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Anarchism in Denmark emerged in the late 19th century from the revolutionary factions of early social democratic spheres, crystalizing into a widespread anarcho-syndicalist movement that reached its height during the late 1910s. After the disintegration of organized syndicalism, anarchists in post-war Denmark began to organize the squatters' movement, which led to the creation of Freetown Christiania.
Libertarian socialism first emerged in Denmark during debates within the Social Democratic Party over reformism and revolutionary socialism. Whereas the old reformist leadership advocated for an authoritarian socialism, inspired by Marxism, the younger revolutionary section took a stance against authoritarianism and bureaucracy. The revolutionaries published Arbejderen, in which they criticized the party's tactics of parliamentarism, as well as the alliance between the reformist Social Democrats and the Liberal Party against the Conservative government of Jacob Brønnum Scavenius Estrup. In a public meeting, the reformist leader Chresten Hørdum said on the matter: [1]
"In heaven's name let the revolutionists make as much opposition as they please in their own groups. They have nothing to do with our meetings and bad better take care they are not chucked out so fine a day. Let this sort of thing go on, and Anarchism, in its serious sense, will soon make its appearance in the capital of Denmark."
The reformist party leadership subsequently began to repress the internal revolutionary opposition, led by Gerson Trier, which was expelled from the party on November 7, 1890. [2] So the revolutionary section went on to found the Revolutionary Socialist Workers' Party. [3] Anarchist sympathies began to grow among a few select individuals in Denmark, some of whom were responsible for translating the works of Peter Kropotkin into the Danish language. [1]
At the turn of the 20th century, anarcho-syndicalism began to emerge from the revolutionary section of the social democratic movement. Syndicalist organizations such as the Syndicalist League, Trade Union Opposition Association and Young Socialist League were established and began to publish newspapers such as Solidaritet and Den Røde Krig. By the time of World War I, anarchism and syndicalism played a key role in the Danish labor movement and the struggle for the conditions of the unemployed. This culminated in 1918, when anarcho-syndicalists held a number of unemployment demonstrations that culminated in the storm on the Stock Exchange, when unemployed syndicalists attacked the Børsen in Copenhagen. [4] After the storm, syndicalists established the Organization of the Unemployed and held further demonstrations against unemployment in Copenhagen, as the movement continued to grow, playing a prominent role in achieving the eight-hour day. [5]
But as the employing class began to launch a counter-offensive against the syndicalists and following the failure of the majority of the revolutions of 1917–1923, the anarcho-syndicalist movement went into decline. [6] The Trade Union Opposition Association was disestablished in 1921, with the majority forming part of an alliance with the Communist Party of Denmark, while the minority organized themselves into the Syndicalist Propaganda Alliance. Christian Christensen eventually broke from the Communist Party and attempted to revive the syndicalist movement. The syndicalist weekly periodical Arbejdet was established, which Christensen, Carl Heinrich Petersen and Halfdan Rasmussen participated in, but the newspaper ceased publication in 1938.
During the Nazi occupation of Denmark in World War II, syndicalists such as Petersen and Rasmussen participated in the Danish resistance movement, clandestinely publishing anti-fascist propaganda and forming insurgent groups to commit acts of sabotage.
In the 1960s, Danish anarchists began to participate in the creation of freespaces, as part of the nascent squatting movement. The most significant act of which was the establishment of Freetown Christiania in an abandoned army barracks of Copenhagen in 1971, beginning an anarchist project to create a self-governing society. This catalyzed decades of activity in the squatters movement, with squats that followed in its wake including the Ungdomshuset, BumZen and Børnehuset. This rise in the squatting activity eventually culminated in the Battle of Ryesgade, during which squatters clashed with the police that were enforcing an eviction notice.
In 2009, the anarchist organization Libertære Socialister was established, [7] forming a federation from a number of groups throughout Denmark and carrying out a number of protest actions throughout the 2010s before being dissolved in 2017. [8]
Syndicalism is a revolutionary current within the labour movement that, through industrial unionism, seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through strikes, with the eventual goal of gaining control over the means of production and the economy at large through social ownership. Developed in French labor unions during the late 19th century, syndicalist movements were most predominant amongst the socialist movement during the interwar period that preceded the outbreak of World War II.
Anarcho-syndicalism is an anarchist organisational model that centres trade unions as a vehicle for class conflict. Drawing from the theory of libertarian socialism and the practice of syndicalism, anarcho-syndicalism sees trade unions as both a means to achieve immediate improvements to working conditions and to build towards a social revolution in the form of a general strike, with the ultimate aim of abolishing the state and capitalism. Anarcho-syndicalists consider trade unions to be the prefiguration of a post-capitalist society and seek to use them in order to establish workers' control of production and distribution. An anti-political ideology, anarcho-syndicalism rejects political parties and participation in parliamentary politics, considering them to be a corrupting influence on the labour movement. In order to achieve their material and economic goals, anarcho-syndicalists instead practice direct action in the form of strike actions, boycotts and sabotage. Anarcho-syndicalists also attempt to build solidarity among the working class, in order to unite workers against the exploitation of labour and build workers' self-management.
The International Workers' Association – Asociación Internacional de los Trabajadores (IWA–AIT) is an international federation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions and initiatives.
Anarchism in Africa refers both to purported anarchic political organisation of some traditional African societies and to modern anarchist movements in Africa.
Anarchism in South Africa dates to the 1880s, and played a major role in the labour and socialist movements from the turn of the twentieth century through to the 1920s. The early South African anarchist movement was strongly syndicalist. The ascendance of Marxism–Leninism following the Russian Revolution, along with state repression, resulted in most of the movement going over to the Comintern line, with the remainder consigned to irrelevance. There were slight traces of anarchist or revolutionary syndicalist influence in some of the independent left-wing groups which resisted the apartheid government from the 1970s onward, but anarchism and revolutionary syndicalism as a distinct movement only began re-emerging in South Africa in the early 1990s. It remains a minority current in South African politics.
SAC Syndikalisterna is a syndicalist trade union federation in Sweden. Unlike other Swedish unions, SAC organises people from all occupations and industries in one single federation, including the unemployed, students, and the retired. SAC also publishes the weekly newspaper Arbetaren, owns the publishing house Federativs and runs the unemployment fund Sveriges Arbetares Arbetslöshetskassa (SAAK).
The Italian Syndicalist Union is an Italian anarcho-syndicalist trade union. Established in 1912 by a confederation of "houses of labour", the USI led a series of general strikes throughout its early years, culminating with the Red Week insurrection against the Italian entry into World War I. During the Biennio Rosso, the USI was at the forefront of the occupation of factories, which saw hundreds of workplaces throughout the country brought under the control of workers' councils. The USI also led the establishment of the International Workers' Association (IWA), which became the main international organisation of anarcho-syndicalist trade unions.
Anarchism in Ukraine has its roots in the democratic and egalitarian organization of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, who inhabited the region up until the 18th century. Philosophical anarchism first emerged from the radical movement during the Ukrainian national revival, finding a literary expression in the works of Mykhailo Drahomanov, who was himself inspired by the libertarian socialism of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. The spread of populist ideas by the Narodniks also lay the groundwork for the adoption of anarchism by Ukraine's working classes, gaining notable circulation in the Jewish communities of the Pale of Settlement.
Anarchism in Sweden first grew out of the nascent social democratic movement during the later 19th century, with a specifically libertarian socialist tendency emerging from a split in the movement. As with the movements in Germany and the Netherlands, Swedish anarchism had a strong syndicalist tendency, which culminated in the establishment of the Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden (SAC) following an aborted general strike. The modern movement emerged during the late 20th century, growing within a number of countercultural movements before the revival of anarcho-syndicalism during the 1990s.
Anarchism in Ireland has its roots in the stateless organisation of the tuatha in Gaelic Ireland. It first began to emerge from the libertarian socialist tendencies within the Irish republican movement, with anarchist individuals and organisations sprouting out of the resurgent socialist movement during the 1880s, particularly gaining prominence during the time of the Dublin Socialist League.
The Norwegian Syndicalist Federation is an anarcho-syndicalist group in Norway. Established in the 1910s, the NSF worked within existing Norwegian trade unions in order to radicalise them towards revolutionary syndicalism. It was a founding member of the International Workers' Association (IWA) and historically maintained close connections with the Central Organisation of Swedish Workers (SAC). The NSF was politically repressed during the German occupation of Norway and, in the wake of World War II, experienced a dramatic decline. In the 1970s, the organisation was reconstituted as a propaganda group and continued its activities into the 21st century, with a much smaller membership.
The International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam took place from 24 August to 31 August 1907. It gathered delegates from 14 countries, among which important figures of the anarchist movement, including Errico Malatesta, Luigi Fabbri, Benoît Broutchoux, Pierre Monatte, Amédée Dunois, Emma Goldman, Rudolf Rocker, Christiaan Cornelissen, et al.
Anarchism in Japan began to emerge in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as Western anarchist literature began to be translated into Japanese. It existed throughout the 20th century in various forms, despite repression by the state that became particularly harsh during the two world wars, and it reached its height in the 1920s with organisations such as Kokuren and Zenkoku Jiren.
Anarchism in Poland first developed at the turn of the 20th century under the influence of anarchist ideas from Western Europe and from Russia.
Contemporary anarchism within the history of anarchism is the period of the anarchist movement continuing from the end of World War II and into the present. Since the last third of the 20th century, anarchists have been involved in anti-globalisation, peace, squatter and student protest movements. Anarchists have participated in armed revolutions such as in those that created the Makhnovshchina and Revolutionary Catalonia, and anarchist political organizations such as the International Workers' Association and the Industrial Workers of the World have existed since the 20th century. Within contemporary anarchism, the anti-capitalism of classical anarchism has remained prominent.
Anarchism in Portugal first appeared in the form of organized groups in the mid-1880s. It was present from the first steps of the workers' movement, revolutionary unionism and anarcho-syndicalism had a lasting influence on the General Confederation of Labour, founded in 1919.
Anarchism in Bangladesh has its roots in the ideas of the Bengali Renaissance and began to take influence as part of the revolutionary movement for Indian independence in Bengal. After a series of defeats of the revolutionary movement and the rise of state socialist ideas within the Bengali left-wing, anarchism went into a period of remission. This lasted until the 1990s, when anarchism again began to reemerge after the fracturing of the Communist Party of Bangladesh, which led to the rise of anarcho-syndicalism among the Bangladeshi workers' movement.
The Storm on the Stock Exchange was a violent attack on the Børsen in Copenhagen on 11 February 1918. The attack was organized by unemployed syndicalists.
Anarchism in Austria first developed from the anarchist segments of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA), eventually growing into a nationwide anarcho-syndicalist movement that reached its height during the 1920s. Following the institution of fascism in Austria and the subsequent war, the anarchist movement was slow to recover, eventually reconstituting anarcho-syndicalism by the 1990s.
The history of anarcho-syndicalism dates back to the anti-authoritarian faction of the International Workingmen's Association. Revolutionary syndicalism as a tendency was constituted in the 1890s by the French General Confederation of Labour (CGT), which became a model union for other syndicalist organisations to base themselves on. Anarchists were involved in the syndicalist movement from the outset and a specific anarchist tendency developed within the movement over the subsequent decades.
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