By: James Maropoulakis Denney. Anarchist/feminist, 1869-1940, political activist and author. She was jailed for publicly advocating birth control in America. Goldman was born in Russian Lithuania in a Jewish family, and immigrated to America in 1885.
After her release from jail, she was deported to the newly established Bolshevik paradise (or so she believed at the time), the USSR.
Goldman was thrilled that she was being deported to the new communist nation, believing that a revolution of the masses had occurred, led by the Bolsheviks, that was creating a utopian society.
After one year in the USSR, Goldman realized the horrible truth, and she left and wrote a book “My Disillusionment in Russia”, which was published in 1923. Unfortunately, and to her great surprise and dismay, the final 12 chapters of her manuscript were left out of the first book!
She then published a second book in 1924, “My Further Disillusionment in Russia”, to complete the first book. I was able to find this work recently at the Cleveland Library, and just finished reading it. It is a quite rare and valuable book, but in my opinion, it should be republished and taught in our schools, along with the first part.
I must warn readers that the first part, “My disillusionment in Russia”, has been reprinted (Xeroxed?) in paperback, in the most amateurish and shoddy way, with paragraphs and pages missing. It would be best to try to find an original edition hidden in a library somewhere, as I did with the second part.
She thoroughly exposes the evil and systemic fallacy of Bolshevism, i.e. Marxism, socialism and communism, with detailed reports of the terror instituted by the Russian “dictatorship of the proletariat”, under Lenin & Trotsky’s philosophy of “rob the robbers”. This is much the same as today’s “progressive” politicians’ ideas of wealth transfer from the productive to the unproductive, to achieve “social justice”, and the tyranny that must be used to force this false god on the citizens.
What Goldman witnessed and experienced is further proof, as if that were necessary, of the superiority of our Constitutional Republican system and its protection of individual liberty.