On this day, 25 May 1926, Ukrainian Jewish anarchist Shalom Schwartzbard approached Symon Petliura on Rue Racine in Paris’ Latin Quarter and asked him, “Are you Mr. Petliura?” before shooting him five times shouting “This for the pogroms; this for the massacres; this for the victims.” When police arrived, Schwartzbard told them “I have killed a great assassin.”
Petliura had been Supreme Commander of the Ukrainian Army during the Russian Revolution and ensuing civil war during which approximately 50,000 Jews were murdered in pogroms (including 14 members of Schwartzbard’s family).
Schwartzbard, who previously took part in the Russian revolution as a member of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of the Ukraine (aka the Makhnovists), was put on trial for Petliura’s murder. He was acquitted after the jury decided Petliura got what he deserved.
For more information on Shalom Schwartzbard’s revolutionary life, read his biography here: https://libcom.org/history/schwartzbard-shalom-1886-1938https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1434914983360314/?type=3
This interview with longtime anti-fascist activist Kieran (who was one of the founders of Three Way Fight thirteen years ago) covers a wide range of topics: from the work of Anti-Racist Action in the 1980s and 90s to the IWW’s General Defense Committee today, from the politics of wearing masks to the dangers of relying on the state for protection, and from engaging organized labor to building community-based self-defense against the far right.
