Voltairine de Cleyre

A Correction

November 1907

Exquisite Rebel: The Essays of Voltairine de Cleyre—Feminist, Anarchist, Genius; published by State University of New York Press, 2005

[from the above book] This paragraph, published in Mother Earth, November 1907, is a brief statement of Voltairine’s mature reflection of her own place in the taxonomy of anarchism. She was, as she said elsewhere, an “anarchist without adjectives.” This was her way of negotiating the differences between homegrown American individualism and the communist anarchism associated with Peter Kropotkin and, in the States, with Emma Goldman.

Owing to a perhaps natural misunderstanding, it was stated in the American report to the Amsterdam Congress that I am a worker in the cause of Anarchist Communism. The report should have said Anarchism, simply, as I am not now, and never have been at any time, a Communist. I was for several years an individualist, but becoming convinced that a number of the fundamental propositions of individualistic economy would result in the destruction of equal liberty, I relinquished those beliefs. In doing so, however, I did not accept the proposed economy of Communism, which in some respects would entail the same result, destruction of equal freedom; always, of course, in my opinion, which I very willingly admit should not be weighed by others as of equal value with the opinions of those who make economy a thorough study, but which must, nevertheless, remain supreme with me. I am an Anarchist, simply, without economic label attached.