Most, Johann

Tom Goyens

MOST, JOHANN (1846-1906). A German-American socialist and later anarchist editor, orator, publicist, and militant atheist who became the leading social revolutionary and anarchist in the United States. His influence on transnational radicalism was profound and lasting, especially through his mentorship of younger activists such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, and his support for the Yiddish anarchist movement that carried anarchism into the twentieth century.

Most was born out of wedlock in Augsburg, Bavaria to a freethinking governess and a government functionary. At age nine, he lost his mother and his grandparents in a cholera outbreak; his father re-married an authoritarian stepmother. At age thirteen, an operation on his jawbone left him disfigured for life and ruined his dream of becoming an actor. After being expelled from school, he became a bookbinder in 1863 and traveled throughout Central Europe for five years as a journeyman.

Most discovered socialism in 1867 while in Switzerland and joined a workers’ educational association in Zürich. From 1868 to 1871, Most was active in the Vienna socialist movement, joined the Social-Democratic Labor Party, and developed his own speaking style combining theatrics, humor, and wit. In a Vienna jail cell he composed “Die Arbeitsmänner” (Hymn of the Proletariat), a song recited by the Left as late as 1935. Following a workers’ demonstration, Most and others were arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for treason, but amnestied in 1871. After a speech defending the Paris Commune he was expelled for good.

From 1871 to 1878, Most emerged as one of the most effective socialist activists in Germany through the spoken and printed word. He edited three labor papers: the Chemnitzer Freie Presse (1871-2), the Süddeutsche Volksstimme (1873-74), and the important Berliner Freie Presse (1876-8). He also launched the first satirical socialist magazine in Germany, and compiled a bestselling proletarian songbook. In 1874, Most married Clara Hänsch and they had two children who died in infancy. Their relationship strained and ended in divorce in 1880. He was twice elected to the German Reichstag, but grew disillusioned with legislative procedures. On the stump, he spoke forcefully about Marxism, radical history, and the Paris Commune while deriding Bismarck and religion, for which he served a combined total of three years in German jails and prisons. While behind bars he composed a popular version of Marx’ Capital. He engaged in public debates with scholars and clergymen such as the antisemitic pastor Adolf Stöcker, which led to a campaign urging workers to leave their churches.

In December 1878, Most was expelled from Germany as a result of an Anti-Socialist Law that criminalized socialism, but allowed socialist MPs to retain their seats. Two failed attempts on the life of the Kaiser had prompted the passage of this law. He sailed to London from where he planned to travel to the United States, but in 1879 was hired as editor of Freiheit, a new socialist periodical to be smuggled into Germany. Most was shocked to learn that the socialist leadership pledged to observe the new law and condemned them for denying the revolutionary character of the movement. Influenced by Communards like Blanqui and Russian populists, Most turned to conspiratorial tactics rather than parliamentarism; he was expelled from the party in 1880.

Most’s turn to anarchism came through his contact with German anarchist August Reinsdorf and the Belgian revolutionary Victor Dave who introduced him to the ideas of Mikhail Bakunin and propaganda by the deed. When in March 1881, Czar Alexander II was assassinated by Russian revolutionaries, Most celebrated the act and was arrested and charged with libel and inciting to murder. He was sentenced to sixteen months in prison. After his released in October 1882, he went on tour in the United States and eventually settled in New York City where he revived Freiheit with the help of saloonkeeper Justus Schwab. Through mesmerizing oratory and a biting pen, Most invigorated a sleepy anarchist movement. He was one of the organizers of the 1883 Pittsburgh Congress and its Manifesto that established the International Working People’s Association (IWPA). The document proclaimed the right to overthrow oppressive governments and recommended both propaganda by deed and by word. Anarchist groups multiplied and Freiheit became the voice of German transnational anarchism. Most continued to preach insurrectionary tactics, including the use of dynamite, which resulted in the 1885 manual Science of Revolutionary Warfare. He also briefly defended revolutionaries who committed murder and arson, which cost him the friendship of Schwab. Although he never committed a violent crime, there is no doubt that his rhetoric led to senseless violence and it helped create the anarchist-as-terrorist stereotype. Unlike his socialist days, in the 1880s, Most belittled the labor movement and their campaigns for an eight-hour workday. In this he differed from his Chicago colleague. Not until the 1890s did Most renew an interest in unions as force for revolutionary change.

In April 1886, Most was indicted for inciting to riot following a speech on arming workers. He was still in hiding when the Haymarket bombing on May 4 occurred. He was eventually arrested and sentenced to one year on Blackwell’s Island. The execution of four Haymarket defendants on November 11, 1887 shocked radical communities across the globe. While Most defended the accused and revolutionary struggle, he now rejected individual and indiscriminate violence to further the cause. By 1888, he embraced communist-anarchism and focused less on rifles and bombs just as younger activists like Goldman and Berkman demanded direct action. Most and Goldman struck up a brief intimate friendship. When Berkman shot but failed to kill industrialist Henry Clay Frick for his handling of the 1892 Homestead steel strike, Most condemned the act as senseless. A furious Goldman horsewhipped him during a meeting when Most disparaged Berkman. Both broke with Most by joining the Autonomists, a rival anarchist group whose figurehead, Josef Peukert, had been an adversary of Most for years. He accused Peukert of betraying a close friend and refused to exonerate him even when no evidence emerged. Most had grown bitter, stubborn, and sometimes domineering, and rarely felt at home in America.

By 1890, Most had become an inspiration for and ally of the growing Yiddish anarchist movement, especially in New York and Philadelphia. He participated in the Yom Kippur balls, an annual anti-religious festival that often resulted in confrontations with police and Orthodox Jews. He drew closer to the Yiddish movement when he met Helene Minkin, a younger anarchist and roommate of Goldman. In 1893, they moved in together and had two sons: John Jr. and Lucifer. Minkin became instrumental in the running of Freiheit, which survived the depression years of the 1890s. In 1894, Most founded New York Freie Bühne (Free Stage), a theater group that staged realist plays such as Gerhart Hauptmann’s The Weavers, which was performed with Most in a leading role possibly for the first time in the United States. Hard times forced Most and his family to move to Buffalo from 1897 to 1898 in order to save Freiheit. While there, he met the celebrated anarchist Peter Kropotkin who was touring the U.S. In 1899, at age 53, Most embarked on a six-months speaking tour to the West Coast.

In September 1901, Most was again arrested for publishing an incendiary article that happened to coincide with the assassination of President William McKinley by a self-proclaimed anarchist. In a violation of civil liberties, Most was convicted of “publishing an article that disturbs public peace” and sentenced to one year in prison. When he was released in 1903, he had already begun writing his memoirs. In 1906, he embarks on yet another lecture tour. After a tumultuous meeting in Philadelphia, he traveled to Cincinnati where he fell ill. On March 17, 1906, John Most died at the home of a friend, probably of complications of a skin infection; his body was cremated in Cincinnati. A large commemorative meeting in New York brought together all ethnic groups representing American anarchism with speeches in numerous languages.

Most’s significance for American and transnational radicalism is, at first glance, imperceptible. He never wrote or lectured in English, and during the 1880s, he helped link anarchism with terrorism in the minds of many. His brand of unpretentious, anticlerical and antibourgeois militancy, and his witty, sardonic style live on in the culture of the Jewish Left that so defined American radicalism after 1900.

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