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Hi Boots. I'm a historian of anarchism. Here are some points I hope will help you better understand anarchism, even if you disagree with it.
1. anarchists have always advocated organised violence to launch and defend a revolution. Here are some examples below: https://twitter.com/BootsRiley/status/1274122780829642752
1. anarchists have always advocated organised violence to launch and defend a revolution. Here are some examples below: https://twitter.com/BootsRiley/status/1274122780829642752
Rocker wrote in 1920 that “a revolution cannot be made with rose-water” since “the owning classes will never yield up their privileges spontaneously. On the day of victorious revolution the workers will have to impose their will on the present owners of the means of production”.
Malatesta wrote that since the ruling class are protected by “powerful military and police organisations which meet any serious attempt at a change with prison, hanging, and massacre” revolutionaries are forced to use violence to overcome “the physical force that blocks our way”
Hence Malatesta advocated “the creation of voluntary militia, without powers to interfere as militia in the life of the community, but only to deal with any armed attacks by the forces of reaction to reestablish themselves, or to resist outside intervention by countries"
The CNT’s 1936 Zaragoza congress resolutions acknowledged “the necessity to defend the advances made through the revolution” from both “foreign capitalist invasion” and “counter-revolution at home.” This would be achieved through “the people armed”.
Given these quotes (which is a tiny selection of sources I could use) it is clear that anarchists advocated organised violence. Why then did they not view this as a state despite it being an organisation using violence to reproduce/defend the self-rule of the working classes?
2. The reason is because of how anarchists defined the state. They agreed with Marxists that the state is an institution which performs the function of reproducing the rule of a particular class. Where they disagreed was they thought a state has a specific organisational form.
Based on an analysis of the state both historically and at the time of writing they came to define it as being necessarily centralised and hierarchical. This means it is ruled by a minority at the top/centre who make decisions and exercise power over others.
Given this, anarchists thought states were run by a political ruling class (generals, politicians, high ranking bureaucrats, monarchs, etc) who exercised state power in their own interests, and in the interests of the economic ruling class (capitalists, landlords, etc).
Anarchists rejected the strategy of seizing state power (as they defined it) because it was based on a means - minority rule by a political ruling class - that would never achieve the ends of communism. I explain this here in depth https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anarchopac-means-and-ends
Instead they thought the working classes should abolish capitalism and the state in favour of federations of workplace and community assemblies and federations of workers militias. This was not viewed as a state because its not centralised/hierarchical + no ruling minority.
Federations of assemblies and militias is a state by the broad Marxist definition. And anarchists were aware of this but thought that in practice Marxist parties, like the Bolsheviks, established the dictatorship of a minority party over the working classes. For example,
3. Anarchists did not think that a perfect society was possible during and immediately after a social revolution. They instead thought they were laying the organisational groundwork from which anarchy - a free/equal society based on solidarity - could develop.
This is why Malatesta wrote that after a social revolution “it would not be Anarchy, yet, or it would be only for those few who want it, and only in those things they can accomplish without the cooperation of the non-anarchists.” Anarchy could only develop "little by little".
If you want to learn more about what anarchy is and how anarchists didn't expect it to happen immediately I've made a short video on it with lots of quotes from historic anarchists.
I hope this clarifies things and if you have any more questions about anarchism I can answer them. If you're reading this and want to learn more I've made lots of youtube videos and this very long reading list. https://anarchopac.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/recommended-reading/
