Johann Most | |
|---|---|
 Most circa 1890 | |
| Member ofReichstag from Chemnitz | |
| In office 1874–1878 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1846-03-17)March 17, 1846 |
| Died | March 17, 1906(1906-03-17) (aged 60) Cincinnati, Ohio, US |
Johann Joseph "Hans"Most (February 5, 1846 – March 17, 1906) was a German-AmericanSocial Democratic and thenanarchist politician, newspaper editor, andorator. He is credited with popularizing the concept of "propaganda of the deed" in the United States. Most became a widely noted controversial figure when he published literature on how to make and use bombs, and was imprisoned several times for advocacy of violent anarchism.
According to biographer Frederic Trautmann, Johann Joseph Most was bornout of wedlock to agoverness and aclerk inAugsburg,Bavaria.[1] Most's mother died ofcholera when he was very young. Most was subjected to physical abuse by his stepmother and a schoolteacher;[2] his aversion to religion earned him more beatings at school.[3] To the end of his life he was "amilitantatheist with the zeal of areligious fanatic" who "knew moreScripture than many clergymen knew".[4]
Most developedfrostbite on the left side of his face as a young child. For several years thereafter, flesh rotted and infection spread, with the primitive medicine of the day unable to treat the condition.[1] His condition worsened and he was diagnosed withterminalcancer.[1] As a last-gasp measure a surgeon was called in. A two-inch section of his jawbone was removed, resulting in permanent disfigurement.[5]
At the age of twelve, Most organized astrike of students against a particularly hated teacher, resulting in his expulsion from school.[5] This ended his brief period of formal education, forcing him into the workforce as a youth. He wasapprenticed to abookbinder, for whom he had to bind books from dawn until sunset, a condition which Most later likened to slavery.[6] At the age of 17 he became ajourneyman bookbinder and plied his trade from town to town and job to job, working in 50 cities in six countries from 1863 to 1868.[7] InVienna he was fired and placed on ablacklist for having staged a strike. Unemployable in his trade, he learned to make wooden boxes for hats, cigars, and matches, which he sold on the street until police brought an end to his trade for lacking a license.[8]
As the 1860s drew to a close, Most was won over to the ideas ofinternational socialism, an emerging political movement inGermany andAustria. He saw in the doctrines ofKarl Marx andFerdinand Lassalle a blueprint for a newegalitarian society and became a fervid supporter of Social Democracy, as theMarxist movement was known in the day.[9]
Most engaged himself as editor of socialist newspapers inChemnitz andVienna, both were suppressed by the authorities, he also worked as editor of theBerliner Freie Presse (Berlin Free Press). He was a dedicated advocate ofrevolutionary socialism, sharing the views expressed byWilhelm Liebknecht in an 1869 speech where he had said; "Socialism cannot be realized within the present state. Socialism must overturn the present state."[10] In 1873, he wrote a summary of Marx'sDas Kapital.[11] At Liebknecht's request, Marx andFriedrich Engels made some corrections to Most's text for a second edition published in 1876, despite the fact that the pair did not believe the pamphlet represented a satisfactory summary of Marx's work.[11]
In the1874 German federal election, Most was elected to represent theChemnitz constituency as aSocial Democratic Workers' Party of Germany deputy in theReichstag, in which he served until 1878.[12] He was repeatedly arrested for his verbal attacks onpatriotism, religion,ethics and for his gospel ofterrorism, preached in prose and in many songs such as those in hisProletarier-Liederbuch (Proletarian Songbook). Some of his experiences in prison were recounted in the 1876 work,Die Bastille am Plötzensee: Blätter aus meinem Gefängniss-Tagebuch (The Bastille on Plötzensee: Pages from my Prison Diary).[13]
After advocating violent action, including the use of explosives, as a mechanism to bring about revolutionary change, Most was forced into exile by the government. He first traveled to France but was forced to leave at the end of 1878, settling inLondon instead. There he founded his own newspaper,Freiheit (Freedom), with the first issue coming off the press on January 4, 1879.[14] Convinced by his own experiences of the futility ofparliamentary action, he began to espouse the doctrine ofanarchism, which led to his expulsion from the German Social Democratic Party in 1880.[15] In March 1881, he expressed his delight in the pages ofFreiheit over the assassination of TsarAlexander II of Russia and advocated its emulation; for this he was imprisoned by British authorities for a year and a half.[13][16]
Anything that can tear up the side of a mountain should definitely be effective against a high society party attended by royalty or capitalist exploiters (monopolists).
Encouraged by news of labor struggles and industrial disputes in the United States, Most emigrated to the US upon his release from prison in 1882. He promptly began agitating in his adopted land among otherGerman émigrés. Among his associates wasAugust Spies, one of the anarchists hanged for conspiracy in theHaymarket Square bombing, in whose desk police found an 1884 letter from Most promising a shipment of "medicine," his code word for dynamite.[18]
Most resumed the publication of theFreiheit in New York. He was imprisoned in 1886, again in 1887, and in 1902, the last time for two months for publishing after the assassination ofPresident McKinley an editorial in which he argued that it was no crime to kill a ruler.[13] He said: "Whoever looks at America will see: the ship is powered by stupidity, corruption, or prejudice."[19][20] Most initially advocated traditionalcollectivist anarchism,[21] but later embracedanarchist communism.[22] Most was famous for stating the concept of the "propaganda of the deed" (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."[23]
Most is best known for a pamphlet published in 1885:The Science of Revolutionary Warfare, a how-to manual on the subject of bomb-making which earned the author the moniker "Dynamost". A gifted orator, Most propagated these ideas throughout Marxist and anarchist circles in the United States and attracted many adherents, most notablyEmma Goldman andAlexander Berkman. Inspired by Most's theories ofattentat, Goldman and Berkman, enraged by the deaths of workers during theHomestead strike, put words into action with Berkman's attempted assassination of Homestead factory managerHenry Clay Frick in 1892. Berkman and Goldman were soon disillusioned as Most became one of Berkman's most outspoken critics. InFreiheit, Most attacked both Goldman and Berkman, implying Berkman's act was designed to arouse sympathy for Frick.[24]
Goldman's biographer Alice Wexler suggests that Most's criticisms may have been inspired by jealousy of Berkman.[25] Goldman was enraged, and demanded that Most prove his insinuations. When he refused to respond, she confronted him at next lecture.[24] After he refused to speak to her, she lashed him across the face with ahorsewhip, broke the whip over her knee, then threw the pieces at him.[24] She later regretted her assault, confiding to a friend, "At the age of twenty-three, one does not reason."
Most was inCincinnati, Ohio, to give a speech when he fell ill. He was diagnosed witherysipelas. The doctors could do little for him, and he died a few days later.
His grandson wasBoston Celtics radio play-by-play manJohnny Most.[26]
Note: This list includes only titles published in German or English. Some of Most's writings were translated into Italian, Spanish, Russian, Yiddish, French, Polish, and other languages.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Most, John".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 903.The ideology of revolutionary terrorism targeting big finance in the US originated with a Bavarian-born immigrant named Johann Most, who, upon his arrival in New York in 1882, observed—as accurately then as today—that "whoever looks at America will see: the ship is powered by stupidity, corruption, or prejudice."
Media related toJohann Most at Wikimedia Commons| Reichstag of the German Empire | ||
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| Preceded by | Reichstag Deputy forChemnitz 1874–1878 | Succeeded by |
| Media offices | ||
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| Preceded by New publication | Editor ofFreiheit 1879–1881 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Editor ofFreiheit 1884–1905 | Succeeded by |
