Category Archives: Red Scare Deportees

Kubinskis to K_____

Red Scare Deportees, , , , , ,

Stanislovas Kubinskis (a.k.a. Stanley Kubinsky)

Born: 1897, Kovno, Russia (present-day Lithuania)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Lithuanian
Occupation: Carpenter; miner; laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1914
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Belonged to the Russian Social Democratic Party before emigrating.

In the United States he worked as a coal miner, and later for Ford Motor Company in Detroit. In 1915 he joined the Lithuanian Branch of the Socialist Party of America, which transferred into the Communist Party of America in 1919. Arrested April 22, 1919, “while distributing radical literature on a Michigan Avenue street car,” he declared his belief in “the soviet form of government.” Deported February 1, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54616/165.

Michael Kucher

Born:
Nationality:
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration: Immigrated to US year unknown
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Served as recording secretary of the Jersey City branch of the Communist Party of America. Arrested during the second Palmer Raids in January 1920, he was deported March 30, 1920 to “Galicia” (likely either Poland or Ukraine). No further information has been located.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G; FBI file OG 380877.

Efrem Kucher

Born: Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration: Immigrated to US year unknown
Affiliation:

Arrested in Brooklyn during the second Palmer Raids in January 1919 and deported as a radical to Russia on December 23, 1920. No further information has been located.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G; The Standard Union (Brooklyn), Dec. 23, 1920.

Alek Grigorov Kuchinsky

Born: c. 1884, Vilna, Russia (present-day Vilnius, Lithuania)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Textile worker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined the Union of Russian Workers in Norwich, Connecticut, in September 1919. Arrested in January 1920, he was deported to Russia on February 26, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54861/9.

Mikal Kudreyko (a.k.a. Peter Kravchuk; Michael Kravchuk)

Mid-Week Pictorial, January 1, 1920.

Born: 1883, Pruzhany, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Belarusian
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

His wife and child remained in Russia during his emigration. Became secretary of a Detroit branch of the Union of Russian Workers. Arrested in July 1918 at a radical picnic, he admitted he was “an anarchist, and proud of it.” After moving to New York he became secretary of the Housewreckers’ Union and coeditor of the URW paper Khlieb i Volia. Arrested with its editorial team in August 1919 and indicted for “criminal anarchy,” he falsely claimed he had left the URW in 1918 “because I thought this organization is not radical enough.” Deported aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Reportedly died in Russia soon thereafter.

Sources: INS file 54554/23; Mid-Week Pictorial, January 1, 1920; Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America.

Simon Kuish (a.k.a. Sam)

Born: 1895, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Belarusian
Occupation: Rubber worker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined the Union of Russian Workers in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1919. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported aboard the Buford on December 21.

Sources: INS file 54709/193.

Ivan Kulak (a.k.a. John)

Born: Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration: Immigrated to US year unknown
Affiliation:

Deported as a radical to Russia on November 27, 1920. No further information has been located.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G.

Roman Kulich (a.k.a. Kovalevich)

Born: 1895, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Belarusian
Occupation: Machinist
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Belonged to Detroit’s Russian Branch No. 1 of the Communist Party. Arrested January 1920, he was deported February 26, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54859/722.

Mark Kulish (or Kulesch; Kulesh)

Born: 1890, Vilna, Russia (present-day Lithuania)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer; factory inspector
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

During the First World War he worked first as a factory laborer and later as a US arms factory inspector for the Russian Commission. Joined the Union of Russian Workers in Hartford, Connecticut, around 1916 and became secretary of the URW branch in South Manchester in 1919. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919 and falsely suspected of being a “bomb-maker,” he was deported aboard the Buford on December 21. His wife and child remained in Russia.

Sources: INS file 54709/256; Hartford Courant, December, 22, 1919; https://connecticuthistory.org/the-red-scare-in-connecticut/.

Nikolai Kuropato (a.k.a. Koroptko)

Born: 1890, Rokitnica, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Belarusian
Occupation: Longshoreman
Migration: Immigrated to US 1910
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined the Newark branch of the Union of Russian Workers in 1919. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/345.

Tony Kurson (a.k.a. Kirsion; Kirson)

Born: 1884, Kiev, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1909
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined the Luch Society in Ansonia, Connecticut, around 1917, which federal authorities claimed was a branch of the Union of Russian Workers, though he denied this. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/326; FBI file OG 382937.

Michael Kusbit

Born: Austria-Hungary
Nationality: Austrian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration: Immigrated to US year unknown
Affiliation:

Deported as a radical to Austria on May 8, 1920. No further information has been located.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G.

Fedor Kushnarev (a.k.a. Theodore Kushnareff; Theodore Alexander Casher; Alexander Dalny or Dalney)

Fedor Kushnarev, 1919. National Archives.

Born: 1898, Kiev, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Jewish
Occupation: Student; laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Migrated to the UW with his parents and five younger siblings; his father died less than a year later. After graduating high school in New Haven he attended New York University. Joined the Union of Russian Workers around 1917–1918, organized a URW branch in New Haven, and in 1919 became financial secretary of the URW branch in South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Arrested there in March 1919 under the pen name Alexander Dalney, the case was dismissed. In New York he coedited Khlieb i Volia. Arrested several more times under different names, he was last arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919. He requested permission for his companion, anarchist organizer Rose Pesotta, to accompany him if deported. Deported aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919.

In Russia, arrested in Crimea in 1920 and sentenced to five years in a prison camp for “propaganda of libertarian ideas” and allegedly taking up arms against the Soviet government, but was later released after authorities deemed his imprisonment an error. He later concluded that “to support the Revolution means to support Lenin and Trotsky.” He briefly attended the Moscow Institute of Journalism and worked for the American Relief Administration as interpreter and secretary for US Colonel Walter Bell in Ufa during the famine, where he contracted typhus. Some sources claim he died in 1925, but in 1934 his mother petitioned the US government to allow him and his family to visit the U.S.

Sources: INS file 54709/522; Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America; Elaine J. Leeder, The Gentle General: Rose Pesotta, Anarchist and Labor Organizer; Groupe des anarchistes russes exilés en Allemagne, Répression de l’anarchisme en Russie Soviétique; Elaine Leeder Collection of Rose Pesotta Papers, Cornell University Library.

Steve K______

His partially illegible name as it appears in the records. National Archives.

Born:
Nationality: Yugoslavian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration: Immigrated to US year unknown
Affiliation:

The individual appears in immigration records under a partially illegible surname. He was deported as a radical to Yugoslavia on September 1, 1920. No further information has been located.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G.

Lachowsky to Lebed

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

Hyman Lachowsky (a.k.a. Chaim Lachowsky; Khaym Lakhovsky)

Unidentified newspaper clipping, Paul Avrich Collection, Library of Congress.

Born: 1894, Minsk, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Jewish
Occupation: Bookbinder
Migration: Immigrated to US 1907
Affiliation: Anarchist

In 1917 Lachowsky joined New York’s militant Jewish anarchist Shturem Group, which became the Frayhayt Group in 1918. On August 23, 1918, he was arrested with Molly Steimer while distributing leaflets protesting US intervention in the Russian Civil War. Beaten during interrogation, he was convicted with other group members under the Espionage Act and sentenced to twenty years in prison and a $1,000 fine. In October 1919 he declared to immigration agents, “I am an alien and an anarchist…I am opposed to all organized government. Not only the Government of the United States but any government…I’m an anarchist and proud of it.” By 1921, however, he had become disillusioned and renounced anarchism. After losing the Supreme Court free-speech case Abrams v. United States, he was deported November 23, 1921.

Disillusioned with radicalism, he returned to Minsk, started a family, and stayed out of politics. He reportedly died of natural causes sometime before the Second World War.

Sources: INS file 54517/74; Richard Polenberg, Fighting Faiths: The Abrams Case, the Supreme Court, and Free Speech; Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America.

Charles Lindsay Lambert

Charles Lambert, 1918. National Archives.

Born: 1881, Arbroath, Scotland
Nationality: British
Ethnicity: Scottish
Occupation: Baker; oil worker; labor organizer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1901 or 1902
Affiliation: IWW

Joined the IWW in 1911 and served as secretary of Local No. 453 of the Oil Workers’ Industrial Union in Taft, California, in 1913, and later as secretary of mixed IWW locals in Sacramento from 1914 to 1917. As Secretary-Treasurer of the Wheatland Defense Committee (1914–1915), he advocated sabotage on behalf of the campaign to free the Wheatland prisoners. Elected to the IWW’s General Executive Board in 1916, he played a key role in the controversial decertification of the IWW’s Domestic Workers’ Industrial Union in Denver. A defendant in the federal IWW trial of 1917–1918, where his writings were used against the union by the prosecution, and sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment. In 1922 his sentence was commuted in exchange for “voluntary departure” to Britain, and he sailed March 31, 1923.

In Britain he attended trade-union meetings and encouraged protests against the imprisonment of IWW members in the United States. He may have worked in the Tampico oil fields during the 1920s, appears to have illegally reentered the US, then returned to Scotland via New York in 1926. During the 1930s he worked as an oil worker in the Caribbean, returned to the UK in 1933, and later left radical politics, becoming a diamond prospector in British Guiana and then a bookie’s runner (i.e. enforcer) in London, where he died circa 1961.

Sources: INS file 54616/59; FBI file OG 8000-160053; Industrial Workers of the World Collection, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University; Jane Little Botkin, The Girl Who Dared to Defy: Jane Street and the Rebel Maids of Denver; Richard Brazier, “The Mass I.W.W. Trial of 1918: A Retrospect,” Labor History 7, no. 2 (1966); Eric Thomas Chester, The Wobblies in Their Heyday: The Rise and Destruction of the Industrial Workers of the World during the World War I Era; Eric Thomas Chester, Yours for Industrial Freedom: The Industrial Workers of the World from the Inside; Ancestry.com.

Manya Lansky

Born: 1898, Pieski, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Jewish
Occupation: Garment worker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1915
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Migrated to the United States for work and soon became an anarchist in New York. She distributed the Union of Russian Workers’ paper Golos Truda. Arrested July 4, 1920 en route to a radical picnic in Cleveland, she was described by an immigration inspector as “the most typical of the usual conception of the anarchistic type that one may have occasion to observe.” She stated, “I am not in sympathy with the leaders of the Soviets, but am in sympathy with the Russian people.” Deported to Russia on February 1, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54885/2.

Ivan Lapitsky (a.k.a. John; Lapinsky; Lapitzky)

Born: 1893, Mogilev, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Belarusian
Occupation: Dye worker
Migration: Immigrated to Canada 1913; then to US 1917
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Belonged to Buffalo’s Russian Branch of the Communist Party. Arrested January 2, 1920, he initially denied Communist Party membership but admitted it after authorities produced documentary proof. Deported March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54809/491.

Ivan Laposanko (or Lapczanko; a.k.a. John Lapko)

Born: 1890, Chernihiv, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer; coal miner; steel worker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined the Union of Russian Workers in Pittsburgh in 1914 and served as a delegate to its New York convention in January 1919. Arrested in Erie, Pennsylvania during May Day disturbances on May 1, 1919, and again on December 12, 1919, he testified: “Yes, I am an anarchist; but I am not the violent anarchist that is pictured… I am studying the question of Anarchy.” Deported January 22, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54709/642.

James Larkin (a.k.a. Jim; “Big Jim”)

James Larkin, 1919. Wikimedia Commons.

Born: 1876, Liverpool, England
Nationality: British
Ethnicity: Irish
Occupation: Laborer; lecturer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1914
Affiliation: Communist Labor Party

Raised in poverty in Ireland, Larkin joined the Independent Labour Party in 1893 and became a full-time organizer for the National Union of Dock Labourers in 1905 before being expelled in 1908. He founded the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, cofounded the Irish Labour Party in 1912, and helped lead the 1913 Dublin Lockout with James Connolly while also founding the Irish Citizen Army.

In the United States he joined the Socialist Party of America, aligned with its pro-Bolshevik Left Wing, and lectured widely, often in conjunction with the IWW. Expelled from the SPA in 1919, he cofounded the Communist Labor Party. Arrested under New York’s criminal anarchy law, sentenced to five to ten years, pardoned by Governor Al Smith in 1923, and deported to England in April 1923, after repeated passport denials by British authorities.

Returning to Ireland he founded the Irish Worker League as the country’s official Communist Party and became head of the Communist-aligned Worker’s Union of Ireland. Attended the Fifth Congress of the Comintern in 1924 and appointed to the Comintern’s Executive Committee.In 1927 he was elected to the Irish parliament (Dáil Éireann) on behalf of the IWL , but unable to take his seat due to an unpaid award for libel against him. He resigned from the Comintern in 1929 and broke with Communism completely in 1932. In 1936 he was elected to the Dublin city government; 1937 elected to the Dáil Éireann as an independent candidate, but lost reelection the following year. In 1941 he rejoined the Irish Labour Party and served in the Dáil Éireann from 1943 to 1944. He died in 1947.

Sources: Emmet O’Connor, “James Larkin in the United States, 1914-23,” Journal of Contemporary History 37, no. 2 (April 2002); Emmet O’Connor, Big Jim Larkin: Hero or Wrecker?

Carl Larson (born Carl Johan Fredrik Larson)

Born: 1885, Upsala, Sweden
Nationality: Swedish
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer; shoemaker
Migration: Migrated to US via Canada 1911
Affiliation: IWW; Communist Labor Party

Joined the IWW in 1912 and the Scandinavian section of the Socialist Party of America in 1917. Arrested May 3, 1918 after denouncing the US government, he was convicted under the Espionage Act in February 1919 and sentenced to one year and a day in Leavenworth. While imprisoned he joined the Communist Labor Party. After his release he served as literature agent for Salt Lake City’s Scandinavian Socialist Club. Arrested again in August 1920, he was deported June 9, 1921.

He reportedly left Sweden in 1924 as a seaman and jumped ship in Canada, returning to the US. On January 7, 1925, the Swedish Communist paper Folkets Dagblad Politiken printed a letter from him about Communist activity in America. In 1932 he was believed to be living in Seattle, and in 1933 authorities received confidential reports that he was in San Francisco under an assumed name and active in the Communist Party.

Sources: INS file 54861/408; FBI file OG 196909; The Toiler, April 2, 1920; One Big Union Monthly, May 1920.

Ludwig Lau

Born:
Nationality: Polish
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration: Immigrated to US year unknown
Affiliation:

Deported as a radical to Poland on September 1, 1920. No further information has been located.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G.

Stefan Lavrichuk (a.k.a. Lawrichuk; Steve Liunsky)

Born: 1893, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Belarusian
Occupation: Mechanic
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Joined the Socialist Party in Rockford, Illinois, later transferring into the Communist Party. Arrested January 1920, he “voluntarily departed” to Russia via Canada on October 20, 1920.

Sources: INS file 54860/671.

Mikail Lavrinuk (a.k.a. Michael Lawrinuk)

Born: 1891, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Hotel worker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1914
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers; IWW

Joined the Union of Russian Workers in New York around 1918 and the IWW in 1919. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/489.

Giacomo Lavrio (a.k.a. James Lavrio)

Giacomo Lavrio, c. 1919. National Archives.

Born: 1884, Turin, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Miner
Migration: Immigrated to US 1901
Affiliation: Anarchist

Worked in mines across the United States and became an anarchist there, supporting Cronaca Sovversiva and corresponding extensively with Italian-American anarchists. Briefly returned to Italy from 1905 to 1907. Arrested in St. Charles, Michigan, in May 1919 while participating in a miners’ strike. He married widow Maria Perocchetti while out on bail and promised to abandon radicalism for her. Deported December 20, 1919.

Upon arrival in Italy he was detained for possible draft evasion, after which authorities lost track of him. He died on October 17, 1923 in Turin of unknown causes.

Sources: INS file 54616/206; CPC busta 2781.

William Lawna (or Launa; Lauva; a.k.a. Alfred Schmidt)

Born: 1886, Libau, Russia (present-day Latvia)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Locksmith
Migration: Immigrated to US 1906
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined the Union of Russian Workers in 1919 and was alleged to have served as secretary of its Elizabeth, New Jersey branch and to have hosted Leon Trotsky in his home, though he denied this claim. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919. His wife remained in the United States.

Sources: INS file 54709/103.

Andrey Lazarevich (a.k.a. Andrew Lazarewich or Lazarowitz)

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

A member of the Union of Russian Workers in Newark, though the only evidence authorities had against him was a membership card for the Executive Committee of the Second Russian All-Colonial Convention of the United States and Canada (a meeting of various leftwing Russian groups held in New York in January 1919). Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919. His wife Maria and their newborn child were left behind in the US.

Sources: INS file 54709/347.

Maria Lazarevich (née Kott; a.k.a. Mary Lazarewich)

Born: 1896, Minsk, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Housewife
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

An anarchist since 1917 and member of the URW, Maria Lazarevich was the wife of Buford deportee Andrey Lazarevich. After actively campaigning to be expelled to rejoin her husband, she was deported to Russia on February 26, 1921 along with the couple’s fourteen-month-old child.

Sources: INS file 55009/14.

Simeon Lebed (a.k.a. Sam Lebed)

Born: 1893, Novovolynsk, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Ukrainian
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Joined the Socialist Party and later Detroit’s Communist Party Branch No. 22. Arrested January 1920, he was deported March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54859/614.

Legeze to Levchuk

Red Scare Deportees, , ,

Mike Legeze (or Legeza)

Mike Legeze’s URW membership book. National Archives.

Born: 1890, Ułęż, Russia (present-day Poland)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1916
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined the Hartford, Connecticut branch of the Union of Russian Workers in 1919. He was arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919 and deported aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/384.

Terentius Leonov (a.k.a. Thomas Leonoff)

Terentius Leonov, 1910s. National Archives.

Born: 1885, Minsk, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Shoemaker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Socialist Party of America; Union of Russian Workers

Joined the Socialist Party of America in 1918 and the Bridgeport, Connecticut branch of the Union of Russian Workers in August 1919. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/377.

Mikail Leshchuk (a.k.a. Michael Lestchuk; Listchuk)

Born: 1891, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined Philadelphia’s URW Branch No. 1 in early 1919 and became its secretary. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/210; FBI file OG 380953.

Arthur Lesiga (or Lessiga)

Born: 1889, Petrograd, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Sailor
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined the International Seamen’s Union and the Union of Russian Workers in New York in 1918. A Justice Department agent claimed he served as treasurer of the URW newspaper Rabochii i Krest’ianin. He lived in a common-law marriage with widow Jennie Garnitz, who had a young son. Arrested in Pittsburgh in July 1919 as a “notorious anarchist,” he was released on bail but rearrested December 3, 1919 and deported aboard the Buford on December 21.

In 1921 he signed a statement of the Union of Russian Anarchist Workers Repatriated from America, which critically supported Bolshevik rule as temporary. He was later arrested by the Soviet government at an unknown date.

Sources: INS file 54709/118; FBI file OG 371524; Victor Serge, Anarchists Never Surrender: Essays, Polemics, and Correspondence on Anarchism, 1908–1938; https://ru.openlist.wiki/%D0%9B%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B3%D0%B0_%D0%90%D1%80%D1%82%D1%83%D1%80_%D0%90%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87_(1889).

Karl Lesse (a.k.a. Carl or Charles Lesse; Oswald Dönitz; Joseph Duncan)

Karl Lesse, 1919. National Archives
Karl Lesse, 1937. National Archives of Britain.

Born: 1894, Hamburg, Germany
Nationality: German
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Sailor
Migration: Immigrated to US 1914
Affiliation: IWW

Left Germany at age fourteen and later joined the Sailor’s Union of the Pacific. In San Francisco in 1916 he joined the IWW and became a delegate. Arrested in February 1919 as “likely to become a public charge,” he was released on bail but rearrested in Arcata, California, in November 1919 for violating the state criminal syndicalism law. Convicted and sentenced to one to fourteen years, he was imprisoned at San Quentin from January 1920 to May 1922, then deported March 4, 1922.

In Germany he briefly joined the syndicalist Freie Arbeiter Union Deutschlands, then joined the Communist Party of German and worked as an underground agent for the Communist International’s Department of International Communications (OMS) in Europe and Shanghai during the 1920s and 1930s.

Sources: INS file 54616/17; Stephen M. Kohn, American Political Prisoners: Prosecutions under the Espionage and Sedition Acts; Brigitte Studer, Travellers of the World Revolution: A Global History of the Communist International; Barry McLoughlin et al., Kommunismus in Österreich, 1918–1938; Security Service: Personal (PF Series) Files, KV2/1399, National Archives, Kew, England.

Daniil Levchuk (a.k.a. Daniel Levozuk)

Born: 1874, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Polish
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Migrated to Canada 1913; then to US 1915
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Levchuk, who had a wife and seven children in Russia, joined the Union of Russian Workers in Buffalo in 1918 and was sent as a delegate to its New York conference in January 1919. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/21.

Libed to Lojan

Red Scare Deportees, , , , , ,

Arkhip Libed (a.k.a. Arhip Lebed)

Born: 1881, Volyn, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Ukrainian
Occupation: Miner
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Lived in Fairmont, West Virginia, and was arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919. He was deported aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/603; FBI file OG 380968.

Mike Libeszky

Born: Austria-Hungary
Nationality: Austrian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration:
Affiliation:

Deported as a radical to Austria on May 8, 1920. No additional information has been located.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G.

Anton Lichkevich (or Lishkevitch; Litshkevitch; a.k.a. Anton Cotie)

Born: 1887, Kamieniec, Russia (present-day Poland)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Migrated to Canada 1912; then to US April 1919
Affiliation: Anarchist

Declared, “I have been an Anarchist since 1905.” Arrested in Detroit in January 1920 while traveling to distribute anarchist newspapers, he openly affirmed his anarchism at his immigration hearing and “voluntarily departed” to Russia February 26, 1921.

Russian authorities at Libau refused him and several others entry because of their anarchism. He and other deportees coauthored “An Open Letter to the Russian Premier Lenin” in response.

Sources: INS file 54861/375; FBI file OG 367316; Free Society, October–November 1921.

Tito Ligi (a.k.a. Augusto Vitaletti)

Tito Ligi, c. 1922. Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Italy.

Born: 1894, Sassoferrato, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Miner
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Anarchist

Ligi and his brother Adolfo were already anarchists before emigrating together. In the United States he associated with Luigi Galleani’s circle. In November 1920 he was arrested in Scranton, Pennsylvania, for evading the draft after filing a declaration of intent to naturalize, and he briefly became a leading suspect—almost certainly falsely—in the 1920 Wall Street bombing. Deported on August 3, 1922.

In 1925 he moved to Rome with his wife, Bianchi Angela, where they opened a small shop. He remained under government surveillance until 1940; although he retained anarchist beliefs, authorities recorded no significant political activity. Meanwhile his brother Angelo, living in Jessup, Pennsylvania, adopted Tito’s name and married anarchist Maria Giaconi, who later fought in the Spanish Civil War.

Sources: FBI file BS 25-63-12-1; CPC busta 2786; 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; Kenyon Zimmer, “The Other Volunteers: American Anarchists and the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939,” Journal for the Study of Radicalism 10, no. 2 (2016).

Amedeo Lilli

Born: 1894, Acqualagna, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer; tailor
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Anarchist

Arrested in September 1917 after an Italian anarchist “riot” during which he was shot in the shoulder by an undercover policeman. Convicted of assault, he was sentenced to twenty-five years in Wisconsin State Prison. Pardoned in 1922 on condition of deportation, he was deported February 16, 1922.

After returning to Italy he became a tailor and, according to police surveillance extending to 1932, did not resume radical political activity.

Sources: INS file 54235/67; CPC busta 2787; 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 (a.k.a. Pete; Linieski)

Born: 1885, Kyiv, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1916
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Linecky had a wife and two children in Russia. While living in Detroit he joined the Communist Party of America. Arrested in January 1920, he was deported March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54859/713.

Dora Lipkin

Dora Lipkin, 1919. National Archives.

Born: 1894, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Jewish
Occupation:
Migration: Immigrated to US 1910
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

An anarchist and the common-law wife of URW leader and fellow deportee Hyman Perkus. She lived in New York with the family of fellow URW member Boris Shatz. Arrested in October 1919 for “disturbing the peace,” she was arrested again during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919 and refused to answer questions while detained. She helped lead a hunger strike on Ellis Island protesting detention conditions and was deported with Perkus aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919.

After plans to leave Russia in 1924 fell through, she married Hyman Perkus and by 1930 both had joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Sources: INS file 54709/275; New York Tribune, November 30, 1919; Elaine Leeder Collection of Rose Pesotta Papers, 1912–1961, Cornell University Library; Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America.

Samuel Lipman (a.k.a. Schaie Lipzcuk)

Samuel Lipman, 1921. Paul Avrich Collection, Library of Congress.

Born: 1888, Pinsk, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Jewish
Occupation: Furrier
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Socialist Party of America

Lipman belonged to the Socialist Party of America as well as New York’s anarchist Frayhayt Group, and identified as a leftwing socialist and Marxist rather than an anarchist. A pacifist and vegetarian strongly influenced by Leo Tolstoy, he lived with anarchist Ethel Bernstein, his common-law wife. In 1918 he was arrested with others for distributing leaflets opposing US intervention in the Russian Civil War and sentenced to twenty years under the Espionage Act. While imprisoned he became disillusioned with Tolstoy and falsely claimed anarchist beliefs in hopes of deportation. After losing the landmark Supreme Court free-speech case Abrams v. United States, he was deported November 23, 1921.

In Russia he married Bernstein, studied agronomy, and became chairman of the Department of Economic Geography at the University of the Toilers of the East. In 1928 he applied to join the Communist Party. During Stalin’s purges in the 1930s he was executed.

Sources: INS file 54517/72; 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

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

Lipsky stated that he came to the United States “to learn some profession.” Living in New York, he joined the Union of Russian Workers in 1919. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/456.

Demian Lisiuk (a.k.a. Jim; Lisuk)

Born: 1894, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Migrated to Canada 1913; then to US 1914
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Joined the Socialist Party of America in 1919 and later transferred into Detroit’s Russian Branch No. 1 of the Communist Party of America. Arrested in January 1920, he was deported to Russia February 26, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54859/772.

Nikolai Lisiuk (a.k.a. Nicholas; Nick)

Born: 1887, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to Canada 1911; then to US 1917
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Lisiuk had a wife and two children in Russia. Arrested in Pittsburgh on November 17, 1920, federal agents accused him of owning a trunk full of Communist Party literature. Indicted under the Sedition Act and jailed in Allegheny County, he denied radical affiliations, though a confidential informant identified him as a Communist Party literature agent. He was deported to Russia February 26, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54885/71.

Aftanasy Litvakoff

Born: c. 1884, Lopatni, Chernihiv, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Lived in Homestead, Pennsylvania for six years and joined the URW there in 1917. Arrested for distributing radical handbills, he served twenty days in jail. After moving to Cleveland he was arrested again February 21, 1921. He stated, “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.” Deported to Russia March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 55009/22.

Anna Loban

Born: c. 1893, Minsk, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Housewife
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Married fellow anarchist Konstantin Loban in Akron in 1916 and became a member of the Union of Russian Workers. Deported to Russia with her husband on March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 55009/24.

Konstantin Loban (a.k.a. Peter Dedka or Dutka)

Born: 1893, Slutsk, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Rubber worker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Worked at the BF Goodrich plant in Akron and married Anna Loban there in 1916. Joined the Union of Russian Workers in 1915 and became secretary of its Lansing, Michigan branch in 1919. Asked why he had become antagonistic to the US government, he 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 with his wife on March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 55009/24.

Michael Lojan

Born: 1897, Austria-Hungary
Nationality: Yugoslavian
Ethnicity: N
Occupation: Barber
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Joined the Communist Party while living in Milwaukee. Arrested there and deported to Yugoslavia in 1923.

Sources: FBI file OG 382806.

López García to Lurie

Red Scare Deportees, , , , ,

Francisco López García (a.k.a. Frank R. Lopez; José Marinero; Jesus Legendario; Alberto Martín; Albert Martin)

Francisco López c. 1923. Boston Public Library.

Born: 1885, A Coruña, Spain
Nationality: Spanish
Ethnicity: Galician
Occupation: Sailor; carpenter
Migration: Immigrated to US 1904
Affiliation: Anarchist

Became one of the most prominent Spanish-speaking anarchists in the United States, contributing to Spanish-language radical newspapers internationally. He collaborated on Cultura Obrera (1911–1925) and helped launch its successor Cultura Proletaria (1927–1953). A photograph seized during his 1918 arrest suggested that he also participated in the Mexican Revolution with the anarchist Partido Liberal Mexicano. In Boston he belonged to the Grupo Rebelión and helped found the Grupo Fraternidad, which corresponded with anarchist groups across Europe and the Americas. In 1912 he married Italian widow Rosa [Rose] De Matteis. Though close to Luigi Galleani’s circle, he rejected advocacy of violence. Arrested February 1918 in a federal raid, agents described him as “practically the only real Spanish anarchist leader in the eastern part of the United States.” Ordered deported in November 1918, he was released on bond while appealing on the grounds that he was a nonviolent “philosophical anarchist.” Joined Boston’s new International Revolutionary Group, which published the Spanish-language single-issue anarchist magazines El Azote (1921) and America (1922). Became secretary of the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee in 1920 and coordinated extensive international propaganda. Separated from his wife around this time. After the Supreme Court ruled against him in 1924, he was deported to Spain on May 25, 1925.

According to different accounts, he either jumped ship and swam ashore with help from anarchist sailors, or returned to North America later in 1925 after arriving in Spain. He lived for several years in Canada with his companion Mary Berkowitz, later returning to New York under the name Alberto Martín. In 1953 he married anarchist organizer Rose Pesotta (as “Albert Martin”); they divorced after two years. He coauthored the book Breve historia del movimiento anarquista en Estados Unidos de América del Norte and died in 1967, leaving $500 in his will to the Mexican anarchist newspaper Tierra y Libertad.

Sources: INS file 54379/511; Bieito Alonso, Inimigos ás portas: Frank López e o anarquismo global; Francis Russell, Tragedy in Dedham: The Story of the Sacco-Vanzetti Case; Elaine J. Leeder, The Gentle General: Rose Pesotta, Anarchist and Labor Organizer; Alberto Martin, Vladimiro Muñoz, and Federica Montseny, Breve historia del movimiento anarquista en Estados Unidos de América del Norte; Tierra y Libertad, June 1967.

Andrew Lopitsky

Born: 1894, Mogilev, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Miner
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Explained his immigration by saying Russians were “oppressed” and “had heard of better wages and freedom in America”heard of good wages and freedom in America.” He joined the Union of Russian Workers in Downs, West Virginia. Arrested December 2, 1919, in connection with a URW-organized miners’ strike at a Consumers Fuel Company mine, he was deported aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/591; FBI file OG 380920; Charles H. McCormick, Seeing Reds: Federal Surveillance of Radicals in the Pittsburgh Mill District.

Adolfo Lorenzini (a.k.a. John Lorenzini)

Adolgo Lorenzini, c. 1921. Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Italy.

Born: 1887, Modena, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Miner
Migration: Immigrated to US 1911
Affiliation: Anarchist

Became an anarchist around 1914 or 1915 while living in Spring Valley, Illinois, and subscribed to the Italian anarchist paper Umanità Nova. Deported March 1, 1921.

Emigrated to Nice, France in 1922 and joined the French Communist Party, though Italian consular surveillance recorded no political activity on his pary.

Sources: INS file 54885/16; CPC busta 2839.

Ivan Loshakov (a.k.a. John Loshakoff)

Born: 1891, Kyiv, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Lumber worker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Around 1917 Loshakov became an anarchist and joined the URW in Granite Falls, Washington, later serving as secretary of its Seattle branch. Arrested in Seattle in January 1920, he was deported January 22, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54860/398; FBI file OG 387801.

Prokopy Losiov (or Losioff; Lasioff)

Born: 1891, Chernigov, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer; miner
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

His wife and child remained in Russia. After collapsing from heat while working in a Pittsburgh steel mill, he was confined for nine months in the Woodville Asylum in Allegheny County in 1917. He later moved to Fairmont, West Virginia, joined the United Mine Workers and URW, and participated in the 1919 miners’ strike. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/600.

Anthony Lovenetsky (a.k.a. H. Levinensky)

Born: 1894, Mogilev, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Polish
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: IWW; Union of Russian Workers

Joined the IWW and in early 1919 became secretary of the URW branch in Monessen, Pennsylvania, where he chaired meetings. Immigration officials described him as “far above the average in intelligence.” Arrested in Pittsburgh in May 1919 and released after four days, he was arrested again during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919 while on strike at Page Wire Works. He was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/474; One Big Union Monthly, May 1920.

Vasily Lukashuk (a.k.a. Wiliam Lukov; Lukow)

Born: 1896, Brest-Litovsk, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Lost three fingers and the use of his left arm in an accident at the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company. He briefly joined the Socialist Party around 1915 and became a member of the URW branch in Youngstown in 1916. Arrested while on strike in November 1919, he was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/539; FBI file OG 375161a.

Andrew Lukianow (a.k.a. John Wilichko)

Andrew Lukianow, c. 1919. National Archives.

Born: 1885, Mogilev, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1914
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Worked at the Arctic Ice Cream Company in Detroit and had a wife and child in Russia. Arrested November 7, 1919, authorities seized anarchist literature and correspondence with a URW secretary. Detained more than six months before being granted bail, he claimed his name was John Wilichko and Andrew Lukianow was a friend of his, but multiple witnesses identified him as Lukianow. Deported March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54709/314; FBI file OG 380910.

Chaim Lurie (a.k.a. Michael Loorie)

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

Deported as a radical to Russia February 26, 1921. No further information has been found.

Sources: INS file 55110/4.

MacDonald to Makarevich

Red Scare Deportees, , , , , , ,

John Alex MacDonald (a.k.a. J.A. MacDonald)

IWW, J. A. MacDonald, 13133 Leavenworth, Sept 7 or 8, 1918
John Alex MacDonald, 1918. National Archives.

Born: c. 1882, Cape Breton, Canada
Nationality: Canadian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer; soldier; foreman; journalist; editor
Migration: Immigrated to US c. 1901
Affiliation: IWW

Served nine years in the US Army at Vancouver, Washington, before discharge due to tuberculosis contracted during service. He joined the IWW around 1913 in Kansas City and became editor of The Industrial Worker in Seattle in May 1916, actively defending members prosecuted after the Everett Massacre. A defendant in the federal IWW trial (1917–1918), he was sentenced to ten years. His wife Kate (Katherine Beidel), whom he married in 1918, edited the paper during the trial until July 1918. His sentence was commuted in 1923, and he was deported to Canada August 5, 1923.

In Canada he continued organizing for the IWW and writing for its US publications through at least 1926, including organizing agricultural workers alongside fellow deportee Sam Scarlett.

Sources: INS file 54616/145; FBI file OG 8000-41990; Industrial Workers of the World Collection, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University; Heather Mayer, Beyond the Rebel Girl: Women and the Industrial Workers of the World in the Pacific Northwest, 1905-1924; James Sullivan, “Reviewing the 1925 Harvest Drive,” Industrial Pioneer, November 1925; J. A. McDonald [sic], “Training for Freedom,” Industrial Pioneer, March 1926; J. A. MacDonald, “The Reforging of Russia,” Industrial Pioneer, May 1925.

Samuel Mackway

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

Deported to Russia as a radical on January 22, 1921. No further information has been found.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G.

Victor Macur

Born: 1887, Vilna, Russia (present-day Lithuania)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Polish
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Joined Russian Branch No. 3 of the Socialist Party of America in August 1919, which soon transferred into the Communist Party. Arrested during the second Palmer Raids in January 1920, he accepted “voluntary departure” and left for Poland via Canada October 16, 1920.

Sources: INS file 54859/984; FBI file OG 387500.

Nils Madsen

Nils Madsen, 1960s. Arbeiderbladet, July 26, 1965.

Born: 1886, Drammen, Norway
Nationality: Norwegian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1904
Affiliation: IWW

Joined the IWW in 1912 and became General Organizer for the Lumber Workers’ Industrial Union No. 500 around 1916, facing repeated arrests for organizing. Arrested March 26, 1918, in St. Maries, Idaho under a criminal syndicalism law, he was deported November 4, 1918.

Back in Norway he lectured widely about US conditions and cofounded a Norwegian-American Defense Committee for imprisoned IWW members. By 1922 he was organizing for the Norwegian Labour Party and led its radical youth scouting organization, the Norges Røde Speiderforbund. After the party split in 1925 he sided with the expelled pro-Communist faction, but then appears to have abandoned Communism. From 1934 to 1955 he was an organizer and official of the Norwegian Union of Hotel and Restaurant Workers (Norsk Hotell-og Restaurantarbeiderforbund). He died in 1965.

Sources: INS file 54379/199; “Norwegian Workers Come to the Aid of the I. W. W.,” One Big Union Monthly, March 1, 1919; Sondre Ljoså, “‘Etter beste evne at alltid være en god kamerat’: Speiderarbeid i arbeiderbevegelsen på 1920-tallet,” Arbeiderhistorie (2007); Harald Berntsen, Alle rettigheter!: hotell- og restaurantarbeiderne i service og strid gjennom 75 år.

Piotr Mager (a.k.a. Peter Magyar)

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

Joined the URW in Youngstown, Ohio around 1915. Arrested in August 1919 and again during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/498.

Ivan Maiboroda (a.k.a. John Mayborada)

Born: 1885, Kyiv, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration: Immigrated to US 1916
Affiliation: IWW; Union of Russian Workers

Belonged to the Socialist Revolutionary Party in Russia before emigrating.

In the United States he joined the IWW in Butte and later, in 1919, joined the URW in Seattle. Deported to Russia January 22, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54860/471.

Vinko Majetic

Born:
Nationality: Croatian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration:
Affiliation:

Deported to Croatia as a radical on September 1, 1920. No further information has been found.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G.

George Makaranko (or Makarenko)

Born: 1893, Kyiv, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1914
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Makaranko, who had a wife and children in Russia, belonged to Detroit’s Russian Branch No. 3 of the Communist Party. Arrested January 1920, he was deported March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54859/621.

Lavrenti Makarevich (a.k.a. Lawrence Makarvitch)

Born: 1894, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration: Immigrated to Canada 1914; then to US 1915
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined the URW in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, records state he was deported January 22, 1921. However, a Department of Justice agent reported that he attended a URW conference in New Haven June 4, 1922 as a delegate of that city’s Russian Progressive Organization. His wife Sophie Babitz, living with her parents in Connecticut, reportedly wished no further contact with him. It remains unclear whether he was deported and returned, never deported, or the report of his later return was mistaken.

Sources: INS file 54709/399.

Makliarchuk to Manninger

Red Scare Deportees, , , , ,

Lazar Makliarchuk (or Matliarchok)

Makliarchuk’s Communist Party membership card. National Archives.

Born: 1878, Kamianets-Podilskyi, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Joined the Socialist Party of America and later the Communist Party of America in Philadelphia. Arrested January 7, 1920, he was deported to Russia February 1, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54811/943.

Ivan Malash (a.k.a. John Malash)

Born: 1891, Aleksandrovka, Minsk, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Mason; laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined the Norwich, Connecticut branch of the URW in October 1919 and became its financial secretary. Arrested at his home in Yantic, Connecticut, February 1920, he was deported January 22, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54861/10; FBI file OG 353738.

Vasily Malevsky (a.k.a. Wassily Maliewsky)

Born: 1898, Khomsk, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Machinist
Migration: Immigrated to US 1914
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined the URW in Newark in April 1919, though evidence suggested he may have been a member as early as 1917. Arrested during a raid on URW headquarters in Akron, Ohio, during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/536.

Dan Malina

Born: 1894, Grodno region, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Metalworker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Worked in New Castle and Elwood, Pennsylvania, and later in Akron for Firestone. Arrested November 1919 for belonging to the URW, he denied radicalism and was released for lack of evidence. Rearrested February 22, 1921, he admitted being an anarchist and was deported March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 55009/21; FBI file OG 8000-355192.

Karl Malmstrom

Born: 1897, Ystad, Sweden
Nationality: Swedish
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1915
Affiliation: IWW

Joined the IWW in Portland, Oregon, December 1916. Arrested February 1917 in San Francisco for distributing IWW literature and sentenced to sixty days, he was arrested again in Seattle in 1918 on the same charge and in Everett, Washington, March 1919, when he was held for deportation. Asked if he wished to become a US citizen, he replied, “Never…I am a citizen of the world,” and stated “that workers should be ready to take up arms for industrial freedom”For the workers to get industrial freedom, I would pick up arms at any time…Just like in Russia—do away with the parasites.” He was deported June 29, 1919 as “likely to become a public charge.”

Sources: INS file 54616/34.

Ustin Manko (a.k.a. Austin; Justyn)

Ustin Manko, c. 1935. Unidentified clipping, INS file 54861/146.

Born: 1894, Kherson, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Ukrainian
Occupation: Machinist
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined the URW in Bridgeport, Connecticut, May 1919. Arrested February 1920, he married Julia Chervenak while on bail from Ellis Island May 11, 1920. Deported January 22, 1921, accompanied by Julia.

In Ukraine they had a son. Suspected by Bolsheviks of being a spy, he migrated with his family in 1924 to Turkey, then France (where a daughter was born), and in 1927 to Mexico (where another son was born). Julia, a US citizen, returned to the United States in 1932 and brought their children in 1933, but Manko was forced to remain in Mexico City. His attempts to rejoin them failed after a US Public Health inspector deemed him “insane.” Letters to his family became increasingly paranoid and incoherent. He died in Mexico City in 1976. He is the subject (under the name “Austin Voronkov”) of the semi-fictional novel The Invention of Exile (2014) by his granddaughter, Vanessa Manko.

Sources: INS file 54861/146; FBI file OG 8000-382402; https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/what-happens-to-the-deported; Vanessa Manko, The Invention of Exile: A Novel; interview with Vanessa Manko, New York City, June 13, 2018.

Pavel Manko

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

Deported to Russia as a radical on January 22, 1921. No further information has been found.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G.

Julius Manninger (a.k.a. Julius Pichler; Julian)

Born: 1896, Ponitz, Austria-Hungary (present-day Hungary)
Nationality: Austrian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1909
Affiliation: Socialist Party of America

Joined the Socialist Party and attended a single meeting of the Communist Party of America. Arrested January 1920 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, he was deported to Austria June 22, 1920 as an alleged Communist Party member.

In February 1921 Assistant Secretary of Labor Louis F. Post concluded that the deportation had been carried out in error due to a misunderstanding of the facts. Manninger returned to the United States in December 1921 under his family name, Pichler, and declared his intention to become a US citizen.

Sources: INS file 54859/122; Hancock Democrat (Greenfield IN), January 26, 1922; Garrett Clipper (Garrett IN), January 30, 1922.

Mansevich to Martinovsky

Red Scare Deportees, , , , , , , ,

Nikolai Mansevich (a.k.a. Nicholas)

Political cartoon about Mansevich’s case, 1926. Agnes Inglis Papers, Joseph A. Labadie Collection, University of Michigan.

Born: 1886, Biaroza, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Polish
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Autoworker
Migration: Immigrated to US circa 1911
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

An employee of the Ford Motor Company, Mansevich lived in Hamtramck, Michigan with his wife and four American-born daughters. A member of Detroit’s URW Branch No. 3 and distributor of the paper Volna, he was arrested in September 1921. Despite a large national defense campaign and press coverage, he was deported June 7, 1924 to Poland.

Letters he sent his wife in 1926 described “intense suffering,” including frostbitten feet while working in a lumber camp. His wife, meanwhile, was ill and dependent on welfare assistance. At an unknown date (one source suggests around 1940) he migrated to Canada and worked as a farmer. It appears he never reunited with his wife and children, who remained in Detroit. He died in Windsor, Ontario, in 1960.

Sources: INS file 55119/18; Agnes Inglis Papers, Joseph A. Labadie Collection, University of Michigan; The New Republic, September 17, 1924; The Windsor Star, March 10, 1960; Ancestry.com.

Vito Mariani

Vito Mariani, c. 1920. National Archives.
Vito Mariani, c. 1950s. Francesco de Rogatis et al., eds., Morra de Sanctis: Tra cronaca e storia ad un anno del terremoto.

Born: 1882, Morra Irpina (present-day Morra De Sanctis), Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US c. 1910
Affiliation: Anarchist

An anarchist from his youth, Mariani became a prominent activist in Lynn, Massachusetts, and later Bridgeport, Connecticut, closely associated with Luigi Galleani’s Cronaca Sovversiva. Arrested May 30, 1914 in El Paso for a radical speech during a lecture tour, he was held for deportation but released. Between about 1917 and 1919 he moved to New York and became editor of Il Refrattario and coeditor of Il Diritto with Raffaele Schiavina. Arrested February 1920 under New York’s criminal anarchy law, he was deported June 29, 1920.

In Italy in 1921 he was sentenced to two years for avoiding the draft. In 1924 he was a subscriber to Errico Malatesta’s anarchist journal Pensiero e Voluntá, and two years later he married. Italian government reports noted “good conduct” and no political activity on his part, and he was removed from the list of subversives in 1932, but in 1936 authorities preventatively detained him while Mussolini visited Morra De Sanctis. Locally, Mariani was remembered as a militant antifascist who lectured peasants outside church and became “unanimously considered the civil and moral point of reference for an entire generation.” In 1946 he was elected to local government and led the creation of the town’s first middle school. He died in 1964.

Sources: INS file 54861/318; FBI file OG 8000-385978; CPC busta 3061; Un trentennio di attività anarchica (1915-1945); Harry Weinberger Papers, Yale University; Francesco de Rogatis et al., eds., Morra de Sanctis: Tra cronaca e storia ad un anno del terremoto.

Vakula Markovets

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

Deported (“voluntarily departed”) to Russia as a radical in September 26, 1920. No further information has been located.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G.

Sam Markowich

Born: 1899, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: wire puncher
Migration: Immigrated to US year unknown
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

An employee of the Spring Wire Company in Albion, Michigan, and member of the local branch of the Union of Russian Workers. Arrested November 7, 1919, in a local raid on the URW. Deported to Russia January 22, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54663/276; Jackson Evening News (Jackson MI), November 10, 1919; Detroit Free Press, January 11, 1920.

Ludwig Martens (born Ludwig Christian Alexander Karl Martens; a.k.a. Ludwig Karlovich Martens)

Ludwig Martens, 1920. Wikimedia Commons.

Born: 1874, Bachmut, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: German
Occupation: Engineer; diplomat
Migration: Immigrated to US 1916
Affiliation: Russian Soviet Government Bureau

The son of a German factory owner, he joined the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class while a university student in Saint Petersburg. Arrested in 1896 and deported to Germany in 1899, he joined the German Social Democratic Party, the emigrated to England.

In the United States he became vice president of a New York engineering firm and joined the editorial board of the Socialist Party’s Russian-language newspaper Novy Mir. 1919 transferred into the Communist Party of America. Returned to Russia in 1917. In January 1919 he was appointed the official representative of the Soviet government in the US and returned to New York, though the United States refused him recognition. That March he established the Russian Soviet Government Bureau to negotiate contracts with American firms. Ordered deported in 1920, he left by “voluntary departure” January 22, 1921.

In the Soviet Union he served in the Supreme Soviet of the National Economy and later headed diesel-engine research and development. He retired with honors in 1941 and died in 1948.

Sources: FBI file OG 8000-377098; Frederick C. Giffin, “The Martens Mission,” International Social Science Review 73, no. 3/4 (1998); Todd J. Pfannestiel, Rethinking the Red Scare: The Lusk Committee and New York’s Crusade Against Radicalism, 1919-1923; G. Evgenev and B. Shapik, Revoliutsioner, diplomat, uchenyi (o L.K. Martens); https://web.archive.org/web/20220808190823/http:/deadlypass.com/wp/martens-ludwig-karlovich/; New York Times, October 22, 1948.

John Martin

John Martin, 1918. National Archives.

Born: 1885, Hørsholm, Denmark
Nationality: Danish
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer; lumber worker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1910
Affiliation: Industrial Workers of the World

Joined the IWW in Seattle in 1916, later becoming branch secretary in Raymond, Washington and district secretary for the Lumber Workers’ Industrial Union No. 500. He helped lead the major 1917 lumber strike in the Northwest. A defendant in the federal IWW trial of 1917–1918, he was sentenced to ten years and a $30,000 fine. His sentence was later commuted on condition of deportation, and he was deported December 7, 1922.

Sources: INS file 54616/57; Industrial Workers of the World Collection, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University; Stephen M. Kohn, American Political Prisoners: Prosecutions under the Espionage and Sedition Acts.

Tomás Martínez (a.k.a. Thomas Martinez)

Tomás Martínez, 1918. National Archives.
Martínez shortly before his death in Mexico, 1921. America: Numero Unico, January 1922.

Born: 1893, Mexico
Nationality: Mexican
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Miner
Migration: Migrated to US c. 1915
Affiliation: IWW

Martínez participated in the Mexican Revolution beginning in 1910, then joined the IWW in Sonora and organized miners in Cananea. In 1914 he was expelled from Sonora as a supposed Huerta supporter, prompting a strike of 2,500–3,000 miners until he was allowed to return.

From 1915 to 1918 he was active in IWW and Partido Liberal Mexicano circles in Arizona and Los Angeles and wrote extensively for the IWW paper El Rebelde. Arrested in Miami, Arizona, in March 1918, he was sentenced under the Espionage Act to two years in Leavenworth and a $500 fine. He contracted tuberculosis in prison, and a botched appendicitis operation caused septicemia. After release he requested permission to depart for a country other than Mexico, fearing execution for his revolutionary past, but the request was denied. Deported in 1921, he was reportedly near death when sent across the border.

He never recovered and died in Guadalajara October 23, 1921. Fellow activists buried him beneath a headstone reading: ¡Nunca olvidamos! (“We never forget!”)

Sources: INS file 54412/47 (missing); FBI file OG 240868; Tucson Citizen, April 15, 1914; Harry Weinberger Papers, Yale University; Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society; Erie Labor Press, December 3, 1921; America: Numero Unico (Boston), January 1922.

Ivan Martinovsky (a.k.a. John Martinowski)

Born: 1887, Cherga, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1909
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined the URW branch in Rockville, Connecticut, September 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 54709/260; FBI file OG 253632.

Martzin to McPherson

Red Scare Deportees, , , , ,

Mary Martzin

Born: c. 1898, Minsk, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Housewife
Migration: Immigrated to US year unknown
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

An anarchist and URW member since 1918, Martzin was the wife of fellow deportee Vincent Martzin. She had two children—one aged two years and one six months old—when detained. She was deported to Russia February 26, 1921, taking the children with her.

Sources: INS file 55009/16.

Vincent Martzin

Born: 1893, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1914
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Martzin joined the URW in New York in 1916. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919. His pregnant common-law wife Mary and their infant child remained in the United States until Mary’s deportation in 1921.

Sources: INS file 54709/276; FBI file OG 378318.

Pietro Marucco

Pietro Marucco, c. 1918. Il Domani, April 1919.

Born: c. 1885, Maggiora, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Miner
Migration: Immigrated to US 1905
Affiliation: Anarchist

Joined a brother in Pennsylvania’s coal mines. Both brothers joined the anarchist Demolizione Group in Latrobe, Pennsylvania and supported Luigi Galleani’s Cronaca Sovversiva. Pietro was arrested May 20, 1918, and deported February 22, 1919.

Though reportedly in perfect health at departure, he died at sea March 8, 1919. The official cause was “pneumonia following influenza,” and he was buried at sea, though comrades believed he had been killed and vowed revenge.

Sources: INS file 54379/378; Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Papers, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives; Il Diritto, April 1919; Paul Avrich, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background; Antonio Senta, Luigi Galleani: The Most Dangerous Anarchist in America.

Kazis Maskalunas (a.k.a. Kasimir Maskaljunas; Kaziz Maskilunas)

Born: 1894, Kovno, Russia (present-day Kaunas, Lithuania)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Lithuanian
Occupation: Lumber worker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers; IWW

Maskalunas joined the URW in 1916 and the IWW in 1917. Arrested January 1918 in Seattle while inquiring at a US immigration office about a detained friend, he was held without hearing for three months and then transferred to jail in Ellensburg, Washington, where he was finally examined. He was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54379/101.

Bartolomeo Massullo

Bartolomeo Massullo, 1917. Knoxville Sentinel, December 12, 1917.

Born: 1881, Bagnoli, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Anarchist

Already an anarchist before emigrating, Massullo had a wife and three children in Italy. In Seattle he joined the Circolo di Studi Sociali, distributed Luigi Galleani’s Cronaca Sovversiva, and corresponded with the movement’s leading figures. Arrested November 1917, he provided names and addresses of Circolo members under interrogation. Deported July 10, 1919.

Italian authorities later reported no radical activity, though he secretly continued reading and fundraising for anarchist publications. In 1923 he emigrated to Canada, then illegally reentered the United States in 1929 and settled in Hayward, California, where he was no longer politically active.

Sources: INS file 54616/19; CPC busta 3143; Gianfranco Cresciani, “Exploitation, Emigration and Anarchism: the Case of Isidoro Alessandro Bertazzon,” Altreitalie no. 46 (January-June 2013); Giuseppe Galzerano, Andrea Salsedo: vita, galera e morte dell’editore anarchico “suicidato” dalla polizia americana; La Frusta, July 1, 1922; Ancestry.com.

Filimon Matera (a.k.a. William; Molorik)

Born: 1881, Chernihiv Oblast, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Ukrainian
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers; IWW

Active in revolutionary movements in Russia since 1905.

In the United States he joined both the URW and IWW in Seattle. His wife and children remained in Russia. Arrested January 1920, he was deported to Russia February 2, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54860/420.

Pavel Matesky (a.k.a. Paul)

Born: c. 1889, Mogiliev, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Weaver
Migration: Immigrated to US 1914
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers; IWW

Joined the URW in Waterbury, Connecticut in October 1917 and later became secretary of the Montville branch. Also an IWW member. He admitted being an anarchist and advocating the overthrow of governments by force and violence. Arrested January 19, 1920, he was deported to Russia February 26, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54861/11.

Elia Matuska

Born: 1894, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Machinist
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Matuska joined the Socialist Party and later became a charter member of Chicago’s Karl Marx Branch No. 4 of the Communist Party, serving as branch librarian. He was deported March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54859/4.

James Maundeloe

Born: 1895, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer; butcher
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined the Greensburg, Pennsylvania URW branch in 1919 but claimed he was expelled after briefly becoming a butcher-shop owner. He participated in the 1919 strike at the American Sheet and Tinplate Company. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/431.

Donald McPherson (a.k.a. Edgar Dunn)

Born: 1898, Leeds, England
Nationality: British
Ethnicity: Scottish
Occupation: Sailor
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: IWW

McPherson joined the IWW around 1915. Arrested September 9, 1918 in Seattle, he stated when asked about the Soviet government: “It is all right.” At a later immigration hearing he refused to answer questions. He was deported July 12, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54517/54.

Mechuk to Meskov

Red Scare Deportees, , , ,

Trofin Mechuk (or Nacsuk)

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

A member of Russian Branch No. 3 of the Communist Party of America in Detroit. Arrested during the second Palmer Raids in January 1920 and “voluntary departed” to Russia via Canada on October 16, 1920.

Sources: FBI file BS 202600-1378-1.

John Meehan (a.k.a. Jack)

Born: 1878, Ireland
Nationality: British
Ethnicity: Irish
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1893
Affiliation: IWW

An IWW member arrested in Everett, Washington, and deported December 6, 1918.

Joined the Merseyside branch of the IWW in Liverpool, then in the 1920s became active in Liverpool in the Communist Party of Great Britain, the Seamen’s Vigilance Committee, and the National Unemployed Workers’ Committee Movement.

Sources: Evening Express (Liverpool), September 14, 1921 and October 10, 1923; Liverpool Echo, September 29, 1921.

Peter Melcishik

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

Deported to Russia as a radical on January 22, 1921. No further information has been found.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G.

Gregory Melnikov (or Melikov; a.k.a. Kushneroff; Oleinik)

Born: 1896, Volhynia, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Janitor
Migration: Immigrated to US 1917
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Melnikov was arrested and beaten at the URW’s People’s House in New York City on November 11, 1919. He denied URW membership, but a confidential Department of Justice informant testified that he belonged to the organization. Deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/522.

Nikolai Melikov (a.k.a. Nick Melikoff; Melincoff; Melnikov)

Born: c. 1886, Odessa, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Painter
Migration: Migrated to US 1917 (via Canada)
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Belonged to URW branches in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver, and New York, and had previously been fined and imprisoned in Vancouver for serving as an officer of the organization. His wife Olga lived with him in New York. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he testified that he advocated overthrowing government “by mind, never by force…I am against every kind of government…I am opposed to every Government that is based on exploitation of one man by another.” Deported January 22, 1921 aboard the SS Stockholm.

By 1924 he was, like many Russian anarchists, a political prisoner in the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp.

Sources: INS file 54861/306; ational Popular Government League, To the American People: Report Upon the Illegal Practices of the United States Department of Justice; Der Syndikalist (Berlin), no. 17 [May] 1924.

Pavel Melnikov (a.k.a. Paul Melnicoff; Pawel Melnik)

Born: 1886, Kiev, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Slovenian
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Attended gymnasium until age eighteen and worked as a clerk before emigrating.

Around 1918 he joined the URW and became a national organizer and lecturer based in Seattle and San Francisco; he also taught English in the URW school in San Francisco. He was accused, without evidence, of involvement in bomb and assassination plots. Arrested April 23, 1917 in Trenton, New Jersey for allegedly making seditious remarks and again in March 1919 in San Francisco for vagrancy, he was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54616/123; Lazar Lipotkin, The Russian Anarchist Movement in North America.

Peter Williamson Merta (a.k.a. Peter Williamson)

Born: 1885, Finland
Nationality: Finnish
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Lumber worker; newspaper editor
Migration: Immigrated to US 1908 via Canada
Affiliation: IWW

Served as secretary-treasurer of the IWW’s Lumber Workers’ Union No. 500 in Raymond, Washington. His 1916 citizenship application was denied because of his IWW membership. Arrested February 1918 while posting IWW stickers, he served fifteen days and was then detained for deportation but released on bail. After relocating to Duluth he became an editor of the Finnish-language IWW paper Industrialisti. Arrested again in December 1918, his lawyer successfully argued he should be deported to Sweden rather than Finland, where anti-socialist Whites had recently won a civil war. His wife Elsie, also an IWW member, initially requested deportation with him but ultimately remained in the United States.

Sources: INS file 54397/134; FBI file OG 8000-382409; Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives, Communist and Anarchist Deportation Cases; Frances H. Early, A World Without War: How U.S. Feminists and Pacifists Resisted World War I.

Sam Meskov (a.k.a. Serpion; Meshkov; Miskoff; Meshoff; Moshoff)

Born: 1889, Saratov, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Miner
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: InWW

Joined the IWW in March 1919 and distributed its literature. Arrested in Van Voorhis, Pennsylvania, he was described by Commissioner-General of Immigration A. Caminetti as “apparently an ignorant harmless fellow, [but] the Bureau [of Immigration] is of the opinion that this type of man is often dangerous because of his ignorance and the fact that he can be easily imposed upon by the shrewder type of radical.” Deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/34; FBI file OG 284810.