The Voyage of the "Red Ark"

Contemporary Cartoon

In December 1919, nicknamed the "Red Ark" (or the "Soviet Ark") by the press of the day, the USAT Buford was used by the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Labor to deport 249 aliens, including Emma Goldman, to Russia from the United States because of their left-wing, anarchist, or syndicalist political activities.

In 1919 Alexander M. Palmer, the attorney general, and his special assistant, John Edgar Hoover, organized a plan to deport a large number of left-wing figures. On 7 November 1919, the second anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, over 10,000 suspected communists and anarchists were arrested in 23 different cities.

Emma Goldman

Hoover decided he needed a high-profile case to help his campaign against subversives. He selected Goldman, as he had been particularly upset by her views on sexual matters (Emma's preferred mode of revolution) and religion. In court, however, Hoover argued that Goldman's speeches had inspired anarchists to commit acts of violence in the United States and won his case. Goldman and her lover, Alexander Berkman, along with 247 other radicals, were deported to Russia.

Emma eventually made it to Russia. Expecting utopia, she was shocked about the lack of freedom there and personally informed Lenin of her disappointment. For the next two decades she journeyed the world as a vagabond preacher of progressivism, spreading joylessness and discontent wherever she stopped. Despite her exile, Emma managed to make it back to the U.S. twice, once for a speaking tour in the 1930s and then for her burial in Chicago in 1940.

Sources: Ellis Island Website; Wikipedia