Anarchism; Feminism; Women -- Social and moral questions
A year later Emma Goldman was a delegate to an Anarchist conference
in New York. She was elected to the Executive Committee, but later
withdrew because of differences of opinion regarding tactical
matters. The ideas of the German-speaking Anarchists had at that
time not yet become clarified. Some still believed in parliamentary
methods, the great majority being adherents of strong centralism.
These differences of opinion in regard to tactics led in 1891 to a
breach with John Most. Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and other
comrades joined the group AUTONOMY, in which Joseph Peukert, Otto
Rinke, and Claus Timmermann played an active part. The bitter
controversies which followed this secession terminated only with the
death of Most, in 1906.
A great source of inspiration to Emma Goldman proved the Russian
revolutionists who were associated in the group ZNAMYA. Goldenberg,
Solotaroff, Zametkin, Miller, Cahan, the poet Edelstadt, Ivan von
Schewitsch, husband of Helene von Racowitza and editor of the
VOLKSZEITUNG, and numerous other Russian exiles, some of whom are
still living, were members of this group. It was also at this time
that Emma Goldman met Robert Reitzel, the German-American Heine, who
exerted a great influence on her development. Through him she became
acquainted with the best writers of modern literature, and the
friendship thus begun lasted till Reitzel's death, in 1898.
The labor movement of America had not been drowned in the Chicago
massacre; the murder of the Anarchists had failed to bring peace to
the profit-greedy capitalist. The struggle for the eight-hour day
continued. In 1892 broke out the great strike in Pittsburg. The
Homestead fight, the defeat of the Pinkertons, the appearance of the
militia, the suppression of the strikers, and the complete triumph of
the reaction are matters of comparatively recent history. Stirred to
the very depths by the terrible events at the seat of war, Alexander
Berkman resolved to sacrifice his life to the Cause and thus give an
object lesson to the wage slaves of America of active Anarchist
solidarity with labor. His attack upon Frick, the Gessler of
Pittsburg, failed, and the twenty-two-year-old youth was doomed to a
living death of twenty-two years in the penitentiary. The
bourgeoisie, which for decades had exalted and eulogized tyrannicide,
now was filled with terrible rage. The capitalist press organized a
systematic campaign of calumny and misrepresentation against
Anarchists. The police exerted every effort to involve Emma Goldman
in the act of Alexander Berkman. The feared agitator was to be
silenced by all means. It was only due to the circumstance of her
presence in New York that she escaped the clutches of the law. It
was a similar circumstance which, nine years later, during the
McKinley incident, was instrumental in preserving her liberty. It is
almost incredible with what amount of stupidity, baseness, and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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