Who is an anarchist and what does he dream about?

The twentieth century was the era of the development of various social theories expressing the desire of thinking members of society to improve social relations. According to most philosophers, people of art, and sometimes ordinary people, humanity entered a civilizational dead end, the way out of which seemed to someone simple, and someone - almost impossible.

Most thinkers were in agreement that relations between members of society, based primarily on coercion and material interests, lead to degeneration of the human race. The oppression of some strata of the population by others will take place as long as there is a state, and exploitation is inevitable in terms of commodity-money relations, this was in solidarity with the Social Democrats and Marxists.

At the turn of the century, the most paradoxical and radical ideas became popular, in particular those that called for rooting out the root of all ills - power as such, expressed in the state social order.

The very word "anarchy" gives a general idea of who an anarchist is. The prefix "en" in the Greek language corresponds to the Russian "not" or "without", and "archie" means power. So, this is a person who denies the hierarchical structure of social management formed over many centuries, representing, irrespective of the degree of totalitarianism, the pyramid, on top of which there is an autocratic monarch, tyrant-usurper or democratically elected president.

On the question of who such an anarchist is, most people who grew up in the Soviet era would confidently answer: "So it's Papandopulo!" Someone would have remembered Nestor Makhno, whose image, formed by the art of socialist realism, was no less caricature. The explanation of this prejudiced attitude to the theory of anarchy and free development of the individual is simple.

The usual scene from a Soviet historical film about the events of the civil war: the black flag of anarchists with the slogan "Anarchy is the mother of order!" Fluttering over a crowd of marginalized people. A decisive commissar-Bolshevik appears who, ignoring threats, after a brief speech, wins an ideological victory. Who is an anarchist, listening to the communist and taking his side? Usually, this is a peasant who does not understand anything in politics, who is confused and flattered by beautiful promises. After the Bolshevik opened his eyes to him, he immediately turns to the side of the Red Army.

For all the similarity of the goal formulated in the Manifesto of the Communist Party and expressed in the final destruction of the state, the Marxists argued that it would come as a result of the socialist revolution and subsequent construction. In other words, the device of suppression will die out as soon as it is maximally strengthened. This is the main difference between the Russian Marxists in the person of Trotsky and Ulyanov (Lenin) from the Bakuninians, the Kropotkinites or the Tolstoyans.

Like many social phenomena, anarchism has divided into several currents. Most of them negatively relate to market relations, but some part has a different opinion on this issue. In the question of who such an anarchist individualist is and how he differs from an anarchist-syndicalist or communist anarchist, the main criterion is the attitude toward private property.

At the present stage in many countries of the post-Soviet space the role of the state often boils down to collecting taxes and protecting the interests of the so-called ruling elites. The absence or extreme scarcity of social guarantees, poor social security, inability and unwillingness of the authorities to deal with these issues cause a large part of the population to doubt their needs. In such conditions, in one or another independent country, an alliance of anarchists will form. Its founders are aware of the low political viability of the movement they lead, but a certain number of supporters of anarchy is always there. As a rule, they refer to anarchy as an unreal, but beautiful dream.