This manuscript is part of the International Institute for Social History's Alexander Berkman archive and appears in Anarchy Archives with ISSH's permission.
EARLY DAYS: Life at home and school in St. Petersburg. My bourgeois father and aristocratic mother. Jews and gentiles. I question my father about the Turkish prisoners of war begging alms in the streets.
OUR FAMILY SKELETON: Strange rumors about my mother and her brother Maxim. Echoes of the Polish rebellion of 1863. I hear of the dreaded Nihilists and revolution.
A TERRIFIED HOUSEHOLD: A bomb explodes as I recite my lesson in school. The assassination of Czar Alexander II. Secret groups in our class. Police search our house. Uncle Maxim is arrested for conspiring aga... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
Living My Life
by Emma Goldman
Volume One
New York: Alfred A Knopf Inc., 1931.
Chapter 18
AMERICA HAD DECLARED WAR WITH SPAIN. THE NEWS WAS NOT unexpected. For several months preceding, press and pulpit were filled with the call to arms in defense of the victims of Spanish atrocities in Cuba. I was profoundly in sympathy with the Cuban and Philippine rebels who were striving to throw off the Spanish yoke. In fact, I had worked with some of the members of the Junta engaged in underground activities to secure freedom for the Philippine Islands. But I had no faith whatever in the patriotic protestations of America as a disinterested and noble agency to help the Cubans. It did not require much political wisdom to see that America's concern was a matter of sugar and had nothing to do with humanitarian feelings. Of course there were plenty of credulous people, not only in the country at large, but eve...
Berkman, Alexander (1912) Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist, Mother Earth Press.
2
THE SEAT OF WAR
CONTENTEDLY PEACEFUL THE Monongahela stretches before me, its waters lazily rippling in the sunlight, and softly crooning to the murmur of the woods on the hazy shore. But the opposite bank presents a picture of sharp contrast. Near the edge of the river rises a high board fence, topped with barbed wire, the menacing aspect heightened by warlike watch-towers and ramparts. The sinister wall looks down on me with a thousand hollow eyes, whose evident murderous purpose fully justifies the name of "Fort Frick." Groups of ex cited people crowd the open spaces between the river and the fort, filling the air with the confusion of many voices. Men car rying Winchesters are hurrying by, their faces grimy, eyes bold yet anxious. From the mill-yard gape the black mouths of can non, dismantled breastworks bar the pas...
The text is from my copy of Emma Goldman's Anarchism and Other Essays. Second Revised Edition. New York & London: Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1911. pp. 115-132.
PRISONS: A SOCIAL CRIME AND FAILURE
IN 1849 Feodor Dostoyevsky wrote on the wall of his prison cell the following story of The Priest and the Devil:
"'Hello, you little fat father!' the devil said to the priest. 'What made you lie so to those poor, misled people? What tortures of hell did you depict? Don't you know they are already suffering the tortures of hell in their earthly lives? Don't you know that you and the authorities of the State are my representatives on earth? It is you that make the... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
Sex Slavery
NIGHT in a prison cell! A chair, a bed, a small washstand, four blank walls, ghastly in the dim light from the corridor without, a narrow window, barred and sunken in the stone, a grated door! Beyond its hideous iron latticework, within the ghastly walls, -a man! An old man, gray-haired and wrinkled, lame and suffering. There he sits, in his great loneliness, shut in front all the earth. There he walks, to and fro, within his measured space, apart from all he loves! 'There, for every night in five long years to come, he will walk alone, while the white age-flakes drop upon his head, while the last years of the winter of life gather and pass, and his body draws near the ashes. Every night, for five long years to come, he wil... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
A Sketch of Alexander Berkman
by Emma Goldman
Taken from The Russian Tragedy (A Review and An Outlook) (Berlin: Der Syndikalist, 1922).
To write a biographic sketch of even an ordinary man within the limited space at my disposal would be difficult. But to write about one whose personality is so complex and whose life so replete with events as that of Alexander Berkman, is almost an insurmountable task. To do justice to such a rich and colorful subject one must not be so limited by space as I am. Above all, one should be removed, in point of time and distance, from the life to be portrayed. Which is not the case in the present instance.
I shall therefore not attempt a biography at the present time. I shall merely ... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
This manuscript is part of the International Institute of Social History's Alexander Berkman Archive and appears in Anarchy Archives with IISH's permission.
Some Reminiscences of Kropotkin
By Alexander Berkman
It was about 1890, when the anarchist movement was still in its infancy in America. We were just a handful then, young men and women fired by the enthusiasm of a sublime ideal, and passionately spreading the new faith among the population of the New York Ghetto. We held our gatherings in an obscure hall in Orchard Street, but we regarded our efforts as highly successful. Every week greater numbers attended our meetings, much interest was manifested in the revolutionary teachings, and vi... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
Published Essays and Pamphlets
The Tragedy of the Political Exilesby Emma Goldman[Published in The Nation,
Oct. 10, 1934.]
DURING my ninety days in the United States
old friends and new, including people I had never met before,
spoke much of my years in exile. It seemed incredible to them
that I had been able to withstand the vicissitudes of banishment
and come back unbroken in health and spirit and with my ideal
unmarred. I confess I was deeply moved by their generous tribute.
But also I was embarrassed, not because I suffer from false modesty
or believe that kind things should be said about people only after
their death, but rather because the plight of hosts of political
exiles scattered over Europe is so tragic that... (From : University of Berkeley.)
Published Essays and Pamphlets
Voltairine De Cleyreby Emma Goldman[Published privately by The Oriole Press, Berkeley
Heights, New Jersey, mcmxxxii]Edition limited to two-hundred copies of which fifty are printed
on Nuremberg deckle-edge paper for private distribution
with the compliments of the publisher
WRITTEN IN RED
Bear it aloft, O roaring flame!
Skyward aloft, where all may see.
Slaves of the world! our cause is the same;
One is the immemorial shame;
One is the struggle, and in One name--
MANHOOD--we battle to set men free.VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE
THE FIRST TIME I MET HER--THIS MOST GIFTED AND BRILLIANT
ANARCHIST WOMAN AMERICA EVER PRODUCED--was in Philadelphia, in
August 1893. I had come to that city ... (From : University of Berkeley.)