The behind-the-scenes organizer who wove international anarcho-syndicalism from Amsterdam 1907 to the IWMA
February 1921. Behind Kropotkin's coffin, 20,000 anarchists filled Moscow's streets — the last anarchist demonstration permitted in Soviet Russia. Schapiro and Berkman had organized the funeral commission.
The key linchpin of international anarcho-syndicalism. As secretary of the Amsterdam International, he built a cross-continental network; during the Revolution he worked within the Bolshevik state while maintaining his anarchist critique. Expelled in 1922, he co-founded the IWMA in Berlin.
Career Timeline
- 1901–1907Active in London's Jewish anarchist movement; Arbeter Fraynd group member; runs Jubilee Street Club
- 1907Delegate to Amsterdam International Anarchist Congress; elected International Bureau secretary, edits its Bulletin
- 1915Signs International Anarchist Manifesto on the War; breaks with Kropotkin's pro-Allied position
- 1917–1920Returns to Russia; Golos Truda editor; works for Commissariats of Jewish Affairs and Foreign Affairs
- 1921Organizes Kropotkin's funeral; co-authors The Russian Revolution and the Communist Party; negotiates prisoner release at RILU congress
- 1922Arrested in Moscow; freed by international protest campaign and permanently expelled from Soviet Union
- 1922–1932Co-founds IWMA in Berlin, secretariat secretary; publishes Rabochii Put' for clandestine distribution in Russia
- 1932–1939Mediates CNT-FAI conflict in Barcelona; edits La Voix du Travail in France; emigrates to New York
- 1945–1946Edits New Trends journal in New York; dies of heart failure
The Hidden Architect of International Syndicalism
Schapiro was never a mass orator or prolific author, but as a brilliant organizer of international networks he decisively shaped the historical trajectory of anarcho-syndicalism. At the 1907 International Anarchist Congress in Amsterdam, he was elected secretary of the International Bureau alongside Rudolf Rocker and Errico Malatesta, and launched the Bulletin de l'Internationale Anarchiste in French, creating a communication channel among syndicalists worldwide. The Bulletin appeared almost monthly for about a year, serving as the informational infrastructure of the international movement. But it gradually withered as anarchists' fear of organization hampered its work.
At the First International Syndicalist Congress in London in 1913 he served as translator, and he devoted himself to preparing a second anarchist congress scheduled for August 1914, only for the outbreak of World War I to cancel it. During the war he opposed Kropotkin's pro-Allied position and signed the International Anarchist Manifesto on the War. In December 1922 in Berlin he co-founded the International Working Men's Association (IWMA), representing the Russian syndicalist movement. His experience in Soviet Russia convinced him that a break with Bolshevism was unavoidable, and as IWMA secretariat secretary he played a decisive role in expanding the new international to Germany, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, France, Argentina, Mexico, and beyond. For Schapiro, the IWMA was not only a response to Bolshevism and reformism, but the continuation of the pre-war effort to unite the international syndicalist movement.