Fanya Baron


Fanya Anisimovna Baron was a Russian anarchist revolutionary who lived in America from 1911 to 1917 when she returned to her homeland to build a post-revolutionary society. In 1921, she was executed by the Cheka.

Biography

Fanya was born in 1887 in Vilnius in a Jewish family. After graduation, she worked as a clerk and became an anarchist. In 1913 she fled to France, because of the threat of arrest for revolutionary activity.
Upon arriving in France, Fanya settled in Paris, where she took an active part in the anarchist movement, then left for the United States where her husband Aron Baron had fled from Siberian exile. In Chicago, Fanya and her husband worked on The Alarm with Lucy Parsons. Fanya was an activist within the American labor union, the Industrial Workers of the World. In 1915 she took part in the protests of unemployed workers.

''Nabat'' and the Makhno movement

After the February Revolution in June 1917, she moved to Ukraine, where she joined the Confederation of Anarchists of Ukraine “Nabat”, and started to work in Kiev, Kharkov and other Ukrainian cities. The Nabat confederation had ties with the Makhno movement. Several Nabat members were active in the Cultural-Educational Section of the Makhno movement.
Voline and Aaron Baron were among anarchists who were arrested in a Cheka crackdown on anarchism at the end of 1920. On June 7, 1920, she was arrested in the "Free Brotherhood" bookstore in Kharkov, on suspicion of having links with the Makhnovists. On June 14, she was released. Fanya was arrested a second time on November 25, 1920, during the Bolshevik repression of the Nabat in Kharkov. She then spent months being transferred between various prisons around the RSFSR.

Escape from prison

In early July 1921, Fanya escaped from Ryazan prison. She planned to help her husband Aron Baron escape from prison in Moscow. Aaron's brother, Semion, a Bolshevik communist, offered to help with the plan. Later the same year, they were found out, with Fanya being arrested by the Cheka, and Semion Baron being executed on the spot.

Capture and execution

Fanya Baron was among 13 anarchists held at Taganka prison without charges. In July 1921, they went on hunger strike, attracting the attention of visiting French, Spanish and Russian syndicalists who argued for their release. Leon Trotsky remarked at the time "We do not imprison the real anarchists, but criminals and bandits who cover themselves by claiming to be anarchists". Fanya was shot by the Cheka on 30 September 1921. Aron was spared execution until 1937, after spending 17 years in numerous prisons and exiles.

Eulogy

wrote about the execution of Fanya Baron in My Further Disillusionment in Russia:

Fanya Baron in contemporary culture

An Australian anarchist bookshop, Jura Books, has named their library collection The Fanya Baron Library in honour of her courage and sacrifice for anarchist revolution.
Fanya is also mentioned in the 1939 Kenneth Rexroth poem, titled "August 22, 1939".