I did a lot of driving today and listened to one of my favorite podcasts, Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History. Among a lot of other things, he clued me in to a man by the name of Luigi Galleani. If I’d ever heard about this guy, it never took. He was a charismatic anarchist who advocated direct violence against the powerful. But he never, apparently, engaged in direct violence himself. Sacco and Vanzetti are counted among his most prominent followers.
I knew of them, but mostly heard that their trial was sketchy and tainted by racism. Probably I’d heard something about anarchism; but really have never studied what anarchism meant in the context of the day. They were a source of great anxiety in the U.S. (and elsewhere – e.g. the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand) in the early 20th century. They were tied into and inspired by the Labor movement in the 19th century.
Anyway, Galleani seems to have been one of the more influential people I never heard of. Of his oratory skills, one guy said, “You heard Galleani speak, and you were ready to shoot the first policeman you saw.” The Wikipedia entry also had the text of a flyer accompanying a series of bombs apparently set by Galleanists at homes of Mayor Harry L. Davis of Cleveland, Judge W.H.S. Thompson, Massachusetts State Representative Leland Powers, and Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer:
War, Class war, and you were the first to wage it under the cover of the powerful institutions you call order, in the darkness of your laws. There will have to be bloodshed; we will not dodge; there will have to be murder: we will kill, because it is necessary; there will have to be destruction; we will destroy to rid the world of your tyrannical institutions.
And much like with anarchists today, the actual human connection between these folks and, you know, actual members of the “working class”, are few and far between.
It is kind of like with Marx. If only the bastard had gotten tenure, the whole history of the 20th century could have been different. ;)
This is all stuff that occurred in “The Calumet Region” (south side of Chicago into Northwest Indiana), so it is local history for us.