Anarchism and violence have become closely
connected in popular thought, in part because
of a concept of "propaganda of the deed".
Propaganda of the deed, or attentát, was
espoused by leading anarchists in the late
nineteenth century, and was associated with
a number of incidents of violence.
Anarchist thought, however, is quite diverse
on the question of violence.
In the name of coherence some anarchists have
opposed coercion, while others have supported
it, particularly in the form of violent revolution
on the path to anarchy.
Anarchism includes a school of thought which
rejects all violence (anarcho-pacifism).
Many anarchists regard the state to be at
the definitional center of structural violence:
directly or indirectly preventing people from
meeting their basic needs, calling for violence
as self-defense.Perhaps the first anarchist
periodical was named The Peaceful Revolutionist,
a strain of anarchism that followed Tolstoy's
pacifism.
== Propaganda of the deed ==
Late in the 19th century, anarchist labor
unions began to use the tactic of general
strike.
This often resulted in violence by both sides
and some of the strikes even resulted in the
deaths of striking workers, their replacements
and security staff.
In this climate, some anarchists began to
advocate and practice of terrorism or assassination,
which they referred to as propaganda of the
deed.
In many cases, newspapers blamed anarchist
terrorism on immigrant naïvete, but scholar
Richard Bach Jensen explained that "the emigrant
experience may have heightened a pre-existing
radicalism or given more precise configuration
to its violent expression."
== Anarcho-pacifism ==
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 include Leo Tolstoy and
Bart de Ligt.
Mohandas Gandhi is an important influence.
Henry David Thoreau, though not a pacifist
himself, influenced both Leo Tolstoy and Mohandas
Gandhi's advocacy of Nonviolent resistance
through his work Civil Disobedience.At some
point anarcho-pacifism had as its main proponent
Christian anarchism.
The first large-scale anarcho-pacifist movement
was the Tolstoyan peasant movement in Russia.
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.
"Dutch anarchist-pacifist Bart de Ligt’s
1936 treatise The Conquest of Violence (with
its none too subtle allusion to Kropotkin’s
The Conquest of Bread) was also of signal
importance."
"Gandhi's ideas were popularized 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).
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.
== Anarchist theory ==
Anarchism encompasses a variety of views about
violence.
The Tolstoyan tradition of non-violent resistance
is prevalent among some anarchists.
Ursula K. Le Guin's novel The 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 early Taoist 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.
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 the Red Army.
From then on she condemned the use of terrorism,
especially by the state, and advocated violence
only as a means of self-defense.
=== Arguments in favor of violent and non-violent
means ===
Some anarchists see violent revolution as
necessary in the abolition of capitalist society,
while others advocate non-violent methods.
Errico Malatesta, an anarcho-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."
As he put it in Umanità 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.
Anarchists with this view advocate violence
insofar as they see it to be necessary in
ridding the world of exploitation, and especially
states.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon argued in favor of
a non-violent revolution through a process
of dual 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.Anarcho-pacifism
is a tendency within the anarchist movement
which rejects the use of violence in the struggle
for social change.
The main early influences were the thought
of Henry David Thoreau and Leo Tolstoy.
It developed "mostly in Holland [sic], Britain,
and the United States, before and during the
Second World War".
Opposition to the use of violence has not
prohibited anarcho-pacifists from accepting
the principle of resistance or even revolutionary
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 the anarcho-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.
Other anarchists have believed that violence
(especially self-defense) is justified as
a way to provoke social upheaval which could
lead to a social revolution.
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Forman, James (1975).
Anarchism: Political Innocence or Social Violence?.
New York: F. Watts.
ISBN 0-531-02790-2.
Hubac-Occhipinti, Olivier (2007).
"Anarchist Terrorists of the Nineteenth Century".
In Chaliand, Gérard; Blin, Arnaud.
The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to
Al Qaeda.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
ISBN 978-0-520-24533-4.
Richards, Vernon (1983).
Violence and Anarchism.
London: Freedom Press.
ISBN 0-900384-70-0.
Gelderloos, Peter (2007).
How Nonviolence Protects the State.
Boston: South End Press.
ISBN 0-89608-772-7.
Churchill, Ward (2007).
Pacifism as Pathology.
Stirling: AK Press.
ISBN 1-904859-18-6.
You can't Blow up a Social Relationship: The
Anarchist case against Terrorism.
Australia: Anares Books.
1979.
