User:Carabinieri/Portal:Anarchism/Selected article/2008/January

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Emma Goldman was a Lithuanian-born anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in the United States and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. She developed new ways of incorporating gender politics into anarchism. She spoke and wrote on a wide variety of issues, including prisons, atheism, freedom of speech, militarism, capitalism, marriage, and free love. Growing up in the province of Kaunas, in Königsberg, and in St. Petersburg, she moved to Rochester, New York in the United States at the age of sixteen and then to New York City. Attracted to anarchism after the Haymarket Riot, Goldman became a renowned lecturer, attracting crowds of thousands. She became lovers with Alexander Berkman. Together they planned to assassinate Henry Clay Frick, as an act of propaganda of the deed and Berkman was jailed for twenty-two years. She published an anarchist journal called Mother Earth. After being imprisoned for voicing her opposition the newly-instated draft in 1917, she was deported to Russia. Initially supportive of the Bolshevik revolution, Goldman quickly voiced her opposition to the Soviet use of violence and repression of independent voices. In 1923 she wrote a book about her experiences, My Disillusionment in Russia. Later she wrote an autobiography called Living My Life, and traveled to Spain to participate in that nation's civil war. She died in Toronto on 14 May 1940. More...