Illegal checkpoints on public streets have a long history in Marxist and anarchist tradition.

They symbolize organized self-defense against "oppressors," an empowerment of "the people" to seize urban space to confront the class enemy.

When organized as barricades to block passage, they become instruments of insurrection, dating back to the 1848 revolutions of Europe and the 1871 Paris Commune

Marxists treat barricades as symbols of transition from civil protest to armed struggle.

Barricades mark the point when Marxists stop appealing to constitutional authority, and build structures for alternative power.

For anarchists, the barricade represents "direct action" and "horizontal self-organization" - the building of defenses without formal hierarchies or central leaders.

Anarchists view barricades as a reclaimed public space. Checkpoints and barricades turn the streets from channels of commerce and state control into zones of collective autonomy and mutual aid during insurrections or insurgencies.

Image: Antifa's Capitol Hill Occupied Protest checkpoint, Seattle, 2020