Anarcho-pacifism
[1][5] The main early influences were the philosophies of Henry David Thoreau and Leo Tolstoy while later the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi gained significance.
Tolstoy argued that anarchism must be nonviolent since it is, by definition, opposition to coercion and force, and that since the state is inherently violent, meaningful pacifism must likewise be anarchistic.
[9] Tolstoy's philosophy was cited as a major inspiration by Mohandas Gandhi, an Indian independence leader and pacifist who self-identified as an anarchist.
"Gandhi's ideas were popularised in the West in books such as Richard Gregg's The Power of Nonviolence (1935), and Bart de Ligt's The Conquest of Violence (1937).
The editors of the anarchist journal Retort, for instance, produced a volume of writings by WWII draft resistors imprisoned at Danbury, Connecticut, while regularly publishing the poetry and prose of writers such as Kenneth Rexroth and Norman Mailer.
"[10][12] A leading British anarcho-pacifist was Alex Comfort who considered himself "an aggressive anti-militarist," and he believed that pacifism rested "solely upon the historical theory of anarchism.
[13] He exchanged public correspondence with George Orwell defending pacifism in the open letter/poem "Letter to an American Visitor" under the pseudonym "Obadiah Hornbrooke.
[1] Within the context of the emergence of the New Left and the Civil Rights Movement, "several themes, theories, actions, all distinctly libertarian, began to come to the fore and were given intellectual expression by the American anarcho-pacifist, Paul Goodman.
Ammon Hennacy (24 July 1893 – 14 January 1970) was an American pacifist, Christian anarchist, vegetarian, social activist, member of the Catholic Worker Movement and a Wobbly.
Lacaze-Duthiers, an art critic for the Symbolist review journal La Plume, was influenced by Oscar Wilde, Nietzsche and Max Stirner.
[30] From 1968 to 1982, Arru alongside the members of the Group Francisco Ferrer publishes La Libre Pensée des Bouches du Rhône.
[31] For Andrew Cornell "MNS popularized consensus decision-making, introduced the spokescouncil method of organization to activists in the United States, and was a leading advocate of a variety of practices – communal living, unlearning oppressive behavior, creating co-operatively owned businesses – that are now often subsumed under the rubric of "prefigurative politics.
On the other hand, "violence is indispensable in modern society... [because] without it the ruling class would be completely unable to maintain its privileged position with regard to the exploited masses in each country.
[1] Leo Tolstoy was influenced by it and he saw that a "great weapon for undermining (rather than overthrowing) the state was the refusal by individuals to cooperate with it and obey its immoral demands".
[2] Anarcho-pacifists can even accept "the principle of resistance and even revolutionary action (nonviolent revolution), provided it does not incur violence, which they see as a form of power and therefore nonanarchist in nature.
[4][35] Reflecting on the implications of this contradictory relationship, Christoyannopoulos invokes the Tolstoyan notion that the force utilized by the justice system to enforce the outcomes of legal proceedings is also at odds with the teachings of Christianity.
[4][36] Due to Tolstoy's religious views combined with his advocacy for the total dismantlement of the state and its apparatus in favour of the establishment of a voluntarist society, he is seen as a prominent instigator of Christian anarchism.
[5] The anarcho-pacifist ideal of a peaceful classless society is claimed to be incompatible with the competitive nature of capitalism which can ultimately lead to violent conflict.
The anarcho-punk band Crass polemicised a variant of anarcho-pacifism whilst at the same time explicitly rejecting all religions, especially the symbols of establishment Christian theology.
It was their approval of such forms of opposition to power that led some anarcho-pacifists to endorse the anarcho-syndicalist concept of the general strike as the great revolutionary weapon.
