Crass were the bad kind of anarchist, if I recall. Not syndicalists, but individualist anarchist, which is basically libertarian. Other bands on their label had way better politics and made better music (Zounds is a personal favorite). The first record is half good, but they get successively worse from then on, except for a few good tracks off of Penis Envy.
I’ll explain my opinion regarding the death of punk. Lots of bands play music in the style of punk, and many of them are very good; some are even better than actual first wave punk bands. However, punk isn’t just a style of music—it was a moment in history where things seemed truly up in the air and unsettled, where new possibilities presented themselves in music and beyond. When those possibilities closed off for various reasons, punk died and its remnants splintered into various scenes, which themselves eventually died and splintered. But the music itself still reverberates through bands that interpret that moment of possibility without actually having lived in it.
They were anarcho pacifists, which is collectivist in nature and hold very similar views to that of anarchist communist and anarcho syndicalists views, but pacifist believe that the general strike is the beginning and the end movements towards classes, post scarcity society. This is in contrast to other libertarian socialist ideals which view the general strike as a crucial step towards classless society, but not the only necessary action.
But, tendencies and the minutia of anarchism aside, the point was that they showed me what was out there, and to a middle class kid that was invigorating.
But there were a tons of amazing bands to come out of crass records that I like more than crass: zounds, omega tribe, flux of pink indians, poison girls, and by extension via Corpus Christi- conflict, rudimentary peni, and crucifix.
Sources- now and after: the abc’s of anarchist communism by berkman
Revolution and the state: anarchism in the Spanish civil war
Anarchism: a history of libertarian ideas and movements by George woodcock
And me, currently trying to write a book about leftist anti-Bolshevism during the Russian revolution and civil war, concentrating on the Kronstadt rebellion and the Ukrainian free territory