pattrice jones

Originally published in the Summer 2005 issue of Impact Press.

Review of The Voltairine de Cleyre Reader edited by A.J. Brigati (AK Press)

Quick — name two 19th century female anarchists. If you got stuck after Emma Goldman, then it’s time for you to meet Voltairine de Cleyre. Born into poverty in Michigan in 1866, converted to anarchism by the 1887 execution of the Haymarket martyrs, and active as a popular speaker and writer from the 1890s until her premature death in 1912, Voltairine de Cleyre was called by Emma Goldman “the most gifted and brilliant anarchist woman America ever produced.”

Like Goldman, de Cleyre condemned the objectification and exploitation of women with the same urgency with which she challenged the legitimacy of governments. Speaking with more force and honesty than many self-proclaimed feminists manage to muster today, de Cleyre dared to denounce marriage laws that permit husbands to rape their wives as “sex slavery.” De Cleyre’s essay by that name also offers an early analysis of what we now call social construction of gender.

Unlike Emma Goldman, de Cleyre supported the concept of private property. In her 1894 essay “In Defense of Emma Goldman,” de Cleyre wrote, “Miss Goldman is a communist; I am an individualist. She wishes to destroy the right of property, I wish to assert it.” Arguing against Goldman’s belief in cooperation, de Cleyre asserted that “competition in one form or another will always exist, and that it is highly desirable it should.”

Voltairine de Cleyre classed herself “as ‘Anarchist’ simply,” declining to embrace a more specific descriptor. Today, we would class many of her views as libertarian. Well aware of the evils perpetrated by capitalists in search of profits, de Cleyre defined the “essence of Commerce and Manufacture” as serving to “multiply the needs of mankind, and the desire for material possession and enjoyment.” At the same time, she approvingly cited the Jeffersonian idea that “the merchants will manage the better the more they are left free to manage for themselves.” De Cleyre described the ways that the United States government, since its inception, had been “a merchant’s machine.” Yet she accepted the naive notion that competition, unfettered by government, will ultimately result in in a more equitable economic world. These days, that notion goes by the name of “free trade.”

Voltairine de Cleyre’s views on “human nature” may strike modern readers as archaic. While some of the ideas and controversies that preoccupied Voltairine de Cleyre a century ago are outmoded, many of her observations remain fresh today. Her description of the aftermath of the McKinley assassination, during which “wild rage… stormed through the brains of the people… turning them into temporary madmen, incapable of seeing, hearing, or thinking correctly” but which eventually “spent itself” reminds the reader of the ongoing collective reaction to the events of 11 September, 2001.

Voltairine de Cleyre’s defense of direct action rightly continues to be cited to this day. In this essay, de Cleyre pointed to examples such as the Boston Tea Party, noting that “direct action has always been used, and has the historical sanction of the very people now reprobating it.” Her reference to the 1774 incident in which a tea ship was burned in the Annapolis harbor summons up thoughts of the the recent sentencing of William Cottrell for burning sport utility vehicles.

Before embracing anarchism, Voltairine de Cleyre was a lecturer for the Freethought movement, which strongly challenged religious dogma. Unfettered by today’s fad for ‘tolerating’ even the most dangerous and hateful political ideologies so long as they call themselves faiths, de Cleyre did not hesitate to argue against theism. In these days of Christian crusade, one can only hope that leftist activists one day will recover de Cleyre’s courage concerning religion, joining her in naming and explaining the necessarily negative impact of belief in a singular supreme deity.

One wonders what Voltairine de Cleyre would have thought of today’s tax-paying members of the peace movement, with their chants of “support the troops — bring them home.” De Cleyre declared the standing army to be “a standing menace to liberty,” recognizing that its existence made wars more likely. In a 1909 essay, she argued that in order to achieve peace, “all peaceful persons should withdraw their support from the army, and require that all who wish to make war do so at their own cost and risk… neither pay nor pensions are to be provided for those who choose to make man-killing a trade.” Here, and in her reminder that “against a real General Strike, the military can do nothing,” de Cleyre offers ideas and insights that ought not be forgotten.

Every public library should have this book. While not the anarcha-feminist foremother that many of us would wish for, Voltairine de Cleyre was an important figure in both anarchist and feminist history whose ideas deserve to continue to be heard.