Is Anarcho-Communism left wing or right wing?

On economic organisation Anarcho-Communism scores −09 on a scale from −10 (common ownership) to +10 (private property and markets). On social and cultural order it scores −07. A single left–right figure combines these and four further measurements that move independently, which is why the atlas reports six.

Is Anarcho-Communism authoritarian?

On the organisation of power, which measures whether authority is dispersed among institutions that can stop each other or concentrated in a single centre, Anarcho-Communism scores −10. Federated communes and workplace assemblies with recallable delegates; no standing coercive apparatus.

Atlas / Organisations / Anarcho-Communism

Anarcho-Communism

Kropotkin · 1872– · Russia, Europe · Anarchist · Doctrine / school · coding confidence high

−09ECcollective

−07CUpluralist

−10AUpluralist

−10SClocal

−08IDuniversal

+06CHcoercive

Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →

Core principles

Abolish the state and private property simultaneously; distribution according to need through voluntary federation.

Economic model

Common ownership, no money or wages, free distribution, mutual aid as an evolutionary fact.

Organisation of powers

Federated communes and workplace assemblies with recallable delegates; no standing coercive apparatus.

Reading note

Occupies the extreme collectivist corner on economics and the extreme anti-authority corner simultaneously — impossible to represent on a single line.

Check a claim about Anarcho-Communism. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.

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The evidence for every score

All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.

EC · Economic organisation · scored −09

Abolition of private property in the means of production and of money and wages together.

Programme textKropotkin's Conquest of Bread argues for distribution according to need with no wage system at all.

CU · Social and cultural order · scored −07

Strongly egalitarian on every inherited hierarchy, including within the family and the workplace.

ScholarshipNineteenth-century anarchist movements campaigned for free union, secular education and women's autonomy well ahead of socialist parties.

AU · Organisation of power · scored −10

At the floor. The state is not to be captured, reformed or used, but abolished.

ScholarshipThe 1872 Hague split of the First International turned on precisely this question.

SC · Scale of decision · scored −10

At the floor: the commune is the unit and federation is voluntary and revocable.

Programme textKropotkin's model is a federation of communes with no superior body possessing coercive authority.

ID · Rule of membership · scored −08

Universalist by construction: the tradition is explicitly internationalist and anti-national.

ScholarshipAnarchist federations organised across borders from the First International onward.

CH · Method and tempo · scored +06

Coded positive: the tradition accepted insurrection while dividing sharply on individual violence.

ScholarshipThe propaganda-of-the-deed period of the 1890s was repudiated by Kropotkin and by the syndicalist current.

Where it came from, and what came after

split fromClassical Marxism
The First International split at The Hague in 1872 over whether to capture the state or abolish it.
takes its doctrine fromMutualism
Kropotkin's communism was formulated against Proudhon's market of small producers.
gave doctrine toAnarcho-Syndicalism
The union rather than the commune as both weapon and skeleton of the future society.
gave doctrine toMakhnovshchina
The Ukrainian insurgency organised on explicitly anarchist principles.
gave doctrine toDemocratic Confederalism
A Marxist-Leninist party adopted Murray Bookchin's writings and rebuilt itself around them.

Nearest organisations by measured distance

Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.

Countries

Russia

Arguments this entry is used in

Claims in circulation that turn on where this organisation sits. Each gives the strongest case for it, the strongest case against, and the measurement.

Are the far left and far right the same? Horseshoe theory, measuredclaim check

Cite this page

Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.

McGrath, K. (2026). Anarcho-Communism. The Political Atlas, version 4.2. https://thepoliticalatlas.com/organisations/anarchocom/ (accessed 2026-08-01).

Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.