After the French revolution, the political left in that country consisted of three equally large factions: the liberals, the socialists, and the anarchists. By the middle of the 19th century, anarchism was dead as a movement. Therefore, it is somewhat surprising that it reemerged in the form of Antifa in the United States more than a century later. What happened to anarchism? The answer might be rather disturbing.
Bakunin vs. Marx
In the late 19th century, when communism was rising as a movement inspired by Karl Marx, the so-called libertarian anarchist left pushed by people like Mikhail Bakunin was alive and kicking. However, the two factions soon clashed, and the short story is that Marx won. Officially, anarchism was defeated by those who believed in the government.
Non-governmental Politics
However, the real story might be more complex than this. Some intelligent people may have thought: why does it have to be either statism or anarchism? Why not both? If we define anarchism as non-official, non-governmental political activism, then anarchism survived as a partner to the statist socialists.
Consider the Irish Republican Army (I.R.A.), who acted as an anarchist terrorist organization in Northern Ireland during the civil war between Protestants and Catholics. They were aligned politically with Sinn Féin, a democratic socialist party that fought politically against British rule in Northern Ireland.
Officially, they were not connected, but informally the I.R.A. was known as the military wing of Sinn Féin. It is a perfect example of anarchists working hand in hand with statists toward a common goal.
Revolution
A socialist revolution is almost by definition cooperation between anarchists and statists. The anarchist revolutionaries initiate the revolution, and when they have seized control of the government, they become statists.
Benito Mussolini followed a similar pattern in Italy with his paramilitary anarchist Voluntary Militia for National Security (the Blackshirts). Adolf Hitler did the same in Germany with his Sturmabteilung (Brownshirts), while Josef Stalin founded and funded Antifa in Germany.
In China, Mao Zedong created and inspired the cultural revolution, led by the paramilitary Red Guard student organization, analogous to the I.R.A., the Brownshirts, the Blackshirts, and Antifa.
Corporatism
Mussolini and Hitler perfected another form of anarcho-socialism, namely corporatism. Rather than letting the government operate businesses and implement policies directly, they allowed private corporations to exist and profit in return for implementing political goals. In both Italy and Germany, this connection was formalized by law. Still, it is possible to do it merely through informal relationships, like the connection between Sinn Féin and the I.R.A.
Suppose, for instance, that a party wants to ban free speech and spread political propaganda to secure its power. Wouldn’t it be convenient if that party had friends and party allies who own and control private corporations such as news organizations, social media, and search engines?
By acting informally, they circumvent the intent of the law. Gross violations of the First Amendment turn into legal “violations of community standards.” If politicians took the same actions through the government, they would be thrown in jail for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” but if done by anarchistic means through friendship and with private corporations, they get away with it.
“Everything is Political”
[bookpromo align=”right”] In the 1960s, radical feminists created the slogan “the personal is political.” During the 2000s, the American left started repeating a variation of this slogan: “everything is political.” Both echo the sentiment of Mussolini: “all within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”
The difference between the modern left and Mussolini is that they do not see the need to turn everything into government policies formally. It suffices to do it by activistic, anarchistic means.
Today, we observe the fruits of this sentiment: Black Lives Matter and Antifa act as paramilitary wings of leftist political organizations. Radical leftist professors hijacked academia with “the long march through the institutions.”
Finally, we have the Silicon Valley big tech corporations with communist-friendly leaders such as Mark Zuckerberg. He asked Chinese President Xi Jinping in perfect Mandarin to name his unborn child. Time magazine has detailed how these powerful billionaires “fortified” the 2020 election, and Democratic politicians openly ask them to censor what they perceive as “misinformation and hate speech.”
Coincidence?
It may all be a coincidence, but Occam’s razor suggests that the re-emergence of anarchism in America in the recent decade is an informal, loosely coordinated public-private partnership. If true, history teaches us that the nation may soon find itself fundamentally transformed.
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Read more from Caroline Adana.
