In anarchocommunism, those that use violence to enforce it wouldn’t have monopoly on violence, they would be group of volunteers from the community. Those volunteers could act under a mandate given to them by the community, or they could organize spontaneously and take justice into their own hands. The community can retroactively endorse, tolerate, or condemn their actions. If their actions are condemned by the community their mandate can be revoked if they had one, and they can be held accountable nonviolently or, if necessary, opposed violently to prevent them from causing further harm.
Defending an anarchocommunist society against capitalism would likely happen through guerilla warfare, like how the Taliban successfully defended itself against NATO. The guerillas would also naturally be volunteers without any monopoly on violence, and their actions could either be under mandate from some revolutionary commune or spontaneous. Offensively, guerillas win by bleeding the logistics of their opponent dry, leading to the mass surrender of underpaid and undersupplied soldiers, allowing the guerilla to storm the halls of power with minimal resistance. Less dramatically, anarchocommunists can win political victories through terrorism (like the British suffragettes), riots, strikes, and more.
That said, violence is a measure of last resort. Most of the time in an anarchist society it’s enough to tell someone they are doing a bad thing and help them with unlearning it, to redesign the tools or systems through which they caused harm, to no longer give them the tools that allow them to harm others, to warn others of their history of harm an divest from them, or to be a barrier between them and the tools that allow them to harm others, or to threaten them.
So if you had a group of enforcers that abuses their capacity for violence, then firstly their mandate can be revoked. If that doesn’t work, people can try to take their weapons. If that doesn’t work, people can sanction them. If that doesn’t work, people can follow them around and attack them if they try to use their violence to intimidate others. If that doesn’t work, people can ask the help of other communities to help defeat them. If that doesn’t work, people can burn their houses down. If that doesn’t work, people can assassinate them.
If that doesn’t work, people can go scorched earth: evacuate the path ahead of them and destroy whatever they need to survive until they starve to death. If that doesn’t work, people can surrender and murder them when they let their guard down. If that doesn’t work, people can engage in economic sabotage and propaganda for revolution. If that doesn’t work, people can make art and inspire a dream for a brighter future in later generations while mitigating what harm they can. If that doesn’t work, well, they’ll be long dead before they know that for certain.
Ah, but there’s the beauty. The only way an anarchist is going to have the power to act on a global scale is if they’ve acted in good faith.
Humans are multi-faceted beings. We develop the parts of ourselves that help us in the environment we find ourselves in. All humans are capable of good faith and of bad faith depending on what they think will help them. Capitalism rewards bad faith behavior, resulting in people cultivating their bad faith sides. Anarchism does the opposite.
Because anarchism is free association, the only anarchist communities that survive are the ones that maintain a culture of acting in good faith with one another; the ones that don’t become places nobody wants to go to. And because anonymous currency, hoarding of goods, and other forms of amassing wealth are red flags to be unmade, people can’t raid one anarchist commons to get a leg up in the next; whatever damage they cause results in them having less power than if they cooperated.
Anarchist societies continuously develop new procedures to prevent the development of hierarchy, abuse of power, and other bad faith activity, as their situation evolves and as they learn new ways from other anarchist groups or through experience. Ones that don’t get corrupted and fall apart, which none of their members want because society is where everything they like is. So everyone is working to improve the procedures to make bad faith actions harder and harder.
By the time you’re working with communes that can trade punches with multinationals and nation-states, they have risen above such a gauntlet of bad faith people intentionally or unintentionally trying to tear them down that there’s a very good chance they can handle the next conflict in good faith too.
This isn’t blind trust, of course; blind trust is a great way for bad faith to flourish. Anarchist societies that succeed cultivate a culture of checking each other’s work. Guerillas would be expected to be as transparent as opsec allows, and there would be reporters on location ready to get the homefront to revoke their material support for the guerilla the moment things get unacceptable.
In anarchocommunism, those that use violence to enforce it wouldn’t have monopoly on violence, they would be group of volunteers from the community. Those volunteers could act under a mandate given to them by the community, or they could organize spontaneously and take justice into their own hands. The community can retroactively endorse, tolerate, or condemn their actions. If their actions are condemned by the community their mandate can be revoked if they had one, and they can be held accountable nonviolently or, if necessary, opposed violently to prevent them from causing further harm.
Defending an anarchocommunist society against capitalism would likely happen through guerilla warfare, like how the Taliban successfully defended itself against NATO. The guerillas would also naturally be volunteers without any monopoly on violence, and their actions could either be under mandate from some revolutionary commune or spontaneous. Offensively, guerillas win by bleeding the logistics of their opponent dry, leading to the mass surrender of underpaid and undersupplied soldiers, allowing the guerilla to storm the halls of power with minimal resistance. Less dramatically, anarchocommunists can win political victories through terrorism (like the British suffragettes), riots, strikes, and more.
That said, violence is a measure of last resort. Most of the time in an anarchist society it’s enough to tell someone they are doing a bad thing and help them with unlearning it, to redesign the tools or systems through which they caused harm, to no longer give them the tools that allow them to harm others, to warn others of their history of harm an divest from them, or to be a barrier between them and the tools that allow them to harm others, or to threaten them.
So if you had a group of enforcers that abuses their capacity for violence, then firstly their mandate can be revoked. If that doesn’t work, people can try to take their weapons. If that doesn’t work, people can sanction them. If that doesn’t work, people can follow them around and attack them if they try to use their violence to intimidate others. If that doesn’t work, people can ask the help of other communities to help defeat them. If that doesn’t work, people can burn their houses down. If that doesn’t work, people can assassinate them.
If that doesn’t work, people can go scorched earth: evacuate the path ahead of them and destroy whatever they need to survive until they starve to death. If that doesn’t work, people can surrender and murder them when they let their guard down. If that doesn’t work, people can engage in economic sabotage and propaganda for revolution. If that doesn’t work, people can make art and inspire a dream for a brighter future in later generations while mitigating what harm they can. If that doesn’t work, well, they’ll be long dead before they know that for certain.
Ok, so this system relies on humans acting in good faith on a global scale. The US is showing pretty conclusively that’s a bad bet.
Ah, but there’s the beauty. The only way an anarchist is going to have the power to act on a global scale is if they’ve acted in good faith.
Humans are multi-faceted beings. We develop the parts of ourselves that help us in the environment we find ourselves in. All humans are capable of good faith and of bad faith depending on what they think will help them. Capitalism rewards bad faith behavior, resulting in people cultivating their bad faith sides. Anarchism does the opposite.
Because anarchism is free association, the only anarchist communities that survive are the ones that maintain a culture of acting in good faith with one another; the ones that don’t become places nobody wants to go to. And because anonymous currency, hoarding of goods, and other forms of amassing wealth are red flags to be unmade, people can’t raid one anarchist commons to get a leg up in the next; whatever damage they cause results in them having less power than if they cooperated.
Anarchist societies continuously develop new procedures to prevent the development of hierarchy, abuse of power, and other bad faith activity, as their situation evolves and as they learn new ways from other anarchist groups or through experience. Ones that don’t get corrupted and fall apart, which none of their members want because society is where everything they like is. So everyone is working to improve the procedures to make bad faith actions harder and harder.
By the time you’re working with communes that can trade punches with multinationals and nation-states, they have risen above such a gauntlet of bad faith people intentionally or unintentionally trying to tear them down that there’s a very good chance they can handle the next conflict in good faith too.
This isn’t blind trust, of course; blind trust is a great way for bad faith to flourish. Anarchist societies that succeed cultivate a culture of checking each other’s work. Guerillas would be expected to be as transparent as opsec allows, and there would be reporters on location ready to get the homefront to revoke their material support for the guerilla the moment things get unacceptable.