History of anarchism

The first traces of formal anarchist thought can be found in ancient Greece and China, where numerous philosophers questioned the necessity of the state and declared the moral right of the individual to live free from coercion.

Taoist sages Lao Tzu and Zhuang Zhou, whose principles were grounded in an "anti-polity" stance and a rejection of any kind of involvement in political movements or organisations, developed a philosophy of "non-rule" in the Tao Te Ching and the Zhuangzi.

Taoism and neo-Taoism had principles more akin to a philosophical anarchism—an attempt to delegitimise the state and question its morality—and were pacifist schools of thought, in contrast with their Western counterparts some centuries later.

Like many modern anarchists, he believed that if people follow their instincts, they will have no need of law courts or police, no temples and no public worship, and use no money—free gifts taking the place of monetary exchanges.

[28] In Persia during the Middle Ages a Zoroastrian prophet named Mazdak, now considered a proto-socialist, called for the abolition of private property, free love and overthrowing the king.

The development of anarchism was strongly influenced by the works of Jean Meslier, Baron d'Holbach, whose materialistic worldview later resonated with anarchists, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, especially in his Discourse on Inequality and arguments for the moral centrality of freedom.

[10][42] In his Manifeste des Égaux (Manifesto of the Equals) of 1801, Sylvain Maréchal looked forward to the disappearance, once and for all, of "the revolting distinction between rich and poor, of great and small, of masters and valets, of governors and governed".

[65] Stirner advocated self-assertion and foresaw unions of egoists, non-systematic associations continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will, which proposed as a form of organisation in place of the state.

[75] In this "classical" era, roughly defined as the period between the Paris Commune of 1871 and the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939[76] (or the 1840s[77]/1860s[1][78] through 1939[79]), anarchism played a prominent role in working-class struggles (alongside Marxism) in Europe as well as in the Americas, Asia, and Oceania.

[100] Kropotkin elaborated on the theory behind the revolution of anarcho-communism saying, "it is the risen people who are the real agent and not the working class organised in the enterprise (the cells of the capitalist mode of production) and seeking to assert itself as labour power, as a more 'rational' industrial body or social brain (manager) than the employers".

[110] The French Confédération Générale du Travail (General Confederation of Labour) was one of Europe's most prominent syndicalist organisations and, while rejecting illegalism, was heavily influenced by anarchism.

[127][128] The dismemberment of the French socialist movement and, following the suppression of the 1871 Paris Commune, the execution or the exile of many communards to penal colonies favoured individualist political expression and acts.

[129] But the prime factor in the rise of propaganda of the deed, as historian Constance Bantman outlines, was the writings of Russian revolutionaries between 1869 and 1891, namely of Mikhail Bakunin and Sergei Nechaev who developed significant insurrectionary strategies.

[136] In Europe, a wave of illegalism (the embracement of a criminal way of life) spread throughout the anarchist movement, with Marius Jacob, Ravachol, intellectual Émile Henry and the Bonnot Gang being notable examples.

[137][138] In Russia, Narodnaya Volya ("People's Will" which was not an anarchist organisation but nevertheless drew inspiration from Bakunin's work), assassinated Tsar Alexander II in 1881 and gained some popular support.

In France and the United States, for example, members of the major syndicalist movements of the Confédération Générale du Travail (General Confederation of Labour) and Industrial Workers of the World left these organisations to join the Communist International.

[164] In Mexico, the Mexican Liberal Party was established and during the early 1910s it conducted a series of military offensives, leading to the conquest and occupation of certain towns and districts in Baja California.

[166] Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two insurrectionary anarchists and Italian migrants to the United States, were convicted of involvement in an armed robbery and the murders of two people in 1920.

[175] In Spain, the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (National Confederation of Labour or CNT) initially refused to join a popular front electoral alliance.

[176] In response to the army rebellion, an anarchist-inspired movement of peasants and workers, supported by armed militias, took control of Barcelona and large areas of rural Spain where they collectivised the land.

[181] The Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI) was founded later to keep CNT on a pure anarchist path amidst dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera's crackdown on labour movements.

[183] In 1936, the Popular Front (an electoral alliance dominated by left-wingers) won the elections and months later the former ruling class responded with an attempted coup causing the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939).

[176][184] In response to the army rebellion, an anarchist-inspired movement of peasants and workers, supported by armed militias, took control of urban and large areas of rural Spain where they collectivised the land.

[189] Anarchists of CNT-FAI faced a major dilemma after the coup had failed in July 1936: either continue their fight against the state or join the anti-fascist left-wing parties and form a government.

[197][198] Young Chinese anarchists in the early days of the 20th century voiced the cause of revolutionary anarcho-communism along with humanism, belief in science and universalism in the journal Hsin Shih-chi.

[213][23] Josiah Warren was, at the late 19th century, a prominent advocate of a variant of mutualism called equitable commerce, a fair trade system where the price of a product is based on labor effort instead of the cost of manufacturing.

They were an important part of the anarchist, free schooling, socialist, and labour movements in the United States intending to educate the working classes from a secular, class-conscious perspective.

[236] In his work Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements published 1962, he wrote that after 1936 it was "a ghost that inspires neither fear among governments nor hope among peoples nor even interest among newspapermen".

[237] Capitalism continued to grow throughout the post-war period despite predictions from Marxist scholars that it would soon collapse under its own contradictions, yet anarchism gained a surprising surge in popular interest during the 1960s.

The conflict there emerged during the Syrian Civil War and Rojava's decentralized model is founded upon Bookchin's ideas of libertarian municipalism and social ecology within a secular framework and ethnic diversity.