Like many people in history, when communists and anarchists
are remembered, their disabilities often go unacknowledged,
even though they likely deeply impacted their lives and
perspectives. Disabilities should not be seen as a shameful
personal failure but as a neutral characteristic within the
natural variation of humanity. Here is a brief biography of
some of those revolutionaries.
Communism has the goal of a stateless, moneyless, and classless
society. Through political revolution or democratic capture,
capitalism would be abolished. All private ownership and profit
from farms, businesses, and factories would be collectively owned
by society, and businesses would be operated by the workers
themselves. This would be achieved by taking over the power
of the state and using that to abolish the divisions between the
owners and the workers. The state is seen as something that
would wither away on its own over time, as it only existed to
maintain exploitation.
Anarchism shares the same final goal of a stateless, moneyless,
and classless society, but the methods of how to get there are
distinctly different. Power is seen as inherently corrupting,
and taking over state power is seen as inevitably leading to an
authoritarian dictatorship. Once people have state power, they
do not give it up. Capitalism and the state are seen as mutually
reinforcing structures and so both must be dismantled, either
through revolution or by building social structures that make
the state obsolete.
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