Biography
Hyman Perkus was born 1888 in Riga, Russia (present-day Latvia). Worked as a carpenter, editor. Immigrated to the United States in 1915.
A Social Democrat in Russia before emigrating to Paris in 1912, he then immigrated to the United States in 1915.
In America he became an anarchist and joined the Union of Russian Workers in Cleveland in 1916, later transferring to the organization’s First Branch in New York. He was also a member of the Anarchist Red Cross and the partner of fellow URW member and deportee Dora Lipkin. Became national secretary of the URW and succeeded Peter Bianki as editor of its newspaper Khleb i Volia. During questioning, he declared: “Why did I become an anarchist? I have suffered from injustices and oppression and have seen that the people in general also suffer from injustices and oppression.” He also stated, “I think the only way is to use the same methods that the United States people used against England in 1776 when the United States people got their freedom…You know what they did.” Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919 and deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.
In Russia he became a “Soviet anarchist” who critically supported the Communist dictatorship as a temporary necessity, and in 1921 he founded the Union of Russian Anarchist Workers Repatriated from America. In February 1921 he spoke at the funeral of Peter Kropotkin, upsetting many present by mentioning and criticizing Kropotkin’s wartime support for the Allies. In March 1921 he joined Berkman and Emma Goldman in an unsuccessful attempt to mediate between the Red Army and the Kronstadt sailors. Arrested several times after the uprising, he later studied at the Moscow Institute of Journalism, and by 1930 had joined the Communist Party. He was killed at an unknown date during Stalin’s purges.
Adapted from Kenyon Zimmer, Red Scare Deportees (kenyonzimmer.com), compiled from INS deportation case files.
