The Relevance of Anarchism

Abstract

Close students of the vocabulary of established politicians and pundits will not have failed to notice a significant new development in the past three years : the reappearance of the word "anarchist" (and its variants) as a term of abuse. Applied almost invariably to radicals and radical activity, it is a label the simple use of which is enough, it is evidently assumed, to discredit the labelled effectively in the eyes of the general public. In the West it bids fair to replace "communist", "red", and the rest, as the would-be most damaging stigma; but this is a term which transcends orthodox ideological frontiers, and it is equally popular with the politicians of Eastern Europe. In this respect in Washington, Warsaw and Walsall the authorities speak the same language. Trybuna Ludu and Pravda, confronted by the Polish workers' rising of December 1970, call for "an end to all anarchy", while in Walsall, Staffordshire, a councillor denounces supporters of the gipsies' case against the local authority as "liars and anarchists"? Examples could be multiplied.