Short Chronology from the Daily Bleed:



1873 -- Rudolf Rocker lives. A Gentile, he became involved in the Jewish anarchist movement. Learned Yiddish, lived in the Jewish community



1877 -- Milly Witkop Rocker (1877-1955) lives, Ukraine. Exiled to London, she was an activist in the Jewish anarchist movement among the Lower Eastside sweatshop workers.

 There, in 1896, she met Rudolf Rocker who became her lifelong companion. In 1916 she was sentenced to two years in prison for antiwar activities, & in 1918 the Rockers went to Germany, where Milly organized women workers. In 1933, with the Nazi burning of the Reichstag they were forced to the US, where they continued to fight & organize, & were prominent supporters of the revolution in Spain (one of her lifelong intimates was Etta Federn, an educator who helped form "Mujeres Libres" in 1936, & wrote Mujeres de las revoluciones) In 1937, Milly & Rudolf Rocker settled in the anarchist community of Mohegan (NY).



1895 -- England: Rudolf Rocker arrives in London. German anarchist who became deeply involved in the Jewish Federation of Jewish Anarchists, a movement larger than the native British anarchist movement. 

 Mass meetings were held in the Great Assembly Hall in Mile End & in the Wonderland in Whitechapel, attended by thousands, sometimes five, six, seven thousand. Not Jewish & unable to read Yiddish, little did Rocker suspect that in a few short years he would be editor of Arbeter Fraint & immersed in the movement for the next 20 years.



1899 -- Arthur Lehning lives. German anarchist. Founder, in December 1919, with Rudolf Rocker & Augustin Souchy, of the FAUD. Establishes & becomes curator of the monumental "Bakunin Files", with the International Institute of Social History of Amsterdam, in 1971. 

1903 -- England: Arbeter Fraint begins republishing under the administration of the Arbeter Fraint group & editorship of Rudolf Rocker, but now as the organ of the "Federation of Yiddish-Speaking Anarchist Groups in Great Britain & Paris". 

 A conference of Jewish anarchists meeting in London during the Christmas week 1902, in London, had four items on the agenda: Restarting the Arbeter Fraint, opening a club, issuing pamphlets & books, & linking different groups in London & the provinces into a Jewish Anarchist Federation. Rocker ceased publishing his own paper Germinal, unable to do both papers at the same time. In January 1905, another group undertook responsibility for publishing it, & named him it's editor.



1909 -- Rudolf Rocker meets Francisco Ferrer for the first time (six months before Ferrer was executed by the Spanish), during a May Day demonstration in Hyde Park, London. They have tea afterwards with fellow anarchists Malatesta, Tarrida, Tcherkesov, Shapiro. 

1919 -- Germany: On the initiative of Rudolf Rocker, the founding Congress of F.A.U.D. (Freie Arbeiter Union Deutschland), free union of the German workers, is held in Berlin, from the 27th-30th. The union declares itself anarchist-syndicalist & opposed to the State & parliamentarism. It eventually counts 125,000 members.

1922 -- Germany: Founding of the anarcho-syndicalist International Workers Association (AIT or IWA), Berlin, on the initiative of Rudolf Rocker. 

 Rudolf Rocker was responsible for putting together the anti-authoritarian A.I.T.; it is an umbrella organization of various anarchist-syndicalist trade unionists from 12 countries (FORA, USI, SAC, FAUD, CNT, etc.) which numbered several million members over the years. The first secretaries are Rudolf Rocker, Augustin Souchy & Alexander Schapiro. 



1934 -- Civil libertarian Roger Baldwin discusses Emma Goldman's application for a new U.S. visa -- & Rudolf Rocker's application for an extension of his stay -- with the authorities in Washington, who advise him they will deny Goldman's request; only Rocker's application is approved.

1939 -- US: Fortieth anniversary of the New York Yiddish anarchist weekly, the Freie Arbeiter Stimme (Free Voice of Labor). 

 Editors included S. Yanofsky, who roundly condemned Alexander Berkman for his act against Frick, & later Emma Goldman for supporting Czolgolsz. Yanofsky had come from England, where he had edited the Arbeiter Freund; he was clever & wielded an incisive pen. He also accused of Makhno of anti-Semitism, but failed to produce any proof when challenged by Makhno. Contributors were diverse, including Thomas Bell, Harry Kelly, Anatol' Konse, Max Nomad, Rudolf Rocker, Augustin Souchy, Max Nettlau & Christian Cornelissen. Mark Mratchny was an editor in the 1930s.  See the documentary by Steve Fischler & Joel Sucher: Free Voice of Labor: The Jewish Anarchists (1980) focusing on the lives & ideas of the Jewish anarchists associated with Freie Arbeiter Stimme (1890-1977). Participants recall labor struggles, especially in the needle trades, the repression of radicals during the post-World War I "Red scare," & the cooperative ventures they undertook in such areas as housing & free schools. The film includes interviews with the anarchists, rare newsreel & feature film footage, still photographs, Yiddish "songs of struggle," & music from the Yiddish theater.



1940 -- A memorial meeting for Emma Goldman is held at New York's Town Hall, presided over by Leonard Abbott; films of Goldman in Spain, Canada, & of her funeral are shown; speakers include Norman Thomas, Rudolf Rocker, Roger Baldwin, Harry Kelly, Carlo Tresca, Eliot White, Rose Pesotta of the ILGWU, Martin Gudell, Dorothy Rogers, & Harry Weinberger. 

1942 -- Pierre Ramus (aka Rudolf Grossman) (1882-1942) dies, fleeing from Nazi-occupied Europe. Austrian writer, pacifist & propagandist. Wrote for Johann Most's newspaper & organized the German FKAD (Federation of Anarchistic Communists of Germany) parallel to Rudolf Rocker's FAUD. See Anarchist Galley page,
 http://www.eskimo.com/~recall/bleed/sinners/RamusPierre.htm


1943 -- Max Baginski dies, New York (born, 1864, in Eastern Prussia), a Social Democrat turned anarchist, is condemned in 1891 to 2 1/2 years in prison for "violation of the press laws". Exiled to the US, Baginski collaborated on Johan Most's paper, "Freiheit", then as publicity agent for Emma Goldman's newspaper, "Mother Earth", as well as many other papers into the 30s. Rudolf Rocker calls him, "One of the most enlightened & perspicacious spirits of the German movement." 

1956 -- Milly Witkop Rocker dies. Anarchist, labor organizer, lifelong companion of Rudolf Rocker. 

1958 -- American immigrant anarchist leader Rudolf Rocker dies, Mohegan, Maine.







http://flag.blackened.net/rocker/


http://tigerden.com/~berios/liberty.html


La ideologia del anarquismo, por Rudolf Rockerhttp://csl.tao.ca/anarquia/ideologiadela.html


http://user.tninet.se/~pka447m/A/rudolf.htm


Anarchy Archives at Pitzer College,
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/rocker/rudolf.html


http://www.iisg.nl/~w3vl/vl-alph.html


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anti-CopyRite 1997-3000, more or less

Questions, suggestions, additions, corrections to David Brown at recall@eskimo.com