roughly, anyway, it's true that the first global terrorists were anarchists. i think that's when the word was introduced widely, though you may find earlier examples, coming off the french revolution 'terror' etc. but i also want to say that many let's say anti-statists, were pacifists, or reached opposition to the political state through their opposition to war, violence, imprisonment, slavery. i'd mention lucretia mott, william lloyd garrison, and leo tolstoy.
as i've often written, in the late 19th c communist anarchism and marxist communism (or 'authoritarian socialism' as anarchists called it), were squared off pretty equally in the labor/radical intelligentsia movements. many factors led to the ascension of the marxist tendency over the first couple of decades of the twentieth century. but primarily these.
first, 'propaganda by the deed': that string of assassinations and bombings was unbelievably useless and counter-productive. i don't know why they thought that was good publicity; i guess isis sort of shows that you might get popular curiosity a bit or something out of that. it wasn't going to help overthrow anything, and it turned all sorts of people against anarchism and led to almost-universal vilification and repression. it was a terrible moral and practical mistake. kropotkin was the best theorist anarchism produced; sad that he went in this direction. but so did emma goldman and alexander berkman, e.g.
second, the first few decades of the 20th century were perhaps the period of the most ferocious rise of the nation state, which had monopolized the whole world and armed up unbelievably. it was an important moment in the merger of state and economy, as well. anti-statism, beautifully confirmed by the wars and genocides, also became a mere pipe dream.
the revolution in russia finally channeled the whole world left into various intensities of the marxist model. also its progress showed all the horrors inherent in that model, but people didn't seem to care, and bourgeois intellectuals the world over enthused about the liquidation of the bourgeoisie.
in short, we anarchists fucked up, and the world fucked us up. on another occasion i'll try to say why i still want to be an anarchist.
