Review: A compelling look at a bygone era in the United States
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 17, 2014
I once read a fictionalized version of the silk workers strike of 1913 in Paterson, New Jersey, and in high school, I read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which exposed working conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry in the early twentieth century. "Revolution by Murder" made it clear that worker unrest and anarchy were evident by 1892, when anarchists Alexander Berkman and his cohort and lover Emma Goldman plotted to kill Henry Clay Frick, chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company. With a strike by steelworkers underway in Pittsburgh, Frick was determined to break the strike. Berkman then took a train to Pittsburgh with nothing more than a homemade knife and one dollar in his pocket. In Pittsburgh, he managed to get a handgun, and off he went.Berkman managed to wound Frick, but Frick recovered and went on to live a long life, being known to some as the most hated man in America. To me, what happened after the shooting was as interesting as the plot to kill Frick. After Berkman served several years in prison, he rejoined Goldman for a time, and the two anarchists went to the Soviet Union, which they believed was a workers' paradise. On observing that the workers there were no better off than in the U.S., they complained to Vladimir Lenin and to their great surprise were told to shut up."Revolution By Murder" is a compelling look at a bygone era in the United States, and a fascinating biography of two unrepentant anarchists.