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78-561: A proletarian revolution or proletariat revolution is a social revolution in which the working class attempts to overthrow the bourgeoisie and change the previous political system. Proletarian revolutions are generally advocated by socialists , communists and anarchists . The concept of a revolutionary proletariat was first put forward by the French revolutionary socialist and radical Auguste Blanqui . The Paris Commune , contemporary to Blanqui and Karl Marx , being viewed by some as

156-532: A book about his experiences, The Bolshevik Myth . While living in France , Berkman continued his work in support of the anarchist movement, producing the classic exposition of anarchist principles, Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism . Suffering from ill health, Berkman took his own life in 1936. Berkman was born Ovsei Osipovich Berkman in the Lithuanian city of Vilnius (then called Vilna, and part of

234-418: A driving force for revolution, other oppressed classes would also act as drivers. Finally, there are socialist anarchists and libertarian socialists . Their view is that the revolution must be a bottom-up social revolution which seeks to transform all aspects of society and the individuals which make up the society (see Asturian Revolution and Revolutionary Catalonia ). The anarchist view also holds that

312-428: A free man would be like. Berkman was released from the workhouse on May 18, 1906, after serving 14 years of his sentence. He was met at the workhouse gates by newspaper reporters and police, who recommended that he leave the area. He took the train to Detroit , where Goldman met him. She found herself "seized by terror and pity" at his gaunt appearance. Later, at a friend's house, Berkman felt overwhelmed by

390-481: A friendship with the prison chaplain, John Lynn Milligan, who was a strong advocate on behalf of the prison library. Milligan encouraged Berkman to read books from the library, a process that furthered his knowledge of English. Berkman frequently clashed with the prison's management over the mistreatment of his fellow prisoners. Sometimes he was put into solitary confinement, with one stay lasting 16 months. When Berkman smuggled reports of corruption and brutality outside

468-513: A letter to Goldman, asking her to secure a dynamite capsule for him. A letter was smuggled out of the prison and arrangements were made for her to visit Berkman in November 1892, posing as his sister. Berkman knew as soon as he saw Goldman that she had not brought the dynamite capsule. Between 1893 and 1897, the years when Bauer and Nold were also in the Western Penitentiary for their part in

546-500: A new law. He also received his first visitor in nine years. A month later, Goldman was able to visit under an assumed name. The warden retired and his successor improved the prison for all prisoners. Early in his incarceration, Berkman questioned whether two men could love one another. He was aware, as he later wrote, that incidents of rape or attempted rape took place "almost every week, yet no one has ever been taken to court ... on such charges". Some of Berkman's own friendships within

624-625: A new lecture tour, but when he failed to appear in Cleveland , concerned friends sent a telegram to Goldman in New York. She worried that he had killed himself. Anarchists across the country searched for Berkman in police stations, hospitals, and morgues. Even newspapers wondered where he was, speculating that he had been kidnapped by Pittsburgh detectives, by Secret Service agents, or by "agents of millionaires" who opposed his message. Three days later, Berkman appeared in New York and contacted Goldman. He said

702-437: A new suit and a black derby hat, and in his pockets he had a gun and a dagger fashioned from a steel file. He went to Frick's office and asked to see him, saying he was the representative of a New York hiring agency, but he was told Frick was too busy to meet him. The following night, Berkman checked into a hotel under the name Rakhmetov, his role model from What Is to Be Done? On July 23, he returned to Frick's office. While

780-433: A proletarian revolution must be led by a vanguard of " professional revolutionaries ", men and women who are fully dedicated to the communist cause and who form the nucleus of the communist revolutionary movement. This vanguard is meant to provide leadership and organization to the working class before and during the revolution, which aims to prevent the government from successfully ending it. Vladimir Lenin believed that it

858-533: A proletarian revolution to occur. Marxists believe proletarian revolutions can and will likely happen in all capitalist countries, related to the concept of world revolution . The objective of a proletarian revolution, according to Marxists, is to transform the bourgeois state into a workers' state . A traditional Marxist belief was that a proletarian revolution could only occur in a country where capitalism had fully developed, though this changed with Russian Revolution . The Leninist branch of Marxism argues that

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936-474: A speech that he would read in court. Written in German because his English was still poor, it was 40 pages long and took two hours to read. Berkman tried to learn the date of his trial, but it was kept secret by the district attorney out of fear of an attack by Berkman's comrades. Berkman therefore was unaware of his trial until the morning it began. When Berkman was brought to the courtroom on September 19,

1014-909: A strike against coal-mining companies in Ludlow, Colorado . The largest mining company was the Rockefeller family -owned Colorado Fuel & Iron Company . On April 20, 1914, the Colorado National Guard fought a tent colony of striking miners and, during the day-long fight, 26 people were killed. During the strike, Berkman organized demonstrations in New York in support of the miners. In May and June, he and other anarchists led several protests against John D. Rockefeller Jr. The protests eventually moved from New York City to Rockefeller's home in Tarrytown, New York , and resulted in beatings, arrests, and imprisonments of anarchists. The strong police response to

1092-414: A student at the gymnasium , but his studies began to falter as he spent his time reading novels. One of the books that interested him was Ivan Turgenev 's novel Fathers and Sons (1862), with its discussion of nihilist philosophy. But what truly moved him was Nikolay Chernyshevsky 's influential 1863 novel, What Is to Be Done? , and Berkman felt inspired by Rakhmetov , its puritanical protagonist who

1170-652: A successful luncheonette. At the end of June, Goldman saw a newspaper headline that brought to her attention the trio's first opportunity for political action: the Homestead Strike . In June 1892, workers at a steel plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania were locked out when negotiations between the Carnegie Steel Company and the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers failed. Henry Clay Frick ,

1248-427: A typesetter for Most's German-language newspaper Freiheit . In 1889, Berkman met and began a romance with Emma Goldman , another Russian immigrant. He invited her to Most's lecture. Soon Berkman and Goldman fell in love and became inseparable. Despite their disagreements and separations, Goldman and Berkman would share a mutual devotion for decades, united by their anarchist principles and love for each other. By

1326-435: A value-based model. Society is modeled in terms of the coordination of different values realized through socialization, norms and rules, which then legitimize the political order. Johnson argues that revolution occurs when these values become disaligned. Skocpol also argues that Marxist theories can be useful for understanding revolutions but that they lack an explanation for when revolutions do and don't occur not considering

1404-414: A way to such an end." Berkman declined the services of a lawyer for his trial. The warden cautioned him against this choice, but Berkman replied "I don't believe in your laws. I don't acknowledge the authority of your courts. I am innocent morally". Bauer and Nold visited him with their lawyers, who offered to represent him at no charge, but Berkman politely refused. As the trial approached, Berkman drafted

1482-500: A youth, Berkman was influenced by the growing radicalism that was spreading among workers in the Russian capital. A wave of political assassinations culminated in a bomb blast that killed Tsar Alexander II in 1881. While his parents worried—correctly, as it turned out—that the tsar's death might result in repression of the Jews and other minorities, Berkman became intrigued by the radical ideas of

1560-422: Is a "combination of thoroughgoing structural transformation and massive national and class upheavals". She comes to this definition by combining Samuel P. Huntington 's definition that it "is a rapid, fundamental, and violent domestic change in the dominant values and myths of society, in its political institutions, social structure, leadership, and government activities and policies" and Vladimir Lenin 's, which

1638-550: Is given as an example of a psychological theory with this theory explaining violence as a result of anger deriving from an inability of individuals to achieve or do the things they value a state called relative deprivation . Charles Tilly with this book From Mobilization to Revolution is given as an example of a political conflict theory. He argues that groups with resources competed for political power, and that changes in access to resources could result in revolution. Chalmers Johnson with his book Revolutionary Change , discusses

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1716-485: Is that revolutions are "the festivals of the oppressed...[who act] as creators of a new social order". She also states that this definition excludes many revolutions, because they fail to meet either or both of the two parts of this definition. Academics have identified certain factors that have mitigated the rise of revolutions. Many historians have held that the rise and spread of Methodism in Great Britain prevented

1794-404: Is willing to sacrifice personal pleasure and family ties in single-minded pursuit of his revolutionary aims. Soon, Berkman joined a group at school that was reading and discussing revolutionary literature, which was prohibited under the new tsar, Alexander III . He distributed banned material to other students and wrote some radical tracts of his own, which he printed using supplies pilfered from

1872-412: The lumpenproletariat as the driver of the proletarian revolution. Through Marx and Friedrich Engels ' work they write that if the proletariat does not make up a majority, it must at least occupy an important position among the popular mass to achieve a proletarian revolution. Some later Marxists , such as Georgi Plekhanov , emphasized the need for a majority of the population to be proletarianized for

1950-599: The Vilna Governorate in the Russian Empire ). He was the youngest of four children born into a well-off Lithuanian Jewish family. Berkman's father, Osip Berkman, was a successful leather merchant, and his mother, Yetta Berkman (née Natanson), came from a prosperous family. In 1877, Osip Berkman was granted the right, as a successful businessman, to move from the Pale of Settlement to which Jews were generally restricted in

2028-450: The Leninist idea of a vanguard and insist that the entire working class—or at least a large part of it—must be deeply involved and equally committed to the socialist or communist cause for a proletarian revolution to be successful. To this end, they seek to build mass working class movements with a very large membership. The Situationists ' view is that as well as the standard proletariat being

2106-478: The Russian Empire. The family moved to Saint Petersburg , a city previously off-limits to Jews. There, Ovsei adopted the more Russian name Alexander; he was known among family and friends as Sasha, a diminutive for Alexander. The Berkmans lived comfortably, with servants and a summer house. Berkman attended the gymnasium , where he received a classical education with the youth of Saint Petersburg's elite. As

2184-478: The Tarrytown protests led to a bomb plot by several Ferrer Center anarchists. In July, three associates of Berkman—Charles Berg, Arthur Caron , and Carl Hanson—began collecting dynamite and storing it at the apartment of another conspirator, Louise Berger . Some sources, including Charles Plunkett, one of the surviving conspirators, say that Berkman was the chief conspirator, the oldest and most experienced member of

2262-653: The anarchist movement. He was the one-time lover and lifelong friend of anarchist Emma Goldman . In 1892, undertaking an act of propaganda of the deed , Berkman made an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate businessman Henry Clay Frick during the Homestead strike , for which he served 14 years in prison. His experience in prison was the basis of his first book, Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist . After his release from prison, Berkman served as editor of Goldman's anarchist journal, Mother Earth , and later established his own journal, The Blast . In 1917, Berkman and Goldman were sentenced to two years in jail for conspiracy against

2340-519: The assassination attempt, the three men surreptitiously produced 60 issues of a hand-written anarchist newsletter by transferring their work from cell to cell. They managed to send the completed newsletters, which they called Prison Blossoms , to friends outside the prison. Participating in Prison Blossoms , initially written in German and later in English, helped Berkman improve his English. He developed

2418-463: The assassination would arouse the working class to unite and revolt against the capitalist system . Berkman's plan was to assassinate Frick and then kill himself; Goldman was to explain Berkman's motives after his death; and Aronstam was to follow Berkman in the event that he failed in his mission. Emulating his Russian idols, Berkman tried to make a bomb, but when that failed, he went to Pittsburgh with

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2496-454: The attendant told Frick that the New York employment agent had returned to see him, Berkman burst into the office and took aim at Frick's head. After two shots, Berkman was tackled to the ground. Still, he managed to pull out the dagger and stab Frick three times. A carpenter who was working nearby heard the commotion and hit Berkman in the head with his hammer, but the blow only stunned him. The gunshots and struggle could be heard and seen from

2574-481: The day, including populism and nihilism . He became very upset when his favorite uncle, his mother's brother Mark Natanson , was sentenced to death for revolutionary activities. Soon after Berkman turned 12, his father died. The business had to be sold, and the family lost the right to live in Saint Petersburg. Yetta moved the family to Kovno , where her brother Nathan lived. Berkman had shown great promise as

2652-438: The deed was doomed to be misunderstood in the U.S. and that it could only backfire. Most wrote that Berkman's action had proven this; while Berkman might have demonstrated a certain heroism, in all other respects his attempt was a "total failure". Berkman was deeply interested in the debate concerning his action. He was almost heartbroken by the rebuke from Most, who had "preached propaganda by deed all his life—now he repudiates

2730-529: The development of a revolution there. In addition to preaching the Christian Gospel, John Wesley and his Methodist followers visited those imprisoned, as well as the poor and aged, building hospitals and dispensaries which provided free healthcare for the masses. The sociologist William H. Swatos stated that "Methodist enthusiasm transformed men, summoning them to assert rational control over their own lives, while providing in its system of mutual discipline

2808-430: The domination of the anarchist movement by a single individual and opposed the establishment of anarchist organizations. Consequently, the autonomists were opposed to Most. Soon, Berkman was working for the autonomists' publications, Der Anarchist  [ de ] and Die Autonomie  [ de ] , but he remained committed to the concept of violent action as a tool for inspiring revolutionary change. At

2886-458: The dynamite in an outhouse, and returned to New York. Most of the anarchists in Pittsburgh were questioned by police. Bauer and Nold were arrested and charged with complicity in Berkman's plot. Everywhere, anarchists took sides for or against Berkman and his attentat . The autonomists supported him, as did many anarchists across the country. Peukert spoke out in his defense. Also defending Berkman

2964-409: The editor of her journal, Mother Earth . He served as editor from 1907 to 1915 and took the journal in a more provocative and practical direction, in contrast to the more theoretical approach which had been favored by the previous editor, Max Baginski . Under Berkman's stewardship, circulation of Mother Earth rose to as high as 10,000 and it became the leading anarchist publication in the U.S. at

3042-422: The end of 1891, Berkman learned that Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin , whom he admired, had canceled an American speaking tour on the basis that it was too expensive for the struggling anarchist movement. While Berkman was disappointed, the frugality of the action further elevated Kropotkin's stature in his eyes. In 1892, Berkman, Goldman, and Aronstam relocated to Worcester, Massachusetts , where they operated

3120-430: The end of the year, they moved into a communal apartment with Berkman's cousin, Modest Aronstam (referred to as "Fedya" in both Berkman's Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist and Goldman's Living My Life ), and Goldman's friend, Helene Minkin , along principles inspired by What Is to Be Done? Living according to the example of Rakhmetov, Berkman denied himself even the smallest pleasures, and expected his comrades to do

3198-455: The entire system of wage slavery must also do away with the power of one class to oppress another . That is, it is not any more a mere change of rulers, of government, not a political revolution, but one that seeks to alter the whole character of society. That would be a social revolution." Social revolution Theda Skocpol in her article "France, Russia, China: A Structural Analysis of Social Revolutions" states that social revolution

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3276-553: The factory's notoriously anti-union manager, hired 300 armed guards from the Pinkerton Detective Agency to break the union's picket lines . When the Pinkerton guards arrived at the factory on the morning of July 6, a gunfight broke out. Nine union workers and seven guards were killed in the 12-hour fight. Newspapers across the country defended the union workers, and the trio decided to assassinate Frick. They believed

3354-618: The family. Late that year, Berkman was caught stealing copies of the school exams and bribing a handyman. He was expelled and labelled a "nihilist conspirator". Berkman decided to emigrate to the United States . When his brother left for Germany in early 1888 to study medicine, Berkman took the opportunity to accompany him and from there made his way to New York City . Soon after his arrival in New York, where he knew no one and spoke no English, Berkman became an anarchist through his involvement with groups that had formed to campaign to free

3432-544: The fifth year of his sentence, he applied to the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons. Having served as his own attorney, Berkman had failed to object to the trial judge's rulings and thus had no legal basis for an appeal; a pardon was his only hope for early release. The Board of Pardons denied his application in October 1897. A second application was rejected in early 1899. Now an escape seemed like Berkman's only option. The plan

3510-431: The first attentat in this country". He was encouraged by the words of Kropotkin, who wrote that "Berkman has done more to spread the anarchist idea among the masses who do not read our papers than all the writings that we may publish. He has shown that there are among the anarchists, men capable of being revolted by the crimes of capitalism to the point of giving their life to put an end to these crimes, or at least to open

3588-463: The first Jewish labor unions in the city. Before long, Berkman was one of the prominent members of the organization. Although he wasn't fluent in English, Berkman did speak German; he soon came under the influence of Johann Most , the best known anarchist in the United States and an advocate of propaganda of the deed — attentat , or violence carried out to encourage the masses to revolt. He became

3666-425: The first attempt at a proletarian revolution. Marx wrote of the class conscious proletariat being the active agent of revolution, which distinguished him from Blanqui who viewed a selective revolutionary conspiracy among all the lower classes as being the driving force of a proletarian revolution. This was also in contrast to the views of the communist William Weitling and the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin who viewed

3744-414: The house while the others worked below. On July 5, Berkman visited the prison stable, planning to make his escape. He was horrified to discover that the entrance was blocked by a large load of stones and bricks recently dumped for a construction project. Three weeks later, some children playing in the street wandered into the yard of the now-vacant house. One of them fell into the cellar and discovered

3822-467: The jury had already been empaneled. The district attorney had selected the jury without allowing Berkman to examine prospective jurors, and the judge had no objection to the unusual procedure. Berkman was charged with six counts: felonious assault with the intent to kill Frick; felonious assault with the intent to kill Lawrence Leishman, who had been in Frick's office at the time of the attack; feloniously entering

3900-451: The jury that Berkman had visited the Carnegie offices three times. Berkman's dagger and gun were placed into evidence, and the prosecution rested. Berkman was asked to call his witnesses, but he had none. Instead, he asked to read his statement to the jury. A German translator was brought to the court. As an atheist, Berkman refused to be sworn in. He began reading his prepared statement. When

3978-647: The lecture tour had made him feel miserable. He had purchased a handgun in Cleveland with the intention of killing himself in a city where nobody knew him, but he was unable to complete the act. After resting for several months, Berkman began to recover. He remained anxious about his lack of employment. He considered returning to his old job as a printer, but his skills had become obsolete in light of innovations in linotype machines . With Goldman's encouragement, Berkman began to write an account of his prison years, Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist , and she invited him to become

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4056-414: The maximum sentence for each count: a total of 21 years in prison and one year in the workhouse , to be served consecutively. Berkman argued that he should be sentenced only for the attempt on Frick's life and that the other charges were elements of the main crime of assault with the intent to kill, but the judge overruled his objection. In four hours, Berkman had been tried, convicted, and sentenced. He

4134-701: The men convicted of the 1886 Haymarket bombing . He joined the Pioneers of Liberty , the first Jewish anarchist group in the U.S. The group was affiliated with the International Working People's Association , the organization to which the Haymarket defendants had belonged, and they regarded the Haymarket men as martyrs. Since most of its members worked in the garment industry, the Pioneers of Liberty took part in strikes against sweatshops and helped establish some of

4212-544: The newly instated draft . After their release from prison, they were arrested—along with hundreds of others—and deported to Russia . Initially supportive of that country's Bolshevik revolution , Berkman and Goldman soon became disillusioned, voicing their opposition to the Soviets' use of terror after seizing power and their repression of fellow revolutionaries. They left the Soviet Union in late 1921, and in 1925 Berkman published

4290-696: The offices of the Carnegie Steel Company on three occasions; and unlawfully carrying concealed weapons. Berkman pleaded not guilty to all charges. Frick told the jury about the attempt on his life. The clothes he wore that day, bloody and riddled with holes, were shown to the jury. A physician testified that both of Berkman's weapons, the gun and the dagger, could have caused death. Leishman testified that Berkman fired his pistol at him once and Berkman asked, "Well, did I intend to kill you?" "I think so", Leishman replied, to which Berkman said, "Well that's not true. I didn't intend to do it." Several witnesses told

4368-487: The plan to use a handgun. Arriving in Pittsburgh on July 14, Berkman sought out anarchists Henry Bauer and Carl Nold. They were followers of Most, but supported the Homestead strike. Berkman had never met either man but counted on their support. Nold invited Berkman to stay with him, and he and Bauer introduced Berkman to several local anarchists. Berkman was ready to carry out the assassination on July 21. He wore

4446-508: The presence of well-wishers. He became claustrophobic and almost suicidal. Nevertheless, he agreed to a joint lecture tour with Goldman. Back in New York after the tour, Berkman and Goldman tried to rekindle their romantic relationship, but had lost passion for each other. Instead, Berkman was attracted to some of the younger women in the movement, including a teenager named Becky Edelsohn . Berkman continued to suffer from depression and increasingly spoke about committing suicide. He began

4524-511: The prison became physical. He became intimate with one prisoner, "Johnny", when the two were confined to the dungeon. He discussed homosexuality with another prisoner, "George", a formerly married physician who told Berkman about his own homosexual prison affair. In 1905, Berkman was transported from the Western Penitentiary to the Allegheny County Workhouse , where he spent the final 10 months of his sentence. He found conditions in

4602-427: The prison, resulting in an investigation, he was taken to the dungeon and put in a straitjacket. Letters from friends were like lifelines to Berkman. "The very arrival of a letter is momentous," he wrote. "It brings a glow into the prisoner's heart to feel that he is remembered." Goldman and anarchist Voltairine de Cleyre were regular correspondents, and other friends wrote frequently. In 1897, as Berkman finished

4680-408: The proletarian revolution must abolish all aspects of the state, and that a "workers' state" should not be formed. Alexander Berkman said "there are revolutions and revolutions. Some revolutions change only the governmental form by putting a new set of rulers in place of the old. These are political revolutions , and as such they often meet with little resistance. But a revolution that aims to abolish

4758-447: The psychological security necessary for autonomous conscience and liberal ideals to become internalized, an integrated part of the 'new men' ... regenerated by Wesleyan preaching." The practice of temperance among Methodists, as well as their rejection of gambling , allowed them to eliminate secondary poverty and accumulate capital. Individuals who attended Methodist chapels and Sunday schools "took into industrial and political life

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4836-623: The qualities and talents they had developed within Methodism and used them on behalf of the working classes in non-revolutionary ways." The spread of the Methodist Church in Great Britain, author and professor Michael Hill states, "filled both a social and an ideological vacuum" in English society, thus "opening up the channels of social and ideological mobility ... which worked against the polarization of English society into rigid social classes." The historian Bernard Semmel argues that "Methodism

4914-501: The role of the organization of the state in revolutions focusing instead of the class structures. Skocpol argues that while revolutions can be explained in terms of these sociological theories, it is difficult to work out which explanation is true because the concepts are so general. She argues that a comparative historical approach informed by concepts from sociology is useful. Alexander Berkman Alexander Berkman (November 21, 1870 – June 28, 1936)

4992-503: The same. Aronstam, in contrast, occasionally brought home flowers. Frictions between the two grew: "Every penny spent for ourselves was so much taken from the Cause," Berkman fumed. "Luxury is a crime, a weakness." With time, however, the two cousins reconciled. Berkman eventually broke with Most and aligned himself with the autonomists. The autonomists, an anarchist group associated with Josef Peukert , emphasized individual freedom. They feared

5070-501: The school. He turned in a paper titled "There Is No God", which resulted in a one-year demotion as punishment on the basis of "precocious godlessness, dangerous tendencies and subordination". Berkman's mother died in 1887, and his uncle Nathan Natanson became responsible for him. Berkman had contempt for Natanson for his desire to maintain order and avoid conflict. Natanson could not understand what Berkman found appealing in his radical ideas, and he worried that Berkman would bring shame to

5148-436: The street, and within minutes Frick's office had attracted all sorts of people, but Berkman continued to resist. A deputy sheriff aimed his gun at Berkman, but Frick said, "Don't shoot. Leave him to the law." As the police led Berkman to the jail, an angry crowd gathered and shouted at Berkman. When he was questioned by police, Berkman said he had arrived in Pittsburgh on July 21 and that he had acted alone. A dynamite capsule

5226-518: The time. Berkman helped establish the Ferrer Center in New York during 1910 and 1911 and served as one of its teachers. The Ferrer Center, named in honor of Spanish anarchist Francisco Ferrer , included a free school that encouraged independent thinking among its students. The Ferrer Center also served as a community center for adults. In September 1913, the United Mine Workers called

5304-445: The translator began to speak on his behalf to the jury, Berkman discovered the man was incompetent. He felt the man's voice was "cracked and shrill" as he spoke to the jury in broken English himself. The effect of the statement, Berkman thought, was being lost. After about an hour, the judge told Berkman it was time to finish his oration. Without leaving the jury box, the jurors found Berkman guilty on all charges. The judge gave Berkman

5382-435: The tunnel. While the prison's Board of Inspectors was unable to identify the inmate involved in the escape attempt, the warden punished Berkman by sending him to solitary confinement for nearly a year. Days after he was released from solitary, Berkman tried to hang himself with a strip of his blanket. Soon things began looking up for Berkman. He received word that his sentence had been reduced by two-and-a-half years, thanks to

5460-401: The wooden flooring, and crawl through the tunnel to the house. Digging the tunnel turned out to be more difficult than expected. The soil was rocky, which forced the men to dig deeper than planned. There, they discovered a leaking gas main, which required the installation of special pumps to bring fresh air to the men. To hide the noise from the digging, one of the crew played piano and sang in

5538-417: The workhouse "a nightmare of cruelty, infinitely worse than the most inhuman aspects of the penitentiary." The guards beat inmates at the slightest provocation, and one particularly sadistic guard shoved prisoners down the stairs. Berkman felt mixed emotions; while he was excited about the prospect of freedom, he was concerned about the friends he had made in the prison, and he was worried about what his life as

5616-553: Was Dyer Lum , an anarchist who had been a comrade of the Haymarket defendants, and Lucy Parsons . Among those who criticized Berkman were Jo Labadie , Benjamin Tucker , and many other anarchists who believed the anarchist struggle should be peaceful. Berkman's most prominent critic was Most, who belittled Berkman as a nuisance or a flunky hired by Frick himself to garner sympathy. Most published an article in his newspaper titled "Reflections on Attentats " in which he wrote that propaganda of

5694-504: Was a Russian-American anarchist and author. He was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century, famous for both his political activism and his writing. Berkman was born into a wealthy Jewish family in Vilna in the Russian Empire (present-day Vilnius , Lithuania ) and emigrated to the United States in 1888. He lived in New York City , where he became involved in

5772-434: Was an antirevolutionary movement that succeeded (to the extent that it did) because it was a revolution of a radically different kind" that was capable of effecting social change on a large scale. Skocpol distinguishes her theory from psychological theories of revolution ("aggregate psychological theories"), theories of systems and values, and theories about political conflicts. Ted Robert Gurr and his book Why Men Rebel

5850-426: Was brought to serve his sentence at Pennsylvania's Western Penitentiary . Within weeks of his arrival at prison, Berkman began planning his suicide. He tried to sharpen a spoon into a blade, but his attempt was discovered by a guard and Berkman spent the night in the dungeon. He thought about beating his head against the bars of his cell, but worried that his efforts might injure him but leave him alive. Berkman wrote

5928-617: Was discovered in his mouth after a policeman noticed that he was chewing on something. On July 24, a police officer took Berkman for a portrait. He lent Berkman his own tie for the picture. The following day, Aronstam arrived in Pittsburgh with pockets full of dynamite to finish Berkman's botched assassination attempt. Somehow rumors of his arrival had preceded him, and he saw a newspaper headline that read "Was Not Alone. Berkmann [ sic ] Had Accomplices in His Mission of Murder. Is Aaron Stamm Here?" Aronstam became frightened, hid

6006-559: Was imperative to arm the working class to secure their leverage over the bourgeoisie. Lenin's words were printed in an article in German on the nature of pacifism and said "In every class society, whether based on slavery, serfdom, or, as at present, on wage-labour, the oppressor class is always armed." It was under such conditions that the first successful proletarian revolution, the Russian Revolution , occurred. Other Marxists, such as Luxemburgists and left communists , disagree with

6084-407: Was to rent a house across the street from the prison and dig a tunnel from the house to the prison. Berkman had been given access to a large portion of the prison and had grown familiar with its layout. In April 1900, a house was leased. The tunnel would be dug from the cellar of the house to the stable inside the prison yard. When the digging was complete, Berkman would sneak into the stable, tear open

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