That struggle has taken him from the charming cobblestone streets of his Brooklyn childhood to the mountains of upstate New York to the lake country region of Georgia to the Donbas region of Ukraine and now, back to the woods of the American Northeast, where locals say that his radical political organizing has taken a menacing turn, especially when it comes to the Jewish state on which he’s uniquely fixated. And he’s willing to go to enormous lengths to tear down the mechanisms-capitalism, imperialism, liberalism, the rule of law, America-that delivered it into his lap. (Jacob Kander for The Free Press)įergie Chambers, an avowed communist since the age of 13, wants everyone to hold it against him forever that he is heir to an enormous fortune. But he could also be talking about the stupendous amount of money in his possession.įergie is covered in tattoos, including sports teams logos from cities that he’s lived in, a Flannery O’Connor quote, and a double portrait of Stalin and Mao. “You don’t have to do that,” he tells her. He apologizes-“I’m sorry I freaked out about the gym”-and then Fergie’s employee reminds him that when he drives over to the property tomorrow, not to forget the boxes of beekeeping equipment that were accidentally delivered to his house here, in New Hampshire. Today, at least, the revolution requires fifty-dollar stall mats from Tractor Supply Company to line the floor of the tents and keep out moisture. “It’s just that, I spent a lot of money so this would be done right the first time,” Fergie says, exasperated. The punching bags in the barn-turned-gym are in the wrong place. A skylight in one of the six houses there is leaking. The canvas tents they pitched on the property are letting in water. It’s where the Babochki Collective, the funding arm of all of Fergie’s projects, sometimes meets.įergie’s the General Secretary of the Berkshire Communists, which describes itself as a “revolutionary Marxist-Leninist collective, aiming to promote the formation of a powerful workers’ party.” But the urgent issue that late summer afternoon-before Hamas’s war against Israel before Fergie called for “making people who support Israel actually afraid to go out in public” before three of Fergie’s comrades were arrested on the roof of a weapons manufacturer in New Hampshire-was that 16 comrades were descending on Alford for a weekend retreat, and it’s been pouring rain. It’s the headquarters for the Berkshire Communists group, which Fergie started. ![]() It’s where the journal Combat Liberalism is based. It’s where the People’s Gym (“free for working-class people and permanently closed to cops, active military, landlords, and capitalists”) is located. It’s a “liberatory training space.” It’s a housing collective meets agricultural collective. But he’s unclear-with me, possibly with himself-on what that place is exactly. Around 10 people live there at any given time. I offer my hand to a wheezing bulldog named Madison while Fergie talks over the phone to his employee in Alford, Massachusetts-the tiny Berkshires town where he’s bought 300 acres since 2019. He looks as if the phrase “Fuck you, Mom and Dad” were a person. ![]() He is covered in tattoos, including a double portrait of Stalin and Mao inked onto his thigh. A silver boxing glove dangles from one of his ears. Fergie’s slight, but buff, on account of his multiple times a day martial arts training and competitions. “It feels like we’re throwing the same half-assed solutions at this over and over again and hoping it will yield something different,” he groans into his iPhone, which is on speaker. ![]() Nestled into the mountains of the Upper Valley in New Hampshire, up a semi-paved road in a house next to a tiny cemetery lined with white picket fencing, Fergie Chambers, 38, leans over his kitchen island, worrying over his commune.
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