Emma Goldman, however, believed that social change would occur only when people's beliefs and attitudes changed, and hence her lectures were intended to educate and to inspire her audiences with a vision of social harmony. She identified with the anti-authoritarian tradition of writers Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and Leo Tolstoy as well as prominent anarchist political theorists like Peter Kropotkin and Michael Bakunin. Led by V. I. Lenin, the Bolsheviks were a centralized, disciplined party of professional revolutionaries. After their successful revolution in November 1917, however, the Bolsheviks were often ruthless toward those they considered enemies of the revolution, including many groups who had fought for decades against Czarist rule and in support of a revolution. Emma Goldman, an early supporter of the revolution, was especially troubled by the Bolsheviks' suppression of free speech and the political activities of the Russian anarchists.
Conscription is a government-initiated system for requiring men to serve in the military.
Since ancient times governments have conscripted men when they needed an army. The draft has often been a source of controversy in the United States. When the federal government began registering men for the draft during the Civil War, four days of rioting in New York City claimed the lives of over one hundred people. Those opposed to the Vietnam War often expressed their opposition by refusing to register for the draft or by burning their draft cards. Goldman and thousands of other liberals and radicals opposed conscription during World War I. Goldman was charged with conspiracy to obstruct the draft because she believed that it violated an individual's right to choose whether or not to fight.