Pacifism and Anarchism: Tensions and Similarities

Even though pacifism and anarchism overlap in anarcho-pacifism, not all anarchists are pacifists, and not all pacifists are anarchists. The history of these two traditions is one of originally largely separate movements but with periodic and increasing cross-pollination, for example: in internationalist antimilitarism in the run up to the First World War; in Tolstoy’s writings and broader Christian anarchism; in anticolonial struggles; in the Cold War campaigns against nuclear weapons and the Vietnam War; or in the more recent social movements against neoliberal, authoritarianism, austerity, and ecological collapse. Tensions do remain: some anarchists have decried the hegemony of nonviolence in contemporary activism, depicted pacifism as largely bourgeois and middle class, accused it of ineffectiveness, and considered suspect pacifism’s religious and liberal origins; and pacifists can be suspicious of anarchism’s common associations with violence and consider its programme too radical. Yet anarchism and pacifism share similarities, including: their critique of state violence, militarism, and the war system; their shared interest in pragmatic nonviolent resistance; and their attentiveness to means as ends-in-the-making, and therefore to how alternatives are organised. Separate though these traditions can be, their overlap provides a perceptive critique of the evolving global political economy.