Overview
Anarcho-communism (also called anarchist communism or libertarian communism) is a tradition that aims to abolish both the state and capitalism at the same time. In place of governments, markets and wages, it imagines a society of voluntary, self-governing communities and federations in which land, workplaces and tools are held in common, and goods are distributed according to need rather than according to how much someone works or owns.
On our test, anarcho-communism sits at the far end of two axes at once: as far towards equality as possible on the economic axis, and as far towards liberty as possible on the authority axis. That combination is what makes it distinctive. Many socialist traditions accept a strong state, at least for a transition period; many anti-state traditions accept private property and markets. Anarcho-communists reject both.
Core beliefs
- No state. Anarcho-communists see the state, meaning a permanent body with a monopoly on legitimate force, as a source of domination in itself, not merely a tool that could be used well or badly. They argue that a "workers' state" would recreate a ruling class of officials.
- No private ownership of the means of production. Land, factories and resources would be held in common and managed by those who use them and those affected by them. Personal possessions such as a home, clothes and tools for personal use are usually distinguished from productive property.
- From each according to ability, to each according to need. Instead of wages, people would contribute what they can and take what they need from common stores. Some anarcho-communists accept that this goal would be reached gradually.
- Free association and federation. Communities and workplaces would coordinate through voluntary federations that delegates can be recalled from, rather than through central government.
- Direct action and prefiguration. Change should be made by people acting for themselves, and the means used to change society should resemble the society being built.
History
Anarcho-communism emerged in the 1870s, after a split in the International Workingmen's Association between followers of Karl Marx and anarchists associated with Mikhail Bakunin. The key dispute was whether socialism required capturing state power first. Anarchists said no: any state, even a revolutionary one, would become a new instrument of rule.
Within the anarchist camp, a further debate followed over distribution. Bakunin's collectivists favoured paying people according to their labour. Italian and French anarchists such as Errico Malatesta, Carlo Cafiero and Élisée Reclus argued that measuring individual labour was impractical and unjust, and that distribution should follow need. Peter Kropotkin, a Russian geographer, became the best-known advocate. His book The Conquest of Bread (1892) set out how a city might feed and house itself after a revolution, and Mutual Aid (1902) argued that cooperation, not only competition, was a major factor in evolution and human society.
The tradition's largest practical experiments came during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), when anarchist unions and collectives took over many farms and factories in Catalonia, Aragon and elsewhere. Supporters point to the collectives as evidence that large-scale self-management is possible; critics note that the experiment took place in wartime, involved coercion in some places, and was crushed before its long-term viability could be tested. The Free Territory in parts of Ukraine (1918–21), associated with Nestor Makhno, is another frequently cited case. Both ended through military defeat.
In the later twentieth century, anarcho-communist ideas influenced parts of the student and countercultural movements, the anti-globalisation protests of the late 1990s and early 2000s, and various community projects, housing cooperatives and mutual-aid networks. Some observers also point to the autonomous region in north-east Syria (Rojava), influenced by Murray Bookchin's ideas, as a related contemporary experiment, though it differs from classical anarcho-communism in important ways.
Key thinkers and texts
- Peter Kropotkin: The Conquest of Bread, Mutual Aid, Fields, Factories and Workshops.
- Errico Malatesta: essays and the pamphlet Anarchy, stressing ethics and gradual organisation.
- Emma Goldman: Anarchism and Other Essays; brought issues of sexuality, free speech and personal freedom into the tradition.
- Alexander Berkman: What Is Communist Anarchism? (also published as The ABC of Anarchism), an accessible introduction.
- Murray Bookchin: later developed "libertarian municipalism" and social ecology, which partly grew out of this tradition before he distanced himself from anarchism.
Variants and related ideologies
Anarcho-communism overlaps with anarcho-syndicalism, which emphasises revolutionary trade unions as the organising force, and with libertarian socialism, a broader umbrella that includes non-anarchist currents such as council communism. Platformism argues for tightly organised anarchist federations, while insurrectionary anarchism rejects formal organisation. Green anarchism and social ecology add environmental priorities. Anarcho-communism is very different from anarcho-capitalism, which shares the anti-state stance but defends private property and markets.
How it answers the big questions
- Who decides? Assemblies of the people affected, coordinated through recallable delegates.
- Who owns things? Productive resources are held in common; personal possessions remain personal.
- What about crime and conflict? Most anarcho-communists favour community-based mediation and restorative approaches rather than police and prisons, and argue that much crime comes from poverty and inequality.
- What about large-scale coordination? Through federations, shared standards and, in some modern versions, digital tools for planning and logistics.
Criticisms and debates
Critics from liberal and conservative traditions argue that without prices and markets, it is hard to know what to produce, in what quantities and with which resources, a version of the "economic calculation problem" raised by Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. They also argue that, without a state, communities would be vulnerable to organised armed groups and that power would re-emerge informally. Marxist critics argue that a revolution without a transitional state would be defeated by counter-revolution. Some sceptics point out that historical experiments were short-lived and took place under war conditions, so their lessons are limited.
Anarcho-communists respond that markets and states have their own failures, that informal power can be checked by culture and federation, and that mutual-aid networks show cooperation working at scale in everyday life. Within the tradition, there are long-running debates about organisation versus spontaneity, the use of violence, and how quickly distribution by need could be achieved.
Where it sits on our eight axes
Beyond the familiar economic and authority scores, anarcho-communists tend to produce a recognisable pattern on the other six axes. On Progress vs Tradition, they usually lean strongly towards Progress, because the tradition has long challenged inherited hierarchies in families, religion and gender roles; Emma Goldman's writing on personal freedom is an early example. On Local vs Central, they score close to the Local pole, since the federation of small communes is the basic unit of their imagined society. On Revolution vs Reform, most score towards Revolution, although Malatesta and others stressed that a revolution is only as good as the habits of cooperation people have already built.
The Global vs Nation axis is more interesting. Anarcho-communists are internationalist and hostile to nationalism, yet they are also suspicious of global institutions such as trade bodies and international banks. As a result, scores here are often moderately global rather than extreme. On Ecology vs Growth, contemporary anarcho-communists commonly lean towards Ecology, influenced by Bookchin and green anarchism, while Kropotkin's own writing was enthusiastic about technology that would reduce toil. On Secular vs Religious, the classical tradition was strongly anti-clerical, though there is also a small Christian anarchist current associated with Leo Tolstoy, which is usually pacifist and not always communist.
In practice today
There is no country organised on anarcho-communist lines. The tradition's influence today is visible mostly in smaller-scale institutions: housing and food cooperatives, social centres, free schools, solidarity networks that share food or emergency funds, and some radical unions. During disasters, mutual-aid groups that coordinate volunteers without a formal hierarchy are often described by participants in language that draws on Kropotkin, even when those involved don't identify as anarchists. Academic interest continues through anarchist studies journals and research into commons governance, including Elinor Ostrom's work on how communities manage shared resources (Ostrom herself was not an anarchist, but her findings are frequently discussed in these circles).
A suggested reading path
Start with Berkman's short What Is Communist Anarchism? for a plain-language introduction. Move to Kropotkin's The Conquest of Bread for the economic vision and Mutual Aid for the evolutionary argument. For a critical, balanced history, George Woodcock's Anarchism or Peter Marshall's Demanding the Impossible cover the wider movement, including its failures. Readers wanting the strongest objections should pair this with Hayek's essay "The Use of Knowledge in Society".
Common misconceptions
- "Anarchy means chaos." In this tradition, anarchy means the absence of rulers, not the absence of rules or organisation.
- "It's the same as Soviet communism." Anarcho-communists were among the earliest critics of Bolshevism, and many were imprisoned or killed by Soviet authorities.
- "Nobody would own anything." Personal belongings are generally distinct from productive property.
Am I an anarcho-communist?
You may lean this way if you strongly distrust both governments and corporations, believe essential goods should be shared according to need, value direct democracy and local assemblies, and see voluntary cooperation as a realistic basis for society. On our test, that shows up as very high Equality and very high Liberty scores, often with high Local and Revolution scores as well.
Frequently asked questions
Is anarcho-communism the same as libertarian socialism? It's one strand of libertarian socialism, which also includes syndicalist and council-communist ideas.
Has it ever existed? Short-lived experiments existed, most notably in Spain in 1936–39. There is no long-term, large-scale example.
Is it left or right? It is usually placed on the far left economically and at the libertarian end of the authority axis.