My article on the transformation and revitalization of anarchism in the late 20th century was recently accepted for publication in the Spring 2023 edition of the Anarchist Studies journal. Here is a sneak peak at the introduction:
Anarchism exploded into public view in the 1999 Battle of Seattle. While the media focused on the spectacle of the black bloc smashing windows, they largely overlooked the role of anarchism behind the scenes where activists organized themselves in affinity groups and made decisions by consensus. Although self-identified anarchists remained a minority within it, the anti-globalization movement became known for its embrace of “common sense” anarchist values and practices. Large segments of the movement operated along anarchist principles: decentralization, horizontal organizational structures, militant street demonstrations, rejection of the state and capitalism, and advocacy of both individual freedom and worker control of production. After almost a century of Marxist predominance, how did anarchism develop from a marginal phenomenon into a force at the center of the anti-globalization movement?
This article explores the subterranean development of American anarchism in the late twentieth century. As a reactionary counterrevolution remade society, the New Left was decimated by violent repression, and the Soviet Union collapsed, many on the radical left reevaluated the politics of the 1960s-70s. A new generation of radicals—together with many ‘60s veterans—critiqued the failures of Marxism-Leninism and grappled with the fundamental changes in social, political, and economic life. As the ruling class embraced neoliberalism and repressive law and order politics, much of the left turned away from both party building and an orientation towards capturing state power. Their analysis of social changes and the failures of state socialism led many militants to reject the state, and the late twentieth century was marked by a spread of anarchist politics throughout the radical left.
Part one of this article analyzes the right-wing counterrevolution that defeated the radical currents of the “long 1960s.” Drawing on Corey Robin and Paulo Virno’s theories of conservatism and counterrevolution, I argue that we cannot see the New Right counterrevolution as a simple return to the past, but rather as the creation of a new social order that recuperated warped elements of the radicalism to which it reacted. In the United States, this took the form of neoliberal economics, masculine individualism articulated alongside a moral defense of the nuclear family, recuperation of elements of the feminist and civil rights movements, and a repressive law and order politics that embraced mass incarceration as a “fix” for both the radical left and the economic crisis.
In part two, I explore the evolution of the radical left in this period in order to understand the growing shift from Marxist to anarchist common sense. After analyzing the defeat of the Marxist-Leninist and national liberation movements of the long 1960s, I discuss five examples of the revitalization of anarchism and its underground development in a variety of movement spaces: the birth of Black/New Afrikan Anarchism from imprisoned ex-Black Panthers; the rise of anarcha-feminism in the women’s liberation movement; the growth of eco-anarchism; the role of punk in popularizing anarchism; and the foundation of nation-wide revolutionary social anarchist organizations like Love and Rage. Through these five cases—which each warrant an extended treatment beyond this article’s scope—I analyze a shift in the radical left towards an anarchistic politics which decenters and disavows the state in favor of grassroots dual power, direct self-determination, mutual aid, and non-hierarchical organization. This reorientation can only be understood by situating it in the context of the broad historical transformations of the post-1960s counterrevolution. I ultimately argue that anarchism was revitalized in the late twentieth century because it provided compelling, non-state-oriented answers to the new problems posed by the counterrevolution and the crisis of state socialism.
