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Title: Towards Communalist Especifism Language: en
Communalism is rooted in the development of horizontalist democratic
community assemblies. Communalism is a “revolutionary political theory
and practice, deeply rooted in the general socialist tradition” that
would not just seek to create cooperative relations but forms that
“confront capital and the basic structures of state power”.[1]
Communalist assemblies have bylaws, bills of rights, and structures that
embody terms of practice rooted in libertarian socialist principles.
Such principles include but are not limited to Non-hierarchy, Direct
Democracy, Co-federation, and Ecology. Community assemblies – and
co-federations thereof – make policies that are then implemented by
participatory committees and delegates that are mandated by community
assemblies and recallable to community assemblies. Embedded committees
and delegates within horizontalist community assemblies do not have
policy making power over and above community assemblies.[2] Communalist
assemblies have decision making processes rooted in deliberation, and
cooperative conflict, and direct democracy to come to collective
decisions – while respecting what should be the rights of persons and
collectives. Communalist assemblies would additionally aim towards needs
based distribution. Such community assemblies could create embedded
committees and auxiliary collectives, while also planning direct actions
and mutual aid projects, while additionally helping with popular
education. Communalist assemblies – and co-federations thereof – would
link up together to do both oppositional and reconstructive politics at
the points of extraction, production, reproduction, distribution, and at
the point of the community sphere. Communalist assemblies would also
prefigure such assemblies as forms of governance to exist in a post
revolutionary society – rather than merely forms to bring about a
revolution or merely forms for after the revolution.
Communalism and especifism are both libertarian communist tendencies.
They share an ethical, organizational, and strategic orientation in
regards to direct democracy, anti-hierarchy, federalism, distribution
according to needs, and revolutionary politics. The focus both
tendencies have on libertarian governance (rather than no governance)
prior to, during, and after revolutions place both tendencies firmly in
the organizational branch of anti-state socialism. Despite encompassing
a majority of anarchism’s history – and the majority of anarchism’s
victories – the most organizational branches of anti state socialism are
not considered anarchism proper by a significant number of anarchists
and non-anarchists alike.
Especifist praxis is rooted in,
of ideas and praxis.
develop strategic political and organizing work
movements, which is described as the process of “social insertion.[3]
The specific unity of ideas especifist groups have contain libertarian
socialist dimensions that platformists share such as theoretical unity,
tactical unity, federalism and collective responsibility. However, that
agreement with platformism does not mean complete agreement to
everything written in the original platform – which was written in
regards to a very specific revolutionary context involving military
action.[4] Furthermore, especifism has made advances compared to
traditional platformism in regards to its theory of what the
relationship between ideologically libertarian socialists specific
groups and broader social movements should be – in part by going way
beyond relationships of ideologically specific libertarian socialist
groups to labor unions into a broader conception of organizations and
social movements against hierarchy.[5] This makes especifist groups well
suited to have strategic relationships to community assemblies and daily
struggles in and out of the workplace. Such a relationship of especifist
groups to community assemblies is something that has already developed
in practice by especifists.[6] Furthermore, especifism is in favor of a
strategic orientation to get from here to a libertarian socialist
revolution based on common analysis, shared theory and social insertion
rather than mere tactical unity.[7]
Social insertion has a very advanced and practical understanding of the
relationships between ideologically specific organizations and social
movements. Especifists center their strategy of social change around a
mutualistic relationship between specifically libertarian communist
groups and a broader social movement. As the Black Rose Federation
article “Building a Revolutionary Anarchism”[8] describes and
prescribes: There should be dual membership within specifically
libertarian socialist organizations and within popular organizations.
Doing so puts libertarian socialists in contact with broader populations
than merely themselves. Within such movements, libertarian socialists
should advocate for practices of horizontalist democracy, direct action,
anti capitalism, and class struggle to further the goals of social
movements – as well as argue for such positions when they are minority
positions as active minorities furthering libertarian socialist
practice. Especifist groups are in favor of popularizing libertarian
socialist practice in large part teaching by demonstration. Such a
process can help make libertarian socialism relevant to the lives of
people struggling towards liberatory goals of various kinds in class
struggle and daily struggle in and out of the workplace. Such a process
can combine revolutionary organizing with popular organizing. Especifist
groups and libertarian socialists – and various groups centered around
such theory and/or practice – should help social movements by enabling
them to access their greatest strength: the capacity of thousands of
people acting (which can be better unleashed through direct democracy).
Hierarchical organizations inhibit participation from people involved,
whereas directly democratic organizing can give people more ways to
participate meaningfully. Without a class struggle perspective, social
movements wind up making the wrong alliances and not engaging in the
kinds of oppositional actions that are needed for revolution – defanging
the social movements and disempowering membership. Libertarian
socialists need social movements to ground libertarian socialism in
popular movements and amongst the working class, the dispossessed, and
oppressed more broadly, to learn organizational skills, to develop
better praxis, and to minimize the disconnect between libertarian
socialist milleus and the general public. When doing so, it is important
to not unnecessarily go against the tide – libertarian socialists should
find the already existing common values and practices within popular
organizations and social movements and then work to develop that already
existing libertarian socialist and anti-hierarchical thrust.[9]
Furthermore, the goal of social insertion is to unite people in the
social movement along such libertarian socialist practice – not
necessarily getting any specific person or group to proclaim any
specific ideology. Specific popular education collectives can help
supplement especifist groups, communalist assemblies, and broader social
movements in spreading good praxis, in part through popularizing good
theory through critical deliberation.
Communalist assemblies (rather than mere community assemblies) are
popular assemblies in the community sphere that also have a coherent
form and content – that at least follows from minimal libertarian
socialist principles in conjunction with a community sphere. However,
such communalist assemblies are distinct from Especifist groups.
Communalist assemblies do not necessarily have a shared ideology between
individuals even though they necessarily have a shared terms of practice
between people (which can be expressed in bylaws, bills of rights,
structures, short term and long term programs of groups, or even points
of unity for practice, etc.). Such practices are of course theory laden,
and can be evaluated by theory. Furthermore the overall content of such
processes are given a better lived content by the popularization of good
theories, propositional knowledge, and practical knowledge. Communalist
assemblies are designed to be much more inclusive and popular
organizations compared to especifist groups – although especifist groups
should seek popularity within the terms that make them ethical and
effective without sacrificing their coherence to a false unity. Through
having an explicit theoretical unity, especifist groups have a distinct
function spreading a specific praxis within social movements by helping
to assist and develop coherent popular organizations, taking a radical
stance to further more immediate goals of social movements and develop
their liberatory dimensions, while also aiming towards long term vision
of libertarian communism.
Communalists want community assemblies as revolutionary forms and also
want the economy to be politicized – that is for the means of production
to be put into the hands of co-federated communal assemblies that have
embedded participatory councils that implement decisions within the
mandate made from below (where all policy making power resides).
Especifists are often, but by no means always, working with or in favor
of communal forms of freedom that are either identical to or similar to
the ones advocated for and practiced by communalists. Especifist groups
have been more pluralistic than communalists in regards to the forms of
economy and keystone revolutionary forms that they advocate. Often times
especifist groups organize with and/or favor anarchosyndicalist
formations and workers’ councils – but other times they might organize
with and/or favor commune formations (and sometimes especifist groups
will work with both or either). Although working with such revolutionary
formations – communal assemblies, anarcho-sydincalist unions, and
workers’ councils – can make sense towards developing a revolution, a
modest appeal for communalism would be that the communalist political
economy should be developed overtime because
above direct communities into segmented fields that make decisions over
and above people affected by such economic matters
including the communal sphere which necessitates a co-federated communal
economy
development.
Especifism is in favor of interfacing with leftist social movements in a
productive way as illustrated in the above section. A communalist
especifist group would also be in favor of that approach while viewing
communalist assemblies as keystone organizations to be developed
alongside a plurality of other organizations. Such communalist
assemblies would be keystone organizations for both ethical and
strategic reasons: an ethical reason being that developing communalist
assemblies is necessary for egalitarian self management in every sphere,
and some strategic reasons for such an approach are that such assemblies
are radically flexible to working on oppositional and reconstructive
politics in every sphere, are able to be especially mutualistic towards
other liberatory collectives and projects, and that such assemblies can
prefigure such ethical ends through ethical consistency of means and
ends in conjunction with strategic content. Communalist assemblies could
help broader social movements in regards to specific issues and
struggles with both solidarity actions and capacity while in turn
gaining members from expanding social movements. Such an expanding
membership in communalist assemblies would fuel communalist assemblies
themselves as well as other liberatory social movements communalist
assemblies become in solidarity with. Communalists and especifists
should enter into non-communalist yet liberatory social movements to
advocate for practices of direct action, direct democracy, opposition to
hierarchy, and class struggle which would help with maximizing overall
participation power of people involved in movements – and qualifying
such participation through good terms of practice – to further the
liberatory goals of social movements and potentially add support to such
movements with solidarity from communalist assemblies. Furthermore,
communalist assemblies would unite various struggles connecting them to
a general (insufficient) solution of developing horizontalist community
assemblies.
Within broader social movements, communalist especifists would advocate
for liberatory issue specific struggles as well as developing community
assemblies as parts of social movements, as well as direct action,
direct democracy, class struggle, and anti-hierarchy within such social
movements – which should include but not be limited to communalist
assemblies. This would generalize good praxis and strengthen the
practice of broader social movements through advocating for interfacing
with communalist assemblies as well as a plurality of other bottom up
organizations when it strategically makes sense for the goals of
specific social movements (given such movements and means are ethical).
The communalist assemblies would be popular anti-state political
organizations rooted in libertarian socialist practice on a community
scale and the communalist especifst groups would be ideologically
specific and tight knit advancing libertarian socialist practice and
communalist practice within social movements – which would include
community assemblies and a plurality of other organizations. Communalist
especifist groups would be in large part instrumentalized to
establishing, catalyzing, and helping communalist assemblies and other
bottom up projects become self managed, co-federated, and strategic.
There is a distinction between community assemblies and communalist
assemblies. Whereas a community assembly is merely an assembly on a
community sphere, a communalist assembly has additional qualifiers on
top of being an assembly on the community scale. Communalist assemblies
have a structure and strategic orientation that is qualified by
libertarian socialist practice. Communalist especifism would in large
part exist to help community assemblies flourish into communalist
assemblies through social insertion.
Especifists sometimes call the level of ideologically specific
organization that they are involved with political and they often call
popular movements social movements.[10] This is distinct from the way
communalists would use the term political. For communalists, politics
refers to city management – and libertarian socialist politics would
entail egalitarian participatory forms of community governance. Politics
can be contrasted to statecraft through the state necessarily being
hierarchical and politics potentially being non-hierarchical. There is
nothing in city management itself that necessitates a ruling class. In
this sense, communalist organizations are anti statist forms of
political organizations (that have some specific qualifiers for them to
be communalist assemblies and not merely community assemblies) that can
be a part of and in relation to yet distinguished from mere social
movements without adjectives. Social movements can include a plurality
of organizations from communalist assemblies, to workers’ councils, to
affinity groups, to direct action collectives and networks, mutual aid
collectives and networks, popular education collectives, etc.
Communalist especifists groups would practice development of social
insertion within social movements more broadly, and also practice social
insertion within community assemblies more specifically. Using the
communalist categorization of politics, Especifism is of course
political, as in related to politics, but so are social movements. An
alternative categorical framing for Especifist groups is to say that
they operate on an ideologically specific political level which is not
equivalent to a political level more broadly as in relationship to city
management – or the political level more specifically as a potentially
non-hierarchical public sphere for communal deliberation and decisions
about city management.
[1] Murray Bookchin, “Toward a Communalist Approach.”
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-toward-a-communalist-approach
[2] Murray Bookchin, “The Communalist Project.”
http://social-ecology.org/wp/2002/09/harbinger-vol-3-no-1-the-communalist-project/
[3] Adam Weaver, “Especifismo: The Anarchist Praxis of Building Popular
Movements and Revolutionary Organization.”
http://blackrosefed.org/especifismo-weaver/
[4] Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro, “Social Anarchism and
Organisation.”
http://anarkismo.net/article/22146
[5] Adam Weaver, op. cit.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Colin O’Malley, “Building a Revolutionary Anarchism.”
http://blackrosefed.org/building-a-revolutionary-anarchism/
[9] Adam Weaver, op. cit.
[10] Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro, op. cit.