Anarchy Timeline

6th Century BC The first clear expression of an anarchist sensibility may be traced back to the Taoists in ancient China from about the sixth century BC. Indeed, the principal Taoist work, the Tao te ching, may be considered one of the greatest anarchist classics.

270 BC The best exponent of anarchist philosophy in ancient Greece was Zeno (342-267 or 270 BC), from Crete, the founder of the Stoic philosophy, who distinctly opposed his conception of a free community without government to the state-utopia of Plato. He repudiated the omnipotence of the state, its intervention and regimentation, and proclaimed the sovereignty of the moral law of the individual - remarking already that, while the necessary instinct of self-preservation leads man to egotism, nature has supplied a corrective to it by providing man with another instinct - that of sociability. When men are reasonable enough to follow their natural instincts, they will unite across the frontiers and constitute the cosmos.

Medieval Europe In medieval Europe the pantheistic Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit rejected all authority and advocated communism of goods and women. During the Hussite wars, Peter Chelcicky (c. 1930-c. 1460) taught that since all compulsion is from the devil, the state is evil and must disappear along with class distinctions. Anabaptists of the 16th century believed themselves freed from all law by Christ's grace, refused to pay taxes or tithes, and held wives and property in common.

1649-50 The English Diggers (1649-50) - The Diggers were a group of agrarian communists who flourished in England in 1649-50 and were led by Gerrard Winstanley (q.v.) and William Everard. In April 1649 about 20 poor men assembled at St. George's Hill, Surrey, and began to cultivate the common land. These Diggers held that the English Civil Wars had been fought against the king and the great landowners; now that Charles I had been executed, land should be made available for the very poor to cultivate. (Food prices had reached record heights in the late 1640s.) The numbers of the Diggers more than doubled during 1649. Their activities alarmed the Commonwealth government and roused the hostility of local landowners, who were rival claimants to the common lands. The Diggers were harassed by legal actions and mob violence, and by the end of March 1650 their colony was dispersed. The Diggers themselves abjured the use of force. The Diggers also called themselves True Levelers, but their communism was denounced by the leaders of the Levelers.

1793 It was William Godwin (1756-1836), in his Enquiry concerning Political Justice (2 vols., 1793), who was the first to formulate the political and economical conceptions of anarchism, even though he did not give that name to the ideas developed in his remarkable work.

1814 Michael Alexandrovitch Bakunin born in Psjamoechino

1818 Karl Marx born

1840 Joseph Proudhon (1809-65) was the first to use, in 1840 (Qu'est-ce que la propriete? first memoir - See: Proudhon's Collected Works), the name of anarchy with application to the no government state of society. The name of 'anarchists' had been freely applied during the French Revolution by the Girondists to those revolutionaries who did not consider that the task of the Revolution was accomplished with the overthrow of Louis XVI.

1848 Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels issued.

1867 Das Kapital by Karl Marx published.

1868 "International Union of Socialist Democrats" under Michael Bakunin.

1869Emma Goldman born.

1871 Paris Commune. The God and the State by Michael Bakunin published.

1876 Michael Bakunin died 1 july 1876, in Bern.

1883 Karl Marx died.

1884 From: May Day - The Real Labor Day by Luther Gaylord ...

1884 the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions passed a resolution stating that eight hours would constitute a legal day's work from and after May 1, 1886. The resolution called for a general strike to achieve the goal, since legislative methods had already failed. With workers being forced to work ten, twelve, and fourteen hours a day, rank-and-file support for the eight-hour movement grew rapidly, despite the indifference and hostility of .many union leaders. By April 1886, 250,000 workers were involved in the May Day movement. The heart of the movement was in Chicago, organized primarily by the anarchist International Working People's Association. Businesses and the state were terrified by the increasingly revolutionary character of the movement and prepared accordingly. The police and militia were increased in size and received new and powerful weapons financed by local business leaders. Chicago's Commercial Club purchased a $2000 machine gun for the Illinois National Guard to be used against strikers. Nevertheless, by May 1st, the movement had already won gains for many Chicago clothing cutters, shoemakers, and packing-house workers.

1886 on May 3, 1886, police fired into a crowd of strikers at the McCormick Reaper Works Factory, killing four and wounding many. Anarchists called for a mass meeting the next day in Haymarket Square to protest the brutality. The meeting proceeded without incident, and by the time the last speaker was on the platform, the rainy gathering was already breaking up, with only a few hundred people remaining. It was then that 180 cops marched into the square and ordered the meeting to disperse. As the speakers climbed down from the platform, a bomb was thrown at the police, killing one and injuring seventy. Police responded by firing into the crowd, killing one worker and injuring many others. Although it was never determined who threw the bomb, the incident was used as an excuse to attack the entire Left and labor movement. Police ransacked the homes and offices of suspected radicals, and hundreds were arrested without charge. Anarchists in particular were harassed, and eight of Chicago's most active were charged with conspiracy to murder in connection with the Haymarket bombing. A kangaroo court found all eight guilty, despite a lack of evidence connecting any of them to the bomb-thrower (only one was even present at the meeting, and he was on the speakers' platform), and they were sentenced to die. Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolf Fischer, and George Engel were hanged on November 11, 1887. Louis .Lingg committed suicide in prison, The remaining three were finally pardoned in 1893.

1917 Russian Revolution.

1936 Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).

1966 San Francisco "Diggers" formed by Emmett Grogan, Peter Berg, Robert Lamorticella, Peter Coyote, and David Cohen (inspired by the work of Gerard Winstanley).

1979 "Punk", London.

Email: shoutfromthegutter@hotmail.com