The idea of the communist revoluton through socialism is that the socialist state was intended to eventually destroy itself and the society will live in a communist system. But that society would not be prevented from using a different currency, such as US dollars, and create commercial companies.
How do anarcho-communists plan to prevent an anarcho-communist society from degenerating into anarcho-capitalism?
Kropotkin is probably the single name most closely associated with anarchist communism. In his book, The Conquest of Bread, he addresses this concern (reproduced on the Anarchist Library here).
The anarchist communist society that Kropotkin is creating is essentially post-scarcity. In his view, although capitalism had allowed for production to increase significantly from the pre-industrial period, it restrained production from reaching its potential:
Hundreds of blast-furnaces, thousands of factories periodically stand idle, others only work half-time — and in every civilized nation there is a permanent population of about two million individuals who ask only for work, but to whom work is denied.
How gladly would these millions of men set to work to reclaim waste lands, or to transform illcultivated land into fertile fields, rich in harvests! A year of well-directed toil would suffice to multiply fivefold the produce of dry lands in the south of France which now yield only about eight bushels of wheat per acre. But these men, who would be happy to become hardy pioneers in so many branches of wealth-producing activity, must stay their hands because the owners of the soil, the mines, and the factories prefer to invest their capital — stolen in the first place from the community — in Turkish or Egyptian bonds, or in Patagonian gold mines, and so make Egyptian fellahs, Italian exiles, and Chinese coolies their wage-slaves.
Production would be so high in the anarchist communist world that there would no rational reason to re-implement capitalism. It would mean choosing to have less goods by doing more work.
If I understood it correctly, your question is the following: "How can a classless, moneyless, communistic society ensures that it stays that way and not fall back to a capitalistic one?" This is a quite interesting topic, so I will try to give some insights.
The full capitalistic system relies on but is not defined by the existence of money. Money existed before capitalism in feudal societies and was even present in socialist Russia (money & notes). The capitalistic system needs an array of factors to work (capitalistic class relations, means of production in the hands of the few, accumulated capital from the upper class, industrially developed cities, industrial workers in the working class, banking system etc) and was created steadily towards that direction:
-- Full analysis can be found here: Marx on Primitive Accumulation.
So money alone (even if appeared in a communistic society) is not sufficient to revert the society back to capitalism.
Marx analysed the history of class antagonisms as an analogy to Darwin's evolution theory. Whenever a revolution occurred, one class took the means of productions and the power from another class (ex. French revolution -> capitalists took the power from feudal lords) , leading to a new status quo - though in all cases by means of repression of the working class. This works like a social evolution, leading to the proletariat (working class) claiming what it deserves as a class, becoming the ruling class, freeing itself and the society.
-- Also see: Communist Manifesto - I. Bourgeois and Proletarians*
This Marxian process is a social process that does not "go back" to put it in a simplistic way. Think of an analogy today: Can you imagine a western capitalistic country like UK or US "rolling back" to become a feudal kingdom?
Protection by the society itself
The capitalistic state won't exist in a communist society. The power and the decision making will be done by the workers themselves via industrial organizational structures (in soviet union called "soviets"). These are also responsible to ensure the protection of the existing society from potential threats (capitalistic anti-revolution etc.) in case needed.
-- Further reading: Lenin on anti-revolution
This question was addressed by James Guillaume in 1876. He envisaged that each farm or factory would be taken over by a commune comprising the people living in a particular area. Each commune would then collectively own the means of production (land, machinery etc) and organise their work in a democratic way. Each commune would set up a "Bank of Exchange" to provide economic government for the commune, paying the workers to produce goods with its own "voucher" currency, and backing these vouchers with the products of the labour of the commune.
The Bank of Exchange will not only receive products belonging to the workers of the commune; it will correspond with other communes and arrange to procure goods which the commune is obliged to get from outside sources, such as certain foodstuffs, fuels, manufactured products, etc. These outside products will be featured side by side with local goods. The consumers will pay for the commodities in the various markets with vouchers of different denominations, and all goods will be uniformly priced.
It is evident from our description that the operations of the Bank of Exchange do not differ essentially from the usual commercial procedures. These operations are in effect nothing but buying and selling; the bank buys from the producers and sells to the consumers. But we think that after a certain length of time the functions of the Banks of Exchange will be reduced without inconvenience and that a new system will gradually replace the old system: exchange in the traditional sense will give way to distribution, pure and simple. What do we mean by this?
As long as a product is in short supply it will to a certain extent have to be rationed. And the easiest way to do this would be to sell these scarce products at a price so high that only people who really need them would be willing to buy them. But when the prodigious growth of production, which will not fail to take place when work is rationally organized, produces an oversupply of this or that product, it will not be necessary to ration consumption. The practice of selling, which was adopted as a sort of deterrent to immoderate consumption, will be abolished; the communal banks will no longer sell commodities, they will distribute them in accordance with the needs of the consumers.
If I understand this correctly, Guillaume believed that the increased efficiency of the communes would create such a massive increase in production that the use of money to restrict consumption would no longer be necessary; anyone who wanted anything would simply ask their local commune for it. Or to put it another way, this was going to be a post-scarcity economy, so none of the hard questions faced by capitalist economies would be relevant.
(Note to commenters inclined to argue with Guillaume's analysis: this is an answer to the question, not a claim that the analysis is correct)
The idea of the communist revoluton through socialism is that the socialist state was intended to eventually destroy itself and the society will live in a communist system.
That's an often repeated quote from Engels as far as I know, but while not false it's kinda misleading.
Marx's idea of history is one of class struggle. So the state is essentially the upper class asserting force on the lower class to exploit them for personal gains. That is a structure of the few ruling the many. So when he looks at history he sees it as the classes somewhat leapfrogging. So while the upper class become fat and lazy the lower class develops harness their skills and abilities and develop the material methods to revolutionize the society and become the upper class.
So in his interpretation of history the mode of production of society, determines it's social order and all that manifests in a progress from the rule of the few to the rule of the many. As the lower classes regularly overcome shortcomings with skill and organization.
Now capitalism defeating feudalism marks another such progression in which the productive outcome of factories and manufacturing had pushed traditional agriculture and skilled production (the mode of production before that) out of business. Instead factories now produced large quantities of commodities (products made for sale rather than consumption). Replacing trade product for money for product with trades of money for commodity production for even more money.
Though it also reduces the work of a worker to that of a standardized work unit without any skill, so it eroded the (in Marx's mind) classical way of historic progress. And left to it's own devices it lead to massive accumulation in the hands of the capital owners and an impoverishing of the lower class. Who were at the time still politically disenfranchised as all that democracy stuff people talked about was still only for the rich.
So "the state" to them was this oppressive system of police and authority that ensured property for the rich and kept the working class down.
So what Marx saw as remedy was the working class organizing as one large institution and as such undeniably demand political and economic power. That is the ownership of the means of production that they were already the major moving parts in. Like you can run a factory without boss, but you can't run it without workers.
And while social democrats were often already fine with improved working and living conditions, Marx was pretty much dead set that what makes or breaks capitalism is the ownership of the means of production and that's what the workers should demand and strike for, if necessary (and he thought it was) by revolution and just taking it by force (assuming they already are the majority).
So in that conception, this revolution somewhat would become the end of history (as he knew it), because now there would be no other class left. Previously the ruling class subjugated the working class, but now the working class would BE the ruling class and there's no other class to subjugate. So in consequence the entire reason for the state to exist would wither away. Of course the worker could try to subjugate each other, but Marx thought the majority would be smart enough to realize "Wait we had that already and it sucks, if they subjugate these other workers what's stopping them for subjugating me as well" and would thus either revolt further till that bullshit is stopped, like you'd still need to subjugate a majority for a system of exploitation and you'd already have an organized combat ready majority to push back against that.
So he expected some back and forth, but rather sooner than later that would give rise to communism and the overcoming of such nonsense and after that people would through industrialization have a surplus economy and through collective ownership of the means of production would have a de facto democracy and thus would have something to decide about (the surplus of their work) and would finally have the ability to decide about that by themselves (democracy).
So in that frame of reference no one who had just risked their lives to throw off the shackles of slavery would voluntarily go back to working for someone else for a fraction of what that person gains from their work. So in the first stage after capitalism they might want to try exchanging work in equal quantities and in higher stages of communism would simply produce shit in sufficient amounts, so that there is enough for everyone and than decide democratically how they would spend their labor for both their own benefit and/or the benefit of the community.
Also Marx thought that in accord to what liberals portrait as history. Free people would have improved production (so free workers would buff output) as well as that it would be the highest, late stage of capitalism that would have the revolution.
Ironically it was the lowest stages of capitalism, just at the end of failing feudalism that saw a revolution. Which Marx would have pronounced a dead end as it's that leap frogging in mode of production that he assumed would bring society forward, so just replacing a king with another king is stagnation. Same for having revolutions by a socialist minority party. Like a government is still a government, the best they could do is develop the means of production so that eventually the lower classes would be numerous and powerful to overthrow them.
Though once in government few people intent for the lower classes to overthrow them and being disciples of conditions that taught them to look for their own bottom line and to fuck over the rest, these governments basically head to prevent the people from redistributing products and settle with it, so that after they were eaten up they'd fall right back to feudalism, but that they should develop the means of production. So they became state capitalists, they exploited their working class, traded with other capitalists (at first tried to prevent that but especially China is pretty much doing that galore) and invest in their businesses.
Now ideally the people would revolt against that take the means of production and ... communism. But also you have an upper class that knows that, that profits from this system and that likely has no interest in doing that, so they likely talk a whole lot about it so that people forget what that even means but never actually get to doing any of that, but always postpone that.
So the anarcho-communists, aren't really a fan of having such an intermediate state as it is basically antithetical to their goal and they would go straight for communism without.
Now it is dubious as to whether Marx's perception of history is true to begin with. I mean it probably made a lot of sense at the time, given that the enlightenment thinkers, the classical liberals and the proponents of progress and the industrial revolution actually wrote down history as such it culminated in their glorious revolutions that brought about liberty, equality and brotherhood, with a lot of asterisks for those whom that did not apply... But it's also possible that not all rulers were downright evil oppressors and that most of these systems aren't even possible without the "consent" (lack of resistance) of the oppressed, that progress of the means of production might have also been in the interest of the ruling class as otherwise they'd be stuck in stagnation and on the brink of starvation, famines, wars and whatnot that they often just narrowly escaped.
So the grand narratives of class warfare, race warfare, natural hierarchies, god given rulership, ... are probably all lies to begin with and the "power" or the absence of it might only in the extremes be that black and white and otherwise might take up more complex shades of grey where it's not done with a revolution and where it's not done with taking over the power. So Marx idea of changing the structure of power by changing how we produce, how we structure our economy and output, might have been more reasonable than Lenin's approach (though the latter being more successful). The other problem is that the conditions in which we live also shape how we survive, how we organize and how we produce and with beating hunger and famines, we've also encountered a whole set of new problems that keep us from being content.
And ideally those who like to seek power have a strong incentive to make people be never content with what they have so that they keep sacrificing themselves for progress (usually the progress of someone else, but believing it's their own).
Yet this quest for progress was also part of Marx's narrative, that would progress history, so yeah it might suffer from the same problem.
Now anarcho-capitalism is not anarchism to begin with, but just a deregulated capitalism, that most likely gives rise to a neo-feudalism where wealth accumulates with the wealthy, until that economic power also breeds centers of political and social power or gets overthrown by a revolution.
While the classical anarchism at least theoretically got that liberty of the individual that goes against the liberty of other individuals is not liberty but privilege and that true anarchism could only be attained with freedom and equality and that neither one alone is sufficient. Though whether that would be a system or an ideal to strive for, which could also be what Marx had in mind and what path leads there is a topic of probably never ending discussion.
One of the more common misunderstandings of Marist theory is that it is specifically anti-money or anti-capital. A more realistic understanding of Marx's philosophical perspective is that he opposed the intersection of capital and class which produced the particular mode of (industrial) class capitalism. The connection of class and capital creates a system in which the laboring classes are exploited, and this produces all the deleterious effects that Marx objects to. But Marx is fairly clear that monetary exchange and capital acquisition are more-or-less ordinary economic activities that become corrupt when attached to class structures.
With that in mind, the reason anarcho-communism would not (theoretically) turn into anarcho-capitalism is that anarcho-communism could not properly form until classes effectively disappear from the sociopolitical system. Or perhaps better put, philosophically consistent anarcho-capitalism would de facto be anarcho-communism, because the premises of anarcho-capitalism demand an idealized form of equality and the absence of systematic exploitation. Marx doesn't much care about the system of exchange that people use, so long as the mode of production does not create separated master/laborer classes.
I don't believe it will be possible to prevent capitalism in an anarcho-communism society. Even in a nuclear power, authoritarian country like North Korea, capitalism thrives in spite of great dangers from the state.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/10/13/557645729/episode-800-north-koreas-capitalists
Even inside North Korea, the most restrictive, socialist regime in the world, there are entrepreneurs. People are dreaming up ideas of services to offer, products to sell, businesses to start. They're called the 'donju,' and they're part of North Korea's small middle class. For a long time, even tiny acts of capitalism were thought of as 'honey-coated poison' by the North Korean government. Private business was banned. It has crept in at the edges slowly.
Capitalism also existed in another nuclear superpower, the USSR.
https://www.heddels.com/2014/09/soviet-denim-smuggling-history-jeans-behind-iron-curtain/
There is “more power in blue jeans and rock and roll than the entire Red Army”. Young Soviets, rather than emulating the traditional dress and haircuts of their parents, wanted to look like the film icons and rock stars of the West – and they were willing to pay through the teeth to do so. The resulting captive market created a lucrative bootleg exchange. The most coveted items were blue jeans, corduroys and leather jackets brought in by diplomats, tourists, sailors and military advisors and resold at high arbitrage prices.
If nuclear super powers with a large spy network are unable to stop capitalism, it would be hard to imagine that a small commune or network of communes would be able to stop it.
In fact, capitalism is humanity's natural state. In the absence of authority, people will naturally trade with one another.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zomia_(region)
Zomia refers to the huge mass of mainland Southeast Asia that has historically been beyond the control of governments based in the population centers of the lowlands. Hill societies do produce "a surplus", but they do not use that surplus to support kings and monks. Distinction of status and wealth abound in the hills, as in the valleys. The relationship between upland and lowland peoples are reciprocal, since upland peoples are essential as a source of trade.
Even real life actual communes engage in capitalism. This commune in Staten Island has 3 retail stores. They have their own garden, but still buy groceries as it does not produce enough food for the ~70 or so members.
We have some flower and vegetable gardens. We have many trees (some fruit bearing) and berry bushes. Others of us work in our three Every Thing Goes stores nearby, where we sell used clothing, books, furniture and a variety of related merchandise. Most of our work happens in 3 retail stores called Every Thing Goes. One store refinishes and sells furniture. The second offers clothing. The third is a combination book store, internet cafe and neighborhood performance venue and art gallery. The businesses are housed near the residences. They are well organized, efficiently run, attractive, and profitable.
Even in territory controlled by actual anarcho-communists, The Zapatistas of Chiapas in Mexico are unable to prevent the capitalism of buying and selling drugs from the Cártel de La Calle, also in Chiapas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_Liberation
"You are in Zapatista rebel territory. Here the people command and the government obeys." "North Zone. Council of Good Government. Trafficking in weapons, planting of drugs, drug use, alcoholic beverages, and illegal selling of wood are strictly prohibited. No to the destruction of nature."
However there is still a drug cartel in Chiapas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_cartel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltr%C3%A1n-Leyva_Cartel
Cártel de La Calle (cell in Chiapas)
https://www.lapoliciaca.com/nota-roja/aparece-el-cartel-de-la-calle-en-chiapas/
The Cartel of La Calle appears in Chiapas. A new criminal group appeared in the municipality of Ixtapa, Chiapas, as two men were executed and were found on a dirt road in the Serrano neighborhood. (Google translated)
(This news particular report was about a kidnapping, not drugs, but shows their activity within a Zapatista location.)
I feel like the better question would be, how does anarcho-communism prevent a state from forming? Anarcho-Capitalism has a similar problem.
My understanding of Anarcho-Communism is that workers democratically control their workplaces. There's committees galore to interact between different types of workplaces, and committees to interact with same workplaces in different areas. Committees of committees, and sometimes committees of committees of committees. Amongst all this committee and democracy... how is that not government? How is that not a state? And that's just the workplace. What do you do about the rapists and cleptomaniacs running around. That all takes leadership to deal with.
As workers (I hope you guys have jobs and life experience to know what I'm talking about,) how shit are are meetings? You're trying to get some work done, but there's a 30 minute committee meeting whether, how that's going to affect everybody's pay, etc. You would have been out of work a whole hour since you have to get to the meeting early, get situated, and the time it takes to get back into your work. But the meeting is complex and everybody has to be part of the democratic process, so the meeting goes over by 60 minutes. You've now wasted your 2 hours of your day to take part in workplace democracy. That's two hours of productivity to help yourself, your family, your coworkers... and it's gone. Your work wasn't done... because committee. As you realize that you're losing 2 and sometimes 3 hours of work a day to meetings... you conclude that your time is better spent (and better for your coworkers too) just getting work done and somebody should just stand in for you on these meetings so you can produce. And lo and behold, a management class is born. The management class of your committee attends committees with other committees who have their management class in attendance. How is that not a leadership class or government?
So you have an anarchy that's not an anarchy since it's really an oligarchy that compromises a government that's not a government.
You have the leader of the workers committee of the sandwich shop thinking, a better sandwich shop could be made, and nearer his house. But relocating is voted down. He decides to just go build one. He promises other sandwich makers in the area better wages to attract them. One of 20 doctors at the nearby hospital is sick of the stress and responsibility of having to save lives. The doctor justifiably should be compensated extra for enormous burden over the nurses and clerks. But there's 500 other workers there, and they keep democratically voting down a pay raise for the doctors at the meetings they're attending because they don't have to worry about treating patients like the doctors. The hospital isn't even making that much money, in fact everybody skipped a paycheck two months ago (by vote) because they're running out of cash. The hospital isn't making money because theres three committees of worker committees from surrounding businesses that use the hospital, but their workers all voted on prices they're willing to pay, none of which actually cover the hospital costs sufficiently, but some money is better than none even though the committee committees used to be willing to pay more (government price fixing even though there's supposedly no goverment.) Doctor realizes he can join new sandwich shop and make slightly more money than being doctor. He joins sandwich shop. It's a popular sandwich shop. There's a manager from the management class (that shouldn't exist but does) of toy store has been very effective for the workers at the toy store, helping them bring in new customers benefitting all. Store is doing extremely well. NewSandwich Shop committee realizes they could be doing better too if they have a good manager. They all vote to find a good one. Toy Manager is found by NewSandwich committee, they need him, but Toy Store needs him. Toy manager would be letting down workers if he left, plus they'd never vote to allow it (how is that not government again?) Toy manager indicates he would have to make substantially more money at NewSandwich to leave. NewSandwich committee see's the value and votes on it, approves it, and then sells it hard to Toy Manager since they really need his skills. Toy Store votes no to let Toy Manager go. Toy Manager says, meh, this is anarchy, I can do what I want and leaves. Anarcho-Capitalism is formed.
Toy Committee is pissed. They take their grievance to a committee of committee that includes Hospital Committee and Oringinal Sandwich store committee. OSandwich committee is upset because they make less money due to NewSandwich, Hospital and Toy are pissed their productive workers are pilferred. They vote that New Sandwich must close.
Anarcho Capitalist New Sandwich realizes that Luxury Soap Factory is having same issues, being ordered to close down by competitors. They form up a committee to talk to the committees and settle differences with Anarcho Communist committees. In these government on government, I mean committee on committee talks... no headway is made. Armed conflict is the only option. Freedom fighters versus oppressors.
Either way you slice it, anarcho communism leads to anarcho capitalism because the people is not the people, it's a collection of individuals with individual needs and desires, and both lead back to a formation of a government (even though they were both oligarchies at a minimum all along.)
And disputes lead to war. Nothing has changed except some doctors went underpaid and everybody pretended a management class didn't exist to keep the illusion going.
