A talk given in Glasgow in 2024 about Emma Goldman and her anarchist ideas.

The Revolutionary Ideas of Emma Goldman

This is a write-up of a talk I gave to comrades in Glasgow in 2024. The meeting was advertised with the following text:

Emma Goldman is perhaps best known for something she never actually said (“if I can’t dance then it’s not my revolution”) but her ideas are still relevant for radicals today.

She was the best-known Anarchist in America during the Progressive Era and its intense class conflicts, she was deported to revolutionary Russia and saw first-hand what is not to be done and in the last years of her life supported the anarchist revolution in Spain.

Iain McKay (An Anarchist FAQ) explains her ideas and why radicals today should take heed of them.

As with my other write-ups of talks, this is what I intended to say rather than what I actually said. There is, of course, a significant overlap but it is not literal transcript.

The Revolutionary Ideas of Emma Goldman

Emma Goldman was born in 1869 in Lithuania in a religious Jewish family. The family immigrated to United States, where she worked as seamstress. She became an anarchist due to Haymarket Events, dedicating her live to the ideas of the anarchists murdered by the State in 1887.

She had an eventful life, being involved in number struggles as well as being arrested numerous times, final time for anti-war work during the First World War which saw Goldman deported in late 1919 for Soviet Russia. She was happy to go, as she wanted to help the Revolution, but left Russia in late 1921, after two years of “disillusionment”. She later was an active supporter of the CNT-FAI in the Spanish Revolution.

Goldman wrote three important books on Anarchism – Anarchism and Other Essays (1910), My Disillusionment in Russia (1923, 1924, 1925) and her autobiography, Living My Life (1931). She also wrote numerous pamphlets – including Syndicalism: The Modern Menace to Capitalism (1913), Deportation: Its Meaning and Menace (1919) and Trotsky Protests Too Much (1938) – and numerous articles written for many journals including (just English-language ones) the Free Society, Mother Earth, Freedom, Vanguard and Spain and the World.

“If I can’t paraphrase…”

It is ironic that Goldman’s best-known quote – “If I can’t dance, then it’s not my revolution” – was never actually uttered by her. It is,

“I told him to mind his own business, I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown in my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions and prejudice, should demand denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to behave as a nun and that the movement should not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody’s right to beautiful, radiant things.”

A reasonable paraphrase – after all, the original would never have fitted on a T-Shirt which was why it was originally coined in the later 1960s.

The Conventional Wisdom

So after that slight digression, I think it wise to address some of what has been said about Goldman.

I start with Murray Bookchin comment from his Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism:

“Despite their avowals of an anarchocommunist ideology, Nietzscheans like Emma Goldman remained cheek to jowl in spirit with individualists.”

Whatever happened to “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”? It is true that Goldman occasionally quoted and lectured on Nietzsche but only rarely – her writings and lectures are predominantly anarchist-communist in nature. Indeed, she lectured and wrote far more on syndicalism than Nietzsche. She also had no time for American Individualists like Benjamin Tucker nor did she indicate any support for anti-organisationalists.

Then there is Rebecca Hill’s comment from a review of Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years)

“Goldman’s anarchism, more so than Alexander Berkman’s, was elitest, adopting some of the worst elements of Bakunin’s anti-mass movement analysis.”

I really no idea what the basis for this is. Goldman’s and Berkman’s Anarchism were the same – indeed, she helped Berkman write Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism (1929). As for the comment about Bakunin, I’ve read everything in English by him and do not have a clue what she means. Bakunin did not reject mass movements, quite the reverse being one of the fathers of syndicalism.

Talking of which, we have Jacqueline Jones claim in Goddess of Anarchy: The Life and Times of Lucy Parsons, American Radical:

“Goldman. . . expressed little faith in labor unions – indeed, one of her favorite themes was ‘the cancer of trade unionism and the corruption of its leaders’”

Yes, Goldman had little faith in bureaucratic, reformist trade unions but she was not anti-union – in fact, one of her favourite themes was the need for syndicalism and radical unions. It is like sating the IWW is “anti-union” because it criticises the AFL!

Much the same can be said of Carolyn Ashbaugh’s nonsense from her biography Lucy Parsons: American Revolutionary:

“The Liberator’s message was of strikes and industrial conflict, oriented to the class struggle. The other papers [like Mother Earth] dealt with all facets of life and social revolution – sex, women’s emancipation, literature, art, theatre… emphasized cultural revolution as well as class revolution… reflected the dissociation of anarchism from strictly class struggle movements”

Clearly Ashbaugh thought her readers would not realise that “as well as” does not mean “instead of” and that working class people are interested in culture, art, music, etc. – we are not subhuman grunts! As for these “other papers”, if you read Mother Earth you would soon see that it covered the class struggle and advocated syndicalism. Indeed, it published the writings of leading syndicalists like Tom Mann and Pouget.

From that debunking I draw the obvious conclusion that you must always check the reference and primary sources and never assume that a source is being quoted correctly (particularly if it is a Marxist doing it!). It can be time consuming but it really needs to be done.

And it must be always remembered that no one is an isolated individual but part of a wider movement. Hence the need to contextualise what someone did write and speak on, not least because this helps understand what they did not write on because others were.

Living her life….

As noted, Goldman had an eventful life. In this talk I’m concentrating on her ideas – partly because her life was so interesting that many focus on that rather than her anarchism. This in itself can present a skewed notion of her ideas and activity.

Still, a few aspects of her life are worth stressing. She migrated to the United States in 1885 from the Russian Empire and in 1886 found a job as a garment worker in New York City. While it was her experience of being a worker in America that laid the basis of her anarchism, she was inspired to actually join the movement by the Haymarket events in May 1886 in which “five men had to pay with their lives because they advocated Syndicalist methods as the most effective, in the struggle of labor against capital”. In her autobiography she recounted how she had “devoured every line on anarchism I could get, every word about the men, their lives, their work. I read about their heroic stand while on trial and their marvellous defence. I saw a new world opening before me.”

Goldman joined the movement in 1889 and became a member of the Pioneers of Liberty, the first Jewish anarchist group in America, affiliated with the International Working People’s Association (the organisation which the Haymarket Martyrs had been members of. The following year, in 1890, leading German anarchist Johann Most arranges her first public lecture tour. This is note because it taught her the importance of both fighting for reforms and thinking for yourself:

“[An old worker] said that he understood my impatience with such small demands as a few hours less a day, or a few dollars more a week… But what were men of his age to do? They were not likely to live to see the ultimate overthrow of the capitalist system. Were they also to forgo the release of perhaps two hours a day from the hated work?… Should they deny themselves even that small achievement?… his clear analysis of the principle involved in the eight-hour struggle, brought home to me the falsity of Most’s position. I realized I was committing a crime against myself and the workers…”

After this she threw herself into the class struggle: “Soon a new call came to me, of workers on strike, and I followed it eagerly… My task was to get the girls in the trade to join the strike.”

Goldman also visited Europe multiple times as a leading anarchist in America to attend anarchist conferences and to lecture across Britain. As she recounted in Living My Life:

“I had myself experienced want and I knew of the poverty in the large industrial centres of the United States. But never had I seen such abject misery and squalor as I did in London, Leeds, and Glasgow.”

I mention these aspects of her life to counter the claims – usually made by Marxists – that Goldman was middle-class, an intellectual or somehow divorced from the class struggle. No, she worked and she took an active part in strikes with these experiences informing her politics. Needless to say, when she became a full-time anarchist agitator, Goldman continued to actively support strikes and other struggles such as free-speech fights.

“These internal tyrants…”

Goldman was clear that Anarchism stands for “the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government.”

Being a communist-anarchist, she was well-aware of the fundamental class nature of society. This meant that she opposed the notion that sexual equality without social equality was the aim of feminism for the “private dominion over things” means “that man must sell his labour” and so “his inclination and judgment are subordinated to the will of a master.” As such, just ending patriarchy simply meant a change of masters rather than complete freedom:

“how much independence is gained if the narrowness and lack of freedom of the home is exchanged for the narrowness and lack of freedom of the factory, sweat-shop, department store, or office?”

One of her most important contributions to anarchist theory is her attacks on “internal tyrants” which limit your freedom. There was need to change yourself whilst changing the world for “true emancipation […] begins in woman’s soul. History tells us that every oppressed class gained true liberation from its masters through its own efforts […] her freedom will reach as far as her power to achieve her freedom reaches […] begin with her inner regeneration, to cut loose from the weight of prejudices, traditions, and customs”.

This did not mean an indifference to social change, as is sometimes suggested. Rather it is a case of recognising the interrelationship between the individual and the society they are part of. We do internalise the hierarchies we are subject to – for authority corrupts those who wield it and those subject to it – and we need to break both external and internal aspects.

“The Modern Menace to Capitalism”

Goldman rightly considered direct action as “the logical, consistent method of Anarchism”. It was the key means of undermining and ultimately ending internal and external tyrants:

“Direct action against the authority in the shop, direct action against the authority of the law, direct action against the invasive, meddlesome authority of our moral code”

She lectures on and writes on Syndicalism, publishing the pamphlet Syndicalism: the Modern Menace to Capitalism which noted how “Marx and Engels, [were] aiming at political conquest” while “Bakunin and the Latin workers, [were] forging ahead along industrial and Syndicalist lines” and so “Syndicalism is, in essence, the economic expression of Anarchism”

Goldman, again rightly linked her ideas to “the Chicago Idea” as did Mother Earth, with one article from1907 arguing that “labour unions […] can have but one worthy object – to achieve their full economic stature by complete emancipation from wage slavery […] They bear the germs of a potential social revolution […] they are the factors that will fashion the system of production and distribution in the coming free society.”

Like other revolutionary anarchists, Goldman saw the general strike as the means of achieving the social revolution. “Syndicalism prepares the masses for fundamental social changes on a federative libertarian basis, away from the State”, she wrote in an article for Freedom in 1926 (entitled “Reflections on the General Strike”) and repeated her long-held view that “its most effective weapon in the economic struggle [was] the General Strike”

The Militant Minority

This advocacy of syndicalism may come as a surprise to those who have just read Goldman’s critics. She is often portrayed as an elitist who rejected the role of the masses and her essay “Minorities versus Majorities” point to. Yet these critics do not engage with arguments they denounce for the good reason that if they did they would have to admit she was right.

After all, the majority reflect the society they are in. As Marx famously said “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas”. Bakunin rightly noted that “power and authority corrupt those who exercise them as much as those who are compelled to submit to them.” Given these truisms, was Goldman not right when she stated that “authority, coercion, and dependence rest on the mass, but never freedom or the free unfoldment of the individual, never the birth of a free society”?

How does this change? This is where the Militant Minority (to use a syndicalist term) comes in for, as Goldman suggested, “at every period, the few were the banner bearers of a great idea, of liberating effort.” This is, again, just a truism – progressive ideas always spread from the minority to the majority. However, this is a prelude not an alternative to mass action. This can be seen when Goldman noted how the “General Strike, initiated by one determined organization, by one industry or by a small, conscious minority among the workers, is […] soon taken up by many other industries, spreading like wildfire in a very short time.”

In short, the role of minorities is not opposed to mass action but rather the means by which it comes about and the means by which social progress happens. If you are in doubt, look at what our rulers do –a striking confirmation can be seen in the numerous Tory anti-union and anti-protest laws imposed since the 1980s (usually in the name of “the silent majority”).

Our masters understand how social progress happens – unlike certain of Goldman’s critics!

The Sex Question

Goldman is well-known as a feminist (although she was rightly critical of bourgeois feminism). Her interest in and defence of what was termed “the sex question” did lead other anarchists to question her position. As she recounted in Living My Life, Kropotkin suggested that the Free Society “would do more if it would not waste so much space discussing sex”. She replied:

 “All right, dear comrade, when I have reached your age, the sex question may no longer be of importance to me. But it is now, and it is a tremendous factor for thousands, millions even, of young people.”

“Fancy, I didn’t think of that,” Kropotkin replied. “Perhaps you are right, after all.”

Still, her ways did cause other anarchists concern with one –Jeanne Levey – later recounting that Goldman was “an oversexed personality, and she made all sorts of advances to men. In fact, many men – including my own husband – would say, ‘Save me!’ She would devour them.”

The Class Question

Goldman, then, was well aware that liberation worked on many levels and freedom had to overcome many barriers. However, she never lost sight of the class nature of capitalism and that this had to be addressed to achieve genuine liberation.

She was critiqued the mainstream – bourgeois – feminism of her time, dismissing the notion that women bosses or politicians would be inherently better than male ones. Rather, “workingwomen […] will be compelled to carry on their backs their female political bosses, even as they are carrying their economic masters […] The American suffrage movement has been […] absolutely detached from the economic needs of the people [… and often] not only indifferent but antagonistic to labor”. Women suffrage was not the means to liberation:

“She can give suffrage or the ballot no new quality, nor can she receive anything from it that will enhance her own quality. Her development, her freedom, her independence, must come from and through herself.”

Women’s liberation was only possible by two means:

“First, by asserting herself as a personality, and not as a sex commodity”.

“Second, by refusing the right to anyone over her body; by refusing to bear children, unless she wants them; by refusing to be a servantto God, the State, society, the husband, the family, etc.”

In other words, apply anarchist ideas now and transform what social relationships we can whilst working towards societal change.

Wait for after the Revolution?

Now, is Goldman applying anarchist ideas now “lifestylist”? Should “we” just focus on class struggle and revolution? This has been suggested by some – almost always men – whenever women have raised their voices and sought change. And such suggestions are wrong. So, no, it is not “lifestylist” for it will never be the right time.

As one academic suggests (Olga Shnyrova in an article entitled “Women and Socialist Revolution, 1917–23”) “inside [the Russia Communist Party…] women’s political work was guided by male party functionaries under the principles of ‘democratic centralism’. The majority of local communist leaders had strong patriarchal views and did not want to empower women by increasing their representation […] or allowing them to create autonomous structures […] women’s aspirations to equal treatment were often blocked (but never eradicated) and they were forced to accept a subordinate role.”

This account would be familiar to many within Leninist parties in subsequent years – and it happened when Lenin was in charge of the party.

And to stress the point, Goldman was right to urge us to apply our ideas now but she never argued that was all that was needed – she always stressed the necessity for social struggle and social revolution.

“the Bis-Marxian Socialists”

Talking of Marxists, Goldman like other libertarian socialists then and now faced an alternative for the allegiances of radical workers. While mostly forgotten now, America did have a reasonably large socialist movement which had some success in elections in various areas. However, as anarchists had predicted and has had happened elsewhere, these parties became less radical. As Goldman argued:

“The political trap has transferred Socialism […] to the camp of the scheming, compromising, inert political majority, busying itself with non-essentials, with things that barely touch the surface, measures that have been used as political bait by the most lukewarm reformers”

Worse, “it has allowed itself to be deceived by political gains and government offices […] spreading apathy and passivity in proportion to its political successes.” Goldman contrasted this failure with struggle on the economic terrain:

“Class consciousness can never be demonstrated in the political arena, [. . .] Solidarity of interests develops class consciousness, as is demonstrated in the Syndicalist and every other revolutionary movement”

As well as critiquing Marxist means, Goldman also attacked the aims:

“The Socialist contention is that the State is not half centralized enough. The State […] should not only control the political phase of society, it should become the arch manager, the very fountain-head, of the industrial life of the people as well […] Never does it occur [that…] if once economic dictatorship were added to the already supreme political power of the State, its iron heel would cut deeper into the flesh of labor than that of capitalism today.”

This prediction was also confirmed by Marxism in practice.

What is not to be done…

After being deported from America in 1919, Goldman spent two years in Bolshevik Russia. As she summarised later, “the Communists […] subordinated to the needs of the new State or destroyed altogether… the Soviets, the trade unions and the cooperatives — three great factors for the realisation of the hopes of the Revolution.” This resulted in waste and inefficiency as people “did nothing else but stand in line, waiting for the bureaucrats, big and little, to admit them to their sanctums.”

Anarchists from Bakunin onwards had warned that Marxism would produce tyranny rather than freedom for the masses and these predictions were confirmed: “That danger was no longer a subject for theoretic discussion, but an actual reality because of the existing bureaucracy, inefficiency, and corruption.” She saw “how paralysing was the effect of the bureaucratic red tape which delayed and often frustrated the most earnest and energetic efforts… Materials were very scarce and it was most difficult to procure them owing to the unbelievably centralized Bolshevik methods.”

She gave a “demonstration of the inefficiency of the centralised bureaucratic machine. In a large factory warehouse there lay huge stacks of agricultural machinery. Moscow had ordered them made ‘within two weeks, in pain of punishment for sabotage’ […] six months already had passed without the ‘central authorities’ making any effort to distribute the machines to the peasantry… It was one of the countless examples of the manner in which the Moscow system ‘worked,’ or, rather, did not work.”

The crushing of the Kronstadt revolt for soviet democracy in March 1921 saw Goldman finally break with the regime and decide to warn the world of its failures. Her eye-witness account of Bolshevism in power remains essential reading for those seeking to learn from history rather than repeat it. It undoubtedly explains why Marxists seem to hate her so.

“the best of the anarchists”?

Perhaps understandably Leninists seem to hate Goldman and peddle another kind of “Bolshevik Myth” about her. They, to quote one particularly dishonest account of her life by Lance Selfa, contrast Goldman to “one group of anarchists whose libertarian ideas were most connected to workers’ struggles – people like Victor Serge, Alfred Rosmer, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Lucy Parsons, and Big Bill Haywood – actually left the ranks of anarchists and joined the Communist Parties.”

How seriously you should take this is shown by the awkward fact that only Alfred Rosmer and Lucy Parsons were revolutionary anarchists (and she did not actually join the party) while Serge was an elitist individualist who looked down on workers and their struggles.

We should also remember that in 1920 “the best of the anarchists” were supporting a regime whose rulers argued that “the dictatorship of the proletariat is at the same time the dictatorship of the Communist Party” (as Zinoviev put it at the Second Congress of the Communist International). Economically, it was state-capitalism: “our Party Congress . . . expressed itself in favour of the principle of one-man management in the administration of industry” (Trotsky, Terrorism and Communism).

These positions were not considered as retreats or temporary expedients but rather appropriate for all revolutions. The “best of the anarchists” were exporting the “lessons” of the revolution and urging revolutionaries to apply them in order to have a “successful” revolution as in Russia.

As Goldman noted, many foreign revolutionaries who visited Russia “become the agents of the ruling Party. These people had every opportunity to see things as they were, to get close to the Russian people, and to learn from them the whole terrible truth. But they preferred to side with the Government, to listen to its interpretation of causes and effects. Then they went forth to misrepresent and to lie deliberately in behalf of the Bolsheviki, as the Entente agents had lied and misrepresented the Russian Revolution.”

It should also be noted that most of the syndicalists who joined the Bolsheviks became Stalinists… who later attacked Trotsky in the same manner as they did Goldman. Hardly an example to follow – particularly for Trotskyists!

“There Is No Communism In Russia”

Goldman may have been “disillusioned” with Bolshevism but not Revolution. She was well aware of the reality of the regime long before Stalin came to the fore:

“Soviet Russia… is an absolute despotism politically and the crassest form of state capitalism economically”

While critiquing the regime, Goldman had an alternative: “The industrial power of the masses, expressed through their libertarian associations – Anarcho-syndicalism – is alone able to organize successfully the economic life”. This was because “[o]nly free initiative and popular participation in the affairs of the revolution can prevent the terrible blunders committed in Russia” and this had to be based upon “libertarian, industrial organisations and the co-operatives”.

The Russian Revolution confirmed the anarchist vision of revolution and its critique of the state socialist one. However, it must be noted that her critique of Bolshevism was not that it had failed to create a perfect socialist system – such idealism was foreign to her. Rather, she argued that the regime had failed to create the preliminaries needed for future growth towards socialism and failed to benefit the workers and peasants.

The Spanish Revolution

After leaving Russia, Goldman spent much time explaining the failure of the revolution as well as helping organise support for anarchist political prisoners. Unfortunately, the Bolshevik Myth proved to be difficult to dispel – few wanted to see their hopes about socialism in Russia dashed and anarchists could not match the resources available for propaganda by the Bolshevik State.

However, July 1936 saw anarchists apply their ideas on a mass scale in Spain by the CNT-FAI:

“The revolution in Spain was the result of a military and Fascist conspiracy. The first imperative need that presented itself to the CNT-FAI was to drive out the conspiratorial gang. The Fascist danger had to be met with almost bare hands.”

After the defeat of the fascists in Catalonia and other areas with a strong anarchist movement a social revolution erupted and “they at the same time proceeded to expropriate the factories and shops – the entire transport system as well as the land – and they set to work to build a new mode of life out of the decadent conditions left by their economic masters.” Goldman, like other anarchists across the world, saw its importance in “giving a shining example to the workers of the rest of the world that you fully understand the meaning of revolution.”

She immediately started to support the revolution from Britain and visited the Spain, seeing the social revolution at first hand:

“I was especially impressed with the replies to my questions as to what actually had the workers gained by the collectivisation… the answer always was, first, greater freedom. And only secondly, more wages and less time of work. In two years in Russia I never heard any workers express this idea of greater freedom.”

While working with the CNT-FAI, Goldman was not uncritical of them and noted how they had “to realise that once they went into the so-called united-front, they could do nothing else but go further. In other words, the one mistake, the one wrong step inevitably led to others as it always does. I am more than ever convinced that if the comrades had remained firm on their own grounds they would have remained stronger than they are now. But I repeat, once they had made common cause for the period of the anti-Fascist war, they were driven by the logic of events to go further.”

Rightly, she considered the social revolution as the most important aspect of events and so focused her attention in getting support for it even if she had criticism of the leadership of the CNT-FAI and its decisions.

Given her earlier writings and activities, one aspect of the social revolution she took a keen interest in was the transformation in relations between the sexes. Women CNT members formed the Mujeres Libres (Free Women) which organised against “triple enslavement to ignorance, as women, and as producers.” Part of its activities was to combat the sexism within the libertarian movement. As one of its members (Kyralina) noted:

“All those compañeros, however radical they may be in cafes, unions, and even affinity groups, seem to drop their costumes as lovers of female liberation at the doors of their homes. Inside, they behave with their compañeras just like common husbands.”

In spite of the heroism of the CNT-FAI, the revolution was defeated and Franco won. Part of the reason was due to the actions of the CNT-FAI, not least their decision to collaborate with other anti-Fascist parties and unions rather than follow anarchist policies. Goldman rejected the idea that Anarchism was refuted for the “contention that there is something wrong with Anarchism… because the leading comrades in Spain failed Anarchism seems to be very faulty reasoning…. the failure of one or several individuals can never take away from the depth and truth of an ideal.”

I should note that while focused on supporting the CNT-FAI, Goldman still found time for Trotsky Protests Too Much (1938) a masterful debunking of Trotskyist claims against the Kronstadt revolt.

Conclusions

Hopefully I have shown why Emma Goldman is worth reading today. She was active in the movement for over 50 years and contributed numerous important writings, not to mention seeing two key revolutions first-hand.

She was a realistic thinker, as shown by her expectations on the Russian Revolution and how a new society is needed but it would not be a utopia:

“I do not claim that the triumph of my ideas would eliminate all possible problems from the life of man for all time… Nature and our own complexes are apt to continue to provide us with enough pain and struggle. Why then maintain the needless suffering imposed by our present social structure… [with its] broken hearts and crushed lives…?”

Her vision of why anarchism was needed stressed a key idea, namely enriching the individual and their surroundings: “Real wealth consists in things of utility and beauty, in things that help to create strong, beautiful bodies and surroundings inspiring to live in… the freest possible expression of all the latent powers of the individual.”

Goldman also shows that ideas matter – “had the Russians made the Revolution à la Bakunin instead of à la Marx”, she argued, then “the result would have been different and more satisfactory… Bolshevik methods… demonstrated how a revolution should not be made”. This is often overlooked in accounts of the failure of the revolution but prejudices about centralisation, nationalisation and so forth do matter when their advocates seize power and start to apply these notions.

Goldman was also right in that anarchist ideas need to be applied, noting that to “bring about the social reconstruction” needs “a broad and wide education as to man’s place in society and his proper relation to his fellows” and we need to lead “through example[. . .] the actual living of a truth once recognized”. This was not lifestylism because she also recognised the need for social change as well for “the most powerful weapon, is the conscious, intelligent, organized, economic protest of the masses through direct action and the general strike.”

Further Reading…

This is just a summary of Goldman’s revolution ideas and I have doubtless missed important aspects of her writings and life. As such, I would urge reading her works – the collection Red Emma Speaks is excellent and it contains all the writings from her 1910 book Anarchism and Other Essays along with other key works. Her account of her two years in Russia, My Disillusionment in Russia, is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand why that revolution failed while her autobiography Living My Life is a classic of the genre.

In terms of anthologies, Peter Glassgold’s Anarchy! An Anthology of Emma Goldman’s Mother Earth is well-worth reading as it gives a good overview of the journal and its contents. Goldman’s writings appear in Robert Graham’s Anarchism, Daniel Guérin’s No Gods, No Masters and my own A Libertarian Reader.