Sam Dolgoff

Sam Dolgoff
Error creating thumbnail: File missing Portrait of Sam (right) and Esther Dolgoff, c. 1980
Born	(1902-10-10)October 10, 1902 Ostrovno, Vitebsky Uyezd, Russian Empire
Died	October 15, 1990(1990-10-15) (aged 88)
Occupation	Painter
Organization	IWW

Sam Dolgoff (10 October 1902 – 15 October 1990) was an anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist from Russia who grew up, lived and was active in the United States.

Biography

Dolgoff was born in the shtetl of Ostrovno in Mogilev Governorate, Russian Empire (in present-day Beshankovichy Raion, Belarus), moving as a child to New York City in 1905 or 1906, where he lived in the Bronx and in Manhattan's Lower East Side where he died. His father was a house painter, and Dolgoff began house painting at the age of 11, a profession he remained in his entire life.

After being expelled from the Young People's Socialist League, Sam joined the Industrial Workers of the World in 1922 and remained an active member his entire life, playing an active role in the anarchist movement for much of the century. He was a co-founder of the Libertarian Labor Review magazine, which was later renamed Anarcho-Syndicalist Review to avoid confusion with America's Libertarian Party.

Dolgoff was a member of the Chicago Free Society Group in the 1920s, Vanguard Group member and editor of its publication Vanguard: A Journal of Libertarian Communism in the 1930s, and co-founded the Libertarian League in New York in 1954. He wrote articles for anarchist magazines as well as books as the editor of anthologies, some of which are listed below. He was active in many causes, and attended groups like New York's Libertarian Book Club regularly.

Dogloff died of congestive heart failure at the age of 88 in 1990.

Selected bibliography

• Ethics and American Unionism (1958)
• The Labor Party Illusion (1961)
• Bakunin on Anarchy (1971; revised 1980)
• The Anarchist Collectives: Workers' Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution, 1936–1939 (1974)
• The Cuban Revolution: A Critical Perspective (1974)
• "American Labor Movement: Rebellion in the Ranks" Interrogations No. 3, 1975.
• The Relevance of Anarchism to Modern Society (1977)
• A Critique of Marxism (1983)
• "Modern Technology and Anarchism" (1986)
• Fragments: A Memoir (1986, ).
• Third World Nationalism and the State (Anarchist Communist Federation of North America) (1983)

See also

• Anarchism in the United States

Sources

• • (PDF)
  • (PDF)

External links

• Papers, 1874–1991 (bulk 1937–1977) at the New York University Wagner Archives
• Sam Dolgoff, Collected Works and Info on RevoltLib.com
• An obituary and short biography of Sam Dolgoff on libcom.org