Socialists in America were strongly opposed to entering the Great War. For Goldman and Berkman, the entire situation was absolute madness, government at its lowest and most evil. The various heads of state at war included the King of Italy, the Czar of Russia, the German Kaiser, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Franz Joseph, who was both an emperor and a king. This is who the working classes should give their lives for? Men without a pot to piss in should die so that sultans and kings maintained their hold on power?
