What Did Anarchist Alexander Berkman Want?

"No, the revolutionist owes no duty to capitalist morality. He is the soldier of humanity. He has consecrated his life to the People in their great struggle. It is a bitter war. The revolutionist cannot shrink from the service it imposes upon him. Aye, even the duty of death. Cheerfully and joyfully he would die a thousand times to hasten the triumph of liberty. His life belongs to the People. He has no right to live or enjoy while others suffer."

The ramblings of a modern day fanatic? Hardly. These are the words of Alexander Berkman in his Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist referring to his failed attempt to shoot and kill Henry Clay Frick, manager of the Carnegie steel works, on July 23, 1892.

The sentiments may sound familiar, though the magnitude and consequences of acts of terror in the contemporary world are so much greater. But over a century ago, Berkman, a Jewish immigrant from Russia boarded a train in New York City, his final destination, Pittsburgh. His goal, simple and clear-cut, to kill Frick in an attempt, described by John William Ward in a 1970 essay on Berkman's memoirs as"a political deed of violence to awaken the consciousness of the people against their oppressors."

Frick, loyal manager for Andrew Carnegie, was responsible for crushing the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers in the Homestead Strike, culminating in the fatal confrontation between Pinkertons and strikers. Berkman's hope was that the assassination of Frick would awaken the oppressed, inspiring them to rise up and throw off the oppressive shackles imposed by the capitalist order.

A major miscalculation. There was no uprising. In fact, Berkman was surprised and confused when his fellow prisoners assumed that his violent act against Frick must be due to a personal quarrel or a business misunderstanding. Either that, or Berkman was simply crazy.

One cannot help but wonder if Osama bin Laden and his megalomaniac calls for Moslem Jihad against the infidel is meeting the same fate. Religious fanaticism ignoring the realities of tribal loyalties and nationalism, as well as civilization, above such twisted, idealistic goals.

In his day, Pittsburgh, to Berkman, was similar to what the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center symbolized for bin Laden. The industrial center, rising powerfully and majestically above while the people suffered in the shadow of so-called progress. To destroy it, or its human embodiment, Frick, was the start, the spark, which would hopefully destroy and bring the entire capitalist structure down in the name of the beloved and noble people.

Describing his arrival, Berkman wrote,"This is Pittsburgh, the heart of American industrialism,whose spirit molds the life of the great Nation. The spirit of Pittsburgh, the Iron City! Cold as steel, hard as iron, its products. These are the keynote of the great Republic, formulating all other chords, sacrificing harmony to noise, beauty to bulk. Its torch of liberty is a furnace fire, consuming, destroying, devastating: a country-wide furnace, in which the bones and marrow of the producers, their limbs and bodies, their health and blood, are cast into Besamer steel, rolled into armor plate, and converted into engines of murder to be consecrated to Mammon by his high priests, the Carnegies, the Fricks."

It's difficult to picture Berkman being receptive to an opposing point of view of a cable news talk show, as if anybody is. His outlook and belief system, however, was pretty clear--us against them. How does one respond to Berkman? Especially when he writes,"All means are justified in the war of humanity against its enemies. Indeed, the more repugnant the means, the stronger the test of one's nobility and devotion."

His appearance on the train caused no suspicion, why should it? The train first went to Washington, stopping for six hours before continuing on to Pittsburgh. Berkman went to a hotel, registering under a different name, the name of the main character in Chernysvsky's What is to be Done?, the classic work so influential for Lenin.

Berkman, an anarchist, a terrorist, walking among the American people, no different, no more discernible than the immigrant baker, who was later falsely taken into custody as an accomplice to Berkman's crime, though subsequently released when an embarrassed police chief realized that the baker was completely innocent.

Berkman's resolve was firm, committed. He stated in Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist,"The People could not fail to realize the depth of the love that will give his own life for their cause. To give a young life, full of health and vitality to give all, without a thought of self, to give all, voluntarily, cheerfully, nay, enthusiastically--could any one fail to understand such a love?"

Bursting into Frick's office, Berkman draws a revolver, aiming at the intended victim's head and firing. Success. Wounded, Frick drops to his knees and Berkman moves forward to finish him off but is suddenly grabbed from behind. His second shot misses. A third shot misfires. Then a blunt instrument strikes the back of his head. Piercing pain, but Berkman pulls a dagger out of his pocket and crawls toward Frick slashing wildly at his legs before he is restrained for good.

What is to be learned from terrorist acts and violence across the American landscape in the past? Quite simply, that it has always been there. Violence has always been part of the fabric of the United States experience, but never before the attack on Sept. 11th had the threat been delivered from outside the borders with such devastating consequences.

In his essay, Ward argues that in the United States"violence which has marked our history has rarely been directed against the state." Later, Ward continues,"violence has been used again and again to support the structure of authority in American society. We are only puzzled when violence is used to attack that structure."

But, regardless, as uncertainty continues, and intensifies, one can never discount the random acts of terror which have occurred in the past, and undoubtedly will happen again in the future, the rational not as important as the consequences of the deed.