ИСТИНА

The report is dedicated to the life and activities of American anarchist and feminist Voltarine de Cleyre (1866 – 1912) and her concept of “anarchism without adjectives”. De Cleyre became famous during the period of American labor movement when the ideas of anarchy were often heard during the strikes. Voltarine was one of the public figures who fought for the rights of workers and women and against the arbitrariness of the authorities. She demonstrated a high degree of tolerance to the variants of the anarchistic ideology and recognized all methods that were aimed to increase the human freedoms and to reduce state control. She united them on the basis of common anti-authoritarian ideals and called herself an “anarchist without adjectives”. De Cleyre was the first anarchist who raised the issue of sexual violence in marriage. In her essay "Sex Slavery" she asked a question to which the Western system found an answer only at the end of the 20th century: is it permissible for a husband to abuse his wife only because their union is bound by law? Such a question, posed during the period of brutal censorship, could be asked only by a feminist, but her position was also anarchistic, because she transferred the principle of anarchism to private life.