A talk given in Glasgow in 2024 about Emma Goldman and her anarchist ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
This is a write-up of a talk I gave to comrades in Glasgow in 2024. The meeting was advertised with the following text:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 <\/em>to be done and in the last years of her life supported the anarchist revolution in Spain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Iain McKay (An Anarchist FAQ<\/em>) explains her ideas and why radicals today should take heed of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \u201cdisillusionment\u201d. She later was an active supporter of the CNT-FAI in the Spanish Revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Goldman wrote three important books on Anarchism \u2013 Anarchism and Other Essays <\/em>(1910), My Disillusionment in Russia <\/em>(1923, 1924, 1925) and her autobiography, Living My Life<\/em> (1931). She also wrote numerous pamphlets \u2013 including Syndicalism: The Modern Menace to Capitalism <\/em>(1913), Deportation: Its Meaning and Menace <\/em>(1919) and Trotsky Protests Too Much <\/em>(1938) \u2013 and numerous articles written for many journals including (just English-language ones) the Free Society, Mother Earth, Freedom, Vanguard <\/em>and Spain and the World<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is ironic that Goldman\u2019s best-known quote \u2013 \u201cIf I can\u2019t dance, then it’s not my revolution\u201d<\/strong> \u2013 was never actually uttered by her. It is,<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI 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\u2019s right to beautiful, radiant things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A reasonable paraphrase \u2013 after all, the original would never have fitted on a T-Shirt which was why it was originally coined in the later 1960s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So after that slight digression, I think it wise to address some of what has been said about Goldman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I start with Murray Bookchin comment from his Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDespite their avowals of an anarchocommunist ideology, Nietzscheans like Emma Goldman remained cheek to jowl in spirit with individualists.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whatever happened to \u201cthe free development of each is the condition for the free development of all\u201d? It is true that Goldman occasionally quoted and lectured on Nietzsche but only rarely \u2013 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then there is Rebecca Hill\u2019s comment from a review of Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGoldman\u2019s anarchism, more so than Alexander Berkman\u2019s, was elitest, adopting some of the worst elements of Bakunin\u2019s anti-mass movement analysis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I really no idea what the basis for this is. Goldman\u2019s and Berkman\u2019s Anarchism were the same \u2013 indeed, she helped Berkman write Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism<\/em> (1929). As for the comment about Bakunin, I\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Talking of which, we have Jacqueline Jones claim in Goddess of Anarchy: The Life and Times of Lucy Parsons, American Radical<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGoldman. . . expressed little faith in labor unions \u2013 indeed, one of her favorite themes was \u2018the cancer of trade unionism and the corruption of its leaders\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, Goldman had little faith in bureaucratic, reformist trade unions but she was not anti-union \u2013 in fact, one of her favourite themes was the need for syndicalism and radical unions. It is like sating the IWW is \u201canti-union\u201d because it criticises the AFL!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Much the same can be said of Carolyn Ashbaugh\u2019s nonsense from her biography Lucy Parsons: American Revolutionary<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Liberator<\/em>\u2019s message was of strikes and industrial conflict, oriented to the class struggle. The other papers [like Mother Earth<\/em>] dealt with all facets of life and social revolution \u2013 sex, women\u2019s emancipation, literature, art, theatre\u2026 emphasized cultural revolution as well as class revolution\u2026 reflected the dissociation of anarchism from strictly class struggle movements\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clearly Ashbaugh thought her readers would not realise that \u201cas well as\u201d does not mean \u201cinstead of\u201d and that working class people are<\/em> interested in culture, art, music, etc. \u2013 we are not<\/em> subhuman grunts! As for these \u201cother papers\u201d, if you read Mother Earth<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From that debunking I draw the obvious conclusion that you must always<\/em> check the reference and primary sources and never<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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<\/em> write and speak on, not least because this helps understand what they did not<\/em> write on because others were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As noted, Goldman had an eventful life. In this talk I\u2019m concentrating on her ideas \u2013 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \u201cfive men had to pay with their lives because they advocated Syndicalist methods as the most effective, in the struggle of labor against capital\u201d. In her autobiography she recounted how she had \u201cdevoured 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Goldman joined the movement in 1889 and became a member of the Pioneers of Liberty<\/em>, the first Jewish anarchist group in America, affiliated with the International Working People\u2019s 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:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[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\u2019s position. I realized I was committing a crime against myself and the workers…\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After this she threw herself into the class struggle: \u201cSoon 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I mention these aspects of her life to counter the claims \u2013 usually made by Marxists \u2013 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Goldman was clear that Anarchism stands for \u201c<\/strong>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.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \u201cprivate dominion over things\u201d means \u201cthat man must sell his labour\u201d and so \u201chis inclination and judgment are subordinated to the will of a master.\u201d As such, just ending patriarchy simply meant a change of masters rather than complete freedom:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c<\/strong>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?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of her most important contributions to anarchist theory is her attacks on \u201cinternal tyrants\u201d which limit your freedom. There was need to change yourself whilst changing the world for \u201ctrue emancipation […] begins in woman\u2019s 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 [\u2026] begin with her inner regeneration, to cut loose from the weight of prejudices, traditions, and customs\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \u2013 for authority corrupts those who wield it and those subject to it \u2013 and we need to break both external and internal aspects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Goldman rightly considered direct action as \u201cthe logical, consistent method of Anarchism\u201d. It was the key means of undermining and ultimately ending internal and external tyrants:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c<\/em><\/strong>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\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She lectures on and writes on Syndicalism, publishing the pamphlet Syndicalism: the Modern Menace to Capitalism <\/em>which noted how \u201cMarx and Engels, [were] aiming at political conquest\u201d while \u201cBakunin and the Latin workers, [were] forging ahead along industrial and Syndicalist lines\u201d and so \u201cSyndicalism is, in essence, the economic expression of Anarchism\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Goldman, again rightly linked her ideas to \u201cthe Chicago Idea\u201d as did Mother Earth<\/em>, with one article from1907 arguing that \u201clabour unions […] can have but one worthy object \u2013 to achieve their full economic stature by complete emancipation from wage slavery […] They bear the germs of a potential social revolution [\u2026] they are the factors that will fashion the system of production and distribution in the coming free society.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like other revolutionary anarchists, Goldman saw the general strike as the means of achieving the social revolution. \u201c<\/em>Syndicalism prepares the masses for fundamental social changes on a federative libertarian basis, away from the State\u201d, she wrote in an article for Freedom<\/em> in 1926 (entitled \u201cReflections on the General Strike\u201d) and repeated her long-held view that \u201cits most effective weapon in the economic struggle [was] the General Strike\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This advocacy of syndicalism may come as a surprise to those who have just read Goldman\u2019s critics. She is often portrayed as an elitist who rejected the role of the masses and her essay \u201cMinorities versus Majorities\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After all, the majority reflect the society they are in. As Marx famously said \u201cthe ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas\u201d. Bakunin rightly noted that \u201cpower and authority corrupt those who exercise them as much as those who are compelled to submit to them.\u201d Given these truisms, was Goldman not right when she stated that \u201c<\/strong>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\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n How does this change? This is where the Militant Minority (to use a syndicalist term) comes in for, as Goldman suggested, \u201cat every period, the few were the banner bearers of a great idea, of liberating effort.\u201d This is, again, just a truism \u2013 progressive ideas always<\/em> spread from the minority to the majority. However, this is a prelude not<\/em> an alternative to mass action. This can be seen when Goldman noted how the \u201cGeneral Strike, initiated by one determined organization, by one industry or by a small, conscious minority among the workers, is [\u2026] soon taken up by many other industries, spreading like wildfire in a very short time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \u2013a striking confirmation can be seen in the numerous Tory anti-union and anti-protest laws imposed since the 1980s (usually in the name of \u201cthe silent majority\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our masters understand how social progress happens \u2013 unlike certain of Goldman\u2019s critics!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Goldman is well-known as a feminist (although she was rightly critical of bourgeois feminism). Her interest in and defence of what was termed \u201cthe sex question\u201d did lead other anarchists to question her position. As she recounted in Living My Life<\/em>, Kropotkin suggested that the Free Society<\/em> \u201cwould do more if it would not waste so much space discussing sex\u201d. She replied:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAll 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFancy, I didn\u2019t think of that,\u201d Kropotkin replied. \u201cPerhaps you are right, after all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, her ways did cause other anarchists concern with one \u2013Jeanne Levey \u2013 later recounting that Goldman was \u201can oversexed personality, and she made all sorts of advances to men. In fact, many men \u2013 including my own husband \u2013 would say, \u2018Save me!\u2019 She would devour them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She was critiqued the mainstream \u2013 bourgeois \u2013 feminism of her time, dismissing the notion that women bosses or politicians would be inherently better than male ones. Rather, \u201cworkingwomen […] 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\u201d. Women suffrage was not the means to liberation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Women\u2019s liberation was only possible by two means:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFirst, by asserting herself as a personality, and not as a sex commodity\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSecond, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In other words, apply anarchist ideas now and transform what social relationships we can whilst working towards societal change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, is Goldman applying anarchist ideas now \u201clifestylist\u201d? Should \u201cwe\u201d just focus on class struggle and revolution? This has been suggested by some \u2013 almost always men \u2013 whenever women have raised their voices and sought change. And such suggestions are wrong. So, no, it is not \u201clifestylist\u201d for it will never be the right time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As one academic suggests (Olga Shnyrova in an article entitled \u201cWomen and Socialist Revolution, 1917\u201323\u201d) \u201cinside [the Russia Communist Party…] women\u2019s political work was guided by male party functionaries under the principles of \u2018democratic centralism\u2019. The majority of local communist leaders had strong patriarchal views and did not want to empower women by increasing their representation [\u2026] or allowing them to create autonomous structures [\u2026] women\u2019s aspirations to equal treatment were often blocked (but never eradicated) and they were forced to accept a subordinate role.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This account would be familiar to many within Leninist parties in subsequent years \u2013 and it happened when Lenin was in charge of the party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \u2013 she always stressed the necessity for social struggle and social revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe political trap has transferred Socialism [\u2026] 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\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Worse, \u201cit has allowed itself to be deceived by political gains and government offices […] spreading apathy and passivity in proportion to its political successes.\u201d Goldman contrasted this failure with struggle on the economic terrain:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cClass 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\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As well as critiquing Marxist means, Goldman also attacked the aims:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This prediction was also confirmed by Marxism in practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After being deported from America in 1919, Goldman spent two years in Bolshevik Russia. As she summarised later, \u201cthe Communists [\u2026] subordinated to the needs of the new State or destroyed altogether\u2026 the Soviets, the trade unions and the cooperatives \u2014 three great factors for the realisation of the hopes of the Revolution.\u201d This resulted in waste and inefficiency as people \u201cdid nothing else but stand in line, waiting for the bureaucrats, big and little, to admit them to their sanctums.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anarchists from Bakunin onwards had warned that Marxism would produce tyranny rather than freedom for the masses and these predictions were confirmed: \u201cThat danger was no longer a subject for theoretic discussion, but an actual reality because of the existing bureaucracy, inefficiency, and corruption.\u201d She saw \u201chow paralysing was the effect of the bureaucratic red tape which delayed and often frustrated the most earnest and energetic efforts\u2026 Materials were very scarce and it was most difficult to procure them owing to the unbelievably centralized Bolshevik methods.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She gave a \u201cdemonstration 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 \u2018within two weeks, in pain of punishment for sabotage\u2019 [\u2026] six months already had passed without the \u2018central authorities\u2019 making any effort to distribute the machines to the peasantry\u2026 It was one of the countless examples of the manner in which the Moscow system \u2018worked,\u2019 or, rather, did not work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps understandably Leninists seem to hate Goldman and peddle another kind of \u201cBolshevik Myth\u201d about her. They, to quote one particularly dishonest account of her life by Lance Selfa, contrast Goldman to \u201cone group of anarchists whose libertarian ideas were most connected to workers\u2019 struggles \u2013 people like Victor Serge, Alfred Rosmer, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Lucy Parsons, and Big Bill Haywood \u2013 actually left the ranks of anarchists and joined the Communist Parties.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We should also remember that in 1920 \u201cthe best of the anarchists\u201d were supporting a regime whose rulers argued that \u201cthe dictatorship of the proletariat is at the same time the dictatorship of the Communist Party\u201d (as Zinoviev put it at the Second Congress of the Communist International). Economically, it was state-capitalism: \u201cour Party Congress . . . expressed itself in favour of the principle of one-man management in the administration of industry\u201d (Trotsky, Terrorism and Communism<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n These positions were not considered as retreats or temporary expedients but rather appropriate for all revolutions. The \u201cbest of the anarchists\u201d were exporting the \u201clessons\u201d of the revolution and urging revolutionaries to apply them in order to have a \u201csuccessful\u201d revolution as in Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Goldman noted, many foreign revolutionaries who visited Russia \u201cbecome 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It should also be noted that most of the syndicalists who joined the Bolsheviks became Stalinists\u2026 who later attacked Trotsky in the same manner as they did Goldman. Hardly an example to follow \u2013 particularly for Trotskyists!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Goldman may have been \u201cdisillusioned\u201d with Bolshevism but not Revolution. She was well aware of the reality of the regime long before Stalin came to the fore:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSoviet Russia\u2026 is an absolute despotism politically and the crassest form of state capitalism economically\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While critiquing the regime, Goldman had an alternative: \u201cThe industrial power of the masses, expressed through their libertarian associations \u2013 Anarcho-syndicalism \u2013 is alone able to organize successfully the economic life\u201d. This was because \u201c[o]nly free initiative and popular participation in the affairs of the revolution can prevent the terrible blunders committed in Russia\u201d and this had to be based upon \u201clibertarian, industrial organisations and the co-operatives\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \u2013 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \u2013 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, July 1936 saw anarchists apply their ideas on a mass scale in Spain by the CNT-FAI:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the defeat of the fascists in Catalonia and other areas with a strong anarchist movement a social revolution erupted and \u201cthey at the same time proceeded to expropriate the factories and shops \u2013 the entire transport system as well as the land \u2013 and they set to work to build a new mode of life out of the decadent conditions left by their economic masters.\u201d Goldman, like other anarchists across the world, saw its importance in \u201cgiving a shining example to the workers of the rest of the world that you fully understand the meaning of revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She immediately started to support the revolution from Britain and visited the Spain, seeing the social revolution at first hand:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was especially impressed with the replies to my questions as to what actually had the workers gained by the collectivisation\u2026 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While working with the CNT-FAI, Goldman was not uncritical of them and noted how they had \u201cto 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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<\/em> (Free Women) which organised against \u201ctriple enslavement to ignorance, as women, and as producers.\u201d Part of its activities was to combat the sexism within the libertarian movement. As one of its members (Kyralina) noted:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAll those compa\u00f1eros, 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 compa\u00f1eras just like common husbands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \u201ccontention that there is something wrong with Anarchism\u2026 because the leading comrades in Spain failed Anarchism seems to be very faulty reasoning\u2026. the failure of one or several individuals can never take away from the depth and truth of an ideal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I should note that while focused on supporting the CNT-FAI, Goldman still found time for Trotsky Protests Too Much<\/em> (1938) a masterful debunking of Trotskyist claims against the Kronstadt revolt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI do not claim that the triumph of my ideas would eliminate all possible problems from the life of man for all time\u2026 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\u2026 [with its] broken hearts and crushed lives\u2026?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Her vision of why anarchism was needed stressed a key idea, namely enriching the individual and their surroundings: \u201c<\/strong>Real wealth consists in things of utility and beauty, in things that help to create strong, beautiful bodies and surroundings inspiring to live in\u2026 the freest possible expression of all the latent powers of the individual.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Goldman also shows that ideas matter \u2013 \u201chad the Russians made the Revolution \u00e0 la Bakunin instead of \u00e0 la Marx\u201d, she argued, then \u201c<\/strong>the result would have been different and more satisfactory\u2026 Bolshevik methods\u2026 demonstrated how a revolution should not<\/em> be made\u201d. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Goldman was also right in that anarchist ideas need to be applied, noting that to \u201cbring about the social reconstruction\u201d needs \u201ca broad and wide education as to man\u2019s place in society and his proper relation to his fellows\u201d and we need to lead \u201cthrough example[. . .] the actual living of a truth once recognized\u201d. This was not lifestylism because she also recognised the need for social change as well for \u201cthe most powerful weapon, is the conscious, intelligent, organized, economic protest of the masses through direct action and the general strike.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is just a summary of Goldman\u2019s revolution ideas and I have doubtless missed important aspects of her writings and life. As such, I would urge reading her works \u2013 the collection Red Emma Speaks<\/em> is excellent and it contains all the writings from her 1910 book Anarchism and Other Essays<\/em> along with other key works. Her account of her two years in Russia, My Disillusionment in Russia<\/em>, is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand why that revolution failed while her autobiography Living My Life<\/em> is a classic of the genre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In terms of anthologies, Peter Glassgold\u2019s Anarchy! An Anthology of Emma Goldman\u2019s <\/em>Mother Earth<\/strong> is well-worth reading as it gives a good overview of the journal and its contents. Goldman\u2019s writings appear in Robert Graham\u2019s Anarchism<\/em>, Daniel Gu\u00e9rin\u2019s No Gods, No Masters<\/em> and my own A Libertarian Reader<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A talk given in Glasgow in 2024 about Emma Goldman and her anarchist ideas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,11,15,16,34,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anarchisthistory","category-emmagoldman","category-russia","category-spain","category-talk","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":265,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions\/265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Revolutionary Ideas of Emma Goldman<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf I can\u2019t paraphrase\u2026\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Conventional Wisdom<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Living her life\u2026.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThese internal tyrants\u2026\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Modern Menace to Capitalism\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Militant Minority<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Sex Question<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Class Question<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Wait for after the Revolution?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u201cthe Bis-Marxian Socialists\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What is not<\/em> to be done\u2026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u201cthe best of the anarchists\u201d?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere Is No Communism In Russia\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Spanish Revolution<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Conclusions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Further Reading\u2026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n