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.
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.
Born: 1887, Chernihiv Oblast, Russia (present-day Ukraine) Nationality: Russian Ethnicity: Occupation: Steelworker Migration: Immigrated to US 1913 Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers
His wife remained in Russia when he emigrated. Worked for Republic Iron and Steel and was on strike at the time of his arrest. Around 1919 he joined the Union of Russian Workers in Youngstown, Ohio. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported on the Buford December 21, 1919.
An IWW member deported October 31, 1919. No further information has been found.
Sources: One Big Union Monthly, March 1920.
John C. Ruggieri (a.k.a. John C. Rogers)
Born: 1892, Rosario, Argentina Nationality: Argentine Ethnicity: Italian Occupation: Bootblack; laborer Migration: Immigrated to US 1906 Affiliation: IWW
Born in Argentina to Italian parents.
Immigrated to the U.S. in 1906 at the age of 14. Arrested in a raid on a San Francisco IWW hall in 1918, he denied IWW membership but acknowledged agreeing with the organization’s philosophy. On August 21, 1918, he was permitted to “reship foreign” as a sailor to Chile rather be formally deported.
Sources: INS file 54235/58.
Boris Trofinov Rusak (a.k.a. Boris Tropinav or Tropinow)
Born: c. 1895, Kryvičy, Russia (present-day Belarus) Nationality: Russian Ethnicity: Occupation: Laborer Migration: Immigrated to US 1913 Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers
Married his wife Efrosnia in 1914 after arriving in the U.S. the previous year, and their daughter Nadia was born in 1917. In February 1919 he joined the Union of Russian Workers in Norwich, Connecticut. Arrested February 1920, he was deported to Russia January 22, 1921.
Sources: INS file 54861/278.
Ivan Kalenikov Rusak (a.k.a. John Rusak)
Born: c. 1891, Kryvičy, Russia (present-day Belarus) Nationality: Russian Ethnicity: Occupation: Textile worker Migration: Immigrated to US 1913 Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers
He was employed at Yantic Woolen Mills and belonged to the Norwich, Connecticut branch of the Union of Russian Workers. Arrested January 20, 1920, in Yantic, he was deported January 22, 1921, aboard the SS Stockholm.
Sources: INS file 54861/56.
Giuseppe Russo (a.k.a. Joe Russo; L’Unico; Augustus Antonio Leon)
Joe Russo, 1921. Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Italy.
Born: 1873, either on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean or in Chiaravelle, Italy Nationality: Italian Ethnicity: Occupation: Miner; metalworker Migration: Immigrated to US 1897 Affiliation: Anarchist
An “anarchist without adjectives” who claimed to have been born at sea and therefore nationless, he was influenced by Max Stirner and Luigi Galleani and contributed to Cronaca Sovversiva. He lived in Tunisia, where he was imprisoned, and reportedly traveled to Asia Minor and the Balkans.
Immigrating to the United States in 1896. In 1911 he briefly joined the military forces of the Partido Liberal Mexicano in Tijuana but soon became disillusioned with the Mexican Revolution and returned to the U.S. Arrested in Lovelock, Nevada, he was deported to Italy October 1921.
He remained active in radical politics in Italy, where he was repeatedly arrested for antifascist activity. He helped smuggle antifascists out of Italy and recruited volunteers for the Spanish Civil War. Arrested again in 1937, he was confined to Ponza and Tremiti. Freed in 1943, he distributed the underground anarchist paper Era Nuova in Turin. He died in 1957.
Sources: CPC busta 4499; Maurizio Antonioli et al., eds., Dizionario biografico degli anarchici italiani.
Rustemann (first name unknown)
Born: Nationality: German Ethnicity: Occupation: Migration: Affiliation: IWW
An IWW member who was interned as an “aline enemy” at Fort Douglas, Utah, and later “voluntarily departed” to Germany. No further information has been found.
Sources: One Big Union Monthly, March 1920.
Daniel Ryzhukov (or Ryzoukov; Ryoukov; a.k.a. Rice; Reisch)
Born: 1885, Tolkova (Grodno), Russia Nationality: Russian Ethnicity: Occupation: Laborer Migration: Immigrated to US 1909 Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers
In 1912 he married fellow anarchist Anastasia Ryzhukova in Newark. He joined the Union of Russian Workers there in 1919. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he declared his distrust of all governments, including that of the United States. He was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919, while his wife and child remained in Newark.
In 1921 he signed a manifesto of the Union of Russian Anarchist Workers Repatriated from America, which critically supported the Bolshevik regime as a temporary necessity. His wife meanwhile became severely ill and died in Newark in 1924.
Sources: INS file 54709/340; Amerikanskiye Izvestiya, August 6, 1924 (thanks to Malcolm Archibald); Victor Serge, Anarchists Never Surrender: Essays, Polemics, and Correspondence on Anarchism, 1908–1938.
Deported to Russia as a radical on February 1, 1921. No further information has been found.
Sources: INS file 54325/36G.
Cesare Saccaro (a.k.a. Caesar; Frank)
Cesare Saccaro, 1937. Border Cities Star, April 5, 1937.
Born: 1885, Arsiè, Italy Nationality: Italian Ethnicity: Occupation: Miner Migration: Immigrated to US 1903 Affiliation: Anarchist
In Italy he displayed “good moral conduct,” according to the Italian government, and from ages 11-18 enrolled in “a school in Verona to prepare for a monastic life.”
In 1903 he joined his father Antonio in Spring Valley, Illinois, to work in the mines and became an anarchist around 1910, sending money to anarchist newspapers in Italy. He returned to Italy in 1913 to marry Giovanna Faoro; the couple then settled again in Spring Valley, where they had a daughter in 1915. He was deported to Italy March 16, 1921.
Givoanna rejoined him in Italy, where she gave birth a son in Arsiè. In 1923 Cesare emigrated to Canada, “under threatening fascist persecutions.” His family rejoined him in Windsor, where another son was born around 1927. There he helped organize the antifascist Circolo di Coltura Operaia in 1933 and wrote for the Toronto antifascist paper Il Lavoratore. In 1936 he also published an antifascist letter in the Border Cities Star. Italian authorities still considered him an active antifascist and radical in 1945. He later illegally resettled with his family in the United States and died in Dearborn, Michigan, on May 27, 1979.
Sources: INS file 54885/17; FBI file OG 379633; CPC busta 4513; Ancestry.com.
Born: 1883, Kilmarnock, Scotland Nationality: British Ethnicity: Scottish Occupation: Machinist; union organizer Migration: Immigrated to Canada 1903; then to US 1904 Affiliation: IWW
Originally a member of the International Association of Machinists, he was radicalized and joined the Industrial Workers of the World in 1911, becoming a prominent speaker and organizer reportedly arrested about 160 times. Among these arrests was his detention during the 1916 strike on the Mesabi Iron Range on murder charges that were later dropped. A defendant in the federal IWW trial of 1917–1918, he was sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment and a $20,000 fine. His sentence was commuted in 1923 on condition of deportation, and he was deported to England in April of that year.
That August he emigrated to Canada and resumed organizing for the IWW in the Vancouver area, especially among miners. Canadian authorities attempted to deport him in 1924 using evidence supplied by US immigration officials, but the case was dropped. In 1931 he joined the Communist Party of Canada. He became an organizer for the party’s Mine Workers’ Union of Canada and was arrested in connection with the violent Estevan strike of October 1931, receiving a one-year sentence that damaged his health. Around 1938 he became chairman of the party in Toronto and of its newspaper The Clarion. When the party was outlawed in 1940, Scarlett lived underground and clandestinely entered the United States, where he remained illegally until his death in 1941.
Sources: INS file 54616/49; Industrial Workers of the World Collection, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University; Daily Worker, October 2, 1931; Donald H. Avery, “British-Born ‘Radicals’ in North America, 1900-1941: The Case of Sam Scarlett,” Canadian Ethnic Studies/Etudes Ethniques Au Canada 10, no. 2 (1978); Barbara Ann Roberts, Whence They Came: Deportation from Canada, 1900-1935.
Alexander Schatz (or Shatz; a.k.a. Harry)
Born: 1884, Kiev, Russia (present-day Ukraine) Nationality: Ethnicity: Occupation: Printer Migration: Immigrated to US 1909 Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers
Around 1917 he joined Branch No. 1 of the Union of Russian Workers in New York. A member of the editorial board of Khleb i Volia and brother of fellow URW member Boris Schatz, he was arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919. During questioning he declared, “I consider myself a citizen and a laborer wherever I work and wherever I live.” He was deported aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919, leaving behind his wife and stepchild in the U.S.
Sources: INS file 54709/128.
Boris Schatz (or Shatz)
Born: 1894, Russia (probably in present-day Ukraine) Nationality: Ethnicity: Occupation: Photographer Migration: Immigrated to US 1911 Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers
In 1917 he joined Branch No. 1 of the Union of Russian Workers in New York City. He served on the editorial board of the organization’s newspaper Khleb i Volia and was the brother of fellow member and deportee Alexander Schatz. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, the stress of his detention reportedly caused his wife Elsie to miscarry. He was deported aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919, while Elsie remained in New York.
Sources: INS file 54709/278; FBI file OG 378924; Constantine M. Panunzio, The Deportation Cases of 1919-1920.
John Carl Schedel
John Carl Schedel, 1920. Fort Wayne Sentinel, September 1, 1920.
Born: 1885, Munich, Germany Nationality: German Ethnicity: Occupation: Piano polisher Migration: Immigrated to US 1903 Affiliation: Communist Party of America
In August 1914 he reportedly registered with the German consulate in Cincinnati to join the German Army, yet he simultaneously became active in American radical politics, serving as county secretary of the Socialist Party of America in Fort Wayne, Indiana and later joining the Communist Party of America. Described as “a very radical socialist ” who “and “during the war caused considerable trouble at the Packard Piano Company where he his employed,” he was arrested in 1920 for declaring he would rather live in Russia “where all is freedom” than in the United States. Deported May 22, 1920, leaving behind a pregnant wife and four American-born children; shortly afterward their newborn died and his wife was temporarily declared insane.
In Germany he reportedly joined the merchant marine and then traveled to Russia, where he claimed to have joined the Red Army and worked as an interpreter near Soviet leaders. After about a year he returned to Germany disillusioned with Soviet rule. In May 1921 he stowed away from Rotterdam to New York but was ordered deported again; disembarking in England, he was jailed for a month and undertook a hunger strike. After several failed attempts he reentered the United States in 1924 via Mexico. Arrested in Chicago for unlawful entry, he was defended by the American Civil Liberties Union and pursued multiple appeals until his deportation warrant was dropped. He died in Chicago in November 1968.
Sources: FBI file OG 341493; Fort Wayne Sentinel, September 1, 1920; Garrett Clipper (Garrett, IN), July 4, 1921; American Civil Liberties Union, Annual Report, 1924; Indianapolis Star, January 21, 1925; Chicago Tribune, November 7, 1968.
Nathan Schechter (or Shechter; Shacter)
Born: 1884, Minsk region, Russia (present-day Belarus) Nationality: Russian Ethnicity: Jewish Occupation: Migration: Immigrated to US 1913 Affiliation: Communist Party of America
His wife remained in Russia when he emigrated to the United States in 1913. In September 1919 he joined Russian Branch No. 5 of the Communist Party of America in New York. Arrested in December 1919 for “criminal anarchy” and released on bail, he was arrested again during the second Palmer Raids in January 1920. He told an immigration inspector “I consider the entire capitalist system to be rotten, and it ought to be abolished,” and protested being deported as a criminal, insisting he could pay his own passage if forced to leave. After four months’ detention on Ellis Island he became a leader of protests among detained radicals and was placed in a separate cell, prompting others to threaten a hunger strike. He was deported to Russia on February 1, 1921.
Sources: INS file 54811/424.
Raffaele Schiavina (a.k.a. Max Sartin; Melchior Steele; Bruno)
Raffaele Schiavina, 1920s. Archives Nationales, France.
Born: 1895, San Carlo, Ferrara, Italy Nationality: Italian Ethnicity: Occupation: Bookkeeper Migration: Immigrated to US 1913 Affiliation: Anarchist
Attended an Italian business school until age nineteen and initially a socialist.
Emigrated to the United States in 1913 and became an anarchist the following year. In 1916 he became bookkeeper for Luigi Galleani’s newspaper Cronaca Sovversiva in Lynn, becoming a close associate and contributor. Arrested in 1916 for inciting to riot but acquitted, he was arrested again in 1918 for refusing draft registration and sentenced to one year in the Middlesex County House of Correction. Upon release in March 1919 he was detained for deportation and described by a federal judge as “one of the most dangerous men with whom he has had to deal.” Deported to Italy June 24, 1919, with Galleani and other associates.
Back in Italy he was briefly jailed for draft evasion, then settled in Turin, where he helped revive Cronaca Sovversiva (January–October 1920) until it was suppressed. Arrested in 1921 alongside several Communists and falsely accused of leading Turin’s paramilitary Arditi del Popolo sections, but all defendants were acquitted. In March 1923 he emigrated illegally to France; in Paris he published the anarchist newspapers Il Monito and La Difesa per Sacco e Vanzetti.
He returned clandestinely to the United States in 1928 under various pseudonyms and edited the anarchist paper L’Adunata dei Refrattari in New York and New Jersey from 1928 until 1971. He died in Salt Lake City in 1987.
Sources: INS file 54391/81; CPC busta 4690; Max Sartin, “Breve autobiografia,” Bollettino Archivio G. Pinelli, no. 13 (August 1999); Paul Avrich, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background; Maurizio Antonioli et al., Dizionario biografico degli anarchici italiani.
Andrew Schkurski (or Schkursky; Shkursky)
Born: 1896, Minsk, Russia (present-day Belarus) Nationality: Russian Ethnicity: Occupation: Crane operator Migration: Immigrated to US 1914 Affiliation: Communist Party of America
Became a member of the Russian Branch No. 1 of the Communist Party in Milwaukee, serving as its delegate to the party’s City Central Committee. Deported to Russia February 26, 1921.
Sources: INS file 54809/196.
Adolph Schnabel
Adolph Schnabel, 1919. National Archives.
Born: 1882, Kharkiv, Russia (present-day Ukraine) Nationality: Russian Ethnicity: German Occupation: Machinist; sailor Migration: Immigrated to US 1907 Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers
The child of German immigrants to Russia, he participated in socialist organizations in Ukraine during the Russian Revolution of 1905–1907 before emigrating to the United States in 1907.
Married Helena Ring in Philadelphia in 1913 and cofounded the Union of Russian Workers the following year, editing several of its newspapers and serving as national secretary prior to Peter Bianki. Arrested in Chicago in June 1917 for allegedly circulating anti-draft literature, the charge was dismissed for lack of evidence. He was later arrested in Duquesne, Pennsylvania for holding a street meeting without a permit. After recovering from influenza in 1919 he was arrested again in New York for deportation; released on bail, he reportedly traveled through New York and New Jersey organizing anarchist clubs. Returned to detention on Ellis Island, he participated in a hunger strike protesting conditions and was deported aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919.
His wife petitioned to be deported as well, though whether she was is unclear. In Russia Schnabel was active in anarchist organizations in Ukraine before leaving the movement; in 1931 he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Arrested in Moscow during the purges in 1937 as an alleged German spy, he was shot in a mass execution.
Born: 1882, Baden, Germany Nationality: German Ethnicity: Occupation: Laborer; sailor Migration: Immigrated to US 1910 Affiliation: IWW
George Schwartzwalder migrated repeatedly across Europe in his youth, living in Austria, Russia, and Italy before returning to Germany, where he served three years in the army and later worked as a sailor between Germany and Argentina.
Immigrated to the United States in 1910 and lived as a migrant laborer. Although sympathetic to the Industrial Workers of the World since 1915, he formally joined the organization only in December 1918 in Kansas City. He was also a personal friend of Joe Hill. Classified as an “enemy alien” during World War I, he was arrested in Bartlesville in February 1919 and interrogated for five hours before being released, then arrested again the following month in Muskogee, Oklahoma, where he lost thirty to forty pounds in unsanitary jail conditions. He told officials he hated the Kaiser because “he represented the capitalist class in Germany” and declared “he would not fight for any country, that he felt no patriotism for any country.” Deported to Germany January 7, 1920.
Sources: INS file 54616/107; FBI files OG 211405 and 346328.
Stepan Schwetz (a.k.a. Stephen; Shvets; Shoetz)
Schwetz’s Communist Party membership card. National Archives.
Born: c. 1885, Russia Nationality: Russian Ethnicity: . Occupation: Tailor Migration: Immigrated to US 1912 Affiliation: Communist Party of America
Jumped ship in the United States in 1913 from the steamship Czar. Settling in Baltimore, he married and joined the Russian Branch of the Socialist Party before transferring into the Communist Party of America. Deported to Russia February 1, 1921.
Sources: INS file 54810/337.
George Sechke (or Sechko)
Born: Russia Nationality: Russian Ethnicity: Occupation: Migration: Affiliation: Communist Party of America
A member of the Communist Party of America in New York City. He was deported to Russia December 23, 1920. No further information has been located.
Sources: INS file 54325/36G; Minneapolis Star, December 27, 1920.
Vasily Sedov (a.k.a. Vasil Sedoff)
Born: 1885, Russia Nationality: Russian Ethnicity: . Occupation: Migration: Immigrated to US 1913 Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers
Already a radical in Russia before emigrating.
His wife and child remained in Russia when he emigrated. He became a member of the Union of Russian Workers in Seattle. Deported to Russia January 22, 1921.
Sources: INS file 54860/408; FBI file OG 386687.
Mike Seegan (a.k.a. Semon; Michael Seegunoff)
Born: 1889, Orlovo, Russia Nationality: Russian Ethnicity: Occupation: Carpenter; machinist; upholsterer Migration: Immigrated to US 1913 Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers
Joined the Union of Russian Workers in New York City in 1919. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919.
Sources: INS file 54709/113.
Feodor Semenchuk (a.k.a. Frank)
Born: 1895, Grodno Governorate, Russia (present-day Belarus) Nationality: Russian Ethnicity: . Occupation: Factory worker Migration: Immigrated to US 1913 Affiliation: Communist Party of America
Became secretary of Russian Branch No. 6 of the Communist Party in Argo. Arrested in Chicago in January 1920, he was deported to Russia March 18, 1921.
Sources: INS file 54860/596; FBI file OG 375725.
Andy Sereck (a.k.a. Andrew; Sirik; Savick)
Born: 1885, Vilna Governorate, Russia Nationality: Russian Ethnicity: Occupation: Metalworker Migration: Immigrated to Canada 1913; then to US 1916 Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers (alleged)
Emigrated first to Canada in 1913 and then to the United States in 1916, leaving a wife and child in Russia. Authorities claimed he admitted joining the Union of Russian Workers in Youngstown in August 1919, though he later denied this. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported on the basis of his stated belief in “sabotage” abroad on the Buford on December 21, 1919.
Sources: INS file 54709/185.
Alexander Serevetnik
Born: 1892, “Village of Rodzehov,” Russia Nationality: Russian Ethnicity: Occupation: Laborer Migration: Immigrated to US 1913 Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers
Joined the Union of Russian Workers branch in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919.
Sources: INS file 54709/411.
Ivan Sergeyenko (a.k.a. John)
Born: 1888, Russia Nationality: Russian Ethnicity: Occupation: Laborer Migration: Immigrated to US 1913 Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers
His wife remained in Russia when he emigrated. Joined the Union of Russian Workers branch in Donora, Pennsylvania. Allegedly betrayed by former URW member Stefan Zhuk, after Zhuk was arrested in Donora for stealing chickens. (Neither his INS file nor his FBI file confirm this, although he was identified by an undercover Bureau of Investigation agent, Michael Yankovitch.) Found in possession of URW literature when arrested, he was allegedly “beaten half to death” by police. Convicted under Pennsylvania’s sedition law, he was then deported to Russia February 26, 1921.
Sources: INS file 54885/31; FBI file OG 389087; Volna (New York), May 1921 (with thanks to Malcolm Archibald).
Evdokin Sergeychik
Born: 1896, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus) Nationality: Russian Ethnicity: Occupation: Laborer Migration: Immigrated to US 1913 Affiliation: Communist Party of America
Became a member, and later branch secretary, of the Socialist Party in Pittsburgh before transferring into the Communist Party of America. He was deported to Russia February 26, 1921.
Sources: INS file 54861/301.
Salvatore Sergi
Born: 1890, Melito di Porto Salvo, Italy Nationality: Italian Ethnicity: Occupation: Tailor; barber Migration: Immigrated to US 1912 Affiliation: Anarchist
Became an anarchist after immigrating to the U.S. in 1912, subscribing to Luigi Galleani’s Cronaca Sovversiva. He opened his own barbershop in Trenton and was arrested in May 1918. Describing himself as a “philosophical anarchist,” he insisted he opposed violence and believed in “educating the people through teaching and preaching and by schools by not by violence.” Deported to Italy June 14, 1919.
Italian authorities recorded no political activity by him through 1936. In 1937 he was jailed for alleged involvement in the murder of a man named Vincenzo Mallamo. In 1968 he donated funds to the anarchist magazine Volontà.
Born 1884, Genoa, Italy. Laborer; carpenter. Migrated to US 1905. Joined brother Giovanni in the US, who paid for his passage and his mother’s. Worked his way up from a pick-and-shovel worker to cabinetmaker; financially supported his mother, brother, sister, brother-in-law, and thirteen nieces and nephews. A close associate of Luigi Galleani, a distributor of anarchist literature, and and the secretary and treasurer of the anarchist Gruppo Autonomo in East Boston. Described by the US government as “one of the leading anarchists in New England” and by Italian authorities as “the deus ex machina of many meetings and conferences held among the subversives” of East Boston. Arrested May 17, 1918, for agitating against the military draft; “it required two automobiles to transport to the Federal Building the immense amount of literature and correspondence that was found in the premises” of his home. Deported June 24, 1919, with Galleani and others.
Under surveillance by the Italian government, which noted that he maintained his anarchist ideas but recorded no radical activities on his part. Died 1937 in Genoa.
INS file 54241/22; CPC busta 4857
Rasmus Jacobson Solen (Robert Solen)
Born Manger, Norway in 1885. Migrated to US 1904. Lumber worker. IWW member since June 1917. December 1917 sentenced to one year and a day in McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary for alleged conspiracy “interfering with fire fighters on Government timber lands” while organizing a strike of timber workers in Clallam County, Washington in July 1917. Deported to Norway October 31, 1918 on charges of being “likely to become a public charge,” of entering the US without inspection, and of being convicted of a crime of “moral turpitude.”
INS file 54554/39
See also: Tacoma Daily Ledger, July 26, 1917; Spokesman-Review (Spokane), December 25, 1917
Peter Solocha (Penataley; Solocho)
Born 1893, Chernigov, Russia (present-day Ukraine). Autoworker. Migrated to US 1913. Joined the Union of Russian Workers branch in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in early 1919. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Deported January 22, 1921.
INS file 54707/243
Fedor Solenki (Федор Соленки; Fred; Solonika)
Born 1896, Volodymyr-Volynsky, Russia (present-day Ukraine). Ukrainian. Laborer. Migrated to US circa 1912. Joined the Union of Russian Workers in New London, Connecticut circa 1917. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Claims to be illiterate, but in possession of radical literature. According to the Immigration Inspector, “even though his illiteracy or stupidity [should] be taken into consideration, I believe he is very dangerous, because his evidence shows he is easily led, as he admits attempting to secure members for the Union of Russian Workers.” Deported on the Buford.
INS file 54709/241; FBI file OG 374549
Mike Ivanovich Solovieve (Mike Solovev)
Born c.1890 Pinsk, Russia (present-day Belarus). Migrated to Canada 1913, then to US December 1919. Wife in Russia. Laborer. Anarchist. Arrest in Toledo, Ohio, January 1920 after arguing with a Russian Communist speaker at a meeting. At his immigration hearing he declared: “I am a citizen of no country now. I have no country. Well, I am a citizen of Russia because I was born there.” Deported to Russia, January 22, 1921.
INS file 54860/926
Karl W. Sonntag (aka John Fensky)
Song lyrics written by Sonntag during an IWW strike at Potlatch Lumber Company in Potlatch, Idaho, 1917 Cartoon drawn by Sonntag
Born 1886, Breslau, Germany (present-day Wrocław, Poland). Polish. Served three years in the German navy. Laborer; machinist. Migrated to US 1908 (deserted ship in Galvaston, Texas). Sonntag was a skilled metalworker who patented a “tire-testing machine” (US patent no. 1068180) in 1913. Joined the IWW in Kansas City, Missouri, 1914; found work as a lumber worker and active in IWW strikes, for which he wrote radical songs. 1917 imprisoned for three months in Idaho for “criminal syndicalism” following his participation in a lumber strike at the Potlatch Lumber Company. Arrested in Walla Walla, Washington, February 8, 1918, after reported by the “Minute Men of Seattle” for unlawfully working within a federally-mandated “prohibited zone” along the waterfront from which Germans and other “enemy aliens” were barred. (Sonntag had secured employment by using the name “John Fesky” and claiming to be Austrian.) Upon discovery of his IWW membership, he was also charged with advocating the unlawful destruction of property, but then interned at Fort Douglas in Utah as an “enemy alien.” There he spent eight months in the disciplinary barracks for singing IWW songs, on what he described as a diet of “bread and water, and finally two leaden bullets in the leg.” Released on the condition that he “voluntarily depart” to Germany, which he did on June 23, 1919.
He expected “to be busy in the so-called German revolution” upon his return, but he “found that I again got badly fooled,” and he subsequently made his way to Soviet Russia. There he found employment at the Felser & Co. factory in Nizhny Novgorod, where his workday was “sixteen hours and more.” After IWW leader William D. Haywood jumped his bail and fled to Russia in 1921, Sonntag, who had known Haywood in the United States, wrote him a letter of welcome, advising, “if this country needs anything it’s organizers and I think you’ll have a hell of a lot of work to do here…Let’s all do your best to make a paradise for workers out of this country.” No further information found.
INS file 54379/116
See also: Lewis S. Gannett, “Americans in Russia,” The Nation, August 17, 1921
Emilio Souto García (Emilio Suoto)
Born Corunna, Spain in 1882. Sailor, carpenter, laborer. An “old time militant of the Spanish labor movement” and twice arrested during strikes in Spain and secretary of the Carpenter’s Union. Wife, Estrella Morales, and five children in Spain. Immigrated to the US in 1916 (jumped ship). Anarchist and IWW member. Arrested in Philadelphia on February 16, 1919 as “one of 11 Spaniards and Mexicans suspected of being radicals and one of 5 later arrested by immigration officials…While admitting that he has friends who are anarchists and socialists, a careful survey of the evidence fails to show that he has in any way been active as a propagandist. He is certified as being afflicted with gonorrhea, a loathsome contagious disease.” He appealed to expedite his deportation, “as my family is without any help in Spain and anxiously waiting for me.” Deportation warrant issued on the basis of being “likely to become a public charge” and entering without inspection. “Reshipped foreign” to Spain September 20, 1919, on the SS Leonora.
INS files 54648/28 and 54648/29
See: New Solidarity, February 14, 1920
Charles Spangberg
Spangberg’s IWW membership card
Born 1887, Sweden. Lumber worker. Migrated to US 1905. Joined the IWW in February 1917. Arrested in Spokane, Washington, April 6, 1918. Deported November 4, 1918. January 1919 wrote to Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson inquiring why he had been deported and when he could be allowed to return to the US; there is no record of a reply being sent.
INS file 54379/235
Andrew Jacob Spisak (aka A.J. Smith)
May Day flier Spisak was posting when arrested
Born 1886, Rozgony, Austria-Hungary (present-day Rozhanovce, Slovakia). Metalworker; sign painter. Migrated to US 1904. 1912 lost his left eye and suffered a skull fracture from a workplace accident. Communist Party of America. Braddock, Pennsylvania. Arrested April 29, 1921 by members of the Edgar Thomson Steel Company’s private police force for posting radical May Day leaflets published by the United Communist Party; convicted of violating Pennsylvania’s sedition law, then turned over to immigration authorities. Released November 1922; detained again June 1923 and held on Ellis Island for seventeen months while awaiting a passport from Czechoslovakia, which was initially denied on the grounds that he had resided outside of Czechoslovakian territory for more than ten years and therefore lost his citizenship. Deported to Czechoslovakia, October 24, 1924.
Born 1882, Brest-Litovsk, Russia (present-day Brest, Belarus). Miner, laborer. Migrated to US 1909. 1917 became secretary of the Akron, Ohio branch of the Union of Russian Workers. Arrested November 20, 1917, for leading an effort to organize a strike of Russian rubber workers, but released on bail. Relocated to New York, where he helped edit the URW’s newspaper Khleb i Volia. Arrested again January 1919 and detained on Ellis Island. Deported on the Buford.
INS file 54248/20; FBI file OG 372181
Jacob Stl_______uk [last name partially illegible]
His name as it appears in the documents
Deported to Russia, December 11, 1920. No further information found.
Included on list of deported radicals in INS file 54325/36G
Gordey Stolatchuk (Gordic)
Born 1890, Volhynia, Russia (probably in present-day Poland). Steelworker. Migrated to Canada 1913; from there migrated to US 1916. Wife and child in Russia. Joined the Union of Russian Workers branch in Youngstown, Ohio, early 1919. Arrested August 19, 1919; released on bail. Arrested again during the first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Deported on the Buford.
INS file 54709/181; FBI file OG 377413
Tony Stolke
German IWW member. Interned at Fort Douglas, Utah, as an “enemy alien.” Deported September 25, 1919.
One Big Union Monthly, December 1919 and March 1920; Ancestry.com
Karl Strelchuk (Карл Стрелчук; Carl; Strelchuck; Strailchuk)
Born 1897, Russia. Laborer. Migrated to US 1913. Lived in Forth Worth, Texas, Peublo, Colorado, and Chicago before settling in Milwaukee. Secretary of Russian Branch No. 1 of the Communist Party in Milwaukee. Arrested during the second Palmer Raids, January 2, 1920. Deported January 22, 1921.
INS file 54809/203, FBI file OG 378457
Nick Sudnick (Zudnik)
Born Voloka, Vilnius region, Russia (present-day Belarus or Lithuania), 1900. Polish. Migrated to US 1909. Laborer. Joined the Communist Party of America in September 1919. Arrested in Detroit January 1920. Detained at Fort Wayne. Deported to Russia March 18, 1921.
INS file 54860/733
David Sukhov (Давид Сухов; Suchov; Suhov)
Born 1873, Volynskyi, Russia (present-day Ukraine). Laborer. Migrated to US 1913. Wife in Russia. August 1919 joined the Union of Russian Workers. Hartford, Connecticut. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Deported on the Buford.
INS file 54709/394
Estafy Sulavka (Эстафий Сулавка; Istafy; Sulawka; aka E. Dstafy)
Born 1895, Bereza, Russia (present-day Poland). Laborer. Migrated to the US 1914. Joined the Union of Russian Workers branch in Ansonia, Connecticut. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Deported on the Buford.
Giuseppantonio Supino (Giuseppe Supino; aka Joe Spino)
Born 1892, Provvidenti, Italy. Laborer. Migrated to US 1908; frequently moved between US and Canada as migrant worker. 1915 joined the IWW in North Dakota. Arrested August 2, 1919 in Seattle. Deported December 20, 1919. Subsequent activities unknown.
INS file 54700/28
Michael Surgatanoff (Surgatunoff)
Born c.1893, Tomsk, Russia. Came to the US as a sailor c.1916. Laborer. Member of the Union of Russian Workers in New York. Common-law wife and American-born child in New York. Arrested November 1919 and released, then arrested again February 1920 and testified that he was beaten in police custody. Deported to Russia, January 22, 1921.
INS file 54861/132
Adam Susnowics
Deported to Poland, July 31, 1920. No further information found.
Included on list of deported radicals in INS file 54325/36G
Carl Swelgin (Karl)
Born 1884, Germany. Laborer; plumber; rancher; union organizer. Migrated to US 1896. By 1908 he had become a socialist and participated in a public debate on the question of whether “Capitalists be Recompensed for Industries Taken Over By Socialism” in Marshfield, Oregon (he argued in the negative). Joined the IWW in 1911. 1913 became a naturalized US citizen. That same year, illegally “deported” from Coos Bay, Oregon along with other IWW members organizing lumber workers there. 1914 started a 160-acre ranch in Bandon, Oregon, under the Homestead Act, but forced to abandon it. 1917 sentenced to 6 months in prison and $100 fine for “vagrancy” after being arrested while hopping a train to Klamath Falls, Oregon to organize lumber workers. May 23, 1918, denaturalized by the District Court of Oregon for having fraudulently sworn allegiance to the US Constitution while a member of the IWW–the first such denaturalization of the First Red Scare. He then became the first (formerly) naturalized US citizen to be interned as an “enemy alien” during the war, at Fort Douglas, Utah. “Voluntarily departed” June 25, 1919. Subsequent activities unknown.
INS file 54379/525
See also: The World (Coos Bay, OR), February 3, 1908 and August 7, 1917; Evening Herald (Klamath Falls, OR), July 31, 1917; Ancestry.com; Zachary W. Jones, “‘There is No Law Here’: Vigilantism, Militarism, and Metropolitanism in Coos County, Oregon, 1912-1913” (Honors Thesis, Western Oregon University, 2014), https://digitalcommons.wou.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=honors_theses; Patrick Weil, The Sovereign Citizen: Denaturalization and the Origins of the American Republic
Yustif Svenko (Юстиф Свенко; Estife Swenko)
Born 1895, Chmielewo, Russia (present-day Poland). Laborer. Migrated to US 1913. Employed at Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio. Active member of the Akron branch of the Union of Russian Workers. Arrested September 30, 1918, but released on bail; arrested again during the first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.
INS file 54709/225
Alrik Swenson
IWW member. Deported (to Sweden?), October 31, 1919. No further information found.
See: One Big Union Monthly, March 1920
Bronisław Syzmaniak (Bronislas; Synzmaniak)
Born 1883, Russia. Migrated to US 1904. Molder. Member of the Communist Party of America in Milwaukee. Deported (to Poland?) February 1924.
Born 1894, Szczerby, Russia (present-day Poland). Auto mechanic. Migrated to US 1915. Wife in Russia. Joined Branch No. 1 of the Union of Russian Workers in Baltimore in early 1919. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.
Born 1886, Russia. Miner. Migrated to US 1912. Organizer and “president” of the Union of Russian Workers branch at the Dakota Mine in Fairmont, West Virginia, formed 1919. Arrested December 1, 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.
Born 1881, Grodno Governorate, Russia (in present-day Belarus). Machinist. Served in Russian Army circa 1908. Migrated to US 1911. Wife and two children in Russia; she died in 1914. Joined Branch No. 1 of the Union of Russian Workers in Baltimore in 1917. Deportation warrant issued November 7, 1919, but he left Baltimore to avoid arrest; relocated to Cleveland, then returned to Baltimore after several months. Active in the Workers Red Cross/Workers Relief Society, a local organization composed largely of URW members to aid imprisoned comrades (but which federal agents mistakenly believed to be affiliated with the Communist Party). Arrested July 26, 1920. Deported February 1, 1921. Common-law wife and US-born daughter in Baltimore. Subsequent activities unknown.
INS file 54709/304; FBI file OG 370100
Issay Volkov (Иссай Волков; George; Wolkoff)
Born 1890, Kovno, Russia (present-day Kaunas, Lithuania). Painter. In Russia had belonged to the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Migrated to US 1908. 1916 joined the Union of Russian Workers branch in Waterbury, Connecticut until it dissolved in 1917; March 1919 joined the IWW local there. 1919 a member of the Union of Russian Citizens (an umbrella organization of Russian progressives). Arrested during the first Palmer Raids, November 21, 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.
INS file 54709/171
George Voloh (Георгий Волох?)
Voloh’s URW membership card
Born 1897, Chernigov, Russia (present-day Chernihiv, Ukraine). Miner. Migrated to US 1913. Joined the Union of Russian Workers branch in Fairmont, West Virginia in 1919. Arrested December 1, 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.
INS file 54709/589
Peter Voloshin (Петр Волошин; Pete; Woloshim)
Born 1895, Russia. Widower. Migrated to US 1914. Machinist. 1917 joined the Socialist Party, then Detroit’s Russian Branch No. 3 of the Communist Party. Arrested January 1920. Deported to Russia, February 26, 1921.
INS file 54859/695
Nikolai Volosyuk (Николай Волосук; Nicolai; Nikolaj; Volosuk; aka Mike Walker)
Born 1888, Stołpie, Russia (present-day Poland). Steelworker. Migrated to US 1914. Joined the Union of Russian Workers branch in South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Elected as a URW delegate to the Soviet of Workers Deputies of South Bethlehem, composed of members of the URW and local Lithuanian and Polish socialist groups, and for which he served as the recording secretary and a member of the executive committee. Arrested March 4, 1919; released on bail. Arrested again December 12, 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.
INS file 54709/696
Carl Voss (Carl Heinrich Frederick Voss)
Born 1891, Hamburg, Germany. Sailor; laborer. Migrated to US 1910 (deserted ship). Joined the IWW 1913; 1918 became organizer for the IWW’s Metal Mine Workers’ Industrial Union No. 800. Also a member of the International Seamen’s Union. Arrested Tucson, Arizona, September 8, 1918 for failing to register for the draft; January 1919 sentenced a year in the Yavapai County Jail; reported by the sherif to have “caused him more trouble than any other prisoner he as had in jail…on account of attempting to incite riots on several occasions, and attempting to effect a jail delivery.” Arrested upon his release in January 1920 and held for deportation. Deported May 22, 1920. Subsequent activities unknown.
INS file 54860/699
See also: Harry Weinberger Papers, Yale University
Niilo Wälläri (Nillo; Nullo; Nulo)
Wälläri in 1926Wälläri in 1955
Born 1897, Lieto, Finland. Sailor; union organizer. Migrated to US 1916 (jumped ship). Joined the IWW in 1917. Attended the Finnish IWW’s Work People’s College in Duluth, Minnesota. Became prominent Finnish-speaking IWW orator and organizer. February 1919 arrested in Erie, Pennsylvania, for allegedly crossing state lines for “immoral purposes” with his seventeen-year-old common-law wife, Lyylie (Lillian) Jaaskelainen, after she was arrested for shoplifting and IWW materials were found in his possession. The couple officially married August 20, 1920 in Pittsburgh. Niilo was deported 1920 for entering the country without inspection. The Pennsylvania Board of Appeals denied his petition to have his wife’s sentence commuted so that she could travel to Finland with him. (Lillian Wallari remained in the US and became a chiropractor.) Following his deportation, Niilo traveled to Russia where he attended political education courses conducted by the outlawed and exiled Suomen Kommunistinen Puolue (Finnish Communist Party). Returned to Finland and in February 1921 became district secretary for the Suomen Sosialistinen Työväenpuolue (Finnish Socialist Workers’ Party) in Uusimaa. May 1923 became secretary of the SKP. Arrested that August and convicted of treason. While in prison wrote in opposition to the SKP’s conception of a small revolutionary vanguard, its focus on underground organizations, and its adherence to directives from exiled leaders in Russia, and in favor of mass organizations, a popular front with social democrats, national Communist autonomy from the Comintern, and neighborhood, rather than workplace, organizations. 1926 released from prison and became editor of the Communist Työväenjärjestöjen Tiedonantaja (Labor Union Informer); 1929 he cofounded the breakaway Suomen työväen vasemmistoryhmä (Left Group of Finnish Workers). In the 1930s he advocated a united front against fascism, joined the Social Democratic Party, and continued to contribute articles to the IWW’s Finnish-language newspaper Industrialisti. 1938 became head of the militant Finnish Seamen’s Union (Suomen Merimies-Unioni), the most powerful union in the country. Under his leadership the union helped run arms to the antifascists in the Spanish Civil War, aided Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, won Finnish seamen the eight-hour day in 1946, and organized a union boycott of apartheid South Africa in the 1960s. In 1946 Wälläri was allowed to visit the US for two months as a delegate to the International Maritime Conference. After the Second World War he joined the Finnish People’s Democratic League and the ruling Socialist Unity Party (Sosialistinen Yhtenäisyyspuolue), and remained the head of the Seamen’s Union until his death in 1967.
INS file 54648/26 (file missing); FBI file OG 350179
See also: Evening News (Harrisburg PA), January 21 and 22, 1920; Pittsburgh Press, April 19, 1934; Ancestry.com; Tommi Kippola, “Transnationell syndikalism i ett lokalt rum: Industrial Workers of the World och finländarna i Duluth 1915–1921” https://www.doria.fi/handle/10024/169623; Keijo Virtanen, Settlement or Return: Finnish Emigrants (1860-1930) in the International Overseas Return Migration Movement; John H. Hodgson, Communism in Finland: A History and Interpretation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967); Tauno Saarela, “American Impact on Finnish Communism in the 1920s,” in Labouring Finns: Transnational Politics in Finland, Canada, and the United States; Jukka Paastela, Finnish Communism Under Soviet Totalitarianism: Oppositions Within the Finnish Communist Party in Soviet Russia 1918-1935; Erkki Savolainen, Niilo Wälläri: legenda jo eläessään
Born 1889, Saxony, Germany. Knitter. Migrated to US 1912. Joined the Socialist Party of America in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and in 1916 elected secretary of the Party’s German Federation. 1919 transferred into the Communist Party of America; Indiana State Secretary of the Communist Party beginning November 1919. Deported January 12, 1921. Sent his wife Martha and two US-born daughters to Germany ahead of him. Subsequent activities unknown.
INS file 54859/123; FBI file OG 8000-383588
See also: Fort Wayne Sentinel, January 5, 1920; Garrett Clipper, December 23, 1920
Henry William Watts (Willy; H. W. Watts)
Journalist. Migrated to US from Canada in 1914. Immediately joined the Socialist Party of America in Everett, Washington. January 1915 began writing for the Washington Socialist; February 1915 became its business manager. Continued that role for the paper’s successor, the Northwest Worker, of which he became editor in April 1916. He wrote in support of the IWW and of “collective ownership” (by workers) rather than “state socialism” (i.e. government ownership). Arrested August 1916 for protesting police repression of IWW speakers in Everett. Arrested again April 6, 1917 for libel of local military recruiters; charges dismissed. Arrested once more October 25, 1917 as an alien “anarchist”; released on bail after seven weeks. While in jail, continued as editor of the Northwest Worker and its successor, The Co-operative News. Eventually deported solely on the dubious grounds that he had been “likely to become a public charge” at the time of his entry into the US. Deported to Canada, February 27, 1918–making him the first known deportee of the Red Scare.
INS file 54235/57 (file missing); FBI file OG 52458
Born 1880, Vilna, Russia (present-day Vilnius, Lithuania). Jewish. Statistician; editor. In Russia, “a public school teacher in a Jewish school.” Involved in socialist movement since 1900 (in both the General Jewish Labour Bund and the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party); participated in 1905 revolution and befriended Leon Trotsky. December 1905 arrested at Brest-Litovsk and imprisoned, then in 1916 sentenced to four years in Siberia; escaped after ten days and went to France. 1907 migrated from there to Switzerland, where he graduated from the University of Geneva in 1912 with degrees in law and social science. Migrated to US 1913. Joined the Russian Federation of the Socialist Party of America in New York; 1914 became an editor of the socialist newspaper Novy Mir; employed Trotsky as a writer January-March 1917. 1919 cofounded the Communist Labor Party and became general office manager of the (unrecognized) Russian Soviet Government Bureau. Also became an editor of the CLP’s Class Struggle and its short-lived Russian-language paper Pravda. Ordered deported; “voluntarily departed” January 22, 1921. 1922 employed by the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs (which in 1923 became the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs); served as a Soviet diplomatic representative to Canada, a diplomatic agent in Leningrad, and in 1926-28 worked at the Soviet Consulate General in Istanbul, Turkey. 1930s in Moscow became head of the Second Western Department of the USSR People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs. August 1939 arrested in Stalin’s purges; executed 1940.
INS file 54810/500 (file missing) and 54810/500A (Exhibits)
Deported to England, June 19, 1920. No further information found.
Included on list of deported radicals in INS file 54325/36G
Albert Whitehead
Born 1867, Leicester, England. Sailor. Migrated to US 1907. 1911 joined the IWW; became a charter member of Sacramento Council of the IWW. Defendant along with 45 other IWW members in federal trail in Sacramento for violating the Espionage Act; engaged with most of the other defendants in a “silent defense” by refusing to participate in the proceedings. Accused of “arson and destruction of property” in connection with fires that had occurred near Fresno. Sentenced to a year in San Francisco County Jail; caught tuberculosis while imprisoned. Deported December 24, 1919. Upon his arrival in Liverpool, he “gave all his cash to poor children,” and apparently joined the Merseyside IWW branch.
INS file 54616/36; FBI file OG 8000-237893
See also: Stephen M. Kohn, American Political Prisoners: Prosecutions under the Espionage and Sedition Acts; Socialist Review (London), February 1, 1959
Bell Wicenski
Born 1899, Hampovica, Croatia, Austria. Listed by immigration athorities as “Croatian, Jugo-Slav,” and gave his “race” as “Croatian.” Immigrated to the US in 1913. Laborer. Unmarried. Empoyed by the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. Joined the Socialist Party c.1918, then Local No. 8 of the Communist Labor Party in Youngstown. Arrested January 1920 and deported on the SS Calabria, September 1, 1920, bound for Yugoslavia via Greece.
Kurt Gustav Wilckens (aka Chris Jensen; Gus Jansen)
Born 1886, Bramstedt, Germany. Miner. Migrated to US 1910. 1914 enlisted in the US Army; deserted after six months due to “mis-treatment.” Following several unsuccessful attempts to enter Canada, surrendered to military authorities at St. Louis and was court-martialed; sentenced to a year in military detention at Fort Leavenworth; dishonorably discharged upon his release in November 1916. Around this time he discovered the writings of Leo Tolstoy, became a pacifist and an anarchist, and joined the IWW. June 1917 participated in IWW miners’ strike in Bisbee, Arizona; was one of the 2,000 miners rounded up by vigilantes and “deported” to the New Mexico desert. August 1917 arrested as an “enemy alien” and interned at Fort Douglas, Utah. After several unsuccessful attempts, escaped with a fellow detainee December 24, 1917. Organized for the IWW in Seattle and Colorado (under the name “Chris Jensen”). November 1919 arrested in Silverton, Colorado as an IWW member who “had been making disloyal remarks against the United States Government. Deported to Germany, March 27, 1920. Circa 1921 migrated to Argentina and worked as a dispatcher at port of Buenos Aires. He roomed with Spanish anarchist Diego Abad de Santillán and wrote as correspondent for German anarchist newspapers Alarm and Der Syndikalist. Outraged at the execution of hundreds of striking workers during the Patagonia Rebellion, on January 23, 1923 he assassinated the Colonel responsible, Héctor Benigno Varela, outside of his home. On June 15, 1923, Wilckens was murdered in prison by one of Valera’s former troops; his death led to widespread strikes and protests in Argentina, and his killer was in turn murdered two years later in retaliation.
INS file 54709/612
See also: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Papers, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Diego Abad de Santillán Papers, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam; Osvaldo Bayer, Rebellion in Patagonia
Harry Wodner (Wadner; Wardner)
Born 1894, Warsaw, Russia (present-day Poland). Jewish. Machinist. Migrated to US 1913. Arrested during raid on the Union of Russian Workers’ People’s House in New York during the first Palmer Raids, November 15, 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.
INS file 54709/461
Kronagi Workolf
Born 1896, Gomel, Russia (present-day Belarus). Steelworker. Migrated to US 1913. February 1919 he helped organize the Monessen, Pennsylvania branch of the Union of Russian Workers, of which he became secretary. Arrested March 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.
INS file 54616/133; FBI file OG 224794
Maxim Worobey
Born 1895, Minsk, Russia (present-day Belarus). Machinist. Migrated to US 1914. 1919 joined Union of Russian Workers branch in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Arrested November 28, 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.
INS file 54709/369
Ignac Worobien (Ignace)
Born 1884, Minsk, Russia (present-day Belarus). Laborer. Migrated to US 1909. April 1919 joined the Union of Russian Workers branch in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Arrested November 18, 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.
INS file 54709/403; FBI file OG 380406
Pavel Yakimov (Павел Якимов; Paul; Jacimoff; Jakimov)
Born 1887, Minsk, Russia (present-day Belarus). Laborer. Migrated to US 1914. Wife and son in Russia. 1919 joined Branch No. 1 of the Union of Russian Workers in Philadelphia. Arrested during first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.
Born c. 1899, Vologda, Russia. Migrated to US in 1916 (jumped ship from the SS Czar). Sailor. Joined the Russian Branch of the IWW in New York City, of which he became secretary, as well as the Socialist Party and then the Second Russian Branch of the Communist Party. Arrested January 8, 1920. Declared: “I am a revolutionist…I believe in overthrowing all capitalistic forms of government…I have nothing against deportation to Russia. I love my motherland. I left my relatives there and I am quite willing to go there.” Deported January 22, 1921 on the SS Stockholm.
INS file 54860/597
Mikhail Yanish (Михаил Яниш; Mike)
Born 1889, Russia. Laborer. Migrated to US 1912. Wife and child in Russia. Member of the Monessen, Pennsylvania branch of the Union of Russian Workers. Arrested November 26, 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.
