Coacci to Dardzinski

Ferruccio Coacci

Born 1892, Ancona, Italy. Shoemaker. Migrated to US 1911. Anarchist militant associated with Luigi Galleani’s Cronaca Sovversiva. Wife and two children in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Arrested 1918. Subsequently suspected by police (but not most historians) of involvement in the robberies and murder for which Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested. Deported April 18, 1920; joined by family in Italy. According to Eugene Lyons, Coacci’s “yellow-haired wife wept for the vanished glories of life in a New England shoe town,” and “The man’s shelves were lined with brochures on the home manufacture of bombs and he professed himself a terrorist of the Galleani school.” October 1921 migrated to Argentina, where involved in anarchist “expropriations” and bombings, associated with Severino Di Giovanni. Arrested Buenos Aires 1930 with two other Italian anarchists in connection with robbery of a bus company.

INS file 54379/396; FBI file OG 387205; CPC busta 1382

See also: Eugene Lyons, Assignment in Utopia; Paul Avrich, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background

Umberto Colarossi

Born 1894, Carpineto, Italy. Bookkeeper. Migrated to US 1913. Became anarchist “After a few months I arrived in this country.” Associated with Luigi Galleani and Cronaca Sovversiva. In Mexico 1917-1919 to avoid US draft. Arrested Chicago, May 1919. Deported July 1920. September 1921, wrote letter to Italian government repenting and renouncing his pas radicalism. 1922 inducted into Italian military. In Italy became manager for the Singer Corporation. 1929 fascist government reported that “he has maintained a sincere attitude of sympathy towards the current regime, also showing loyalty to the current institutions, thus giving evident proof of repentance.”

INS file 54616/214; CPC busta 1400

See also: Paul Avrich, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background

Sam Colbus (aka Colbas, Colbun, Kolbun)

Born 1879, Russia. Minder. Migrated to US 1910. Wife and two children in Russia. Joined Union of Russian Workers 1919. Arrested during first Palmer Raids, November 1919, in Fairmont, West Virginia. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54709/592

Amy Colyer (née Withall)

Born 1881, London, England. Housewife. Joined the Independent Labour Party. 1915 married William Thomas Colyer. Migrated to US 1915 with husband. 1916 joined the Socialist Party of America in Boston, 1917 became branch secretary; joined the Communist Party of America in 1919; secretary of Boston CPA branch. Arrested with husband during second Palmer Raids, January 1920; arrested again in 1922 and detained at Deer Island Prison; formed a prisoners’ “soviet.” Told immigration agents, “As a communist I am opposed to all capitalist governments.” When asked “Do you understand the form of government that you are enjoying in the United States?” she replied, “I am not enjoying it, but I think I understand it.” Appealed their case to the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit but lost; both deported April 11, 1922. Joined the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Labour Party; then became active in the Independent Labour Party again.

INS file 54810/162

See also: https://books.google.com/books?id=jUPJAl4AAYcC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false; Deirdre M. Moloney, National Insecurities: Immigrants and U.S. Deportation Policy since 1882

William Thomas Colyer (aka Tom Colyer)

Born 1883, London, England. Civil servant. Opposed the First World War; joined the Independent Labour Party. Migrated to US 1915 with his new wife, Amy Colyer. 1916 joined the Socialist Party of America in Boston; became a leading figure in the Massachusetts branch of the SPA, which he helped transfer into the Communist Party of America 1919. Wrote for several radical publications, and on the editorial staff of The Communist. Made a declaration of intent to naturalize in 1916, but abandoned plans to become a US citizen “Because of the treatment I have received and because I have discovered that the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence and the historic speeches of Lincoln are interpreted entirely different by the authorities from any way which I could possibly imagine by reading those documents.” Arrested with Amy during second Palmer Raids, January 1920; arrested again in 1922 and detained at Deer Island Prison; formed a prisoners’ “soviet.” Appealed their case to the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit but lost; both deported April 11, 1922. Later that year he published a scathing critique of the US titled Americanism: A World Menace. Joined the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Labour Party. 1926 became secretary of the Greater London Left-Wing Movement (an organization created to expand Communist influence within the Labour Party), then secretary of the National Left-Wing Movement, but resigned from the CPGB around this same time and forced to resign from the NLWM after less than a year for resisting CPGB control of the organization. Became chair of the Kent Federation of Labour Parties; ran unsuccessfully for Parliament in 1931 and 1935 as a Labour Party candidate. 1942 resigned from Labour Party and rejoined the Independent Labour Party, for which he eventually served on the National Administrative Council. Died 1956.

INS file 54810/209

See also: https://books.google.com/books?id=jUPJAl4AAYcC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Colyer; Lawrence Parker, Communists and Labour: The National Left-Wing Movement, 1925-1929

James Cully (Jimmy; Culley)

Born Ireland, c.1870. Laborer. IWW member; led group of 200 draft resisters in Rockford, Illinois, where all were arrested and 112 convicted. Sentenced to two years for conspiracy to interfere with military conscription. Deported to England June 21, 1919. Continued as street speaker for the Merseyside IWW branch in Liverpool.

See also Gerald E. Shenk, “Work or Fight!”: Race, Gender, and the Draft in World War One; Socialist Review (London), February 1, 1959

George Cyzyk (Cysyk, Cyzik, Chizhik, aka Paul Gigalko; Paul Zygaloff)

Born 1896, Vilnius, Russia (present-day Lithuania). Laborer. Migrated to US 1912. Member of and lecturer for Union of Russian Workers. Arrested Cleveland, February 1918, then New York during first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Anarchist literature, including copies The Anarchist Soviet Bulletin, found in his home. Suspected involvement in a counterfeiting scheme. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54379/125; FBI file OG 375385

Jan Dalkovksy (Ян Далковский; Dalkowsky)

Born 1896, Plotsk Governate, Russia (present-day Poland). Polish. Laborer. Migrated to US 1913. Joined Polish Local No. 28 of Socialist Party of America in Erie, Pennsylvania in January 1918; transferred into Communist Party in 1919. Also a member of the IWW. Arrested January 1920. Deported to Poland, February 26, 1921.

INS file 54809/280

Ivan Danilovich (Иван Данилович, John Danilovich)

Born 1895, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus). Migrated to US 1914. Wife in Russia. Member of the Union of Russian Workers in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Arrested during first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown

INS file 54709/390; FBI file OG 388677

John Dardzinski

Born c.1905, Russia. Polish. Migrated to US 1912; shade maker. Member of the Communist Party. Arrested in Hamtramck, Michigan, January 1920. Deported March 18, 1921.

INS file 54859/574

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