Authors: Nohlen
Summary: In about 4000 words the entry separates anarchism from other social and political movements by four immanent criteria, reflects on the origins and historical roots, and discusses in length the relationship between anarchism, early socialist, and Marxist thinking. Four ideas are presented as distinctly anarchistic. Any form of organization by which ideological, political, economic, or societal pressure is exerted anarchists renounce and instead aim for the free association of emancipated people. In that sense, anarchism is consequently anti-institutional. Similarly, ideologies are viewed as instruments of repression, therefore anarchists are atheists and antinationalists. Lack of theory is principle. Central goal is the control-free society, where no humans control other humans but control over things is collectively organized in small units. Anarchists, finally, believe in the possibility of instant revolution without prior politicizing societal groups. The power of enlightenment, persuasion, and propaganda of the act are believed to make a revolution in the Marxian sense unnecessary. The discussion of ideological, political, and socio-economic roots of anarchistic thinking leads to a distinction between older, agrarian and craftsmanship anarchism, and modern, proletarian-industrial anarchism. The latter shares ideas with early socialist thinking, but the Marxist oriented workers movement battled from its beginning with anarchist ideas. As the entry lays out in detail, Marx developed his own thinking particularly in debates with anarchists like Proudhon and Bakunin. Principal differences and some commonalities between anarchism and Marxism in political-strategic questions are summarized in detail. The article ends with a discussion of the revival of anarchistic ideas in the 1960s student movement and reflects on the role of anarchism in the former Eastern European socialist countries.