The emergence of the anarchist ideas in modern Europe is commonly accredited to the lower classes of the seventeenth century. Among those living in miserable poverty, usually without prospects of future wealth due to strictly fixed class structures, the ideas of free and equal societies arose: ideas that men should be born free and equal and get the same chances. They were seeking a political system different from what they were living in, non-ideological dictatorships and extreme class-based capitalism.

Since politics as these they knew it was exercised mainly by the capitalists, they sought some form of anti-politics which would later be dubbed anarchism by Proudhon in his 1840 work 'Qu'est que la Propertie?' The word was an ancient Greek with two uses –primarily it meant chaos, but occasionally it was used to describe revolutionary movements. The anti-politics would be free from coercion and power through the abolishment of the ruling capitalist class: if everybody were to be equal nobody could rule and everybody would have to do more or less the same work. Anarchism is indeed about extreme equality and freedom for every citizen.

Further, and probably for at least three reasons, the concept of property is abolished. The primary reasons, as Winstanley phrased it in his 1649 pamphlet 'Truth lifting its Head up Above Scandals', are “that property is incompatible with freedom” and “that authority and property are the begetters of crime”.

The third reason, indeed a more pragmatic one, is that property rights is also a basis of the capitalist system of production: abolishment of property would help to uphold anarchism once established. Here, the distinction between ‘anarchy’ and ‘anarchism’ is essential: while anarchy is the state of lawlessness in whatever form it may come, anarchism is a complete political and philosophical ideology. Indeed, one of the existential problems of the anarchist ideology is how to avoid anarchy in its vulgar meaning, but maintain it in its anarchist meaning.

From pre-history, indeed, anarchy has reigned on various levels of life: while some animals cleverly organize groups with leaders, others live alone or in informal groups and have few formalized social bonds. The idea of the abolishment of the state to form a stateless society (which, indeed, anarchism is), however, is necessarily more recent than the idea of a state. The Tao Te Ching movement of China in the eighth century BC is considered one of the earliest forms of ideological anarchism. This movement, however, never reached Europe and is commonly seen as unlinked with the emergence of anarchism in medieval Europe. Indeed, that role is often accredited to ‘The Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit’, a lay movement that roamed Northern Europe in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They rejected all authority and supported some form of communism. With Luther’s reformation at the dawn of the sixteenth century, a band of Radical Reformers also emerged. The movements that emerged, collectively known as the Anabaptist movements, were religiously radically free and have been considered another early form of anarchism, for example by the Russian prince and prominent anarchist Peter Kropotkin.

Indeed, the chronologically following next prominent early anarchist movement dates to 1649 and the English Digger Movement. Led by Gerrard Winstanley, who published a pamphlet that year as mentioned above, they attempted to establish free communism among them. Local landowners opposed the Diggers' activities and sent hired thugs to beat them and destroy their colony in 1650. Winstanley protested to the government, but to no avail, and the colony was abandoned.

William Godwin (1756-1836) and his nearly contemporary Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865) should also be mentioned. Godwin was primarily a journalist and a radical political philosopher, acclaiming equal rights and opposing the British imperialism of his time. His most famous book, ‘An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice’ was published in 1793, celebrating and extending the anarchist ideology in the middle of the French Revolution.

Joseph Proudhon would later be an active participant in the 1848 Revolution. Here, in October, he gave his quite famous ‘Toast to the Revolution’ and developed his own ideas of permanent revolution. He had a seat in the Constitutional Assembly where he voted against the constitution on the simple grounds that it was a constitution and because it gave too much power to the president. Indeed, his predictions were right and three years later Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in a coup d’etat.

Since Proudhon, the anarchist movements have probably had less direct influence in the major European powers. While Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) became a respected thinker within many academic fields, including geography and Russian history, he did not succeed in securing the influence of anarchist ideas in the Russian Revolution of 1917. He was offered the ministry of education following the February Revolution, but rejected it and by the time of the October Revolution he considered the revolution to be “buried”. Indeed, with him the direct anarchist influence on revolutions was also buried and more recent anarchist activities are either of a philosophical or activist kind.