Today In Labor History September 29, 1921: Lithuanian Jewish anarchist revolutionary Fanya Baron was executed by the Cheka on the personal order of Lenin. Baron spent her early life participating in the Chicago workers' movement and IWW. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, she moved to Ukraine and joined the Makhnovist movement. She was arrested and imprisoned by the Cheka. On July 1, 1921, she broke out of prison with the help of the Underground Anarchists and went to Moscow, where she was aided by Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. However, on August 17, 1921, she was discovered and arrested again by the Cheka, tortured, and ultimately executed. When activists protested the repression of Baron and other anarchists, Trotsky said “we do not imprison the real anarchists, but criminals and bandits who cover themselves by claiming to be anarchists."[
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