The Free Voice Of Labor: Jewish Anarchists
Aug 3 2007 12:12
watch online:
http://www.freedocumentaries.org/theatre.php?id=600
Aug 6 2007 01:37
#2
Thank you David!
I haven't seen this since it first came out! Oh what a treat. I haven't seen or heard some of those intereviewed in decades..
The scene from the yiddish flim clip of the union meeting, what a treasure. The "schtarker" (tough guy) and his crew entering the union meeting to bust it up was Edward G. Robbinson (in the derby)!
The women were mostly former garment workers. Some members of the "Anarchist Workers Group" inside the ladies garment workers union (ILGWU). Most were close friends of Rose Pesotta.Sonia Farber husband, Simon, joined the ranks of the ILGWU. He became editor of the ILG's yiddish language paper "Justice". As Dolgoff noted more than once, many of those interviewed were good anarchists, except when it came to the labor movmenet.
Anyway. Folks should watch this. The historical footage is really good.
Aug 6 2007 01:49
#3
syndicalist wrote:
As Dolgoff noted more than once, many of those interviewed were good anarchists, except when it came to the labor movmenet.
And then they were bad anarchists?
Aug 6 2007 03:01
#4
To get a flavor of some of the unions which supported the ILGWU anarchists after the 1926 strike (which was as much a war bettwen the social democratics and the communists--with most of the anarchists falling in with the social democrats), see the patron ads in The Modern School's 25th Anniversary booklet:
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/ferrer/stelton25.html
I should add that Dolgoff raised an important point, he said that the anarchists, by the time of the 1926 strike and thereafter, made no attempt (rather little attempt) at setting out an independent position. Sort of neither boss-bureaucrat-stalinist position. It's not whether they were active in the ILGWU or other needle trade unions, it was at what point did they become part of "the machine" which Sonia Farber (in the movie) herself makes mention of.
For decades, on May Day & Labor Day, the pages of the FAS would carry ads from needle trade unions that were such an antithesis to our ideals it was almost embrassing. So in this sense Dolgoff raised his criticisms.
Such a good movie. Funny to think how many middle class reform jews come from yiddish speaking anarchists.