"Modern Joan of Arc", Emma Goldman

Emma Goldman was an international anarchist political activist and writer who conducted leftist activities. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the 20th century.

She was born in 1869 to Jewish parents in the Russian Empire and raised by a distant mother and an abusive father. She first moved to New York In 1885 and began working as a seamstress, where she met a fellow worker named Jacob Kershner. They got married in 1887 but divorced within a year. Her parents did not allow her home after the divorce, so she headed to New York City with only her sewing machine and five dollars in her bag. She was horrified by the tragic story of executions related to the 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago and found herself drawn to the labour movement and eventually to anarchism. 

On her first day in the city, she met Alexander Berkman. Together they went to hear Johann Most, editor of a radical publication called Freiheit and an advocate of "propaganda of the deed"—the use of violence to instigate change. Even though Most took her under his wing, she quickly found herself arguing with him over her independence.  Therefore she left Freiheit and joined another publication, Die Autonomie. Meanwhile, Goldman had begun a relationship with Berkman.

Homestead Strike

In June 1892, a steel plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania, owned by Andrew Carnegie became the focus of national attention when talks between the Carnegie Steel Company and the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA) broke down. The factory's manager was Henry Clay Frick, a fierce opponent of the union. When a final round of talks failed at the end of June, management closed the plant and locked out the workers, who immediately went on strike. On July 6, a twelve-hour gunfight broke out between 300 Pinkerton guards, who were brought in for protection, and a crowd of armed union workers. Seven guards and nine strikers were killed. When the majority expressed support for the strikers Goldman and Berkman resolved to assassinate Frick, in hopes to inspire the workers to revolt against the capitalist system. They decided that Berkman would be in charge of "the deed"; she of the associated propaganda. On July 23, Berkman shot Frick three times and stabbed him in the leg.  Berkman was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 22 years in prison. The police were convinced Goldman was involved but found no evidence against her. 

Panic of 1893

When the Panic of 1893 struck, the United States suffered one of its worst economic crises. Goldman spoke to a large crowd in Union Square where she encouraged unemployed workers to take immediate action. Undercover agents insist she ordered the crowd to "take everything ... by force". But Goldman later recounted this message:

"Well then, demonstrate before the palaces of the rich; demand work. If they do not give you work, demand bread. If they deny you both, take bread."

A week later, Goldman was arrested and charged with "inciting to riot”. As she awaited trial, Goldman was visited by Nellie Bly, a reporter for the New York World. Bly described her as a "modern Joan of Arc" in a positive article. 

McKinley Assassination

On September 6, 1901, Leon Czolgosz, shot US President William McKinley twice during a public speaking event in Buffalo, New York. Goldman was charged with planning McKinley's assassination after Czolgosz claimed to have been inspired to act after attending a speech by Goldman. No evidence was found linking Goldman to the attack, and she was released after two weeks of detention. Czolgosz, despite considerable evidence of mental illness, was convicted of murder and executed.

Mother Earth

In 1906, Goldman decided to start a publication called Mother Earth, "a place of expression for the young idealists in arts and letters". Goldman wrote frequently about anarchism, politics, labour issues, atheism, sexuality, and feminism, and was the first editor of the magazine. She collected a series of speeches and items she had written for Mother Earth and published a book titled Anarchism and Other Essays. Covering a wide variety of topics, Goldman tried to represent "the mental and soul struggles of twenty-one years".

Selective Service Act of 1917

Upon entering the Great War U.S. Congress passed the Selective Service Act of 1917, which required all males aged 21–30 to register for military conscription. Goldman saw the decision as an exercise in militarist aggression, driven by capitalism. Goldman and Berkman organised the No-Conscription League of New York, which proclaimed:

 "We oppose conscription because we are internationalists, antimilitarists, and opposed to all wars waged by capitalistic governments."

On June 15, 1917, Goldman and Berkman were arrested during a raid of their offices, in which authorities seized "a wagon load of anarchist records and propaganda". The jury found Goldman and Berkman guilty. Their sentence was two years imprisonment, a $10,000 fine each, and the possibility of deportation after their release from prison. Goldman and Berkman were released from prison during the United States' Red Scare of 1919–20.

In 1921 Goldman and Berkman moved to Berlin, during this time Goldman wrote a series of articles about her time in Russia for the New York World. These were later collected and published in book form as My Disillusionment in Russia (1923) and My Further Disillusionment in Russia (1924). In 1928, she began writing her autobiography Living My Life, with the support of a group of American admirers. In 1933, Goldman received permission to lecture in the United States under the condition that she speak only about drama and her autobiography—but not current political events.

Spanish War

In July 1936, the Spanish Civil War started, and  the Spanish anarchists, fighting against the Nationalist forces, started an anarchist revolution. Goldman was invited to Barcelona and for the first time in her life lived in a community run by and for anarchists, according to true anarchist principles. The Nationalist forces declared victory in Spain just before she returned to London. Frustrated by England's repressive atmosphere—which she called "more fascist than the fascists" she returned to Canada in 1939.

In 1940, Goldman suffered two strokes within weeks, she died six days later in Toronto, aged 70.

Philosophy 

Anarchism was central to Goldman's view of the world and she is today considered one of the most important figures in the history of anarchism. 

Goldman's anarchism was intensely personal. She believed it was necessary for anarchist thinkers to live their beliefs, demonstrating their convictions with every action and word.

In the title essay of her book Anarchism and Other Essays, she wrote:

Anarchism, then, really stands for 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. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations.

Goldman, in her political youth, held targeted violence to be a legitimate means of revolutionary struggle. She believed the use of violence, could be justified in relation to the social benefits it might accrue.

Goldman believed that the economic system of capitalism was incompatible with human liberty. She also argued that capitalism dehumanized workers.

Goldman viewed the state as essentially and inevitably a tool of control and domination.and as a result of her anti-state views, Goldman believed that voting was useless at best and dangerous at worst.

She disagreed with the movement for women's suffrage, which demanded the right of women to vote. In her essay "Woman Suffrage", she ridicules the idea that women's involvement would infuse the democratic state with a more just orientation. Although she was hostile to the suffragist goals of first-wave feminism, Goldman advocated passionately for the rights of women, and is today heralded as a founder of anarcha-feminism, which challenges patriarchy as a hierarchy to be resisted alongside state power and class divisions. She wrote:

"I demand the independence of woman, her right to support herself; to live for herself; to love whomever she pleases, or as many as she pleases. I demand freedom for both sexes, freedom of action, freedom in love and freedom in motherhood."