- Born
- Died
- Emma Goldman was born on June 27, 1869 in Kovno, Russian Empire [now Kaunas, Lithuania]. She was a writer, known for Good Enough for the People (2011). She died on May 14, 1940 in Toronto, Canada.
- Is portrayed by Maureen Stapleton in Reds (1981).
- If I can't dance, I don't want to be in your revolution.
- The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul.
- The most violent element of society is Ignorance.
- [on the Russian Revolution and the Bolshevik terror] An insignificant minority bent on creating an absolute State is necessarily driven to oppression and terrorism. [from: "My Disillusionment in Russia", Preface to First Volume, 1925]
- [on her early support of Bolshevism in spite of theoretical differences] I had always known that the Bolsheviki are Marxists. For thirty years I fought the Marxian theory as a cold, mechanistic, enslaving formula. In pamphlets, lectures and debates I argued against it. I was therefore not unaware of what might be expected from the Bolsheviki. But the Allied attack upon them made them the symbol of the Russian Revolution, and brought me to their defence. From November, 1917, until February, 1918, while out on bail for my attitude against the war, I toured America in defence of the Bolsheviki. I published a pamphlet in elucidation of the Russian Revolution and in justification of the Bolsheviki. I defended them as embodying in practice the spirit of the revolution, in spite of their theoretic Marxism. [from: "My Disillusionment in Russia", Preface to First Volume, 1925]
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