Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is against all forms of authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including the state and capitalism. Anarchism advocates for the replacement of the state with stateless societies and voluntary free associations. A historically left-wing movement, anarchism is usually described as the libertarian wing of the socialist movement.
Errico Malatesta was an Italian anarchist propagandist and revolutionary socialist. He edited several radical newspapers and spent much of his life exiled and imprisoned, having been jailed and expelled from Italy, Britain, France, and Switzerland. Originally a supporter of insurrectionary propaganda by deed, Malatesta later advocated for syndicalism. His exiles included five years in Europe and 12 years in Argentina. Malatesta participated in actions including an 1895 Spanish revolt and a Belgian general strike. He toured the United States, giving lectures and founding the influential anarchist journal La Questione Sociale. After World War I, he returned to Italy where his Umanità Nova had some popularity before its closure under the rise of Mussolini.
Colin Ward was a British anarchist writer and editor. He has been called "one of the greatest anarchist thinkers of the past half century, and a pioneering social historian."
Clifford Harper is a worker, illustrator, and militant anarchist. He wrote Anarchy: A Graphic Guide in 1987. He is a long-term contributor to The Guardian newspaper and many other publications.
Lucy E. Parsons was an American social anarchist and later anarcho-communist. Her early life is shrouded in mystery: she herself said she was of mixed Mexican and Native American ancestry; historians believe she was born to an African American slave, possibly in Virginia, then married a black freedman in Texas. In addition to Parsons, she went by different surnames during her life including Carter, Diaz, Gonzalez and Hull. She met Albert Parsons in Waco, Texas, and claimed to have married him although no records have been found. They moved to Chicago together around 1873 and Parsons' politics were shaped by the harsh repression of the Chicago railroad strike of 1877. She argued for labor organization and class struggle, writing polemical texts and speaking at events. She joined the International Workingmen's Association and later the Knights of Labor, and she set up the Chicago Working Women's Union with her friend Lizzie Swank and other women.
Anarchists have employed certain symbols for their cause since the 19th century, including most prominently the circle-A and the black flag. Anarchist cultural symbols have become more prevalent in popular culture since around the turn of the 21st century, concurrent with the anti-globalization movement and with the punk subculture.
According to different scholars, the history of anarchism either goes back to ancient and prehistoric ideologies and social structures, or begins in the 19th century as a formal movement. As scholars and anarchist philosophers have held a range of views on what anarchism means, it is difficult to outline its history unambiguously. Some feel anarchism is a distinct, well-defined movement stemming from 19th-century class conflict, while others identify anarchist traits long before the earliest civilisations existed.
Jean Grave was an important activist in the French anarchist and the international anarchist communism movements. He was the editor of three major anarchist periodicals, Le Révolté, La Révolte and Les Temps Nouveaux, and wrote dozens of pamphlets and a number of important anarchist books.
Louise Michel was a teacher and prominent figure during the Paris Commune. Following her penal transportation to New Caledonia she embraced anarchism. When returning to France she emerged as an important French anarchist and went on speaking tours across Europe. The journalist Brian Doherty has called her the "French grande dame of anarchy." Her use of a black flag at a demonstration in Paris in March 1883 was also the earliest known of what would become known as the anarchy black flag.
Fitzroy Square is a Georgian square in London, England. It is the only one in the central London area known as Fitzrovia. The square is one of the area's main features, this once led to the surrounding district to be known as Fitzroy Square or Fitzroy Town and latterly as Fitzrovia, though the nearby Fitzroy Tavern is thought to have had as much influence on the name as Fitzroy Square.
The Walsall Anarchists were a group of anarchists arrested on explosive charges in Walsall, present-day West Midlands, England in 1892.
Émile Pouget was a French journalist, anarchist pamphleteer and trade unionist, known for his pivotal role in the development of revolutionary syndicalism in France. His iconic newspaper, Le Père Peinard, stood out from previous anarchist publications with its inventive use of vernacular and urban slang. Notably, Pouget introduced the term "sabotage" as a tactical approach, a concept later adopted by the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) at its Toulouse Congress in 1897. Pouget's combination of anarchist political theory and revolutionary syndicalist tactics has led several authors to identify him as an early anarcho-syndicalist.
Marie Le Compte was an American journal editor and anarchist who was active during the early 1880s.
Paul Delesalle was a French anarchist and syndicalist who was prominent in the trade union movement. He started work as a machinist, became a journalist, and later became a bookseller, publisher and writer.
The Rose Street Club was a far-left, anarchist organisation based in what is now Manette Street, London. Originally centred around London's German community, and acting as a meeting point for new immigrants, it became one of the leading radical clubs of Victorian London in the late-nineteenth century. Although its roots went back to the 1840s, it was properly formed in 1877 by members of a German émigré workers' education group, which soon became frequented by London radicals, and within a few years had led to the formation of similar clubs, sometimes in support and sometimes in rivalry. The Rose Street Club provided a platform for the radical speakers and agitators of the day and produced its own paper, Freiheit—which was distributed over Europe, and especially Germany—and pamphlets for other groups and individuals. Although radical, the club initially focused as much on providing a social service to its members as on activism. With the arrival of the anarchist Johann Most in London in the early 1880s, and his increasing influence within the club, it became increasingly aligned with anarchism.
Nannie Florence Dryhurst was an Irish writer, translator, activist and nationalist.
The Great Unrest, also known as the Great Labour Unrest, was a period of labour revolt between 1911 and 1914 in the United Kingdom. The agitation included the 1911 Liverpool general transport strike, the Tonypandy riots, the National coal strike of 1912 and the 1913 Dublin lockout. It was United Kingdom's most significant labour unrest since the Industrial Revolution but is not as widely remembered as the 1926 general strike. The period of unrest was labelled "great" not because of its scale, but due to the level of violence employed by both the state and labourers; including deaths of strikers at the hands of police and sabotage on the part of the workers.
The International Social Revolutionary Congress was an anarchist meeting in London between 14 and 20 July 1881, with the aim of founding a new International organization for anti-authoritiarian socialism.
