Photo, above: Large anarchist rally in Union Square, New York City, with Alexander Berkman addressing the crowd, on 11 July 1914. Over 5,000 people attended the mass memorial meeting called by the Anti-Militarist League for Berg, Hanson, and Caron, the three anarchists killed in the Lexington Avenue explosion. Over 800 policemen monitored the meeting, while Berkman, Abbott, Edelsohn, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Carlo Tresca, David Sullivan and Charles Plunkett all spoke for their dead comrades.

Alexander Berkman (November 21, 1870 – June 28, 1936) was an anarchist known for his political activism and writing. He was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century.  Berkman was born in Vilna in the Russian Empire (present-day Vilnius, Lithuania) and emigrated to the United States in 1888. He lived in New York City, where he became involved in the anarchist movement. He was the lover and lifelong friend of anarchist Emma Goldman. In 1892, Berkman made an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate businessman Henry Clay Frick as an act of propaganda of the deed, for which he served 14 years in prison. His experience in prison was the basis for his first book, Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist.

After his release from prison, Berkman served as editor of Goldman's anarchist journal, Mother Earth, and he established his own journal, The Blast. In 1917, Berkman and Goldman were sentenced to two years in jail for conspiracy against the newly instated draft. After their release from prison, they were arrested—along with hundreds of others—and deported to Russia. Initially supportive of that country's Bolshevik revolution, Berkman soon voiced his opposition to the Soviet's use of terror after seizing power and their repression of fellow revolutionaries. In 1925, he published a book about his experiences, The Bolshevik Myth.

While living in France, Berkman continued his work in support of the anarchist movement, producing the classic exposition of anarchist principles, Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism. Suffering from ill health, Berkman committed suicide in 1936. See Hour 4,More Powerful Than Dynamite: Radicals, Plutocrats, Progressives, and New York's Year of Anarchy by Thai Jones

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Hour One

Saturday 16 August  2014 / Hour 1, Block A: Heir to the Empire City: New York and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt by Edward P. Kohn  (1 of 4)

Saturday 16 August  2014 / Hour 1, Block B: Heir to the Empire City: New York and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt by Edward P. Kohn  (2 of 4)

Saturday 16 August  2014 / Hour 1, Block C: Heir to the Empire City: New York and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt by Edward P. Kohn  (3 of 4)

Saturday 16 August  2014 / Hour 1, Block D: Heir to the Empire City: New York and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt by Edward P. Kohn  (4 of 4)

Hour Two

Saturday 16 August  2014 / Hour 2, Block A: The Crusade Years, 1933–1955: Herbert Hoover's Lost Memoir of the New Deal Era and Its Aftermath (Hoover Institution... by George H. Nash (1 of 4)

Saturday 16 August  2014 / Hour 2, Block B: The Crusade Years, 1933–1955: Herbert Hoover's Lost Memoir of the New Deal Era and Its Aftermath (Hoover Institution... by George H. Nash  (2 of 4)

Saturday 16 August  2014 / Hour 2, Block C: The Crusade Years, 1933–1955: Herbert Hoover's Lost Memoir of the New Deal Era and Its Aftermath (Hoover Institution... by George H. Nash (3 of 4)

Saturday 16 August  2014 / Hour 2, Block D: The Crusade Years, 1933–1955: Herbert Hoover's Lost Memoir of the New Deal Era and Its Aftermath (Hoover Institution... by George H. Nash (4 of 4)

Hour Three

Saturday 16 August  2014 / Hour 3, Block A: Coolidge by Amity Shlaes  (1 of 4)

Saturday 16 August  2014 / Hour 3, Block B: Coolidge by Amity Shlaes  (2 of 4)

Saturday 16 August  2014 / Hour 3, Block C: Coolidge by Amity Shlaes  (3 of 4)

Saturday 16 August  2014 / Hour 3, Block D: Coolidge by Amity Shlaes  (4 of 4)

Hour Four

Saturday 16 August  2014 / Hour 4, Block A: More Powerful Than Dynamite: Radicals, Plutocrats, Progressives, and New York's Year of Anarchy by Thai Jones (1 of 4)

Saturday 16 August  2014 / Hour 4, Block B: More Powerful Than Dynamite: Radicals, Plutocrats, Progressives, and New York's Year of Anarchy by Thai Jones (2 of 4)

Saturday 16 August  2014 / Hour 4, Block C: More Powerful Than Dynamite: Radicals, Plutocrats, Progressives, and New York's Year of Anarchy by Thai Jones (3 of 4)

Saturday 16 August  2014 / Hour 4, Block D: More Powerful Than Dynamite: Radicals, Plutocrats, Progressives, and New York's Year of Anarchy by Thai Jones (4 of 4)

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