Alexander Berkman Quotes (1870-1936)

“Things will change and the masses will awaken to the realisation that no one, no political Party or governmental clique must be permitted in the future to monopolise the Revolution, to control or direct it, for such attempts inevitably result in the death of the Revolution itself … Kropotkin particularly emphasised the constructive side of revolutions, and especially that the organisation of the economic life must be dealt with as the first and greatest necessity of a revolution, as the foundation of its existence and development.”

“In the United States Communist-anarchism appealed mostly to working-class immigrants or their children, who felt cheated by false promises of the American dream. Although some declassé intellectuals and American craftworkers joined the communists, the majority of the movement was composed of Eastern European Jews who worked in the sweatshops of New York's garment district, of Italian factory workers, and other immigrants with few skills and little hope of advancement. The two most important figures among them were Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. Originally followers of Johann Most, they emerged from his shadow in the early nineties to become the foremost advocates of revolutionary anarchism.”