It is important to mention before we dive in, that this section will only cover the history of anarchist communism since it's official foundation. Many famous thinkers, such as Rousseau, can be considered anarchist communist, as their beliefs align with what we consider anarchist communism, however the ideology was not concretely founded yet. We will not be covering these people.
Anarchist communism is a relatively new ideology. It's foundations were set by Théodore Dézamy in his 1843 work Code de la Communeauté. In this work, he advocated for the abolition of money, of the division of labour, and of the state. He also introduced the ideas of common ownership of property and the distribution of resources each according to his own needs. He rejected the idea of an in between socialist state during the transition from capitalism to communism and instead wanted an immediate communisation, the immediate replacement of capitalism with socialism, specifically through the cessation of commerce.
In the wake of the French Revolution of 1848, Joseph Déjacque, a French political journalist and poet who adopted the label anarchist, formulated a new radical form of communism. It opposed revolutionary republicanism, quite popular at the time, but also mutualism, anarchist economic theory that would have the workers take control. Déjacque also opposed authoritarianism and a dictatorship of the proletariat, regarding both as reactionary and counter-revolutionary. Instead, he advocated for the autonomy and self-organisation of workers, and a form of anarchy based on the free distribution of resources. Much like Dézamy, he was an open supporter of worker's rights to satisfy their own needs, as he felt this would avoid capital accumulation, thus advocating for all property to be under common ownership. For the universal satisfaction of needs, he saw the need to abolish forced labour through self management, and to abolish division of class through the integration of the proletariat and intelligentsia into one class. He critiqued private commerce heavily. He also supported the idea of a social revolution to abolish the state, religion, the nuclear family model and private property. Déjacque considered the 1848 June Days uprising a good example of such a social revolution. Unlike Dézamy, Déjacque was in support of a transitory period, one where direct democracy and exchange would be upheld, the state would undergo democratisation, and the police and military would be abolished. He outlined his ideas to the public mainly through his 1859 work, Humanisphere.
The International Workingmen's Association (IWA) was another important chapter in anarchist communist history. Established in 1864, when a formalised current of anarchism hadn't been established yet, it was an organisation that aimed to unite different branches of leftists and socialists. Despite the lack of formalised movement, there were still a select few important individual anarchists. Such was Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, a self declared anarchist, who inspired many of the founders of IWA and laid the groundwork for the growth of the anarchist movement. There was also a radical minority, led by Eugène Varlin, who opposed Proudhon's mutualism. They advocated for non-authoritarian communism, which upheld the commune as a base social unit. They also advocated for universal access to education. The IWA was infused with revolutionary socialism and an anti-state sentiment in 1868 with the joining of Mikhail Bakunin. Eventually, Marxists began to denounce their anti-authoritarian opponents as anarchists, a label later accepted by them.
The IWA would eventually split after the defeat of the Paris Commune in 1871, over differences in socialist economics and the means of which to get to a classless state. The anarchists were banned from the IWA and founded the Jura Foundation to reform as the Anti-Authoritarian International. They had a lot of support, with the two largest branches of the IWA, from Italy and Spain, joining them. In the beginnings, the Jura Foundation was staunchly anti-communist since their founder, Bakunin, opposed communism on the basis that it was an inherently authoritarian ideology. However, after his death in 1876, they began to shift towards anarchist communism. The term itself was coined by Francois Dumartheray, in his 1876 pamphlet To manual workers, supporters of political action. James Guillaume expanded on the idea later on in 1876 in his pamphlet Ideas on Social Organisation. He put forth the idea that the collective ownership of the means of production could be used to transition into a communist society. In his theory, he considers it necessary for there to be an abundance in resources for the abolition of exchange value and the free distribution of resources.
The italian anarcho-communists, who quickly adopted the previous programme, clashed with the Spanish anarcho-collectivists. Anarcho-collectivism, while very similar to anarchist communism, differs in that it retains wage labour and everyone gets their needs met according to their labour, while anarchist communism functions of a gift economy your needs are met regardless of your labour. They clashed on economic grounds, but also on the topic of organisation. The anarcho-collectivists believed in trade unions, while the anarcho-communists found them counter-revolutionary and prone to corruption, upholding small and loosesly organised affinity groups instead. In October of 1880, the rift was made final as the Jura Federation adopted a programme which clearly outlined a break with the collectivist programme. The programme, Anarchy and Communism by Carlo Cafiero, rejected the use of exchange value and collective ownership of the industry, upholding instead the abolition of all wage labour and the distribution of resources from each according to their needs to each according to their own ability.
The debate between collectivism and communism was reflected within contemporary works and ideas on anarchist communism, such as in Piotr Kropotkin's work. In his theory of evolution, the people that rise up and drive the revolution are the rational industrial manager, rather than a working class organised as an enterprise. Eventually, Kropotkin and others like him overcame their reservations and joined labour unions. Despite this, many remained anti-syndicalist. A divide between the two groups thus started to form. Additionally, anarcho-communist publications began appearing. In the US, most were published in Yiddish, Russian, or German, with the exception of The Firebrand which published in English and permitted the dissemination of anarchist communist thought throughout the English speaking population. There was also a divide growing between the platformists and the synthesists. Platformists saw differing anarchist tendencies as irreconcilable, especially between anarchist communism and anarchist syndicalism, dividing anarchists into factions. Meanwhile, the synthesists wanted to reconcile the communists and syndicalists, claiming that anarchism was much more complex than that and that the two world views could accomodate eachother. As the ideology expanded, attempts at establishing an actual anarchist communist system began popping up as well. One such attempt, explained in more detail in the Examples page was Makhnovschina in Ukraine during the Russian Civil war. Another important example that is gone over in more detail in the Examples page was Spanish Revolution of 1936 and the Spanish Civil War. The latter saw the most extensive application of anarchist communist ideals yet. Both of these instances remain extremely important in anarchist communist history, both for their later effect on the country's history and for the extensive manner in which they saw anarchist communist policies be implemented. The movement slowed down significantly during WW2, as people were more focused on survival and the war, rather than ideological beliefs.
Post WW2, anarchist communism entered into debate over organisation once again. Anarchp-communist organisations, such as the Argentine Libertarian Federation and the Fédération Communiste Libértaire, established themselves more and developped, welcoming new members and holding elections once again. The newly elected platformist, George Fontenis, changed the decision making process of the FCL. It was founded on unanimity with each person having a right of veto. The same year, the federation published Manifeste du communism libertaire, a book by Fontenis that detailed the doctrine and problems of anarchist communism. Tensions within the FCL increased in December of 1955, following the decision to present revolutionary candidates to the legislative elections, ultimately resulting in several groups leaving. This signaled the end to one of the largest anarchist communist federations, with the FCL being dissolved the following year in 1956. A new Federation Anarchiste was reorganised by a group of militants. The new founders of the organisation, Charles-Auguste Bontemps and Maurice Joyeux, were anti-platformist, which is reflected in the base principles. The new identity also contained the unconditional rejection of Marxism, due to previous debates. In the 1970s, the Fédération Anarchiste transitioned into a mix of synthesist and platformist anarchism. Contemporary anarchist communist history is hard to pin down. The ideology, like most, moved with the transition to electronic spaces and diverges in many ways. There are barely any resources detailing more recent history. Additionally, it is difficult to determine what and who will go down in history when we aren't looking back on the event. Nevertheless, that does not mean that anarchist communism's influence has diminished in any way. It is still a relevant ideology with many followers and an active activist base. On October 31st of 2018, a 17 year old Russian student entered the local office of the Russian Federal Security Office and detonated an explosive he had hid under his clothes, killing himself and injuring 3 others. He was motivated by anarchist communist ideals. Other more modern examples of anarcho-communist activity also include rouvikonas, an activist anarchist collective in Athens, formed in 2013 in response to the Greek economic crisis. Most of their actions have been low profile, such as throwing paint, smashing window fronts, and attacking ATMs. However, they have been known to act as a vigilante group occasionally, trageting individuals accused of crimes such as unfairly witholding wages or sexual harrasement
In conclusion, anarchist communsim has a rich history, full of violence and people who dedicated their lives to this cause. It has inspired many and still does to this day, maintaining an active community, both online and in real life, the latter of which operates mainly locally.