Anarchist Calendar


January

1 - Havana: Castro seizes power in Cuba; Batista flees to exile.

2 - 1920 U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer conducts nationwide
raids on suspected Anarchist, Communists and Radicals, arresting
2,700.

5 - 1937 Abraham Lincoln Brigade forms to fight against the Fascist
forces in the Spanish Civil War.

10 - 1933 Spain: Rioting, bombings and gunfighting continue throughout
the country as the Revolution spreads to the southern cities.
Anarchists and Syndicalists seige Barcelona.

15 - 1919 Peasants in central Russia rise against the Bolsheviks.

16 - 1793 King Louis XVI is executed during the French Revolution.

21 - 1924 Lenin, the leader of the Russian Bolsheviks, dies at the age
of 54.

21 - 1950 Eric Arthur Blair (a.k.a. George Orwell) dies at the age of
46.

22 - 1905 Russia: Government troops open fire on 100,000 workers,
leaving more than 500 dead - becomes known as Bloody Monday.

25 - 1787 Daniel Shays and his 800 followers march to Springfield to
seize the Federal arsenal in protest of the imprisonment of debtors,
but were repulsed by the State militia.

29 - 1737 Thomas Paine, the famous revolutionary, is born.

29 - 1929 Russia: Trotsky is expelled from the country by Stalin.

30 - 1948 Mohandas K. Gandhi is killed by a Hindu extremist.
 

February

6 - 1939 France: 130,000 refugees cross the border from Spain, fleeing
Franco's Fascists.

7 - 1968 South Carolina: police kill 4 black student demonstrators in
Orangeburg.

8 - 1921 Russia: Peter Kropotkin, the Anarchist "prince", scientist and
philosopher, dies.

13 - 1921 Kropotkin's funeral. Jailed Russian Anarchists are allowed to
attend.

19 - 1942 President Roosevelt issues an executive order to intern
120,000 Japanese-Americans on the West Coast.

23 - 1848 France: Soldiers open fire on a crowd of demonstrators -
marking the beginning of the Revolution.

27 - 1933 Van der Lubbe, a Dutch communist, with the help of several
Nazi brownshirts, set the German Reichstag on fire. The episode
helps the Nazis in an upcoming election.

28 - 1921 Russia: Sailors at Kronstadt revolt against the authoritarian
Bolsheviks - vowing to complete the revolution.
 

March

3 - 1908 Washington: Government declares open war on U.S. Anarchists.

5 - 1953 Joseph Stalin dies in Moscow. Yay!

11 - 1907 Bulgaria: Anarchist kills Premier Nicholas Petkov.

13 - 1881 The revolutionary group called the People's Will assassinates
Tsar Alexander II of Russia.

14 - 1883 Karl Marx dies.

18 - 1871 The Paris Commune is formed, lasting for 72 days.

18 - 1921 Over 60,000 members of the Red Army, including members of the
elite Communist units crush the anti-Bolshevik rebellion of
Anarchist sailors at the Kronstadt Naval Base.

20 - 1933 Nazis open first Concentration Camp in Dachau.

23 - 1918 The trial of 101 Wobblies for opposition to World War I
begins.

26 - 1910 Congress bars Anarchists from settling in the United States.

28 - 1932 Madrid: Spanish Anarchists begin burning monasteries.
 

April

9 - 1927 Massachusetts: Death sentences for Nicolas Sacco and Bartolomeo
Vanzetti are upheld.

12 - 1918 Russia: For the past two days Cheka, the Bolshevik secret
police has carried out raids on Moscow anarchist groupsoemaking
arrests.

19 - 1943 Poland: 50,000 Jews remaining in Warsaw Ghetto begin uprising
against Nazis.

20 - 1914 Ludlow Massacre: Thirteen children and seven adults are killed
when Colorado National Guard burns striking miners' camp.
 

May

1 - May Day, the international workers' holiday

3 - 1968 Paris: 500 students arrested at Sorbonne as students riot.

4 - 1970 Ohio: 4 students killed, 9 wounded by National Guard at Kent
State.

5 - 1920 Massachusetts: Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two
Italian Anarchists, are arrested for murder and payroll robbery and
eventually they are executed for a crime they did not commit.

5 - 1937 Barcelona: "May Days" erupt in Spain, as Communists attack
Anarchist strongholds.

11 - 1968 Paris: The 3 biggest French labor federations call General
Strike to support students

15 - 1970 Mississippi: 2 African-American students killed at Jackson
State when state police fire into a women's dorm during anti-war
demonstrations.

16 - 1943 The Warsaw ghetto resistance is crushed by the Nazis, 56,000
die in the process.

30 - 1968 France: Trains, Airports closed; millions of workers have
barricaded themselves within their factories and offices; soccer
players have occupied their stadiums; there is no mail and it is
almost impossible to make a phone call; Universities are closed;
France is in the middle of a massive General Strike! Leading
politicians warn of a civil war/revolution.
 

June

2 - 1919 An explosion damages the homes of Attorney General A. Mitchell
Palmer and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt;
the bomber is killed in the process. (See June 5).

5 - 1861 Russia: Mikhail Bakunin, a famous Russian anarchist, escapes
from Siberia.

5 - 1919 67 anarchists are arrested and face deportation in the wake of
a bomb explosion marking the beginning of the famous "Palmer raids."
(See June 2).

8 - 1809 Thomas Paine, author of The Rights of Man and Common Sense,
dies in New York.

11 - 1962 Students for a Democratic Society, the group that pioneered
the 60s protest movement, issues the Port Huron Statement.

14 - 1919 Russia: Trotsky, chief of the Red Army, drafts an order
banning the Makhnovist (anarchist) Congress, accusing them of
opposing Soviet power in the Ukraine. Trotsky calls for the arrest
of the delegates.

14 - 1928 Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Cuban revolutionary, is born in
Argentina.
 

July

19 - In 1936, the fascists rose up in Spain, triggering the Spanish
Civil War and Revolution
 

August

6 - 1927 Mass.: High court hears final plea from Sacco and Vanzetti;
protest bombs hit homes of Baltimore mayor, Boston. (see August 21).

20 - 1904 Colorado: Miners seize town of Cripple Creek and deport
officials.

21 - 1927 U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brandeis refuses to hear request
for stay of execution in Sacco and Vanzetti case. (see August 23).

23 - 1927 Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian-born Anarchists,
are executed in the electric chair. (see August 24)

24 - 1930 Indochina: Two killed in riots on third anniversary of Sacco
and Vanzetti execution. (see August 27).

27 - 1927 Paris: Thousands turn out for violent protests over deaths of
Sacco and Vanzetti.
 

September

23 - 1818 Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Mask of Anarchy" is published.

25 - 1919 Russian Revolution: After brutal repression at the hands of
the Bolsheviks, Cheka raids on Anarchist groups and the banning of
the Anarchist Congress by Trotsky in June, underground Anarchists
retaliate by bombing the Communist headquarters in Moscow.

25 - 1975 The U.S. Senate makes public 238 illegal FBI burglaries
against dissident groups. These actions become known as COINTELPRO,
an acronym for counter-intelligence-programs.

26 - 1969 The Chicago Eight (Seven) Conspiracy trial begins.

28 - 1973 New York: A bomb devastates part of the Latin American section
of the ITT building. The bomb was in retaliation for ITT's
involvement in the bloody overthrow of Chile's former President
Allende one week ago.

29 - 1921 Russian Revolution: The Cheka (Bolshevik Secret Police)
execute Anarchist Fanya Baron and Anarchist poet Leu Cherny. Emma
Goldman, friend and fellow Anarchist, was so outraged that friends
had to dissuade her from chaining herself to a bench in the hall
where the Third International was meeting to shout her protests to
the delegates.
 

October

7 - 1879 Joe Hill, the famous International Workers of the World (IWW)
organizer, is born.

10 - Indigenous People's Day, an alternative to celebrating 500 years of
genocide

27 - 1889 Nestor Ivanovich Makhno, the famous Ukrainian leader of the
Anarchists during the Russian Revolution, is born.
 

November

7 - 1917 Russian Revolution: the Bolsheviks seize the Winter Palace.

11 - International Anarchy Day (The anniversary of the execution of the
Haymarket Martyrs)

12 - 1912 Madrid: Anarchist Manuel Pardinas assassinates Premier Jose
Canalejas.

13 - 1969 NY: Bombs have exploded over the past several days in the RCA
building, Rockefeller Center, the GM building on 5th Avenue, the
Chase Manhattan Plaza, the United Fruit Company pier, the Criminal
Courts building, the Marine Midland Grace Trust Company, and several
other Federal and Corporate buildings, to protest the Vietnam War
policy.

17 - 1915 Joe Hill, the famous I.W.W. organizer, is executed.

20 - 1910 Leo Tolstoy, the great Russian writer and libertarian, dies.

20 - 1936 Buenaventura Durruti, the famous Spanish Anarchist, was shot
yesterday, dies today.

20 - 1975 Spain: Generalissimo Francisco Franco, the Fascist dictator,
dies.

21 - 1870 Russia: Alexander Berkman, the famous Anarchist , is born in
Vilna.

27 - 1920 Makhno's Anarchist commanders in the Crimea, fresh from their
victories over General Wrangel's White army, are seized by the Red
Army and immediately shot. The next day Trotsky orders an attack on
Makhno's headquarters. The Cheka simultaneously arrests members of
the Nabat Confederation in Kharkov and raids Anarchist clubs and
organizations throughout the country.
 

December

4 - 1969 Chicago: Police murder four Black Panthers including Fred
Hampton and Mark Clark.

7 - 1905 Moscow: A general uprising begins, ultimately to fail 23 days
later, leaving more than 1,000 dead. More than 150,000 workers take
part in a General Strike. By the 9th of December, workers have set
up barricades throughout the city and fight against the soldiers.

20 - 1976 Chicago: Mayor Richard Daley dies.