Sasha and Emma: The Anarchist Odyssey of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman

527 Pages·2012·3.11 MB·English

by  Paul Avrich

Sasha

Emma
and

THE ANARCHIST ODYSSEY OF
ALEXANDER BERKMAN AND EMMA GOLDMAN

paul avrich

karen avrich
SASHA AND EMMA

S A S H A
and
E M M A
The Anarchist Odyssey of
Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman
Paul Avrich and Karen Avrich
Th e Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts London, En gland
•
2012
Copyright © 2012 by Karen Avrich.
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Avrich, Paul.
Sasha and Emma : the anarchist odyssey of Alexander Berkman
and Emma Goldman / Paul Avrich and Karen Avrich.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978- 0- 674- 06598- 7 (hbk. : alk. paper)
1. Berkman, Alexander, 1870– 1936. 2. Goldman, Emma,
1869–1 940. 3. Anarchists— United States— Biography.
4. Anarchism— United States— History. I. Avrich, Karen.
II. Title.
HX843.5.A97 2012
335'.83092273—dc23
[B] 2012008659
For those who told their stories to my father
For Mark Halperin, who listened to mine

Contents
preface ix
Prologue 1
i
impelling forces
1 Mother Russ ia 7
2 Pioneers of Liberty 20
3 Th e Trio 30
4 Autonomists 43
5 Homestead 51
6 Attentat 61
7 Judgment 80
8 Buried Alive 98
9 Blackwell’s and Brady 111
10 Th e Tunnel 124
11 Red Emma 135
12 Th e Assassination of McKinley 152
13 E. G. Smith 167
ii
palaces of the rich
14 Resurrection 181
15 Th e Wine of Sunshine and Liberty 195
16 Th e Inside Story of Some Explosions 214
17 Trouble in Paradise 237
18 Th e Blast 252
19 Th e Great War 267
20 Big Fish 275
iii
open eyes
21 Th e Rus sian Dream 291
22 Th e Bolshevik Myth 303
23 Charlottengrad 314
24 Globe- Trotters and Colonizers 324
25 Now and After 333
26 Bon Esprit 347
27 Pillar to Post 356
28 Old Glory 365
29 Nothing but Death Can End 379
30 Waldheim 390
notes 405
ac know ledg ments 475
index 477
Preface
When my father, Paul Avrich, died in 2006 after a long illness,
he left behind an unfi nished manuscript about the passionate half-c entury
friendship between legendary activist Emma Goldman and Alexander
Berkman, a Russian-b orn anarchist who achieved notoriety when he
attempted to assassinate the industrialist Henry Clay Frick in 1892. My
father published a number of books on Rus sian history and anarchism,
yet he was endlessly fascinated by the magnetic Goldman, a leading fi gure
in early twentieth-c entury America, and the brilliant Berkman, who served
fourteen years for the attack on Frick, and was rigidly, fervently devoted
to the anarchist creed. It was the story of Berkman and Goldman’s intense
connection and intertwined lives that my father planned to write, and he
spent de cades gathering material for the book.
In my father’s last days, he asked me to take over the project and see it
through to publication. Over six years I shaped Shasha and Emma, using an
early draft, his notes, the hundreds of interviews he conducted during his
forty- year career, and the information he collected in the United States,
Russ ia, and Eur ope. To this bounty I added my own research, examining
hundreds of newspaper and journal articles from the period; the works of
Berkman and Goldman, including their editorials, tracts, and memoirs;
scores of letters exchanged with their comrades; and numerous other pri-
mary sources. I also retraced my father’s steps, visiting sites instrumental to
the narrative. Th e scope and depth of my father’s scholarly eff ort was
nothing short of extraordinary; I alone accept full responsibility for errors
or omissions in the book.