Emma Goldman
Эмма Гольдман
Exiled revolutionary who made anarchism an international political movement
After witnessing the crushing of Kronstadt, Goldman wrote: 'Kronstadt broke the last thread that held me to the Bolsheviki.' She left Soviet Russia in December 1921.
Russian-born anarchist revolutionary, writer, and orator who emigrated to the United States. Politically awakened by the Haymarket affair, she played a pivotal role in developing anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe. Known as 'Red Emma,' she drew thousands to lectures on birth control, free love, and antimilitarism, and was deported to Soviet Russia in 1919. After the Kronstadt rebellion, she became a prominent critic of Bolshevik authoritarianism, documenting her disillusionment in My Disillusionment in Russia (1923).
Career timeline
- 1889Moves to NYC; mentored by Johann Most, enters anarchist movement
- 1892Implicated in Berkman's attempted assassination of Henry Clay Frick
- 1893First imprisonment — one year for incitement after Union Square speech
- 1906Founds the anarchist journal Mother Earth
- 1917Sentenced to two years for anti-draft organizing
- 1919Deported to Soviet Russia aboard the 'Soviet Ark' Buford
- 1923Publishes My Disillusionment in Russia, a critique of Bolshevik rule
- 1936Supports the anarchist revolution in the Spanish Civil War