What impact did Bolshevist rule have on Emma Goldmans’s perception of the Russian Revolutions of 1917 and why did she change her mind, going from defending the Russian Revolution to becoming a crusader against Bolshevism? The Russian Revolution changed the world and determined the history of the 20th century as the French Revolution had determined the history of the 19th century. Left-wing intellectuals around the world greeted the February Revolution with enthusiasm as their hope for a new world and social order and the end of capitalism seemed close. However, the joy did not last long as the ideals of February 1917 were replaced by the realities of October 1917 and Lenin crushed the revolution during the following Civil War. Emma Goldman, a famous Russian-born American anarchist was one of the intellectuals, whose admiration for the revolution turned into frustration about its corruption. Emma Goldman and the Russian Revolution discusses her evolving perception of the revolution between 1917 and the early 1920s. The analysis of such an intellectual transformation process, provides a case study of intellectual and revolutionary history alike, adding a closer reading to the research about the famous American anarchist, Emma Goldman, her transnational life and her role as a revolutionary intellectual.

Emma Goldman has often been read for her colorful life story, her lively if troubled sex life, and her wide-ranging political activism. Few have taken her seriously as a political thinker, even though in her lifetime she was a vigorous public intellectual within a global network of progressive politics. Engaging Goldman as a political thinker allows us to rethink the common dualism between theory and practice, scrutinize stereotypes of anarchism by placing Goldman within a fuller historical context, recognize the remarkable contributions of anarchism in creating public life, and open up contemporary politics to the possibilities of transformative feminism.

Emma Goldman’s life and work offer countless perspectives for study and analysis. As an anarchist activist she always attacked any form of inequality and was a lifelong agent for freedom. Goldman, who lived a transnational life, in her writings and actions offers a kaleidoscopic image of the injustices of her time, while they emphasize her hopes and dreams for a better future at the same time. The present book, which is a collection of essays about this transnational life of an important anarchist, consequently offers a glimpse into Goldman’s personal and political kaleidoscope. It shows how she thought about revolutions in general, and the Russian Revolution in particular, while it also highlights that even an anarchist had to work according to capitalist rules to survive. In addition, Goldman’s activities to criticize gender norms and her perception as a female radical are elements that are discussed as well. The collection thereby offers a critical insight into the many facets of Emma Goldman’s life and impact in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Evolution of Socialist Feminism from Eleanor Marx to AOC traces the intersection of feminism and socialism as it has played out in the socialist movements arising in Europe and North America in the nineteenth through early twenty-first centuries. From well-known figures in the history of socialism, such as Rosa Luxemburg, Sylvia Pankhurst, and Angela Davis, to lesser-known individuals including Claudia Jones, Sheila Rowbotham, and Zillah Eisenstein, this book examines the socialist feminists who have been among the most powerful voices insisting on freedom of expression and participatory democracy within the socialist movement as well as within the larger society. It considers how these figures contributed to what has become a twenty-first-century multiracial grassroots socialist feminist movement led by young women of color, playing a major role in radical movements across the globe. The Evolution of Socialist Feminism from Eleanor Marx to AOC is an important text for undergraduate students of politics, sociology, and gender studies, as well as for the general reader.

From William Morris to Oscar Wilde to George Orwell left-libertarian thought has long been an important but neglected part of British cultural and political history. This work seeks to recover that indigenous anarchist tradition. It argues that a recovered anarchist tradition could be a touchstone for contemporary political radicals.

"This book focuses on the ideas of Emma Goldman as they relate to the centrality of sexuality and reproduction, and as such, are relevant to the current feminist debates."--BOOK JACKET.

There, she worked on behalf of the Bolshevik government, but soon became disillusioned with the Soviet state, which she came to see as a nascent tyranny. Fleeing that country, she spent the rest of her life wandering, a permanent exile "nowhere at home." During Goldman's later life, and especially after her death, her reputation went into a temporary eclipse. As the social upheavals of the earlier part of the century faded from memory and as the anarchist movement declined, she came to seem a colorful but irrelevant figure of an increasingly distant past. With the onset of a new wave of political discontent in the 1960s, however, Goldman was once again a subject of scholarly and popular interest. Her writings were reissued; her image was often displayed on wall posters and picket signs; her name and example were frequently invoked by the activists of the period.

Was she a selfless political activist? A feminist heroine? A gifted writer who rose from poverty to become a leading journalist and author of the cult classic Daughter of Earth? A spy for the Soviet Union? Or all of these things? Drawing on fifteen years of intensive research and unprecedented access to previously unpublished documents, this vibrant book brings to life one of the twentieth century's most fascinating women. Ruth Price traces Agnes Smedley's unlikely trajectory from a small Missouri town to the coal country of Colorado; to Berkeley and Greenwich Village; to Berlin, Moscow, and China. Fueled by a fury at injustice, Smedley threw herself headlong into the crucial issues of the time, from Indian independence to birth control, women's rights, and the revolution in China. Her friends included such figures as Margaret Sanger, Langston Hughes, Emma Goldman, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mao Zedong, and many others. Perhaps most important, Price uncovers an astonishing truth: Smedley, long thought to be the unfair target of a Cold War smear campaign, was indeed guilty of the espionage charges leveled against her by General Douglas MacArthur and others. Smedley worked to foment armed revolution in India and gathered intelligence for the Soviet Union, seeing it as a bulwark against fascism. Price argues that Smedley acted out of a passionate idealism and that she exhibited a courage and compassion worthy of a renewed, if more complicated, admiration today. Epic in scope, painstakingly researched, and unflinchingly honest, The Lives of Agnes Smedley offers a stunning reappraisal of one of America's most controversial Leftists and a new look at the troubled historical terrain of the first half of the twentieth century.