Yesterday, I posted the “Why I am an Anarchist” manifesto from Nikolai Pavlov, written in 1917. This was written during the Russian Revolution, and as an Anarchist, Pavlov still had a small hope that the revolution would succeed and not end in a dictatorship, as he probably suspected it would. I don’t know this, of course, I don’t know what went through his mind when the communists arrested him, and I have never been close to an ongoing revolution. We don’t share the same world; however, we do share the same power scale. 

It is hard to imagine what it is like to live in another time. I am old enough to have lived without the internet for my first 25 years, and the first 15 years that we had internet were relatively tame compared to the bombardment you have now if you let it in. In 1917, most people in Russia were aware of the events unfolding: a war with Germany and a revolution in the western part of the empire. However, most people who were not directly involved in the war, for instance, because they lived too far from the front, led their lives as they always did, with an occasional news bulletin or stories from travelers as the only source of news.

Pavlov’s call for revolution would have sounded as strange to the average Russian during his time as it does to us. Your opinion can be formed by the village you have lived your whole life, where you know the six streets it contains as the back of your hand, or by a million loud voices, blaring at you 50cm in front of your face, making you insecure; you have to pick a side when pressures build. An updated manifesto could still be relevant in our time, but it will also fade into the noise and the choices made for us. In Pavlov’s time, no one knew about it; in our time, it is just a few clicks away, but few people are aware of that. 

Why I Am an Anarchist (By Pavlov, updated by me*)

I am an anarchist because contemporary society has divided humanity into two opposing worlds: on one side, the underschooled, migrants, and creators who produce everything the code, the content, the culture, the food, the housing, the care; On the other hand, the tech millionaires, corporate oligarchs, corrupt politicians, and digital landlords who have seized all wealth, data, and power for themselves.

I am an anarchist because I look upon this system of billionaires launching vanity rockets. At the same time, workers can’t afford rent and millions go without food regularly, and feel nothing but indignation and loathing for these parasites who exploit both life and the planet. My heart aches with compassion for those who are crushed beneath the weight of algorithms, debt, and despair.

I am an anarchist because I reject all authority – whether it wears the mask of a government, a police uniform, or a platform’s terms of service. Authority in all its forms dehumanizes, surveils, and compels; it replaces autonomy with obedience, and solidarity with competition.

I am an opponent of private property when it means the ownership of resources, housing, and information by a handful of corporations. Private property in this sense, whether it’s a billionaire’s data center, a hedge fund’s farmland, or a landlord’s tenement, is theft, wrapped in legal code and enforced by the state.

I am an anarchist because I condemn the false morality of capitalist civilization:
It’s algorithmic religions that preach consumerism, it’s social media gods who demand our time, attention, and souls, and it’s endless wars for profit dressed up as “defense” or “freedom.”

I am an anarchist because I believe only in the creative power of free, self-organized communities – not political parties, not influencers, not “thought leaders.”
Real liberation cannot come from above or through elections; it must rise from the bottom up, from people building networks of mutual aid, solidarity, and resistance.

I am an anarchist because I know this global struggle between those who create and those who exploit will end only when the oppressed reclaim the earth, abolish all hierarchies, and organize production and life according to need, not profit.

I reject the modern forms of dictatorship, whether they wear the face of the populist, corporate CEOs, or AI-driven bureaucracies. Dictatorship, however disguised, remains domination; and domination corrupts, isolates, and degrades both the ruler and the ruled.

I believe authority will vanish only with the disappearance of capitalism, the wage system, the surveillance state, and the ownership of life itself by the few. When that day comes, free individuals and communities will govern themselves cooperatively, with mutual respect and without coercion.

I am an anarchist because I act, speak, and live toward that future, spreading the idea of a world beyond profit, patriarchy, and power. For my happiness is bound to the happiness of all who are free, free to think, create, and live as autonomous beings in a global community of equals.

*I asked Chat GPT, you know, from one of those billionaires: Can you put it more into today’s world with tech millionaires? Social media and autocrats wanting power, plus the whole text of Pavlov. It is funny that a tool made by the “oppressor” knows how to write a pamphlet against its creator. I modified it so that it remains 75 percent Pavlov’s main thought; the rest is written by me, with some inspiration from AI.