Tag Archives: Italian

Fernández to Foli

Red Scare Deportees, , , , , , , ,

Josef Ramón Fernández (a.k.a. José Ramón Fernández)

Members of Spanish-speaking Los Corsarios Group, including Fernández, 1919. National Archives.

Born: 1898, Oviedo, Spain
Nationality: Spanish
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Migrated to Cuba c. 1914; then to US 917
Affiliation: Industrial Workers of the World; anarchist

Became an anarchist at approximately sixteen years of age. Around 1914 he migrated from Spain to Cuba, and in 1917 he entered the United States. Became a member of the Industrial Workers of the World and joined the Spanish-speaking anarchist Los Corsarios group. In February 1919 arrested in New York City along with thirteen other members of Los Corsarios by the Secret Service. The group was accused, without evidence, of plotting to assassinate President Woodrow Wilson. All criminal charges were eventually dropped; nevertheless, several members of the group, including Fernández, were detained for deportation on the grounds of anarchism. Fernández was deported to Spain on May 5, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54616/79.

Ramón Fernández (a.k.a. Raymond Fernandez)

Born: Year unknown, Cuba
Nationality: Cuban
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration: Immigrated to US prior to 1918
Affiliation: Anarchist; IWW

After immigrating to the US became involved in anarchist activities and the Industrial Workers of the World. In 1918 he was arrested in Seattle and convicted under the state’s criminal syndicalism law. After serving three months, he was pardoned by the governor to allow for his deportation. Fernández was held at the Seattle immigration station until March 1920, after which he was transferred to Ellis Island. In November 1921 he was deported to Spain, but Spanish authorities refused him admission on the grounds that he was Cuban-born. He was returned to Ellis Island and, in March 1922, deported to Cuba, where authorities likewise denied him entry, claiming he had forfeited Cuban citizenship by avoiding military service during World War I. On July 22, 1922, Fernández was permitted to depart “voluntarily” at his own expense to Russia, traveling via Rotterdam.

In Russia he joined the Kuzbass Autonomous Industrial Colony in Kemerovo, Siberia, where he remained until the colony’s dissolution in 1926. During this period he contributed occasional reports to the anarchist newspaper Cultura Obrera. Married a Russian woman with whom he had a son. Working on constructing tractor factories in Stalingrad and Kharkiv, then settled in the Urals in the town of Revda. On March 10, 1938, arrested during the Great Purge on charges of alleged counterrevolutionary sabotage and espionage; sentenced to ten years in the Vyatlav labor camp, where he died on January 27, 1940.

Sources: Harry Weinberger Papers, Yale University Library; Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Papers, University of Wisconsin–Madison; Cultura Obrera; https://xn--80aah0car.xn--p1ai/?p=13556.

Egor Matveevich Feskov (a.k.a. Grigory Feskov; Harry Feskow)

Born: 1885, Stepok, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

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

In 1935, acting through the Russian consul in New York, Feskov retained attorney Aaron Banenson to recover personal bank savings he had been unable to access following his deportation. The amount sought totaled $2,404, consisting of $983.50 plus compound interest. In 1943, a judge ruled in Feskov’s favor and ordered the funds returned to him.

Sources: INS files 54709/524 and 56167/137; Hartford Courant, December 23, 1943.

William Fields

Born: 1880, London, England
Nationality: British
Ethnicity: English
Occupation: Lumber worker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1905
Affiliation: IWW

Joined the Industrial Workers of the World in 1917. In May 1918 he was arrested in Seattle, Washington, and subsequently ordered deported. Fields was deported on February 27, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54379/416 (missing); FBI file OG 194446.

Ivan Filisofov (a.k.a. John Philisoph)

Born: 1877, Volynia, Russia (present-day Poland)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Polish
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Migrated to Argentina c. 1914; then to US c. 1915
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

His wife and three children remained in Russia when he emigrated. Authorities alleged that he was a member of the Union of Russian Workers branch in Thomaston, Connecticut, though Filisofov denied this and claimed membership only in the Union of Russian Citizens, a non-partisan umbrella organization for Russian progressives. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919. A substantial quantity of anarchist, IWW, and Communist literature was seized from his room, some of which he claimed belonged to a roommate. Deported aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/166; FBI file OG 355772.

Olaf Finnestad

Flier protesting arrests of Finnestad and fellow IWW member Adolph Errson. National Archives.

Born: 1894, Stavanger, Norway
Nationality: Norwegian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1910
Affiliation: IWW

Joined the IWW in Los Angeles in 1916 and served as secretary of the Minneapolis IWW branch in 1918. Arrested in Seattle in October 1918 and deported on March 1, 1919.

Upon returning to Norway, Finnestad immediately joined the Norwegian Syndicalist Federation and the anarchist Norwegian Youth’s Socialist League, and gave lectures on conditions in the United States. Spearheaded a brief and unsuccessful campaign to spread the IWW to Scandinavia. In August 1920 he emigrated to Canada and married; in 1924 he illegally reentered the United States with his wife and ultimately obtained U.S. citizenship. Died in Portland, Oregon, in 1974.

Sources: INS file 54517/68; The Workers’ World (Kansas City), August 1, 1919; Fellow Worker, February 1, 1920; Ancestry.com.

Friedrich Fischer (a.k.a. Charles Williams; Charles William Fischer)

Born: 1877, Germany
Nationality: German
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Sailor; lumber worker; laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1896
Affiliation: IWW

Sailed extensively out of U.S. ports and joined the IWW in 1916. In December 1917 arrested as an “alien enemy” while working on the waterfront, but released. Arrested again in January 1918 in Walla Walla, Washington, for IWW membership. Despite his stated opposition to the German Kaiser and monarchy, Fischer was interned as an enemy alien at Fort Douglas, Utah. In June 1919 he was granted “voluntary departure” in exchange for his release from internment.

Sources: INS file 54379/61.

Enrique Flores Magón

Enrique Flores Magón (standing center left, without a hat) with family and supporters in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, March 4, 1923, following his deportation.

Born: 1877, Teotitlán del Camino, Mexico
Nationality: Mexican
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Millwright; journalist
Migration: Immigrated to US 1903
Affiliation: Partido Liberal Mexicano; anarchist

Opposed the dictatorship of Mexican president Porfirio Díaz, along with his brother Ricardo Flores Magón, leading to their arrests in 1903. Later that year the brothers immigrated to the United States, where they founded the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM) and its newspaper Regeneración.

Over time, the PLM became increasingly radical, embracing anarchism and supporting the IWW. Enrique was repeatedly arrested in the US for political activities. In 1917 he broke with the PLM over personal and political disagreements. In 1918 began serving a sentence for “mailing unmailable matter” and was released from Leavenworth Penitentiary in 1920. On March 4, 1923 he accepted “voluntary departure” to Mexico.

Remained active in Mexican anarchist circles and wrote for the international anarchist press through 1926, when he announced his “retirement” from the movement due to physical disability and poverty. In the 1930s accepted a government pension as a “precursor of the Mexican Revolution” and dedicated himself to rewriting the history of the PLM as part of the history of Mexican nationalism. Died in 1954.

Sources: INS file 54861/116.

Ignacz Fogler

Born:
Nationality: Austrian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration:
Affiliation:

Deported from the United States to Austria on May 8, 1920. Included on a government list of deported radicals, but no further documentation found.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G.

Virgilio Foli

Born: 1886, Fano, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Miner; farmer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1902
Affiliation: Anarchist

Became an anarchist around 1916. In December 1920 arrested in Spring Valley, Illinois, and ordered deported. Deported on March 16, 1921.

After repatriation, briefly migrated to Belgium in 1923 in search of work, then returned to Italy, where he became a farmer. Italian authorities reported no further political activity and removed him from the list of subversives in 1937. However, following his death in 1969, comrades wrote in the anarchist newspaper L’Internazionale that his was “a life lived intensely for the affirmation of anarchist ideas, for which he suffered persecution and exile.”

Sources: INS file 54885/19; CPC busta 2101; True Republican (Sycamore, IL), March 30, 1921; Andrea Pirondini, Anarchici a Modena: Dizionario biografico; L’Internazionale, February 1, 1969.

Fraser to Furs

Red Scare Deportees, , , , ,

Donald McPherson Fraser

Born: 1888, Edinburgh, Scotland
Nationality: British
Ethnicity: Scottish
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Migrated to Canada 1908; then to US 1915
Affiliation: IWW

Spent time in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico before entering the US (via Canada, without inspection) in 1915. Joined the IWW in 1909 and later became secretary of the IWW local in Astoria, Washington. On his 1917 draft registration card, wrote: “Don’t believe [in] militarism.” Arrested in Portland, Oregon, in February 1919 and deported March 29, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54379/2; Ancestry.com.

Adolfo Frattesi (a.k.a. Adolph Fratese)

Born: 1893, Pergola, Italy
Nationality/Ethnicity: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Anarchist

A member of the anarchist Circolo Studi Sociali in Milwaukee, along with his brother Vincenzo Frattesi, sister Maria Nardini, and brother-in-law Pasquale Nardini. Arrested in 1917 following an Italian anarchist “riot” in Milwaukee and initially sentenced to twenty-five years in prison as an accessory to the attempted murder of a police officer. The conviction was later reversed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Following his release, rearrested for “teaching or advocating anarchy” and deported to Italy on July 15, 1920.

Italian authorities do not appear to have placed him under political surveillance after his return.

Sources: INS file 54235/70; 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.

Giuseppe Frattesi

Born: 1894, Pergola, Italy
Nationality/Ethnicity: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913

The brother of Adolfo and Vincenzo Frattesi and of Maria Nardini. While living in Racine, Wisconsin, became involved in the defense campaign for his siblings following the 1917 Milwaukee anarchist “riot,” during which he became radicalized and embraced anarchism. Later moved to Chicago, where he was arrested in May 1919 and again in August 1919. Deported on December 20, 1919. His trunk containing personal possessions was lost by immigration authorities.

In June 1920 migrated to France, where he briefly lived with his brother Teodolfo, before returning to Italy. Throughout the 1930s he remained under Italian government surveillance and was reported to continue holding anarchist and antifascist views, though he was not considered politically active.

Sources: INS file 54616/182; FBI file OG 8000-177156; CPC busta 2172.

Vincenzo Frattesi (a.k.a. Vincent Fratese)

Born: 1886, Pergola, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Migrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Anarchist

Emigrated to Avignon, France, where he was fined for assault in 1908, and was jailed for eight days in 1910 for the same offense. After immigrating to the United States in 1913, he became active in Milwaukee’s anarchist Circolo Studi Sociali, along with his siblings and brother-in-law. Following the 1917 Milwaukee anarchist “riot,” convicted as an accessory to the attempted murder of a police officer and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison, a conviction upheld by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. While incarcerated, repeatedly disciplined for infractions and in 1920 was declared insane and transferred to a mental hospital. Pardoned in 1922 on condition of deportation and deported on February 25, 1922.

Upon arrival in Italy, institutionalized in Naples as “paranoid” and released in November 1924. Later settled in Fossombrone, where he remained under surveillance and continued to express anarchist beliefs. In July 1928 he was recommitted to a psychiatric hospital in Pesaro and diagnosed with “paranoid early dementia.” Remained institutionalized as of 1940.

Sources: INS file 54235/69; CPC busta 2172; 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.

Giovanni Fruzzetti (a.k.a. Giovanni Balloni; Gianni Lupo)

Giovanni Fruzzetti. Source: https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/113565859/person/210112210983/facts?_phsrc=ezK144&_phstart=successSource

Born: 1865, Carrara, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Granite cutter; farmer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1892
Affiliation: Anarchist

Lived in Barre, Vermont, until 1905, where he was a friend of Luigi Galleani and helped found Cronaca Sovversiva. Later lived in Quincy, Massachusetts, before purchasing a sixty-acre farm in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, in 1910. Married with ten children and also supported six nieces and nephews following the death of his sister-in-law. Suffered ongoing health problems stemming from an appendicitis operation. Arrested in May 1918, Fruzzetti stated his belief “in the overthrow of any government by force.” He also emphasized the hardship deportation would impose on his family, noting that his wife could not return to Italy because of their disabled American-born daughter. Despite this, he was deported on June 24, 1919.

Unable to make a living in Italy, he received financial assistance from comrades in the United States until his death in 1926.

Sources: INS file 54379/351; CPC busta 295; L’Adunata dei Refrattari, June 13 and October 3, 1925; Ancestry.com.

Timofey Furs (a.k.a. Thomas Furs)

Furs’ URW membership card. National Archives.

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

Member of the Union of Russian Workers branch in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919 and deported to Russia on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/365; FBI file OG 379709.

Galeotti to Gazeyog

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Alba Galeotti (born Giuseppina Genisio)

Alba Galeotti, postcard to her son Ferrer, c. 1930s. Courtesy of Gina Norsedt.

Born: 1867, Canischio, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Housewife; laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US c. 1902
Affiliation: Anarchist

After immigrating to the United States around 1902, she married coal miner Killo Gotti in Lafayette, Missouri, later adopting the anarchist name “Alba,” meaning “Dawn.” She named her children Idea (i.e. “L’Idea” of anarchism) and Ravachol (after the French anarchist of the same name). By 1908 she was contributing funds and articles to the Italian-language anarchist newspapers Cronaca Sovversiva and La Questione Sociale and corresponded with anarchists in Italy. She also raised money for the antimilitarist anarchist paper Rompete le file! in Milan. Following her separation from Gotti, she married anarchist miner Guglielmo Galeotti in 1909. The couple lived in mining communities in Kansas and Illinois and named their children Ferrer and Germinal. Unconfirmed reports suggest she was deported in 1916 and illegally returned to the United States. Arrested in 1920 alongside Galeotti, she escaped custody while he was deported. She continued anarchist activity, including collecting funds for the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee in 1921. In 1923 arrested in Schulter, Oklahoma. While detained, she refused food for thirty-three days, was declared insane, and forcibly fed. Deported on January 10, 1924, leaving her two youngest children in the care of her eldest daughter, Ida (Idea) Gotti.

In Italy she did not reunite with Guglielmo Galeotti, and remained in correspondence with her children. Died in Turin in 1940.

Sources: Cronaca Sovversiva, May 31, 1913; Jennifer Guglielmo, Living the Revolution: Italian Women’s Resistance and Radicalism in New York City, 1880-1945; Henryetta Daily Stanard (Henryetta OK), January 1 and 2, 1924; Henryetta Standard (Henryetta OK), January 3 and January 7, 1924; Ancestry.com; additional information provided by Gina Norstedt.

Guglielmo Galeotti (a.k.a. William Galleoti)

Guglielmo Galeotti with his wife Alba and children, c. 1915. Courtesy of Gina Norsedt.

Born: 1871, Santa Sofia, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Miner
Migration: Immigrated to US 1902
Affiliation: Anarchist

Became an anarchist in Italy during the late 1880s and was regarded by Italian authorities as a dangerous subversive. Repeatedly arrested and imprisoned for subversive activities between 1888 and 1902. Fled briefly to Switzerland in 1901, but was expelled and arrested on unfounded suspicion of complicity in the assassination of King Umberto I. Subsequently emigrated to and then expelled from Trieste. After immigrating to the United States, lived in mining communities in Pennsylvania, Kansas, and Illinois and became a leading figure in the Kansas anarchist Gruppo 11 Novembre. In 1909 married fellow anarchist Alba Genisio. In 1911 joined other group members in traveling to Mexico to assist the anarchist Partido Liberal Mexicano during the Mexican Revolution but soon became disillusioned and returned to the United States. Deported on February 19, 1920.

Although he remained under surveillance in Italy, authorities reported that by 1935 he had withdrawn from politics and allegedly showed sympathy toward the Fascist regime.

Sources: CPC busta 2236; Michele Presutto, La rivoluzione dietro l’angolo: Gli anarchici italiani e la Rivoluzione messicana, 1910-1914; Henryetta Daily Stanard (Henryetta OK), January 1, 1924; Ancestry.com; additional information provided by Gina Norstedt.

Luigi Galleani

Luigi Galleani, 1919. Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Italy.

Born: 1861, Vercelli, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Editor
Migration: Immigrated to US 1901
Affiliation: Anarchist

Became an anarchist while studying law at the University of Turin. After fleeing police repression in Italy, he lived in France and Switzerland, working with anarchist geographer Élisée Reclus, before being arrested, expelled, and imprisoned in Italy. While confined to the island of Pantelleria, he met his wife Maria. He escaped in 1900 and fled to Egypt and England before immigrating to the United States in 1901.

In the United States, edited La Questione Sociale in Paterson, New Jersey, and led the 1902 silk workers’ strike, for which he was indicted for inciting riot and fled to Canada, then Barre, Vermont, where founded newspaper Cronaca Sovversiva in 1903. Later relocated the paper to Lynn, Massachusetts. Emerged as the leading Italian anarchist proponent of insurrectionary violence. Deported on June 24, 1919, leaving his wife and six children behind.

Upon arrival in Italy, briefly arrested and then relaunched Cronaca Sovversiva in Turin. Imprisoned for sedition in 1922, and again arrested in 1926, serving prison time followed by internal exile. He remained under surveillance until his death in 1931.

Sources: INS file 54235/33; CPC busta 2241; Ugo Fedeli, Luigi Galleani: quarant’anni di lotte rivoluzionarie (1891 –1931); Paul Avrich, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background; Antonio Senta, Luigi Galleani: The Most Dangerous Anarchist in America.

Alexander Gallod (a.k.a. Golod; Gold)

Gallod’s Communist Party membership card. National Archives.

Born: 1888, Grodno region, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Polish
Occupation: Machinist
Migration: Immigrated to US 1914
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Joined the Socialist Party of America before becoming an active member of the Communist Party of American and then the United Communist Party in Camden, New Jersey, and Philadelphia. Arrested in Philadelphia on January 7, 1920, and deported to Russia on February 26, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54811/973.

Laureano García

Born: Spain, year unknown
Nationality: Spanish
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Miner
Migration: Immigrated to US year unknown
Affiliation: Anarchist; IWW

An anarchist and IWW member, he was arrested in Jerome, Arizona, in February 1919 and deported later that year.

In 1931 he contributed funds from Spain to the New York anarchist newspaper Cultura Proletaria.

Sources: La Nueva Solidaridad, June 14, 1919; Cultura Proletaria, April 18, 1931.

Rogelo García (a.k.a. Regelio García; Roglio García)

Members of Spanish-speaking Los Corsarios Group, including García, 1919. National Archives.

Born: 1894, Quibicano, Cuba
Nationality: Cuban
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Cigar maker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1903
Affiliation: Anarchist

Became an anarchist around 1917 and joined the Los Corsarios Group, which published the anarchist paper El Corsario. Arrested in New York in February 1919 with thirteen other Spanish-speaking anarchists on unfounded allegations of plotting to assassinate President Woodrow Wilson. Although charges were dismissed, García was held for deportation. When questioned about his failure to naturalize, replied, “I do not even believe in my own country.” He was married to U.S.-born Blanca Fernandez and had an infant child at the time of his deportation on April 25, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54616/79.

Isso Gartner (a.k.a. Imre Geery or Geerry)

Born: 1895, Kassa, Hungary (present-day Košice, Slovakia)
Nationality: Hungarian
Ethnicity: Jewish
Occupation: Jeweler
Migration: Immigrated to US 1911
Affiliation: Socialist Party of America

Joined the Socialist Party of America in Baltimore. A conscientious objector, he opposed military conscription during the First World War. Attempted to unionize Baltimore jewelry workers through the International Jewelry Workers Union (AFL). In May 1918 he was arrested on dubious theft charges, sentenced to six months in prison, and later interned as an “alien enemy” at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. There he contracted tuberculosis of the hip, forcing him to use crutches. Upon release, Gartner was deported on May 8, 1920 on the unsubstantiated charge that he believed in overthrowing the U.S. government by force.

Sources: INS file 54709/38; Baltimore Sun, May 23, 1918; Jewelers’ Circular-Weekly, July 10, 1918.

Jack Gaveel (a.k.a. Jakov Zukatansky; Jackotonsky; Jacknowsky)

Born: 1889, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Nationality: Dutch
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Labor organizer
Migration: Immigrated to Canada 1913; then to US 1915
Affiliation: IWW

Migrated to England in 1905; returned to the Netherlands in 1910 and emigrated to Canada that same year. Joined the IWW in 1913 in Canada and became secretary of IWW Local no. 339 in Edmonton, Canada the following year. Migrated to the U.S. in 1915. Included in the federal indictment of IWW leaders in 1917, but dropped from the case before it went to trial. Acted as an IWW delegate in Los Angeles, where he was “active in organizing the Austrian and Croatian fishermen.” Arrested in April 1921 and sentenced to 1-4 years under California’s criminal syndicalism law. In San Quentin, refused to work in the prison jute mill, declaring: “I have never scabbed on my class outside of prison, and I won’t do it inside.” He was sent to solitary confinement, sparking a sympathy strike of thirteen other imprisoned IWW members. Deported to The Netherlands on August 1, 1924.

Remained active in labor and anarchist circles in The Netherlands. Into 1951 he resumed contact with the IWW and distributed IWW materials in Europe. In 1960, at age 71, he wrote: “I wish I were in America. I’d join you in the fight then.”

Sources: FBI file BS 186701-240; Industrial Worker, June 11, 1921; August 5, 1922; IWW Collection, Walter P. Reuther Library.

Fred Gazeyog (a.k.a. Gazeyek; Gazeycg)

Born: 1895, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Belarusian
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to the United States in 1911
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Employed by the B. F. Goodrich Company and joined the Union of Russian Workers in Akron, Ohio, in 1916, becoming secretary of the local branch. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919 and deported to Russia on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/535.

Geray to Giusto

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Andrey Geray (a.k.a. Andrew Geray)

Born: 1879, Mogilev, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Belarusian
Occupation: Miner
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

His wife and two children remained in Russia when he migrated. He joined the Union of Russian Workers in Greensburg, Pennsylvania in July 1919. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919 and deported to Soviet Russia aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/477; FBI file OG 388189.

Grigory Gerish (a.k.a. Harry Gerrish)

Grigory Gerish. https://ru.openlist.wiki/.

Born: 1897, Kyiv, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Jewish
Occupation: Student; laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1908
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Immigrated to the United States with his family as a child and later attended the University of Pennsylvania for one year before financial necessity forced him into wage labor. In 1918 he married his childhood sweetheart, Tillie Karetsky. The couple became politically radicalized in Philadelphia, first joining the Socialist Party and later the United Communist Party. Gerish served as secretary-organizer of the Jewish Young Socialist Federation. Both he and his wife were arrested and deported to Soviet Russia on February 1, 1921.

In Russia, Gerish rose to prominence within the Communist movement and became a member of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. During the Stalinist purges, he was accused of Trotskyist sympathies, expelled from the Communist Party in 1937, arrested, and executed.

Sources: INS file 54810/821; Philadelphia Inquirer, February 1, 1921; Fridrikh Igorevich Firsov, Harvey Klehr, and John Earl Haynes, Secret Cables of the Comintern, 1933-1943; Michael Buckmiller and Klaus Meschkat, eds., Biographisches Handbuch zur Geschichte der Kommunistischen Internationale: Ein deutsch-russisches Forschungsprojekt.

Tilly Gerish (née Karetsky; a.k.a. Tillie Gerrish)

Tilly Gerish, 1921. Philadelphia Inquirer, February 1, 1921.

Born: 1899, Kyiv, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Jewish
Occupation: Dressmaker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Immigrated to the United States in 1913 to reunite with her childhood sweetheart, Grigory Gerish, whom she married in 1918. Active in the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union. Together with her husband, became politically radicalized in Philadelphia, first joining the Socialist Party and later the Communist Party. She was a member of the party’s Central Jewish Branch. Arrested in January 1920, she was deported with her husband to Soviet Russia on February 1, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54859/126; Philadelphia Inquirer, February 1, 1921.

Mikhail Gernet

Born: 1898, Arkhangelsk, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Lathe operator
Migration: Migrated to US 1916
Affiliation: Socialist Party of America

Entered the United States via Canada without inspection and worked as a lathe operator in Detroit. Became a member of Russian Branch No. 3 of the Socialist Party of America. Arrested in April 1919 for allegedly causing a disturbance during a lecture by Catherine Breshkovsky that was critical of the Bolsheviks. Later testified that police beat him unconscious during his arrest, leaving him unable to raise his arms or eat without pain. Deported aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919, under the pretext that he was “likely to become a public charge.”

Sources: INS file 54616/172.

Natale Girolimetti

Born: 1899, Ancona, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration: Migrated to US year unknown
Affiliation: Anarchist

An individualist anarchist described by Italian authorities “an individual of impulsive and violent character.” Deported to Italy sometime before 1921.

A “violent, irreducible” opponent of fascism, he was brutally beaten by Fascists upon his return to Italy. In 1921 he fled abroad, living successively in France, Luxembourg, Germany, and again in France, where he remained active in Italian exile radical circles. In 1926 he returned to Italy seeking medical treatment for head injuries sustained during earlier beatings and was immediately arrested for possession of antifascist literature. Released on parole, he was again assaulted by Fascists and arrested in 1927 while attempting to return to France. His mental condition deteriorated, and in 1928 he was confined to a psychiatric institution, where he died in 1932.

Sources: CPC busta 2446; Fabrizio Giulietti, Il movimento anarchico italiano nella lotta contro il fascismo, 1927–1945.

Bonaiuto Giusto

Bonauito Giusto, c. 1919. Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Italy.

Born: 1888, Castel di Casio, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Shoemaker; miner
Migration: Immigrated to US 1909
Affiliation: Anarchist

Became an anarchist in the United States and joined the Circolo dei Studi Sociali in Kensington, Illinois. Traveled to Mexico in 1917 to avoid registering for the U.S. military draft and returned to the United States without inspection in 1918. Arrested in May 1918 during a raid on the Circolo and later detained in Chicago on the grounds of unlawful entry. Deported on December 20, 1919.

After returning to Italy, continued his anarchist activities in Castel di Casio. Arrested in 1923 for opposing the Fascist government and again in 1926 for resisting conscription, but was acquitted both times. Remained under government surveillance until at least 1940.

Sources: INS file 54616/213; CPC busta 711.

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.

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.

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.

Momotuk to Murza

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

Trofin Momotuk (or Mormochuk; a.k.a. Theodore Maumat)

Born: 1886, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Steelworker
Migration: Migrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Had a wife living in Russia. He joined the URW in Youngstown, Ohio. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Source: INS file 54709/187.

Giuseppe Montagni

Giuseppe Montagni, c. 1920. Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Italy.

Born: 1890, Riva di Trento, Austria-Hungary (present-day Italy)
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity: Italian
Occupation: Electrician
Migration: Migrated to US 1911
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Lived in Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh and joined the Communist Party of America. Deported June 19, 1920.

He apparently did not join the Italian Communist Party, but in late 1922 he illegally emigrated to Hungary hoping to reach Russia. Arrested in Budapest en route, he was interned for ten months at Zalaegerszeg before being expelled back to Italy in June 1924. After several years of itinerant work, he settled in his hometown as a farmer. Italian authorities continued surveillance of him as a radical until 1941.

Sources: FBI file OG 204622; CPC busta 3359.

Tugardo Montanari

Born: 1886, Orciano di Pesaro, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Metalworker; iron molder
Migration: Migrated to US 1903
Affiliation: Anarchist

Not politically radical before immigrating, he became an anarchist and distributed Luigi Galleani’s Cronaca Sovversiva throughout New England by motorcycle. In 1913 he was arrested in Worcester, Massachusetts, for “lewd and lascivious cohabitation” with his companion Lucia Mancini and served six months. Arrested again May 17, 1918, in Mansfield, Massachusetts, he was deported June 24, 1919, while Mancini and their daughter remained in the US.

In 1923 he emigrated to France, where he continued anarchist and antifascist activity. He was still living there in 1977 and contributing funds to the Italian anarchist magazine Volontà.

Sources: INS file 54379/374; CPC busta 3366; Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America; Volontà, January–February 1977.

Ivan Morgolenkow (a.k.a. John Novak)

Born: 1891, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Longshoreman
Migration: Migrated to US 1911
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Belonged to the URW in Baltimore. Arrested December 3, 1919, he was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Source: INS file 54709/622.

Harry Morozoff (a.k.a. Morogoff)

Born: c. 1894, Vilnius, Russia (present-day Lithuania)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Migrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Joined the Socialist Party in 1917 and attended meetings of Russian Branch No. 3 of the Communist Party in Detroit in 1919, though he denied formal membership. Arrested January 1920 and held at Fort Wayne, he was deported to Russia March 18, 1921.

Source: INS file 54860/54.

Grigori Moroz (a.k.a. Gregory; Mike Moroz)

Born: 1893, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Migrated to Canada 1913; then to US 1916
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined URW Branch No. 1 in Baltimore in April 1919. He worked at the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Plant, where in October 1919 a company officer reported him for wearing a black button bearing the name of the URW newspaper Khleb i Volia. Arrested November 1919, he was deported to Russia February 1, 1921.

Source: INS file 54709/108.

Roman Mosichuk (or Mosichok; Mosicshok; Mosithuk)

Born: 1890, Volyn, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Ukrainian
Occupation: Blacksmith’s helper
Migration: Migrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined the URW in Newark in 1915 and became secretary of its school in Trenton, New Jersey, where he distributed URW literature. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919, he was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Source: INS file 54709/220.

Pavel Mozuris (a.k.a. Paul; Mozures)

Born: 1885, Suwałki, Russia (present-day Poland)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Lithuanian
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Migrated to US 1907
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Joined the Communist Party in New York in 1919. On January 20, 1920, he voluntarily reported himself to the Department of Justice as a party member because he had been blacklisted and wanted to return to Russia. After more than six months’ detention on Ellis Island, he escaped July 12, 1920, by leaping from a third-floor window into the water below. Later located in Kalamazoo, Michigan, he was arrested and deported February 26, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54861/22; FBI file OG 381458.

Joseph Mule

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

Deported to Yugoslavia as a radical June 19, 1920. No additional information has been located.

Source: INS file 54325/36G.

Camillo Muñoz

Born: 1880, Nochistlán, Mexico
Nationality: Mexican
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Migrated to US 1915
Affiliation: Anarchist

Muñoz belonged to the anarchist group Los Errantes in Morenci, Arizona, affiliated with the Partido Liberal Mexicano. Arrested September 19, 1919, in Tucson, his wife and three Mexican-born children traveled there intending to accompany him if deported. He was deported December 3, 1919.

Source: INS file 54709/70.

José Maria Murias

Born: 1889, Rosario de Santa Fe, Argentina
Nationality: Disputed
Ethnicity: Spanish (father); Italian (mother)
Occupation: Sailor; miner
Migration: Migrated to US 1914
Affiliation: IWW

Joined the IWW in San Francisco in 1914 and became a delegate and organizer in Arizona. Arrested in Globe, Arizona, in September 1918, immigration officials faced a diplomatic impasse when Argentina claimed he was a Spanish citizen and Spain claimed he was an Argentine citizen. He was ultimately allowed to “reship as a foreign seaman” to Costa Rica July 11, 1919.

A 1920 report stated he later made several voyages to New York as a seaman and expected to return again.

Source: INS file 54648/32.

Vasily Murza (a.k.a. Sam Drozda; Sam Murza; Sam Murgu)

Born: c. 1897, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Steelworker
Migration: Migrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Joined the Communist Party of America in Buffalo in November 1919. According to immigration authorities, “He appears to be a dangerous radical and, in addition, he is immoral, as will be seen from the testimony he is living with a woman without being married to her.” (In fact, he and his wife Pauline Brya had been legally married in a civil ceremony.) Arrested January 1920, he was deported to Russia February 26, 1921.

Source: INS file 54809/516.