Anarchists have traditionally been skeptical of or vehemently opposed toorganized religion.[1] Nevertheless, some anarchists have provided religious interpretations and approaches to anarchism, including the idea that the glorification of the state is a form of sinfulidolatry.[2][3]
Anarchists "are generallynon-religious and are frequentlyanti-religious, and the standard anarchist slogan is the phrase coined by a non-anarchist, the socialistAuguste Blanqui in 1880: ‘Ni Dieu ni maître!’ (Neither God nor master!). The argument for a negative connection is that religion supports politics, the Church supports the State, opponents of political authority also oppose religious authority".[1]
William Godwin, "the author of theEnquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793), the first systematic text oflibertarian politics, was aCalvinist minister who began by rejectingChristianity, and passed throughdeism toatheism and then what was later calledagnosticism."[1] The pioneering Germanindividualist anarchistMax Stirner, "began as aleft-Hegelian, post-Feuerbachian atheist, rejecting the ‘spirit’ (Geist) of religion as well as of politics including the spook of ‘humanity’".[1]Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, "the first person to call himself an anarchist, who was well known for saying, ‘Property is theft’, also said, ‘God is evil’ and ‘God is the eternal X’".[1]
Published posthumously in French in 1882,Mikhail Bakunin'sGod and the State[4] was one of the first anarchist treatises on religion. Bakunin became an atheist while in Italy in the 1860s. He was briefly involved withfreemasonry, which influenced him in this.[5] When he established the International Revolutionary Association, he did so with former supporters ofMazzini, who broke with him over hisdeism. It was in this period that Bakunin wrote: "God exists, therefore man is a slave. Man is free, therefore there is no God. Escape this dilemma who can!" which appeared in his unpublishedCatechism of a freemason.[6] Bakunin expounds his philosophy on religion's place in history and its relationship to the modern political state. It was later published inEnglish byMother Earth Publications in 1916.Anarcho-communism's main theoristPeter Kropotkin "was a child of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, and assumed that religion would be replaced by science and that the Church as well as the State would be abolished; he was particularly concerned with the development of a secular system of ethics which replaced supernatural theology with natural biology".[1]
Errico Malatesta andCarlo Cafiero, "the main founders of the Italian anarchist movement, both came fromfreethinking families (and Cafiero was involved with theNational Secular Society when he visited London during the 1870s)".[1] In theFrench anarchist movement,Elisée Reclus was the son of a Calvinist minister and began by rejecting religion before moving on to anarchism.[1]Sébastien Faure, "the most active speaker and writer in the French movement for half a century"[1] wrote an essay titledTwelve Proofs of God's Inexistence.[7] Germaninsurrectionary anarchistJohann Most wrote an article called "The God Pestilence".[8]
In the United States, "freethought was a basicallyanti-christian,anti-clerical movement, whose purpose was to make the individual politically and spiritually free to decide for himself on religious matters. A number of contributors toLiberty were prominent figures in both freethought and anarchism. The individualist anarchist George E. MacDonald was a co-editor ofFreethought and, for a time,The Truth Seeker. E.C. Walker was co-editor of the excellent free-thought / free love journalLucifer, the Light-Bearer".[9] "Many of the anarchists were ardent freethinkers; reprints from freethought papers such asLucifer, the Light-Bearer,Freethought andThe Truth Seeker appeared inLiberty...The church was viewed as a common ally of the state and as a repressive force in and of itself".[9] Late 19th century/early 20th Century anarchists such asVoltairine de Cleyre were often associated with thefreethinkers' movement, advocatingatheism.[10]
In Europe, a similar development occurred in French and Spanish individualist anarchist circles. "Anticlericalism, just as in the rest of the libertarian movement, in another of the frequent elements which will gain relevance related to the measure in which the (French) Republic begins to have conflicts with the church...Anti-clerical discourse, frequently called for by the French individualistAndré Lorulot, will have its impacts inEstudios (a Spanish individualist anarchist publication). There will be an attack on institutionalized religion for the responsibility that it had in the past on negative developments, for its irrationality which makes it a counterpoint of philosophical and scientific progress. There will be a criticism of proselytism and ideological manipulation which happens on both believers and agnostics.".[11] This tendency continued in French individualist anarchism in the work and activism ofCharles-Auguste Bontemps and others. In the Spanish individualist anarchist magazineÉtica andIniciales "there is a strong interest in publishing scientific news, usually linked to a certainatheist andanti-theist obsession, philosophy which will also work for pointing out the incompatibility between science and religion, faith and reason. In this way there will be a lot of talk on Darwin´s theories or on the negation of the existence of the soul."[12]Spanish anarchists in the early 20th century were responsible for burning severalchurches, though many of the church burnings were carried out by members of theRadical Republican Party, while anarchists were blamed. Church leaders' implicit or explicit support for theNationalist Faction during theSpanish Civil War greatly contributed to theanti-religious sentiment.
InAnarchism: What It Really Stands For,Emma Goldman wrote:
Anarchism has declared war on the pernicious influences which have so far prevented the harmonious blending ofindividual and social instincts, the individual and society. Religion, the dominion of the human mind; Property, the dominion of human needs; and Government, the dominion of human conduct, represent the stronghold of man's enslavement and all the horrors it entails.[13]
Chinese anarchists led the opposition to Christianity in the early 20th century, but the most prominent of them,Li Shizeng, made it clear that he opposed not only Christianity but all religions as such. When he became president of the Anti-Christian Movement of 1922, he told the Beijing Atheists' League: "Religion is intrinsically old and corrupt: history has passed it by" and asked, "Why are we of the twentieth century... even debating this nonsense from primitive ages?"[14]
Religious anarchists view organized religion mostly as authoritarian and hierarchical that has strayed from itshumble origins, asPeter Marshall explains:
The original message of the great religious teachers to live asimple life, to share the wealth of the earth, to treat each other with love and respect, to tolerate others and to live in peace invariably gets lost as worldly institutions take over. Religious leaders, like their political counterparts, accrue power to themselves, draw updogmas, and wage war ondissenters in their own ranks and the followers of other religions. They seek protection from temporal rulers, bestowing on them in return a supernatural legitimacy and magical aura. They weave webs of mystery and mystification around naked power; they join the sword with the cross and the crescent. As a result, in nearly all cases organised religions have lost the peaceful and tolerant message of their founding fathers, whether it beBuddha,Jesus orMohammed.[15]
Many Westerners who call themselves Buddhists regard theBuddhist tradition, in contrast to most other world faiths, asnontheistic,humanistic, and experientially-based. Most Buddhist schools, they point out, see the Buddha as the embodied proof thattranscendence and ultimate happiness is possible for all, without exception.
The Indian revolutionary and self-declared atheistHar Dayal, much influenced byMarx andBakunin, who sought to expel British rule from the subcontinent, was a striking instance of someone who, in the early 20th century, tried to synthesize anarchist and Buddhist ideas. Having moved to theUnited States in 1912, he went so far as to establish the Bakunin Institute of California inOakland, which he described as "the firstmonastery of anarchism".[16][17]
Zen priest and critic Hakugen Ichikawa, in his condemnation of Buddhist support forJapanese imperialism in Asia, once concluded that "if Buddhism is to possess social thought, it will have to take the form of B-A-C, Buddhism-Anarchism-Communism."[18] Later in his career, he returned to this position, reframing it as "Śūnya-anarchism-communism" (空 - 無政府 - 共同体論), whereŚūnya means "the vertical foundation of both the subjectivity that engages in social revolution and, in terms of thatsubjectivity's basic choices, the humble and open spirit that has been purified fromdogmatism, self-absolutism and thewill to power." Ultimately, Hakugen suggested that this results in, "negating, in the horizontal dimension, state power; politically, this constitutes anarchism...Through the mediation of the reckoning of philosophicalconscience (controlling desires) and by means of social-scientific discernment and praxis, one negates the capitalist system of private ownership and eliminates the social basis of thecommodification of human labor power; economically, this amounts to communism." For Hakugen, Śūnya represents a "vertical, existential freedom, whereas anarchism and communism pertain to horizontal freedom, and the 'origin' is the point where the two dimensions of freedom intersect."[19]
Bhante Sujato, one of the leadingTheravada representatives in Australia considers himself ananarchist. In a Buddhist speech entitledI am ananarchist for Dhammanet, Sujato states his anarchistideology, specifically aligning himself withanarcho-pacifism, which he explains as being compatible with The Buddha, Buddhist lay and renunciant life, as well as being in accord with the monasticvinaya. In the speech, Sujato explains his belief that The Buddha was also an anarchist.[20]
According to some,Christianity began primarily as apacifist and anarchist movement. Jesus is said, in this view, to have come to empower individuals and free people from an oppressive religious standard in theMosaic law; he taught that the only rightful authority was God, not Man, evolving the law into theGolden Rule (see alsoliberal Christianity).
As perChristian communism, anarchism is not necessarily opposed by theCatholic Church. Indeed,distributism inCatholic social teaching, such asPope Leo XIII'sencyclicalRerum novarum andPope Pius XI'sQuadragesimo anno,[21] is philosophically similar to anarchism.
The Bedouin nomads of theKhawarij were Islam's first sect. They challenged the new centralization of power in the Islamic state as an impediment to their tribe's freedom.[22] At least one sect of Khawarij, theNajdat, believed that if no suitableimam was present in the community, the position could be dispensed with.[23] A strand ofMuʿtazili thought paralleled that of the Najdat: if rulers inevitably became tyrants, the only acceptable course of action was to depose them.[24] TheNukkari subsect ofIbadi Islam reportedly adopted a similar belief.[25]
Jacques Ellul recounts that at the end of theBook of Judges (Judges 21:25) there was no king in Israel and everyone did as they saw fit.[26][27] Later in the firstBook of Samuel (1 Samuel 8) thepeople of Israel wanted a king to be like other nations.[27] God declared that the people had rejected him as their king. He warned that a human king would lead tomilitarism,conscription, andtaxation and that their pleas for mercy from the king's demands would go unanswered.Samuel passed on God's warning to the Israelites but they disregarded him and choseSaul as their king.[27] Much of the subsequentTanakh chronicles them trying to live with this decision.[28]
The first known Jewish Anarchist organisation in the United States was thePioneers of Liberty (Pionire der Frayhayt). TheHaymarket trial of 1886 sparked nationwide interest in anarchist ideas. On the day of the trial's sentencing, about a dozen Jewish workers of New York'sLower East Side founded the Pioneers of Liberty, the first Jewish anarchist organization in the United States. The group ranVarhayt, a short-lived, first Yiddish-language anarchist newspaper in the United States, between February and June 1889. And together with the Jewish anarchistKnights of Liberty group, which sprang from the Pioneers of Liberty, the two organizations together founded the long-running Yiddish-language anarchist newspaper,Fraye Arbeter Shtime, in 1890. The Pioneers of Liberty also published an annual paper,Tfileh Zakeh (Pure Prayer), which circulated during the JewishHigh Holy Days between 1889 and 1893.
TheOrthodoxKabbalist rabbiYehuda Ashlag believed in a religious version oflibertarian communism, based on principles of Kabbalah, which he called altruist communism. Ashlag supported theKibbutz movement and preached to establish a network of self-ruledinternationalist communes, who would eventually "annul the brute-force regime completely, for 'every man did that which was right in his own eyes'", because "there is nothing more humiliating and degrading for a person than being under the brute-force government".[29]
A British rabbi,Yankev-Meyer Zalkind, was ananarcho-communist and very active anti-militarist. Rabbi Zalkind, a close friend ofRudolf Rocker, was a prolificYiddish writer and a prominentTorah scholar. He argued, that the ethics of theTalmud, if properly understood, is closely related to anarchism.[30] Zalkind's philosophy was not popular with British Orthodox Jewry and Zalkind was shunned by the community, withChief Rabbi Hertz denying Zalkind's rabbinic credentials and Zalkind being forced to renounce his rabbinic title.[31]
The Yiddishanti-authoritarian andanti-police songIn Ale Gasn/Daloy Politsey dates from the time of theRussian Revolutions and continues to be sung by artists who identify with political tendencies like anarchism.[32] Many versions of the song have been updated to talk about modern issues such as government corruption, police brutality, and general anarchist themes, along with translating them into languages like English and German. The song is actually a portmanteau of two different Jewish Anarchist songs from the period of the Russian Revolutions, which were combined byZalmen Mlotek for the film "The Free Voice of Labour: The Jewish Anarchists", 1980.[32]
Over the past decade, there has been a renewed interest in Jewish anarchism due to the growth of organizations likeJewdas andPink Peacock (UK) and media outlets like theTreyf podcast (Canada). This interest has been aided by the publication of new books on the subject, such as Kenyon Zimmer'sImmigrants against the State, and the reissuing of documentaries such asThe Free Voice of Labour,[33] which details the final days of theFraye Arbeter Shtime. In January 2019, TheYIVO Institute for Jewish Research organized a special conference on Yiddish anarchism in New York City, which drew over 450 people.[34]
Jewish anarchist newspapers includeArbeter Fraynd,Burevestnik,Chernoe Znamja (Black Flag),Dos Fraye Vort,Fraye Arbeter Shtime,Germinal, andKagenna Magazine.
Many people of Jewish origin, such asEmma Goldman,Alexander Berkman,Paul Goodman,Murray Bookchin,Volin,Gustav Landauer,David Graeber, andNoam Chomsky have played a role in the history of anarchism. However, as well as these anarchists of Jewish origin, there have also been specifically Jewish anarchist movements, within theYiddish-speaking communities ofEastern andCentral Europe, and the Western cities to which they migrated, from the late nineteenth century until the Second World War. All the members of the first anarchist group in theRussian Empire, which was formed in 1903 inBiałystok, were Jews.[35]
Different anarchist groups had different views onZionism and theJewish question.Bernard Lazare was a key figure in both theFrench anarchist movement and early Zionist movement. The laterTerritorialist movement, especially theFreeland League, under the leadership ofIsaac Nachman Steinberg, was very close to anarchism. Some others, such asMartin Buber andGershom Scholem, advocated non-nationalist forms of Zionism, and promoted the idea of creating abinational Jewish-Arab federation inPalestine. Many contemporary anarchists support the idea of what has been dubbed the "no-state solution".[36]Noam Chomsky has said that, as an anarchist, he ultimately favors such a no-state solution, but, in the short term, feels a two-state solution is the best way out of the present conflict.[37] Within Israel there is also the organisationAnarchists Against the Wall, which is adirect action group composed ofIsraeli anarchists andanti-authoritarians who oppose the construction of theIsraeli Gaza Strip barrier andIsraeli West Bank barrier.
Many earlyTaoists, such as the influentialLaozi andZhuangzi, were critical of authority and advised rulers that the less controlling they were, the more stable and effective their rule would be. However, there are parts of Laozi'sTao Te Ching where an at least stateless, if not anarchistic, viewpoint is more apparent. In chapter 29 it is stated:
Trying to control the world?I see you won't succeed.The world is a spiritual vesselAnd cannot be controlled.Those who control, fail.
In Chapter 53:
Granaries are empty,But the nobels clothes are gorgeous,Their belts show off swords,And they are gluted with food and drink.Personal wealth is excessive.This is called thieves' endowment,But it is notTao.
In chapter 57:
the Sage says...I enjoy serenityAnd people govern themselves.
In Chapter 66:
Those who would leadMust speak as if they are behind
In Chapter 68:
The most effective leader takes thelowest place
In Chapter 72:
When people are not in awe of power,Power becomes great.[38]
There is still debate among contemporary anarchists about whether or not this counts as an anarchist view.[39] It is known, however, that some less influential Taoists, such asBao Jingyan, explicitly advocated anarchy.[40]
Introduction
Old Testament
The Hebrew Bible
God and Samuel accept (and honor) Israel's (bad) decision as accomplished fact and proceed to live with it rather than try to reverse it.
