Short answers, pulled from the story.
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or hierarchy, primarily targeting the state and capitalism. It advocates replacing the state with stateless societies and voluntary free associations, and is described as part of the libertarian wing of the socialist movement.
The word anarchism comes from the Ancient Greek anarkhia, meaning "without a ruler," composed of the prefix an-, meaning "without," and arkhos, meaning "leader" or "ruler." Anarchy appears in English from 1539 and anarchisme from 1642, with early usages emphasising a sense of disorder.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who lived from 1809 to 1865, was the first political philosopher to call himself an anarchiste and to invest the word with a positive meaning. Earlier figures such as William Godwin and Wilhelm Weitling shaped anarchist doctrine but did not use the term to describe themselves.
In the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939, anarchists and syndicalists organised under the CNT and the FAI played a pivotal role, particularly in the Spanish Revolution of 1936. They took control of Barcelona and large rural areas where they collectivised the land, but were ultimately defeated by communists as Joseph Stalin asserted Soviet control over the Republican government.
Anarchist schools of thought are generally grouped into two main historical traditions, social anarchism and individualist anarchism. Classical currents include mutualism, collectivist anarchism, anarcho-communism, anarcho-syndicalism, and individualism, while post-classical currents include anarcha-feminism, green anarchism, and post-anarchism.
Anarchism revived in the 1960s amid the counterculture, the New Left, and the anti-nuclear, environmental, and peace movements, and became associated with punk bands such as Crass and the Sex Pistols. Around the turn of the 21st century it grew within anti-capitalist, anti-war, and anti-globalisation movements, marked by black bloc protests and the 1999 Seattle WTO conference.