Anarchy

[The Cheshire Cat]

In what way does it exactly differ from communism?

[Ostrinski]

Anarchism is a political description while communism is economic. Communism could be described as an anarchist society, as it is stateless.

[Искра]

Anarchy is punk while communism is country.

[The Jay]

It's pretty much Libertarian Socialism/Communism. It rejects all hierarchy as libertarians do. The main thing is that anarchy speaks more of a mode of government than an economic mode of production. This is why there may be anarcho-capitalists as well as anarcho-socialists.

[Sasha]

In nothing, at least not according to anarcho communists and marxists.
It's a difference on how to get there, most marxists believe in a transitional stage where the proletariat seizes the state apparatus and not only the means of production, anarchists believe that without the emediate destruction of the state will always lead to the establishment of a new burocratic class that will postpone the establishment of communism indefinitely...

[KlassWar]

Short answer? It doesn't. However, anarchists believe it can be achieved immediately after overthrowing the bourgeois order, while communists believe it'll take us a while to get there.

Long answer?

Anarchists believe that a classless, stateless society free from coercion and oppression can be established overnight, that after overthrowing the bourgeois State (which protects private property and enacts the oppression) human emancipation will follow.

Us communists believe that a transition period will be necessary. Smashing the bourgeois State is indeed just, necessary and our main task... But the Revolution ain't over when we kick the cops out of the streets and hang the landowners, shareholders and politicians. That's when it starts.

The bourgeoisie has built a repressive apparatus over the centuries: Remnants thereof can and will fight back against proletarian power. They have to be smashed without compassion, and that can only be done with generous application of organized violence.

[Art Vandelay]

Truthfully in my humble opinion the difference is a lot less significant than most make it out to be. Generally people say that anarchy and communism have the same goals but different ideas on how to get there. While that is true to an extent, both Bakunin and Marx saw the Paris Commune as the representation of their ideas. The whole argument between the two stems from a different definition of the concept of the "state."

What I think it comes down to is the use of centralized or de-centralized organizations. Communists generally believe in a centralized dictatorship during the immediate post revolutionary situation, while anarchist propose a de-centralized organization in a post revolutionary situation. I simply do not think that hierarchy and power can be destroyed by using hierarchy and power.