Her definition of anarchism first appeared on the masthead of Mother Earth in the issue of April 1910: "The philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestrained by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary." In her oft-repeated lecture on the subject she warmly described the benefits to ensue from social revolution:
Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations.
To the end of her life Emma avowed the soundness and practicality of her doctrine. As late as 1934 she declared in Harper's Magazine: "I am certain that Anarchism is too vital and too close to human nature ever to die. When the failure of modern dictatorship and authoritarian philosophies becomes apparent and the realization of failure more general, Anarchism will be vindicated." It was her belief that sooner or later the mass of mankind would perceive the futility of begging for crumbs and would take power into its own hands. Since she scorned political means, she expounded the validity of direct action. This method she defined as the "conscious individual or collective effort to protest against, or remedy, social conditions through the systematic assertion of the economic power of the workers." Once the state and capitalism were destroyed, anarchism would assume the form of free communism, which she described as "a social arrangement based on the principle: To each according to his needs; from each according to his ability." It must be stressed that although the wording is common to all forms of communism, that of Marx and Lenin implies strict centralized authority, while that of Kropotkin and Emma Goldman envisions complete decentralization and the supremacy of the individual.
No man who has pondered the concept of the good life will fail to appreciate the ideal propounded by the anarchists. And one who has observed the results of modern dictatorship cannot but sympathize with a vision of the future in which the individual is the prime beneficiary of all social activity. Yet life often makes mock of man's noblest dreams. Emma may have been "the daughter of the dream"; her doctrine remains as utopian as it is alluring. There is no gainsaying the fact that modern conditions still favor national and industrial centralization. The philosophy of anarchism appears less tenable today than ever.
Though in no sense a pacifist, Emma Goldman was intensely opposed to wars between nations. The very idea of human slaughter on the battlefield appeared to her as barbaric and criminal. And to her the culprit was the state. Without governments to lead their subjects to battle wars would be as unthinkable as duels are now. "No war is justified unless it be for the purpose of overthrowing the Capitalist system and establishing industrial control for the working class."
Her first contact with war occurred in 1898, when the United States attacked Spain. While she abominated the medieval monarchy which oppressed the Cubans, she did not want our politicians and industrialists to use the liberation of that island as a pretext for their imperial aggrandizement. She therefore agitated against the war at every one of her lectures, and did not cease to expose our imperialist intentions until the end of the fighting. Fortunately for her, the liberties of the people were not curbed as a result of the war, and the police did not consider her lack of patriotism more provoking than her advocacy of anarchism.
In 1914, when war broke out in Europe, she immediately perceived its catastrophic nature and condemned its instigators as monstrous criminals. Alexander Berkman, who had been enjoying uneasy liberty since 1906 and who worked closely with her despite their intermittent personal and ideological differences, at once joined her in the attack. Both did their utmost to rouse the people against our involvement. It was a hard and increasingly thankless fight against deep-seated prejudices. Consternation struck their hearts when they learned that Peter Kropotkin and other eminent anarchists had embraced the cause of the Allies and were participating in the propaganda campaign against Germany. Resolved to retain their sanity in a world gone mad, they repudiated all "warmongers" regardless of their previous professions and intensified their efforts to keep the United States out of the European holocaust.
When events moved us in the direction of belligerency, the government sought feverishly to regiment the nation for the war struggle. Emma, Berkman, and numerous other radicals resisted this martial hysteria with all the force at their command. Mother Earth blasted the proponents of preparedness in issue after issue and denounced the government for trampling upon the Bill of Rights in its hypocritical pretence of making the world safe for democracy. Emma denounced the capitalist basis of war before crowds of enthusiastic sympathizers. As late as March 1917 she wrote:
I for one will speak against war so long as my voice will last, now and during the war. A thousand times rather would I die calling to the people of America to refuse to be obedient, to refuse military service, to refuse to murder their brothers, than I should ever give my voice in justification of war, except the one war of all the peoples against their despots and exploiters—the Social Revolution.