Paul Avrich, born on this day in 1931, was a historian of anarchism whose works address topics such as the Kronstadt Rebellion, the Haymarket Affair, and the case of Sacco and Vanzetti. "Every good person deep down is an anarchist."

Born in Brooklyn, New York on August 4th, 1931, Avrich served in the Korean War and received a prodigious formal education, studying at both Cornell University and Columbia University. His doctoral thesis addressed the labor movement during the Russian Revolution and was also one of the first American exchange students to study in the Soviet Union.

Avrich became a key figure as an exponent of anarchism in the United States through his scholarship, which undermined the notion of anarchists as amoral and violent.

Avrich was also important in developing formal scholarship of the history of anarchism, interviewing Soviet exiles and, in his last book, "Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America" (1995), compiling thirty years of interviews of various anarchist figures.

"Every good person deep down is an anarchist."

- Paul Avrich