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Anarchist Communism

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The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism

Abstract

Communism is a model of stateless society based on the common ownership of the means of production and informed by the principle ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’. Though this concept has remained stable throughout the history of anarchism, the corresponding label does not denote a single, coherent current traversing that history. Rather, different currents used that label at different times, as a way of contrasting themselves to other anarchist currents. Through the controversies first between communists and collectivists, then between communists and individualists, anarchist communism has ultimately come to represent an associationist tradition that is characterised more in terms of tactics (collective action, involvement in unions, insurrection) than of ultimate goals. At the same time, anarchist communism has taken on distinctive traits that set it apart from the communism of the Marxist tradition. In the voluntaristic views of its foremost advocate Errico Malatesta, anarchist communism evolved from being a sine qua non of anarchism to being one among different options, to be realised to the extent that it received support, in a pluralist, experimentalist, gradualist, solidaristic, libertarian process of social evolution.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    M. Bakunin, ‘Deuxième discours au deuxième Congrès de la Paix et de la Liberté,’ 23 September 1868, in Oeuvres complètes (Amsterdam: IISG, 2000, CD-ROM).

  2. 2.

    M. Nettlau, ‘Internazionale collettivista e comunismo anarchico,’ in E. Malatesta, Scritti, 3 vols. (rpt, Carrara, 1975), vol. 3, 255.

  3. 3.

    See, for example: C. Cafiero, ‘Anarchy and Communism,’ in R. Graham (Ed), Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, vol. 1 (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2005), 112–113; [E. Malatesta], Programma e organizzazio-ne della Associazione Internazionale dei Lavoratori (Florence: Tipografia C. Toni, 1884), 30–34.

  4. 4.

    P. Kropotkin, ‘Anarchist Communism: Its Basis and Principles,’ in R. N. Baldwin (Ed), Kropotkin’s Revolutionary Pamphlets (New York: Dover, 1927), 47.

  5. 5.

    P. Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread (London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1972), 62, 65.

  6. 6.

    P. Kropotkin, Fields, Factories and Workshops (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1913), 22–23, 350, 413.

  7. 7.

    We have translated from the following Italian edition: E. Reclus, I prodotti della terra e dell’industria (Geneva: L. Bertoni, 1901), 29. The original pamphlets were published anonymously. Though Reclus was instrumental in bringing them about, the attribution to him is incorrect.

  8. 8.

    ‘Goals and Methods of the Anarchist Communist Party,’ in Graham, 349.

  9. 9.

    J. Piqué i Padró, Anarco-col·lectivisme i anarco-communisme (Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 1989), 15.

  10. 10.

    M. Nettlau, La Premiére Internationale en Espagne (1868–1888) (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1969), 353–354.

  11. 11.

    G. R. Esenwein, Anarchist Ideology and the Working-Class Movement in Spain, 1868–1898 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 82.

  12. 12.

    ‘Proyecto de reglamento de la Federación Regional Española,’ La Federación Igualadina, 17 (1 June 1883).

  13. 13.

    ‘Nuestros propósitos,’ La Justicia Humana (Barcelona), 1:1 (18 April 1886).

  14. 14.

    Esenwein, Anarchist Ideology, 108–109.

  15. 15.

    On the cross-national character of this debate, see my ‘European Anarchism in the 1890s: Why Labour Matters in Categorizing Anarchism,’ Working USA, 12:4 (September 2009), 451–466.

  16. 16.

    S. Merlino, L’Individualisme dans l’Anarchisme (Brussels: Edition de la Société nouvelle, 1893), 8–9.

  17. 17.

    See Esenwein, Anarchist Ideology, Chapter 8.

  18. 18.

    ‘Our Plans,’ in D. Turcato (Ed) The Method of Freedom: An Errico Malatesta Reader (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2014), 98.

  19. 19.

    The Commonweal (London) 7: 302 (20 February 1892).

  20. 20.

    C. L. S[wartz] (Ed), Individual Liberty: Selection from the Writings of BenjaminR. Tucker (New York: Vanguard Press, 1926), 7–9, 32.

  21. 21.

    E. Malatesta, ‘Individualism in Anarchism’, in D. Turcato (Ed), Complete Works of Errico Malatesta, vol. 3 (Chico, CA: AK Press, 2016), 79–80.

  22. 22.

    A. Berkman, What is Anarchism? (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2003), 169; E. Malatesta, ‘Comunismo e individualismo,’ in Scritti, vol. 3, 227.

  23. 23.

    Malatesta, ‘Individualism,’ in Method of Freedom, 79–80.

  24. 24.

    Dielo Trouda, The Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists (Workers Solidarity Movement, 2001).

  25. 25.

    Isaac Puente’s pamphlet was translated in English as ‘Libertarian Communism,’ Anarchist Review (Orkney), 1:6 (Summer 1982), 27–35.

  26. 26.

    José Peirats, The CNT in the Spanish Revolution, vol. 1 (Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2011), 202–205. We have slightly amended the resolution’s translation on the basis of the source Spanish text.

  27. 27.

    D. Abad de Santillán to unknown recipient, Buenos Aires, 10 July 1965, in D. Guérin (Ed), No Gods, No Masters (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2005), 469.

  28. 28.

    D. A. de Santillán, El organismo económico de la revolución (Barcelona: Ediciones ‘Tierra y Libertad,’ 1936), 189.

  29. 29.

    Santillán, ibid., 182–185, 196–197.

  30. 30.

    E. Malatesta to A. Hamon, London, 20 July 1896, Hamon Papers, file 109, IISG, Amsterdam.

  31. 31.

    K. Marx and F. Engels, ‘The German Ideology,’ in D. McLellan (Ed), Karl Marx: Selected Writings, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2000), 187, 199.

  32. 32.

    E. Malatesta, ‘In Defense of Communism,’ in Complete Works, vol. 3, 421.

  33. 33.

    Malatesta, ‘Comunismo,’ in Scritti, vol. 3, 224.

  34. 34.

    E. Malatesta, ‘Ancora su comunismo e anarchia,’ in Scritti, vol. 1, 144–145.

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  1. Applied Scientist and Historian, Dublin, Republic of Ireland

    Davide Turcato

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  1. Davide Turcato
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Correspondence to Davide Turcato .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Politics and International Relations Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK

    Carl Levy

  2. Department of Politics, History and International Relations, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK

    Matthew S. Adams

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Turcato, D. (2019). Anarchist Communism. In: Levy, C., Adams, M.S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75620-2_13

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