Anarchist communism

Anarchist communism is an anarchist school of thought that advocates a form of communism where society is organized through horizontal networks of voluntary associations. It calls for the abolition of hierarchies, as well as private property but retention of personal property and collectively owned items, goods, and services. It supports common ownership of property and the free distribution of resources under the principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".

Anarchist communism was first formulated as such in the Italian section of the International Workingmen's Association. The theoretical work of Peter Kropotkin took importance later as it expanded and developed pro-organizationalist and insurrectionary anti-organizationalist section. Examples of anarchist communist societies are the anarchist territories of the Makhnovshchina during the Russian Revolution, and those of the Spanish Revolution, most notably revolutionary Catalonia.

History

Forerunners

The modern current of communism was founded by the Neo-Babouvists

of the journal L'Humanitaire (published in mid-1841), who drew from the "anti-political and anarchist ideas" of Sylvain Maréchal. The foundations of anarcho-communism were laid by Théodore Dézamy in his 1843 work Code de la Communauté, which he formulated as a critique of Étienne Cabet's utopian socialism. In his Code, Dézamy advocated the abolition of money, of the division of labour and of the state. He also championed the introduction of common ownership of property and the distribution of resources "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs".