Aiming to Overthrow the State (Without Using the State): Political Opportunities for Anarchist Movements

Abstract

The anarchist movement utilizes non-statist and anti-statist strategies for radical social transformation, thus indicating the limits of political opportunity theory and its emphasis upon the state. Using historical narratives from present-day anarchist movement literature, we note various events and phenomena in the last two centuries and their relevance to the mobilization and demobilization of anarchist movements throughout the world (Bolivia, Czech Republic, Great Britain, Greece, Japan, Venezuela). Labor movement allies, failing state socialism, and punk subculture have provided conditions conducive to anarchism, while state repression and Bolshevik success in the Soviet Union constrained success. This variation suggests that future work should attend more closely to the role of national context, and the interrelationship of political and non-political factors.

Contemporary anarchist and anarchistic movements

“…Contemporary anarchism mushroomed internationally in the 1990s (Shantz, ), coinciding with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Left's attachment to the Soviet Union. Just as anarchism had generally receded with the political successes of the Bolsheviks after the October 1917 Russian Revolution, subsequent blows to the USSR's reputation—and its eventual demise—served to reestablish the popularity and prevalence of anarchism among the Left (Williams & Lee, ). During the democratic transition of socialist states, antiauthoritarians emerged as important forces: anarchist collectives and anarcho‐syndicalist unions appeared in the USSR (Ruff, ), while Chinese autonomist student and worker groups were important nuclei precipitating the democracy movement that culminated in Tiananmen Square (Calhoun, ; Katsiaficas, ).…”