Examples of anarchist societies & conflict in anarchy?

[Lanky Wanker]

I hear people talking about anarchism in Spain or something, and I've seen a bunch of anarchist punks in Mexico or something in a small village with no leader(s). Can someone give me any other small scale examples of anarchy or anarcho-communism in practice? Oh, and I also heard something about anarchy in Pakistan where it is/was crap and didn't work.

About the conflict thing; I heard about a small town in Denmark with no government, but a biker gang came and took over the cannabis trade they had going as a result of no real police or anything. The gang leader was shot and they fled, but I highly doubt we would shoot everyone who posed a threat to us in an anarchist society. I'm guessing the local protection groups (or whatever better alternative to cops) we'd have would stop this kind of crap from happening, right?

[Tommy4ever]

Well you've got Catalonia during the early part of the Spanish Civil War, Ukraine during the Russian Civil War, Anarchists would claim the Paris Commune (but so do Marxists), some groups during the Mexican civil war are often linked to Anarchism, erm ... I can't think of any others.

[Bronco]

Austria-Hungary had a large Anarchist movement but they werent really successful in setting up an Anarchist society. Anarcho-Capitalists like David Friedman have claimed Medieval Iceland as an example of how their system could work although this has been disputed. You could say Somalia as well in the nineties and early noughties was another example of Anarcho-Capitalism although it wouldnt be a particularly good one for them to use. The Diggers in 17th century England arguably attempted setting up communes which were Anarcho-communist in nature.

Also, according to wiki "The Korean Anarchist Movement in Korea led by Kim Jwa Jin briefly brought anarcho-communism to Korea. The success was short-lived and much less widespread than the anarchism in Spain or Hungary" although this isnt referenced

[Tim Finnegan]

Well you've got Catalonia during the early part of the Spanish Civil War, Ukraine during the Russian Civil War, Anarchists would claim the Paris Commune (but so do Marxists), some groups during the Mexican civil war are often linked to Anarchism, erm ... I can't think of any others.
It's hard to characterise the Ukrainian Free Territory as an "anarchist society", though, because while it was under the control of anarchist forces, bourgeois property forms continued. Makhno's communes, much-vaunted as they may be, where of little attraction to the peasantry, who preferred to redistribute land in the usual individualistic fashion. All you could really call it is "stateless", and even that doesn't mean too much when a insurgent warlord is calling the shots.

[Tablo]

Austria-Hungary had a large Anarchist movement but they werent really successful in setting up an Anarchist society. Anarcho-Capitalists like David Friedman have claimed Medieval Iceland as an example of how their system could work although this has been disputed. You could say Somalia as well in the nineties and early noughties was another example of Anarcho-Capitalism although it wouldnt be a particularly good one for them to use. The Diggers in 17th century England arguably attempted setting up communes which were Anarcho-communist in nature.

Also, according to wiki "The Korean Anarchist Movement in Korea led by Kim Jwa Jin briefly brought anarcho-communism to Korea. The success was short-lived and much less widespread than the anarchism in Spain or Hungary" although this isnt referenced
They didn't astablish it actually in Korea. They set up Shinmin in Manchuria with a bunch of immigrants. Yeah, it was short lived and strongly influenced by the growth of Korean nationalism(of which Kim Jwa Jin is considered a major figure). Don't know how far they got with the collectivization or anything since there is little reading material on this out there.

[x359594]

There's a vivid description and analysis of anarchism functioning in the working class barrios in Barcelona dating from the 1910s up to the revolution of 1936 in Anarchism and the City by Chris Ealham. The CNT and various small anarchist grouplets created parallel institutions ranging from food co-ops, libraries, schools (both for children and adults) to day care centers.

[Magón]

and I've seen a bunch of anarchist punks in Mexico or something in a small village with no leader(s).

:confused: Not sure where you saw that? There are tons of Mexican villages/towns without a set leader in them, but they're not completely leaderless, nor would they probably be Anarchist (outside the EZLN territory), and most probably don't have anarchist punks running around them. Most punks, anarchist or not, found in Mexico are in Mexico City, and other big cities.

[MarxSchmarx]

Look into David Graeber's work on Madagascar before French colonialism began in earnest. He paints a picture of how a settled, reasonably developed agrarian society, while nominally controlled by a central power, nevertheless for all intents and purposes remained essentially a stateless practically egalitarian society on a large scale. He also focuses on how the failures of the modern Madagascan state have seen a partially successful reversal to earlier forms of social organization.

His central argument focuses on establishing how Malagasy society was not yet another primitive communism, but a genuinely distinct form of social organization for a rather complex society that eskewed authoritarianism just as much as, say, Japan under the shogunate embraced authoritarianism.