'Some socialists wanted to work through government, political parties, and the state to seize power. Other socialists saw this as a corruptible reformist effort. Instead, they argued for building socialism from below through direct action, federations, and the expropriation of the means of production. The different sides agreed capitalism had to go and that the state itself was a looming threat, but struggled to find unity in their respective approaches.
This created the division we now know between statist socialism and libertarian socialism, which came to be known as Anarchism. [Note: "Libertarian" should not be confused with the modern-day appropriation of the term by right-wing laissez-faire capitalists who use the word libertar ian for their purposes.]
Libertarian had a different meaning and context then; to this day, some anarchists still hold onto the libertarian-socialist label. Furthermore, some participants of the International faced repression for using the term "anarchist" [Note: this term was first embraced by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]. Self-identifying anarchists of this period began calling themselves such to set themselves apart from other socialists, but this did not mean that they were no longer socialists themselves. Understanding this history also helps clarify the origins of libertarian, or, anarchist communism.'
https://offshootjournal.org/anarchism-or-socialism-a-nonsensical-question/
