Anarchism, << AN uhr kihz uhm, >> is a belief that every form of regulation or government is immoral, and that restraint of one person by another is an evil which must be destroyed. Anarchism comes from a Greek word meaning without government.
Anarchism dates back to ancient times. The legends of many countries tell of a “golden age” of freedom which preceded organized governments. Anarchism also appeared among early Christian groups.
Later anarchism proposed a social organization that was based on common ownership and free agreements, but its disciples differed among themselves in methods and forms. Pierre Joseph Proudhon of France, often called the father of anarchism, became the first to make anarchism a mass movement. Proudhon’s philosophical, or individualistic, anarchism urged the willing cooperation of free individuals without any regulation or government.
Terroristic anarchism began under the leadership of Mikhail Bakunin in Russia during the 1800’s. Followers of this type of anarchism believed in the destruction of the government by violence and terror. They thought that land and other means of production should be owned in common. Many anarchists throughout the world resorted to revolution and assassination in the belief that terror would correct what they thought to be evil. They murdered heads of governments, including Czar Alexander II of Russia and President William McKinley of the United States. After the death of McKinley, the U.S. government passed a law barring anarchists from entering the country.
Anarchism under the leadership of Prince Peter Kropotkin of Russia, during the late 1800’s, assumed a more rigid communistic form. Kropotkin rejected the terroristic methods of Bakunin, but he also opposed the authoritative type of communism. Under his kind of anarchism, the state would be eliminated and society would be built on the communes, or village communities, which had existed in feudal Russian society. Each commune would be a self-sufficient group.
The strength of anarchism declined throughout the world in the 1900’s. Anarchists played a part in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Anarchism also influenced such radical groups as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the United States in the 1960’s, and the Baader-Meinhof gang in West Germany in the 1970’s. Some groups in Europe practice terroristic anarchism.
