This is thetalk page for discussing improvements to theAnarchist communism article. This isnot a forum for general discussion of the subject of the article.

Put new text under old text.Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome!Learn to edit;get help. Assume good faith Be polite andavoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seekdispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books ·news ·scholar ·free images ·WP refs) ·FENS ·JSTOR ·TWL

Archives:1Auto-archiving period:12 months

This page isnot a forum for general discussion aboutAnarchist communism. Any such commentsmay be removed orrefactored. Please limit discussion to improvement of this article. You may wish to ask factual questions aboutAnarchist communism at theReference desk.

This level-5 vital article is ratedStart-class on Wikipedia'scontent assessment scale. It is of interest to the followingWikiProjects:

Anarchism This article is within the scope ofWikiProject Anarchism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage ofanarchism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can jointhe discussion and see a list of open tasks.AnarchismWikipedia:WikiProject AnarchismTemplate:WikiProject Anarchismanarchism   Anarchism WikiProject open tasks watch ·edit ·history ·talk ·purge Recognized content ·Requests ·Subscribe ·Member list ·Resources · How can I help? Did you know 25 Nov 2025 –Zenkoku Jiren(talk · edit · hist) was nominated for DYK byGrnrchst(t · c); seediscussion 27 Oct 2025 –Marie Goldsmith(talk · edit · hist) was nominated for DYK byGrnrchst(t · c); seediscussion 27 Oct 2025 –July 1936 military uprising in Barcelona(talk · edit · hist) was nominated for DYK byGrnrchst(t · c); seediscussion 13 Oct 2025 –Agnes Inglis(talk · edit · hist) was nominated for DYK byGrnrchst(t · c); seediscussion Categories for discussion 16 Nov 2025 –Category:Spanish Civil War massacres(talk · edit · hist) was CfDed byMclay1(t · c); seediscussion Good article nominees 30 Oct 2025 –Paula Ben-Gurion(talk · edit · hist) was GA nominated byGrnrchst(t · c); seediscussion 30 Aug 2025 –Simon Watson Taylor (anarchist)(talk · edit · hist) was GA nominated byJohn Desmond(t · c); startdiscussion 16 Nov 2025 –Zenkoku Jiren(talk · edit · hist) GA nominated byGrnrchst(t · c) was promoted byPlifal(t · c), seediscussion Requests for comments 17 Nov 2025 –Zizians(talk · edit · hist) RfC byAsamboi(t · c) wasclosed; seediscussion Peer reviews 01 Nov 2025 –Luisa Capetillo(talk · edit · hist) has been put up for PR bySpookyaki(t · c); seediscussion Articles for creation 19 Oct 2025 –Draft:Dragonfly (community)(talk · edit · hist) has been submitted for AfC by207.188.73.214(t · c) 23 Sep 2025 –Draft:Omar Pitras Waqar(talk · edit · hist) has been submitted for AfC byEchobites247(t · c) 22 Oct 2025 –Draft:Kick it Over(talk · edit · hist) submitted for AfC by174.114.215.148(t · c) was declined byThilio(t · c) on 23 Nov 2025 Cleanup (790) ·Potentially related articles ·Recent edits ·Recent Commons images ·Stub expansion project (505) SocialismMid‑importance This article is within the scope ofWikiProject Socialism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage ofsocialism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can jointhe discussion and see a list of open tasks.SocialismWikipedia:WikiProject SocialismTemplate:WikiProject Socialismsocialism Mid This article has been rated asMid-importance on theproject's importance scale. Philosophy:Social and politicalLow‑importance This article is within the scope ofWikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related tophilosophy on Wikipedia. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join thegeneral discussion about philosophy content on Wikipedia.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy Low This article has been rated asLow-importance on theproject's importance scale. Associated task forces: /  Social and political philosophy Politics:LibertarianismMid‑importance This article is within the scope ofWikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage ofpolitics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can jointhe discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics Mid This article has been rated asMid-importance on theproject's importance scale. This article is supported byWikiProject Libertarianism (assessed asMid-importance).

Section sizes Section size forAnarchist communism (21 sections) Section name Byte count Prose size (words) Header Total Header Total (Top) 4,820 4,820 124 124 History 14 28,062 0 2,111 Forerunners 3,865 3,865 483 483 Formulation in the International Workingmen's Association 6,958 6,958 371 371 Organizationalism vs. insurrectionarism and expansion 4,328 4,328 311 311 Methods of organizing: platformism vs. synthesism 4,622 4,622 213 213 Spanish Revolution of 1936 3,948 3,948 334 334 Post-war years 4,327 4,327 399 399 Philosophical debates 29 12,743 0 908 Motivation 4,600 4,600 282 282 Freedom, work, and leisure 2,329 2,329 187 187 Individualism and collectivism 1,698 1,698 179 179 Property 1,703 1,703 211 211 Free association of communes as opposed to the nation-state 1,785 1,785 39 39 Patriotism 599 599 10 10 See also 388 388 0 0 Notes 26 26 0 0 References 30 30 0 0 Bibliography 5,306 5,306 0 0 Further reading 8,331 8,331 0 0 External links 1,101 1,101 0 0 Total 60,807 60,807 3,143 3,143

This is covered somewhat in the talk page history, but is this concept better known as "anarcho-communism" than "anarchist-communism" or some variant? Based on how I see it used in sources, the shortened hyphenation appears to be some sort of recent invention if notcitogenesis. (My question from the move in 2017 was never answered.)czar19:27, 2 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Czar: It's not citogenesis, as it was used by Pengam 1987, but generally it does seem that "anarchist communism" (without the hyphen) is more common. Of the sources listed in the Bibliography, the following terms are used:

• "Anarchist communism" (without the hyphen) is used by 8 sources (Bookchin 1978, Esenwein 1989, Graham 2018, Marshall 1993, Nappalos 2012, Pernicone 1993, Turcato 2018 and Wilbur 2018)
• "Anarcho-communism" is used by 3 sources (Kinna 2012, Pengam 1987 and Ramnath 2018)
• "Libertarian communism" is used by 3 sources (Bookchin 1978, Nappalos 2012 and Shannon 2018)
• "Anarchist-communism" (with the hyphen) is used by 1 source (Avrich 1971)
• "Communist anarchism" is used by 1 source (Shannon 2018).

So at least in the reliable sources we have in this article, the unhyphenated "anarchist communism" appears to be the most popular.Google Ngrams too appears to indicate that "anarchist communism" is more commonly used than "anarcho-communism", with the latter appearing to come into more widespread use in the 1960s and only being most popular during the 1980s. Also I'll note thatGoogle Trends indicate more searches for "anarchist communism" than "anarcho-communism" (I think the move nominator used bad methodology on this tbh)

To me, the main argument for keeping it as "anarcho-communism" would be for consistency across other ideology article titles. But I'm not sure that outweighs the common name policy. --Grnrchst (talk)09:53, 9 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that research. I'll retitle it.

re: the other ideology articles, I'd ask the same question of whether Wikipedia has helped propagate a neologism over the last decade. Not to say that it had no prior use, but that anarcho-everything has not been as prominent in sources as it has been on Wikipedia. But I think we can handle those one at a time.czar15:25, 9 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To your question ofwhether Wikipedia has helped propagate a neologism over the last decade, my initial thoughts areprobably yeah. It's a difficult task to find sources using the termanarcho-communism prior to the internet age. :3F4U (they/it)22:27, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Responding here now per your comments at theanarcho-naturism talk page. I'm not sure I'd call the hyphenated "anarcho-communism" a neologismper se, as I have seen it used in very old texts including some from the 1920s. As I said above, itsrelative popularity is newer and it was definitely coined after "anarchist communism", but I think worrying that Wikipedia is "propagating a neologism" here is an overreaction. (For the record, I still support the retention of the title "anarchist communism" as it's both the oldest and still most common name).

In the cases of other ideologies, I'll note the following ngrams trends: "anarcho-syndicalism" has always been the most used variant spelling, dating back to the 1900s;[1] "anarcho-feminism" actually appears to have been coined first, with "anarchist feminism" becoming most common through the 1970s and early 1980s, while "anarcha-feminism" became the most commonly used in the late 1980s and early 1990s, "anarchist feminism" returned to being most commonly used between the late 1990s and 2000s and then it swapped back to "anarcha-feminism" during the 2010s;[2] "collectivist anarchism" has pretty much always been the most common variant, with "anarchist collectivism" been most common during the 1920s and 1950s, and "anarcho-collectivism" only coming into use in the late 1960s;[3] "social anarchism" has almost always been the common variant, briefly being overtaken by "anarchist socialism" during the late 1890s and early 1900s, while "anarcho-socialism" has seen a relatively lower use since the 1900s and briefly became most common in the mid-1950s.[4] In more contemporary cases, the hyphenated "anarcho-" has been the only widely used variant, such as in "anarcho-primitivism"[5] and "anarcho-capitalism".[6]

I think its common use in "anarcho-syndicalism" shows that the hyphenated "anarcho-X" isn't necessarily a neologism, although it certainly seems to have caught on during the 1960s and 1970s.Grnrchst (talk)14:45, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the ngrams, they're quite helpful. I agree that the "anarcho-" prefix isn't necessarily a neologism (anymore, at least) for many terms (e.g. anarcha-feminism, anarcho-capitalism, etc).

However, I also think there is room for nuance in these terms (especially historically and outside of the narrow article title criteria). Terms like 'anarcho-syndicalism', were much more likely to have been called "anarchism and syndicalism" in the past, rather than a portmanteau[7]. Popular/accepted usage of a term depends on a lot of factors, so I don't think the title of theanarchist communism page necessarily justifies any other page move.

I wish there was more literature on historical usage of anarchist terminology, it would be helpful and quite interesting. ~F4U (talk •they/it)15:30, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have to point out one rather bad argument made here. You've forgotten a rather important factor: laziness—especially when typing on something like an iPhone keyboard.

If you include "anarcho communism" without the hyphen in the Google Trends search, you'll see that it significantly outscales both "anarchist communism" or "anarcho-communism". If you search in other places (such as YouTube) for "anarchist communism" the vast majority of results that have any variations of the phrase all use "anarcho(-)communism" as well.

I think regardless of the Ngrams data, people are searching for and using "anarcho(-)communism"far more than "anarchist communism", and there's a solid argument to be made that the common name policy actually favors "Anarcho-Communism".IlijiilI (talk)06:12, 26 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Although I appreciate the effort to improve the article by adding images, is there some better symbol of the political ideology that can be used instead of duplicating the CNT flag? I guess the other thing is that, if it's not a historical symbol, then should modified versions of historical flags have a place in an encyclopedia?1101 (talk)06:08, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Start-Class level-5 vital articles
• Wikipedia level-5 vital articles in Society and social sciences
• Start-Class vital articles in Society and social sciences
• Start-Class anarchism articles
• WikiProject Anarchism articles
• Start-Class socialism articles
• Mid-importance socialism articles
• WikiProject Socialism articles
• Start-Class Philosophy articles
• Low-importance Philosophy articles
• Start-Class social and political philosophy articles
• Low-importance social and political philosophy articles
• Social and political philosophy task force articles
• Start-Class politics articles
• Mid-importance politics articles
• Start-Class Libertarianism articles
• Mid-importance Libertarianism articles
• WikiProject Libertarianism articles
• WikiProject Politics articles

• All Wikipedia vital articles