1910; migrated to US 1917.
Affiliation: IWW.

Paraliett Kutzman Petcoff was born in Bulgaria in 1887. He migrated to Canada in 1910, where a workplace accident caused the loss of sight in one eye, and then migrated to the United States in 1917. In March 1919 he joined the IWW’s Metal Mine Workers Industrial Union No. 800. Arrested June 11, 1919 in Cleveland, he claimed to come from a wealthy Bulgarian family, but immigration authorities concluded that although anarchist charges were unproven, he had been likely to become a public charge at entry. He was deported January 22, 1920.

Sources: INS file 54616/220.

Born 1887, Bulgaria. Laborer. 1910 migrated to Canada. Lost the sight in one eye due to workplace accident. Migrated to US 1917. Joined the IWW’s Metal Mine Workers Industrial Union no. 800 in March 1919. Arrested June 11, 1919 in Cleveland. Claimed to be from a wealthy family in Bulgaria, but immigration authorities concluded, “While the Bureau is unable to find that any of the anarchistic charges contained in the warrant are substantiated, it is of the opinion that the alien was a person likely to become a public charge at the time of entry.” Deported January 22, 1920.

INS file 54616/220

José Petit y Fernández (a.k.a. Casimiro Petit Fernández; Jesus Sánchez)

José Petit y Fernández, 1919. The Tampa Times, June 20, 1919.

Born: 1879, Oviedo, Spain
Nationality: Spanish
Ethnicity: .
Occupation: Cigar worker
Migration: Immigrated to US c. 1914
Affiliation: Anarchist

An anarchist, he immigrated to the United States around 1914 and married Maria Alvarez in Tampa that January. Around 1917 he returned alone to Spain, then reentered the United States on November 19, 1918 to rejoin his wife and three children (and avoid military service in Spain). In February 1919 he was arrested for fraudulently using his deceased brother’s passport to enter the country . A Bureau of Investigation agent described him “too ignorant to take any initiative in anarchistic and Bolsheviki propaganda or plots but he is a dangerous man to be at large to be used as a tool for those who have the initiative.” Deported to Cuba with his family on June 22, 1919.

He was reportedly still living in Cuba in 1946.

Sources: FBI file OG 335078; Tampa Times, April 24 and June 20, 1919; Tampa Tribune, February 1, 1914, February 5 and June 24, 1919, and May 21, 1946.

Konstantin Petrashka (a.k.a. Kontatin Petrosham; Kostativ Petroshak)

Born: 1898, Stanki, Russia (present-day Poland)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Millworker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1914
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined the Union of Russian Workers branch in New London, Connecticut, in July 1919 and became its secretary. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/528; FBI file OG 8000-382590.

Settimio Petruccioli

Settimio Petruccioli. Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Italy.

Born: 1888, Bevagna, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity: .
Occupation: Laborer; barber
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Anarchist

Belonged to the anarchist Circolo di Studi Sociali in Kensington, Illinois, and supported Galleani’s Cronaca Sovversiva. Arrested in June 1919, he was deported on December 20, 1919.

In February 1920 he emigrated to Canada, and he may have illegally returned to the U.S. sometime before the Second World War.

Sources: INS file 54616/215; CPC busta 3912; Ancestry.com.

Pivarsky to Potenkin

Red Scare Deportees, , , , , , , ,

Steve Pivarsky

Born: 1892, Veliki Bečkerek, Austria-Hungary (present-day Serbia)
Nationality: Yugoslavian
Ethnicity: Serbian
Occupation: Autoworker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Employed by the Fisher Body Corporation in Detroit. In 1913 he joined Branch No. 61 (later Branch No. 17) of the Socialist Party’s South Slavic Federation, transferring into the Communist Party of America in 1919. Arrested during the second Palmer Raids in January 1920, he was deported to Yugoslavia on April 14, 1920.

Sources: INS file 54860/374; FBI file OG 388055.

Jacob K. Platek (or Platat)

Born: 1889, Podolovka, Russia
Nationality: Polish
Ethnicity: Polish
Occupation: Laborer; foundry worker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

His wife and child remained in Russia when he emigrated. He joined the Socialist Party and in 1919 became a member and financial secretary of Polish Branch No. 80 of the Communist Party in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Arrested January 2, 1920, he was deported to Poland August 4, 1920.

Sources: File 54859/527.

Mike Podalak

Born: Austria-Hungary, year unkown
Nationality: Austrian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration:
Affiliation:

Deported to Austria as a radical on, June 19, 1920. No further information has been identified.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G.

Mathew Podlipsky

Matthew Podlipsky’s URW membership card. National Archives.

Born: 1887, Rakitnitsa, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Polish-Belarusian
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1909
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

A member of the Union of Russian Workers branch in Newark. Arrested during the Palmer Raids and deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/356; FBI file OG 381187.

Marko Podner

Born: 1892, Okrug, Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, Austria-Hungary (present-day Croatia)
Nationality: Yugoslavian
Ethnicity: Croatian
Occupation: Laborer; miner
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

His wife remained in Croatia-Slavonia while he emigrated. In June 1919 he joined Branch No. 62 of the Communist Party in West Winfield, Pennsylvania, becoming its secretary. Arrested during the second Palmer Raids in January 1920, he was deported to Yugoslavia June 19, 1920.

Sources: FBI file OG 8000-382563.

Wolf Pohl (a.k.a. Pawlowicz; Pavlovich)

Wolf Pohl’s Communist Party membership card. National Archives.

Born: c. 1896, Odessa, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Jewish
Occupation: Housepainter
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Communist Party of America; IWW

Joined the Socialist Party in 1913 and later the Communist Party, becoming a speaker and distributor of literature in Buffalo. Arrested August 1919 for distributing radical material but released; arrested again January 1920. While confined in Erie County Jail he contracted pneumonia and required hospitalization. December 1920 he joined the IWW. Deported to Russia February 26, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54859/912.

George Polevoy

Born: 1883, Chernihiv, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Miner
Migration: Immigrated to US 1907
Affiliation: IWW

Married with a child in the United States, he joined the IWW around 1914 in Moundsville, West Virginia, and also belonged to the United Mine Workers. Participated in miners’ strikes protesting the conviction of Tom Mooney and the imprisonment of Eugene V. Debs. Arrested June 1918 for disturbing the peace during a dispute with UMW leaders and sentenced to a $50 fine and ten days in jail; a union witness described him as a leader “of the foreign element…they have made all kinds of trouble.” Arrested again August 1919 and described by an immigration agent as “exceptionally shrewd and astute.” Deported to Russia February 1, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54709/49.

Osip Polulechka (a.k.a.Josef Polulech; Joseph Balluch)

Born: 1892, Grodno region, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers (alleged)

Arrested during the November 1919 raid on the Union of Russian Workers’ Russian People’s House in New York. He denied URW membership and said he had only attended arithmetic and Russian classes; no evidence of membership was produced. He had, however, been active since 1913 in the Methodist Episcopal Church of All Nations, whose leaders attempted to intervene on his behalf. He was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/449; FBI file OG 8000-382493; The Churchman (January 24 and February 21, 1920); Constantine M. Panunzio, The Deportation Cases of 1919-1920.

Jacob Popich

Born: 1892, Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, Austria-Hungary (present-day Croatia)
Nationality: Yugoslavian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration:
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

A member of the South Slavic Branch of the Communist Party of America in Omaha. Arrested in St. Paul, Nebraska, January 8, 1920 and deported to Yugoslavia July 15, 1920. No further information has been identified.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G; Omaha Daily Bee, January 9, 1920.

Sergey Porchunoff (a.k.a. Sergy; Serjy)

Born: 1888, Chernihiv, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Served two years in the Russian Army.

In the United States, employed by Standard Oil. Joined the Russian Branch of the Whiting, Indiana Socialist Party in 1914 and later the Communist Party, serving as secretary of both branches. Arrested in Chicago January 7, 1920, and deported to Russia March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54809/82.

Andrew Postaruk

Born: 1881, Kiev Governorate, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: .
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to Canada 1913; then to US 1915
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Previously emigrated to and worked in Austria and Germany. His wife and two children remained in Russia.

In 1918 he joined the Union of Russian Workers in Seattle. He told authorities, “I don’t believe in any government,” but also “stated believe in change through the ballot as a I fear that bloodshed would ensue by bringing a revolution through force of arms.” Arrested January 1920 and deported to Russia February 1, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54860/542.

Efrim Potenkin (or Potemkin)

Born: 1897, Gomel, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russia
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Steelworker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers (alleged)

He attended meetings of the Union of Russian Workers in Monessen, Pennsylvania, but denied membership and no evidence of such was produced. Arrested in Greensburg during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919. The Immigration Inspector in Charge recommended cancellation of his deportation warrant for lack of evidence, but was overruled by Commissioner General A. Caminetti. He was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/519; Kate Holladay Claghorn, The Immigrant’s Day in Court.

Povff to Prokuda

Red Scare Deportees, , , , , ,

Sam Povff (a.k.a. Henry Lang; Sam Brokr; Otto Schwarz; Harry Wulf)

Born: 1878, Poltava, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russia
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Sailor; thief
Migration: Immigrated to US 1910
Affiliation: Anarchist

An anarchist since age 17. Arrested in 1899 for revolutionary activities but released. Later claimed he participated in a mutiny at the Kronstadt naval base and was sentenced to 13 years’ internal exile in Siberia, from which he escaped.

In the United States he briefly belonged to an anarchist organization in New York, then moved to the West Coast where he used numerous aliases and supported himself through apparently politically motivated theft. Arrested 1911 in Huntington, Oregon for larceny (receiving a two-year sentence); circa 1912 in Stockton for burglary (two years in San Quentin State Prison); and 1914 in Los Angeles for highway robbery (a six-year sentence, of which he served four years and two months). Arrested again in Portland in 1919 for attempted robbery of moonshine sellers, explaining “They had no right to poison the working class people. I think I had a right to rob them.” Immigration authorities called him “a most reprehensible and undesirable character.” Deported to Russia December 17, 1922.

Sources: INS file 54859/184.

Ivan Povlycic

Born:
Nationality: Yugoslavian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration:
Affiliation:

Deported to Yugoslavia as a radical, May 8, 1920. No further information has been found.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G.

Pearl Powell (a.k.a. Perl; Powel; Podell; Polia Pawlockaya)

Born: 1894, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration: Immigrated to US 1910
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Member of the Communist Party in Brooklyn. Arrested during the second Palmer Raids in January 1920 and released on bail. Married fellow Brooklyn Communist David Sova, who had also been arrested in January 1920, in Philadelphia; he soon returned to Russia of his own accord. She “voluntarily departed” to Russia on December 23, 1920.

Sources: FBI file BS 40-2476-1; Minneapolis Star, December 27, 1920.

Andrei Pranka (a.k.a. Andy; Prauka)

Born: 1890, Chernihiv, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Miner
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

His wife and child remained in Russia. Joined the Monessen, Pennsylvania branch of the Union of Russian Workers. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919 while participating in a miners’ strike. Deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/475.

Ivan Pravoslavnov (a.k.a. John)

Born: 1898, Saratov, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1914
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Worked for the Singer Sewing Machine Company. Radicalized in the United States and joined the Elizabethport, New Jersey branch of the Union of Russian Workers around 1917. Had a wife and American-born child in the US. Arrested during the second Palmer Raids in January 1920 and deported January 22, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54861/74; FBI file OG 8000-382507.

Francisco Prego (a.k.a. Frank)

Born: Galicia, Spain, year unknown
Nationality: Spanish
Ethnicity: Galician
Occupation: Sailor
Migration:
Affiliation: IWW

Brother of CNT leader and Solidaridad editor José Prego Veira of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo. Involved in a maritime strike in New Orleans in 1913 and arrested for allegedly “shooting to kill” a policeman; sentenced to twelve years in prison. Deported in 1918.

Sources: The Voice of the People, July 31, 1913; Bieito Alonso, “Spanish Anarchists and Maritime Workers in the IWW,” in Wobblies of the World: A Global History of the IWW

Grigori Prigozy (a.k.a. Gregory; George)

Born: 1884, Vilna, Russia (present-day Lithuania)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Joined Russian Branch No. 5 of the Communist Party in Detroit in 1919. Arrested during the second Palmer Raids in January 1920. “Voluntarily departed” October 14, 1920 via Canada.

Sources: INS file 54860/30; FBI file OG 388025.

Stepan Prokopovich (a.k.a. Steve Prokopowich; Prakspoduch)

Born: 1884, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers (alleged)

His wife and two children remained in Russia. Worked at a wire mill in Ansonia, Connecticut. Attended the Union of Russian Workers’ automobile school in Bridgeport but denied membership and no evidence of such was produced. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919 and deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/371; FBI file OG 213357.

Platon Prokuda (a.k.a. Plaron; A. Proncudo)

Born: 1893, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined the Socialist Party and later the Union of Russian Workers in Detroit. After authorities broke up the URW in November 1919 he attended Communist Party events but did not join, stating he remained an anarchist “Because no matter what government it is, there is always scandal there, fraud, graft, and all that sort of stuff.” Arrested January 1920 and held at Fort Wayne. Deported to Russia February 26, 1921.

Refused entry at Libau with several other deportees because of his anarchism. Co-authored “An Open Letter to the Russian Premier Vladimir Lenin” in response. Last known to be stranded in Danzig.

Sources: INS file 54860/4; Free Society, October–November 1921.

Proshkovich to Ravavio

Red Scare Deportees, , , , , ,

Fedor Proshkovich (a.k.a. Theodor)

Fedor Proshkovich’s URW membership card. National Archives.

Born: 1896, Minsk, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Machine operator
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined the Union of Russian Workers in New York around 1919. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919 and deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/364.

Tomas Prosk

Born: 1893, Kaluga, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Metalworker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers; IWW

Joined the New Haven branch of the Union of Russian Workers around 1918. Employed at the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in New Haven, he was fired for organizing for the IWW; although he denied IWW membership, evidence showed he paid dues and received literature. At work, when given instructions for paying his income tax, he also remarked, “F— the Government.” Arrested April 1919 after his employer reported him to authorities, and deported on the Buford December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54616/156.

Anton Prushchuk (or Prushtshuk; a.k.a. Anthony Pruschuk; Tony)

Born: 1898, Brest-Litovsk, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers (alleged)

Immigrated to the United States in 1913 to avoid military service. Worked in Detroit and was probably a member of the Union of Russian Workers, though he denied it. An avowed pacifist, he was arrested in 1918 for failing to register for the draft and illegally inducted into the US Army. Court-martialed in June 1918 for refusing orders, he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and confined at the Fort Leavenworth Disciplinary Barracks and later Fort Douglas, Utah, until August 1919, when he was dishonorably discharged. Arrested again during the second Palmer Raids in November 1919 and deported to Poland January 22, 1921.

Arrested by the Soviet government due to his anarchism, he participated in a hunger strike in Petrograd’s House of Preliminary Detention in November 1922 and was force-fed through a catheter.

Sources: INS file 54709/510; FBI file OG 363519; International Committee for Political Prisoners, Letters from Russian Prisons.

Demian Pruss (or Bruss)

Born: 1895, Minsk, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Agricultural worker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Became a member of Philadelphia’s First Russian Branch of the Communist Party. Deported to Russia February 26, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54811/959.

Louis Purtikowsky (a.k.a. Purtik; Pyrtek)

Born: Biata, Russia (present-day Poland)
Nationality: Polish
Ethnicity: Polish
Occupation: Barber; laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation:

Reported to authorities by three US Army recruiters in Indianapolis who claimed he had voiced opposition to the US government and the war, expressed support for revolution, and allegedly said he would throw bombs rather than assist the government. Arrested September 1919. He denied all charges but stated he wished to return to Poland. Deported to Poland May 14, 1920.

Sources: INS file 54709/55.

Kazimir Radkovits (or Radkowicz; Radkovich; Radowiz; a.k.a. John Baron)

Born: c. 1884, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Autoworker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1903
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Joined the Socialist Party around 1910 and later Detroit’s Branch No. 1 of the Communist Party. Arrested January 1920 and deported to Russia February 26, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54859/659.

Pavel Rak (a.k.a. Paul; Rakand)

Born: 1889, Minsk, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Longshoreman
Migration: Immigrated to US 1914
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

In July 1918 he was illegally drafted into the US Army and, as a conscientious objector, sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment at Fort Douglas, Utah. After his release he joined the Communist Party in Detroit. Arrested during the second Palmer Raids in January 1920 and “voluntarily departed” sometime before February 1921.

Sources: FBI file OG 379972; INS file 54325/36G.

Ignaty Ramoroff (a.k.a. Tony Paros)

Born: 1899, Novozybkov, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Hotel housekeeper
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Anarchist

An individualist anarchist and Tolstoyan who did not belong to any organization. Arrested in Cleveland February 23, 1920 and deported to Russia March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 55009/20.

Michael Ransc

Born:
Nationality: Yugoslavian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration:
Affiliation:

Deported to Yugoslavia as a radical June 19, 1920. No further information has been found.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G.

Albert Rasimavicius (a.k.a. Rasimo)

Born: 1899, Vabalninkas, Russia (present-day Lithuania)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Miner; student
Migration: Immigrated to US 1911
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Worked as a coal miner from 1913 to 1918 and then attended Valparaiso University. A member of both the United Mine Workers and the Valparaiso branch of the Communist Party, he was arrested January 10, 1920, when a large quantity of revolutionary literature was found in his room. Deported to Russia March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54860/712.

Yakim Ravavio (or Ravavoi)

Born: c.1885, Russia
Nationality: .
Ethnicity: .
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1914
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

His wife remained in Russia when he emigrated. Joined the Union of Russian Workers in Erie, Pennsylvania in 1919. Arrested December 12, 1919 and deported to Russia February 26, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54860/600.

Reid to Rivera

Red Scare Deportees, , , , , , , , , ,

Patrick Reid (a.k.a. Larry; Jimmy; Billy; Matt)

Born: 1871, Derry, Ireland
Nationality: British
Ethnicity: Ulster-Scots
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US c. 1890s
Affiliation: IWW

Worked as an itinerant laborer throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Arrested in Centralia, Washington, in November 1919, he stated he was “ashamed to say” that he was not a dues-paying member of the IWW due to lack of funds, though he supported its ideology and declared that the only government he supported was that of Soviet Russia. Deported April 2, 1920.

Sources: INS file 54709/581; FBI file OG 378240.

Dimitry Remar

Born: 1896, Podolsk, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to Canada 1915; then to US 1918
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Became a member of Detroit’s Russian Branch No. 5 of the Communist Party. Arrested January 1920 and deported to Russia March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54859/796.

Benjamin Repsys (or Repshys)

Born: 1894, Kovno, Russia (present-day Lithuania)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Lithuanian
Occupation: Autoworker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Worked for the Ford Motor Company and in 1918 joined Detroit’s Branch No. 116 of the Lithuanian Socialist Federation, later transferring into the Communist Party. Arrested November 15, 1919, for receiving radical literature but released. Arrested again in January 1920 and deported to Russia March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54859/658.

Manuel Rey y García (a.k.a. Louis G. Raymond)

Manuel Rey y García, 1918. National Archives.

Born: 1888, Castrofoya, Spain
Nationality: Spanish
Ethnicity: Galician
Occupation: Sailor; union organizer; house painter
Migration: Immigrated to US 1914
Affiliation: IWW

His father was killed in the Cuban War of Independence. Emigrated to Cuba in 1905; from 1909 to 1914 he worked as sailor throughout Atlantic.

Entered the United States without inspection in 1914. An anarchist, he joined the IWW around that same year and became secretary of its Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union in Philadelphia; in April 1917 he moved to Niagara Falls, New York, where he was elected secretary of the local IWW organization. Arrested three times within six months for failure to register for the draft and for antiwar speeches, he was a defendant in the 1917–1918 mass IWW trial in Chicago and was sentenced to twenty years and a $20,000 fine. While imprisoned he corresponded with anarchist Lilly Sarnoff, who became his lifelong companion. His sentence was commuted in December 1922 on condition of deportation, and he was deported to Spain March 22, 1923.

He illegally returned to the United States, was deported again in 1926, and returned once more under the name “Louis G. Raymond.” He continued to be active in the anarchist movemint, living in the Stelton, New Jersey anarchist community and coediting the newspaper Freedom (1933–1934). He died in New York in 1990 at age 101.

Sources: INS file 54297/18; FBI file OG 8000-160053′ Industrial Workers of the World Collection, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University; Peter Cole, Wobblies on the Waterfront: Interracial Unionism in Progressive-Era Philadelphia; Bieito Alonso, “Spanish Anarchists and Maritime Workers in the IWW,” in Wobblies of the World: A Global History of the IWW; Bieito Alonso, Anarquistas galegos en América; Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America.

Federico Ricci

Federico Ricci, c. 1920. Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Italy.

Born: 1887, Cesenatico, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Shoemaker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1905
Affiliation: Anarchist

Originally a socialist in Italy, he became an anarchist in the U.S. around 1910. Returned to Italy from 1911 to 1913. Arrested in Haverhill, Massachusetts, in January 1918 for failure to register for the draft, he was sentenced to a year in prison and declared, “I do not believe in any form of government, because the people have no liberty.” Deported May 22, 1919.

In 1920 he was arrested in Naples for desertion but released on probation. He returned to Cesenatico, where authorities reported he lived a solitary life. Emigrated to France in 1925 and returned to Italy in 1929, remaining under surveillance until 1941, though no further radical activity was noted.

Sources: INS files 54379/2 and 54379/3; CPC busta 4302.

Augusto Rigoni

Augusto Rigoni, c. 1920. Archivio Central dello Stato, Italy.

Born: 1893, Afiago (Vicenza), Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration:
Affiliation: Anarchist

Not politically radical in Italy, in the United States he joined the anarchist Circolo Studi Sociali in Kensington, Illinois, and supported Luigi Galleani’s Cronaca Sovversiva. He was deported December 20, 1919.

After returning to Italy, authorities reported he initially showed sympathy with socialism but withdrew from politics, married, had children, and devoted himself to farming with his brothers. In 1932 he developed symptoms described as “mental alienation” and was confined to a provincial psychiatric hospital in Vicenza, where he died that same year.

Sources: CPC busta 4329; Cronaca Sovversiva, July 15, 1916.

Thomas Rimmer

Born: 1886, England
Nationality: British
Ethnicity: English
Occupation: Sailor; miner
Migration: Immigrated to Canada 1912; then to US 1914
Affiliation: IWW

Emigrated to Canada in 1912, and from there entered the United States in 1914 without inspection. Radicalized in the U.S., he joined the Socialist Party of America and the Western Federation of Miners, then became an IWW member around. Helped organize the 1917 miners’ strike in Butte, Montana, served on the strikers’ publicity committee, and spoke at the funeral of organizer Frank Little. In 1918 he became an IWW delegate. Arrested May 6, 1918, during a police raid on an IWW hall in Seattle, he befriended fellow deportee Moses Baritz, beginning a lifelong political and personal friendship. Deported February 27, 1919, as a person deemed likely to become a public charge.

In Liverpool he joined the Merseyside IWW branch. In 1921 he joined the Socialist Party of Great Britain, and that was believed to travel frequently between England and Canada. After a lapse he rejoined the SPGB in 1933. He died in 1952.

Sources: INS file 54379/417; The Butte Miner, July 11 and July 29, 1917; San Francisco Examiner, August 6, 1917; Socialist Review (London), February 1, 1959; http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2014/09/death-of-moses-baritz.html.

Louis Ristick

Born: 1896, Volynia, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Machinist
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Worked for the Singer Sewing Machine Company in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and joined the Union of Russian Workers in 1919. Arrested in New York during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/457.

Librado Rivera

Librado Rivera, c. 1910s. Wikimedia Commons.
Librado Rivera, c. 1930.

Born: 1864, Rayón, San Luis Potosí, Mexico
Nationality: Mexican
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1905
Affiliation: Partido Liberal Mexicano

In Mexico, became a teacher in 1888 and in 1900 cofounded a liberal political group in San Luis Potosí opposing Catholic influence on the government. Arrested in 1902 for political activities, he served a year in prison. In 1903 he collaborated with Ricardo Flores Magón and others on El hijo del Ahuizote and was arrested for “ridiculing public officials.”

After migrating to the United States in 1905, he cofounded the Partido Liberal Mexicano and soon adopted anarchism. Arrested in St. Louis in 1906, the US government attempted unsuccessfully to extradite him to Mexico. In 1907 he moved to Los Angeles, where he and other PLM leaders were arrested without warrants by private detectives acting for the Mexican government and convicted of violating US neutrality laws, though later released. In 1910 he became a founding editor of Regeneración. Arrested again in 1911 for neutrality violations related to organizing PLM fighters for the Mexican Revolution, he was imprisoned until 1914. In 1918 he was convicted under the Espionage Act for material published in Regeneración and sentenced to fifteen years. In 1920 he was transferred from McNeil Island to Leavenworth Penitentiary. His sentence was commuted in 1923 on condition of deportation to Mexico.

Back in Mexico he declined government posts offered in San Luis Potosí and continued publishing anarchist newspapers and supporting anarcho-syndicalist unionxsin Tampico, for which he was arrested repeatedly. He died in 1932 after being struck by a car in Mexico City.

Sources: Librado Rivera, ¡Viva Tierra y Libertad!; Alicia Perez Salazar, Librado Rivera, un soñador en llamas; Aurora Mónica Alcayaga Sasso, “Librado Rivera y los hermanos rojos en el movimiento social y cultural anarquista en Villa Cecilia y Tampico, Tamaulipas, 1915-1931” (PhD diss., Universidad Iberoamericano); http://www.libradorivera.com/; http://www.antorcha.net/biblioteca_virtual/politica/viva_tierra/libradoindice.html.

Roberts to Roy

Red Scare Deportees, , , , , , , , , ,

Vasily Roberts (a.k.a. Wasily Robetz)

Roberts’ Communist Party membership card. National Archives.

Born: c. 1882, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration: Immigrated to Canada 1915; then to US 1917
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

A member of the Socialist Party of America before joining Philadelphia’s First Russian Branch of the Communist Party. He was arrested January 7, 1920, and deported to Russia February 1, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54811/947; FBI file OG 382735.

Jack Robey

Born:
Nationality:
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration:
Affiliation: IWW

An IWW member arrested in Sand Point, Idaho, in 1918. He was released, then rearrested and deported to an unknown country October 28, 1919. No further information has been located.

Sources: One Big Union Monthly, March 1920.

Alfred Robinson

Born: 1893, Chislehurst, England
Nationality: British
Ethnicity: English
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1905
Affiliation: IWW

Worked throughout the United States and Canada. In July 1919 he joined the IWW’s Metal and Machinery Workers’ Industrial Union No. 300. Arrested in Detroit during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported March 27, 1920.

Sources: INS file 54709/578; FBI file OG 8000-385119.

Abraham Rodríguez (a.k.a. Abram Rodríguez)

Abraham Rodríguez, by Ralph Chaplin. Joseph A. Labadie Collection, University of Michigan.

Born: Mexico
Nationality: Mexican
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Miner; labor organizer; poet
Migration: Immigrated to US 1911
Affiliation: Partido Liberal Mexicano; IWW

In 1911 he formed a PLM group in Del Valle, Texas, and reportedly “a colonel in the rebel army that overthrew the dictatorship in Mexico.” After returning to mining work in Arizona, he belonged to IWW Local 800 and chaired its grievance committee. Indicted in the federal IWW trial of 1917, he was arrested in New Mexico after an armed standoff with authorities. Charges were dropped in exchange for deportation to Mexico.

In Cananea, he continued organizing on behalf of the IWW.

Sources: FBI file Misc 18346.

Juan Rodríguez

Born: 1885, Asturias, Spain
Nationality: Spanish
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Cook; laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1916
Affiliation: IWW

His father died in Spain before he was born.

In 1916 he jumped ship in the United States and was arrested in Philadelphia in February 1919 as a suspected radical, though authorities could not prove it. (However, his is listed as an IWW member in IWW publications.) A deportation warrant was instead issued based on illiteracy, illegal entry, and likelihood of becoming a public charge. He requested voluntary departure to Cuba, which was granted, and departed August 22, 1919, aboard the SS Moro Castle.

Sources: INS file 54648/27.

Konstantin Romanchuk

Born: 1895, Minsk, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immgrated to US 1915
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined the Union of Russian Workers branch in Bridgeport, Connecticut, around July 1919 and became its secretary. He was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/396; FBI file OG 376791.

Gavril Romanovich (a.k.a. Gabriel; G.R.D.)

Romanovich’s Communist Party membership card. National Archives.

Born: 1896, Kozhevniki, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: immigrated to US 1915
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Joined the Russian Federation of the Socialist Party of America, then in 1919 transferred to the Russian Branch of the Communist Party of America, becoming secretary of its Waterbury, Connecticut branch. Arrested during a raid on headquarters in March 1920, he was deported to Russia February 1, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54709/462; FBI file OG 379909.

Jesus Romo

Los Angeles Times, June 11, 1919.

Born: c. 1884, Mexico
Nationality: Mexican
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1916
Affiliation: IWW; anarchist

Joined the IWW in Los Angeles in February 1919 and quickly became a delegate for its General Recruiting Union; he was probably previously a member in Morenci, Arizona, where his father and brothers were also activists. Arrested June 9, 1919 for distributing literature outside an employment agency, he declared he “was born an anarchist.” Deported August 18, 1919.

Continued organizing for the IWW in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Sources: INS file 54616/232; FBI file OG 363737.

Angel Roncal

Born: 1896, Spain
Nationality: Spanish
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Sailor
Migration: Immigrated to US 1916
Affiliation: IWW

He reportedly spent time in South America before immigrating to the U.S. in 1916.

A member of the Niagara Falls IWW branch, he was arrested in September 1918 for failing to register for the draft, with IWW literature found in his possession. After five months in jail without trial he was released in February 1919 but immediately detained for deportation. He was deported to Spain around July 1, 1920.

Sources: Buffalo Commercial, February 1 and 3, 1919; Buffalo Times, February 20, 1919; Cattaraucus Republican, March 27, 1919; Buffalo Express, April 30, 1919; Illustrated Buffalo Express, June 22, 1919.

Maxim Rosak (a.k.a. Max; Roosak)

Maxim Rosak’s Communist Party membership card. National Archives.

Born: c.1887, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Driller
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Formerly a member of the Russian Federation of the Socialist Party in Philadelphia, he transferred into the Communist Party of America in 1919. Arrested January 7, 1920, he was deported to Russia February 1, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54811/948; FBI file OG 379897.

Savely Roshkov (a.k.a. Charles Roshko)

Savely Roshkov holding a copy of the URW newspaper Khleb i Volia. National Archives.

Born: 1893, Minsk, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Machinist
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Employed by Singer Manufacturing Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut, he belonged to the International Association of Machinists’ Local No. 30 and took part in a 1919 wildcat strike. He was also a member of the Union of Russian Workers branch there. Arrested February 12, 1920, he was deported to Russia January 22, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54861/143; FBI file OG 382709.

Mikail Rosnak (a.k.a.Michael Rosnack; Bosnack)

Born: 1897, Bukovina, Austria-Hungary (present-day Romania)
Nationality: Romanian
Ethnicity: Ukrainian
Occupation: Blacksmith’s helper
Migration: Immigrated to Canada 1913; then to US 1917
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Expelled from Canada during World War I as an “enemy alien,” he moved to the United States and in 1919 joined URW Branch No. 6 in Detroit. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he testified that the detective who arrested him called him “worse than a nigger,” and gave him “a smash in the face.” He was deported to Romania March 17, 1920.

Sources: INS file 54739/469.

Janet Johnstone Roy (Janet Johnstone MacKay)

Seattle Union Record, February 14, 1919.

Born: 1895, Milmathort, Scotland
Nationality: British
Ethnicity: Scottish
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1916
Affiliation: Socialist Party of America; IWW

Supported the Independent Labour Party before emigrating.

In Lawrence, Massachusetts, she joined the Socialist Party and the IWW’s Textile Workers Industrial Union No. 1000. After moving to Chicago and then Seattle, she was arrested with her sister in a police raid on an IWW hall in October 1918. She married Ian V. MacKay, a naturalized U.S. citizen, in January 1919. Deported July 23, 1919.

She later reunited with her husband in British Columbia, where she died in 1972.

Sources: INS files 54379/532 and 54379/532A; Frances H. Early, A World Without War: How U.S. Feminists and Pacifists Resisted World War I; Heather Mayer, Beyond the Rebel Girl: Women and the Industrial Workers of the World in the Pacific Northwest, 1905-1924; Ancestry.com.

Margaret Roy (Margaret Ray)

Born: 1893, Milmathort, Scotland
Nationality: British
Ethnicity: Scottish
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1916
Affiliation: Socialist Party of America; IWW

Emigrated to Canada in 1913, then returned to Scotland in 1916 to retrieve her sister Janet.

In Lawrence, Massachusetts, she and Janet joined the Socialist Party and the IWW’s Textile Workers Industrial Union No. 1000. After moving to Chicago and then Seattle, she was arrested with her sister during a raid on an IWW hall in October 1918. She married U.S. citizen Alonzo Ray in January 1919, but was deported July 23, 1919.

Sources: INS files 54379/532 and 54379/532A; Frances H. Early, A World Without War: How U.S. Feminists and Pacifists Resisted World War I; Heather Mayer, Beyond the Rebel Girl: Women and the Industrial Workers of the World in the Pacific Northwest, 1905-1924.

Roznuk to Saccaro

Red Scare Deportees, , , , ,

Demian Roznuk (a.k.a. Rozenok; Demetri Rosicok; Demyan Rogeanok)

Born: 1887, Chernihiv Oblast, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Steelworker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

His wife remained in Russia when he emigrated. Worked for Republic Iron and Steel and was on strike at the time of his arrest. Around 1919 he joined the Union of Russian Workers in Youngstown, Ohio. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported on the Buford December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/186.

Axel Rudolph

Born:
Nationality:
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration:
Affiliation: IWW

An IWW member deported October 31, 1919. No further information has been found.

Sources: One Big Union Monthly, March 1920.

John C. Ruggieri (a.k.a. John C. Rogers)

Born: 1892, Rosario, Argentina
Nationality: Argentine
Ethnicity: Italian
Occupation: Bootblack; laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1906
Affiliation: IWW

Born in Argentina to Italian parents.

Immigrated to the U.S. in 1906 at the age of 14. Arrested in a raid on a San Francisco IWW hall in 1918, he denied IWW membership but acknowledged agreeing with the organization’s philosophy. On August 21, 1918, he was permitted to “reship foreign” as a sailor to Chile rather be formally deported.

Sources: INS file 54235/58.

Boris Trofinov Rusak (a.k.a. Boris Tropinav or Tropinow)

Born: c. 1895, Kryvičy, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Married his wife Efrosnia in 1914 after arriving in the U.S. the previous year, and their daughter Nadia was born in 1917. In February 1919 he joined the Union of Russian Workers in Norwich, Connecticut. Arrested February 1920, he was deported to Russia January 22, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54861/278.

Ivan Kalenikov Rusak (a.k.a. John Rusak)

Born: c. 1891, Kryvičy, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Textile worker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

He was employed at Yantic Woolen Mills and belonged to the Norwich, Connecticut branch of the Union of Russian Workers. Arrested January 20, 1920, in Yantic, he was deported January 22, 1921, aboard the SS Stockholm.

Sources: INS file 54861/56.

Giuseppe Russo (a.k.a. Joe Russo; L’Unico; Augustus Antonio Leon)

Joe Russo, 1921. Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Italy.

Born: 1873, either on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean or in Chiaravelle, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Miner; metalworker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1897
Affiliation: Anarchist

An “anarchist without adjectives” who claimed to have been born at sea and therefore nationless, he was influenced by Max Stirner and Luigi Galleani and contributed to Cronaca Sovversiva. He lived in Tunisia, where he was imprisoned, and reportedly traveled to Asia Minor and the Balkans.

Immigrating to the United States in 1896. In 1911 he briefly joined the military forces of the Partido Liberal Mexicano in Tijuana but soon became disillusioned with the Mexican Revolution and returned to the U.S. Arrested in Lovelock, Nevada, he was deported to Italy October 1921.

He remained active in radical politics in Italy, where he was repeatedly arrested for antifascist activity. He helped smuggle antifascists out of Italy and recruited volunteers for the Spanish Civil War. Arrested again in 1937, he was confined to Ponza and Tremiti. Freed in 1943, he distributed the underground anarchist paper Era Nuova in Turin. He died in 1957.

Sources: CPC busta 4499; Maurizio Antonioli et al., eds., Dizionario biografico degli anarchici italiani.

Rustemann (first name unknown)

Born:
Nationality: German
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration:
Affiliation: IWW

An IWW member who was interned as an “aline enemy” at Fort Douglas, Utah, and later “voluntarily departed” to Germany. No further information has been found.

Sources: One Big Union Monthly, March 1920.

Daniel Ryzhukov (or Ryzoukov; Ryoukov; a.k.a. Rice; Reisch)

Born: 1885, Tolkova (Grodno), Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1909
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

In 1912 he married fellow anarchist Anastasia Ryzhukova in Newark. He joined the Union of Russian Workers there in 1919. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he declared his distrust of all governments, including that of the United States. He was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919, while his wife and child remained in Newark.

In 1921 he signed a manifesto of the Union of Russian Anarchist Workers Repatriated from America, which critically supported the Bolshevik regime as a temporary necessity. His wife meanwhile became severely ill and died in Newark in 1924.

Sources: INS file 54709/340; Amerikanskiye Izvestiya, August 6, 1924 (thanks to Malcolm Archibald); Victor Serge, Anarchists Never Surrender: Essays, Polemics, and Correspondence on Anarchism, 1908–1938.

Ivan Sabshuk

Born:
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration:
Affiliation:

Deported to Russia as a radical on February 1, 1921. No further information has been found.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G.

Cesare Saccaro (a.k.a. Caesar; Frank)

Cesare Saccaro, 1937. Border Cities Star, April 5, 1937.

Born: 1885, Arsiè, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Miner
Migration: Immigrated to US 1903
Affiliation: Anarchist

In Italy he displayed “good moral conduct,” according to the Italian government, and from ages 11-18 enrolled in “a school in Verona to prepare for a monastic life.”

In 1903 he joined his father Antonio in Spring Valley, Illinois, to work in the mines and became an anarchist around 1910, sending money to anarchist newspapers in Italy. He returned to Italy in 1913 to marry Giovanna Faoro; the couple then settled again in Spring Valley, where they had a daughter in 1915. He was deported to Italy March 16, 1921.

Givoanna rejoined him in Italy, where she gave birth a son in Arsiè. In 1923 Cesare emigrated to Canada, “under threatening fascist persecutions.” His family rejoined him in Windsor, where another son was born around 1927. There he helped organize the antifascist Circolo di Coltura Operaia in 1933 and wrote for the Toronto antifascist paper Il Lavoratore. In 1936 he also published an antifascist letter in the Border Cities Star. Italian authorities still considered him an active antifascist and radical in 1945. He later illegally resettled with his family in the United States and died in Dearborn, Michigan, on May 27, 1979.

Sources: INS file 54885/17; FBI file OG 379633; CPC busta 4513; Ancestry.com.

Sachar to Sánchez

Red Scare Deportees, , , , , , ,

Andrey Sachar (a.k.a. Andrej; Andrew; Henry Sugar)

Born: 1898, Minsk oblast, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Autoworker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation:

Employed by the Ford Motor Company in Detroit. In 1918 he became secretary of the Russian National Home (also called the Russian People’s Home), described by authorities as “an alleged Bolshevik organization” that hosted speakers from the Union of Russian Workers and the Communist Party of America. He admitted supporting the Bolshevik government and revolution in the United States, but later claimed his testimony had been mistranslated. Arrested April 1919 after three members of Detroit’s Russian community accused him of advocating overthrow of the US government—possibly tied to a dispute within Detroit’s Russian Orthodox All Saints Church. He “voluntarily departed” September 25, 1920.

Sources: INS file 54709/557; FBI file BS 202600-353-1; Aram G. Sarkisian, “Their Daily Dread: Russian Orthodox Christians in Red Scare Detroit, 1918–1920,” Journal of American Ethnic History 41, no. 4 (2022).

Andrei Sacharchuk

Born: c. 1895, Wołyń, Russia (present-day Poland)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Joined the Communist Party in Atlantic City. Arrested November 19, 1919; later rearrested in Welch, West Virginia for distributing radical literature. Deported to Russia March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54861/359.

Mike Sachco

Born: c. 1897, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Steamfitters’ helper
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Member of Milwaukee’s Russian Branch No. 2 of the Communist Party. Arrested January 1920; deported to Russia March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54859-158.

Nikita Safroniev (a.k.a. Necita; Safronieff; Zafronia)

Born: 1883, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration: Immigrated to US 1914
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

His wife remaine din Russia when he emigrated. Arrested November 9, 1919 during the first Palmer Raids. A member of the Maspeth, Queens branch of the Union of Russian Workers. He testified: “I lived long enough in Russia under the Czar. I have seen enough brutality committed there, but I have never seen the brutality that was committed upon the Russian people here in my case…When I was arrested…I was travelling in the automobile, they were beating me in the sides with their handcuffs; and this continued all the way until they brought me to the Park Row Building in New York.” Deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/284; FBI file OG 379106; Constantine M. Panunzio, The Deportation Cases of 1919-1920.

Orteof Sahtabnog (a.k.a. Ortiof; Ortiob Shtabnoy)

Born: 1891, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Miner
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined hte Union of Russian Workers branch at the Jamieson No. 9 mine in Farmington, West Virginia in September 1919, and became its secretary. Arrested November 1919; he was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/586.

Nikofor Salabay

Born: c. 1890, Kyiv, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Autoworker
Migration: Immigrated to Canada 1913; then to US 1916
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

His wife and two children remained in Russia. He joined the Communist Party in Pittsburgh in September 1919. Arrested January 1920, he was deported to Russia February 1, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54860/644.

Marcelo Salinas y López (a.k.a. Marcelino Menéndez; Jorge Gallart; George Gallart; Pedro Martín; Pedro Martín Sánchez; Palomero)

Marcelo Salinas.

Born: 1889, Batabanó, Cuba
Nationality: Cuban
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Cigarworker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1911
Affiliation: Anarchist IWW

Became an anarchist around 1908 and collaborated on Havana’s anarchist newspaper ¡Tierra!.

Migrated to the U.S. in 1911 to work in the cigar industry in Tampa, Florida. Active in anarchist groups there affiliated with the Partido Liberal Mexicano, and also joined and organized for the IWW. He was briefly the roommate of Spanish anarchist Manuel Pardiñas, who in 1912 returned to Spain and assassinated Spanish Prime Minister José Canalejas; wrongly suspected of involvement in the assassination, Salinas was also accused by the Mexican government of being part of plot to kill Mexico’s President Madero. Arrested and deported to Cuba February 7, 1913. He illegally returned to the U.S. in June of that year under the name “Marcelino Menendez” and participated in an IWW maritime strike in New Orleans; he then moved to New York where he frequented the Francisco Ferrer Center and collaborated on the newspaper Cultura Obrera under the name “Jorge Gallart.” In 1914 he migrated to Spain, where he was part of an influential group of “americanos” (Spanish-speaking anarchists who had lived in the US) and collaborated on anarchist newspapers and joined and organized on behalf of the anarcho-syndicalist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo; he was imprisoned numerous times for these activities. Around 1918 he returned to New York where, under the name “Pedro Martín,” he was a member of the Los Corsarios Group and became editor its newspaper El Corsario. One of fourteen group members arrested in February 1919 by the Secret Service on baseless allegations of plotting to assassinate President Wilson; although all charges were dropped, he and several others were held for deportation as anarchists. Salinas claimed to have been born in Cartagena, Spain, and was deported to Spain May 4, 1919 as “Pedro Martín.”

Arrested during a propaganda tour in Andalusia (for possession false identity documents under the name Pedro Martín); he was sentenced to two months in prison in Cádiz and then deported to Cuba August 1, 1919. In Cuba he took an active part in the general strikes of 1919; for which he was arrested multiple times and sentenced to death along with several other leading anarchists, but released in 1921. While in prison he sent a letter to the Comintern to apply for the creation of a Cuban Communist Party, but soon became disillusioned with Soviet Communism. In the 1920-1940s he became nationally recognized as radical poet, novelist, and playwright. In 1944 he helped found the Asociacíon Libertaria de Cuba (ALC); in 1948 he was appointed its Secretary of Culture. Edited a succession of Cuban anarchist newspapers. In 1956-1959 he served on the secretariat of the Confederacíon de Trabajadores de Cuba. Refused to support Castro’s seizure of power. In 1967 he was allowed to enter the United States as an anti-Castro refugee. He settled in Miami, Florida, where he continued to be an active member of the Movimiento Libertario Cubano en el Exilio and write for anarchist publications. He died in 1976.

Sources: INS files 53572/12 (1913 deportation) and 54616/79 (1919 deportation [under name “Pedro Martin aka Pedro Martin Sanchez”]); Marcelo Salinas: Un ideal sublime y elevado; Kirwin R. Shaffer, Anarchists of the Caribbean: Countercultural Politics and Transnational Networks in the Age of US Expansion; Frank Fernández, Cuban Anarchism: The History of a Movement; Manuel Buenacas, El movimiento obrero español, 1886-1926; Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America.

Nikolai Salov (a.k.a. Nick Saloff)

Born: 1891, Alagir, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to Canada 1914; then to US 1915
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Joined the Communist Party of America in Seattle. Deported on January 22, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54861/31.

Nikolai Saluk (or Celiuk)

Born: 1892, Bobry, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer; punch press operator
Migration: Immigrated to US 1910
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

A member of Detroit’s Russian Branch No. 3 of the Communist Party, he was deported February 26, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54860/24.

Roland S. Samuelson (a.k.a. Roy)

Born: 1884, Stockholm, Sweden
Nationality: Swedish
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: IWW

Joined IWW Mixed Local No. 382 in Seattle in April 1917, and became and IWW delegate. Arrested January 1920 in Everett, Washington, for “criminal syndicalism” after the Great Northern Railway fired him for organizing his fellow workers and reported him to the police. Deported to Sweden August 13, 1920.

Sources: INS file 54861/371; FBI file OG 386735.

Ivan Samuylov (a.k.a. John; Samuyloff; Somaurloff; Samuyilof)

Born: Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration:
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

A member of the Communist Party of America in New York. Arrested during the second Palmer Raids in January 1919 and deported to Russia December 23, 1920. No further information has been located.

Sources: 54325/36G and FBI file BS 202600-33; Minneapolis Star, December 27, 1920.

Vladimir Samuylov (a.k.a. Samuyloff; Samoileff; Pavel Wolkoff)

Born: Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration:
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

A member of the Communist Party of America in New York City. Arrested during the second Palmer Raids in January 1919; deported to Russian December 23, 1920 with his teenage son and daughter.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G; FBI file BS 202600-33; Minneapolis Star, December 27, 1920; New-York Tribune, December 19, 1920.

Ramón Sánchez

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image-2.png
Members of Spanish-speaking Los Corsarios Group, including Sánchez, 1919. National Archives.

Born: 1886, Santa Cruz, Canary Islands, Spain
Nationality: Spanish
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Cigarmaker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1916
Affiliation: Anarchist

His family emigrated to Cuba in 1898, and in 1916 he migrated to Mexico and then the United States.

A member of New York’s anarchist Los Corsarios Group, and one of fourteen members arrested in February 1919 by the Secret Service on baseless allegations of plotting to assassinate President Wilson. All charges were dropped, but Sánchez and several other members were held for deportation as anarchists. Deported to Spain May 4, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54616/79.

Ramón L. Sánchez

Ramón L. Sánchez, 1921. National Archives.

Born: Spain
Nationality: Spanish
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration:
Affiliation: IWW

Arrested June 21, 1921 in Sacramento on criminal syndicalism charges after distributing IWW literature. Sentenced to 1–14 years in San Quentin Penitentiary, where he contracted tuberculosis. Deported to Spain on August 1, 1924.

Sources: Sacramento Star, June 22, October 21, 1921; Daily Worker, February 29 and June 2, 1924; Stephen M. Kohn, American Political Prisoners: Prosecutions under the Espionage and Sedition Acts.