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24 edits Individualist anarchism
22 edits Miguel Arcángel Roscigna
20 edits Chen Jiongming
19 edits Ravachol
17 edits Adin Ballou
12 edits Pedro Durruti
11 edits Victor Serge
10 edits Rosalie Soubère
10 edits Far-left politics
9 edits Kim Chwajin

These are the articles that have been edited the most within the last seven days. Last updated 30 May 2025 by HotArticlesBot.


Stub expansion progress

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Hey all! Today we finally got our number of stubs covered by the project down to 500 articles, which means our first milestone of 80% articles being start-class or higher is likely to be secure for the foreseeable future. Thanks to everyone that has helped expand some of these articles! Next steps would probably be to raise our target to 85% or 90%, which would require us to expand between 100 and 250 more articles. We also still have 7 11 high-priority stubs to expand, which each got more than 30 daily average page views last month:

Feel free to take one of these (or any other stub) on for expansion; every little helps, it only needs to be >250 words to get an article to start class. Let me know if you're ok with us setting a new goal (85/90%) for the stub expansion project and I'll get that started. --Grnrchst (talk) 15:16, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've just finished tagging all our stubs that didn't yet have one, so now Category:Anarchism stubs should be up to date. I'm thinking at some point I'll create some more sub-categories to make the category easier-to-browse, with stub tags for organisations, publications and anarchists of different nationalities. --Grnrchst (talk) 15:12, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Setting a new goal sounds good. I'll likely be spending my time making GAs and FAs rather than expanding stubs this year. czar 00:36, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've just bumped it up to 85%, which seems like it'll be doable given enough time. Best of luck with your GA and FA projects! --Grnrchst (talk) 10:32, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've started making progress on these, with a small expansion on the anti-authoritarianism article and developing the biography on Andrea Costa a bit more. --Grnrchst (talk) 16:32, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Today I expanded the articles on Rouvikonas and Hans Jæger to start class. A lot more can be added to both of these, but they're more filled out than they were. --Grnrchst (talk) 15:44, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Today marks the third or fourth time since posting this that I have tried to expand the market anarchism article but given up on it after reading the source material. I just find this subject so absurdly dull and uninteresting. If anyone here is up to give this article a bit of work, I'd appreciate it a lot. --Grnrchst (talk) 11:43, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just got Peter Gelderloos over 250 words, although I could probably still do more from harder-to-access sources (that I have already identified) Iostn (talk) 23:49, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Iostn: Nice work! Thanks so much for expanding this. --Grnrchst (talk) 09:38, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

European Destubathon

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Just found out that in April 2025, WikiProject Europe is hosting the European Destubathon. We have plenty of articles about Europe and Europeans that could do with a wee bit of expansion, so if you want to take some of these on, this will be a good opportunity to do so! Of our top-priority stubs, the articles on Lou Watts and Noël Godin still need expanding. We also have plenty of biographies, books, publications, organisations and movements to choose from. --Grnrchst (talk) 13:49, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Aristoxène: By my count (using the Petscan tool) there's some 61 stubs about anarchism in France that could do with expansion. Would you be interested in taking any of these on? --Grnrchst (talk) 14:06, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Grnrchst Hello ! Oh that tool is very cool, didn't know that existed. Yes, I'll have to translate the page I just created on Pierre Martinet but I wanted to improve massively Clément Duval for starters, because it's clearly sad to see the page like that when the dude created a whole movement. I uploaded his 'bagne' papers on Commons the other day so I will have a look at it and at the other pages. Thank you for the link. Aristoxène (talk) 14:23, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if it works automatically but I think Duval is not a stub anymore (or at least hope so) Aristoxène (talk) 13:07, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Aristoxène: Excellent work! It's looking good, although it might be a bit too reliant on Duval's autobiography in places. --Grnrchst (talk) 13:29, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Grnrchst So sadly for all the first part of his life the main infos seem to be only found in his autobiography. Note that the pages from the book I quote are not the parts where it's actually his autobiography but more like the biographical introduction made by the editor/translator (probably Galleani ?) about Duval. So the first 70 pages or so are like a biographical narrative of Duval's life which summarizes somewhat his Memoirs probably. I tried to take away most of Galleani's biased (because he is not neutral tbf) and misogynistic biographical account but yeah, it's not from Duval himself. I think it's probably the only biographical account on his life prior to 1886 (if you look at the Maitron, his life starts in 1886 literaly ^^) Aristoxène (talk) 13:37, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Michael Kemp (I think a pseudo-historian) claims that no infos exist on the early life of Duval, but I feel like he didn't read the actual autobiography or it's introduction, because the biographical introduction is 70 pages long and the autobiography (which I didn't read) is 1000+ pages long. I remember reading some historians discuss the 'arson property attacks' specifically as something kinda influential in terrorism and history so maybe this section could be consolidated with those sources if I find it back, but yeah for like the military and medical issues, very hard. Especially since also there is Galleani who claims that Duval divorced his wife that he was beating and in another source which I didn't add because I don't understand how this would work or whatever, we have a 'Louise Duval' which wrote in Le Révolté to save him and gather money for him in the penal colony. So a lot of shady points still sadly. It's probably more clear in the actual autobiography but 1000+ pages in Italian you know lol Aristoxène (talk) 13:44, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I feel like the 'bagne' part is very short and should be improved, since a large part of his life and experiences and thought was dedicated to this subject ; but I like making pages about people in revolt and people in concentration camps make me sad somewhat so I didn't dwelve too much on it, someone else will probably over time, I hope. Aristoxène (talk) 13:52, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah ok. I've changed the citation to clarify that it's the biographical chapter being cited, not Duval's own autobiography. According to the note at the end of the chapter, it seems like it was written by a certain "A. d. T." although I'm not sure who that might be just going off the initials. --Grnrchst (talk) 14:04, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh thanks a lot for that and for all :) @Grnrchst Aristoxène (talk) 17:38, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd wager N. d. T. is short for "editor's note" there. But a matter for the Duval talk page anyway. czar 21:13, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Czar: Close! I just realised it's "Nota del Traduttore" (Translator's note). --Grnrchst (talk) 08:27, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I’ll try to do Alexandre Skirda and Robert Louzon BobFromBrockley (talk) 21:24, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I hope you can find some biographical information to add on Skirda! I've tried looking for some before, but only found reviews for his books. --Grnrchst (talk) 11:31, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've done some basic work now to Alexandre Skirda and Robert Louzon, and have probably reached a limit. Would appreciate if anyone could review these. Will now (slowly) move on to the three British ones I volunteered for below! BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:09, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm starting work on expanding some of our stubs about Spain (see Petscan results), as I was already working on this area so it seemed like a natural fit. --Grnrchst (talk) 11:04, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just expanded my 25th stub about the Spanish anarchists, which makes 27 in total (together with 1 from Poland and 1 from Switzerland). I'll probably take a bit of a break from stub expansion over the next couple days, as this has been quite a lot of work. --Grnrchst (talk) 14:08, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Bobfrombrockley and LittleDwangs: Hey, would either of you be interested in helping expand some of our stubs about the British anarchist movement? According to the Petscan results, we have some 23 stubs about British anarchists, their publications and organisations. --Grnrchst (talk) 11:07, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I volunteer to take on Brian Morris (anthropologist), Richard Hunt (editor) and Yankev-Meyer Zalkind to start with. BobFromBrockley (talk) 21:11, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
PS while researching for these I was surprised to see Max Nettlau is a stub. I'll hope to get to him when I've done these three, but comrades should feel free to do so! BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:28, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh aye, that'd be an important one to expand, I'm also surprised it's been a stub all this time. Thanks for taking these on for expansion! --Grnrchst (talk) 12:24, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We're are the end of the month now and we've brought the number of stubs in the project down to 455, which is less than 16% of our articles. Nice work everyone! --Grnrchst (talk) 12:17, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank to all the people who spent a lot of time doing this work, ngl. I didn't help you as much as I could/should but truly it's very strong from the part of all the people I saw. Aristoxène (talk) 14:58, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
L'Endehors destubbed (I think?). Thanks to @Noelbabar for their help on the FR:WP side (and I think they are not finished still). Aristoxène (talk) 00:29, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

World Destubathon

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On 16 June 2025, The World Destubathon will be starting! This will be another opportunity to expand more of our stubs and further bring down the proportion of stubs in our project. There's no geo-focus on this one, so anything goes. Whatever anarchism-related stubs you want to expand will be eligible for submission. --Grnrchst (talk) 14:05, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Anarchist anthropology

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I've started a sandbox on this topic, so far just using material from articles Harold Barclay (which is itself a stub in need of expansion), Pierre Clastres, James C. Scott, and David Graeber. If anybody wants to work on it with me, please feel free. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:37, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Bobfrombrockley Oh that's very interesting ! There seems to be a vast amount of material to add at least for Graeber ; and isn't Marshall Sahlins anarchist also ? I have no idea but they seemed to share a similar type of vision on the state at least in On Kings so ? Maybe not, though, I don't know them better than that but maybe you do ?
I feel like we could probably also add Descola to the project ? his page is very poorly done (sorry to those who have done it). I think he is Marxist (disciple of Lévi Strauss - even though his theories are kinda anti-Levi Straus), and not anarchist per se but his thought was very influencial to develop the 'Zadist' movement in France (including with this book, which he co-wrote with Alessandro Pignocchi, one of the figures of the 'Zadist' thought), which is not anarchist by itself but very very linked with anarchism, I should say. He was also a friend of Graeber, from what I understand and from the few elements I can understand of his thought, Descoola is Marxist officially but when you look at it more in detail, it's not classical marxism at all and is very linked to anarchism/autonomism, so I don't know what do you think about it ? Most of his work, from the small amount I can understand, is dedicated to describing the process by which naturalism came into fruition in the Western capitalist world as a new way of seing and aprehending reality - and all the other modes of understanding it that humankind developed (animism, totemism, analogism). So his thought was very influential for like radical ecology (at least in France, but he seems very influential in anthropology altogether) it's true and we should clearly put him in that project, since he also describes and dwelves a lot - by extension, with the birth of the concept of 'nature' in fact. So I'm saying that but that you could see how I feel like he hits the anarchist project in a more slantwise way but still could go there.
Here you have an intervention (I can't send the YT link so I send a screen of the title) he did with Graeber in English if you want to compare and see a bit and tell me if you feel it's relevant. He truly has a big influence on the Zadists ; but alternatively, we have the chance of him being alive and kinda accessible (I assisted to some of his conferences IRL and it was always kinda open and nice) still so we could write to him to ask him if he wishes to be in the anarchist project and if so, we would be sure of his self-identification (?). What do you think ? Aristoxène (talk) 18:06, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is very interesting, and feel free to directly edit the sandbox Aristoxène. I believe Sahlins didn't identify as an anarchist, but was influential on it (I have added a paragraph to his page making that clear). He was Graeber's PhD supervisor and as you say they wrote together. Descola I wasn't familiar with; it seems his page could do with some expanding.
I don't know if it's too niche, but I created an "Anarchist anthropologists" category. So far, there's only a couple of people in it, as I think the article needs to include a sourced statement about the subject's anarchism to be included. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:15, 16 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Bobfrombrockley Just as a follow up, I reread some Descola stuff and bro was too much ML to my liking. I feel it's too much for him to go in the project, and while he is probably better than many other ML anthropologists, well, he kinda deserves to be there more than here. I'm sorry :( Aristoxène (talk) 22:05, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Though, to not leave you without anything, those are the names that this national-level French media discusses (in collaboration with a French museum - probably the worst museum here but still a big museum) as the main names of 'anarchist anthropology' : Marshall Sahlins, James Scott, David Graeber, Pierre Clastres, Alfredo Gonzalez-Ruibal, Christian Sigrist. This could provide a source clearling ensuring the anarchism of the four first, since they are taken as seminal anarchist anthropologists by the source + give you two pages that are not yet created but could therefore probably be created, since a French mainstream source knows them as notable anarchist anthropologists. Which kinda seems to indicate, at least to me, that you would be able to find a vast array of sourced content. Aristoxène (talk) 22:16, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Request for Review of My Page

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Howdy:

This is Barrett Brown. As my Wikipedia page falls under the Project Anarchism umbrella among others, I figured this would be a good place to ask for help regarding a number of edits that have been made to my page over the last year which I don't think bear much scrutiny insofar as they tend to echo very specific alt-right talking points that aren't supported by even the most flawed mainstream reporting on my activities. For example, the first few paragraphs now include the assertion that I've been criticized for "allegations of harassing women online, which he denies." Nothing is linked to that provides any evidence of any of this. Likewise, it's not clear that several of the "criticisms" quoted in the first few paragraphs were made by an intelligence contractor whose activities I've reported on, something that the source material (in this case a New York Magazine profile) makes clear but that the Wiki doesn't. In general, I'd like to request that an editor or two take a look at what my Wikipedia entry was like two years ago and then compare it to its current state so as to get a better sense of how divorced the current version is from mainstream reporting on me and my work. I realize that the rules here might not actually justify all of the changes I might prefer, but if I could provide some additional context about some of these negative recent edits, I think many of you will come to agree that at least some of them merit being reverted. Thanks. BarrettLBrown (talk) 21:15, 24 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@BarrettLBrown, oops, sorry no one got back to you about this earlier. At a glance, this is indeed full of problems. I'll hail the folks at WP:BLPN to take a look. -- asilvering (talk) 01:27, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No problem, thanks for taking the time. BarrettLBrown (talk) 16:08, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
At the suggestion of an editor at WP:BLPN, I've gone ahead and started writing up the issues with my page its talk section, which you can find here. Thanks again. BarrettLBrown (talk) 23:30, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Alas it looks like I didn't manage to pull anyone from the BLPN post. I'm currently digging through quite a emails/messages backlog both on- and off-wiki, but I've skimmed your talk page post and am encouraged to see that two of the things that most stood out to me when I compared the wikipedia article to the recent Intelligencer piece are the things you too have highlighted. If I drop this and no one else comes to the rescue in the next while, please feel free to ping me directly about it. Hopefully I will have escaped from paperwork hell. -- asilvering (talk) 23:40, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Women project edit-a-thons

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Hey all! This month of May 2025, I've taken on coordinating two edit-a-thons for our women's projects. As per usual, I thought I'd make a post here in case any of you fancied joining us for either of them.

This month Women in Green will be hosting another wildcard edit-a-thon, which is focused on improving and reviewing articles about women and women's works so we can get them to Good Article status. WikiProject Anarchism has four vital articles about women that still need work, those being the articles on Dorothy Day, Itō Noe, Louise Michel and Simone Weil. Mujinga is currently waiting on a review for their article on Lucy Parsons (start), so if anyone here fancies taking that on, I'm sure that would be very much appreciated. We also have quite a few popular articles about women that could do with improvement, so feel free to take some of these on if you fancy:

Meanwhile, Women in Red will also be hosting a revolutionary women edit-a-thon, focused on creating new articles about women in revolutionary movements. WikiProject Anarchism has over 100 women listed in our own redlists, so we have a lot to work with. If you fancy creating a new article about anarchist women, or translating some from other language Wikipedias, you can find some suggestions at our redlist of requested articles.

Happy editing! --Grnrchst (talk) 11:51, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

EvPath

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Hello, companion @EvPath is interested in Wikipedia and would like to contribute to the project. I thought I'd introduce you to them to let you know that they would like to help here (I believe they want to work on creating pages about topics related to the recent history of anarchism in America, so since I don't know the subject at all and am therefore of little help to them and you do, I thought it would be a good idea for you to get in touch). Anyway, that's it. Best regards. Aristoxène (talk) 21:47, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome @EvPath! I'd be happy to help you in any way I can. --Grnrchst (talk) 22:33, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Gren!
I am interested in making some articles. I want to make an article on the Cleveland bridge bombing entrapment case from 2012, an article on the zapatista education system, An article on the declaration of life and an article on the International Encounters of Rebellion and Resistance group.
EvPath (talk) 22:46, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately I haven't heard of many of these, so can't help much; Czar might be better placed to help with those ones. For Zapatista education, I can recommend a few sources:
  • Barmeyer, Niels (2008). "Taking On the State: Resistance, Education, and Other Challenges Facing the Zapatista Autonomy Project". Identities. 15 (5): 506–527. doi:10.1080/10702890802333769.
  • Maldonado-Villalpando, Erandi; Paneque-Gálvez, Jaime; Demaria, Federico; Napoletano, Brian M. (2022). "Grassroots innovation for the pluriverse: evidence from Zapatismo and autonomous Zapatista education". Sustain Sci. 17: 1301–1316. doi:10.1007/s11625-022-01172-5.
  • Shenker, Sarah Dee (2012). "Towards a world in which many worlds fit?: Zapatista autonomous education as an alternative means of development". International Journal of Educational Development. 32 (3): 432–443. doi:10.1016/j.ijedudev.2011.10.001.
You can experiment with building new articles in your sandbox and when you feel like they're ready for publication you can submit them to the articles for creation process. So long as they're verifiable, neutral and based on reliable sources, they should be good to go. --Grnrchst (talk) 09:09, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The declaration for life is a declaration made by the Zapatistas and signed by groups around the world. Here it is https://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2021/01/01/part-one-a-declaration-for-life/
The International Encounters of Rebellion and Resistance is the organization created by the Declaration for Life.https://schoolsforchiapas.org/international-encounters-of-rebellion-and-resistance-2024-2025/
EvPath (talk) 09:57, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@EvPath: Ah thanks for clarifying, I hadn't heard the full name of the encounters and I think I spaced on the Declaration because I hadn't had coffee yet. A quick Google Scholar search brings up a lot of results for the International Encounters and a number of results for the Declaration. If you want to write a dedicated article about these topics, then you'll need to demonstrate that they have received significant coverage in secondary sources. If you can write more than 250 words of prose about them, based on reliable, secondary sources, then that should satisfy the requirements for a new article. If you're not able to write enough about them based on the sources you have available, then it might be worth adding details about them to larger articles (like the one about the EZLN). --Grnrchst (talk) 10:18, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Haha! I see someone's finally managed to beat @czar to the welcome wagon. Welcome, EvPath. -- asilvering (talk) 22:44, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nice to meet you!!!!
EvPath (talk) 22:46, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

French anarchist individualism

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Hello @Grnrchst, @Czar, @Asilvering, I'm contacting you because you're the most active contributors to the project I saw, but feel free to join the discussion. So, as you may have noticed, I've recently created a few pages about individualist anarchists in France, which led me to take an interest in individualist anarchism in France more broadly. One thing that struck me was the diversity of opinions and orientations I observed there, both in texts and sources—in short, all the existing material. This is in contrast with American-based individualist anarchism, which is much better documented on the English Wikipedia page (or the French one, for that matter). Unfortunately, French individualist anarchism is little studied. Czar and I have already discussed what to do with a recent pHD thesis by Frayne, which seems to be one of the few comprehensive works on the subject at the moment. This isn't to say the topic is entirely absent from other writings, but it's generally only touched upon in passing, without serious attention or interest from researchers, who don't dwell on it much.

So I had started using this source to back up a few passages here and there, but then I thought it would actually be a good idea to read it more thoroughly — especially since I was genuinely interested in the subject. And honestly, when you enjoy what you're reading, the pages turn quickly enough. Anyway, one thing Frayne clearly points out is that American individualist anarchism and French individualist anarchism are in fact two ideologically distinct movements — separate from each other and without mutual influence, hence autonomous in their development. This creates a significant terminological issue: we have two entirely different movements sharing the same name. It also likely explains why American individualist anarchism has been so much more studied than its French counterpart — it's far better documented, and the French version doesn't fit into the conceptual frameworks used to understand the American one, so it tends to be overlooked. However — and here I must admit I don’t know American individualist anarchism at all, so please correct me if I'm mistaken — it seems to me that American individualist anarchism places a strong emphasis on economic freedom and can sometimes appear less radical in comparison. In contrast, French individualist anarchists were often communists, revolutionaries, and radicals (and I mean most EdA propagandists of the deed were somewhat linked to those emerging circles). There are also several other ideological perspectives within French individualist anarchism that seem both very different and particularly notable. For instance, some thinkers rejected the traditional bourgeoisie/proletariat dichotomy altogether. They also expressed strong opposition to anarcho-syndicalism, which they saw as a betrayal of anarchist ideals. There was also a notable openness toward the Lumpenproletariat. They also didn't abandon propaganda of the deed, which stayed one of their revolutionary praxis.

Moreover, Frayne dedicates a lengthy section to showing how, in many ways, French individualist anarchism anticipates certain orientations of early 21st-century anarchism — although such ideological connections are often underestimated or barely studied. And it's true that there are ideas within it that seem remarkably modern, such as the fragmentation of anarchist struggles into various parallel currents that nonetheless strive toward the same harmonious goal, for example.

If I’ve said all this, it’s to ask for your opinion in light of these elements. Do you think this deserves a place in the encyclopedia? If so, what should be done? One solution could be to structure the "Individualist Anarchism" page by presenting the two currents in separate sub-sections, and then link to more specific pages (?) :

Frayne : (1) (2) (3) / (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) / (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) Aristoxène (talk) 19:39, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

a significant terminological issue: we have two entirely different movements sharing the same name

One could say this is an issue across all of anarchism!
To the general question, hard to say without knowing why Frayne (2022 doi:10.17863/CAM.80240) calls it "individualist anarchism" despite it being distinct. First question would be what secondary sources cover this approach outside of Frayne's original/unpublished thesis. If no one, then there's nothing to say. If there is secondary sourcing, Individual anarchism in Europe already has a section of that article and it would be fine to expand there or within Anarchism in France. Have you tried writing to Frayne? I'd be surprised if he's not planning a monograph and you'd know him best, having cited his work more than any other academic. :) czar 21:12, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Czar Sorry, I didn’t emphasize the terminological aspect in Frayne’s work. He keeps the term because it's the one used in the sources describing the movement, and also because his focus is specifically on French individualist anarchism. So when he uses the term, he makes clear that it primarily refers to the French movement, given that this is his subject of study. He also clearly uses the term "anarcho-individualism" to describe this movement or 'Individualists'. I think he makes those points in a specific subpart at the beginning of his work, I don't remember very well but yeah. Also I didn't know it was the one I quoted the most, though since I created a lot of French individualist anarchist/linked biographies it's possible, I would have guessed the c/pasted text introducing anarchism in the bombings, etc would be more often quoted by myself but hey, maybe not.
As for the specificity of such a movement, it's true that Frayne's dissertation is currently the only comprehensive source on the subject. Unfortunately, as he notes, it's hardly studied at all. However, there are indeed hints published sources on such a distinction between the American and French movements in other sources as well:
So for example here, the author discusses the evolution that E. Armand made, by including American anarchist individualism (including pro-capitalism thought) into a French anarchist individualist movement that seemed obsolete to him.(4)
You also have a 2021 PhD thesis discussing their influence on Chinese anarchist/feminists.
There is also a published article by Frayne where he discusses the link between vegetarianism and this movement, and where he seems to go in the same directions of presenting it as an understudied movement, making no reference to the American one or any of their thinkers and providing a timeframe origin 1890s (1894-1896) for this movement, which obviously differs a lot from the timeframe of the US one(1)(2). (In fact in the article, and knowing what he published one year later, it's fair to assume that he only speaks about the French anarchist individualist movement, even though he doesn't make the distinction with the US one explicitely there and doesn't dwelve on that)
There is also an article by Mehrdad Navabakhsh seemingly going in the same direction, doing also a distinction between American and European anarchist individualisms (and the European/American difference is also made by Frayne, thus we could probably break the pages like that instead of French/US doing it European/US - in fact it seems even though it died down in Italy, they were very linked, especially to the propaganda of the deed aspect, and there are sources calling the Intransigeants of London and Paris an early anarchist individualist group for example). He also stresses the links with illegalism (and rightfully so it seems to me) : (1)
So maybe I should ask them if they are publishing it indeed, you are right, but I feel like maybe we have ways of improving the situation already, because I'm not sure they will. I know Gaetano Manfredonia did his PhD thesis on it for example but I think he never published it sadly. For the remark about anarchism being the same, I mean yes, but see the page anarchism says that and then the subparts will send the readers to specific pages about specific tendencies, so anarchist communism for example. Here we are in the presence of two movements that don't seem to deploy the same ideas, don't originate in link one with another, don't retake the same thinkers, are not born at the same time, etc, it seems the only thing they have in common is the name. If you think it's not enough sources, no worries, I'll write to them and ask them. Aristoxène (talk) 22:22, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Does he have two PhDs? Surely they don't let you write a thesis on Belle Epoque anarchists for your doctorate in divinity. -- asilvering (talk) 23:09, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Asilvering He seems to have followed a process of specializing on religious thought (Islamic/Christian) on animals and vegetarianism, then we probably have the article about vegetarianism in individualist anarchism and then the PhD thesis. I'm not sure they did a PhD thesis on divinity, though their first studies seems related to theological matters on animals. Aristoxène (talk) 23:31, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I echo what Czar says. Stuff from Frayne's thesis is worth incorporating into the articles on individualist anarchism and anarchism in France, but I would caution against basing an entire new article on an unpublished PhD thesis with little scholarly influence. That anarchist tendencies aren't solidly defined isn't a novel insight; "green anarchism" is an umbrella label for wildly different schools of thought; "social anarchism" is a broad umbrella label defined effectively as just "not individualist". Individualist thought being diverse isn't a surprise, it's literally in the name. --Grnrchst (talk) 08:52, 22 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Grnrchst I think you are right. I contacted them anyways to see what they think and if they want to publish it or intervene here to provide sources or talk, but in any case this seems the best choice it seems indeed. Aristoxène (talk) 09:53, 22 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Category:20th-century anarchists

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@Suite1408, why do you think this anarchist by century category is necessary? I see it adding more clutter than clarity, as most sources do not discuss anarchists by century and more by country of origin or school of thought. Bringing this to a wider forum for consideration. czar 14:41, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just now seeing Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2025 May 3#Category:21st-century anarchists. This noticeboard wasn't alerted to that discussion but I'm also not convinced by the conclusion. FYI @Smasongarrison czar 14:46, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think there's benefit to breaking it up by century, but the consensus wasn't with me. SMasonGarrison 21:27, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think there is benefit. Contemporary historical context matters a great deal to what anarchists have thought and how they have expressed themselves. I just don't see how this could be considered clutter or how putting them in the same pile would be an affirmative improvement. On the more Right Great Wrongs side, IMHO, it's always better to at least flag that there are more recent writers that people could be reading. lethargilistic (talk) 22:07, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I meant more that we already have other subcategorization of anarchists and there is no meaningful distinction between 20th- and 21st-century affiliation (many were active across both centuries). czar 03:00, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But that historical context is hardly communicated by separating them by century. The Spanish Civil War and the Battle of Seattle are not more like each other than they are like the Paris Commune and Occupy. -- asilvering (talk) 03:00, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That was the same reason for limiting feminists to before the 20th-century. I'd be fine with 19th-century anarchists, similar to 19th-century feminists. There's just no benefit to navigation for more modern centuries. SMasonGarrison 04:42, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not opposed to this in principle. I do wonder how useful it is as a categorisation, but then there are plenty of wildly broad categories based on centuries. I think the best course of action is to have these as meta-categories and to further diffuse them into more clearly-defined historical eras and movements. --Grnrchst (talk) 09:40, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Category diffusion from here could work. But another of my tendencies is toward building systems that don't change just because time passes. It will not always be the case that the 20th and 21st centuries will be considered recent, and future Wikipedians will more than likely undo a merge of these categories in the future. I know that's a bit of a silly, distant response to good points about the crossover of the categories and the sheer length of time a century is, but I think it's true. lethargilistic (talk) 10:15, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have to say that I don't think it's going to become any more useful a distinction even with a few more centuries in the rear-view mirror. Historians somewhat notoriously carve these periods up into "long" and sometimes even "short" centuries for precisely this reason. In British historiography, both the 18th and the 19th are long. The 20th is short. Meanwhile, the 11th and 14th are cleanly bisected by an invasion and the plague, respectively, so periodization tends to refer to those events instead of the centuries themselves. We also have "post-war" or "post-1945" in the 20th century for obvious reasons. With regards to European anarchism, WWI is a pretty clearly defining line, to the point where if someone said "anarchism in the 20th century" I would simply assume they meant post-1914. -- asilvering (talk) 16:43, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Diffusing into historical era will devolve into original research because historians by and large don't have common periodization for anarchism, so inventing such labels will be inherently contested (e.g., "classical period anarchist", "post-WWII anarchist") nevermind the individuals who cross eras. I don't see why we would need such categories when we have sufficient diffusion by ethnicity/nationality. czar 21:37, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Soviet anarchists

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Hey all. My attention was just drawn to this category, because Smasongarrison recently diffused it into the "20th-century anarchists" category (see above discussion). I immediately noticed that its scope was rather weird, seemingly pulling together a bunch of anarchists that lived in the Soviet Union (or pre-union Soviet Republics), under the category of "Anarchists by nationality". I think this is the completely wrong scope for this category.

The term "Soviet anarchist" does exist in the source material, but it is not a signifier of nationality, it was an ideological position used to describe anarchists who supported the Soviet government (similar to "anarcho-Bolshevik"). You can see, in Google Scholar results, that this ideological (not national) definition is uniformly used across the scholarly literature. Paul Avrich discusses the topic in pages 196-200 of The Russian Anarchists:

[M]ilitant Anarchist-Communists had the utmost contempt for their "renegade" colleagues—"Soviet anarchists," they labeled them—who had succumbed to the blandishments of the "pseudo-Communists." [...] Lenin himself was so impressed by the zeal and courage of the "Soviet anarchists" that, in August 1919, at the climax of the Civil War, he was moved to remark that many anarchists were "becoming the most dedicated supporters of Soviet power."

According to Avrich, the label was applied to German Askarov, Aleksandr Ge, Abba Gordin, Wolf Gordin, Apollon Karelin, Daniil Novomirskii, Juda Roshchin, Bill Shatov [ru], Anatoli Zhelezniakov, and the Universalists. Yet curiously, of these people, only Karelin and Ge are presently included in the category, while several opponents of the Bolsheviks like Nestor Makhno and Lev Chernyi are included.

I brought this up here, as I wasn't sure how much discussion it would get in the Category talk page itself. Is there a best practice for changing the scope of categories such as this one? --Grnrchst (talk) 09:25, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You make an interesting point, but I think that instead of changing the scope, we split the category in a manner similar to Category:Chinese nationalists and Category:Chinese Nationalists. We could have separate categories for anarchists from the Soviet Union and pro-Bolshevik anarchists. What do you think? Charles Essie (talk) 16:08, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Of the people currently listed, the only one that you could say is from the Soviet Union is Yegor Letov; all the others were born during the time of the Russian Empire. Many of the people in this category were killed or fled into exile before the Soviet Union was even established. Others only lived in the Soviet Union for a few years. I guess I'm confused as to how we'd delineate who counts as "from the Soviet Union", whereas "Soviet anarchist" is a label where we have reliable sourcing for its application to specific individuals. --Grnrchst (talk) 16:37, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, and I have complained about this label before, with no success. The same goes of course for the similar categories that are "x of the Russian Empire", which used to fall into "Russian" before someone decided to split things by political entity rather than cultural/national/ethnic groupings. I don't really know what the "best practice" is for solving this problem, since category gnomes appear pretty convinced that this already is "best practice". Having descriptive prose in the categories doesn't help, unfortunately. -- asilvering (talk) 16:51, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I was defining "Soviet anarchist" as any anarchist of Imperial Russian or Soviet origin who was alive during the existence of the Soviet Union. I probably should have included that in prose, and I now recognize that it might be too broad for categorization. If you want to limit the definition of Soviet anarchists to pro-Bolshevik anarchists, I guess I can accept that, but I still think there should be some way to categorize anti-Bolshevik anarchists under the Soviet label since many of them lived and died there. Charles Essie (talk) 20:21, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps "Category:Anti-Bolshevik anarchists" could be it? It loses the Soviet label, but captures that these are anarchists who opposed Bolshevik rule (the Communist Party continued to be known as Bolsheviks through to the end of Stalin's reign); it's also something along the lines of Category:Anti-Stalinist left. Grnrchst (talk) 20:47, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Or we could split the existing category into a new one for pro-Bolshevik anarchists titled Category:Soviet anarchists (tendency) or something like that. Charles Essie (talk) 21:26, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is basically why I prefer the cultural/national/ethnic set of categories. You could have these people in, for example, both "Russian anarchists" and "Anti-Bolshevik anarchists". -- asilvering (talk) 00:33, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I second @Asilvering that we should be careful about the distinction of nationality from ideology. You can be both a soviet national AND an anti-Bolshevik anarchist. They're not mutually exclusive. SMasonGarrison 02:45, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
+1 I'd advocate for deleting this and keeping to categories by nationality (as this one had intended to be). If an anti-Bolshevik tendency is truly defining, we can use Category:Anti-communists and we don't need the intersection category. Otherwise editors/readers will continue to confuse the tendency with the nationality if left at "Soviet anarchists". czar 21:33, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Most anti-Bolshevik anarchists in the Soviet Union were anarcho-communists. Grouping them under Category:Anti-communists would be incorrect at best and slanderous at worst. Charles Essie (talk) 01:24, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand why we'd disambiguate for what is clearly the primary topic. Sources widely use "Soviet anarchist" to refer to the tendency, not anarchists of the "Soviet" nationality. --Grnrchst (talk) 08:05, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In that case, I no longer see a point for a category for other anarchists of Soviet nationality. What else would you call it? Charles Essie (talk) 14:04, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Category:Anti-Bolshevik anarchists" is too broad. It could mean anarchists of any nationality, not specifically Soviet nationals. It might be better to just purge Category:Soviet anarchists of people that weren't part of that tendency and leave it at that. Other anarchists could be moved to Category:Soviet socialists or Category:Soviet communists, unless you think those categories should be redefined as well. Charles Essie (talk) 16:39, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But what we've been saying is that the nationality-as-in-citizenship part isn't terribly relevant. "Anti-Bolshevik anarchists" could well be a useful category, since it describes a kind of anarchist. It seems to me what you're really asking for, place-wise, is something like "Anarchists who lived in the Soviet Union"? -- asilvering (talk) 21:58, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Aren't "anti-Bolshevik anarchists" essentially all anarchists who weren't "Soviet anarchists"? Charles Essie (talk) 01:21, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I feel like you're missing the point I'm trying to make here. Nationality is an extremely common category and the current naming for Soviet anarchists reads as anarchists who are Soviet nationals. Repurposing it is going to be a huge headache for maintain categories because the convention for practically all categories reads this as nationality. So you really would have to make the rename extremely clear. And frankly, I think you'd be better off disambiguating "Soviet anarchists" and creating "Anarchists from the Soviet Union" as well as some disambiguated name like Soviet anarchists (ideology). I don't have a good naming suggestion yet, but if you look around the categories that already exist that might give you some inspiration. SMasonGarrison 01:40, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I had earlier suggested something similar, keeping Category:Soviet anarchists the way it is and creating a disambiguated category for the Soviet anarchist tendency. It didn't seem to get any support. Charles Essie (talk) 02:23, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again, I opposed the disambiguation because the ideological descriptor of "Soviet anarchist" is the common use of the term, while defining anarchists by the "Soviet" nationality is not done in reliable sources. So I felt it bad practice to disambiguate what is clearly the primary topic while we leave this poorly-defined category as a non-existent national designation, despite it being unsupported by the literature. Can we even cite a single source that defines an anarchist by the "Soviet" nationality? It seems all the ones included are described as Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, etc., while "Soviet anarchist" is uniformly used to describe the tendency. --Grnrchst (talk) 08:50, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
>So I felt it bad practice to disambiguate...
I don't disagree with you. However, people unfamiliar with "Soviet anarchism" are going to default to the norm of reading it as nationality. The typical behavior for categories is to read Soviet FOO as FOOs from the Soviet Union. Do you have an alternative solution that is substantiable? Otherwise, this problem is going to come up repeatedly, and is going to require volunteer time to purge the category. SMasonGarrison 23:30, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Grnrchst Do you have an alternative solution or are you willing to do the heavy maintenance on principle? SMasonGarrison 23:33, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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