The Buford

The "Buford", also known as the "Soviet Ark" and the "Red Ark" by the press, was a ship used to transfer 249 socialists and anarchists, including Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, from New York City to the Russian SFSR in December 1919. These individuals had been rounded up during the Palmer Raids. Alexander Berkman, in his piece "The Russian Tragedy," wrote, "...We were prisoners, treated with military severity, and the 'Buford' a leaky old tub repeatedly endangering our lives during the month's Odyssey... Long, long was the voyage, shameful the conditions we were forced to endure: crowded below deck, living in constant wetness and foul air, fed on the poorest rations." Emma Goldman, in chapter 1 of her work "My Disillusionment in Russia," would write of the Buford, "For twenty-eight days we were prisoners. Sentries at our cabin doors day and night, sentries on deck during the hour we were daily permitted to breathe the fresh air. Our men comrades were cooped up in dark, damp quarters, wretchedly fed, all of us in complete ignorance of the direction we were to take."

Resources

* [http://newman.baruch.cuny.edu/digital/redscare/htmlcode/chron/RS109.HTM Photograph of the Buford leaving]
* [http://www.old-picture.com/american-history-1900-1930s/transport-broadside-Russia-BUFORD.htm U.S. Army transport BUFORD, the "Soviet Ark,"]
*"HUNDREDS OF REDS ON SOVIET 'ARK' SAIL SOON FOR Europe." New York Times 13 Dec. 1919. Accessed 18 Oct. 2007 [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9505E2D61F30E033A25750C1A9649D946896D6CF] .