Johann Most

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Johann Most (5 February 1846, Augsburg, Bavaria – 17 March 1906, Cincinnati, Ohio) was a German-born emigrant to the United States, an anarchist and fiery orator, who in the late 19th century began to advocate the use of violence to achieve revolutionary political and social change. He is most well-known for popularizing the strategy of "propaganda of the deed," which promoted direct action against individuals or institutions (including the use of violence) to force revolutionary change and inspire further action by others.

[edit] Background

Most began his political career in Germany as a Marxist social democratic deputy in the German Reichstag. [1] He wrote a popular summary of Karl Marx's Das Capital. After advocating violent action, (including the use of explosive bombs) for revolutionary change, he was forced into exile, and expelled from the German Social Democratic Party. Convinced by his own experience of the futility of parliamentary action, he became an anarchist, advocating a kind of collectivist anarchism,[2]although he later embraced anarchist communism.[3]. He is most accurately viewed as an insurrectionary anarchist. Encouraged by news of labor struggles and industrial disputes in the United States, Most emigrated himself, and promptly began agitating in his adopted land among other German emigres.

[edit] Life in the United States

Most was famous for stating the concept of the Attentat: "The existing system will be quickest and most radically overthrown by the annihilation of its exponents. Therefore, massacres of the enemies of the people must be set in motion."[4] Most published a manual for preparing dynamite and other explosive materials, The Science of Revolutionary Warfare, earning him the moniker "Dynamost." A gifted orator, Most propagated these ideas throughout Marxist and anarchist circles in the United States and attracted many adherents, most notably Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman.

Inspired by Most's theories of Attentat, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, enraged by the deaths of workers during the Homestead strike, put words into action with Berkman's attempted assassination of Homestead factory manager Henry Clay Frick in 1892.

Berkman and Goldman were soon disillusioned by their mentor. One of Berkman's most outspoken critics for the assassination attempt was Johann Most, who had always, noted Goldman, "proclaimed acts of violence from the housetops." Yet in Freiheit, Most attacked both Goldman and Berkman, implying Berkman's act was designed to arouse sympathy for Frick. According to the historian Alice Wexler, Most's motivations, may have been inspired by jealousy of Berkman, or possibly by his changing attitudes towards the effectiveness of political assassination as tool to force revolutionary change.

Goldman was enraged by Most's critique, and demanded he prove his insinuations. When he refused to reply, she carried a horsewhip to his next lecture. After he refused to speak to her, she lashed him across the face, then broke the whip over her knee and threw the pieces at him. She later regretted her assault, confiding to a friend, "At the age of twenty-three, one does not reason."

[edit] Later Years

Most continued to write and give speeches on the subject of revolutionary change for the remainder of his life. In 1906, while in Cincinnati to give a speech, he fell ill, attributed to a chronic case of erysipelas, a bacterial skin infection. In the era prior to antibiotic treatments, little could be done for his condition, which worsened, and he died a few days later.