ABSTRACT
Revolution remains a core concept in anarchist ideology, and continues to play an essential role in differentiating its accounts of social change from those of both social democracy and authoritarian Marxism. This chapter examines the extent to which anarchism defines itself as a revolutionary doctrine, to which it embraces revolution as the vehicle for social and political transformation. Anarchists' visions of revolution have been expressed in explicit engagement with other core concepts such as direct action, prefiguration, freedom and equality, as well as with adjacent and peripheral ones such as power, reform and attack. The chapter argues that one ineliminable component of the concept of revolution, captured in the metaphor of revolving motion, is that of deep social and/or political change. Another ineliminable component, at least in terms of political ideology, is that of rapid change. The chapter finally examines some re-contestations of revolution in contemporary anarchist discourse.
