What Made Emma Goldman Go Radical

by Matt Kapko

The life of Emma Goldman (1869-1940) was given a blank slate on August 15, 1889. She arrived in New York City that day determined to leave her previous 20 years behind. She maneuvered her way through this new world with five dollars, a sewing machine and the addresses of three acquaintances. By nightfall she was being overwhelmed by the friendly hospitality and camaraderie of her new friend, an anarchist. It was then that she was introduced to the “headquarters of the East Side radicals, socialists, and anarchists” – Sach’s café on Suffolk Street. The people she met there forever impacted her understanding of society and helped to form the beginnings of her unique anarchist philosophy.

These beginning foundations in Goldman’s development of anarchist thought will be explored. Her life was one of constant change, but it is clear from her memoirs and political writings that her early years in the United States significantly changed her in ways that would shape the rest of her life. Was one event responsible for Goldman’s increased ascent to anarchy? Or was it a series of rash government reactions to her comrades that drove her to be so critical of society and government? For causing her to mostly develop through life in revolt, she places some responsibility on her father, whom she described as “the nightmare of my childhood.”

She emigrated to Rochester, New York from Russia at the age of 16. To escape the “grey dullness of [her] Rochester existence” and provoke intellectual stimulation, she began attending German socialist meetings. Soon, her anger and frustrations were catalyzed by one event of excruciating shock – the Haymarket Affair. Like so many other radicals from her time, that moment was constantly referred to as the turning point in her scramble to anarchism. Five anarchists were hanged, two were given life imprisonment and one received 15 years. The punishment was handed directly to the anarchists for merely speaking at a mass meeting of disenfranchised workers in Chicago’s Haymarket Square where a bomb exploded. This event pushed Goldman to discover the deepest roots of radical thought. She began scouring underground newspapers for information on the trial and was moved to great lengths by what she found in anarchist literature. She described it as “lava shooting forth flames of ridicule, scorn, and defiance….” It drew upon her newfound hatred of the media and powers that had manipulated the crime to realize their own desires – the criminalization of anarchy and dissent.

In mourning for the murdered anarchists, Goldman said,

"I had a distinct sensation that something new and wonderful had been born in my soul. A great ideal, a burning faith, a determination to dedicate myself to the memory of my martyred comrades, to make their cause my own, to make known to the world their beautiful lives and heroic deaths."

It was this clarifying moment that spurred Goldman to move to New York City. She so wanted to learn from and come to know more of the anarchists she had clutched onto for guidance and support during the volatile time of 1886.

Goldman ventured out on her first lecture tour just six months after she arrived. She closely followed the workers’ strikes throughout the country and continued to flood her mind with knowledge and insight. However, no event proved to affect her as much as the steelworkers' strike in Homestead, Pennsylvania, during the summer of 1892. It caused in her a call to arms, a call to make things right for the workers.

The Carnegie Steel Company employed more than 3,800 residents of Homestead. The owner, Andrew Carnegie, had left for Scotland and granted managing authority of the steel mill to Henry Clay Frick. Three years prior, the workers' union had won a strike and negotiated a contract that was close to expiring. On the morning of the contract’s expiration, Frick ordered the lockout of the entire workforce. Union and non-union workers joined forces and kept a close watch to prevent any scabs from entering the mill. In an attempt to break the strike, Frick hired 300 Pinkerton agents. The hired strikebreakers’ arrival on July 6, 1892, quickly turned the streets into a bloodbath. It is still unclear who fired the first shot, but in the end, seven workers and three Pinkertons were killed. When the Pinkertons surrendered and were forced out of town, the governor of Pennsylvania responded by calling up 8,500 members of the National Guard.

The news of these events had aroused the country, but nothing proved as extraordinary as its affect on Alexander Berkman, a lover and lifelong friend of Goldman. He was a devout anarchist who felt strongly in favor of the workers and saw Frick as a tyrant. He, Goldman and others were certain that Frick provoked the incident and could have avoided it if he had cared to. As the criticism of Frick grew in the minds of Americans, Berkman was moved into action by what he perceived as the coming Social Revolution.

It was his dream to see the proletariat finally rise up in resistance to the oppressor. With these revolutionary ideas flourishing, his natural tendency was to fight for this great cause. He strongly felt the call of the workers and concluded it was his duty as a true revolutionary to remove the tyrant, thereby liberating the oppressed people. Considering himself a revolutionary first and human second, Berkman did not hesitate at the idea of sacrificing his life for the cause. For him, it was a situation where the means justified the ends. His belief was that this opportunity would serve a greater cause in uniting all people against the tyrannical nature of companies and a government that serves only to maintain dominance over human lives. It was all too clear for Berkman and Goldman. This called for a political assassination, the attentat. As a message of solidarity with the workers, Berkman decided to take Frick’s life. Knowing full well the chance of Berkman’s death, Goldman struggled with the idea of him being alone at his final hour, but agreed with his reasoning. Goldman was so thoroughly convinced of the need to murder Frick, that she had convinced herself to sell her body for sex in order to help fund Berkman’s trip. Fortunately, her first potential customer was a man of moral character. He convinced her that whatever purpose she had in mind was not worth selling her body.

When Berkman arrived in Homestead he experienced and saw first-hand the effects of Frick’s harsh policies. Berkman met a widow whose husband had died while working at the mill. Frick ordered her and her children evicted from their company-owned home. He was unwilling to negotiate with any union officials or union-member employees. Berkman concluded, “The last hope is gone! The master is determined to crush his rebellious slaves.” This was the final straw. Berkman stormed into Frick’s office the following day and shot him. After being pushed away by an employee of Frick, Berkman noticed that he was still alive and fired again, this time missing. A third pull of the trigger failed to discharge. While being trampled on by a group of bystanders, Berkman managed to reach to his dagger and stab Frick twice. Frick survived the attempt on his life and Berkman was sentenced to serve 22 years in prison, even though under Pennsylvania law the crime called for seven.

In a way, for Goldman, watching the martyrdom of the anarchists in Chicago was one thing, while the martyrdom of her lover and comrade was something completely different. It moved her to great sadness and despair, especially with many in her radical circles openly calling the attempt a failure. Goldman could not bear to think that Berkman would rot away in jail for all those years without having fulfilled a greater good. This mourning for Berkman’s freedom provided the fuel for her fire. It stirred her to push onward, exposing the lies and deceit carried out by government. From these events and countless others, Goldman began to formulate her anarchist ideology. Goldman introduced to the American culture a new way of looking at society and offered a framework by which she was convinced it could be broken.

As her theories progressed, any remaining inclinations towards violence regressed from her methods. In retrospect, she looked back on the incident in Homestead as a reactionary approach to the problem and decided that the assassination attempt was counterproductive to improving the lives of the workers. As she grew with the anarchist movement, she realized a strong need for all dedicated anarchists to unite in a common cause. To her, the life and mind of a single anarchist was not worth sacrificing for the life of an oppressor.

Her changed theory on the use of violence is articulated in a speech she gave in San Francisco in 1898. “Truth is a dangerous weapon in the hands of working men and women. … When you are educated, when you realize your power, you’ll need no bombs, and no dynamite or militia will hold you.” Goldman insisted on comparing political acts of violence from below with the state-sponsored acts of violence from above. She contrasted acts of political violence with the pressures that forced them into action. Goldman insisted that, contrary to popular belief, those who commit such acts are not impelled “by the teachings of Anarchism, but by the tremendous pressure of conditions making life unbearable to their sensitive senses.” To her, it was nothing more than anti-anarchist propaganda:

"How utterly fallacious the stereotyped notion that the teachings of anarchism, or certain exponents of these teachings, are responsible for the acts of political violence. Anarchism, more than any other social theory, values human life above things."

Although Goldman’s theory on the psychology of political violence changed with her progression in anarchy, she sought to explain the social benefits of such calculated acts.

"I would say that resistance to tyranny is man’s highest ideal. So long as tyranny exists in whatever form, man’s deepest aspiration must resist it as inevitably as man must breathe. Compared with the wholesale violence of capital and government, political acts of violence are but a drop in the ocean. That so few resist is the strongest proof how terrible must be the conflict between their souls and unbearable social inequities."

Goldman’s admiration for anarchy had grown to new heights. In a speech in Oakland, California, in 1899, she explained how social ills only push us further apart, while the elite grow all the more close. “There can be no real equality without equality of opportunity,” she said. “Society rests upon the basis of the almighty dollar. Wealth gives power and creates inequality before the law. The aspiration for wealth began when one man fenced in a piece of ground and said to the rest: ‘This is mine; keep of the grass.’” In conclusion, she said,

"The true conception of society is one of the interdependence of solidarity. That the happiness of each is based upon the happiness of all and that if your fellow man suffers you must suffer and if you suffer your fellow man must suffer. Let us try to become useful men and women and give what we have of ability and talent to educate and to help others. It is only through this that we will realize the true aim of life."

By 1910, more than a decade later, Goldman had a solid understanding of what anarchism meant to her and what it represented. She defined anarchism as “the philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary.” Laws fail to bring about social change, Goldman contended. Anarchists place no hope in political machinery, as it is not designed to bring about great social change. States with the most rigid laws for mine protection, had the greatest mine disasters. In states where child-labor laws prevailed, child exploitation was at its highest. She continued, “The state, society, and moral laws all sing the same refrain: man can have all the glories of the earth, but he must not become conscious of himself.” By contrast: “Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government.”

Goldman pleaded for Americans to realize the potential of their country’s wealth:

"America is particularly boastful of her great power, her enormous national wealth. Poor America, of what avail is all her wealth, if the individuals comprising the nation are wretchedly poor? If they live in squalor, in filth, in crime, with hope and joy gone, a homeless, soilless army of human prey."

Of anarchism, she asked:

"Will it not lead to a revolution? Indeed, it will. No real social change has ever come about without a revolution. People are either not familiar with their history, or they have not yet learned that revolution is but thought carried into action."

Such a radical thought was carried into action by Leon Czolgosz on Sept. 6, 1901. His rage and discontent prompted him to shoot President William McKinley. McKinley died from his wounds eight days later and Czolgosz was sentenced to death within three weeks. Goldman read of the event while on a lecture tour. She later recalled the headline that drew her attention to the hysteria: “Assassin of President McKinley an anarchist. Confesses to having been incited by Emma Goldman. Woman anarchist wanted.” Csolgosz testified that “what started the craze to kill was a lecture I heard some time ago by Emma Goldman. … She set me on fire.” On the day he assassinated McKinley, Czolgosz claimed that “Emma Goldman’s speech was still burning me up.” He capitulated to sole responsibility for the act, but nonetheless insisted that his motive was largely inspired by Goldman. “I am an anarchist. I am a disciple of Emma Goldman. Her words set me on fire.” Goldman was arrested on circumstantial evidence in relation to McKinley’s assassination. With no official charges forthcoming, she was released two weeks later.

This chaotic event once again reinforced Goldman’s belief that government and society were inclined to judge and condemn first, and ask questions later. Goldman’s arrest provoked a nationwide hysteria and backlash against her. She was held incommunicado in jail, but did curiously get the pleasure of reading hate mail. One letter read, “You damn bitch of an anarchist. I wish I could get at you. I would tear your heart out and feed it to my dog.” Goldman would spend many nights in jail for her determined adherence to anarchy. Throughout her time in the United States, whenever the government and society found itself at a crosshairs, Goldman could be counted on to offer her unique insight and seize the opportunity to discuss anarchy. She lived her life as a radical force to be reckoned with. Her anarchy told her not to trust the judicial system as a method in acquiring justice. She often represented herself in court, speaking from the heart, denouncing the typical legalese.

When out of jail and the headlines, Goldman continued her work with vigor. She vehemently opposed all wars fought by the United States. In 1917, during the buildup to America’s entrance into World War I, Goldman was distraught by the distraction successfully sold to the masses. She wrote,

"The workers must learn that they have nothing to expect from their master. The latter, in America as well as in Europe, hesitate not a moment to send hundred thousands of the people to their death if their interests demand it. They are ever ready that their misguided slaves should have the national and patriotic banner over burning cities, over devastated countrysides, over homeless and starving humanity, just as long as they can find enough unfortunate victims to be drilled into mankillers, ready at the bidding of their masters to perform the ghastly task of bloodshed and carnage."

She insisted on continuing to denounce the reasons offered for war, hoping to stop the war before it started:

"It is still time to stem the bloody tide of war by word of mouth and pen and action. The promoters of war realize that we have looked into their cards and that we know their crooked, criminal game. We know they want war to increase their profits. Very well, let them fight their own wars. We, the people of America, will not do it for them."

Goldman was unwavering in her opposition:

"I for one will speak against war so long as my voice will last, now and during war. A thousand times rather would I die calling to the people of America to refuse to be obedient, to refuse military service, to refuse to murder their brothers, than I should ever give my voice in justification of war, except the one war of all the peoples against their despots and exploiters—the social revolution."

Although Goldman had made her life in the United States, her presence was never welcomed by the government. In 1909, the government revoked her American citizenship. By 1919, her presence was no longer tolerated by the government. The attorney general, Mitchell Palmer, initiated a rampant and widespread campaign to remove radicals and anarchists from society. These were referred to as the Palmer Raids. During these raids, Goldman was arrested and forcefully deported to Russia. Her stay in the United States had come to an end and it would be many years before she would return for short visits. Goldman had fallen victim to the powers that defined the American psyche. Her years of activism, lecturing, and writing, however, had left a permanent mark.

Her development in anarchist thought was admittedly catapulted by one event: the Haymarket Affair. But the series of events that played out over the following years made an incredible impact on her struggle with government. The government’s rash reactions to her and others helped fortify her abhorrence for government and those who hold power. Berkman’s attempted assassination of Frick and Csolgosz’ assassination of McKinley played a significant role in Goldman’s drive to be critical of society and government. She sought to change things for the better of all people and could not sit idly by while so many less fortunate lived in poverty and despair. Government reactions and distractions sway with the tide, but Goldman’s work will be one that continues to permeate the lives of many more to come.

Bibliography

Primary Sources:

Books:

Berkman, Alexander. Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist. New York: New York Review of Books, 1999.

Falk, Candace. Emma Goldman: a Documentary History of the American Years. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2003.

Goldman, Emma. Anarchy!: an Anthology of Emma Goldman’s Mother Earth. Washington D.C.: Counterpoint, 2001.

Goldman, Emma. Living My Life. New York: Dover Publications, 1970.

Goldman, Emma. Red Emma Speaks: an Emma Goldman Reader. Amherst, New York: Humanity Books, 1996.

Secondary Sources:

Books:

Morton, Marian. Emma Goldman and the American Left. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992.

Zinn, Howard. Emma. Cambridge, Massachusetts: South End Press, 2002.

Audio/spoken word:

Zinn, Howard. Heroes and Martyrs: Emma Goldman, Sacco and Vanzetti, and the Revolutionary Struggle. Winnipeg, Canada: The G7 Welcoming Committee, 2000.

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