Anarchist symbols

Anarchists have employed certain symbols for their cause, including most prominently the circle-A (Ⓐ) and the black flag, although anarchists have historically largely denied the importance of symbols to political movement. Since the revival of anarchism around the start of the 21st-century concurrent with the rise of the anti-globalization movement, anarchist cultural symbols are widely present.

The red flag was one of first anarchist symbols. It was widely used in late nineteenth century by anarchists worldwide. Also, Peter Kropotkin preferred the usage of the red flag.

Usage of the red flag by anarchists disappeared after the October Revolution, when red flags started to be associated only with communist parties and bureaucratic, reformist and authoritarian social democracy.

The black flag, and the color black in general, have been associated with anarchism since the 1880s. Many anarchist collectives contain the word "black" in their names. There have been a number of anarchist periodicals entitled Black Flag.

The uniform blackness of the flag is in stark contrast to the colorful flags typical of most nation states. Additionally, as a white flag has been used to request parley or to surrender, the black flag symbolizes defiance and opposition to surrender.

The black flag represents the absence of a flag, and thus stands in opposition to the very notion of nation states. In that light, the flag can be seen as a rejection of the concept of representation, or the idea that any person or institution can adequately represent a group of individuals. Modern anarchism has a shared ancestry with – amongst other ideologies – socialism, a movement strongly associated with the red flag. As anarchism became more and more distinct from socialism in the 1880s, it adopted the black flag in an attempt to differentiate itself. Some anarchists at the time, such as Peter Kropotkin, preferred to continue using the red flag rather than adopt the black.

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Wikipedia