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Emma Goldman

2007-11-20T18:18:37Z

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'''Emma Goldman''' ([[June 27]], [[1869]] - [[May 14]], [[1940]]) was a [[Lithuania]]n-born [[anarchism|anarchist]] known for her radical [[libertarian socialism|libertarian socialist]] ,[[Atheism|atheist]] and [[feminist]] writings and speeches. She immigrated to the [[United States]] at sixteen and was later deported to [[Russia]], where she witnessed some events of the [[Russian Revolution]]. She also spent a number of years in [[Western Europe]], where she wrote her [[autobiography]] and other works.

==Birth and early life in Lithuania==
Goldman was born to a [[Jew]]ish family in [[Kaunas]], [[Lithuania]], where her family ran a small inn. In the period of political repression after the [[assassination]] of [[Russian Tsar Alexander II|Alexander II]], she moved with her family to [[St Petersburg]] at the age of thirteen. There--due to economic hardship--she was forced to leave school and work in a factory. It was in that workplace that Goldman was introduced to revolutionary ideas; she obtained a copy of [[Chernychevsky]]'s ''[[What Is To Be Done]],'' which sowed the seeds for her anarchist ideas and her independent attitude.

==Life and Activism in America==
She fled to America with a half-sister after she refused to allow her father to [[marriage|marry]] her off at fifteen. The hanging of four anarchists after the [[Haymarket Riot]] drew the young Emma Goldman to the anarchist movement, and at twenty she decided to become a [[revolution]]ary. By this time she had been married for ten months to a Russian immigrant. The marriage didn't work out, so she left him and moved to [[New York City|New York]]. They remained legally married, allowing her to retain her American citizenship.

In New York City she met and lived with [[Alexander Berkman]], along with whom she was a major leader of the anarchist movement in the United States at the time. Her defense of Berkman's attempted assassination of [[Henry Clay Frick]] made her highly unpopular with the authorities. Berkman (or Sasha as she fondly referred to him as) was jailed for several years.

She was [[prison|imprisoned]] in [[1893]] at [[Blackwell's Island]] penitentiary for publicly urging [[unemployment|unemployed]] [[worker]]s that they should ''"Ask for work. If they do not give you work, ask for bread. If they do not give you work or bread, take bread."'' (The statement is a summary of the principle of [[Eminent domain|expropriation]] advocated by anarchist communists like [[Peter Kropotkin]].) [[Voltairine de Cleyre]] gave the lecture ''[[In Defense of Emma Goldman]]'' as a response to this imprisonment. While serving the one year sentence, she developed a keen interest in nursing that later became her main source of employment.

She was arrested, with nine others, on [[September 10]], [[1901]], on charges of conspiracy to assassinate [[William McKinley|President McKinley]]. A follower of hers, [[Leon Czolgosz]] had shot the President several days before. She met Czolgosz only once, briefly, several weeks before. She said about him, "Am I accountable because some crackbrained person put a wrong construction on my words?" Despite strong feelings against her among the public, she and the others were acquitted.

On [[February 11]], [[1916]], she was [[arrest]]ed and imprisoned again for her distribution of [[birth control]] [[literature]].

For several years, she expected to be arrested whenever she gave a speech, and therefore always carried a book when she got up on stage.

Her third imprisonment was in [[1917]], this time for conspiring to obstruct the [[conscription|draft]]: Berkman and Goldman were both involved in setting up [[No Conscription leagues]] and organising rallies against [[World War I]].(''illustration, left'') She was imprisoned for two years, after which she was deported to Russia. At her deportation hearing, [[J. Edgar Hoover]], directing the hearing, called her ''"one of the most dangerous women in America."''

==Deportation and Disillusionment in Russia==
This deportation meant that Goldman, with Berkman, was able to witness the [[Russian Revolution]] first hand. On her arrival in Russia, she was prepared to support the [[Bolshevism|Bolshevik]]s despite the split between anarchists and statist communists at the [[First International]]. But seeing the [[political repression]], [[bureaucracy]] and [[forced labour]] in Russia led Goldman to write ''[[My Disillusionment in Russia]]'' and ''[[My Further Disillusionment in Russia]]''. She was also devastated by the massive destruction and death resulting from the [[Russian Civil War]]. Goldman was friends with fellow Communists and New Yorkers [[John Reed (journalist)|John Reed]] and [[Louise Bryant]], both of whom were also in Russia at this time (during a period when it was impossible to leave the country); they may even have shared an apartment (see also the film [[Reds]]).

Her experiences in Russia helped change her ideas on the use of [[violence]]: after the [[Red Army]] was used against [[Strike action|strike]]rs, Goldman began rejecting violence except in [[self-defense]].

In 1931 Goldman published her autobiography, ''Living My Life'', now available on-line (see link to Anarchist Archives).

==Spanish Revolution==
In [[1936]], Goldman went to [[Spain]], in the midst of the [[Spanish Civil War]], to support the [[Spanish Revolution]] and the fight against [[Franco]]'s [[fascism]]. During this time she wrote an obituary for the prominent [[Spanish anarchist]] [[Buenaventura Durruti]] in a piece of vibrant [[prose]] entitled ''[[Durruti is Dead, Yet Living]]'', which echoes [[Percy Bysshe Shelley]]'s [[Adonais (poem)|Adonais]].

==Death and burial==
Emma Goldman died of a stroke in [[Toronto]] on [[May 14]], [[1940]]. The U.S. [[Immigration and Naturalization Service]] allowed her body to be brought back to the United States, and she was buried in [[German Waldheim Cemetery|German Waldheim Cemetery]] (now part of Forest Home Cemetery) in [[Forest Park, Illinois|Forest Park]], [[Illinois]], a suburb of [[Chicago, Illinois|Chicago]], close to where the [[Haymarket Riot]] martyrs are interred [http://www.graveyards.com/IL/Cook/foresthome/ne-goldman.html]. Her tombstone reads "Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to Liberty".

== External links ==

* [http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/goldman/Goldmanarchive.html Emma Goldman in the Anarchist Archives]
* [http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/ The Emma Goldman Papers (DL SunSITE)]
* [ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext00/nrcsm10.txt ''Anarchism and Other Essays'']
* [http://www.BlackCrayon.com/people/goldman/ BlackCrayon.com: People: Emma Goldman]
* [http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/GoldmanEmma.htm Emma Goldman Page at the Anarchist Encyclopedia]
* [http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/goldman/living/livingtoc.html Living my Life]
* [http://www.iisg.nl/collections/goldman/index.html Portraits of Emma Goldman]

{{wikipedia|Emma Goldman}}

[[Category:Anarchists|Goldman, Emma]]
[[Category:Feminists|Goldman, Emma]]
[[Category:LGBT rights activists|Goldman, Emma]]

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Emma Goldman