Exiled revolutionary who made anarchism an international political movement
After witnessing the crushing of Kronstadt, Goldman wrote: 'Kronstadt broke the last thread that held me to the Bolsheviki.' She left Soviet Russia in December 1921.
Russian-born anarchist revolutionary, writer, and orator who emigrated to the United States. Politically awakened by the Haymarket affair, she played a pivotal role in developing anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe. Known as 'Red Emma,' she drew thousands to lectures on birth control, free love, and antimilitarism, and was deported to Soviet Russia in 1919. After the Kronstadt rebellion, she became a prominent critic of Bolshevik authoritarianism, documenting her disillusionment in My Disillusionment in Russia (1923).
Career timeline
1889Moves to NYC; mentored by Johann Most, enters anarchist movement
1892Implicated in Berkman's attempted assassination of Henry Clay Frick
1893First imprisonment — one year for incitement after Union Square speech
1906Founds the anarchist journal Mother Earth
1917Sentenced to two years for anti-draft organizing
1919Deported to Soviet Russia aboard the 'Soviet Ark' Buford
1923Publishes My Disillusionment in Russia, a critique of Bolshevik rule
1936Supports the anarchist revolution in the Spanish Civil War
The American journalist who chronicled the Russian and Chinese revolutions from the inside, founder of Moscow News
"We are undertaking the most tremendous move ever made by labor in this country, a move which will lead — NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!" — editorial on the eve of the Seattle General Strike, 1919
American left-wing journalist and communist. After earning a Chicago PhD, she covered the Seattle General Strike (1919), moved to the USSR in 1921, and co-founded Moscow News (1930). In 1946 she interviewed Mao Zedong in Yan'an, drawing the famous 'paper tigers' declaration. Expelled from the USSR as a spy in 1949, she was rehabilitated in 1955 and settled in China as an honoured 'foreign friend,' chronicling Mao's China through the Cultural Revolution. With over 30 books, she was an unmatched eyewitness to the century's great communist revolutions.
Career timeline
1885Born in Friend, Nebraska, daughter of a progressive Congregationalist minister
1908PhD in philosophy from the University of Chicago — dissertation: The Social Psychology of Prayer
1916–1918Elected to Seattle School Board; recalled for supporting the IWW and opposing WWI
1919Editor, Seattle Union Record; covered the Seattle General Strike from the inside
1921Travelled to USSR with AFSC famine relief; settled as Moscow correspondent for International News Service
1930Co-founded and edited Moscow News, the USSR's first English-language newspaper
1931Married Soviet agronomist Joel Shubin (d. 1942)
1937–1938War reporting from the Spanish Civil War and China's anti-Japanese base areas
1946Interviewed Mao Zedong in Yan'an; recorded the famous 'paper tigers' remark
1949Arrested by Soviet authorities, expelled as an 'American spy'; rehabilitated in 1955
1958–1970Settled permanently in China; honoured as a 'foreign friend' of Mao and Zhou Enlai
1970Died of a heart attack in Beijing; memorial attended by Zhou Enlai and Guo Moruo
From eyewitness of the Bolshevik Revolution to founder of the Communist Labor Party of America: an American buried at the Kremlin Wall
At the mass funeral for revolutionary martyrs in Red Square, Reed suddenly understood: the devout Russian people no longer needed priests to pray them into heaven. On earth they were building a kingdom more bright than any heaven had to offer.
American journalist and communist. He witnessed the 1917 October Revolution and wrote Ten Days That Shook the World. He co-founded the Communist Labor Party of America and served on the Comintern Executive Committee. One of the very few Americans buried at the Kremlin Wall.
Career timeline
1910Graduated Harvard, began journalism career in New York
1913Joined The Masses; first arrest covering Paterson silk strike
1913–1914War correspondent in Mexico — 4 months with Pancho Villa's army; published Insurgent Mexico
1917Witnessed the October Revolution in Petrograd; worked with the Bolshevik Foreign Commissariat
1919Published Ten Days That Shook the World; co-founded the Communist Labor Party of America
1919–1920Comintern Executive Committee member; U.S. delegate to 2nd Comintern Congress; attended Baku Congress of the Peoples of the East
The artist who turned 'Ol' Man River' into a hymn of struggle
In 1937, moved by the Spanish Civil War, he permanently changed the lyrics of 'Ol' Man River': 'But I keep laughin' / Instead of cryin' / I must keep fightin' / Until I'm dyin'. In Wales he declared: 'The artist must take sides. I have made my choice. I had no alternative.'
A world-renowned bass-baritone and actor whose 'Ol' Man River' and Othello carried him to the summit of his art even as he devoted that art to the Black freedom struggle and global anti-colonialism. After backing the Spanish Republicans and the 1949 Paris Peace Congress, he refused to renounce the Soviet Union and endured passport revocation and blacklisting through the McCarthy years, regaining his passport by Supreme Court ruling in 1958.
Career timeline
1915–1919Rutgers College: twice All-American, class valedictorian
1919–1923Columbia Law School (LL.B.) while playing in the NFL
1924–1928Starred in The Emperor Jones; became Harlem Renaissance star
1928–1939Global fame with Show Boat; first Black Othello in Britain (1930)
1934First USSR visit: 'Here I am not a Negro but a human being'
1937–1939Supported Spanish Republicans; visited International Brigades; Council on African Affairs
1943–1945Broadway Othello: first Black actor with white cast; record 296 shows
1949Paris Peace Congress speech; Peekskill riots; blacklisting began
1950–1958Passport revoked; HUAC; founded Freedom; Stalin Peace Prize (1952)
1958Passport restored (Kent v. Dulles); published Here I Stand
1958–1960Comeback tours: Europe, USSR, Australia, NZ; Othello at Stratford
1961–1963Health breakdown; recovered at Buch Clinic, East Berlin
1963–1976Seclusion in U.S.; died of stroke complications in Philadelphia
Stalin's only daughter and the Kremlin's first insider witness to defect to the West
In a 2010 interview she said of her father: "He broke my life" — when he refused to let her study literature and when he had Aleksei Kapler arrested.
The only daughter of Joseph Stalin, she defected to the United States via India in 1967 and caused an international sensation with the first insider memoir of Kremlin life. Twenty Letters to a Friend (1967) exposed her father's private character and the world of the Soviet ruling elite; she returned to the USSR in 1984, left again in 1986, and spent her life unable to escape Stalin's shadow.
Career timeline
1949Graduated History Faculty, Moscow State University
1954Awarded Candidate of Philological Sciences degree
1956–1967Researcher and translator, Institute of World Literature
1967Defected to the US via India; published Twenty Letters to a Friend
1978Naturalized US citizen as Lana Peters
1984–1986Returned to the USSR, then left again for the United States
