Road to NotorietyJohann Most in Austria (1868–1871)

In 1902, four years before his death, renowned New York anarchist Johann Most began writing his memoirs about his socialist activities in Austria-Hungary, from October 1868 to May 1871. He sounded a nostalgic note. "Life in the party there," he wrote, "was so noble, so pure, without the corruption of intriguing politicians."¹ His biographer, Rudolf Rocker, believed that "this period was perhaps the most beautiful chapter in Most's stormy life."² This article argues that this Austrian episode, which culminated in a sensational treason trial, prison, amnesty, and expulsion, brought him publicity and notoriety in Germany. By prosecuting and ousting a young socialist, the Habsburg authorities unleashed a new talent onto the labor scene in Germany. Indeed, Most's political skills—theatrical oratory, a witty sarcasm in speaking truth to power—were all honed when he was a youngster partaking in a movement of street rallies, barroom lectures, and police harassment.³ What follows is not a comprehensive timeline of Most's activities in Austria, but rather an argument for the formation of a political activist, one who would go on to become the voice of an uncompromising, transnational radicalism in Britain and the United States.⁴

Most's rise in the German labor movement after his expulsion from Austria was facilitated by the reputation he gained following the events in Vienna. He continued to excite workers with sharp-witted oratory and penmanship, interrupted by trials and imprisonment in Berlin, London, and New York jails. More a popularizer than a theoretician, Most embraced an ideological flexibility, even independence, in words and actions, which would eventually get him expelled from the Socialist Party and put him on the road to anarchism. His apostasy and subsequent hostile attitude toward socialists compromised Most as a historical figure. Until recently and with some exceptions, historians of German social-democracy have consistently marginalized Most's role in the early movement.⁵ We now know that he was one of the movement's most effective communicators, not a fringe figure. True, he was not, and never pretended to be, an intellectual like Marx, August Bebel, or Bernstein, but unlike them, Most had a knack for cultivating rebellious proletarian militancy—an ability developed in Austria.

In order to assess the significance of Most's experiences leading to the treason trial, we must briefly sketch his life prior to his arrival in October 1868 at age twenty-two. Most was born in 1846 in Augsburg, Bavaria, the son of a freethinking governess and an underpaid clerk who had abandoned an acting career. Tragedy struck when an 1854–55 cholera epidemic claimed the lives of his grandparents, sister, and beloved mother. His father remarried, but his home would never be the same. Berated by an overbearing stepmother, Most struggled in school while also contracting an inflammation of the jaw for which no remedy seemed available. He was thirteen when an emergency operation saved his life: a piece of his lower jawbone was removed, leaving his face deformed. Decades later, he told his anarchist friend Emma Goldman that this was the "deepest tragedy of his life," producing in him "an inferiority complex."⁶ Most went on to attend a technical school but completed only three semesters before he was expelled for organizing a strike against his French teacher.

The fourteen-year-old Most was introduced to the world of artisan labor when his father apprenticed him to a bookbinder. After three acrimonious years, both master and apprentice were happy to part ways when Most obtained his journeyman's certificate. But his heart was in the theater, and would remain there in one way or another for the rest of his life. From 1863 on, Most traveled throughout Central Europe, first as a journeyman looking for work and then as a tourist looking for pleasure and culture. He endured numerous insults from people repulsed by his unbearded, crooked face. He joined a workers' educational society (Arbeiter-Bildungsverein), but politics was of little interest to him. He knew of two rival philosophies vying for the attention of the German worker during the...