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Concept
History of anarchism
Summary
The history of anarchism is ambiguous, primarily due to the ambiguity of anarchism itself. Scholars find it hard to define or agree on what anarchism means, which makes outlining its history difficult. There is a range of views on anarchism and its history. Some feel anarchism is a distinct, well-defined 19th and 20th century movement while others identify anarchist traits long before first civilisations existed.
Prehistoric society existed without formal hierarchies, which some anthropologists have described as similar to anarchism. The first traces of formal anarchist thought can be found in ancient Greece and China, where numerous philosophers questioned the necessity of the state and declared the moral right of the individual to live free from coercion. During the Middle Ages, some religious sects espoused libertarian thought, and the Age of Enlightenment, and the attendant rise of rationalism and science, signalled the birth of the modern anarchist movement.
Alongside Marxism, modern anarchism was a significant part of the workers' movement at the end of the 19th century. Modernism, industrialisation, reaction to capitalism and mass migration helped anarchism to flourish and to spread around the globe. Major anarchist schools of thought sprouted up as anarchism grew as a social movement, particularly anarcho-collectivism, anarcho-communism, anarcho-syndicalism, and individualist anarchism. As the workers' movement grew, the divide between anarchists and Marxists grew as well. The two currents formally split at the fifth congress of the First International in 1872. Anarchists participated enthusiastically in the Russian Revolution, but as soon as the Bolsheviks established their authority, anarchist movements, most notably the Makhnovshchina and the Kronstadt rebellion, were harshly suppressed.
Anarchism played a historically prominent role during the Spanish Civil War, when anarchists established an anarchist territory in Catalonia.
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