Louise Berger
Encyclopedia
Louise Berger was a Latvian anarchist, a member of the Anarchist Red Cross and editor of Emma Goldman
's Mother Earth Bulletin
in New York. Berger became well known outside anarchist circles in 1914 after a premature bomb explosion at her New York City apartment (known as the Lexington Avenue bombing
), which killed four persons and destroyed part of the building.
(Latvian) Anarchist Group, an organization primarily devoted to the publication and dissemination of anarchist literature. However, when a number of comrades organized a Lettish Anarchist Red Cross in December 1913, the three became some of its first members.
, Emma Goldman, Luigi Galleani
, and members of the Anarchist Red Cross and the I.W.W. spent a great deal of their time. During these meetings, plans were made to stage protests at the Tarrytown, New York estate of Standard Oil
magnate John D. Rockefeller
, owner of the Ludlow mines in Colorado.
The Ludlow Massacre
in Colorado
and police dispersal of the Tarrytown protests enraged most radicals. In June, members of the Lettish Anarchist Red Cross, including Berg, Hanson, Berger, and I.W.W. member Arthur Caron
began plotting a bomb attack to assassinate Rockefeller.
Berg, Hanson, and Caron began to collect dynamite from various sources, storing it in Louise Berger's apartment on New York's Lexington Avenue. Meetings were held at the Ferrer Center, where the conspirators devised a plan in which Berg, Hanson, and Caron would to plant a bomb at Rockefeller's home in Tarrytown. The plot was scheduled for July 3, but for reasons unknown, the plan was called off at the last moment. The three men returned to Berger's apartment from Tarrytown with bomb in hand.
At 9 a.m. on July 4, 1914, Louise Berger left her apartment and walked to the office of the Anarchist newspaper known as the Mother Earth Bulletin, where she worked as an editor alongside Alexander Berkman
. It has been assumed by some who knew her that Berger was going there to inform Berkman that the bomb had been readjusted and was ready. At 9:15 an explosion occurred from Berger's apartment at 1626 Lexington Avenue. Passers-by witnessed a shower of debris and rubble fall into the street. Jack Isaacson, a newspaper editor who lived around the corner from Berger, recalled a man's arm falling from the Lexington Avenue building into the street in front of him. The three upper floors of the building were wrecked, while debris showered rooftops and the streets below. Large pieces of furniture were thrown hundreds of feet in the air due to the power of the blast.
The bomb had exploded prematurely, killing Carl Hanson, Charles Berg and Arthur Caron. A fourth person, Marie Chavez, was also killed. The blast threw Caron's body onto the mangled and twisted fire escape. The mutilated bodies of Marie Chavez and Hanson were found inside of the apartment. The blast had torn the body of Charles Berg into pieces, which were seen by spectators being thrown through the air onto the streets. In total, twenty other people were injured, seven of them severely enough to be hospitalized. Another man, an I.W.W. member named Mike Murphy, was spending the night in the apartment, when the explosion occurred. Berkman and Berger attended the men's funerals. Berkman would later state that the Lexington Avenue explosion was the most meaningful anarchist event since the Haymarket riot. On July 20, 1914 Berger and two other women visited jailed hunger striker Rebecca Edelsohn, who was protesting her confinement for failure to pay a $300 fine for speaking disrespectfully of the American flag.
in Russia, she decided to leave the United States to return to her homeland and assist in the worker’s revolution. Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman had recently finished compiling a communique to their comrades in Russia titled Manifesto to the Russian Workers, Peasants, and Soldiers! to explain the state of the U.S. antiwar movement, in particular the recent imprisonment of Thomas Mooney
and Warren Billings, convicted of the Preparedness Day bombings of 1916. Goldman and Berkman entrusted Louise Berger, (according to Goldman, one of "our closest and most dependable friends") with a copy of the manifesto to take with her on her journey to Russia. Berger sailed from New York in August 1917 bound for Russia, along with journalist John Reed and several other prominent radicals. On the voyage out she met another returnee, Senya Fleshin
, and became his lover.
Back in Russia, Berger and Fleshin rejoined other anarchists participating in the revolution. She eventually parted with Fleshin and traveled to Odessa, where she reportedly carried out “bank expropriations” as an armed robber (naletchiki) during the chaos of the Revolution. According to one source, she fell ill and died during the typhus epidemic that swept Russia in 1920 and 1921. Another source claims that she was liquidated along with other anarchists by Bolshevik
Cheka
or Red Army
security forces during the Trotskyist campaign against 'anarcho-bandits' and other dissident movements.
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century....
's Mother Earth Bulletin
Mother Earth (magazine)
Mother Earth was an anarchist journal that described itself as "A Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature," edited by Emma Goldman. Alexander Berkman, another well-known anarchist, was the magazine's editor from 1907 to 1915...
in New York. Berger became well known outside anarchist circles in 1914 after a premature bomb explosion at her New York City apartment (known as the Lexington Avenue bombing
Lexington Avenue bombing
The Lexington Avenue bombing was the July 4, 1914 explosion of a bomb in an apartment at 1626 Lexington Avenue New York City, killing four people and injuring dozens.-The conspirators:...
), which killed four persons and destroyed part of the building.
Early life
Berger was born in Latvia, Russia in the 1890s. Around 1905, she left Russia for Western Europe. In Hamburg, Germany she met two other Latvian Anarchist Red Cross members, Charles Berg and Carl Hanson (her stepbrother), and accompanied them to New York City in 1911. When the three arrived in New York, the three joined the LettishLatvians
Latvians or Letts are the indigenous Baltic people of Latvia.-History:Latvians occasionally refer to themselves by the ancient name of Latvji, which may have originated from the word Latve which is a name of the river that presumably flowed through what is now eastern Latvia...
(Latvian) Anarchist Group, an organization primarily devoted to the publication and dissemination of anarchist literature. However, when a number of comrades organized a Lettish Anarchist Red Cross in December 1913, the three became some of its first members.
Tarrytown and the Lexington Avenue Bombing
During this same period, Berger, Berg, and Hanson also became active in anarchist labor rights groups and the Anti-Military League. Most of these organizations used the Ferrer Center at their hub for activities. Here individuals like Alexander BerkmanAlexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman was an anarchist known for his political activism and writing. He was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century....
, Emma Goldman, Luigi Galleani
Luigi Galleani
Luigi Galleani was an Italian anarchist active in the United States from 1901 to 1919, viewed by historians as an anarchist communist and an insurrectionary anarchist. He is best known for his enthusiastic advocacy of "propaganda of the deed", i.e...
, and members of the Anarchist Red Cross and the I.W.W. spent a great deal of their time. During these meetings, plans were made to stage protests at the Tarrytown, New York estate of Standard Oil
Standard Oil
Standard Oil was a predominant American integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational...
magnate John D. Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller
John Davison Rockefeller was an American oil industrialist, investor, and philanthropist. He was the founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of...
, owner of the Ludlow mines in Colorado.
The Ludlow Massacre
Ludlow massacre
The Ludlow Massacre was an attack by the Colorado National Guard on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado on April 20, 1914....
in Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
and police dispersal of the Tarrytown protests enraged most radicals. In June, members of the Lettish Anarchist Red Cross, including Berg, Hanson, Berger, and I.W.W. member Arthur Caron
Arthur Caron
Arthur Caron was a French Canadian anarchist and a member of the Industrial Workers of the World. He masterminded an attempt to assassinate John D. Rockefeller. He was killed along with Carl Hanson, and Charles Berg on July 4, 1914 when his bomb prematurely exploded.-References:...
began plotting a bomb attack to assassinate Rockefeller.
Berg, Hanson, and Caron began to collect dynamite from various sources, storing it in Louise Berger's apartment on New York's Lexington Avenue. Meetings were held at the Ferrer Center, where the conspirators devised a plan in which Berg, Hanson, and Caron would to plant a bomb at Rockefeller's home in Tarrytown. The plot was scheduled for July 3, but for reasons unknown, the plan was called off at the last moment. The three men returned to Berger's apartment from Tarrytown with bomb in hand.
At 9 a.m. on July 4, 1914, Louise Berger left her apartment and walked to the office of the Anarchist newspaper known as the Mother Earth Bulletin, where she worked as an editor alongside Alexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman was an anarchist known for his political activism and writing. He was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century....
. It has been assumed by some who knew her that Berger was going there to inform Berkman that the bomb had been readjusted and was ready. At 9:15 an explosion occurred from Berger's apartment at 1626 Lexington Avenue. Passers-by witnessed a shower of debris and rubble fall into the street. Jack Isaacson, a newspaper editor who lived around the corner from Berger, recalled a man's arm falling from the Lexington Avenue building into the street in front of him. The three upper floors of the building were wrecked, while debris showered rooftops and the streets below. Large pieces of furniture were thrown hundreds of feet in the air due to the power of the blast.
The bomb had exploded prematurely, killing Carl Hanson, Charles Berg and Arthur Caron. A fourth person, Marie Chavez, was also killed. The blast threw Caron's body onto the mangled and twisted fire escape. The mutilated bodies of Marie Chavez and Hanson were found inside of the apartment. The blast had torn the body of Charles Berg into pieces, which were seen by spectators being thrown through the air onto the streets. In total, twenty other people were injured, seven of them severely enough to be hospitalized. Another man, an I.W.W. member named Mike Murphy, was spending the night in the apartment, when the explosion occurred. Berkman and Berger attended the men's funerals. Berkman would later state that the Lexington Avenue explosion was the most meaningful anarchist event since the Haymarket riot. On July 20, 1914 Berger and two other women visited jailed hunger striker Rebecca Edelsohn, who was protesting her confinement for failure to pay a $300 fine for speaking disrespectfully of the American flag.
The Manifesto and life in Soviet Russia
Louise Berger remained active in the United States anarchist movement for three more years. In 1917, after the October RevolutionOctober Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
in Russia, she decided to leave the United States to return to her homeland and assist in the worker’s revolution. Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman had recently finished compiling a communique to their comrades in Russia titled Manifesto to the Russian Workers, Peasants, and Soldiers! to explain the state of the U.S. antiwar movement, in particular the recent imprisonment of Thomas Mooney
Thomas Mooney
Thomas Joseph "Tom" Mooney was an American political activist and labor leader, who was convicted with Warren K. Billings of the San Francisco Preparedness Day Bombing of 1916...
and Warren Billings, convicted of the Preparedness Day bombings of 1916. Goldman and Berkman entrusted Louise Berger, (according to Goldman, one of "our closest and most dependable friends") with a copy of the manifesto to take with her on her journey to Russia. Berger sailed from New York in August 1917 bound for Russia, along with journalist John Reed and several other prominent radicals. On the voyage out she met another returnee, Senya Fleshin
Senya Fleshin
Senya Fleshin was an anarchist and photographer.-Early life:...
, and became his lover.
Back in Russia, Berger and Fleshin rejoined other anarchists participating in the revolution. She eventually parted with Fleshin and traveled to Odessa, where she reportedly carried out “bank expropriations” as an armed robber (naletchiki) during the chaos of the Revolution. According to one source, she fell ill and died during the typhus epidemic that swept Russia in 1920 and 1921. Another source claims that she was liquidated along with other anarchists by Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
Cheka
Cheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
or Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
security forces during the Trotskyist campaign against 'anarcho-bandits' and other dissident movements.
See also
- Anarchist Red Cross
- Emma GoldmanEmma GoldmanEmma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century....
- Mother Earth (magazine)Mother Earth (magazine)Mother Earth was an anarchist journal that described itself as "A Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature," edited by Emma Goldman. Alexander Berkman, another well-known anarchist, was the magazine's editor from 1907 to 1915...
Sources
- Avrich, Paul, The Modern School Movement, AK Press (2005)
- Avrich, Paul, Sacco and Vanzetti: the Anarchist Background, Princeton University Press (1991)
- Avrich, Paul, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History, Princeton University Press (1996)
- Goldman, Emma, Living My Life, 1st ed., New York: Alfred A. Knopf (1931), p. 597.