Ida Mett (1901-1973) was a Belarusian Jewish anarcho-syndicalist, physician and writer. Following her experiences in the Russian Revolution, she fled into exile in France, where she collaborated with other exiled revolutionary anarchists on the Delo Truda magazine and the constitution of platformism. She then went on to participate in the anarcho-syndicalist movements in Belgium, Spain and France, before repression by the fascist Vichy regime forced her to cease her activities. She spent the final decades of her life working as a nurse and publishing history books.
Ida Mett | |
|---|---|
אידא מאַט | |
 Ida Mett | |
| Born | Ida Markovna Gilman 20 July 1901 |
| Died | 27 June 1973 (aged 71) |
| Nationality | Belarusian Jew |
| Other names | Ida Lazarévitch |
| Occupation(s) | Physician, writer |
| Years active | 1917-1968 |
| Known for | Platformism |
| Movement | Anarcho-syndicalism |
| Spouse | Nicolas Lazarévitch |
| Children | Marc Lazarévitch |
Biography
Born into the predominantly Jewish town of Smarhoń, in the Pale of Settlement, Ida Markovna Gilman was exposed to radical ideas from a young age. In the wake of the Russian Revolution, she moved to the Russian capital of Moscow to study medicine and became an active participant in the Russian anarchist movement. Before she was able to complete her studies, in 1924, she was arrested on charges of anti-Soviet agitation and deported from Russia.
She fled first to Poland, then Berlin, before finally arriving in Paris, where she took the pen-name "Ida Mett" and co-edited the Russian anarchist magazine Delo Truda. Through the magazine, she began to closely collaborate with the Ukrainian anarchists Peter Arshinov and Nestor Makhno, with whom she penned The Platform. Following a conflict with Makhno over the editing of his memoirs, in 1928, she was expelled from Delo Truda for her religious practices, after she lit a yahrzeit candle for her recently-deceased father.
During this time, she had also met the Belgian libertarian Nicolas Lazarévitch, who became her husband and her co-editor at the French anarcho-syndicalist newspaper La Liberation Syndicale. Together they organised a series of anti-Bolshevik campaigns, following which they were expelled from France. The couple moved to Belgium, where she resumed her studies in medicine and finally graduated with a diploma, although she would be banned from practising medicine in both Belgium and France, due to her anarchist activities.
It was at this time that she met Buenaventura Durruti and Francisco Ascaso, who invited her to Catalonia following the proclamation of the Spanish Republic. In Barcelona, Mett participated in the local anarcho-syndicalist movement, observing the outbreak of the Spanish Revolution of 1936, during which she provided medical aid to anarchist militiamen.
Mett and her husband then returned clandestinely to France, living as illegal immigrants in Le Pré-Saint-Gervais until their arrest and imprisonment during the Battle of France in 1940. The French State moved Mett and her young son to the Rieucros Camp, where they were detained for a year, until their release was secured by the French Trotskyist Boris Souvarine. After their attempts to leave for the United States were blocked by the authorities, Mett and her family moved to La Garde-Freinet, where they remained under constant surveillance.
Following the end of World War II, Mett returned to work as a nurse at a Jewish children's hospital in Brunoy. During this time, she published a series of history books about the Kronstadt rebellion, the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union. She and her husband later participated in the events of May 68, passing down the stories of their experiences to the next generation.
Ida Mett died in Paris on 27 June 1973, at the age of 71.
Publications
- The Kronstadt Commune (1948)
- Medicine in the USSR (1953)
- The Soviet School (1954)
- The Russian Peasant in the Revolution and Post-Revolution (1968)
Sources
- Boulouque, Sylvain (2001). "Ida Gilman, dite Mett, médecin et anarchiste (Smorgone, Russie, 20 juillet 1901 – Paris, 27 juin 1973)". Archives Juives (in French). 34 (2): 126–127. doi:10.3917/aj.342.0126. ISSN 0003-9837. OCLC 710968410.
- Heath, Nick (20 September 2006). "Mett, Ida, 1901-1973". Libcom.org. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
- Heath, Nick (2017). "Biographical information on Ida Mett". In Mett, Ida (ed.). The Kronstadt Uprising. Theory and Practice. ISBN 978-0-9956609-5-3. OCLC 1010972371.
Further reading
- Darch, Colin (2020). Nestor Makhno and Rural Anarchism in Ukraine, 1917-1921. London: Pluto Press. ISBN 9781786805263. OCLC 1225942343.
- Malet, Michael (1982). Nestor Makhno in the Russian Civil War. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-25969-6. OCLC 8514426.
- Patterson, Sean (2020). Makhno and Memory: Anarchist and Mennonite Narratives of Ukraine's Civil War, 1917–1921. Manitoba: University of Manitoba Press. ISBN 978-0-88755-578-7. OCLC 1134608930.
- Peters, Victor (1970). Nestor Makhno: The Life of an Anarchist. Winnipeg: Echo Books. OCLC 7925080.
- Shubin, Aleksandr (2010). "The Makhnovist Movement and the National Question in the Ukraine, 1917–1921". In Hirsch, Steven J.; van der Walt, Lucien (eds.). Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870–1940. Studies in Global Social History. Vol. 6. Leiden: Brill. pp. 147–191. ISBN 9789004188495. OCLC 868808983.
- Skirda, Alexandre (2004) [1982]. Nestor Makhno–Anarchy's Cossack: The Struggle for Free Soviets in the Ukraine 1917–1921. Translated by Sharkey, Paul. Oakland: AK Press. ISBN 978-1-902593-68-5. OCLC 60602979.