Alexander Berkman (November 21, 1870 – June 28, 1936) was an anarchist known for his political activism and writing. He was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century.

Berkman was born in Vilnius in the Russian Empire and emigrated to the United States in 1888. He lived in New York City, where he became involved in the anarchist movement. He was the lover and lifelong friend of anarchist Emma Goldman.

In 1892, Berkman attempted to assassinate Henry Clay Frick as an act of propaganda of the deed. Though Frick survived the attempt on his life, Berkman served 14 years in prison. His experience in prison was the basis for his first book, Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist.

After his release from prison, Berkman served as editor of Goldman's anarchist journal, Mother Earth, and he established his own journal, The Blast.

In 1917, Berkman and Goldman were sentenced to two years in jail for conspiracy against the newly instated draft. After their release from prison, they were arrested—along with hundreds of others—and deported to Russia. Initially supportive of that country's Bolshevik revolution, Berkman quickly voiced his opposition to the Soviet use of violence and the repression of independent voices. In 1925, he published a book about his experiences, The Bolshevik Myth.

A protester in the anarchist community of Freetown Christiania, Denmark hurls a molotov cocktail in the direction of a police van in May 2007. Violent resistance is a form of direct action opposed by pacifist anarchists but espoused by illegalists and insurrectionary anarchists.

• ... that the 1869 anarchist manifesto Catechism of a Revolutionary, which established the importance of Russian anarchist Sergey Nechayev (pictured), portrays the revolutionary as an amoral avenger?
• ... that Future Primitive and Other Essays by anarcho-primitivist philosopher John Zerzan is regarded as an underground classic by anarchists and technophobes alike?
• ... that many of the tendencies within anarchism criticized by Chaz Bufe in his pamphlet Listen, Anarchist! are thought to have stemmed from the movement's individualist, Stirnerite wing?
• ... that in his 2001 post-anarchist book From Bakunin to Lacan, Saul Newman questions how classical anarchism can refrain from reproducing the forms of oppression that it tries to overcome?
• ... that rather than await execution, Russian anarchist assassin Moishe Tokar doused himself in paraffin from his prison cell lamp and burned himself alive?

• 1850 - American anarchist Joseph Labadie (pictured) was born in Paw Paw, Michigan.
• 1937 - Spain's Friends of Durruti Group held their first public meeting with a crowd of around 1,000.

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