A-Infos (en) France, SocLib: WORDS AND THINGS: THE WORD "ANARCHY" AND ITS DERIVATIVES (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

"Of all the words we are reviewing, the word 'anarchy' is the most 
unfortunate. Etymologically, it means 'absence of authority,' and it 
only appeared in 1791. It immediately took on a pejorative meaning-that 
of disorder, disorganization, and mismanagement. ---- Naturally, this is 
a misuse of the word; it implies that disorder inevitably stems from a 
lack of authority and that, conversely, order reigns wherever authority 
is present. In fact, everything depends on what one calls 'order' and 
what one terms 'authority.' When most people speak of the latter, they 
mean state authority. Yet, there have been non-state societies where 
order was neither more nor less precarious than the order claimed by 
states. This was the case for the Celts before the Roman conquest, the 
Native Americans, and the Australian Aborigines. Their social 
organizations did not include the State. They were not, however, 
anarchist societies, for the individual submitted to a tacit customary 
law-sometimes despotic and bloodthirsty-enforced by initiates, 'sages,' 
and patriarchs. The authority of a consensus-a social contract 
transmitted orally and deemed to be of divine origin-maintained an 
immutable order, if one can apply that term to the state of 
near-perpetual warfare between clans and tribes.

Emphasis is placed on the disorder that arises when authority is 
lacking. Why is there no similar emphasis on the disorder caused by 
authority itself?" It seems to us that great disorder reigned in Europe 
from 1805 to 1815, and that terrible upheavals occurred in 1870, then 
from 1914 to 1918, and again from 1939 to 1945. Can the absence of 
authority be blamed for this? No; these supreme upheavals-incomparably 
more vast and devastating than any caused by anarchy-were brought about 
by states, by authorities, and by individuals entrusted with authority. 
Disorder is certainly a distressing thing; while it may indeed arise in 
the absence of authority, it almost certainly occurs at the slightest 
excess of authority.

Derivatives of the word "anarchy" have suffered the repercussions of the 
stigma attached to it. Consequently, the words "anarchism" and 
"anarchist" have fallen under the same anathema. Yet anarchism is a 
coherent doctrine, both in its social structure and in its individualist 
philosophy. However, it is the word "anarchist" that has suffered the 
most from semantic distortion. It is very commonly used to mean 
"instigator of disorder," "terrorist," or "bomb-thrower."

There is, admittedly, some truth to these accusatory definitions. 
Anarchists have frequently instigated harsh and severe strikes-such as 
some of those that broke out in 1936, which were subsequently "co-opted" 
by the Communists and the CGT. A strike is, to be sure, a form of 
disorder. Yet it often arises as a reaction against a far greater 
disorder: the intolerable disparity between the living conditions of 
society's various classes. When the distribution of wealth and the wage 
hierarchy are themselves nothing but a vast, scandalous disorder 
masquerading as order, a strike appears-by comparison-as a mere trifle 
of a disturbance, one actually precipitated by that greater disorder. 
The charge of "terrorism" is also sometimes justified: anarchists have 
indeed engaged in terror-based activism-most notably during the final 
decade of the nineteenth century. A few words on this subject are in order.
* * * * *
All ideologies-whether religious or political-spawn various types of 
adherents: some more inclined toward violent action, others who reject 
it entirely. Christianity, for instance, has had its warrior-crusaders 
and its contemplative hermits, its mendicant friars and its 
soldier-monks. There are Muslims who are fanatics for holy war, and 
others who content themselves with prayer. Yet these are dogmatic 
religions. Anarchism-which is the very antithesis of monolithic thinking 
and is grounded in both reason and tolerance-was bound to give rise to a 
wide diversity of attitudes; thus, it is hardly surprising to find 
terrorists and non-violent activists side by side within its ranks (with 
non-violence by no means equating to passivity). There is no intention 
here to hold up as models those anarchists who resorted to terrorism; 
yet it would be biased to disown them without nuance. While they did not 
shake the old world to its foundations, they fired a warning shot across 
the bow of an era in which the proletariat was mired in misery and 
despair. Today, their revolt stands as a historical fact-one that, 
without requiring a defense, is viewed with greater understanding than 
in the past; for we do not always judge the past by the same standards 
we apply to the present.

Terrorism played only a very minor role in anarchist activity; moreover, 
political movements of all stripes-far more than the anarchists-have 
employed methods of terror. In pre-revolutionary Russia, terrorists 
could be found in every camp opposed to Tsarism, including among the 
Bolsheviks. Gavrilo Princip and his comrade Gabrilovich-who assassinated 
Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, 
thereby triggering the monstrous slaughter of the First World War-were 
not anarchists but Serbian patriots; Raoul Villain, who killed Jaurès a 
month later, was a Maurrassian-the very antithesis of an anarchist. And 
it is highly probable that the people who blew up the statue of Jaurès 
in Carmaux were not anarchists. In the history of terrorism, anarchism 
occupies a relatively minor place. Today, the major terrorist attacks 
marking the now-permanent conflict between Israelis and Palestinians are 
the work of nationalists on both sides. Furthermore, when putting 
terrorism on trial, people conveniently fail to call state terrorism-a 
constant phenomenon-to the stand; let us not forget that the great 
powers pride themselves on maintaining world peace through the "balance 
of terror" inspired by the nuclear arsenals they have amassed.

It follows that equating the anarchist with a bomb-thrower is utterly 
absurd. If one were to tally the figures, one would be forced to 
acknowledge that anarchists have thrown very few bombs compared to the 
projectiles dropped by the airmen of numerous nations during the last 
war. Cities such as Coventry and Rotterdam were razed; a bombing raid on 
Hamburg killed a hundred thousand people in a single night; Incendiary 
bombs burned Dresden; high-explosive bombs pulverized Saint-Lô. It was 
not anarchists who dropped all these bombs; indeed, throughout the 
merciless wars fomented by the great international criminal syndicates, 
most of them strove to avoid participation. Most were innocent of the 
millions of crimes perpetrated-though this did not prevent them from 
often falling victim to them, particularly when their refusal to take 
part was branded as treason. Finally, let us recall that it was not 
these so-called "bomb-throwers" who invented, manufactured, and dropped 
the atomic bomb on Japanese cities; they had absolutely nothing to do 
with it.
* * * * *
Alas! There is little one can do about the shifting meaning of a word. 
The word *falot*, which once meant "pleasant," now means "dull"; the 
*billion*, which used to be equivalent to a thousand million, has meant 
a million million since 1948; a *bi-hebdomadaire*-which in Littré's day 
appeared once every two weeks-now appears twice a week. Usage is 
sovereign; it expresses itself through the *vox populi*; and it has 
endowed the words "anarchy" and "anarchist" with a meaning that even the 
best intentions have failed to overcome.

For this reason, Gaston Leval did not use the term; that courageous 
fighter-a draft resister, an insubordinate, a volunteer in Spain who 
never hid his colors-nonetheless avoided the word "anarchist," 
preferring the term "libertarian," which was less burdened by ambiguity. 
Charles-Auguste Bontemps, conversely, set out to rehabilitate the word 
"anarchist" and to restore-or rather, to uphold-its noble meaning; In 
his writings, he refers to anarchist philosophy and outlines a rule of 
life that he himself describes as "anarchist"-a rule of which he was 
personally an almost hermit-like and entirely selfless example; 
furthermore, on the podium-even before conformist, bourgeois 
audiences-he always presented himself as an anarchist.

Let us add-lest we be accused of omission-that within the diverse and 
phenomenon-rich realm of humanity, there exists a variety that calls 
itself "right-wing anarchist." This group consists primarily of bilious, 
misanthropic critics who rarely smile, look askance at everything, 
and-with varying degrees of talent and sometimes even panache-engage in 
dilettantish, nostalgic, and jaded pamphleteering. The playwright Jean 
Anouilh is the most prominent figure in this category of "anarchists"-a 
group whom genuine anarchists generally do not regard as true 
representatives of their movement. While true anarchists feel that 
"right-wing anarchists" tarnish their image, I have known some colorful 
specimens who, if removed from the mix, would be sorely missed from the 
overall spectrum.

Original source: *Espoir*, newspaper of the CNT-AIT (December 1981)

https://www.socialisme-libertaire.fr/2026/06/les-mots-et-des-choses-le-mot-anarchie-et-ses-derives.html
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