Today, Anarchist People of Color site Illvox.org recently came out with a snarky post, “Yes, APOC is Maoist“. It is, I believe, a response to some chatter that’s been going around the web, especially since one of their sympathizers criticized Kevin Tucker and the primitivist end of the anarchist scene for the willful use of “noble savage” stereotypes to pimp their zines.
I took part in some of that discussion (at MediaDissent.com) and was reminded of a lot of why I eventually ended up no longer being an anarchist. Namely, the inability of a lot of folks in the anarchist scene to engage in exchanges of criticism in a constructive way has been stifling. Part of which is a part of the whole paradox of “anti-authoritarian” politics, but I digress.
In riposte to APOC’s reply to the simultaneous red-baiting/race-baiting coming from Infoshop and elsewhere, I would like to say the following in brief:
- The responses of Kevin Tucker (and later Chuck0 of Infoshop) to criticisms of anarcho-primitivist nonsense have been vile. The simultaneous race-baiting and red-baiting done to APOC by these folks is at best an exercise in distraction from the issues APOC has been raising amongst the anarchist scene. At worst, it’s a form of rumor mongering that makes me wonder which side these red-baiters are on. APOC are well within their rights to subject these folks to scrutiny.
- That said, I don’t understand why APOC won’t go to the root of the problem (which is that certain white anarchists feel the need to red-bait anyone who takes exception to the noble-savage stereotype played up by the primitivists). Instead we get a whole meandering interlude that basically goes on and on about how APOC are anarchists and not Maoists. That’s really missing the point: do Munson or Tucker really think APOC are Maoists? I’d wager on “no.” They do think that APOC are being too “uppity” and so they take advantage of the unfortunate animosity between anarchists and Marxists to get their way.
- On that last bit — the unfortunate animosity — I’ve had a number of interactions with folks from APOC’s extended milieu. They’ve been overwhelmingly positive. I’m still an unorthodox Maoist, and they are still anarchists of their own type, and yet we’ve been able to collaborate on a number of projects. I don’t see why we need to tear down one another in order to get ahead.
And there they are, my cards are on the table. Any APOC folks want to speak on this?
i dunno, i identify as an APOC, but admittedly haven’t been up to date on this internet battle.
seems to me by the Illvox article that APOCs have been accused (as we often are) of some non-topical, irrelevant shit that looks to just be designed to invite sectarianism.
i agree that it’s not okay to respond with further sectarian shit like ‘LOL WE SURE ARE YOU GOT US’, but the article does go on to make good points about how being called reverse racists, etc, is also not okay.
it’s unfortunate that maoism is lumped in with the other offensive things.
however, to say that anarchists aren’t constructively critical of their ideologies, etc, isn’t fair either. the article even suggests that their snarkiness is in an attempt to get folks to quit bickering about bullshit and talking about what matters, what’s applicable, and ultimately what needs to happen so that we can stop imperialism and supremacy of all kinds.
it takes work. no one group has it all figured out and i think it would do well for all political groups/identifications to be critical, productive, and progressive about their politics. and it’s not just one side of the left side that can be called guilty of sectarianism, i don’t think.
yeah it’s time to stop the bickering and get shit done, but it’s hard (especially being an APOC. oh my god, the shit that went down at the food not bombs convergence would make you endlessly glad to be out of anarchy, though i can’t say that white folks everywhere aren’t guilty of acting similarly, blatantly racist. maybe anarchist kids are just louder about it?) to get anti-racist conversations and actions going on when (what i would consider) really BASIC shit about being a radical activist needs to be explained.
lesson one: we are not all from Africa.
lesson two: i can’t believe we just wasted time on the previous lesson
but alas, it’s evidently necessary considering the fights we face from our fellow activists.
we do work together well. i’m so excited to be doing shit like sds where we can have a common cause and not be so suspicious of motives all the time. POC caucus is gonna rule this year
great work, good talk. white people should weigh in here. i love a good ally!
Good points all around Alyse. I won’t dismiss APOC’s theoretical critique; I’m actually friends with some of the folks with longstanding commitments to that project (I won’t name them out of fear of unfortunate guilt-by-association with a Maoist), and I’ve found them to be a source of insight and inspiration.
Regardless, I think the gratuitous Maoist bashing is symptomatic of a larger problem within anarchism (which I speak about, as a former anarchist), which is that at some point the ideas of the anarchist sector tend to become hollow ideological rituals meant to mind the boundaries of what is an acceptable discourse in anarchism.
It wouldn’t be so much of a problem, were it not so clear right away that those boundaries have been put up in a fashion that has little to no bearing on reality. Hence the primitivists have free reign to speak on Infoshop (in the most venomous, vile, and defamatory fashion possible), but alleged Maoism is a crime worthy of lifetime IP banning.
As for where APOC fits in this, I’m mainly disappointed in that there was a certain transcendental moment they had, to write to the point and clearly about white chauvinism. Instead, we get the same old jokes about Bob Avakian. In a way, that’s really what red-baiters like Tucker and Chuck0 want — for people to get into this inane game of denunciations, akin to the way that Hillary forced Obama to denounce Reverend Wright.
I’m still confident that APOC has a solid core of folks who aren’t so caught up in playing up sectarian minutiae, and are willing to talk business with folks. I’m at this point a little worried that they’re backing themselves into a corner, however, in their propaganda work.
You’re right, we do:)
APOC is building from the ground up, using regional meetings/conventions towards building a national organization for ourselves. Ultimately, as Pedro (Kapila) wrote, it is about building our own movement.
hey hegemonik,
don’t have an opinion on the use of certain imgs in kevin tucker’s zine, and not sure it’s worth developing one. for what it’s worth, such disputes are best resolved — if they’re ever going to be — in person.
regarding yr second point, maybe. a critique of ‘primitivism’ is obviously(?) a little diff to one of ‘anarchism’, however.
on yr last point, all things being equal, i s’pose it’s good for diff folks to collaborate when and where they can. i think the crucial issue is being able to distinguish what issues are crucial and what aren’t.
more broadly, i think there’s (at least) two issues of relevance in this context. one is an anarchist critique of ‘maoism’ (or a maoist critique of ‘anarchism’); this is where i think the exp of L&R in the states becomes esp relevant, as it appears to be the case that a number of individuals assoc with it repudiated anarchism precisely for some variant of maoism (esp as embodied in one or other vers of the frso).
the second is the issue of race, racism, white supremacy and related issues within the contemporary us anarchist movement, and also — by extension — the anarchist tradition as a whole. this feeds into/is a product of more general understandings and analyses of the nature of contemporary us society.
cheers,
@ndy.
oops…
http://slackbastard.anarchobase.com
i have to say, i thought it was funny.
but reading the commentary i also have to agree that making that joke didn’t address the point as best it could have. i completely agree with the folks who said that many anarchists have knee-jerk reactions to any politics that aren’t anarchist, and/or even to versions of anarchism that they don’t like and/or understand.
i just read some of the conversation and i found that kevin tucker’s response is really condescending and ignorant. if this was on an infoshop, shouldn’t the infoshop have some kind of guidelines about offensive and racist rants?
Hey, a latecomer response to yr observations Hegemonik-
I figure the “Yes, APOC is Maoist” post is the bloggy equivalent of a “nuh-uh” to the red-baiting people are always slinging APOC’s way. I mean, satirizing stuff that’s thrown at you is a good way to shrug it off–but you’re right, it doesn’t do much to broaden the way we address ideological borders, sectarianism or debate/dialogue.
To me, the meat-and-potatoes that we should be thinking about is this: the level of discourse and discussion in APOC, in anarchist circles, and in U.S. radical social movement as a whole has got to get a lot more dynamic, robust and exploratory FAST. Otherwise we risk letting another neoliberal decade grind by while we’re too busy denouncing each other in the terminology of forty years ago.
The idea of the ‘noble savage’ is an old and overused one that is as absurd as any simply because in portraying/perceiving people as superhuman is failing to realize all people are human, and all the limitations, capabilities and imperfections that entails.
As an APOCer who builds & organizes with & w/o APOCers (including white anarchists & maoists of color) I feel compelled to add to this discussion the main ideaological and historical beefs APOCers and anarchists in general would have with Maoists and other top down & vanguard Marxists. #1: throuugh out history anarchists have been betrayed, persecuted and murdered by those in control of the state;too often including Marxists. #2: Anarchists have as a main principle the rejection of a state and all other hiearchical institutions and modes of organizing. Marxists might go sof far as to believe in Marx’s concept of the communist state ‘withering away’ but so far no state in human history has dissolved itself. Basically anarchism has participatory democracy as a goal and as the mode of achieving it. Marxists believe they can reach participatory democracy by first being lead by a specific section of the people to a centralized democracy, and often fueled by capitalism (usually some centralized form).
The question is, are the neo-marxists-leninist-maoists for participatory democracy from start through finish, or will they eventually kill those who are?
PS. I love several (neo)Maoists and Daniel is one of them.
Analysta,
I think we have to get down here to the political differences as they are and not go into historical revisionism. Lets be clear on some segments of history, often so-called Marxist parties have been authoritarian and even what I would call Fascist (lets just look at Eastern Europe or China today); there were however indeed trajectories which led Maoists and other revolutionary Marxist-Leninists to reject the conservative, revisionist, and non-revolutionary character of Khruschev’s Soviet Union and other states which were content to protect “actually existing socialism.”
In fact, the history of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution shows how Mao and other revolutionaries within the Chinese Communist Party challenged the bureaucratic-conservative core of that Party, and saw how this core would lead to the Capitalist Restoration model embodied by Deng Xiaoping. I think even as a matter of interest, the embodiment of the political slogans of “Bombard the Headquarters,” “One divides into Two,” and the experiements in models led by the Shanghai Commune are of great importance.
If you speak to most people today either leaving the RCP (that Avakian Cult) or in FRSO/OSCL, you get a new sense from these Maoists that we need to examine the history of “actually existing socialism,” sum up the lessons of the Cultural Revolution, and re-envision making revolution and transforming all oppressive social relations.
But don’t Anarchists have the same thing on their hands? Can you be uncritically accepting of the last two centuries of failed attempts toward developing these centers of ‘participatory democracy’ and without being crushed by the state? I would agree with you that the relationship of Marxist-Leninists toward Anarchists that can at the very least be said to be “problematic,” but the history of Anarchist struggle is ridden with the same striking sectarianism, inability to identify real problems, and inability to transform the consciousness of the masses.
Today, only the Zapatistas emerge as the main movement to which my friends point to as a source of inspiration and to learn from. But to ask a simple question, can the “horozontalism” of the Zapatistas communities emerge without the Verticalism of an unchanged military command led by Marcos since the 80s’? The same of Durruti and Makhno. Could it be a real “horozontalism” if it didn’t involve dealing with the contradictions amongst the people, including issues such as forced marriages?
I think this is one of the important things that is forgotten by people about the EZLN, they’re still dealing with reactionary attitudes amongst their communities, they still have a type of State-power (they imprison people for example in jails).
But more importantly, Dual-power (a term derived from Lenin) can only emerge with an organized use of force, the very concept of Dual-power means there are two competing organized forces, and one has to die for the other to survive. I think people in their mythologies of all Anarchist experiments forget this fact, Anarchists were crushed by States, organized forces with central power.
For myself the concepts of Mass Line and Lenin’s “What is to be Done?” still are relevant to our understanding of what is needed to really tranform the world, and not get so caught up in our own self-cultivations of types of democratic form that we lose sense of that. To put it another way – Are we fighting for our beautiful souls, our little niches of power (whether that be in my college at CUNY or at my community board) or Liberation of humanity? I think the two can be combined, but often we lose sight of the latter.
So maybe a little provoking comment – lets take Power seriously again if we really think “Another World is Possible,” or else we’re just settling for this one with a happier face.
ShineThePath,
While it may not be useful to get too bogged down in history, from my perspective, radical social critique requires knowledge of both the past and the present. Regarding the nature of Marxist regimes, while, by definition, all states are to some degree ‘authoritarian’, such regimes have been highly ‘authoritarian’, even ‘fascist’. Hence their occasional designation as ‘Red fascist’. Further, from an anarchist perspective, the distinction you make between, on the one hand, “the conservative, revisionist, and non-revolutionary character of Khruschev’s Soviet Union” (et al), and, on the other hand, Mao’s “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” is a false one. On this subject, see ‘The Explosion Point of
Ideology in China’, Internationale Situationniste #11 (Paris, October 1967), trans. Ken Knabb:
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/11.China.htm
Regarding uncritical assessments of the history of anarchism, I agree: history, including that of anarchism, should be read critically. But I take that as read. Further, it’s obvious that we do not live in a classless, non-hierarchical, global society; that is, previous attempts at constructing such a society have failed. That too, I take as read. The question which faces revolutionaries — by which I mean those committed to such a project — is how, and why? (That is assuming, of course, that such a project is even possible.)
A simple rendering of the history of anarchist movements would be that they ‘tried’, and ‘failed’. But history is a lot more complicated, and the history of the relationship between anarchism and Marxism is a case in point. Leaving aside the conflicts which emerged in the late nineteenth century, if one examines the initial actions of the Bolshevik state, for example, one finds bloody repression, not only of the anarchists, but of all other political tendencies unable and/or unwilling to subordinate themselves to the party/state. In addition, one finds an assault upon the organs of workers’ self-management — all in the name of a ‘Soviet’ state. (See, for example, Maurice Brinton’s ‘The Bolsheviks and Workers Control, 1917 – 1921: The State and Counter-revolution’.) Similar processes and dynamics have attended upon every other Marxist/Leninist regime. At the same time, this should not obscure the existence of other, libertarian trends within Marxism, encapsulated most recently, perhaps, in the concept of ‘autonomist’ or ‘open’ Marxism.
Finally, regarding the EZLN, one point: in an interview conducted with Marcos in 1994, and published in the US anarchist newspaper ‘Love and Rage’ (iirc), he commented that his initial approach, and that of his comrades, was modelled on the approach adopted by previous insurgent groups. That is, a classically Marxist/Leninist/Maoist formula. His (and their) experiences transformed his (and their) approach, into one which was dependent — or so he claimed — on ‘listening’, not ‘commanding’. It was only via this approach that the EZLN was able to form, and embed itself within the indigenous communities of Chiapas. Of course, a great deal has happened since January 1, 1994, but that’s another, still-ongoing, story…
Cheers and beers,
@ndy.
ShineThePath,
While it may not be useful to get too bogged down in history, from my perspective, radical social critique requires knowledge of both the past and the present. Regarding the nature of Marxist regimes, while, by definition, all states are to some degree ‘authoritarian’, such regimes have been highly ‘authoritarian’, even ‘fascist’. Hence their occasional designation as ‘Red fascist’. Further, from an anarchist perspective, the distinction you make between, on the one hand, “the conservative, revisionist, and non-revolutionary character of Khruschev’s Soviet Union” (et al), and, on the other hand, Mao’s “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” is a false one. On this subject, see ‘The Explosion Point of Ideology in China’, Internationale Situationniste #11 (Paris, October 1967), trans. Ken Knabb:
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/11.China.htm
Regarding uncritical assessments of the history of anarchism, I agree: history, including that of anarchism, should be read critically. But I take that as read. Further, it’s obvious that we do not live in a classless, non-hierarchical, global society; that is, previous attempts at constructing such a society have failed. That too, I take as read. The question which faces revolutionaries — by which I mean those committed to such a project — is how, and why? (That is assuming, of course, that such a project is even possible.)
A simple rendering of the history of anarchist movements would be that they ‘tried’, and ‘failed’. But history is a lot more complicated, and the history of the relationship between anarchism and Marxism is a case in point. Leaving aside the conflicts which emerged in the late nineteenth century, if one examines the initial actions of the Bolshevik state, for example, one finds bloody repression, not only of the anarchists, but of all other political tendencies unable and/or unwilling to subordinate themselves to the party/state. In addition, one finds an assault upon the organs of workers’ self-management — all in the name of a ‘Soviet’ state. (See, for example, Maurice Brinton’s ‘The Bolsheviks and Workers Control, 1917 – 1921: The State and Counter-revolution’.) Similar processes and dynamics have attended upon every other Marxist/Leninist regime. At the same time, this should not obscure the existence of other, libertarian trends within Marxism, encapsulated most recently, perhaps, in the concept of ‘autonomist’ or ‘open’ Marxism.
Finally, regarding the EZLN, one point: in an interview conducted with Marcos in 1994, and published in the US anarchist newspaper ‘Love and Rage’ (iirc), he commented that his initial approach, and that of his comrades, was modelled on the approach adopted by previous insurgent groups. That is, a classically Marxist/Leninist/Maoist formula. His (and their) experiences transformed his (and their) approach, into one which was dependent — or so he claimed — on ‘listening’, not ‘commanding’. It was only via this approach that the EZLN was able to form, and embed itself within the indigenous communities of Chiapas. Of course, a great deal has happened since January 1, 1994, but that’s another, still-ongoing, story…
Cheers and beers,
@ndy.
Oops. Sorry. Please delete my first comment!
This is simply where we divide into two, no? I think the trend amongst anarchists – demonstrated by the Situationist article you picked up – has lost the ability to look at particularities and politics and rather fits a tired and tried application of the “critique of bureaucracy ( a critique which is expressed by Trotskyists, Libertarian Ron Paul fanatics, and anarchists a like). I think there are some things to be said about Bureaucracy altogether, but a critique of this sort needs to begin with politics.
So to unpack this a bit, why is a general “critique of bureaucracy” a complete failure? It must begin pretty simply that it no longer inhabits the realm of a political critique, but rather inhabits the space of natural intuition. Everyone and his grandma has something to say about bureaucrats, even political bureaucrats have something to say about it!
So what’s the hump we have to get over? What’s wrong with this “critique?” Just an example, the failure of Orwell’s 1984 and Terry Gilliam’s Brazil is that it presents bureaucracy as essentially self-perpetuating living organisms outside politics altogether, outside a reason for its self-perpetuation. This is ultimately phantasmal, what really Marx calls “false consciousness” and I think it’s not hard here for somebody to take this framework of thought and then begin seeing the conspiracies of the world. Big Brother is the Rothschilds! Big Brother is the Illuminati! As we might think Lacan to say to an Orwell, “there is no big Brother!”
Of course I in no way think the Situationist article is as foolish as to accept the notion of world conspiracy (though unfortunately so many do!). I still think the logic exists there, but in the different form of a repetition of what I would call a vulgar and mechanical Marxism which analyzes functionally according to certain historical rules and dogmas it has established for itself. In fact, this article really reads no different to me than Trotsky’s criticisms; they appear to me to be one of the same – it repeats notions such as the 1927 Revolution was crushed (no it was really doomed to failure from the beginning despite what Uncle Joe did), that the failure of the People’s Republic of China was that it was based on a “militarily disciplined peasant” uprising rather than “workers’ revolution;” all of this actually quite superficial application of 19th century categories that really Maoists and other revolutionaries like Fanon, Cabral, and others had to ditch in order to turn Marxism into a category of revolutionary consciousness and not just “instinctual drive” of the supposed “workers” (I would even say that today, this category and use of speech is altogether irrelevant).
If Maoists ditched the corpse of Histomat to make revolution, I believe Anarchists should too! We need to analyze the particularities of political struggle, their immanent structures of thought and projection, and not give faith to mere sociological-psychological constructs – the ultimate end of what is a type of workerism that still exists in the Trotskyist movement and the Anarchist movements. It is my position that we ultimately lead to a dead letter sort of language, the ruling class, the working class, this or that strata become homogenous. That’s simply never been the case, and is not the case today! The hegemonic discourse for more than a century in this country has been the reining ideas of the Ideology of our inherited system. It coordinates our very lives, gives us our very dreams and fantasies, and even our own identities. A vanguard is thus decisively real always because of the political consciousness that people like ourselves have and when others don’t.
That maybe gets us into our Zapatistas. It is interesting to note that many of Love & Rage members ultimately moved out from L&R Network with the decisive understanding that Anarchism suffers from “theoretical poverty,” some even became Maoists! So what is the worth of the Zapatistas in all this? I’ve talked to former members of the L&R who have told me that their visits and studying of Chiapas turned their thinking on many important issues – organization, the State, consciousness, etc. Why is that? Because the Zapatistas effectively run a State! They have an army structure which hasn’t changed since the 80s’; Marcos has been in decisive command even when the EZLN was part of the FLN & even after they split (a split that occurred because Marcos pushed the subject of armed struggle). Going into 1994, EZLN had not changed their position on overthrowing state power and taking state power for them, this position changed when they were effectively DEFEATED militarily by the Mexican Army.
EZLN collects taxes, builds infrastructure, imprisons people, refuses some people to enter their communities, and try’s to lead community councils.
To note on EZLN’s apparent change from Maoism to their current incarnation, it’s important to note that I doubt seriously Marcos, the FLN, and the EZLN were ever fully “Maoist.” It seems they interestingly mixed Maoism with Foco Thought of Che in the very beginning (the reason there never was a party, but only an armed revolutionary army). Foco Theory is just honestly bankrupt, and yes I even criticize that, Maoists have for a long time too! People’s War in the Maoists understanding can’t be waged solely by an armed guerilla band with no deep ties in the people, it must work amongst them, learn from their lives, put forward revolutionary thought and theory in conjunction with their experiences – that is what Maoists have called Mass Line. If Marcos was surprised he couldn’t just be a “vanguard” but actually had to learn, well then he wasn’t much of a Maoist – though he may have been a good scholar on Althusser, so I hear.
Getting back into Maoism then, I think then you, the article, and maybe even the EZLN have missed altogether the importance of a “revolution within a revolution” and the importance of Mao’s thoughts on methods of leadership and practice. Mao Zedong and revolutionary communists within the CPC waged a bitter struggle with the centrist & right-wing components of their Party all through the Cultural Revolution, and this political struggle was carry forward in every day life in battles between different squads of Red Guards, Worker Organizations, and Peasants. It wasn’t ever simply “one faction of the ruling class vs. another.” That just negates the seriously revolutionary aspects of this struggle embodied in the history, slogans, and art of this period.
Just another note on the Zapatistas – EZLN split with the FLN was on the basis of going into armed struggle, this split happen a little bit less than a year since 1994. Before this, they never renounced any of their previous political lines. So my question is how much are the Zapatistas an embodiment of “rupture” from Maoism rather than a retreat into a toy army with “dual power” after a shattering defeat?
The EZLN needs a long awaited critical summation.
I long for the day when the left will stop refering to primitivists as being radical or anarchist. They’re just punk Liberals. Primitivists, at least the vast majority, have a Liberal analysis of society wherein they’re more concerned with the freedom of individuals rather than the collective freedom of everyone. The essential difference between radicals and Liberals is the difference between how we conceptualize society. Both groups are interested in freedom, Liberals are interested in the freedom of individuals, radicals are interested in the collective freedom of everyone. Capitalism has always been talked about as a system that frees people, cause its supposed to free individuals to pursue their own ends. We know that this isn’t freedom as it necessarily leads to the domination of masses of people. Just because primitivists want to smash the state and abandon capitalism doesn’t mean they are radicals or anarchists, their analysis is individualistic and the society they propose is more or less an individualistic one. Liberalism is Individualism. Individualist anarchist is a contradiction, as is primitivist anarchist. Just a bunch of wingnuts. Luckily they rarely do things though, mostly just talking about nothing to a handful of rich kids.
not hatin, just sayin
@Jasper:
I don’t think it’s as simple as it seems.
Why do primitivists attach themselves like barnacles to the anarchist ship and not the liberals?
Besides the fact that liberals would shoo them off, I think the anarchist legacy needs to be examined.
For one: anarchism broke from liberalism later than Marxism did. I know it sounds crazy, but Marx and Engels made a clear break with classical liberal ideas early on in the life of the First International, while anarchist figures such as Proudhon, Bakunin, and Kropotkin tended to cling to them.
It sounds crazy, I’m sure, to bring this back to the 19th Century – but the angle of trajectory means a lot in the long run.
Among the issues which divided Marx and Engels from those figures was the extent to which French and Russian revolutionaries tended to have a certain nostalgism for rural life before capitalism. A great part of why the Manifesto goes into how capitalism was progressive in that it undid the prior social orders (by removing the halo from professions, by disintegrating social relations, etc.) is that the anarchists of the era had insisted that certain pre-capitalist aspects of social life, most especially in rural areas, could and should be preserved. Marx and Engels, who saw what capitalism had done to rural populations in Germany and England, begged to differ (and were, I believe, correct).
That strain of thought translated into rural communism (the idea that the farmers could, on their own, skip capitalism and socialism altogether, and form communist society), and has led – almost spontaneously – to “back to nature” movements, which tends to be side-by-side with more liberal “back to nature” movements.
Russia saw this in the 19th century, with the Narodniks – urban revolutionaries who went to the countryside to live among serfs, teach them how to rebel, etc. They failed, but the pre-eminent Russian liberal Lev Tolstoy ended up continuing this milieu through the popularity of his writing (which, among other things, gave inspiration to Gandhi’s idea of nonviolence).
In the United States you see the same pattern spontaneously emerge with folks like Zerzan springing up around the same time as the whole organic foods/back to nature liberalism came on the scene (IIRC, late 1990s).
So, trying not to use an overly large brush to paint anarchism and anarchists, the issue goes deeper than just white dreadlocked dudes who choose to smell like butt. It goes into the praxis of anarchism which still tends to believe that “nature” and the “natural” are inherently good, and its being bound up in classical liberalism which holds the same core belief.
As I believe Marx and Engels already settled a long time ago, the definition of “nature” and what is “natural” shifts all the time – always in the service of the ruling class. The point is for the broad masses to do that defining for themselves.