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Chapter 2: glasgow and the anarchists

Although the most favoured route across Britain for those America-bound was from Hull to Liverpool, a significant number of migrants travelled across Scotland after arriving at the ports of Leith or Dundee.1 Glasgow—the “industrial powerhouse of the Scottish economy”—became an important staging post for these travellers, and many stayed, drawn to the opportunities of a developing city and a thriving Jewish community with its own shops, synagogues, and culture.2 Indeed, Glasgow had the third largest Jewish population in the United Kingdom, rising from 2,000 in 1891 to 6,000 a decade later.3

It is uncertain whether Glasgow was Josephs’ intended destination, if he travelled alone, and when he arrived. The only clue to his permanency in Glasgow is permanency of another kind—on 27 November 1897, he married Sophia Hillman at the Haskalah-influenced Clyde Terrace Synagogue, in the neighbourhood of Gorbals. Sophia had also come from Latvia, born in 1876 in the south-eastern city of Daugavpils (Dzvinsk), and despite the distance between cities, it is possible she had known Josephs outside of Scotland. A rare photograph of a youthful Sophia gives the studio address as Kornstrasse, a main street in Liepaja. According to living relatives, Sophia and Philip may have arrived in Glasgow together via Germany.

One thing is certain: a mere paragraph does not do justice to Sophia’s own story of struggle. Twenty-five years and a life of migration later, another photograph of Sophia with her youngest child, Edie, shows a “beautiful, elegant (did Philip make her clothing?), strong, intelligent woman, with a touch of ironic humour in her face. But an exhausted look too.”4 Two major migrations (with a third to come), a life of raising eight children, and her support of Philip and his endeavours—as well as his tribulations—are marked on Sophia’s brow.

Whether Sophia and Philip romanced on a busy Latvian street or on their oceanic escape, Glasgow became their new home—Philip as a tailor and Sophia, like a number of other Jewish women, as a maker of ‘top quality’ cigarettes.5 Alongside their waged work, these two new arrivals to Gorbals could soon add another task to their daily lives: parenthood. Sophia was pregnant when the couple married, and in 1898, the birth of Jeannie Josephs signalled the first of four daughters born in Glasgow before 1903.6

If Josephs was not already a convinced Bundist or anarchist and had left Latvia agnostic to radical politics, there were plenty of factors in Glasgow ready to convert him to the revolutionary faith of anarchism. Gorbals, south of the River Clyde and in walking distance of the city centre, was at that time, a slum. The rapid expansion of industry, coupled with its overcrowded workers’ dwellings, made it one of Glasgow’s grittiest neighbourhoods, littered with four-storey brick tenements shaped by the needs of the Industrial Revolution (rather than its workers). Tenants, who were unable to afford rent elsewhere, crowded into dark, unsanitary homes at a rate of more than three people to a room, resulting in regular outbreaks of smallpox and other diseases (including the bubonic plague in 1899).7 “The common accompaniments of Gorbals life were poverty, poor housing, and ill health,” confirms Collins, and although some Gorbals streets were relatively wide and prosperous, most were “repositories of filth and the breeding ground of despair and disease.”8

Working conditions were no better. “In seeking a job,” explains Fishman, “the immigrant found himself faced with a number of harsh realities. Opportunities were strictly limited. The system was periodically choked with high static and frictional unemployment. Language and cultural differences bred suspicion and hostility.”9 This, and the difficulty of adjusting to their new environment, led immigrants into a life of labour that involved unskilled and semi-skilled trades such as tailoring, “a new industry of cheap ready-made clothing to meet the demands of a ‘huge and constantly increasing class who have… wide wants and narrow means.’”10 Together with thousands of other Jewish immigrants with limited capital but plenty of labour power, Philip could soon list tailor as his occupation.

In the hope of becoming a semi-skilled machinist or even a master tailor, new immigrants in the tailoring trade (or ‘greeners’ as they were called) entered into a life of speedy production and tedious toil:

They started as under-pressers or plain-machinists, working for about six months for a skilled presser or machinist, doing the first preparatory work for him, till they learned the work them-selves. This lower grade of worker was employed and paid not by the master-tailor, but by the presser or machinist. Sometimes a presser or machinist employed three or four under-pressers or plain-machinists. It suited the master-tailor, because it placed the responsibility for driving the workers of the upper grade on the workers themselves… contrived [so] that each drove everybody else… it was a vicious circle, each trying to squeeze as much as possible out of those under them.11

Like his fellow Jewish workers in London’s East End, Josephs’ occupation of tailoring (by far the biggest occupation of that Jewish community) in which sweating—home workshops that exploited cheap and migrant labour—was endemic. Sweated workshops ranged from large manufacturing plants to small family businesses “working from their own usually inadequate apartments.”12 Groups of workers were huddled into often unsanitary, unventilated, and unlit rooms, and forced to perform a certain section of the production process repeatedly—effectively cutting labour costs and the need for skilled workers. Many women, desperate for work, accepted the lowest and most menial tailoring tasks without pay, hoping that at the end of their ‘trial period’ they would be given paid employment. But when “the so-called training time was nearly complete and perhaps work was slacker these girls would be dismissed and a new set of novices employed.”13 Likewise, the myth that by turning one’s living room into a workshop and with the help of family, the Jewish tailor could ‘become master’ was mostly that: a myth. “Only a ruthless minority made it… the majority who tried, suffered their dubious hour of glory as master, then sank back into poverty and debt.”14

Organizations were created to fight such conditions. In the aftermath of an explosive wildcat strike against sweating by 10,000 tailors in the East End, a Jewish Tailors Union was formed in Glasgow, which soon joined the Trades Council in 1890 as the Amalgamated Jewish Tailors, Machinists and Pressers Union.15 Friendly societies that catered to workers were also active in the Jewish community, such as the Poalei Tsedek (Workingmen’s Synagogue), the Jewish Working Men’s Club, and the Jewish Workers’ Co-operative Society—made possible due to a weakening of religious traditionalism.16 Many Eastern European Jews brought the influence of the Bund with them, while evening English classes, a Literary Society, and public lectures all contributed to an embracing of “mainstream Scottish working-class values and culture” open to addressing the questions of the day.17

Those who confronted sweating and the inequalities of late-nineteenth-century society more vigorously than others, were anarchists. For adherents such as Bakunin and Kropotkin, these inequalities were the result of exploitative social relationships; sweating, alienation, wage-slavery, and the unequal distribution of wealth in society was the natural result of capitalism and its relations of production. In this regard, anarchists were little different than other socialists. What differentiated figures like Bakunin and Kropotkin from their comrades in the wider socialist movement was their understanding of hierarchy: power relations of authority that allowed an individual to be controlled by another. This violence of coercive authority and domination in all aspects of life—such as personal relations between men and women, between races, in education and the family, and in collective organizations such as unions—was denounced by anarchists as unjust, unnecessary, and harmful.

The epitome of hierarchy and coercive authority, and the focal point of much anarchist agitation, was the state: a power structure (whether liberal, socialist, or Marxist) they believed not only served as capital’s lackey, but also hindered individual freedom and the development of real social wealth. Instead, anarchists sought to replace capitalism and the state with a social order based on co-operation, the voluntary co-ordination of common interests, and non-hierarchical relations. Far from advocating chaos, Emma Goldman—a staunch feminist and tireless campaigner for social justice—argued that such a social order would guarantee “every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life,” a life free of domination, class division, and exploitation.18

How that society would actually function, and what tactics would be used to get there, usually depended on the individual’s personal position and the particular developmental stage of anarchism. The various branches of the anarchist family tree were generally summarised as individualist, collectivist, or communist, and each gave rise to their own thinkers and tactics (although such positions were far from homogenous). However, the most predominant form of anarchism (what Schmidt and van der Walt term ‘the broad anarchist tradition’) had a mass social base, one that “emphasized positive, constructive activism—organizing clubs, neighbourhoods, workers’ cooperatives, experimental schools, collective farms, mutual-aid societies, and anarcho-syndicalist labour unions.”19 Far from being allergic to organization, mass anarchists advocated a kind of organization from below, and threw themselves headfirst into the debates of the International Workingmen’s Association (IWA, or the First International). As a result, the broad anarchist tradition—which included the anarchist communism of Josephs—was firmly rooted in the workers’ movement of the 1860s. From then on, anarchism as a working class ideology became a thorn in the side of capital and the state across the globe, whether in Switzerland or Spain, Korea or Argentina—or in this case, Scotland and New Zealand.

Glasgow and its outer limits (such as Paisley) had active anarchist groups and militants whose own development had roots in the increasingly anti-parliamentary Socialist League. Spurred on by Kropotkin’s 1886 visit and the powerful words of American anarchist Lucy Parsons (1888), the local branch of the Socialist League progressively turned “in the Anarchist direction,” which—according to one of the League’s prominent figures, William Morris—gave them “an agreeable air of toleration.”20 A parting with the League took place in late 1892 or early 1893, with the anarchists finally coalescing into the Glasgow Anarchist Group in October 1893. By March 1894, a member stated that they had “five times the members we started with,” and were propagating the principles of anarchy at such a rate that anarchists were barred from speaking at Labour Party discussions.21 The Group held numerous outdoor meetings against the Boer War (1899–1902), distributed literature, and co-operated with the Paisley Group to publish the syndicalist-­inspired newspaper Voice of Labour in January 1904.22

During this time Glasgow continued to be frequented by international anarchists thanks to the connections of two of the Group’s members, William and Maggie Duff. It was the Duffs who played host to another American anarchist, Voltairine de Cleyre, during her tours of Scotland in September 1897 and August/September 1903; could count anarchists such as the geographer Élisée Reclus, Goldman, and Kropotkin as friends; and penned articles in international journals such as San Francisco’s anarchist communist newspaper, Free Society.23 An ­anarchist bookstore in the centre of the city also helped contribute to the spread of anarchism in Glasgow, and London—a mecca of European anarchism—was a mere train ride away. London-based anarchists such as Rudolf Rocker often gave lectures in Glasgow, packing halls with discussions on the Russian pogroms and sweating in the East End.

Rocker’s connection to the Jewish anarchists of London was particularly fruitful. After moving to the city from Paris, the popular figure and captivating orator joined the Arbeter Fraynd group, a Jewish anarchist collective based in the East End that also produced a newspaper of the same name. Mainly edited by Rocker and written entirely in Yiddish, the Arbeter Fraynd covered local and international labour news, tirelessly called for unity between Jewish and English workers, and put forward the ideas and tactics of anarchism—all designed to use the immigrant worker’s Jewish identity as a springboard for solidarity and class struggle. The paper also concerned itself with combating Marxism in the Jewish labour movement, publishing twenty-five essays by Rocker alone on the subject. As a result, Rocker and the Arbeter Fraynd contained some of the earliest critiques of Marxism and historical materialism in Yiddish (a theme that would later be explored by Josephs and his Freedom Group comrades).24

As well as their newspaper, the Arbeter Fraynd collective also helped to translate anarchist books and pamphlets into the language of the Jewish immigrant. One such pamphlet was a comprehensive, twenty-two page exposition of anarchist communism in Yiddish that was later translated into German, French, and Dutch.25

Alongside the spreading of anarchist literature, the Jewish anarchists had their own hall, complete with a library, meeting spaces, and a bar. Events such as anarchist Yom Kippur balls—“featuring dancing, merry-making, and atheistic harangues”—would be organized to clash with traditional Jewish festivities, attracting the attention of non-religious Jews and the scorn of the faithful.26 As Rocker put it, “the place for believers was the house of worship, and the place for non-believers was the radical meeting.”27

For many Jewish radicals, anarchism meant a complete rejection of religion. “Just as every state, they argued, was an instrument by which a privileged few wielded power over the immense majority, so every church was an ally of the state in the subjugation of humanity.”28 Yet for some, the boundaries of anarchism and Judaism were blurred. “Anarchism, for all its international pretensions… has always been divided into national and ethnic groups,” argues Paul Avrich. This sense of ethnicity was possible because “anarchists, cherishing diversity against standardization and uniformity, have always prized the differences among peoples—cultural, linguistic, historical—quite as much as their common bonds.”29 Many Jewish anarchists embraced an atheism that retained a sense of their Jewish cultural diversity—without observing its orthodox traditionalism. For others, anarchism was the natural extension of a radical Judaism “deeply motivated by ethical questions, incensed by injustices. They carried a very Jewish sense of righteousness.”30 The “new rabbis of liberty” strove to show that, in practice, Jewish anarchism was not a contradiction in terms.31

Atheism aside, cultural and material commonalities were an important link for Jewish anarchists and their fellow workers. As well as encouraging them to question the fetters of traditionalism and to join the anarchist counter-culture, orators such as Rocker went to the workers themselves—endlessly organizing Jewish labourers knee deep in sweated shirts. A demonstration of 25,000 against the pogroms in Russia, and a nationwide conference of Jewish anarchists in December 1902, confirmed the fruits of their labour. Alongside Jewish anarchist movements in the US and elsewhere, Rocker and the Arbeter Fraynd collective had fostered the growth of a unique, widely embraced, and long-lasting Jewish anarchist identity. In the British Isles, such an identity was not restricted to London’s East End. According to Collins there were also Jewish anarchists in Glasgow itself, and as Rocker notes in The London Years, “our best centre after Leeds, was Glasgow.”32

Although Josephs does not appear in the few surviving records of the Jewish Unions and anarchist groups of the day, the prevalence of anarchism in Glasgow and the work of Rocker and the Jewish anarchists in London surely confirmed Josephs’ political outlook. The Duffs lived within walking distance of the Josephs household, and Glasgow Green, a popular open-air auditorium for socialists and anarchists of all shades, was a mere two blocks away. Yet even closer to home was Sophia’s brother, Arthur Hillman. A founding member, with Rocker, of the Workers’ Circle Friendly Society (a socialist mutual aid society designed to protect its members through times of sickness or need), a member of the Bund, and self-proclaimed anarchist, Josephs’ brother-in-law preached from a pulpit radically different than family tradition (the Hillmans having produced a long line of prominent rabbanim).33 Instead, Arthur struggled financially due to his anarchist convictions. In order to make ends meet he had a business selling ‘antique rugs’—new rugs that he would beat with dirt in order to grant them antique status!34

Another radical Bundist in the family was the cousin of Arthur and Sophia, Sidney Hillman. After being radicalised in one of the many illegal Russian study circles of the day, in 1904 Sidney led the first ever May Day march in the Lithuanian city of Kovno. For his efforts he suffered the fate of many of his comrades—imprisonment. After escaping Russia, he eventually went on to become a prominent labour leader in the New Deal era, devising America’s first system of welfare as Secretary of Labor to President Franklin Roosevelt, and a key member of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

Who radicalised whom? Was Josephs the ‘bad apple’ that brought anarchism into the Hillman household, influenced by the steady stream of anarchist agitation in Glasgow? Or was his anarchism the result of personal interaction with Arthur, Sidney, and Sophia? Maybe a shared adherence to anarchism was what brought Philip and Sophia together? Either way, when Philip, Sophia, and their four girls embarked for Wellington, New Zealand aboard the Prinz Regent-Luitpold late in 1903, Josephs was a convinced revolutionary—armed with mental dynamite and transnational connections.