Anarchist symbolism

Anarchistshave employed certainsymbolsfor their cause, including most prominently thecircle-Aand theblack flag.Anarchist cultural symbols have been prevalent in popular culture since around the turn of the 21st century, concurrent with theanti-globalization movement.Thepunk subculturehas also had a close association with anarchist symbolism.

Flags

Red flag

Main article:Red flag (politics)

The red flag, one of the first anarchist symbols

The red flag was one of first anarchist symbols and it was widely used in late 19th century by anarchists worldwide.Peter Kropotkinwrote that he preferred the use of the red flag.AnarchistLouise Michelwrote that the flag "frightens the executioners because it is so red with our blood. [...] Those red and black banners wave over us mourning our dead and wave over our hopes for the dawn that is breaking."

Use of the red flag by anarchists largely disappeared after theOctober Revolution,when red flags started to be associated only withBolshevismandcommunist partiesandauthoritarian,bureaucraticandreformistsocial democracy,orauthoritarian socialism.

Black flag

The black flag, a traditional anarchist symbol

The black flag has been associated with anarchism since the 1880s, when several anarchist organizations and journals adopted the nameBlack Flag.

Howard J. Ehrlichwrites inReinventing Anarchy, Again:

The black flag is the negation of all flags. It is a negation ofnationhood... Black is a mood of anger and outrage at all the hideous crimes against humanity perpetrated in the name of allegiance to onestateor another... But black is also beautiful. It is a colour of determination, of resolve, of strength, a colour by which all others are clarified and defined... So black is negation, is anger, is outrage, is mourning, is beauty, is hope, is the fostering and sheltering of new forms of human life and relationship on and with this earth.

The origins of the black flag are uncertain.Modern anarchismhas a shared ancestry with—amongst other ideologies—socialism,a movement strongly associated with thered flag.As anarchism became more and more distinct from socialism in the 1880s, it adopted the black flag in an attempt to differentiate itself.It was flown in the 1831Canut revolt,in which the black represented themourningof liberty lost.

The French anarchist paper,Le Drapeau Noir(The Black Flag), which printed its first issue in August 1883,is one of the first published references to use black as an anarchist color. Black International was the name of aLondonanarchist group founded in July 1881.

One of the first known anarchist uses of the black flag was byLouise Michel,participant in theParis Communein 1871.Michel flew the black flag during a demonstration of the unemployed which took place in Paris on March 9, 1883. With Michel at the front carrying a black flag and shouting "Bread, work, or lead!", the crowd of 500 protesters soon marched off towards the boulevard Saint-Germain and pillaged three baker's shops before the police arrested them.Michel was arrested and sentenced to six years solitary confinement. Public pressure soon forced the granting of an amnesty.She wrote, "the black flag is the flag of strikes and the flag of those who are hungry".

The black flag soon made its way to the United States. The black flag was displayed in Chicago at an anarchist demonstration in November 1884.According to the English language newspaper of the Chicago anarchists, it was "the fearful symbol of hunger, misery and death".Thousands of anarchists attended Kropotkin's 1921 funeral behind the black flag.

Bisected flag

See also:Communist symbolism § Red and black flag

Red-and-black bisected flags at ananti-austeritymarch in London, 2011

The colors black and red have been used by anarchists since at least the late 1800s when they were used oncockadesby Italian anarchists in the1874 Bologna insurrectionand in 1877 when anarchists entered the Italian townLetinocarrying red and black flags to promote theFirst International.Diagonally divided red and black flags were used byanarcho-syndicalistsin Spainsuch as the labor unionCNTduring theSpanish Civil War.George Woodcockwrites that the bisected black-and-red flag symbolized a uniting of "the spirit of later anarchism with the mass appeal of the [First] International".

Symbols

Circle-A

"Enclosed A" redirects here. For the Unicode character, seeEnclosed Alphanumerics.For the email address symbol (@), seeAt sign.For other uses, seeCircled-a.

Circle-A symbol

StylizedpunkCircle-A

The symbol composed of the capital letterAsurrounded by a circle is universally recognized as a symbol of anarchismand has been established in globalyouth culturesince the 1970s.An interpretation held by anarchists such asCindy Milsteinis that theArepresents the Greekanarkhia('without ruler/authority'), and the circle can be read as the letterO,standing fororderororganization,a reference toPierre-Joseph Proudhon's definition of anarchism from his 1840 bookWhat Is Property?:"as man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy"(French:la société cherche l'ordre dans l'anarchie).

In the 1970s,anarcho-punkandpunk rockbands such asCrassbegan using the circle-A symbol in red,thereby introducing it to non-anarchists. Crass founderPenny Rimbaudwould later say that the band probably first saw the symbol while traveling through France.

Black cat

See also:Black cat § Anarcho-syndicalism

AnIWWstickerette orsilent agitator

The origin of the black cat symbol is unclear, but according to one story it came from anIndustrial Workers of the Worldstrike that was going badly. Several members had been beaten up and were put in a hospital. At that time a skinny, black cat walked into the striker's camp. The cat was fed by the striking workers and as the cat regained its health the strike took a turn for the better. Eventually the striking workers got some of their demands and they adopted the cat as their mascot.

The Swiss anarchistThéophile Steinlenmade use of the black cat (Le Chat Noir) in a number of his paintings. In an 1890 oil-painting, he depicted a black cat raising a red banner emblazoned with the word "Gaudeamus" (English:Rejoice). And in the large landscape paintingApotheosis of the Cats of Montmartre,he showed a clowder of cats on the rooftops of a working-class Parisian neighbourhood, beneath the moon. Francophone anarchists like Steilein andZo d'Axawere inspired by the independent and undomesticated nature of the cat.

The nameBlack Cathas been used for numerous anarchist-affiliated collectives and cooperatives, including a music venue in Austin (which was closed following a July 6, 2002 fire) and a now-defunct "collective kitchen" in theUniversity Districtof Seattle.

Slogans

"Do as you wish! Do what you want!" is a slogan ofErrico Malatesta's Anarchist Program. It is explained in his pamphletAnarchy.

The freedom we want, for ourselves and for others, is not an absolute metaphysical, abstract freedom which in practice is inevitably translated into the oppression of the wealthy; but it is real freedom, possible freedom, which is the conscious community of interests, voluntary solidarity. We proclaim the maxim DO AS YOU WISH, and with it we almost summarize our program, for we maintain—and it doesn't take much to understand why—that in a harmonious society, in a society without government and without property, each one will WANT WHAT HE MUST DO.

No gods, no masters

"No gods, no masters" redirects here. For other uses, seeNo gods, no masters (disambiguation).

Graffitiwith the slogan "NO GODS, NO MASTERS" and the anarchist "A" symbol on a concrete wall in thecentral bus stationofMunich,Germany, in 2022

"No gods, no masters" is a phrase associated withanarchist philosophyand the leftistlabor movement.Likely dating back to a 15th-century Germanproverb,it appeared in an 1870 pamphlet by a disciple ofAuguste Blanquiand became the title of Blanqui's 1880 newspaperNi Dieu ni maîtrebefore it spread throughout the anarchist movement,appearing inKropotkin's 1885Words of Rebeland an 1896 Bordeaux anarchist manifesto.Sébastien Faureresuscitated the slogan duringWorld War I,after which Paris's Libertarian Youth adopted the name.It has appeared on tombstones of revolutionaries,as the slogan ofbirth controlactivistMargaret Sanger's newspaperThe Woman Rebel,and as the title of a1964 songagainst capital punishment byLéo Ferré.In the 21st century, it has featured as a slogan forsecularization of Croatia.

See also

• Anarchism and the arts
• Anarchist Black Cross
• Anarchist schools of thought
• Black bloc
• Black rose (symbolism)
• Communist symbolism
• Extinction symbol
• Political colour
• Property is theft!
• Spontaneous order § Anarchism

External links

• "Anarchism".Flags of the World.
• "Anarchism and the History of the Black Flag".Spunk Library.
• "Blog: Heart in a Hearless World".
• "History of anarchist symbols".Anarchy Is Order.
• "The Symbols of Anarchy".An Anarchist FAQ.
• Matesta, Errico 1891. "Anarchy".