Viroqua Daniels was an Iowa-born anarchist writer who challenged everything from capitalism to the traditional family structure. Known for her sharp, no-nonsense style, Daniels wrote for radical publications like Firebrand and Free Society. Her fierce critiques of authority and her call for self-emancipation and mutual aid made her a unique and influential voice in the fight for social change.
Thanks for this newsletter and the research you do, but I really wish you would have not validated some of the oppressive or repressive logics behind the trope of crazy bomb-throwers with that reactive "most anarchists didn't do that thing and even criticized it."
Saying most anarchists aren't crazy helps isolate those who are identified or self-identify as crazy, and reinforces dominant institutions and conceptions of mental health which are, truly, harmful.
As for the bombs, assassinations were long a regular part of the anarchist toolbox, bringing down repressive kings and generals by anarchists who also helped organize rent strikes and labor strikes and rallies and what today we'd call mutual aid projects. Given that, what kinds of rhetoric are you validating and reinforcing by creating distance between anarchists and the accusations of craziness and direct action, rather than deconstructing the repressive values of those accusations?
Putting it in current terms can help us think about this, and also show that it's not a historical quibble. Luigi M recently murdered a healthcare CEO for profiting off of countless intentional deaths. Most normal people applauded or at least sympathized with what he did and saw how it was relevant to our own experiences, even as the entire media from Fox to CNN portrayed him as crazy and violent. It was a rare moment of clarity, those on top divided from those on below. Saying something like "well, we can problematize it later whether that's an accurate characterization but most of us don't do that and we don't support that" just demonstrates really backwards priorities, in my mind.
Anyways, hope you're having a good week, and thanks again for your research.
Thank you for your comment and for recommending my Substack—I appreciate both! You raise an important point about my use of the word "crazed." I was referencing the language commonly used by the mainstream press in the 19th and 20th centuries (in both America and Europe) to depict all anarchists. Perhaps I should have put the term in quotation marks to highlight this, although I don’t believe the paragraph is so ambiguous as to confuse readers about its intent: I was describing a historical stereotype, not disparaging mental health conditions.
Regarding your comment on bombs and assassinations, I’m not entirely sure I understood your position correctly, so please let me know if I’ve misrepresented your argument in my response. I should also confess that I have not read your work in detail and may miss points you have argued elsewhere.
It seems like you’re suggesting that the stereotype of the anarchist bomb-thrower is justified because bombings and assassinations (by anarchists) were common and were seen as legitimate forms of direct action. As a historian of anarchism, I’ve written extensively about “propaganda by the deed” and the debates among social revolutionaries and anarchists on this topic. The historical record does not support this stereotype, as many scholars (e.g., Paul Avrich, Richard Jensen, Zoe Baker) have demonstrated. While some anarchists did engage in acts of political violence, they represented a tiny minority of the movement. On the whole, anarchists organized very few violent conspiracies, and much of the terrorism attributed to anarchists was, in fact, carried out by populists, nationalists, socialists, or government agents. This stereotype was largely a creation of the mainstream press, public opinion, and governments intent on suppressing political dissent.
That said, it’s true that revolutionary rhetoric about political violence and terrorism was prominent within certain anarchist circles. There were anarchists who carried out bombings and assassinations in Europe and North America, but most anarchists adhered to the principle of unity between means and ends—a philosophy I also advocate. This principle was at the heart of many internal debates in the movement. In the end, a majority rejected the endorsement of violent, terrorist tactics, though many anarchists could understand or even sympathize with the motives. Even the firebrand Johann Most (the subject of my upcoming biography, due next fall) ultimately rejected revolutionary terrorism and individual acts of violence in service of the cause. Many anarchists supported self-defense and the arming of workers for training and defensive purposes, but that’s very different from acts like bombing a crowded bourgeois theater, assassinating industrialists (e.g., Frick), or setting tenements ablaze.
Furthermore, are you suggesting that bombings and assassinations were/are equally valid or legitimate forms of direct action, comparable to strikes, demonstrations, sabotage, or mutual aid projects? This is a philosophical question that anarchists grappled with extensively in the 19th and 20th centuries. My view is that there’s an important ethical and philosophical distinction that goes back to the unity of means and ends. I understand, of course, that you may disagree on this point.
I have my own opinions about figures like Luigi M., but for now, I’ll stick to the historical context.
I don't have much time for a fuller response, so I'm just going to share a few quick points and questions in response.
Johann Most publicly repudiated his support for the Attentat-- propaganda by the deed -- in a very specific context you fail to mention: he was afraid of repression after Alexander Berkman, a very real anarchist, tried to kill the steel boss Frick. Emma Goldman publicly horsewhipped Most for a coward and a liar when Most changed his position and even suggested Berkman might have been a provocateur.
*There has never been a scientific poll taken of anarchists that would support your assertion that "most anarchists were against it" and we can demonstrate how police repression pushed many public intellectuals amongst the anarchists to a more pacified position, or forcibly closed down anarchist presses that would not be cowed. The IWW also changed their position not just on propaganda by the deed but also on sabotage, as a direct response to police repression and the insidious strategy of placation coming from the Left (a strategy that never works).
*I'm going to go out on a limb and guess, respectfully, that you don't read (at least on a research level) in Spanish. The English-language movement has lost much more of its history and gone in a more leftist/recuperative direction, but in Spanish and Catalan there is much fuller and more accurate historiography about how widespread and widely supported propaganda by the deed was. They're also able, unlike most anglophone historiographers, to distinguish between the kinds of bombings carried out by police provocateurs and those carried out by anarchists.
*For any Spanish readers out there, I would recommend the extensive anarchist historiography regarding direct action in Spain, Argentina, and Uruguay. We also have the excellent book, Anarquistas de Bialystok, about Jewish anarchists in Bialystok who in and around the 1905 revolution carried out hundreds of bombings and assassinations and other direct actions against the police, antisemites, and the local Jewish bourgeoisie.
*There are plenty of oral historians in Rust Belt cities like Milwaukee and Cleveland who can still tell you about the numerous bombings by real anarchists carried out around the turn of the century. In Cleveland they (we) forced the mass exodus of the wealthy to a completely different neighborhood farther from the working class center, and in Milwaukee they blew up a police station.
Thank you for this post! As an American of anarchist sympathies but not well versed in its history, the only anarchist woman I've heard of is Emma Goldman. I suspect that's common for many Americans with some education. I was excited reading about Daniels and the many organizations and people she worked with. I had no idea that there was so much organized activity at the time.
Thanks. A fascinating life. A "native born" anarcho-communist who came by it through life experiences!
Thanks for this newsletter and the research you do, but I really wish you would have not validated some of the oppressive or repressive logics behind the trope of crazy bomb-throwers with that reactive "most anarchists didn't do that thing and even criticized it."
Saying most anarchists aren't crazy helps isolate those who are identified or self-identify as crazy, and reinforces dominant institutions and conceptions of mental health which are, truly, harmful.
As for the bombs, assassinations were long a regular part of the anarchist toolbox, bringing down repressive kings and generals by anarchists who also helped organize rent strikes and labor strikes and rallies and what today we'd call mutual aid projects. Given that, what kinds of rhetoric are you validating and reinforcing by creating distance between anarchists and the accusations of craziness and direct action, rather than deconstructing the repressive values of those accusations?
Putting it in current terms can help us think about this, and also show that it's not a historical quibble. Luigi M recently murdered a healthcare CEO for profiting off of countless intentional deaths. Most normal people applauded or at least sympathized with what he did and saw how it was relevant to our own experiences, even as the entire media from Fox to CNN portrayed him as crazy and violent. It was a rare moment of clarity, those on top divided from those on below. Saying something like "well, we can problematize it later whether that's an accurate characterization but most of us don't do that and we don't support that" just demonstrates really backwards priorities, in my mind.
Anyways, hope you're having a good week, and thanks again for your research.
Dear Peter,
Thank you for your comment and for recommending my Substack—I appreciate both! You raise an important point about my use of the word "crazed." I was referencing the language commonly used by the mainstream press in the 19th and 20th centuries (in both America and Europe) to depict all anarchists. Perhaps I should have put the term in quotation marks to highlight this, although I don’t believe the paragraph is so ambiguous as to confuse readers about its intent: I was describing a historical stereotype, not disparaging mental health conditions.
Regarding your comment on bombs and assassinations, I’m not entirely sure I understood your position correctly, so please let me know if I’ve misrepresented your argument in my response. I should also confess that I have not read your work in detail and may miss points you have argued elsewhere.
It seems like you’re suggesting that the stereotype of the anarchist bomb-thrower is justified because bombings and assassinations (by anarchists) were common and were seen as legitimate forms of direct action. As a historian of anarchism, I’ve written extensively about “propaganda by the deed” and the debates among social revolutionaries and anarchists on this topic. The historical record does not support this stereotype, as many scholars (e.g., Paul Avrich, Richard Jensen, Zoe Baker) have demonstrated. While some anarchists did engage in acts of political violence, they represented a tiny minority of the movement. On the whole, anarchists organized very few violent conspiracies, and much of the terrorism attributed to anarchists was, in fact, carried out by populists, nationalists, socialists, or government agents. This stereotype was largely a creation of the mainstream press, public opinion, and governments intent on suppressing political dissent.
That said, it’s true that revolutionary rhetoric about political violence and terrorism was prominent within certain anarchist circles. There were anarchists who carried out bombings and assassinations in Europe and North America, but most anarchists adhered to the principle of unity between means and ends—a philosophy I also advocate. This principle was at the heart of many internal debates in the movement. In the end, a majority rejected the endorsement of violent, terrorist tactics, though many anarchists could understand or even sympathize with the motives. Even the firebrand Johann Most (the subject of my upcoming biography, due next fall) ultimately rejected revolutionary terrorism and individual acts of violence in service of the cause. Many anarchists supported self-defense and the arming of workers for training and defensive purposes, but that’s very different from acts like bombing a crowded bourgeois theater, assassinating industrialists (e.g., Frick), or setting tenements ablaze.
Furthermore, are you suggesting that bombings and assassinations were/are equally valid or legitimate forms of direct action, comparable to strikes, demonstrations, sabotage, or mutual aid projects? This is a philosophical question that anarchists grappled with extensively in the 19th and 20th centuries. My view is that there’s an important ethical and philosophical distinction that goes back to the unity of means and ends. I understand, of course, that you may disagree on this point.
I have my own opinions about figures like Luigi M., but for now, I’ll stick to the historical context.
cheers, Tom
Hi Tom,
Thanks for this response.
I don't have much time for a fuller response, so I'm just going to share a few quick points and questions in response.
Johann Most publicly repudiated his support for the Attentat-- propaganda by the deed -- in a very specific context you fail to mention: he was afraid of repression after Alexander Berkman, a very real anarchist, tried to kill the steel boss Frick. Emma Goldman publicly horsewhipped Most for a coward and a liar when Most changed his position and even suggested Berkman might have been a provocateur.
*There has never been a scientific poll taken of anarchists that would support your assertion that "most anarchists were against it" and we can demonstrate how police repression pushed many public intellectuals amongst the anarchists to a more pacified position, or forcibly closed down anarchist presses that would not be cowed. The IWW also changed their position not just on propaganda by the deed but also on sabotage, as a direct response to police repression and the insidious strategy of placation coming from the Left (a strategy that never works).
*I'm going to go out on a limb and guess, respectfully, that you don't read (at least on a research level) in Spanish. The English-language movement has lost much more of its history and gone in a more leftist/recuperative direction, but in Spanish and Catalan there is much fuller and more accurate historiography about how widespread and widely supported propaganda by the deed was. They're also able, unlike most anglophone historiographers, to distinguish between the kinds of bombings carried out by police provocateurs and those carried out by anarchists.
*For any Spanish readers out there, I would recommend the extensive anarchist historiography regarding direct action in Spain, Argentina, and Uruguay. We also have the excellent book, Anarquistas de Bialystok, about Jewish anarchists in Bialystok who in and around the 1905 revolution carried out hundreds of bombings and assassinations and other direct actions against the police, antisemites, and the local Jewish bourgeoisie.
*There are plenty of oral historians in Rust Belt cities like Milwaukee and Cleveland who can still tell you about the numerous bombings by real anarchists carried out around the turn of the century. In Cleveland they (we) forced the mass exodus of the wealthy to a completely different neighborhood farther from the working class center, and in Milwaukee they blew up a police station.
*Cheers and happy new year.
On a much more appreciative note, I'm really glad you're helping bring more awareness to old-timers like Mühsam and Traven.
Thank you for this post! As an American of anarchist sympathies but not well versed in its history, the only anarchist woman I've heard of is Emma Goldman. I suspect that's common for many Americans with some education. I was excited reading about Daniels and the many organizations and people she worked with. I had no idea that there was so much organized activity at the time.