He became involved in trade unionism and joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) before coming under the influence of anarchists such as Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin.

This Catholic, yet not particularly devout, family had a democratic and anti-Prussian tradition dating back to Rocker's grandfather, who participated in the March Revolution of 1848.

This marriage presented Rudolf with a half brother, Ernest Ludwig Heinrich Baumgartner, with whom Rocker did not maintain close contact.

Rocker was particularly impressed by the writings of Constantin Frantz, a federalist and opponent of Bismarck's centralized German Empire; Eugen Dühring, an anti-Marxist socialist, whose theories had some anarchist aspects; novels like Victor Hugo's Les Misérables and Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward; as well as the traditional socialist literature such as Karl Marx's Capital and Ferdinand Lasalle and August Bebel's writings.

Because the seat was heavily contested, important SPD figures like August Bebel, Wilhelm Liebknecht, Georg von Vollmar, and Paul Singer visited the town to help Jöst and Rocker had a chance to see them speak.

Just as the employers always try to nullify every concession they had made to labor as soon as opportunity offered, as soon as any signs of weakness were observable in the workers' organizations, so governments also are always inclined to restrict or to abrogate completely rights and freedoms that have been achieved if they imagine that the people will put up no resistance.

Political rights do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace.

Nevertheless, he was very much attracted by Bakunin's style, marked by pathos, emotion, and enthusiasm, designed to give the reader an impression of the heat of revolutionary moments.

During this period, Rocker also first came into contact with the blending of anarchist and syndicalist ideas represented by the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), which would influence him in the long term.

He was employed as the librarian of the Communist Workers' Educational Union, where he met Louise Michel and Errico Malatesta, two influential anarchists.

He joined the Jewish anarchist Arbeter Fraint group he had obtained information about from his French comrades, quickly becoming a regular lecturer at its meetings.

The Commissioner-General of Immigration, the former Knights of Labor President Terence V. Powderly, advised the couple to marry to settle the matter, but they refused and were deported back to England on the same ship they had arrived on.

A former Whitechapel comrade of his persuaded him to become the editor of a recently founded Yiddish weekly newspaper called Dos Fraye Vort (The Free Word), even though he did not speak the language at the time.

In 1906, the Arbeter Fraint group finally realized a long-time goal, the establishment of a club for both Jewish and gentile workers.

As a result of the popularity of both the club and Germinal beyond the anarchist scene, Rocker befriended many prominent non-anarchist Jews in London, among them the Zionist philosopher Ber Borochov.

Since much of the West Enders' work was now being performed in the East End, the tailors' union there, under the influence of the Arbeter Fraint group, decided to support the strike.

Rudolf Rocker on the one hand saw this as a chance for the East End tailors to attack the sweatshop system, but on the other was afraid of an anti-Semitic backlash, should the Jewish workers remain idle.

On May 24 a mass meeting was held to discuss the question of whether to settle on a compromise proposed by the employers, which did not entail a closed union shop.

Although most in the United Kingdom and continental Europe expected a short war, Rocker predicted on August 7, 1914 "a period of mass murder such as the world has never known before" and attacked the Second International for not opposing the conflict.

He stayed at the house of the socialist leader Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis and he recovered from the health problems from which he suffered as a result of his internment in the UK and met up with his wife Milly Witkop and his son Fermin.

During World War I, it had been unable to continue its activities for fear of government repression, but remained in existence as an underground organization.

[26] Rocker was opposed to the FVdG's alliance with the communists during and immediately after the November Revolution, as he rejected Marxism, especially the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The organization decided to become the Free Workers' Union of Germany (FAUD) under a new platform, which had been written by Rocker: the Prinzipienerklärung des Syndikalismus (Declaration of Syndicalist Principles).

Rocker decried nationalism as the religion of the modern state and opposed violence, championing instead direct action and the education of the workers.

[27] On Gustav Landauer's death during the Munich Soviet Republic uprising, Rocker took over the work of editing the German publications of Kropotkin's writings.

In 1920, the social democratic Defense Minister Gustav Noske started the suppression of the revolutionary left, which led to the imprisonment of Rocker and Fritz Kater.

In 1921, he wrote the pamphlet Der Bankrott des russischen Staatskommunismus (The Bankruptcy of Russian State Communism) attacking the Soviet Union.

In 1929, Rocker was a co-founder of the Gilde freiheitlicher Bücherfreunde (Guild of Libertarian Bibliophiles), a publishing house which would release works by Alexander Berkman, William Godwin, Erich Mühsam, and John Henry Mackay.

[38] After World War II, an appeal in the Freie Arbeiter Stimme detailing the plight of German anarchists called for Americans to support them.

Rocker thought young Germans were all either totally cynical or inclined to fascism and awaited a new generation to grow up before anarchism could bloom once again in the country.