Fellow Worker Sam Dolgoff (1902-1990)

Anatole Dolgoff, Left of the Left: My Memories of Sam Dolgoff. Chico, CA: AK Press, 2016.

Andrew Cornell, "A History of Vanguard". libcom.org.


But we have a glowing dream
Of how fair the world will seem
When each man can live his life secure and free;
When the earth is owned by labor
and there's joy and peace for all
In the Commonwealth of Toil that is to be.

the chorus of Ralph Chaplin's song "Commonwealth of Toil", 1923

Sam Dolgoff was an Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) lifer. He discovered anarchism after being expelled from the Young People's Socialist League (YPSL, aka Yipsels) as a teen. He joined the IWW in 1922 and was an active member until his death in 1990. His son Anatole Durruti Dolgoff has written a loving portrait of Sam and the small vibrant anarchist milieu in the US during the 20th century, which also provided my political education. The title Left of the Left: My Memories of Sam Dolgoff is taken from Paul Berman's obituary for Sam in the Village Voice on November 13, 1990. He quotes Sam: "You always need a left. And within the left, you need a left. And within the left of the left, you need a left. And in that left, you need a left. And that left is me!" Sam was a little tipsy, but that was Sam Dolgoff. Sam remained faithful to the classic anarcho-syndicalist principles of IWW and the IWA (International Worker Association, the anarcho-syndicalist international) all his life despite the changing fashions on the left.

Sam Dolgoff was born in the shtetl of Ostrovno in present-day Belarus in 1902. His family immigrated to NYC in 1905, where he lived in the Bronx and the Manhattan Lower East Side most his life. Sam was apprenticed to a house painter at age 11, a profession he remained in his entire life ("a doctor of smearology" in Sam's words). He hated school, and in those days of child labor, had to support his family. The IWW and anarchist movement became his university, like so many working-class intellectuals on the left. He could have become professional organizer or union bureaucrat for District 9 of the Painter's Union, but instead chose to be a common worker and IWW evangelist. He would not become a boss, nor reconcile himself with AFL business unionism. Anatole Dolgoff reports that the IWW reached a maximum membership of 100,000 in 1923; by 1930 its numbers had declined to 10,000. Its last stronghold was the Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union (MTW-IWW) which represented seamen throughout the Americas 1913-1950.

Sam contributed to an unending string of anarchist publications and organizations over his lifetime: the Road to Freedom journal in NYC and the Chicago Free Society Group in the 1920s; the Vanguard group and journal in NYC in the 1930s; the Spanish Revolution monthly 1936-38; the Libertarian League and its journal Views and Comments in the 1950s; the Libertarian Book Club 1946-present; and the Libertarian Labor Review later renamed Anarcho-Syndicalist Review 1986-present.

As an independent scholar, after a long day of physical labor, he produced four well regarded books: Bakunin on Anarchy (1971), The Anarchist Collectives: Workers' Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution, 1936-1939 (1974) ; The Cuban Revolution: A Critical Perspective (1974); and Fragments: A Memoir (1986). His Cuba book criticizes Castro's repression of Cuban anarchists and dissidents, displeasing the New Left and some of his old comrades, like Dave Dellinger and David Wieck. His Spain book documents the grassroots social revolution during the Spanish Civil War. It also recounts the role of Russian GPU agents in murdering POUM leader Andres Nin, anti-Stalinist Marxists, and anarchist militants. These were Sam's comrades and friends, and he wanted the facts known. Consequently he was not romantic about the Abraham Lincoln Brigades, which was largely a Communist Party outfit. This may disturb some leftish readers.

I met Sam and his wife Esther Dolgoff in the 1970s. Our group Philadelphia Solidarity, and later Wooden Shoe Bookstore, was friendly with the NYC IWW, which included Sam and Esther, the Living Theatre troupe, and journalist Mel Most who became a good friend. We hosted a performance of the Living Theatre at the Christian Association on Penn campus in the early 1970s. 

In 1980 Esther translated Joseph J. Cohen's The Jewish Anarchist Movement in the United States: A Historical Review and Personal Reminiscence (Philadelphia: Radical Library, 1945) from Yiddish. Cohen lived in Philadelphia and was the editor of the anarchist newspaper Freie Arbeiter Stimme. The book included lots of Philadelphia radical history. We made an unsuccessful effort to publish her translation, which was a great disappointment to Esther. We were too disorganized and too broke. I sent her manuscript to the Joseph A. Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan a few years ago. We did reprint a couple chapters which I'm trying to recover. 

I always enjoyed visiting them at their cozy coop apartment on East Broadway overlooking the Williamsburg Bridge on the East River. They were always entertaining young radicals, their habit of a lifetime.

As an older person myself now, I appreciated Anatole's human account of Sam and Esther's last years. It is a dilemma we all face. Anatole and his friends organized an around-the-clock cadre to care for his parents in their last few years. When Esther died, Sam would not move, and Anatole did not want to disrupt Sam's life unnecessarily.  At this moment, an old friend of the Dolgoff's and long-time activist with the Catholic Worker, Roger O'Neill, volunteered to move in and care for Sam. There is something poetic about this. Sam was an old bohemian friend of Dorothy Day, often spoke at the Friday Night Meetings at the Catholic Worker House, and occasionally sparred with her about the authoritarian, hierarchical Catholic Church. So, the last year of his life, he was cared for by a Catholic anarchist from the Catholic Worker, who didn't care that Sam was a principled atheist. This was the informal anarchist community that surrounded Sam and Esther all their lives. The IWW and the Catholic Worker still exist; that anarchist community probably does not.

Thank you Anotole Dolgoff for this beautiful homage to your parents. Yours for OBU (One Big Union), Frank Gerould.

Zionism, Anti-Zionism, Non-Zionism, Post-Zionism in Philadelphia

Thomas A. Kolsky, Jews Against Zionism: The American Council for Judaism, 1942-1948 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990).

_____, "The Opposition to Zionism: The American Council for Judaism Under the Leadership of Rabbi Louis Wolsey and Lessing Rosenwald", in Philadelphia Jewish Life: 1940-1985, ed. Murray Friedman (Ardmore, PA: Seth Press, 1986), pp. 81-123.

many authors, Steadfast Hope: The Palestinian Quest for Just Peace (The Palestine Israel Network of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, 2011).

_____, "Diaspora Anti-Zionism", in Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora, ed. Avrum Ehrlich (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2008).

Stanley Aronowitz, "On Zionism and Its Jewish Critics", Logos Journal, Summer 2004.

Banksy in Palestine

This spring 2016 I attended an 8 week course "Steadfast Hope" offered by Christian-Jewish Allies of Greater Philadelphia (CJA) about the Israel-Palestine conflict. My old friend Fran Gilmore and new friend Susan Landau were helping teach the class at the Unitarian Society of Germantown. I had stopped considering a just peace in Palestine possible. It seemed hopeless after 70+ years of conflict. Maybe if I reviewed my thinking about Israel-Palestine, I could be more hopeful. Certainly nothing will change if we resign ourselves to Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. CJA is "an interfaith group of Christian, Jews, and Muslims of Greater Philadelphia who work together to build relationships to bring peace and justice in Israel-Palestine." They offer films, speakers, and workshops to religious institutions in Philadelphia to promote peace and justice in the historic Holy Land. The "Steadfast Hope" class was excellent. Unfortunately I missed the last sessions, so maybe I'll reenlist when they offer a nearby class again. It is inspiring to see so many Philadelphians working for peace in Palestine.

Studying the history of Israel-Palestine conflict reminded me of accounts I've read of Jewish opposition  to the formation of the state of Israel in Philadelphia. It turns out, the epicenter of liberal Jewish anti-Zionism was in Philadelphia during the 1940s and 1950s. Thomas A. Kolsky, Professor of History and Political Science at Montgomery County Community College, wrote Jews Against Zionism: The American Council for Judaism, 1942-1948, which is a sympathetic history of the foremost organized Jewish opposition to a Jewish nation-state. The American Council for Judaism (ACJ) was launched on November 2, 1942 in Rabbi Louis Wolsey's office at reform Congregation Rodeph Shalom, with his friend Rabbi William H. Fineshriber of reform Congregation Keneseth Israel, and 13 other rabbis. Rodeph Shalom is located at Broad and Mt. Vernon Sts in N Philadelphia, and is the oldest Ashkenazi congregation in the New World. Keneseth Israel was then located at Broad and Columbia Sts in N Philadelphia, and is one of the largest Jewish congregations in the US. Their goal was to revitalize the spiritual roots of 19th century Reform Judaism, and oppose Jewish nationalism, ie a Jewish state in Palestine.

The first Jews in America in the 19th century were largely German. They assimilated culturally and economically, and embraced liberal Reform Judaism. Russian Jewish emigration began later after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, bringing two million new Jewish refugees to America between 1880 and 1914. Zionism, the desire for a Jewish homeland, was born of this group. It was a secular response to racial antisemitism in Europe. Most liberal and socialist Jews in the US embraced the Enlightenment faith in reason and rejected Zionism. They considered themselves citizens of the US democracy. Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, one of the founder of the Reform movement, dismissed Zionist ideas as "Ziomania".  But the poorer, religiously orthodox, working class Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe did not share the same faith in Western democracy. Particularly with the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, the case for a Jewish homeland or refuge became more compelling. Reform Judaism and many Jewish organizations divided over Zionism. This is the subject of Thomas Kolsky's book. 

Keneseth Israel at Broad and Columbia Sts

Rodeph Shalom at Broad and Mt Vernon Sts

During the 1930s Reform Judaism began to accommodate Zionism. Like today, most Americans opposed increased immigration to US.Unemployment, nativist nationalism, and anti-semitism blocked any efforts to open immigration in Congress. Jewish refugees from Nazism (and other refugees, like Spanish Republicans and anarchists) had no where to go. On November 24,1942 Rabbi Stephen S. Wise announced publically the US State Department report of the mass extermination of the European Jews by the Nazis. Support for a Jewish state in Palestine became overwhelming.

Remarkably in the face of the Holocaust and bitter attacks from Zionist organizations, the ACJ began their work. The founders hired Rabbi Elmer Berger executive director in January 1943. He was a disciple of Rabbi Wolsey and the leader of the first anti-Zionist group in the US in Flint, Michigan. Anti-Zionism became Elmer Berger's (1908-1996) life work. After resigning the ACJ in 1967 after the Six Day War, he founded American Alternatives to Zionism (AJAZ), and became increasingly identified with Palestinian and Arab causes. In his book The Jewish Dilemma: The Case Against Zionist Nationalism (1945), Elmer Berger presented the ACJ views: (1) Jews are a religious group, not a race or nationality; (2) All inhabitants of Palestine must enjoy equal rights - no exclusively Jewish state; (3) Repatriation and normalization of the lives of the Jews after WWII. 

The ACJ argued Jews constituted a minority population in Palestine, and had no right to impose their rule on the territory and the indigenous people, regardless of American public opinion or UN mandate. They also argued a Jewish state was bad for Jews in Arab countries, and the West. Jews would become a political lobby with divided loyalties outside Israel. Judaism as a religion would became corrupted in defense of a secular nation-state.

The lay  leader of ACJ was Lessing J. Rosenwald, President of the American Council of Judaism 1943-1955. Rosenwald was the retired Chairman of the Board of Sears Roebuck and Company, a Philadelphia philanthropist, art collector, and congregant of Rabbi Fineshriber's Keneseth Israel. His home in suburban Philadelphia, the Alverthorpe Manor, was donated to Abington Township, and is now the Abington Art Center. Rosenwald and the ACJ were serious players in the debates over partition in Palestine and the subsequent state of Israel declared May 14, 1948. They met with Roosevelt, Truman, the US State Department, and testified in Congress and the UN. The fortunes of a Jewish state were uncertain. Kolsky notes, "Roosevelt's skilled evasiveness regarding Palestine has led some historians to suggest that had he survived until 1948 a Jewish state might not have come into existence." Truman was ambivalent.

After Israeli independence, the ACJ redirected its mission to Jewish philanthropy, aiding displaced persons from WWII, and advocating equal rights for all citizens in Israel. Many anti-Zionist reconciled with the new reality of the Israeli state. Zionism took many manifestations. In On Zionism and Its Jewish Critics Stanley Aronowitz suggests four broad Jewish perspectives on Israel: (1) Uncritical support of the settler state with limits on Palestinian rights and a welfare state underwritten by US dollars. (2) A  right wing vision of Arab ethnic cleansing first articulated by Vladimir Jabotinsky which is now ascendant. (3) A socialist Zionist vision of a secular binational state inspired by Ber Borochov's book The National Question and the Class Struggle (1905). (4) Non-Zionist or post-Zionist cosmopolitan, internationalist vision of Israel which informs most contemporary peace activists in Israel and the West.

Thomas Kolsky's history is fascinating because the legitimacy of Israel remains in question today, after 70 years. The Zionists won in 1948, but the debate is not over. Many of the problems the ACJ had forseen have come to pass: Israel is financially dependent on the US; Jewish communities have exited the Arab countries; non-Jews are second class citizens in Israel; and the Palestine-Israel conflict is unceasing. Israel is a garrison state- not what it hoped for. Some sort of reconciliation or compromise between Palestine and Israel must be found, which failed to happen in 1940s. Surely neither side wants more war. Perhaps left and liberal circles in the US, Israel and Palestine will lead the way. 

This is a mission for Superman.

Peace in Palestine

An Incomplete Bibliography of the Phila Left Book Club

Phila Left Book circa 1995

I have been a member of a socialist reading group for the last 25 years in Philadelphia, which we just call Phila Left Book. We meet once a month in a cafe or restaurant for two hours, and discuss the book or articles of the day. Currently we meet at Manakeesh Cafe and Bakery at 4420 Walnut St in West Philadelphia. We started with four old friends. Our numbers have fluctuated between 5 and 15 over the years. We do not have a political litmus test for members. The books and topics we select reflect the interests of the members. We challenge each others politics and experiences. It is more congenial than graduate school - no papers to write. My continuing socialist education has largely come from our readings and discussion in these years. I haven't affiliated with any left organization since the 1980s, but I feel very attached to my Left Book comrades. I've made new friends. It is also a social support group for us left malcontents. We share our life milestones, medical crises, political activities. We've had two members die during these years which brought us closer together. It is not all politics.

I've assembled a list of books we've read, as best I can remember. I'm sorry we didn't keep a record of our reading. So here is our booklist in random order:


Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program (1875).

Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (2010).

Steve Fraser, The Age of Acquiescence: The Life and Death of American Resistance to Organized Wealth and Power (2015).

Anton Pannekoek, Worker's Councils (1947).

C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (1955).

Simone Zelitch, Waveland (2015).

Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940).

Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Revolution (2011).

Jack London, The Iron Heel (1908).

Seymour Martin Lipset and Gary Marks, It Didn't Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States (2000).

Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2010).

Michael A. Lebowitz, Build It Now: Socialism for the Twenty-First Century (2006).

Chris Hedges, Death of the Liberal Class (2011).

Albert Soboul, A Short History of the French Revolution 1789-1799 (1977).

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848).

Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014).

Paul Mattick Jr., Business as Usual: The Economic Crisis and the Failure of Capitalism (2011).

Maurice Brinton, Paris: May 1968 (1968).

George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (1938).

Michael Heinrich, An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx's Capital (2012).

Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Origins of Capitalism (1999).

Max Shachtman, Race and Revolution (2003).

Antonio A. Santucci, Antonio Gramsci (2010).

David McNally, Against the Market: Political Economy, Market Socialism and the Marxist Critique (1993).

Immanuel Ness and Dario Azzellini, Ours to Master and to Own: Workers' Control from the Commune to the Present (2011).

Eric Foner, A Short History of Reconstruction (2015).

Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (1971).

Frederick Engels, The Origin of the Family Private Property and the State (1884).

Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (1964).

Peter Singer, Hegel: A Very Short Introduction (2001).

Joseph Stalin, The Economic Problems Of Socialism in the USSR (1952).