Anarchism and violence have been linked together by events inanarchist history such asviolent revolution,terrorism, andassassination attempts. Leading late 19th century anarchists espousedpropaganda by deed, orattentáts, and was associated with a number of incidents ofpolitical violence.Anarchist thought, however, is quite diverse on the question of violence. Where some anarchists have opposedcoercive means on the basis of coherence, others have supported acts of violent revolution as a path toward anarchy.[1]Anarcho-pacifism is a school of thought within anarchism which rejects all violence.
Many anarchists regard the state to be at the definitional center ofstructural violence: directly or indirectly preventing people from meeting their basic needs, calling for violence as self-defense.[a]
Perhaps the first anarchist periodical was namedThe Peaceful Revolutionist.
Propaganda by deed (or propaganda of the deed, from the Frenchpropagande par le fait[2]) is specific politicaldirect action meant to be exemplary to others and serve as a catalyst for revolution. It is primarily associated with acts of violence perpetrated by proponents ofinsurrectionary anarchism in the late 19th and early 20th century, including bombings andassassinations aimed at the State, theruling class, andChurch arsons targeting religious groups, even though propaganda of the deed also hadnon-violent applications.[3] These acts ofterrorism were intended to ignite a "spirit of revolt" by demonstrating the state, the middle and upper classes, and religious organizations were not omnipotent and also to provoke the State to become escalatingly repressive in its response.[4] The1881 London Social Revolutionary Congress gave the tactic its approval.[5]
The Italian revolutionaryCarlo Pisacane wrote in his "Political Testament" (1857) that "ideas spring from deeds and not the other way around"[6] andMikhail Bakunin stated in 1870 that "we must spread our principles, not with words but with deeds, for this is the most popular, the most potent, and the most irresistible form of propaganda."[7] By the 1880s, the slogan "propaganda by deed" had begun to be used both within and outside of the anarchist movement to refer to individual bombings,regicides andtyrannicides, and was formally adopted as a strategy by the anarchist1881 London Social Revolutionary Congress.[4]
While revolutionary bombings and assassinations appeared as an indiscriminate call to violence to outsiders, anarchists saw "the idea of the propaganda by deed, or theattentat (attack), [as having] a very specific logic". In a capitalist world founded on force and constant threat of violence (laws, church, paychecks), "to do nothing, to stand idly by while millions suffered, was itself to commit an act of violence". This did not seek to justify violence but find what violence would effectively undo malignant state forces.[8] Propaganda by deed included stealing (in particularbank robberies – named "expropriations" or "revolutionary expropriations" to finance the organization), rioting andgeneral strikes which aimed at creating the conditions of an insurrection or even a revolution. These acts were justified as the necessary counterpart to state repression. As early as 1911,Leon Trotsky condemned individual acts of violence by anarchists as useful for little more than providing an excuse for state repression. "The anarchist prophets of the 'propaganda by the deed' can argue all they want about the elevating and stimulating influence of terrorist acts on the masses," he wrote in 1911, "Theoretical considerations and political experience prove otherwise."Vladimir Lenin largely agreed, viewing individual anarchist acts of terrorism as an ineffective substitute for coordinated action by disciplined cadres of the masses. Both Lenin and Trotsky acknowledged the necessity of violent rebellion and assassination to serve as a catalyst for revolution, but they distinguished between thead hoc bombings and assassinations carried out by proponents of the propaganda by deed, and organized violence coordinated by a professionalrevolutionary vanguard utilized for that specific end.[9]
Some anarchists, such asJohann Most, advocated publicizing violent acts of retaliation against counter-revolutionaries to "preach ... action as propaganda".[10] It was not advocacy for mass murder, but a call fortargeted killings of the representatives of capitalism and government at a time when such action might garner sympathy from the population, such as during periods of government repression or labor conflicts,[11] although Most himself once claimed that "the existing system will be quickest and most radically overthrown by the annihilation of its exponents. Therefore, massacres of the enemies of the people must be set in motion."[12] In 1885, he publishedThe Science of Revolutionary Warfare, a technical manual for acquiring and detonating explosives based on the knowledge he acquired by working at an explosives factory in New Jersey.[13] Most was an early influence on American anarchistsEmma Goldman andAlexander Berkman. Berkman attempted propaganda by deed when he tried in 1892 to kill industrialistHenry Clay Frick following the deaths by shooting of severalstriking workers.[14]
As early as 1887, a few important figures in the anarchist movement had begun to distance themselves from individual acts of violence.Peter Kropotkin thus wrote that year inLe Révolté that "a structure based on centuries of history cannot be destroyed with a few kilos of dynamite".[15] A variety of anarchists advocated the abandonment of these sorts of tactics in favor of collective revolutionary action, for example through thetrade union movement. Theanarcho-syndicalist,Fernand Pelloutier, argued in 1895 for renewed anarchist involvement in the labor movement on the basis that anarchism could do very well without "the individual dynamiter."[16]State repression (including the infamous 1894 Frenchlois scélérates) of the anarchist andlabor movements following the few successful bombings and assassinations may have contributed to the abandonment of these kinds of tactics, although reciprocally state repression, in the first place, may have played a role in these isolated acts. The dismemberment of the Frenchsocialist movement, into many groups and, following the suppression of the 1871Paris Commune, the execution and exile of manycommunards topenal colonies, favored individualist political expression and acts.[17]
The anarchistLuigi Galleani, perhaps the most vocal proponent of propaganda by deed from the turn of the century through the end of the First World War, took undisguised pride in describing himself as a subversive, a revolutionary propagandist and advocate of the violent overthrow of established government and institutions through the use of 'direct action', i.e., bombings and assassinations.[18][19] Galleani heartily embraced physical violence and terrorism, not only against symbols of the government and the capitalist system, such as courthouses and factories, but also through direct assassination of 'enemies of the people': capitalists, industrialists, politicians, judges, and policemen.[19][20] He had a particular interest in the use of bombs, going so far as to include a formula for the explosivenitroglycerine in one of his pamphlets advertised through his monthly magazine,Cronaca Sovversiva.[20] By all accounts, Galleani was an extremely effective speaker and advocate of his policy of violent action, attracting a number of devoted Italian-American anarchist followers who called themselvesGalleanists. Carlo Buda, the brother of Galleanist bombmakerMario Buda, said of him, "You heard Galleani speak, and you were ready to shoot the first policeman you saw".[21]
Anarcho-pacifism (also pacifist anarchism or anarchist pacifism) is a form of anarchism which completely rejects the use of violence in any form for any purpose. Important proponents includeLeo Tolstoy andBart de Ligt.Mohandas Gandhi is an important influence.[citation needed]
Henry David Thoreau, though not a pacifist himself,[22] influenced both Leo Tolstoy and Mohandas Gandhi's advocacy ofNonviolent resistance through his workCivil Disobedience.[23]
At some point anarcho-pacifism had as its main proponentChristian anarchism. The first large-scale anarcho-pacifist movement was theTolstoyan peasant movement inRussia. They were a predominantly peasant movement that set up hundreds of voluntary anarchist pacifist communes based on their interpretation of Christianity as requiring absolute pacifism and the rejection of all coercive authority.[citation needed]
"Dutch anarchist-pacifist Bart de Ligt's 1936 treatiseThe Conquest of Violence (with its none too subtle allusion to Kropotkin'sThe Conquest of Bread) was also of signal importance."[24] "Gandhi's ideas were popularized in the West in books such asRichard Gregg'sThe Power of Nonviolence (1935), and Bart de Ligt'sThe Conquest of Violence (1937).[citation needed]Peter Gelderloos criticizes the idea that nonviolence is the only way to fight for a better world. According to Gelderloos, pacifism as an ideology serves the interests of the state.[25]
Anarchism encompasses a variety of views about violence. TheTolstoyan tradition ofnon-violent resistance is prevalent among some anarchists.Ursula K. Le Guin's novelThe Dispossessed, a fictional novel about a society that practices "Odonianism", expressed this anarchism:
Odonianism is anarchism. Not the bomb-in-the-pocket stuff, which is terrorism, whatever name it tries to dignify itself with, not the social-Darwinist economic 'libertarianism' of the far right; but anarchism, as prefigured in earlyTaoist thought, and expounded by Shelley and Kropotkin, Goldman and Goodman. Anarchism's principal target is the authoritarian State (capitalist or socialist); its principle moral-practical theme is cooperation (solidarity,mutual aid). It is the most idealistic, and to me the most interesting, of all political theories.[26]
Emma Goldman included in her definition of Anarchism the observation that all governments rest on violence, and this is one of the many reasons they should be opposed. Goldman herself didn't oppose tactics like assassination in her early career, but changed her views after she went to Russia, where she witnessed the violence of the Russian state and theRed Army. From then on she condemned the use of terrorism, especially by the state, and advocated violence only as a means of self-defense.[citation needed]
Some anarchists see violent revolution as necessary in the abolition of capitalist society, while others advocate non-violent methods.Errico Malatesta, ananarcho-communist, propounded that it is "necessary to destroy with violence, since one cannot do otherwise, the violence which denies [the means of life and for development] to the workers."[27] As he put it inUmanità Nova (no. 125, September 6, 1921):
It is our aspiration and our aim that everyone should become socially conscious and effective; but to achieve this end, it is necessary to provide all with the means of life and for development, and it is therefore necessary to destroy with violence, since one cannot do otherwise, the violence that denies these means to the workers.[28]
Anarchists with this view advocate violence insofar as they see it to be necessary in ridding the world of exploitation, and especially states.[citation needed]
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon argued in favor of anon-violent revolution through a process ofdual power in which libertarian socialist institutions would be established and form associations enabling the formation of an expanding network within the existing state-capitalist framework with the intention of eventually rendering both the state and the capitalist economy obsolete. The progression towards violence in anarchism stemmed, in part, from the massacres of some of the communes inspired by the ideas of Proudhon and others. Many anarcho-communists began to see a need for revolutionary violence to counteract the violence inherent in both capitalism and government.[29]
Anarcho-pacifism is a tendency within the anarchist movement which rejects the use of violence in the struggle for social change.[30] The main early influences were the thought ofHenry David Thoreau[23] andLeo Tolstoy.[30][23] It developed "mostly in Holland, Britain, and the United States, before and during the Second World War".[31] Opposition to the use of violence has not prohibited anarcho-pacifists from accepting the principle of resistance or evenrevolutionary action provided it does not result in violence; it was in fact their approval of such forms of opposition to power that lead many anarcho-pacifists to endorse theanarcho-syndicalist concept of the general strike as the great revolutionary weapon. Later anarcho-pacifists have also come to endorse the non-violent strategy of dual power.[citation needed]
Other anarchists have believed that violence is justified, especially inself-defense, as a way to provoke social upheaval which could lead to a social revolution.[citation needed]
Peter Gelderloos criticizes the idea that nonviolence is the only way to fight for a better world. According to Gelderloos, pacifism as an ideology serves the interests of the state and is hopelessly caught up psychologically with the control schema of patriarchy andwhite supremacy.[32] The influential publishing collectiveCrimethInc. notes that "violence" and "nonviolence" are politicized terms that are used inconsistently in discourse, depending on whether or not a writer seeks to legitimize the actor in question. They argue that "[i]t's not strategic [for anarchists] to focus on delegitimizing each other's efforts rather than coordinating to act together where we overlap". For this reason, both CrimethInc. and Gelderloos advocate fordiversity of tactics.[33]Albert Meltzer criticised extreme pacifism as authoritarian, believing that "The cult of extreme nonviolence always implies an elite." However, he did believe that less extreme pacifism was compatible with anarchism.[34]
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According to some analysts, inpost-war Germany, the prohibition of theCommunist Party (KPD) and thus of institutionalfar-left political organization may also, in the same manner, have played a role in the creation of theRed Army Faction.In March 1871 the Commune took power in the abandoned city and held it for two months. ThenVersailles seized the moment to attack and, in one horrifying week, executed roughly 20,000 Communards or suspected sympathizers, a number higher than those killed in the recent war or duringRobespierre's 'Terror' of 1793–94. More than 7,500 were jailed or deported to places like New Caledonia. Thousands of others fled to Belgium, England, Italy, Spain and the United States. In 1872, stringent laws were passed that ruled out all possibilities of organizing on the left. Not till 1880 was there a general amnesty for exiled and imprisoned Communards. Meanwhile, the Third Republic found itself strong enough to renew and reinforceLouis Napoleon's imperialist expansion—in Indochina, Africa, and Oceania. Many of France's leading intellectuals and artists had participated in the Commune (Courbet was its quasi-minister of culture,Rimbaud andPissarro were active propagandists) or were sympathetic to it. The ferocious repression of 1871 and thereafter, was probably the key factor in alienating these milieux from the Third Republic and stirring their sympathy for its victims at home and abroad.Anderson, Benedict (July–August 2004)."In the World-Shadow of Bismarck and Nobel".New Left Review.II (28). New Left Review:85–129.
