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Title: Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists
Author: Dielo Trouda (Workers' Cause)
Date: 1926
Description:
Ideas on how anarchists should organise put
forward by anarchist exiles of the Russan revolution.
Keywords:
Bolshevism, Mhakno, the Platform, organisation, federalism
First published France 1926 First Irish edition published by
the Workers Solidarity Movement, PO Box 1528, Dublin 8
in 1989. This electronic addition published by WSM 1994.
Preface
In 1926 a group of exiled Russian anarchists in France, the
Dielo Trouda (Workers' Cause) group, published this
pamphlet. It arose not from some academic study but from
their experiences in the 1917 Russian revolution. They had
taken part in the overthrow of the old ruling class, had
been part of the blossoming of workers' and peasants' self-
management, had shared the widespread optimism about
a new world of socialism and freedom . . . and had seen its
bloody replacement by State Capitalism and the Bolshevik.
Party dictatorship.
The Russian anarchist movement had played a far from
negligible part in the revolution. At the time there were
about 10,000 active anarchists in Russia, not including the
movement in the Ukraine led by Nestor Makhno. There
were at least four anarchists on the Bolshevik dominated
Military Revolutionary Committee which engineered the
seizure of power in October. More importantly, anarchists
were involved in the factory committees which had sprung
up after the February revolution. These were based in
workplaces, elected by mass assemblies of the workers and
given the role of overseeing the running of the factory and
co-ordinating with other workplaces in the same industry
or region. Anarchists were particularly influential among
the miners, dockers, postal workers, bakers and played an
important role in the All-Russian Conference of Factory
Committees which met in Petrograd on the eve of the
revolution. It was to these committees that the anarchists
looked as a basis for a new self-management which would
be ushered in after the revolution.
However the revolutionary spirit and unity of October
1917 did not last long. The Bolsheviks were eager to
suppress all those forces on the left that they saw as
obstacles blocking their way to "one party" power. The
anarchists and some others on the left believed that the
working class were capable of exercising power through
their own committees and soviets (councils of elected
delegates). The Bolsheviks did not. They put forward the
proposition that the workers were not yet able to take
control of their destiny and therefore the Bolsheviks would
take power themselves as an "interim measure" during the
"transitional period". This lack of confidence in the abilities
of ordinary people and the authoritarian seizure of power
was to lead to the betrayal of the interests of the working
class, and all its hopes and dreams.
In April 1918 the anarchist centres in Moscow were
attacked, 600 anarchists jailed and dozens killed. The
excuse was that the anarchists were "uncontrollable",
whatever that may have meant unless it was simply that
they refused to obey the Bolshevik leaders. The real reason
was the formation of the Black Guards which had been set
up to fight the brutal provocation's and abuses of the
Cheka (the forerunners of today's KGB).
Anarchists had to decide where they stood. One section
worked with the Bolsheviks, and went on to join them,
though a concern for efficiency and unity against reaction -
Another section fought hard to defend the gains of the
revolution against what they correctly saw would develop
into a new ruling class. The Makhnovist movement in the
Ukraine and the Kronstadt uprising were the last
important battles. By 1921 the anti-authoritarian revolution
was dead. This defeat has had deep and lasting effects on
the international workers' movement.
It was the hope of the authors that such a disaster would
not happen again. As a contribution they wrote what has
become known as "The Platform". It looks at the lessons of
the Russian anarchist movement, its failure to build up a
presence within the working class movement big enough
and effective enough to counteract the tendency of the
Bolsheviks and other political groups to substitute
themselves for the working class. It sets out a rough guide
suggesting how anarchists should organise, in short how
we can be effective.
It stated very simple truths such as it being ludicrous to
have an organisation which contains groups that have
mutually antagonistic and contradictory definitions of
anarchism. It pointed out that we need formal agreed
structures covering written policies, the role of officers, the
need for membership dues and so on; the sort of structures
that allow for large and effective democratic organisation.
When first published it came under attack from some of
the best known anarchist personalities of the time such as
Errico Malatesta and Alexander Berkman. They accused it
of being "Just one step away from Bolshevism" and an
attempt to "Bolshevise anarchism". This reaction was over
the top but may have partly resulted from the proposal for
a General Union of Anarchists. The authors did not spell
out clearly what the relationship would be between this
organisation and other groups of anarchists outside it. It
goes without saying that there should be no problem about
separate anarchist organisations working together on
issues where they share a common outlook and strategy.
Neither, as has been said by both its detractors and some
of its latter day supporters, is it a programme for "moving
away from anarchism towards libertarian communism".
The two terms are completely interchangeable. It was
written to pinpoint the failure of the Russian anarchists in
their theoretical confusion; and thus lack of national co-
ordination, disorganisation and political uncertainty. In
other words, ineffectiveness. It was written to open a
debate within the anarchist movement. It points, not
towards any compromise with authoritarian politics, but to
the vital necessity to create an organisation that will
combine effective revolutionary activity with fundamental
anarchist principles.
It is not a perfect programme now, and neither was it back
in 1926. It has its weaknesses. It does not explain some of
its ideas in enough depth, it may be argued that it does not
cover some important issues at all. But remember that it is
a small pamphlet and not a 26 volume encyclopaedia. The
authors make it very clear in their own introduction that it
is not any kind of `bible'. It is not a completed analysis or
programme, it is a contribution to necessary debate - a
good starting point.
Lest anyone doubt its relevance today, it must be said that
the basic ideas of "The Platform" are still in advance of the
prevailing ideas in the anarchist movement internationally.
Anarchists seek to change the world for the better, this
pamphlet points us in the direction of some of the tools we
need for that task.
Alan MacSimoin, 1989
Historical Introduction
NESTER MAKHNO and PIOTR ARSHINOV with other
exiled Russian and Ukrainian anarchists in Paris, launched
the excellent bimonthly Dielo Trouda in 1925. It was an
anarchist communist theoretical review of a high quality.
Years before, when they had both been imprisoned in the
Butirky prison in Moscow, they had hatched the idea of
such a review. Now it was to be put into practice. Makhno
wrote an article for nearly every issue during the course of
three years. In 1926 the group was joined by IDA METT
(author of the expose of Bolshevism, "The Kronstadt
Commune"), who had recently fled from Russia. That year
also saw the publication of the 'Organisational Platform'.
The, publication of the `Platform' was met with ferocity
and indignation by many in the international anarchist
movement. First to attack it was the Russian anarchist
Voline, now also in France, and founder with Sebastian
Faure of the `Synthesis' which sought to justify a mish-
mash of anarchist-communism, anarcho-syndicalism and
individualist anarchism. Together with Molly Steirner,
Fleshin, and others, he wrote a reply stating that to
"maintain that anarchism is only a theory of classes is to
limit it to a single viewpoint".
Not to be deterred, the Dielo Trouda group issued, on 5
February 1927 an invitation to an 'international conference'
before which a preliminary meeting was to be held on the
12th of the same month. Present at this meeting, apart from
the Dielo Trouda group, was a delegate from the French
Anarchist Youth, Odeon; a Bulgarian, Pavel, in an
individual capacity; a delegate of the Polish anarchist
group, Ranko, and another Pole in an individual capacity;
several Spanish militants, among them Orobon Fernandez,
Carbo, and Gibanel; an Italian, Ugo Fedeli; a Chinese,
Chen; and a Frenchman, Dauphlin-Meunier; all in
individual capacities. This first meeting was held in the
small backroom of a Parisian cafe.
A provisional Commission was set up, composed of
Makhno, Chen and Ranko. A circular was sent out to all
anarchist groups on 22 February. An international
conference was called and took place on 20 April 1927, at
Hay-les-Roses near Paris, in the cinema Les Roses.
As well as those who attended the first meeting was one
Italian delegate who supported the 'Platform', Bifolchi, and
another Italian delegation from the magazine 'Pensiero e
Volonta', Luigi Fabbri, Camillo Berneri, and Ugo Fedeli.
The French had two delegations, one of Odeon, favourable
to the 'Platform' and another with Severin Ferandel.
A proposal was put forward to:
1 Recognise the class struggle as the most important facet
of the anarchist idea;
2 Recognise Anarchist-Communism as the basis of the
movement;
3 Recognise syndicalism as a principal method of struggle;
4 Recognise the need for a 'General Union of Anarchists'
based on ideological and tactical unity and collective
responsibility;
5 Recognise the need for a positive programme to realise
the social revolution.
After a long discussion some modifications of the original
proposal were put forward. However nothing was
achieved as the police broke up the meeting and arrested
all those present. Makhno risked being deported and only
a campaign led by the French anarchists stopped this. But
the proposal to set up an 'International Federation of
Revolutionary Anarchist Communists' had been thwarted,
and some of those who had participated in the conference
refused to sanction it any further.
Other attacks on the 'Platform' from Fabbri, Berneri, the
anarchist historian Max Nettlau, and the famed Italian
anarchist Malatesta followed. The Dielo Trouda group
replied with 'A Reply to the Confusionists of Anarchism'
and then a further statement by Arshniov on the 'Platform'
in 1929. Arshinov was soured by the reaction to the
'Platform' and returned to the USSR in 1933. He was
charged with 'attempting to restore Anarchism in Russia'
and executed in 1937, during Stalin's purges.
The 'Platform' failed to establish itself on an international
level, but it did have an effect on several movements. In
France, the situation was marked by a series of splits and
fusion's, the `Platformists' sometimes controlling the main
anarchist organisation, at other times forced to leave and
set up their own groupings. In Italy the supporters of the
'Platform' set up a small 'Unione Anarco Comunista
Italiana' which soon collapsed. In Bulgaria, the discussion
over organisation caused the reconstitution of the
Anarchist Communist Federation of Bulgaria (F.A.C.B.) on
a "concrete platform" "for a permanent and structured
anarchist specific organisation" "built on the principles and
tactics of libertarian communism". However, the hard-line
'Platformists' refused to recognise the new organisation
and denounced it in their weekly `Prouboujdane', before
collapsing shortly afterwards.
Similarly in Poland, the Anarchist Federation of Poland
(AFP) recognised the overthrow of capitalism and the state
through class struggle and social revolution, and the
creation of a new society based on workers and peasants
councils and a specific organisation built on theoretical
unity but rejected the 'Platform' saying it had authoritarian
tendencies. In Spain, as Juan Gomez Casas in his
'Anarchist Organisation - The History of the F.A.I.' says
"Spanish anarchism was concerned with how to retain and
increase the influence that it had since the International
first arrived in Spain". The Spanish anarchists did not at
that time have to worry about breaking out of isolation,
and of competing with the Bolsheviks. In Spain the
Bolshevik influence was still small. The 'Platform' hardly
affected the Spanish movement. When the anarchist
organisation the 'Federacion Anarquista Iberica' was set up
in 1927, the 'Platform' could not be discussed, though it
was on the agenda, because it had not yet been translated.
As J. Manuel Molinas, Secretary at the time of the Spanish-
language Anarchist Groups in France - later wrote to Casas
'The platform of Arshinov and other Russian anarchists
had very little influence on the movement in exile or
within the country... 'The Platform' was an attempt to
renew, to give greater character and capacity to the
international anarchist movement in light of the Russian
Revolution . Today, after our own experience, it seems to
me that their effort was not fully appreciated."
The World War interrupted the development of the
anarchist organisations, but the controversy over the
'Platform' re-emerged with the founding of the Federation
Comuniste Libertaire in France, and the Gruppi Anarchici
di Azione Proletaria in Italy in the early 50's. Both used the
'Platform' as a reference point (there was also a small
Federacion Communista Libertaria of Spanish exiles). This
was to be followed in the late 60s - early 70s by the
founding of such groups as the Organisation of
Revolutionary Anarchists in Britain and the Organisation
Revolutionnaire Anarchiste in France.
The 'Platform' continues to be a valuable historical
reference when class-struggle anarchists, seeking greater
effectiveness and a way out of political isolation,
stagnation and confusion, look around for answers to the
problems they face.
Nick Heath, 1989
Introduction
It is very significant that, in spite of the strength and
incontestably positive character of libertarian ideas, and in
spite of the forthrightness and integrity of anarchist
positions in the facing up to the social revolution, and
finally the heroism and innumerable sacrifices borne by
the anarchists in the struggle for libertarian communism,
the anarchist movement remains weak despite everything,
and has appeared, very often, in the history of working
class struggles as a small event, an episode, and not an
important factor.
This contradiction between the positive and incontestable
substance of libertarian ideas, and the miserable state in
which the anarchist movement vegetates, has its
explanation in a number of causes, of which the most
important, the principal, is the absence of organisational
principles and practices in the anarchist movement.
In all countries. the anarchist movement is represented by
several local organisations advocating contradictory
theories and practices. having no perspectives for the
future, nor of a continuity in militant work, and habitually
disappearing. hardly leaving the slightest trace behind
them.
Taken as a whole, such a state of revolutionary anarchism
can only be described as 'chronic general disorganisation'.
Like yellow fever, this disease of disorganisation
introduced itself into the organism of the anarchist
movement and has shaken it for dozens of years.
It is nevertheless beyond doubt that this disorganisation
derives from from some defects of theory: notably from a
false interpretation of the principle of individuality in
anarchism: this theory being too often confused with the
absence of all responsibility. The lovers of assertion of
'self', solely with a view to personal pleasure. obstinately
cling to the chaotic state of the anarchist movement. and
refer in its defence to the immutable principles of
anarchism and its teachers.
But the immutable principles and teachers have shown
exactly the opposite.
Dispersion and scattering are ruinous: a close-knit union is
a sign of life and development. This lax of social struggle
applies as much to classes as to organisations.
Anarchism is not a beautiful utopia, nor an abstract
philosophical idea, it is a social movement of the labouring
masses. For this reason it must gather its forces in one
organisation, constantly agitating, as demanded by reality
and the strategy of class struggle.
"We are persuaded", said Kropotkin, "that the formation of
an anarchist organisation in Russia, far from being
prejudicial to the common revolutionary task, on the
contrary it is desirable and useful to the very greatest
degree." (Preface to The Paris Commune by Bakunin, 1892
edition.)
Nor did Bakunin ever oppose himself to the concept of a
general anarchist organisation. On the contrary, his
aspirations concerning organisations, as well as his activity
in the 1st IWMA, give us every right to view him as an
active partisan of just such an organisation.
In general, practically all active anarchist militants fought
against all dispersed activity, and desired an anarchist
movement welded by unity of ends and means.
It was during the Russian revolution of 1917 that the need
for a general organisation was felt most deeply and most
urgently. It was during this revolution that the libertarian
movement showed the greatest decree of sectionalism and
confusion. The absence of a general organisation led many
active anarchist militants into the ranks of the Bolsheviks.
This absence is also the cause of many other present day
militants remaining passive, impeding all use of their
strength, which is often quite considerable.
We have an immense need for an organisation which,
having gathered the majority of the participants of the
anarchist movement, establishes in anarchism a general
and tactical political line which would serve as a guide to
the whole movement.
It is time for anarchism to leave the swamp of
disorganisation, to put an end to endless vacillations on
the most important tactical and theoretical questions, to
resolutely move towards a clearly recognised goal, and to
operate an organised collective practice.
It is not enough, however, to establish the vital need of
such an organisation: it is also necessary to establish the
method of, its creation.
We reject as theoretically and practically inept the idea of
creating an organisation after the recipe of the 'synthesis',
that is to say re-uniting the representatives of different
tendencies of anarchism. Such an organisation, having
incorporated heterogeneous theoretical and practical
elements, would only be a mechanical assembly of
individuals each having a different conception of all the
questions of the anarchist movement, an assembly which
would inevitably disintegrate on encountering reality.
The anarcho-syndicalist method does not resolve the
problem of anarchist organisation, for it does not give
priority to this problem, interesting itself solely in
penetrating and gaining strength in the industrial
proletariat.
However, a great deal cannot be achieved in this area, even
in gaining a footing, unless there is a general anarchist
organisation.
The only method leading to the solution of the problem of
general organisation is, in our view, to rally active
anarchist militants to a base of precise positions:
theoretical, tactical and organisational, i.e. the more or less
perfect base of a homogeneous programme.
The elaboration of such a programme is one of the
principal tasks imposed on anarchists by the social
struggle of recent years. It is to this task that the group of
Russian anarchists in exile dedicates an important part of
its efforts.
The Organisational Platform published below represents
the outlines, the skeleton of such a programme. It must
serve as the first step towards rallying libertarian forces
into a single, active revolutionary collective capable of
struggle: the General Union of Anarchists.
We have no doubts that there are gaps in the present
platform. It has gaps, as do all new, practical steps of any
importance. It is possible that certain important positions
have been missed, or that others are inadequately treated,
or that still others are too detailed or repetitive. All this is
possible, but not of vital importance. What is important is
to lay the foundations of a general organisation, and it is
this end which is attained, to a necessary degree, by the
present platform.
It is up to the entire collective, the General Union of
Anarchists, to enlarge it, to later give it depth, to make of it
a definite platform for the whole anarchist movement.
On another level also we have doubts. We foresee that
several representatives of self-styled individualism and
chaotic anarchism will attack us, foaming at the mouth,
and accuse us of breaking anarchist principles. However,
we know that the individualist and chaotic elements
understand by the title 'anarchist principles' political
indifference, negligence and absence of all responsibility,
which have caused in our movement almost incurable
splits, and against which we are struggling with all our
energy and passion. This is why we can calmly ignore the
attacks from this camp.
We base our hope on other militants: on those who remain
faithful to anarchism, having experienced and suffered the
tragedy of the anarchist movement, and are painfully
searching for a solution.
Further. we place great hopes on the young anarchists
who, born in the breath of the Russian revolution, and
placed from the start in the midst of constructive problems,
will certainly demand the realisation of positive and
organisational principles in anarchism.
We invite all the Russian anarchist organisations dispersed
in various countries of the world, and also isolated
militants, to unite on the basis of a common organisational
platform.
Let this platform serve as the revolutionary backbone, the
rallying point of all the militants of the Russian anarchist
movement! Let it form the foundations for the General
Union of Anarchists!
Long Live the Social Revolution of the Workers of the
World!
The DIELO TROUDA GROUP Paris. 20.6.1926.
General Section
1. Class struggle, its role and meaning
There is no one single humanity
There is a humanity of classes
Slaves and Masters
Like all those which have preceded it, the bourgeois
capitalist society of our times is not 'one humanity'. It is
divided into two very distinct camps, differentiated
socially by their situations and their functions, the
proletariat (in the wider sense of the word), and the
bourgeoisie.
The lot of the proletariat is, and has been for centuries, to
carry the burden of physical, painful work from which the
fruits come, not to them, however, but to another,
privileged class which owns property, authority, and the
products of culture (science, education, art): the
bourgeoisie. The social enslavement and exploitation of the
working masses form the base on which modern society
stands, without which this society could not exist.
This generated a class struggle, at one point taking on an
open, violent character, at others a semblance of slow and
intangible progress, which reflects needs, necessities, and
the concept of the justice of workers.
In the social domain all human history represents an
uninterrupted chain of struggles waged by the working
masses for their rights, liberty, and a better life - In the
history of human society this class struggle has always
been the primary factor which determined the form and
structure of these societies.
The social and political regime of all states is above all the
product of class struggle. The fundamental structure of
any society shows us the stage at which the class struggle
has gravitated and is to be found. The slightest change in
the course of the battle of classes, in the relative locations
of the forces of the class struggle, produces continuous
modifications in the fabric and structure of society.
Such is the general, universal scope and meaning of class
struggle in the life of class societies.
2. The necessity of a violent social revolution
The principle of enslavement and exploitation of the
masses by violence constitutes the basis of modern society.
All the manifestations of its existence: the economy,
politics, social relations, rest on class violence, of which the
servicing organs are: authority, the police, the army, the
judiciary. Everything in this society: each enterprise taken
separately, likewise the whole State system, is nothing but
the rampart of capitalism, from where they keep a constant
eye on the workers, where they always have ready the
forces intended to repress all movements by the workers
which threaten the foundation or even the tranquillity of
that society.
At the same time the system of this society deliberately
maintains the working masses in a state of ignorance and
mental stagnation; it prevents by force the raising of their
moral and intellectual level, in order to more easily get the
better of them.
The progress of modern society: the technical evolution of
capital and the perfection of its political system, fortifies
the power of the ruling classes, and makes the struggle
against them more difficult, thus postponing the decisive
moment of the emancipation of labour.
Analysis of modern society leads us to the conclusion that
the only way to transform capitalist society into a society
of free workers is the way of violent social revolution.
3. Anarchists and libertarian communism
The class struggle created by the enslavement of workers
and their aspirations to liberty gave birth, in the
oppression, to the idea of anarchism: the idea of the total
negation of a social system based on the principles of
classes and the State, and its replacement by a free non-
statist society of workers under self-management.
So anarchism does not derive from the abstract reflections
of an intellectual or a philosopher, but from the direct
struggle of workers against capitalism, from the needs and
necessities of the workers, from their aspirations to liberty
and equality, aspirations which become particularly alive
in the best heroic period of the life and struggle of the
working masses.
The outstanding anarchist thinkers, Bakunin, Kropotkin
and others, did not invent the idea of anarchism, but,
having discovered it in the masses, simply helped by the
strength of their thought and knowledge to specify and
spread it.
Anarchism is not the result of personal efforts nor the
object of individual researches.
Similarly, anarchism is not the product of humanitarian
aspirations. A single humanity does not exist. Any attempt
to make of anarchism an attribute of all present day
humanity, to attribute to it a general humanitarian
character would be a historical and social lie which would
lead inevitably to the justification of the status quo and of a
new exploitation.
Anarchism is generally humanitarian only in the sense that
the ideas of the masses tend to improve the lives of all
men, and that the fate of today's or tomorrow's humanity
is inseparable from that of exploited labour. If the working
masses are victorious, all humanity will be reborn; if they
are not, violence, exploitation, slavery and oppression will
reign as before in the world.
The birth, the blossoming, and the realisation of anarchist
ideas have their roots in the life and life and the struggle of
the working masses and are inseparably bound to their
fate.
Anarchism wants to transform the present bourgeois
capitalist society into a society which assures the workers
the products of their labours, their liberty, independence,
and social and political equality. This other society will be
libertarian communism, in which social solidarity and free
individuality find their full expression, and in which these
two ideas develop in perfect harmony.
Libertarian communism believes that the only creator of
social value is labour, physical or intellectual, and
consequently only labour has the right to manage social
and economic life. Because of this, it neither defends nor
allows, in any measure, the existence of non-working
classes.
Insofar as these classes exist at the same time as libertarian
communism the latter will recognise no duty towards
them. This will cease when the non-working classes decide
to become productive and want to live in a communist
society under the same conditions as everyone else, which
is that of free members of the society, enjoying the same
rights and duties as all other productive members.
Libertarian communism wants to end all exploitation and
violence whether it be against individuals or the masses of
the people. To this end, it will establish an economic and
social base which will unite all sections of the community,
assuring each individual an equal place among the rest,
and allowing each the maximum well-being. The base is
the common ownership of all the means and instruments
of production (industry, transport, land, raw materials,
etc.) and the building of economic organisations on the
principles of equality and self-management of the working
classes.
Within the limits of this self-managing society of workers,
libertarian communism establishes the principle of the
equality of value and rights of each individual (not
individuality "in general", nor of `"mystic individuality",
nor the concept of individuality, but each real, living,
individual).
4 The negation of democracy Democracy is one of the
forms of bourgeois capitalist society.
The basis of democracy is the maintenance of the two
antagonistic classes of modern society: the working class,
and the capitalist class and their collaboration on the basis
of private capitalist property. The expression of this
collaboration is parliament and the national representative
government.
Formally, democracy proclaims freedom of speech, of the
press, of association, and the equality of all before the law.
In reality all these liberties are of a very relative character:
they are tolerated only as long as they do not contest the
interests of the dominant class i.e. the bourgeoisie.
Democracy preserves intact the principle of private
capitalist property. Thus it (democracy) gives the
bourgeoisie the right to control the whole economy of the
country, the entire press, education, science, art - which in
fact make the bourgeoisie absolute master of the whole
country. Having a monopoly in the sphere of economic
life, the bourgeoisie can also establish its unlimited power
in the political sphere. In effect parliament and
representative government in the democracies are but the
executive organs of the bourgeoisie.
Consequently democracy is but one of the aspects of
bourgeois dictatorship, veiled behind deceptive formulae
of political liberties and fictitious democratic guarantees.
5. The negation of the state and authority
The ideologies of the bourgeoisie define the State as the
organ which regularises the complex political, civil and
social relations between men in modern society, and
protecting the order and laws of the latter. Anarchists are
in perfect agreement with this definition, but they
complete it by affirming that the basis of this order and
these laws is the enslavement of the vast majority of the
people by an insignificant minority, and that it is precisely
this purpose which is served by the State.
The State is simultaneously the organised violence of the
bourgeoisie against the workers and the system of its
executive organs.
The left socialists, and in particular the bolsheviks, also
consider the bourgeois State and Authority to be the
servants of capital. But they hold that Authority and the
State can become, in the hands of socialist parties, a
powerful weapon in the struggle for the emancipation of
the proletariat. For this reason these parties are for a
socialist Authority and a proletarian State. Some want to
conquer power by peaceful, parliamentarian means (the
social democratic), others by revolutionary means (the
bolsheviks, the left social revolutionaries).
Anarchism considers these two to be fundamentally
wrong, disastrous in the work of the emancipation of
labour.
Authority is always dependent on the exploitation and
enslavement of the mass of the people. It is born of this
exploitation, or it is created in the interests of this
exploitation. Authority without violence and without
exploitation loses all raison d'etre.
The State and Authority take from the masses all initiative,
kill the spirit of creation and free activity, cultivates in
them the servile psychology of submission, of expectation,
of the hope of climbing the social ladder, of blind
confidence in their leaders, of the illusion of sharing in
authority.
Thus the emancipation of labour is only possible in the
direct revolutionary struggle of the vast working masses
and of their class organisations against the capitalist
system.
The conquest of power by the social democratic parties by
peaceful means under the conditions of the present order
will not advance by one single step the task of
emancipation of labour, for the simple reason that real
power, consequently real authority, will remain with the
bourgeoisie which controls the economy and politics of the
country. The role of socialist authority is reduced in this
case of reforms: to the amelioration of this same regime.
(Examples: Ramsay MacDonald, the social democratic
parties of Germany, Sweden, Belgium, which have come to
power in a capitalist society.)
Further, seizing power by means of a social upheaval and
organising a so called "proletarian State" cannot serve the
cause of the authentic emancipation of labour. The State,
immediately and supposedly constructed for the defence
of the revolution, invariably ends up distorted by needs
and characteristics peculiar to itself, itself becoming the
goal, produces specific, privileged castes, and
consequently re-establishes the basis of capitalist Authority
and State; the usual enslavement and exploitation of the
masses by violence. (Example: "the worker-peasant State"
of the bolsheviks.)
6. The role of the masses and the role of the anarchists in
the social struggle and the social revolution
The principal forces of the social revolution are the urban
working class, the peasant masses and a section of the
working intelligentia.
Note: while being an exploited and oppressed class in the
same way as the urban and rural proletariats, the working
intelligentia is relatively disunited compared with the
workers and peasants, thanks to the economic privileges
conceded by the bourgeoisie to certain of its elements. That
is why, during the early days of the social revolution, only
the less comfort able strata of the intelligentia take an
active part in it.
The anarchist conception of the role of the masses in the
social revolution and the construction of socialism differs,
in a typical way, from that of the statist parties. While
bolshevism and its related tendencies consider that the
masses assess only destructionary revolutionary instincts,
being incapable of creative and constructive activity - the
principle reason why the latter activity should be
concentrated in the hands of the men forming the
government of the State of the Central Committee of the
party - anarchists on the contrary think that the labouring
masses have inherent creative and constructive
possibilities which are enormous, and anarchists aspire to
suppress the obstacles impeding the manifestation of these
possibilities.
Anarchists consider the State to be the principle obstacle,
usurping the rights of the masses and taking from them all
the functions of economic and social life. The State must
perish, not "one day" in the future society, but
immediately. It must be destroyed by the workers on the
first day of their victory, and must not be reconstituted
under any guise whatsoever. It will be replaced by a
federalist system of workers organisations of production
and consumption. united federatively and self-
administrating. This system excludes just as much
authoritarian organisations as the dictatorship of a party,
whichever it might be.
The Russian revolution of 1917 displays precisely this
orientation of the process of social emancipation in the
creation of the system of worker and peasant soviets and
factory committees. Its sad error was not to have
liquidated, at an opportune moment, the organisation of
state power: initially of the provisional government, and
subsequently of bolshevik power. The bolsheviks, profiting
from the trust of the workers and peasants, reorganised the
bourgeois state according to the circumstances of the
moment and consequently killed the creative activity of the
masses, in supporting and maintaining the state: choking
the free regime of soviets and factory committees which
represented the first step towards building a non-statist
socialist society.
Action by anarchists can be divided into two periods, that
before the revolution, and that during the revolution. In
both, anarchists can only fulfil their role as an organised
force if they have a clear conception of the objectives of
their struggle and the roads leading to the realisation of
these objectives.
The fundamental task of the General Union of Anarchists
in the pre-revolutionary period must be the preparation of
the workers and peasants for the social revolution.
In denying formal (bourgeois) democracy, authority and
State, in proclaiming the complete emancipation of labour,
anarchism emphasises to the full the rigorous principles of
class struggle. It alerts and develops in the masses class
consciousness and the revolutionary intransigence of the
class.
It is precisely towards the class intransigence, anti-
democratism, anti-statism of the ideas of anarcho-
communism. that the libertarian education of the masses
must be directed. but education alone is not sufficient -
What is also necessary is a certain mass anarchist
organisation - To realise this, it is necessary to work in two
directions: on the one hand towards the selection and
grouping of revolutionary worker and peasant forces on a
libertarian communist theoretical basis (a specifically
libertarian communist organisation); on the other, towards
regrouping revolutionary workers and peasants on an
economic base of production and consumption
(revolutionary workers and peasants organised around
production: workers and free peasants co-operatives). The
worker and peasant class, organised on the basis of
production and consumption, penetrated by revolutionary
anarchist positions, will be the first strong point of the
social revolution.
The more these organisations are conscious and organised
in an anarchist way, as from the present, the more they
will manifest an intransigent and creative will at the
moment of the revolution.
As for the working class in Russia: it is clear that after eight
years of bolshevik dictatorship, which enchains the natural
needs of the masses for free activity, the true nature of all
power is demonstrated better than ever; this class conceals
within itself enormous possibilities for the formation of a
mass anarchist movement. Organised anarchist militants
should go immediately with all the force at their disposal
to meet these needs and possibilities, in order that they do
not degenerate into reformism (menshevism).
With the same urgency, anarchists should apply
themselves to the organisation of the poor peasantry, who
are crushed by state power, seeking a way out and
concealing enormous revolutionary potential.
The role of the anarchists in the revolutionary period
cannot be restricted solely to the propagation of the
keynotes of libertarian ideas. Life is not only an arena for
the propagation of this or that conception, but also, to the
same degree, as the arena of struggle, the strategy, and the
aspirations of these conceptions in the management of
economic and social life.
More than any other concept, anarchism should become
the leading concept of revolution, for it is only on the
theoretical base of anarchism that the social revolution can
succeed in the complete emancipation of. labour.
The leading position of anarchist ideas in the revolution
suggests an orientation of events after anarchist theory.
However, this theoretical driving force should not be
confused with the political leadership of the statist parties
which leads finally to State Power.
Anarchism aspires neither to political power nor to
dictatorship. Its principal aspiration is to help the masses
to take the authentic road to the social revolution and the
construction of socialism. But it is not sufficient that the
masses take up the way of the social revolution. It is also
necessary to maintain this orientation of the revolution and
its objectives: the suppression of capitalist society in the
name of that of free workers. As the experience of the
Russian revolution in 1917 has shown us, this last task is
far from being easy, above all because of the numerous
parties which try to orientate the movement in a direction
opposed to the social revolution.
Although the masses express themselves profoundly in
social movement in terms of anarchist tendencies and
tenets, these tendencies and tenets do however remain
dispersed, being unco-ordinated, and consequently do not
lead to the organisation of the driving power of libertarian
ideas which is necessary for preserving the anarchist
orientation and objectives of the social revolution. This
theoretical driving force can only be expressed by a
collective especially created by the masses for this purpose.
The organised anarchist elements constitute exactly this
collective.
The theoretical and practical duties of this collective are
considerable at the time of the revolution.
It must manifest its initiative and display total
participation in all the domains of the social revolution: in
the orientation and general character of the revolution; in
the positive tasks of the revolution, in new production,
consumption, the agrarian question etc.
On all these questions, and on numbers of others, the
masses demand a clear and precise response from the
anarchists. And from the moment when anarchists declare
a conception of the revolution and the structure of society,
they are obliged to give all these questions a clear
response, to relate the solution of these problems to the
general conception of libertarian communism, and to
devote all their forces to the realisation of these.
Only in this way do the General Union of Anarchists and
the anarchist movement completely assure their function
as a theoretical driving force in the social revolution.
7. The transition period
By the expression 'transition period' the socialist parties
understand a definite phase in the life of a people of which
the characteristic traits are: a rupture with the old order of
things and the installation of a new economic and social
system - a system which however does not yet represent
the complete emancipation of workers. In this sense, all the
minimum programmes* (A minimum programme is one
whose objective is not the complete transformation of
capitalism. but the solution of certain of the immediate
problems facing the working class under capitalism.) of the
socialist political parties, for example, the democratic
programme of the socialist opportunists or the
communists' programme for the 'dictatorship of the
proletariat', are programmes of the transition period.
The essential trait of all these is that they regard as
impossible, for the moment, the complete realisation of the
workers' ideals: their independence, their liberty and
equality - and consequently preserve a whole series of the
institutions of the capitalist system: the principle of statist
compulsion, private ownership of the means and
instruments of production, the bureaucracy, and several
others, according to the goals of the particular party
programme.
On principle anarchists have always been the enemies of
such programmes, considering that the construction of
transitional systems which maintain the principles of
exploitation and compulsion of the masses leads inevitably
to a new growth of slavery.
Instead of establishing political minimum programmes ,
anarchists have always defended the idea of an immediate
social revolution, which deprives the capitalist class of its
economic and social privileges, and place the means and
instruments of production and all the functions of
economic and social life in the hands of the workers.
Up to now, it has been the anarchists who have preserved
this position.
The idea of the transition period, according to which the
social revolution should lead not to a communist society,
but to a system X retaining elements of the old system, is
anti-social in essence. It threatens to result in the
reinforcement and development of these elements to their
previous dimensions, and to run events backwards.
A flagrant example of this is the regime of the 'dictatorship
of the proletariat' established by the bolsheviks in Russia.
According to them, the regime should be but a transitory
step towards total communism. In reality, this step has
resulted in the restoration of class society, at the bottom of
which are, as before, the workers and peasants.
The centre of gravity of the construction of a communist
society does consist in the possibility of assuring each
individual unlimited liberty to satisfy his needs from the
first day of the revolution; but consists in the conquest of
the social base of this society, and establishes the principles
of egalitarian relationships between individuals: As for the
question of the the abundance, greater or lesser, this is not
posed at the level of principle, but is a technical problem.
The fundamental principle upon which the new society
will be erected and rest, and which must in no way be
restricted, is that of the equality of relationships, of the
liberty and independence of the workers. This principle
represents the first fundamental demand of the masses, for
which they rise up in social revolution.
Either the social revolution will terminate in the defeat of
the workers, in which case we must start again to prepare
the struggle, a new offensive against the capitalist system;
or it will lead to the victory of the workers, and in this case,
having seized the means which permit self-administration
- the land, production, and social functions, the workers
will commence the construction of a free society.
This is what characterises the beginning of the building of
a communist society which, once begun, then follows the
course of its development without interruption,
strengthening itself and perfecting itself continuously.
In this way the take-over of the productive and social
functions by the workers will trace an exact demarcation
line between the statist and non-statist eras.
If it wishes to become the mouthpiece of the struggling
masses, the banner of a whole era of social revolution,
anarchism must not assimilate in its programme traces of
the old order, the opportunist tendencies of transitional
systems and periods, nor hide its fundamental principles,
but on the contrary develop and apply them to the utmost.
8. Anarchism and syndicalism
We consider the tendency to oppose libertarian
communism to syndicalism and vice versa to be artificial,
and devoid of all foundation and meaning.
The ideas of anarchism and syndicalism belong on two
different planes. Whereas communism, that is to say a
society of free workers, is the goal of the anarchist struggle
- syndicalism, that is the movement of revolutionary
workers in their occupations, is only one of the forms of
revolutionary class struggle. In uniting workers on a basis
of production, revolutionary syndicalism, like all groups
based on professions, has no determining theory, it does
not have a conception of the world which answers all the
complicated social and political questions of contemporary
reality. It always reflects the ideologies of diverse political
groupings notably of those who work most intensely in its
ranks.
Our attitude to revolutionary syndicalism derives from
what is about to be said. Without trying here to resolve in
advance the question of the role of the revolutionary
syndicates after the revolution, whether they will be the
organisers of all new production, or whether they will
leave this role to workers' soviets or factory committees -
we judge that anarchists must take part in revolutionary
syndicalism as one of the forms of the revolutionary
workers' movement.
However, the question which is posed today is not
whether anarchists should or should not participate in
revolutionary syndicalism, but rather how and to what
end they must take part.
We consider the period up to the present day, when
anarchists entered the syndicalist movement as individuals
and propagandists, as a period of artisan relationships
towards the professional workers movement.
Anarcho-syndicalism, trying to forcefully introduce
libertarian ideas into the left wing of revolutionary
syndicalism as a means of creating anarchist-type unions,
represents a step forward, but it does not, as yet, go
beyond the empirical method, for anarcho-syndicalism
does not necessarily interweave the 'anarchisation' of the
trade union movement with that of the anarchists
organised outside the movement. For it is only on this
basis, of such a liaison, that revolutionary trade unionism
could be 'anarchised' and prevented from moving towards
opportunism and reformism.
In regarding syndicalism only as a professional body of
workers without a coherent social and political theory, and
consequently, being powerless to resolve the social
question on its own, we consider that the tasks of
anarchists in the ranks of the movement consist of
developing libertarian theory, and point it in a libertarian
direction, in order to transform it into an active arm of the
social revolution. It is necessary to never forget that if trade
unionism does not find in anarchist theory a support in
opportune times it will turn, whether we like it or not, to
the ideology of a political statist party.
The tasks of anarchists in the ranks of the revolutionary
workers' movement could only be fulfilled on conditions
that their work was closely interwoven and linked with the
activity of the anarchist organisation outside the union. In
other words, we must enter into revolutionary trade
unions as an organised force, responsible to accomplish
work in the union before the general anarchist
organisation and orientated by the latter.
Without restricting ourselves to the creation of anarchist
unions, we must seek to exercise our theoretical influence
on all trade unions, and in all its forms (the lWW, Russian
TU's). We can only achieve this end by working in
rigorously organised anarchist collectives; but never in
small empirical groups, having between them neither
organisational liaison nor theoretical agreement.
Groups of anarchists in companies, factories and
workshops, preoccupied in creating anarchist unions,
leading the struggle in revolutionary unions for the
domination of libertarian ideas in unionism, groups
organised in their action by a general anarchist
organisation: these are the ways and means of anarchists'
attitudes vis a vis trade unionism.
Constructive Section
The fundamental aim of the world of labour in struggle is
the foundation, by means of revolution, of a free and equal
communist society founded on the principle "from each
according to his ability, to each according to his needs".
However, this society will not come about of its own, only
by the power of social upheaval. Its realisation will come
about by a social revolutionary process, more or less
drawn out, orientated by the organised forces of victorious
labour in a determined path.
It is our task to indicate this path from this moment on,
and to formulate positive, concrete problems that will
occur to workers from the first day of the social revolution,
the outcome of which depends upon their correct solution.
It is self evident that the building of the new society will
only be possible after the victory of the workers over the
bourgeois-capitalist system and over its representatives. It
is impossible to begin the building of a new economy and
new social relations while the power of the state defending
the regime of enslavement has not been smashed, while
workers and peasants have not ceased, as the object of the
revolution, the industrial and agricultural economy.
Consequently, the very first social revolutionary task is to
smash the statist edifice of the capitalist system, to
expropriate the bourgeoisie and in general all privileged
elements of the means of power, and establish overall the
will of the workers in revolt, as expressed by fundamental
principles of the social revolution. This aggressive and
destructive aspect of the revolution can only serve to clear
the road for the positive tasks which form the meaning and
essence of the social revolution-
These tasks are as follows:
1. The solution, in the libertarian communist sense, of the
problem of industrial production of the country.
2. The solution similarly of the agrarian problem.
3. The solution of the problem of consumption.
Production
Taking note of the fact that the country's industry is the
result of the result of the efforts of several generations of
workers, and that the diverse branches of industry are
tightly bound together, we consider all actual production
as a single workshop of producers, belonging totally to all
workers together, and to no one in particular.
The productive mechanism of the country is global and
belongs to the whole working class. This thesis determines
the character and the forms of the new production. It will
also be global, common in the sense that the products
produced by the workers will belong to all. These
products, of whatever category, the general fund of
provisions for the workers, where each who participates in
production will receive that which he needs, on an equal
basis for everybody.
The new system of production will totally supplant the
bureaucracy and exploitation in all their forms and
establish in their place the principle of brotherly co-
operation and workers solidarity.
The middle class, which in a modem capitalist society
exercises intermediary functions - commerce etc., as well
as the bourgeoisie, must take part in the new mode of
production on the same conditions as all other workers. If
not, these classes place themselves outside the society of
labour.
There will be no bosses, neither entrepreneur, owner or
state-appointed owner (as is the case today in the
bolshevik state). Management will pass on this new
production to the administration especially created by the
workers: workers' soviets, factory committees or workers'
management of works and factories. These organs,
interlinked at the level of commune, district and finally
general and federal management of production. Built by
the masses and always under their control and influence,
all these organs constantly renewed and realise the idea of
self-management, real self- management, by the masses of
the people.
Unified production, in which the means and products
belong to all, having replaced bureaucracy by the principle
of brotherly co-operation and and having established equal
rights for all work, production managed by the organs of
workers' control, elected by the masses, that is the first
practical step on the road to the realisation of libertarian
communism.
Consumption
This problem will appear during the revolution in two
ways:
1: The principle of the search for products and
consumption.
2. The principle of their distribution.
In that which concerns the distribution of consumer goods,
the solution depends above all on the quantity of products
available and on the principle of the agreement of targets.
The social revolution concerning itself with the
reconstruction of the whole social order, takes on itself as
well, the obligation to satisfy everyone's necessities of life.
The sole exception is the group of non-workers - those who
refuse to take part in the new production for counter-
revolutionary reasons. But in general, excepting the last
category of people, the satisfaction of the needs of
everyone in the area of the revolution is assured by the
general reserve of consumer goods. In the case of
insufficient goods, they are divided according to the
principle of the greatest urgency, that is to say in the first
case to children, invalids and working families.
A far more difficult problem is that of organising the basis
of consumption itself.
Without doubt, from the first day of the revolution, the
farms will not provide all the products vital to the life of
the population. At the same time, peasants have an
abundance which the towns lack.
The libertarian communists have no doubt about the
mutualist relationship which exists between the workers of
the town and countryside. They judge that the social
revolution can only be realised by the common efforts of
workers and peasants. In consequence, the solution to the
problem of consumption in the revolution can only be
possible by means of close revolutionary collaboration
between these two categories of workers.
To establish this collaboration, the urban working class
having seized production must immediately supply the
living needs of the country and strive to furnish the
everyday products the means and implements for
collective agriculture. The measures of solidarity
manifested by the workers as regards the needs of the
peasants, will provoke from them in return the same
gesture, to provide the produce of their collective labour
for the towns.
Worker and peasant co-operatives will be the primary
organs assuring the towns and countryside their
requirements in food and economic materials. later,
responsible for more important and permanent functions,
notably for supplying everything necessary for
guaranteeing and developing the economic and social life
of the workers and peasants, these co-operatives will be
transformed into permanent organs for provisioning towns
and countryside.
This solution to the problem of provisioning permits the
proletariat to create a permanent stock of provision, which
will have a favourable and decisive effect on the outcome
of all new production.
The land
In the solution of the agrarian question, we regard the
principle revolutionary and creative forces to be the
working peasants who do not exploit the labour of others-
and the wage earning proletariat of the countryside. Their
task will be to accomplish the redistribution of land in the
countryside in order to establish the use and exploitation
of the land on communist principles.
Like industry, the land, exploited and cultivated by
successive generations of labourers, is the product of their
common effort. It also belongs to all working people and to
none in particular inasmuch as it is the inalienable and
common property of the labourers, the land can never
again be bought, nor sold, nor rented: it can therefore not
serve as a means of the exploitation of others' labour.
The land is also a sort of popular and communal
workshop, where the common people produce the means
by which they live. But it is the kind of workshop where
each labourer (peasant) has, thanks to certain historical
conditions, become accustomed to carrying out his work
alone, independent of other producers. Whereas, in
industry the collective method of work is essential and the
only possible way in our times, the majority of peasants
cultivate the land on their own account.
Consequently, when the land and the means of its
exploitation are taken over by the peasants, with no
possibility of selling or renting, the question of the forms of
the utilisation of it and the methods of its exploitation
(communal or by family) will not immediately find a
complete and definite solution, as it will in the industrial
sector. Initially both of these methods will probably be
used.
It will be the revolutionary peasants who themselves will
establish the definitive term of exploitation and utilisation
of the land. No outside pressure is possible in this
question.
However, since we consider that only a communist society,
in whose name after all the social revolution. will be made,
delivers labourers from their position of slavery and
exploitation and gives them complete liberty and equality;
since the peasants constitute the vast majority of the
population (almost 85% in Russia in the period under
discussion) and consequently the agrarian regime which
they establish will be the decisive factor in the destiny of
the revolution; and since', lastly, a private economy in
agriculture leads, as in private industry, to commerce,
accumulation, private property and the restoration of
capital - our duty will be to do everything necessary, as
from now, to facilitate the solution of the agrarian question
in a collective way.
To this end we must, as from now, engage in strenuous
propaganda among the peasants in favour of collective
agrarian economy.
The founding of a specifically libertarian peasant union
will considerably facilitate this task.
In this respect, technical progress will be of enormous
importance, facilitating the evolution of agriculture and
also the realisation of communism in the towns, above all
in industry. If, in their relations with the peasants, the
industrial workers act, not individually or in separate
groups, but as an immense communist collective
embracing all the branches of industry; if, in addition, they
bear in mind the vital needs of the countryside and if at the
same time they supply each village with things for
everyday use, tools and machines for the collective
exploitation of the lands, this will impel the peasants
towards communism in agriculture.
The defence of the revolution:
The question of the defence of the revolution is also linked
to the problem of 'the first day'. Basically, the most
powerful means for the defence of the revolution is the
happy solution of its positive problems: production,
consumption, and the land. Once these problems are
correctly solved, no counter-revolutionary will be able to
alter or unbalance the free society of workers. Nevertheless
the workers will have to sustain a severe struggle against
the enemies of the revolution, in order to maintain its
concrete existence.
The social revolution, which threatens the privileges and
the very existence of the non-working classes of society,
will inevitably provoke a desperate resistance on behalf of
these classes, which will take the form of a fierce civil war.
As the Russian experience showed, such a civil war will
not be a matter of a few months, but of several years.
However joyful the first steps of the labourers at the
beginning of the revolution, the ruling classes will retain
an enormous capacity to resist for a long time. For several
years they will launch offensives against the revolution,
trying to reconquer the power and privileges of which they
were deprived.
A large army, military techniques and strategy, capital -
will all be thrown against the victorious labourers.
In order to preserve the conquests of the revolution, the
labourers should create organs for the defence of the
revolution, so as to oppose the reactionary offensive with a
fighting force corresponding to the magnitude of the task.
In the first days of the revolution, this fighting force will be
formed by all armed workers and peasants. But this
spontaneous armed force will only be valuable during the
first days, before the civil war reaches its highest point and
the two parties in struggle have created regularly
constituted military organisations.
In the social revolution the most critical moment is not
during the suppression of Authority, but following, that is,
when the forces of the defeated regime launch a general
offensive against the labourers, and when it is a question
of safeguarding the conquests under attack.
The very character of this offensive, just as the technique
and development of the civil war, will oblige the labourers
to create determined revolutionary military contingents.
The essence and fundamental principles of these
formations must be decided in advance. Denying the
statist and authoritarian methods of government, we also
deny the statist method of organising the military forces of
the labourers, in other words the principles of a statist
army based on obligatory military service. Consistent with
the fundamental positions of libertarian communism, the
principle of voluntary service must be the basis of the
military formations of labourers. The detachments of
insurgent partisans, workers and peasants, which led the
military action in the Russian revolution, can be cited as
examples of such formations.
However, "voluntary service" and the action of partisans
should not be understood in the narrow sense of the word,
that is as a struggle of worker and peasant detachments
against the local enemy, unco-ordinated by a general plan
of operation and each acting on its own responsibility, at
its own risk. The action and tactics of the partisans in the
period of their complete development should be guided by
a common revolutionary strategy.
As in all wars, the civil war cannot be waged by the
labourers with success unless they apply the two
fundamental principles of all military action: unity in the
plan of operations and unity of common command. The
most critical moment of the revolution will come when the
bourgeoisie march against the revolution in organised
force. This critical moment obliges the labourers to adopt
these principles of military strategy.
Thus, in view of the necessities imposed by military
strategy and also the strategy of the counter-revolution the
armed forces of the revolution should inevitably be based
on a general revolutionary army with a common command
and plan of operations. The following principles form the
basis of this army'.
(a) the class character of the army;
(b) voluntary service (all coercion will be completely
excluded from the work of defending the revolution);
C) free revolutionary discipline (self-discipline) (voluntary
service and revolutionary self-discipline are perfectly
compatible, and give the revolutionary army greater
morale than any army of the state);
(d) the total submission of the revolutionary army to the
masses of the workers and peasants as represented by the
worker and peasant organisations common throughout the
country, established by the masses in the controlling
sectors of economic and social life.
In other words, the organ of the defence of the revolution,
responsible for combating the counter-revolution. on major
military fronts as well as on an internal front (bourgeois
plots, preparation for counter-revolutionary action). will
be entirely under the jurisdiction of the productive
organisations of workers and peasants. to which it will
submit, and by which it will receive its political direction.
Note: while it should be conducted in conformity with
definite libertarian communist principles, the army itself
should not he considered a point of principle. It is but the
consequence of military strategy in the revolution, a
strategic measure to which the labourers are fatally forced
by the very process of the civil war. But this measure must
attract attention as from now. It must he carefully studied
in order to avoid any irreparable set-backs in the work of
protecting and defending the revolution, for set-backs in
the civil war could prove disastrous to the outcome of the
whole social revolution.
Organisational Section
The general, constructive positions expressed above
constitute the organisational platform of the revolutionary
forces of anarchism.
This platform, containing a definite tactical and theoretical
orientation, appears to be the minimum to which it is
necessary and urgent to rally all the militants of the
organised anarchist movement.
Its task is to group around itself all the healthy elements of
the anarchist movement into one general organisation,
active and agitating on a permanent basis: the General
Union of Anarchists. The forces of all anarchist militants
should be orientated towards the creation of this
organisation.
The fundamental principles of organisation of a General
Union of anarchists should be as follows:
1- Theoretical Unity:
Theory represents the force which directs the activity of
persons and organisations along a defined path towards a
determined goal. Naturally it should be common to all the
persons and organisations adhering to the General Union.
All activity by the General Union, both overall and in its
details, should be in perfect concord with the theoretical
principles professed by the union.
2. Tactical Unity or the Collective Method of Action:
In the same way the tactical methods employed by
separate members and groups within the Union should be
unitary, that is, be in rigorous concord both with each
other and with the general theory and tactic of the Union.
A common tactical line in the movement is of decisive
importance for the existence of the organisation and the
whole movement: it removes the disastrous effect of
several tactics in opposition to one another, it concentrates
all the forces of the movement, gives them a common
direction leading to a fixed objective.
3. Collective Responsibility:
The practice of acting on one's personal responsibility
should be decisively condemned and rejected in the ranks
of the anarchist movement. The areas of revolutionary life,
social and political, are above all profoundly collective by
nature. Social revolutionary activity in these areas cannot
be based on the personal responsibility of individual
militants.
The executive organ of the general anarchist movement,
the Anarchist Union, taking a firm line against the tactic of
irresponsible individualism, introduces in its ranks the
principle of collective responsibility: the entire Union will
be responsible for the political and revolutionary activity
of each member; in the same way, each member will be
responsible for the political and revolutionary activity of
the Union as a whole.
4. Federalism:
Anarchism has always denied centralised organisation,
both in the area of the social life of the masses and in its
political action. The centralised system relies on the
diminution of the critical spirit, initiative and
independence of each individual and on the blind
submission of the masses to the 'centre'. The natural and
inevitable consequences of this system are the enslavement
and mechanisation of social life and the life of the
organisation.
Against centralism, anarchism has always professed and
defended the principle of federalism, which reconciles the
independence and initiative of individuals and the
organisation with service to the common cause.
In reconciling the idea of the independence and high
degree of rights of each individual with the service of
social needs and necessities, federalism opens the doors to
every healthy manifestation of the faculties of every
individual.
But quite often, the federalist principle has been deformed
in anarchist ranks: it has too often been understood as the
right, above all, to manifest one's 'ego':, without obligation
to account for duties as regards the organisation.
This false interpretation disorganised our movement in the
past. It is time to put an end to it in a firm and irreversible
manner.
Federation signifies the free agreement of individuals and
organisations to work collectively towards common
objective.
However, such an agreement and the federal union based
on it, will only become reality, rather than fiction or
illusion, on the conditions sine qua non that all the
participants in the agreement and the Union fulfil most
completely the duties undertaken, and conform to
communal decisions. In a social project, however vast the
federalist basis on which it is built, there can be no
decisions without their execution. It is even less admissible
in an anarchist organisation, which exclusively takes on
obligations with regard to the workers and their social
revolution. Consequently, the federalist type of anarchist
organisation, while recognising each member's rights to
independence, free opinion, individual liberty and
initiative, requires each member to undertake fixed
organisation duties, and demands execution of communal
decisions.
On this condition alone will the federalist principle find
life, and the anarchist organisation function correctly, and
steer itself towards the defined objective.
The idea of the General Union of Anarchists poses the
problem of the co-ordination and concurrence of the
activities of all the forces of the anarchist movement.
Every organisation adhering to the Union represents a
vital cell of the common organism. Every cell should have
its secretariat, executing and guiding theoretically the
political and technical work of the organisation.
With a view to the co-ordination of the activity of all the
Union's adherent organisation, a special organ will be
created: the executive committee of the Union. The
committee will be in charge of the following functions: the
execution of decisions taken by the Union with which it is
entrusted; the theoretical and organisational orientation of
the activity of isolated organisations consistent with the
theoretical positions and the general tactical line of the
Union; the monitoring of the general state of the
movement; the maintenance of working and organisational
links between all the organisations in the Union; and with
other organisations.
The rights, responsibilities and practical tasks of the
executive committee are fixed by the congress of the
Union.
The General Union of Anarchists has a concrete and
determined goal. In the name of the success of the social
revolution it must above all attract and absorb the most
revolutionary and strongly critical elements among the
workers and peasants.
Extolling the social revolution, and further, being an anti-
authoritarian organisation which aspires to the abolition of
class society, the General Union of Anarchists depends
equally on the two fundamental classes of society: the
workers and the peasants. It lays equal stress on the work
of emancipating these two classes.
As regards the workers trade unions and revolutionary
organisations in the towns, the General Union of
Anarchists will have to devote all its efforts to becoming
their pioneer and their theoretical guide.
It adopts the same tasks with regard to the exploited
peasant masses. As bases playing the same role as the
revolutionary workers' trade unions, the Union strives to
realise a network of revolutionary peasant economic
organisations, furthermore, a specific peasants' union,
founded on anti-authoritarian principles.
Born out of the mass of the labour people, the General
Union must take part in all the manifestations of their life,
bringing to them on every occasion the spirit of
organisation, perseverance and offensive. Only in this way
can it fulfil its task, its theoretical and historical mission in
the social revolution of labour, and become the organised
vanguard of their emancipating process.
Nestor Mhakno, Ida Mett, Piotr Archinov, Valevsky,
Linsky
Andrew Flood
anflood@macollamh.ucd.ie
Phone: 706(2389)