Tom Goyens

From Anarchistories by Tom Goyens

When Radical Politics Went Steamboating

In July 1900, Jewish stage actors were invited to perform during a steamboat excursion organized by the Yiddish-speaking anarchist movement. There was just one problem. Through their union, the actors declined, explaining that they were accustomed to performing on a fixed stage. As one representative put it, “No actor wishes to make a fool of himself, standing on a ship and acting scenes or declaiming there while the ship rocks.” The editors reassured them that no performance was necessary. “Instead of coming to our excursion as performers,” they replied, “we ask all Jewish actors and actresses to come as our guests.”1

From Anarchistories by Tom Goyens

The oppression of women in Iran remains one of the clearest expressions of the theocratic order established in 1979. The nationwide “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising that followed the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody in September 2022 revealed not only the courage of Iranian women but also the unresolved struggle over bodily autonomy, public morality, and state power that began with the Islamic Revolution itself.

From Anarchisthistories (Substack) by Tom Goyens

Toward the Divine State

From the beginning, anarchists suspected that Iran’s revolution might end not in freedom, but in clerical rule. Today, with the benefit of hindsight, the religious character of the revolution appears obvious. But during 1978 and early 1979, events in Iran remained fluid and uncertain. Anarchists nevertheless sensed the danger early. Long hostile to clerical authority and the quite tyranny of piety, they viewed theocratic politics as inherently hostile to human emancipation.

From Anarchistories by Tom Goyens

Eight weeks into Trump’s war with Iran, the origins of the Islamic Republic are worth revisiting. The regime now confronting Washington was born in the upheaval of 1979, when the Shah’s pro-Western monarchy collapsed and Ayatollah Khomeini seized the revolutionary moment. But the Iranian Revolution was no unified uprising. The anti-Shah movement brought together a volatile mix of factions: secular nationalists, pro-Soviet Communists, Marxist guerrillas, religious left-wing militants, and Islamic fundamentalists. By 1980, Khomeini had outmaneuvered his rivals and consolidated a regime that has endured ever since.

From The Final Straw Radio

An interview with Tom Goyens, professor of history at Salisbury University and author of Johann Most: Life of a Radical, out last year from University of Illinois Press speaking about the life and times of the atheist and propagandist (notably through his journal, Freiheit) and his development from social democrat parliamentarian to socialist revolutionary to anarchist. For the chat we talk about Mosts’s life, development and legacy, from the mid-1800’s in Bavaria up to his death in 1906.

The transformative “new social history” that emerged in the 1960s was a boon to the historical profession, especially for labor and immigrant history—two pillars essential to understanding anarchism in America. Yet, despite its potential, anarchism remained a marginal topic in the history writing of the 1960s and 1970s. The reasons for this neglect are as complex as the movement itself, shaped by ideological biases, linguistic barriers, and internal dynamics among anarchists.