Anarchy Defended by Anarchists
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~1,470 words · 7 passages
Cite this work
- APAEmma Goldman. (n.d.). Anarchy Defended by Anarchists. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/emma-goldman/anarchy-defended-by-anarchists
- MLAEmma Goldman. Anarchy Defended by Anarchists. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/emma-goldman/anarchy-defended-by-anarchists.
- ChicagoEmma Goldman. Anarchy Defended by Anarchists. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/emma-goldman/anarchy-defended-by-anarchists.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
An early journalistic dialogue (1896) in which Goldman and Johann Most defend anarchism before the general public.
Context and history
A piece of youth and of popularisation: interesting above all for how anarchism was explained to the readers of a mass newspaper, ten years after Haymarket. This is a short article, not a book: its size in the catalogue is no defect of the copy. Much of Goldman's work took this form, in her magazine Mother Earth and in pamphlets.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
From this it follows that Anarchism cannot be a retrograde movement, as has been insinuated, for the Anarchists march in the van and not in the rear of the army of freedom. We consider it absolutely necessary that the mass of the people should never for a moment forget the gigantic contest that must come before their ideas can be realized, and therefore they use every means at their disposal -- the speech, the press, the deed -- to hasten the revolutionary development. The weal of mankind, as the future will and must make plain, depends upon communism. The system of communism logically excludes any and every relation between master and servant, and means really Anarchism, and the way to this goal leads through a social revolution. As for the violence which people take as the characteristic mark of the Anarchist, it cannot and it shall not be denied that most Anarchists feel convinced that "violence" is not any more reprehensible toward carrying out their designs than it is when used by an oppressed people to obtain freedom. The uprising of the oppressed has always been condemned by tyrants: Persia was astounded at Greece, Rome at the Caudine Forks, and England at Bunker Hill. Can Anarchy expect less, or demand victories without striving for them?