How Americans sent radicals to Lenin as a Christmas present: "Soviet Ark"

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The 1917 revolution not only changed Russia, but also seriously affected American society. With the filing of the US Attorney General, raids began against radical left citizens. As a result, 249 "suspicious persons", posing a threat to American society, were arrested and deported to Russia on the ship Buford on December 21, 1919. The flight went down in history as the "Soviet Ark", since the overwhelming majority of passengers were Russian immigrants. The US press called this demonstrative political action "an American Christmas present to Lenin and Trotsky."

Russian means revolutionary

After the February revolution in the United States, anarchists, communists and socialists became more active, delighted with the Soviet revolutionary experiment. Rallies, strikes and processions were often accompanied by terrorist acts. In April 1919, followers of the Italian anarchist Luigi Galleani sent several parcels of explosives to high-ranking officials and businessmen (in particular, Rockefeller). The action was timed to coincide with Labor Day, fortunately no one was hurt then. In June, the same radicals sent out a new batch of bombs. One of the recipients was US Attorney General Mitchell Palmer. As a result of the explosion, his house was significantly damaged, but the prosecutor himself survived and decided to launch a counteroffensive, deploying a campaign across the country against the "red threat".

Despite the fact that all traces led to the Italian radicals, their adherents from the "Union of Russian Workers of the USA and Canada" became their number one enemy. It is believed that this particular organization was the real target of the Palmer raids. Every Russian was seen as a potential anarchist and posed a threat to America. As a result, all who did not have American citizenship were arrested - only 360 people. Some of them, natives of the Russian Empire, it was decided to deport from the country.

"Red Emma" and other passengers of the "Soviet Ark"

December 21, 1919 - the date of the loudest deportation from the United States. On that day, 249 people were put on the cargo ship Buford and expelled from the country. The overwhelming majority of passengers - 199 people - are representatives of the Union of Russian Workers, the rest are members of the Communist Party and the Industrial Workers of the World organization. 7 people from among the deported were not involved in politics at all.

The ethnic composition of the passengers of the "ark" was varied: Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Balts, Poles, Tartars and Persians. The biggest names on this list were the ideologues and leaders of the anarchist movement - Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman, who was dubbed "Emma Red" and was considered "the most dangerous woman in America."

Among the Russian-speaking passengers was another significant figure - the leader of the Union of Russian Workers, Pyotr Bianchi.

At first, the steamer was sailing nowhere, only a day after leaving the United States, the captain was allowed to open the envelope with the destination. Since America and the USSR did not maintain diplomatic relations at that time, it was decided to land in Finland. From there the passengers of the Kovcheg were escorted to the Soviet border, where they were greeted as guests of honor, with an orchestra and shouts of "Hurray."

Why did radicals from the United States become disillusioned with the Bolsheviks?

Most of those who arrived from the United States on the "Soviet Ark" were born in the Russian Empire, fought against the tsarist regime and were forced to leave the country. Now they hoped to stay forever in Soviet Russia in order to devote their lives to the "sacred revolutionary struggle." Berkman described his arrival in Russia as the most solemn and happiest day of his life.

American anarchists traveled around the country, communicated with the leaders of the Bolsheviks and even personally met Nestor Makhno.

In May 1920, Emma and Berkman met with Lenin, who noted that freedom of speech during a revolution is a luxury. Americans who admired the Russian revolutionaries were deeply disappointed. Their fellow anarchists were persecuted, and the workers 'and peasants' power turned out to be a fiction. In reality, terror, despotism, violence and the dictatorship of the party reigned, which exploited the people no less than the bourgeoisie. After the brutal suppression of the Krondstadt rebellion, the American revolutionaries finally lost faith in the Bolshevik project. The country of the Soviets appeared before them as a terrible state where cruelty and injustice reign. In December 1921, Berkman and Goldman left the country for good. The shock was so great that in 1922 Emma wrote the book My Disappointment in Russia, and later - the sequel, My Further Disappointment in Russia.

Which of the deported found himself in the USSR

However, not all passengers of the Soviet Ark were disappointed with their new homeland. Peter Bianchi was actively involved in the construction of socialism and found his place in Soviet Russia. He worked in the Sibrevkom in Omsk, served as an official in the city administration of Petrograd and even was an assistant commissioner on a hospital ship in the Baltic Sea.

On March 10, 1930, an armed anti-Soviet rebellion led by Frol Dobyin broke out in Ust-Charyshskaya Pristan. The rebels shot nine activists and officials of the Communist Party, including Pyotr Bianchi.

Immediately after the departure of the first party of radicals, Attorney General Palmer said that he had prepared another 2,720 people for deportation and promised that in the near future he would send Lenin "the second, third and fourth Soviet ark." But this did not happen due to lack of money. In total, the expulsion of the revolutionaries cost America $ 76 thousand.

Soviet power later for these purposes, the inhabitants of the Baltic were deported to Siberia.