The Tragedy of the Political Exiles

Emma Goldman

[10 October, 1934]

The Tragedy of the Political Exiles The barbarity of fascism and Nazism is being condemned and fought by the persons who have remained perfectly indifferent to the Golgotha of the Russian politicals. And not only indifferent; they actually justify the barbarities of the Russian dictatorship as inevitable. All these good people are under the spell of the Soviet myth.... A recent appeal of the International Workingmen's Association gives a heart-breaking picture of the condition of Anarchists and Anarcho-Syndicalists in Stalin's stronghold. Renewed arrests in Odessa, Tomsk, Archangel, and other parts of Russia have taken place.... No charge whatever is made against the victims. Without hearing or trial they have been sent away...to isolated parts.... [T]here is no hope of liberation during the much-praised Communist experiment.