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

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)

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)

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)

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

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.