Content area
Full text
Albert Moritz and Theresa Moritz, (Vancouver: Subway Books, 2001)
PERHAPS THE MOST NOTORIOUS anarchist in North America, a mere echo of the name Emma Goldman (1869-1940) was at one time enough to provoke fear and condemnation from sectors of the capitalist and elite establishment. It was also the cause of acute consternation and vigorous denunciation from various socialist and communist organizations. "Red Emma," as she was sometimes known, was thought to be "the most dangerous woman in America." She was schooled in the anarchist-communist philosophy of the Russian-born Peter Kropotkin and in the street-corner labour-hall agitation of the late 19th century. She was a free-love advocate, champion of birth control, supporter of libertarian education, defender of political prisoners, and "enemy of all government."
Biographically, Goldman is commonly portrayed as possessing a militant self-assurance, indefatigable endurance, unfaltering enthusiasm, and boundless dedication to her cause: nothing less than "total human emancipation." By many accounts she possessed these traits in abundance, but in a letter dated 5 January 1935 she wrote from her residence in Toronto to her comrade Alexander Berkman: "Fact is dearest, we are fools. We cling to an ideal nobody wants or cares about. And I am the greater fool of the two of us. I go eating my heart out and poisoning every moment of my life in the attempt to rouse people's sensibilities. At least if I could do it with closed...