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Title: Anarchy in Interpretation
Author: Jason Wehling
Date: March 15, 1994
Language: en
Topics: Emma Goldman, biography, history
Source: Retrieved on 28th August 2020 from http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/goldman/emmabio.html

Jason Wehling

Anarchy in Interpretation

Emma Goldman was many things — a feminist, a writer and an incredible

public speaker — but first and foremost, she was an anarchist. Not

coincidentally, her life in many ways parallels the life of anarchism as

a movement. Anarchism, although its roots are dated much earlier, was

born just two years after Emma’s birth. Bakunin, a Russia revolutionary,

like Emma was to become, split the international communist movement in

two, creating anarchists, who followed Bakunin, and Communists, who saw

Karl Marx as their teacher. Emma lived through the era of anarchist

terror reigned upon the rulers of the world and experienced the

aftermath of the Russian Revolution. Ironically, George Woodcock writing

in 1962 about the history of the anarchist movement declared anarchism

dead in 1939 with the untimely demise of Spanish anarchism (Woodcock,

443); Emma died a mere year and a half after this defeat at the hands of

Franco’s Fascists.

Interestingly, with the rebirth of anarchism in the 1960s, seen with the

emergence of the New Left’s emphasis on decentralization and opposition

to hierarchy and at its height in the explosive Parisian General Strike

of 1968, Emma was reborn as well. Starting in 1961 with Richard

Drinnon’s Rebel in Paradise, biographies of Goldman have continued to

bloom. Drinnon was followed by many other biographers: Candace Falk in

1984, Alice Wexler in 1984, Martha Solomon in 1989, John Chalberg in

1991 and Marian Morton in 1992. Wexler, Solomon and Falk all agree that

the resurgence in the interest of Emma in the late 1960s and early 1970s

is a reflection of renewed interest in feminism and anarchism. “In part,

this fascination with Goldman reflects a general upsurge of interest in

anarchism since the sixties” (Wexler, Emma Goldman in Exile, 2).

Emma was incredibly controversial during her own lifetime. Teddy

Roosevelt called her a “madwoman... a mental as well as a moral

pervert”, the New York Times said she was a “mischievous foreigner...

apart from the mass of humanity”. The San Francisco Call said she was a

“despicable creature... [a] snake... unfit to live in a civilized

country”. The government called her the “ablest and most dangerous”

anarchist in the country.

On the other side was Kate Richards O’Hare, a socialist who occupied a

neighboring jail cell with Goldman, who said “the Emma Goldman that I

know is not the Propagandist. It is Emma, the tender, cosmic mother, the

wise understanding woman, the faithful sister, the loyal comrade... Emma

don’t believe in Jesus, yet she is the one who makes it possible for me

to grasp the spirit of Jesus” (Drinnon, 251). William Marion Reedy of

the St. Louis Mirror said this: “there is nothing wrong with Miss

Goldman’s gospel that I can see except this: SHE IS ABOUT EIGHT THOUSAND

YEARS AHEAD OF HER AGE!” (Drinnon, title page). It is hard to believe

that these contradictory quotes could possibly describe the same person.

Emma was even controversial within the radical movement itself. She was

one of the first radicals to address the issue of homosexuality, she

opposed women’s suffrage and touted the virtues of “free love”. Such

ideals were bourgeois-inspired at best to her counterparts who placed

their faith in the cure-all solution of class warfare. Her ideological

mentors included Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, Peter Kropotkin,

Mikhail Bakunin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Some of her acquaintances

included Wobbly organizers “Big” Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley

Flynn, writers like Eugene O’Neil and Jack London and socialists like

John Reed and Eugene Debs. She had a tremendous influence on Margaret

Sanger and Roger Baldwin, the founders of two of the most important

institutions of contemporary American Liberalism, Planned Parenthood and

the ACLU respectively.

But to mainstream Americans Emma was known to as a demonic,

“dynamite-eating anarchist”. Goldman was hounded for much of her life by

two of the most notorious law enforcement officials in American history:

Anthony Comstock and J Edgar Hoover. As a result of this image, she was

jailed in 1893, 1901, 1916, 1918, 1919 and in 1921 — from charges

ranging from inciting to riot to advocating the use of birth control to

opposition to World War I. She was exiled by the United States, Soviet

Russia, Holland, France and was denied entry into many more.

A Life in Context

All of this started with her birth on June 27, 1869, in Kovno,

Lithuania. By 1886, Emma and her sister Helene emigrated to Rochester,

New York. That same year, in Chicago following the foundation of the May

Day workers holiday, the Haymarket affair transpired. This event

enthralled young Emma who was devastated when the anarchists were

executed the following year. Goldman credited this event for her divorce

to her husband of less than a year. In 1889, Emma moved to New York City

where she joined the Yiddish Anarchist movement and met her life-long

companion, Alexander Berkman.

This friendship proved to be a decisive occurrence in her life; in 1892,

she conspired with Berkman in his failed attempt to assassinate Henry

Clay Frick in retaliation for Frick’s role in the attack on the strikers

at Homestead. Berkman eventually served 14 years in Western Penitentiary

for his crime; her guilt over Berkman’s sole responsibility for a crime

they both participated in remained a major influence for the rest of her

life. Following the failed assassination, Emma gained not only national

prominence, but became prominent in the anarchist movement as well. In

1895 she traveled to Vienna to study medicine, attending lectures by

Freud. In London, she met her ideological mentor, Peter Kropotkin.

Returning to America a year later, she made frequent cross-country

speaking tours over the next few years.

Her anarchist agitation was interrupted in 1901 when Leon Czolgosz, a

self-proclaimed anarchist, assassinated President William McKinley. Emma

was blamed for Czolgosz’s action and was forced into hiding by a massive

wave of anti-anarchist hysteria. The same year Berkman was released from

prison Emma began publishing Mother Earth, in 1906. A couple of years

later, Emma met Ben Reitman, who would remain her lover until her arrest

in 1917. She was jailed as a result of her work in the No-Conscription

League and her anti-war stand against World War I, also causing Mother

Earth to be shut-down by the government.

After serving out their two year sentence, Emma and Berkman were

deported in 1919 to Soviet Russia. At first, Emma was excited to see

first hand the revolution she had fought to bring about all her life.

But it didn’t take long for her to realize that the Bolsheviks were no

anarchists and that the massive dictatorship created by Lenin was

crushing the “spontaneity of the masses.” In 1921, Libertarian sailors

revolted at Kronstadt against the Bolshevik government. The suppression

of Kronstadt by the Communists was too much for Emma and Berkman and

they made the decision to finally leave Russia in a state of

disillusionment. For the next few years, traveling from country to

country as she could get permission, she wrote a long series of articles

and two books about her experience in and the ideological contradictions

she perceived within Soviet Russia.

Living in Britain for many years, she eventually married James Colton in

1926 for the convenience citizenship offered — allowing her to travel to

Canada. Emma lived in seclusion for a few years in France in order to

write her autobiography, which was published in 1931. During this long

exile, Emma continually wanted to return to the United States, her

chosen home. But the notorious anarchist was, well, still notorious and

was denied entry except for a brief, 90 day visit in 1934. The year 1936

was the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows for Goldman. Her

cerebral second half, Alexander Berkman committed suicide after

prolonged agony caused by an aggravated case of prostate cancer. Just a

week later, an anarchist-inspired revolution erupted in Spain. For the

next three years, Emma committed herself to the support of the

anarcho-syndicalists and their fight against Communists, Republicans and

especially Fascists — all of which would not accept the revolution in

Spain.

This long and incredible life finally came to an end in 1940. While

attempting to save an Italian anarchist from deportation, where he faced

certain death in Fascist Italy, Emma died from a stroke in Toronto. Only

after her death was she admitted back into America, where Emma found her

eternal resting place at Waldheim Cemetery in Chicago, buried near the

Haymarket martyrs, who unwittingly helped to shape her life.

Reasons Behind Biography

Needless to say that Emma’s life, infamous and full of contention, has

been interpreted many different ways. The first attempt to create a life

of Goldman was done by one of her lovers, Hippolyte Havel, a fellow

anarchist. This “sketch” — it is a mere 40 pages in length — was written

as an introduction to a collection of essays by Emma published in 1910.

Because of its relatively early publication, written more that 30 years

before her death and its obviously preferential view, it is limited in

its ability to portray Goldman’s life accurately. The intention of the

piece was not necessarily to glorify Goldman, but was written at a time

when Emma was personified as a walking she-devil by a sensationalizing

press and a belligerent government. This piece was mainly a response to

this disparaging view of anarchists in general. In fact, the last

section of this short biography is wholly devoted to a defense of

anarchism against the gross misrepresentation it was receiving at the

time.

It was not until 30 years after her death that a more solid attempt at

biography was attempted by Richard Drinnon. His Rebel in Paradise is

considered by most of the biographers that have followed to be the

standard biography of Emma. This life is largely devoted to a revision

of the distorted view left by the media of Goldman’s day, and therefore

focuses primarily on her historical life. Drinnon devotes an entire

chapter to the conspiracy by the federal government, mainly at the

behest of a young and ambitious J. Edgar Hoover, to deny Emma of her

American citizenship in order to eventually deport her. Drinnon is very

frank in his introduction about his bias, stating that just choosing

someone like Goldman is in itself subjective. “No doubt my basic

sympathy for the radical style in politics helped shape this empathy and

understanding” (Drinnon, vii). But unlike Havel’s, “this book is, first

and foremost, a critical biography of the woman” (Drinnon, viii).

Drinnon’s book comes off as sympathetic yet avoids any partisanship.

Candace Falk relates in her introduction how she and her dog, “Red

Emma”, stumbled upon a box of letters written by Emma to her lover, Ben

Reitman in the early 1970s. Obviously with a dog named after your

subject, like Drinnon and Havel, Falk is empathetic towards Goldman. But

unlike her predecessors, Falk is not interested in Emma as an anarchist,

but as a lover, a woman and a human being. Using previously unknown

letters, Falk investigates Emma’s private sexual life, focusing

primarily on her relationship with Reitman.

Falk wrote Love, Anarchy and Emma Goldman because “no single source

could answer my questions about Emma. There was a path-breaking

biography by Richard Drinnon, Rebel in Paradise, but it did not delve

deeply into the relationship between Emma and Ben” (Falk, xiii). She

doesn’t try to compete with past material nor does it try to rewrite

Emma’s public life in light of the new information. “Rather than

chronicle her public life in parallel detail, I chose to write a

companion piece to her own account in the autobiography and to the

Drinnon biography” (Falk, xiii). Because of this focus, the biography

emphasizes the decade of the relationship (1908–1917), while purposely

neglecting much of the rest.

Alice Wexler wrote a two volume biography of Goldman. The first volume

arrived the same year as the Falk book, 1984, which is described as “An

Intimate Life”. The first volume chronicles Emma up to her deportation

from America; the second — Emma Goldman in Exile, finishes her life.

Wexler’s biography attempts to investigate Emma’s inner or personal

life. “While the historical Emma Goldman was more problematic, more

contradictory, and less romantic in certain ways than the ebullient

figure of legend, the reality of her life was no less heroic and in many

ways more interesting and moving” (Wexler, An Intimate Life, xviii).

Again, Wexler is not antagonistic to Emma; in fact, Wexler may herself

be partial to anarchism, for she writes for anarchist journals such as

Our Generation.

Wexler’s life not only covers the previously uncovered territory of

Emma’s personal life (besides her relationship with Reitman of course),

but Wexler is the best at placing Goldman in the proper context of the

anarchist movement for which Emma was an integral part. Each figure in

Emma’s life, often described in passing in other biographies, is

detailed and oriented properly in the context of his or her impact upon

Emma Goldman. The reader gets to know Berkman, Peter Kropotkin, the

Isaaks and Johann Most in a way that the others do not reproduce. But at

the same time, Wexler states that she is attempting to demystify Emma’s

life on both sides — demystify the demon created by the government and

the angel by Emma in her autobiography.

Martha Solomon admits that Goldman’s life has been chronicled adequately

by the past biographers. “This work will not attempt to compete” with

past works which chronicled her life, such as Living My Life, Drinnon,

Falk and Wexler, “but will try, instead, to focus on Goldman as a writer

and rhetorician” (Solomon, preface). Solomon’s goal is to analyze

Goldman the writer. Emma did write a great deal, churning out six books

and hundreds of pamphlets and articles — not to mention the myriad of

speeches she gave throughout her life. The first chapter is the

biography, while the rest of the book is devoted to an analysis of

Goldman’s writings and places her writings in context to the life.

Solomon’s goal “is to evaluate her in a spirit she would have preferred:

appreciating her creative contributions and acknowledging her

limitations” (Solomon, 149). But, like her predecessors, Solomon too is

sympathetic; “Goldman, who lived this remarkable life, is the key to any

interest [this book] contains. The flaws are my own” (Solomon,

acknowledgments).

Interestingly, the political biography, Emma Goldman and the American

Left, by Marian Morton, is perhaps the most unsympathetic, but it is by

no means belligerent. As the title implies, this life focuses on Emma as

a member of the Left. “This is therefore a political biography and a

story of the American Left” (Morton, x). Much of the book details the

histories of radical organizations like the Socialist Party of America

and the Communist Party (CPUSA). Because of Goldman’s unusual role in

the Left as an anarchist, Morton has a rough time relating Emma to her

Leftist contemporaries. Usually Morton falls into a pattern of

explaining what Emma was doing at a particular time and then detail the

accomplishments of other Leftists — often without making any connection.

Not surprisingly, when the reader reaches the book’s conclusion, there

is a feeling that Emma’s life ended in failure. A guess is that Morton

is some variety of Socialist and found Goldman’s anarchism annoying, or

at least unrealistic. Unfortunately, Morton does not reveal her personal

politics. Beyond this, the book is poor especially when compared to

Wexler’s work, which details the American Left in much better detail (An

example is the fact that Wexler mentions the Seattle General Strike of

1919, Morton does not).

John Chalberg’s biography was written as an installment to a series of

“great” American biographies. The author is obviously not an anarchist

nor even a radical and therefore is most prone to criticism, but the

biography comes off clear and relatively sympathetic. Instead of the

usual influence a biographer has on a subject’s life, it seems that in

Chalberg’s case the tables were turned: “As a white male, a native

Minnesotan, a reticent Scandinavian, a husband and a father of more

children than the national average, and a suburbanite with the

inevitable two-car garage and obligatory mortgage, I can testify that

living with Goldman has not been reassuring or comforting. But it has

been interesting” (Chalberg, ix). Chalberg’s biography adds little as

far as new historical interpretations and can be seen as a brief version

of the one sketched by Drinnon thirty years earlier.

Conformity Over a Nonconformist

Because the biographies, taken as a whole, are very sympathetic to Emma

Goldman, controversy has not been easily forthcoming. This is a result

of a number of factors. First and foremost, the dates of publication are

relatively recent and are clustered in a very narrow period of time —

most were written in the last decade. In her contemporary setting, Emma

was viewed by a overwhelming majority as worse than the devil. Anyone

out to malign her would have a tough go at it to out-smear the yellow

journalism that helped to create the myth of Emma the dirty

bomb-thrower.

But perhaps most importantly, as Drinnon described in his introduction,

just the act of choosing Goldman tells volumes about the author.

Interestingly, all the biographers found Emma both inspirational and

annoying. Drinnon states, “when I began research on her life, I began

skeptically, for her autobiography and the other accounts of her career

seemed to make her too extraordinary a women to be taken seriously. And

along with everyone else, I regarded her anarchism as a particularly

bizarre form of political lunacy. Months of research passed before I

learned that my skepticism was pseudo-sophistication and my

condescension was only conventional ignorance. Emma Goldman was in truth

a remarkable woman” (Drinnon, vii). Said in a different way, Wexler

relates that “when I first learned about Emma Goldman I found her both

admirable and irritating. As I studied her memoirs and vast

correspondence, I was often dismayed by her self-deceptions and

vanities, her frequent scorn for other radicals and feminists.

Gradually, however, I found my vexation changing to empathy” (Wexler, An

Intimate Life, xix). Interestingly, Agnes Ingis, a contemporary of Emma,

thought the same way; “Emma was an irritant and an inspiration to many.

I cannot think of her as beloved, but surely as an inspirer to courage”

(Wexler, An Intimate Life, 184).

Another important factor in the conformity of the biographies is the

fact that they all rely, to varying degrees, on Emma’s autobiography,

Living My Life. “In Living My Life, Emma Goldman set out to write a

great American female epic, an anarchist odyssey, showing how, after she

committed herself to anarchism at the age of twenty, she remained true

to her ‘ideal’ through the vicissitudes of a long, adventurous life”

(Wexler, Emma Goldman in Exile, 141). Solomon agrees with Drinnon that

“her autobiography was a work of art primarily because her life was as

well” (Solomon, 130). Although Chalberg states that “Goldman did not

always tell her story accurately or well, but she did tell it at great

length and with great passion” (Chalberg, 181), he relies heavily upon

Emma for the anecdotal stories he uses to animate Emma from the pages of

his book. Morton admits in the preface that she “relied heavily” on

Living My Life. Drinnon also admits he used her autobiography

extensively in writing about her earlier years. In fact without Emma’s

testimony, the details of situations like her meetings with Lenin and

Kropotkin would be unknown.

This is not to say that the biographers took Emma at her word. All agree

that Living My Life is highly prone to bias for obvious reasons. Wexler

argues that Goldman underrepresented Reitman’s contribution to the

anarchist movement, focusing only on her problems with him (Wexler, Emma

Goldman in Exile, 149). Also, she charges Emma with an unfair attack on

Johann Most, who disassociated himself from Goldman and Berkman after

the failed assassination on Frick. Wexler maintains that Most repudiated

“propaganda of deed” years before Berkman’s attentat in 1892 (Wexler, An

Intimate Life, 150). While Wexler takes Emma to task for fudging

anarchist facts, Solomon primarily criticizes Goldman’s literary style.

Summing up, Solomon says “ironically, her autobiography remains

interesting not as a history of anarchism (which she envisioned to be

its value) but as a chronicle of a personal struggle to live a free life

as a woman” (Solomon, 154).

Living My Life seems to have effected the biographers more than many

would like to admit. With the exception of Wexler, the biographers place

most of their emphasis on the times covered by Goldman’s autobiography.

Up until her deportation, there is a large amount of information in the

various lives, but the time after where Living My Life leaves off, the

time seems to move along rather quickly, with little detail. This

problem is most pronounced in the Chalberg book; Emma departs from

Russia on page 160, leaving a scant nineteen pages to finish her life.

An Anarchist Even Among Believers in Anarchism

Where the biographies really diverge most profoundly is over Emma’s

particular brand of anarchism. Havel described Emma as “an Anarchist

pure and simple” (Havel, 44), but it seems that this assertion is not so

simple. Chalberg makes a bizarre statement that “Emma considered herself

an anarchist for many years but did not establish a formal party

affiliation” (Chalberg, vii). Chalberg does not seem to understand that

anarchism is inherently antagonistic to the rigid and institutional

nature of a party apparatus. Nearly all the biographies devote at least

a couple of pages to a description of what anarchism stands for, but the

way each biographer comprehends anarchism has a large effect on how they

portray Emma’s life.

Drinnon admitted his disdain for anarchism in his introduction, yet he

gives a noble attempt at a clear definition by stating that “a forest of

confusion may be bypassed by realizing that Emma was simply an extreme

federalist-democrat” (Drinnon, 132). For Falk, anarchism was not

important to her focus, but this is not true of Morton. Yet, both Falk

and Morton reserve similar opinions of anarchism. Falk states at one

point that Emma’s depression was the result of “the inevitable effect of

an unattainable political philosophy” (Falk, xiii). Morton seems to

agree; “because it cut its adherents loose from institutional

restraints, anarchism was a lonely philosophy. The exhilarating freedom

from country, creed and sometimes family was often accompanied by the

frightening realization of solitude... An anarchist is supposed to be at

home nowhere” (Morton, ix-x).

Solomon grapples with the problem of anarchism clumsily. She quotes

Emma, “the function of anarchism in a revolutionary period is to

minimize the violence of the revolution and replace it by constructive

efforts” (Solomon, 62). Solomon takes this and immediately states: “in

essence, Goldman was forced to acknowledge that the theory she cherished

was too avant-garde to be useful in correcting immediate problems”

(Solomon, 62). Solomon’s analysis is not congruent with Emma’s

statement. Solomon accuses Goldman’s explanation of anarchism as being

“too vague and unconvincing” (Solomon, 62). Yet later on, when Emma

defends the syndicalism of the Spanish CNT, Solomon praises Emma for

being specific, seemingly without understanding the difference between

syndicalism and anarchism (Solomon, 49).

Throughout her biography, Solomon remains convinced that Goldman’s

ideology is contradictory. “Like a wide-angle lens on a camera, her

anarchism widens her field of view but distorts her vision” (Solomon,

86). She says that Goldman’s “theories are better as a model for the

life of a rebel than as a foundation for a new society” (Solomon, 60).

But in the end Solomon seems to give a little; “regardless of our

attitude towards her theories, we must respect her personal integrity

and her commitment to an ideal” (Solomon, 155).

Not surprisingly, all biographers, without exception, agree on the

causes of Emma’s decision to embrace anarchism. All agree with Drinnon

that “Emma soaked in the ideas of Chernyshevshy as rain is soaked in by

the desert sands” (Drinnon, 29). Nikolai Chernyshevshy’s What Is To Be

Done? (1863) was very influential on the Russia intelligentsia. Along

with Chernyshevshy, most agree that Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backwards

was another big influence on the ideological growth of Emma. There is no

dissent in the assertion that the Haymarket affair was the pivotal event

that pushed Emma into the world of radical anarchists. According to

Havel, “the Haymarket tragedy developed her inherent Anarchist

tendencies: the reading of the Freiheit made her a conscious Anarchist”

(Havel, 18). This agreement is the result, again, of the influence that

Living My Life has. Goldman was very clear about the importance the

Haymarket tragedy had encouraging her radicalism.

So what was Emma’s anarchism? Emma herself said that “[Kropotkin] was a

prominent figure in the realm of learning, recognized as such by the

foremost men of the world. But to us he meant more than that. We saw in

him the father of modern anarchism.” (Avrich, 81). Drinnon agrees,

“fortunately and quite understandably, Peter Kropotkin became Emma

Goldman’s true teacher and inspiration” (Drinnon, 41). But Wexler

disagrees with this, arguing that while Kropotkin exerted a large amount

of influence on Emma, she was able to go beyond his theories. This is

especially true of her commitment of sexual liberation (Wexler, An

Intimate Life, 48). Wexler, going further, asserts that Emma’s anarchism

was much more sophisticated that many realize because Emma actually

created her own moral code, even though Goldman might have argued with

this assertion (Wexler, An Intimate Life, 97).

In fact some biographers like Solomon like to point out the differences

between Kropotkin and Goldman. A common quote that is used comes from

Kropotkin who says that “the [Free Society] is doing splendid work, but

it would do more if it would not waste so much space discussing sex”.

Most end the quote there, but the “quarrel” continues in Living My Life.

Emma relates her reply to Kropotkin: “All right, dear comrade, when I

have reached your age [she was thirty, Kropotkin fifty-seven], 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”. Emma

continues, “Peter stopped short, an amused smile lighting up his kindly

face. ‘Fancy, I didn’t think of that,’ he replied. ‘Perhaps you are

right after all’ He beamed affectionately upon me, with a humorous

twinkle in his eye” (Goldman, 253).

A theme developed by all the biographers is the tension between Emma’s

individualism and her collectivism. All agree that such a tension

exists, but disagreement arises when some place more importance on one

side over the other. Chalberg thinks Goldman closer to collectivism than

individualists like Benjamin Tucker (Chalberg, 29–30) and that Bakunin

and Kropotkin are her teachers, while he may be right, his earlier

statement throws his knowledge of anarchism into question.

Taking up the argument from the other side is Solomon who argues most

fiercely that Emma was an “individualistic anarchist” and that

“Goldman’s anarchism was essentially libertarianism” (Solomon, 52 & 46).

“The clearest conflict in Goldman’s thinking was that between the

elitism implicit in her commitment to individualism and the

egalitarianism intrinsic to anarchism” (Solomon, 59). Interestingly,

Wexler agrees with Solomon to a degree, arguing that Emma sided more

with the individualism of Max Stirner than with Kropotkin’s communism.

(Wexler, An Intimate Life, 137). But Wexler finds it important to point

out that the “spirit of revolt” is perhaps the most important aspect of

Emma’s thinking (Wexler, An Intimate Life, 92).

Wexler’s position is much more believable. Since a number of statements

make it appear that Solomon may never have even read Kropotkin, it would

make it problematic for her to maintain a credible argument. Havel puts

her in line with Josiah Warren, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Tolstoy,

while making no mention of Stirner or Nietzsche as Solomon does. The

political biographer states that Emma was a communist of the Bakunin and

Kropotkin variety while leaning “towards the individualism of American

Anarchists” (Morton, ix). Interestingly, Emma places herself in the

company of Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, William Lloyd Garrison, John

Brown and Henry David Thoreau (Chalberg, 136).

Much of this controversy may be the partial result of what many

biographers see as Emma’s disdain for the masses — a sort of

intellectual elitism. Again, it is Solomon who goes out on a limb,

saying that “she increasingly perceived the masses as impediments to

social change” (Solomon, 54). Wexler maintains that “Goldman always

insisted that this pessimism grew directly out of her experience in

Russia” (Wexler, Emma Goldman in Exile, 79). Obviously one who champions

the masses, drawing directly from Kropotkin, cannot at the same time

maintain that the masses are inherently reactionary — Emma at times is

guilty of just this dilemma.

Another theme that fuels the controversy over Emma’s anarchism is what

Wexler describes as Goldman’s “anti-Communism”, in which Emma may have

confused her disdain of the Bolsheviks with a rejection of collectivism.

Wexler blames Emma’s anti-Communism to a degree on her isolation and

loneliness in exile. “Emma Goldman experienced her two years in Russia

as a personal defeat” (Wexler, Emma Goldman in Exile, 57 & 110).

The controversial deviation in Emma’s ideology has led to a historical

disagreement over when this shift occurred. Once again, Solomon takes

the extreme position, stating “not only [did] Goldman defend the

internal and external policies of the Bolsheviks, but she cavalierly

dismisses the opposition of many revolutionaries, like her theoretical

mentor Peter Kropotkin, to Bolshevik policies” (Solomon, 56). Solomon

maintains that Goldman made a sudden break after the Kronstadt uprising.

In fact, if one only read what Emma wrote this would be a logical

conclusion. But Emma was much more complicated. Chalberg is correct in

pointing out that Emma may have been confused by Lenin’s “The State and

the Revolution”, for in this pamphlet Lenin argues, like an anarchist,

that freedom cannot co-exist with the continuation of the State.

Chalberg agrees that Emma’s public break did occur after Kronstadt, but

privately Emma was questioning the Russian Revolution much earlier.

Wexler argues that Emma may have become disillusioned with Bolshevism

while still in Prison in the United States (Wexler, An Intimate Life,

258). By May, 1920, Emma was definitely disillusioned with

authoritarian-Communism; Wexler points out that John Clayton of the

Chicago Tribune quoted Emma as saying the Bolsheviks were “rotten” and

tyrannical (Wexler, Emma Goldman in Exile, 35). Wexler also described

the agony that Emma experienced in trying to decide whether or not to

attack the Bolsheviks in “pro-capitalistic” papers like the New York

World — which was after Kronstadt. It seems that this was even hard for

Emma to decide on.

Emma’s Anarcho-feminism

Another area of disagreement is Emma’s Feminism, like with everything

else having to do with Goldman, she always had her own particular brand.

This time the extreme position is taken by Morton, who finds Emma

bordering on anti-Feminism. Morton quotes Emma: “woman, essentially a

purist, is naturally bigoted and relentless in her effort to make others

as good as she thinks they ought to be”. Morton admits that this is a

reference to women who were trying to make prostitution illegal in

States where women could vote (Morton, 65). This controversy is almost

expected, for Goldman took a highly contentious position of opposing the

women’s suffrage movement. Solomon takes Emma to task, stating that “her

attacks on woman’s suffrage overlooks the symbolic importance of that

measure” (Solomon, 85).

Wexler, who seems to be best at analyzing Emma’s ideology, argues that

Emma was a strong Feminist, perhaps stronger than the middle-class women

who wanted the vote without thinking about the abysmal conditions that

lower-class women had to endure. Solomon was right, voting is symbolic;

Emma was more interested in putting bread in the mouths of poor women,

and to hell with symbolism. While Wexler defends Goldman, she does not

address the charge of anti-Feminism. This may be a result of the fact

that Wexler’s book came out before Solomon’s or Morton’s biographies.

The issue of Feminism spills over into the question of who came first to

the issue of birth control, Goldman or Margaret Sanger. Interestingly,

Morton comes to the aid of Emma, stating that Sanger was second to Emma

on this issue. Sanger maintains in her autobiography that the issue was

always her’s — Goldman had little to do with popularizing birth control.

In fact, Sanger is widely acknowledged with coining the term,

“birth-control”. Morton backs his assertion by pointing out that the

first person to be arrested for birth-control was an anarchist, Ezra

Heywood (Morton, 75). Margaret Sanger did work for Emma’s Mother Earth

before she began her crusade for birth control — that is not disputed.

But Chalberg disagrees, giving Sanger the credit for creating the issue

(Chalberg, 119 & 121). Drinnon leaves the issue open, but quotes a

unnamed student of the movement, “Margaret Sanger borrowed much from

Emma Goldman and the anarchists in the terminology and theory of reform

which characterized ‘The Woman Rebel’” (Drinnon, 210). Either way, no

one disputes the fact that Sanger became more involved than Emma later

on, eventually making birth control her only issue.

The Influence of Berkman and Czolgosz

“Despite her stature in the anarchist movement, she was subordinate to

powerful male leaders” (Morton, 62). There is no denying the fact that

the anarchist movement was largely made up of men — Emma along with

Voltairine de Cleyre were the exceptions. Emma was deeply influenced by

the men in her life, particularly by Leon Czolgosz, publicly and

Alexander Berkman, personally.

For a person to begin a biography of Goldman, it would become apparent

quite quickly that such a project would necessarily mean a sub-biography

of Berkman, because their lives were inseparable from the time they

entered the anarchist movement together. Chalberg attempted to write a

biography without a life of Berkman, but this was problematic and was

not attempted by the others. Wexler exemplifies this importance to Emma,

while exposing the conflict between them, stating that Emma “lived her

life party as a performance for [Berkman’s] benefit, as a rivalry with

him, and an attempt to win his love and approval” (Wexler, An Intimate

Life, 152). Wexler also maintains that Emma waited as long as she did in

breaking openly with the Bolsheviks because she was waiting for

Berkman’s disillusionment as support (Wexler, Emma Goldman in Exile,

49). “Emma would turn loyalty to Berkman almost into a religion”

(Wexler, An Intimate Life, 70).

Many took this love for Berkman as a reason for Emma’s staunch defense

of Leon Czolgosz after he assassinated President McKinley. Even though

Berkman repudiated the act as misguided, many biographers, like

Chalberg, speculate that Goldman was fighting for Berkman when she was

defending Czolgosz (Chalberg, 79). In other words, Emma saw Czolgosz’s

act not unlike Berkman’s attempted assassination, which she was an

integral part. Havel, writing in defense of Emma, also takes this

position. Wexler, on the other hand, asserts that Goldman’s defense of

Czolgosz was a result of Emma feelings of responsibility, at least in

some small way, for inciting Czolgosz’s act (Wexler, An Intimate Life,

110).

Subjective Sources and Interpretations of Revolution

Much of the level of emphasis the biographers place upon the anarchist

movement can be analyzed by the sources they use. Solomon uses some

standard anarchism survey texts like Irving Horowitz’s The Anarchists,

Paul Avrich’s The Haymarket Tragedy, and George Woodcock’s Anarchism: A

History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements. Wexler’s much stronger

emphasis is seen in her inclusion of many specific histories of

anarchism such as Paul Avrich’s Kronstadt, Voline’s The Unknown

Revolution, Peter Arshinov’s History of the Makhnovist Movement, G.

Maximov’s The Guillotine at Work, Gerald Brenan’s The Spanish Labyrinth,

George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, Burnett Bolloten’s The Spanish

Revolution and Jos* Peirats’ Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution.

Wexler also includes more contemporary anarchist theoreticians like Noam

Chomsky, Murray Bookchin and Sam Dolgoff, which none of the other

biographers deem necessary to include.

Interestingly, Chalberg, the most mainstream view of Emma, includes a

large assortment of histories from the anarchist perspective. Chalberg

lists a long assortment of histories of the Spanish Civil

War/Revolution, rivaling the list Wexler produces, yet one questions

whether or not he used them for none of the information ends up in his

biography. Solomon’s and Falk’s emphasis, on Emma’s writing and her

relationship with Reitman respectively, doesn’t require a lengthy detail

of Emma’s experience in the anarchist movement. Morton, whose focus is

the American Left, relates a dismal four pages to the Spanish conflict;

this is surprising because the Spanish Civil War was not only important

to Emma’s life, but was equally important to the Left, not just in

America — this may result from the sparse number of sources Morton

included. Drinnon’s life was written before many of these anarchist

histories were written (or at least translated into English), yet he

proves to be sympathetic and does a remarkable job in detailing the

events from Emma’s perspective. In fact, Drinnon includes Franz

Borkenau’s eye-witness account of anarchist Spain, The Spanish Cockpit,

which the other authors neglect.

The chosen chapter titles for the last period in Emma’s life often

expose the biographer’s point of view. Morton: “Nowhere at Home: Nowhere

the Revolution” — Falk: “Against an Avalanche” — Drinnon: “Spain: the

Very Top of the Mountain” — Wexler: “Spain and the World” — and

Chalberg: “At Home, But Never at Peace”. Morton’s title portrays a bleak

picture, “Nowhere the Revolution”. Perhaps Morton picked subjects that

are important to “mainstream” Left, but was not the Spanish Republic an

important rallying cause for the American Left in the 1930s? Falk’s

title gives a similar impression. Wexler’s title is non-descript, but is

the most sympathetic to Emma’s Spanish inspiration. Drinnon’s title is

perhaps the most accurate, for Spain was the closest Emma ever got to

seeing the realization of what she fought for all of her life. As was

alluded to earlier, the latter part of Emma’s life was neglected by many

of the authors, which may be responsible for the wide differences in

chapter titles. Wexler devotes the most, 37 pages to the Spanish Civil

War, with Drinnon close behind with 23 pages. From there in drops fast,

Falk gives seven pages, Morton’s political life has four and Chalberg

gives a scant three pages.

It is interesting that these biographers left these important years so

thin. Wexler noticed the greater attention paid to Goldman’s career in

America before 1920, but says “in some respects the most dramatic years

of her life were yet to come” (Wexler, Emma Goldman in Exile, 2). Wexler

goes on the state that “it is one of the many ironies of Emma Goldman’s

life that the historical record of her career in America is so thin

while her quieter years in exile are documented by mountains of letter”

(Wexler, Emma Goldman in Exile, 4). In other words, there is no reason

why this period has been neglected by other biographers. Falk, who

relied heavily on Emma’s letters quotes her as saying that “I must say I

find it infinitely easier to express myself in letters than in books”

(Falk, xvii). In fact, Emma wrote so many that there are two books

devoted just to reprinting her letters, Nowhere at Home: Letters from

Exile of Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, edited by Richard and Anna

Marie Drinnon, Vision on Fire: Emma Goldman on the Spanish Revolution,

edited by David Porter.

Final Assessments of an Anarchist Life

Both Drinnon and Wexler end their lives of Goldman with quotes assessing

her life. Drinnon uses a letter written by Evelyn Scott to Goldman

(February 14, 1936): “You were the only one there, I often feel, who had

a third attitude and the power of personality to carry it into

activities not representable in art. But you to me are the future they

will, paradoxically, hark back to in time” (Drinnon, 412).

Wexler uses a quote from Emma herself, who was at the time describing

Mary Wollstonecraft, but Wexler felt it appropriate for Emma’s life as

well. “In conflict, with every institution of their time since they will

not compromise, it is inevitable that the advance guards should become

aliens to the very ones they wish to serve; that they should be

isolated, shunned, and repudiated by the nearest and dearest of kin. Yet

the tragedy every pioneer must experience is not the lack of

understanding — it arises from the fact that having seen new

possibilities for human advancement, the pioneers can not take root in

the old, and with the new still so far off they become outcast roamers

of the earth, restless seekers for the things they will never find”

(Wexler, Emma Goldman in Exile, 245).

Biographies of Emma Goldman Cited:

John Chalberg, Emma Goldman: American Individualist,

New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.

Richard Drinnon, Rebel in Paradise: A Biography of

Emma Goldman, Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1961.

Hippolyte Havel, “Biographical Sketch” in Anarchism

and Other Essays, Emma Goldman, New York, NY:

Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1910.

Marian J. Morton, Emma Goldman and the American Left:

Nowhere at Home, New York, NY: Twayne Publishers, 1992.

Candace Serena Falk, Love, Anarchy, and Emma Goldman,

New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990

(originally published in 1984).

Martha Solomon, Emma Goldman, Boston, MA: Twayne

Publishers, 1987.

Alice Wexler, Emma Goldman: An Intimate Life, New York,

NY: Pantheon Books, 1984.

Alice Wexler, Emma Goldman in Exile: From the Russian

Revolution to the Spanish Civil War, Boston: Beacon

Press, 1989.

Other Works Cited:

Paul Avrich, Anarchist Portraits, New Jersey:

Princeton University Press, 1988.

Emma Goldman, Living My Life, Salt Lake City: Gibbs

M. Smith, Inc., 1982.

George Woodcock, Anarchism: A History of Libertarian

Ideas and Movements, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1962.