- Sam Dolgoff
Sam Dolgoff (1902-1990) was an American
anarchist andanarcho-syndicalist . [Porton, p.40]Dolgoff was born in the
shtetl of Ostrovsky inVitebsk ,Russia , [Avrich, p.419] moving as a child toNew York City in 1905 or 1906, [Avrich, ibid.] where he lived in theBronx and inManhattan 'sLower East Side where he died. His father was a house painter, and Dolgoff began house painting at the age of 11, a profession he remained in his entire life. [Avrich, p.419]Sam joined the
Industrial Workers of the World in the 1922 [Avrich, p.420] and remained an active member his entire life, playing an active role in the anarchist movement for much of the century. He was a co-founder of the "Libertarian Labor Review" magazine, which was later re-named "Anarcho-Syndicalist Review " to avoid confusion with America's Libertarian Party.Dolgoff was a member of the
Chicago Free Society Group in the 1920s, Vanguard Group member and editor of its publication [Kayton, p.155] in the 1930s, and co-founded theLibertarian League in New York in 1954. [Greeman, p.13] He wrote articles for anarchist magazines as well as books as the editor of highly-acclaimed anthologies, some of which are listed below. He was active in many causes, and attended groups like New York'sLibertarian Book Club regularly. [Avrich, p.419]Dolgoff, and his wife Esther, served as a link to anarchism's past to young anarchists of the 1960s and 1970s living in New York. He focused upon anarchism's (specifically anarcho-syndicalism's) roots in workers' movements and served as a moderating counterbalance to the punk-era anarchists who tended towards '
monkeywrenching ' and confrontations with the police. Although Dolgoff was friends withMurray Bookchin , a notable anarchist theorist of the period, he was opposed to Bookchin's theory ofSocial Ecology , rooted as he was in the classical anarchist traditions ofMikhail Bakunin andPeter Kropotkin .References
ources
*"Sam Dolgoff, 88, Dies; Organizer for I.W.W.", New York Times, October 26, 1990. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE6DD1539F935A15753C1A966958260]
*Avrich, Paul. "Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America", AK Press,
*Greeman, Richard. "Dangerous Shortcuts and Vegetarian Sharks", ISBN 1430323078.
*Kayton, Bruce. "Radical Walking Tours of New York City", Seven Stories Press, 2003, ISBN 1583225544.
*Porton, Richard. "Film and the Anarchist Imagination", Verso, 1999, ISBN 1859847021.elected publications
* "Ethics and American Unionism" (1958)
* "The Labor Party Illusion" (1961)
* "Bakunin on Anarchy" (1971; revised 1980)
* "The Anarchist Collectives: Workers' Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution, 1936-1939" (1974)
* " [http://www.anarchyisorder.org/CD%234/Lay-outed%20texts/PDF-versions/Dolgoff,%20Sam%20-%20The%20Cuban%20revolution,%20A%20critical%20perspective.pdf The Cuban Revolution: A Critical Perspective] " (1974)
* "A Critique of Marxism" (1983)
* "Fragments: A Memoir" (1986, ISBN 0-946222-04-5).External links
* [http://libcom.org/history/dolgoff-sam-1902-1990 An obituary and short biography of Sam Dolgoff] on libcom.org
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