“In-Village Anarchy”: Rethinking “Rural” as a New Libertarian Way of Social Living

DOI: 10.33876/2311-0546/2024-2/67-85

Abstract

The ideas of the “green” anarchism libertarian ideology, based on a radical criticism of urban industrial production and the associated reorientation of the human value system in a capitalist society, find their expression in ecological settlements, organized according to the principles of non-hierarchical and ecological consciousness of autonomous homesteads as network units and development of horizontal social connections. This article proposes to consider the anarchist rethinking of the “rural” in the context of the practices of developing non-urban space in order to build a new society. The author analyzes squatting as a specific method and philosophy in the context of the experience of global projects of rural and urban anarchist communities, including global projects of ideological communes and comparing this experience with the situation in Russia. The paper analyzes the collected information from activists in the Russian squat commune Skvoshino and provides reflection on the life of modern builders of “in-village anarchy” and the “novelty” of a different form of social structure as a declared alternative to the “failed in-city anarchy” and the urban way of life in general.