Dolgoff, Sam

DOLGOFF, SAM. (1902-1990). A long-time anarchist and Wobbly who bridged the gulf between the movements of the 1920s, Dolgoff emerged as a leading figure in the revival of American anarchism during the 1960s and 1970s.

Sam Dolgoff was born in Ostrovno, now part of Belarus. His family moved to New York City when he was a young child. Dolgoff followed his father into the house painting trade, at which he earned his living for much of the rest of his life. He joined the Industrial Workers of the World in 1922 and remained an active member until his death. During the 1920s and 1930s, he traveled the country as an itinerant organizer and speaker for anarchist and Wobbly causes. He met his partner, Esther, a writer and activist in her own right, while visiting Cleveland to speak for the Anarchist Forum in 1930.

Dolgoff left school at an early age, but gained an education from fellow movement activists, including G.P. Maximoff. A prominent member of Chicago’s Free Society Group in the 1920s, he moved to the Stelton, New Jersey, anarchist community in 1933, returning to New York City for good in 1939. Dolgoff and other young activists formed the Vanguard Group in the 1930s, publishing Vanguard: A Journal of Libertarian Communism. He joined the group of Spanish immigrants, Wobblies and anarchists who published Spanish Revolution from 1936-1938 to raise awareness of, and support for, the social revolution in Spain. He continued to work with Spanish exiles for decades after the civil war ended. In 1954, the Dolgoffs co-founded the Libertarian League and its publication, Views and Comments, as part of a renewed effort to build a national anarchist federation.

Dolgoff had entered a movement already in decline, and he worked to sustain it during the darkest years of the 1940s and 1950s. A prolific contributor to anarchist newspapers and magazines, Dolgoff also wrote several pamphlets and four books: anthologies on the Spanish collectives and Bakunin’s revolutionary anarchism, a critique of the Cuban revolutionary regime, and a memoir. His anthology, Bakunin on Anarchism (1980), introduced anarchist ideas to a new generation, demonstrating that Bakunin was far more interested in building a new society than in destruction. Dolgoff also explored the applicability of anarchist ideas to contemporary conditions, notably in his pamphlet The Relevance of Anarchism to Modern Society, published in three editions between 1970 and 1989.

For decades, the Dolgoffs maintained an open door, welcoming anarchists and other rebel workers to their New York apartment. They worked to connect surviving immigrant anarchist communities to a resurgent anarchist movement in the 1960s and encouraged younger Wobblies to look rank-and-file rebellions in order to rebuild a syndicalist movement. In 1986, he was a co-founder of the Libertarian Labor Review, later renamed the Anarcho-Syndicalist Review.

Cornell, Andrew. Unruly Equality: U.S. Anarchism in the Twentieth Century. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016.

Dolgoff, Anatole. Left of the Left: My Memories of Sam Dolgoff. Chico, CA: AK Press, 2016.

Dolgoff, Sam. Fragments: A Memoir. London: Refract Publications, 1986.

Stein, Jeff et al. (2002). “Sam Dolgoff: A Retrospective,” Anarcho-Syndicalist Review 35/36, pp. 17-35.

Sam Dolgoff. The Anarchist Library Website. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/author/sam-dolgoff

Sam Dolgoff Papers, 1874-1991. Tamiment Library. Robert F. Wagner Labor Collection. New York University. https://bobcat.library.nyu.edu/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=nyu_aleph000848032&vid=NYU&search_scope=all&tab=all&lang=en_US&context=L