Biography
Anton Karachun was a Russian-born United States Army soldier sent to Siberia with the 31st Infantry during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. He deserted, joined Bolshevik-aligned forces, and was later captured and court-martialed. He received a very long military sentence — contemporary reports variously say 20 or 22 years — served at the McNeil Island federal penitentiary in Washington. His case differed from the IWW prisoners alongside whom his name appeared on political-prisoner lists because it involved desertion and fighting against his former command. He was released in March 1925 and subsequently departed for the Soviet Union. The February 6 birthday recorded on the contemporary prisoner birthday list, with the 1897 birth year, gives his date of birth as February 6, 1897.
1920s date review: The ACLU report for March 1925, reproduced in The New Leader, May 16, 1925, page 8, item 10, explicitly reports Anton Karachun's release by the War Department on March 5, conditioned on returning to Russia. This replaces the previously stored March 1 placeholder. His later departure is a different event; arrest and initial incarceration dates remain unresolved.
Source: Historical source, relevant page inspected.
The June 15, 1925 Daily Worker reports that Anton Karachun actually served four years of his twenty-year sentence at McNeil Island, after an initial death sentence in Manila was reduced. It says he had been physically released in March and was going to the Soviet Union under an agreement requiring departure within ninety days. The departure requirement is not proof of an actual sailing day. Allegations concerning prison conditions are attributed to Karachun. Existing release-day information is preserved rather than inferred from this report.
