Max Nomad
Max Nomadwas the pseudonym ofMaximilian Nacht(15 September 1881 – 18 April 1973), an Austrian-born American author and educator. In his youth he espoused militantanarchismand in the 1920s he was a supporter of theBolshevik Revolution.From the 1940s he was for many years a politics lecturer in the United States.
Life
[edit]Maximilian Nacht was born in 1881, into a wealthy Jewish family inBuchach,easternGalicia(now inUkraine).[1]BeforeWorld War I,he lived in Austria and attended theUniversity of Vienna.
He died in 1973.[2]
Career
[edit]From 1903 to 1907 Max, his older brotherSiegfriedand, sometimes,Senna HoyinZürichedited five volumes of a militant journal,Der Weckruf(The Alarm). In 1908 Max went to live inKraków,where he became involved, along withJan Wacław Machajski,in setting up a group called Workers' Conspiracy.
Max's brother Siegfried, later Stephen, emigrated to the United States at the end of 1912, and Max followed in 1913.[3]
During the 1920s Max Nacht wrote pro-Soviet articles using thepseudonym"Max Nomad." However, he distanced himself fromStalinismin 1929. Writing inScribner's Magazinein 1934, he coined the phrasecapitalism without capitaliststo describe the Soviet system.
AGuggenheim Fellowin1937,he became a lecturer in politics and history atNew York University,theNew School for Social Researchand theRand School of Social Science.
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.[4]
Works
[edit]- Die revolutionäre Bewegung in Rußland.Neues Leben, Berlin 1902
- Rebellen-LiederArnold 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 [1959]. 311 pp.
- Political Heretics from Plato to Mao Tse-Tung.Ann Arbor 1963
- Dreamers, Dynamiters and Demagogues: Reminiscences.New York [1964]. 251 pp.
- The Anarchist Tradition and Other Essays.1967. 398 pp.
- Masters--Old and New1979
- White Collars and Horny Hands: The Revolutionary Thought of Waclaw Machajski1983
References
[edit]- ^Guide to the Max Nomad PapersArchived2010-08-29 at theWayback Machineat the Tamiment Library, New York University
- ^[1]at International Institute of Social History
- ^Siegfried Nacht also used the pen-name Arnold Roller:Der Generalstreik und die soziale Revolution. London 1902 (translated into 17 languages);Der soziale Generalstreik.Berlin 1905;Die direkte AktionLondon 1906.Sodatenbrevier,1906.
- ^Coombs, Anne,Sex and Anarchy: The Life and Death of the Sydney Push,Penguin Books Australia, 1996; p. 56.
Further reading
[edit]- Werner Portmann:Die wilden Schafe: Max und Siegfried Nacht.Unrast Verlag, Münster (Germany) 2008.
