Buchach
Buchach ( uk, Бучач; pl, Buczacz; yi, בעטשאָטש, Betshotsh or (Bitshotsh); he, בוצ'אץ' ''Buch'ach''; german: Butschatsch; tr, Bucaş) is a city located on the Strypa River (a tributary of the Dniester) in Chortkiv Raion of T ...
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
– 1973) is the pseudonym of Austrian author and educator Maximilian Nacht. ' at International Institute of Social History In his youth he had espoused militant anarchism and in the 1920s he was a follower of the
Bolshevik Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
. From the 1940s he was for many years a politics lecturer in the United States.
Background
Maximilian Nacht was born in 1881, into a wealthy Jewish family from Buchach, eastern
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, he lived in Austria and attended the
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hist ...
.
Career
Max, his older brother
Siegfried
Siegfried is a German-language male given name, composed from the Germanic elements ''sig'' "victory" and ''frithu'' "protection, peace".
The German name has the Old Norse cognate ''Sigfriðr, Sigfrøðr'', which gives rise to Swedish ''Sigfrid' ...
from 1903 to 1907 edited five volumes of the militant journal ''Der Weckruf'' (The Alarm). In 1908 he was living in Cracow, where he became politically involved with Jan Wacław Machajski in setting up ''Workers' Conspiracy''. Siegfried, later Stephen, emigrated to the United States of America at the end of 1912, Max followed in 1913.
Nacht wrote pro-Soviet articles in the 1920s using the
pseudonym
A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...
"Max Nomad." He distanced himself from Stalinism in 1929. Writing in ''
Scribner's Magazine
''Scribner's Magazine'' was an American periodical published by the publishing house of Charles Scribner's Sons from January 1887 to May 1939. ''Scribner's Magazine'' was the second magazine out of the Scribner's firm, after the publication of ' ...
'' in 1934, he coined the phrase ''capitalism without capitalists'' regarding the Soviet Union.
A
Guggenheim Fellow
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the a ...
in 1937, he became a lecturer in politics and history at
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, th ...
Rand School of Social Science
The Rand School of Social Science was formed in 1906 in New York City by adherents of the Socialist Party of America. The school aimed to provide a broad education to workers, imparting a politicizing class-consciousness, and additionally served a ...
.
Nomad wrote of himself:
I remain a lone-wolf philosophical anarchist whose sympathies go out to the poorest of the poor struggling for more and more of the good things of life. But I feel akin only to those rebellious, but politically unattached intellectuals who dream of justice and an equal chance for everybody, but know, as I do, that, given the eternal recurrence of predatory elites, and the incurable ignorance and gullibility of the masses, a privileged and educated minority will always rule and exploit the uneducated majority.Coombs, Anne, ''Sex and Anarchy: The Life and Death of the Sydney Push'', Penguin Books Australia, 1996; pg. 56.
Works
* ''Die revolutionäre Bewegung in Rußland''. Neues Leben, Berlin 1902
* ''Rebellen-Lieder'' Arnold Roller (Siegfried Nacht), Max Nacht (eds,.), 1906
* ''Rebels and Renegades''. New York 1932. 430 pp.
* ''Apostles of Revolution''. Little, Brown & Co., Boston 1939. 467 pp.
* ''A Skeptic's Political Dictionary and Handbook for the Disenchanted''. New York 1953. 171 pp.
* ''Aspects of Revolt''. New York
959
Year 959 ( CMLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Byzantine Empire
* April - May – The Byzantines refuse to pay the yearly tribute. A Hungari ...
311 pp.
* ''Political Heretics from Plato to Mao Tse-Tung''. Ann Arbor 1963
* ''Dreamers, Dynamiters and Demagogues: Reminiscences''. New York 964 251 pp.
* ''The Anarchist Tradition and Other Essays''. 1967. 398 pp.
* ''Masters--old and new'' 1979
* ''White collars & horny hands: the revolutionary thought of Waclaw Machajski'' 1983