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Title: Building a Revolutionary Anarchism Author: Colin O Date: 2014 Language: en Topics: especifismo, anarchist organization, organization, Black Rose Anarchist Federation, Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, Institute for Anarchist Studies Source: https://zabalazabooks.net/2017/04/30/building-a-revolutionary-anarchism/ Notes: This piece originally appeared in Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, No. 27 (2014) published by the Institute for Anarchist Studies.
This article speaks on the failures of the anarchist movement to grow,
despite numerous social movements, and how models of anarchist political
organisation point the way forward to overcome these pitfalls.
Two recent events have thrown critical challenges at the anarchist
movement in the United States: the financial crisis that began in 2008
and the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement that sprung from that crisis
in 2011. If the current political and economic outlook in this country
is any indication, we should expect more frequent moments like these to
arise. âMovement Momentsâ such as these are critical opportunities for
revolutionaries of any variety, left or right. Acceptance of the status
quo seems impossible.
Two recent events have thrown critical challenges at the anarchist
movement in the United States: the financial crisis that began in 2008
and the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement that sprung from that crisis
in 2011. If the current political and economic outlook in this country
is any indication, we should expect more frequent moments like these to
arise. âMovement Momentsâ such as these are critical opportunities for
revolutionaries of any variety, left or right. Acceptance of the status
quo seems impossible.
OWS, in particular, presented an incredible opportunity for anarchism.
It was largely propelled by anarchists, in many places sustained by
anarchists, and certainly got many people talking about anarchism. In
Mark Brayâs recent work Translating Anarchy: The Anarchism of Occupy
Wall Street, he looks at the influence of anarchism among organisers in
OWS and found:
The interviews showed that 39% of OWS organisers self-identified as
anarchists⊠I noticed that 30% of organisers who did not self-identify
as anarchists (34% of all organisers didnât identify with any
overarching label) listed anarchism as an influential element in their
overall thought.
These Movement Moments donât present themselves every day. It is
essential for us to critically examine what our movement has gained,
what it has lost, and what it needs to be stronger the next time that a
Movement Moment happens. So, given the early influence of anarchism to
OWS organisers, what was gained? In some places it seems that
anti-foreclosure direct action groups have grown, in others the
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) has seen growth in membership, and
in general there is certainly a feeling that anarchist ideas are
increasingly a part of the dialogue in many social justice movements.
None are explicitly anarchist gains, though.
While the direct action anti-foreclosure movement and the IWW obviously
have some internal anarchist influence, neither is expressly anarchist
and both often actively avoid a strong connection to anarchists.
Bray concludes that Occupy Wall Street was a missed opportunity by
anarchists:
When I step back to evaluate the tangible political outcome for the
anarchist movement after months spent before a world spotlight with
thousands of eager new people beating the doors down to get involved, I
get the sinking feeling that to some extent we too âglided through these
events like ectoplasm through a mist.â We didnât even have any competing
leftist formations. The field of political influence was left open to us
and we didnât get as much out of it as we should have.
Bray credits a lack of organisation as a key piece of this missed
opportunity:
A lot of new organisers were inspired by the anarchist ethos and it
would have been useful for anarchist organisers to be able to say, âOh,
youâre interested in anarchism? Come to our discussion Thursday evening
about âanarchist perspectives on organisingâ;â or âMaybe youâd be
interested in joining our anarchist organisation/collective.â
Of course, the simple conclusion that anarchists should build, or even
have, organisation isnât a new or comprehensive idea. But, looking to
anarchists in South America, we see more clearly the concept of
organising as anarchists and the role of an explicitly anarchist
organisation. Given the success that anarchists have had in South
America, itâs certainly worth considering their methods and applying
those that make sense in our context.
I chose to co-ordinate the Building a Revolutionary Anarchism Speaking
Tour to help us take full advantage of these Movement Moments to build
the popularity and influence of anarchism in the US. Originally expected
to be only three or four stops, the final tour included seventeen stops
throughout the entire US over most of the summer of 2013. I found that
many others share a frustration with the lack of progress made by
organised anarchism during these Movement Moments, and that many others
are hunting for new ideas about effectively organising while also
maintaining their ideals as anarchists. The timing was perfect. I found
people all over the country that had initially been very excited by
Occupy Wall Street, but had since found themselves struggling to
envision unified next steps.
In my short time as a committed organiser for transformational and
revolutionary change in the United States, Iâve seen multiple âMovement
Momentsâ come and go. In each case, it seems we failed to grow our
movement and learn the lessons necessary to prepare for the next moment.
Along with a growing number of individuals and organisations in the
country, it became clear to me that the lack of an explicitly anarchist
organisation is one of our major weaknesses.
It was 2007 when I became convinced of the real value of creating
explicitly ideological anarchist organisations. While in Argentina, I
became acquainted with some members of the Red Libertaria of Buenos
Aires, a formal anarchist communist organisation engaged in a wide
variety of educational and organisational activities. Almost
immediately, I was struck by the thoughtfulness, intelligence,
sincerity, and effectiveness of the anarchist movement there. Itâs an
inspiration that Iâve focused on sharing since my return to the United
States.
The Building a Revolutionary Anarchism Speaking Tour helped me not only
to share that inspiration, but to dive into some of the detailed
differences in organising method that I saw in Argentina. But it wasnât
simply minor organisational tweaks that I felt I needed to share.
Anarchists in South America had developed a theory of the role of the
revolutionary anarchist organisation, especifismo. It was this
understanding of ourselves and our role in movement building that I felt
a powerful urgency to share. And in June 2013, as the scheduled tour
dates quickly jumped from five to seventeen, I knew that urgency to be a
shared one.
To explain my perspective on ideological organisation prior to living in
Argentina, I need to back up a bit. Itâs necessary to contrast my
earlier experiences with those that I had in Argentina, to better
express my current perspectives.
I would have described myself as an anarchist since sometime in the year
2000. I became aware of the ideas of anarchism through the anti-World
Trade Organisation demonstrations in Seattle. At that time, I felt
revolution right around the corner. Seeing resistance popping up around
the country was inspiring and seemed connected to other movements
internationally. I participated in a couple of black blocs, and even one
effort to form a local anarchist group in Buffalo, called BuffalA (get
it?). But I always had some real discomfort with ideological groups.
Basically, BuffalA tried gathering together everyone in Buffalo that
called themselves an anarchist. We never had any agreed-upon principles.
We couldnât agree if we should organise a militant labour movement
towards taking over industry, or burn down all the factories. Some
argued we shouldnât even make formal decisions. Some argued we shouldnât
even meet â despite being at a meeting. Obviously, it didnât take long
for this effort to collapse.
Having come from an industrial rust belt city, having grown up on and
off of welfare, and having my family routinely evicted from awful
housing, I always felt that the anarchist movement wasnât really
connected to the people that needed to be at the front of it: those most
impacted by capitalism, the state, patriarchy, and white supremacy.
Instead, we seemed to almost intentionally create an isolated subculture
that was resistant to really engaging in the problems of the people
around us. We talked about movements and general strikes and mass
action, but we never seemed to want to genuinely engage with the people
that we were talking about. This disconnectedness led to a strict purist
mentality about what kind of groups were âanarchist enoughâ to work
with. At the end of the day, it seemed clear to me that this kind of
purity was actually just a way to rationalize our inactivity and
isolation. Over time, we did have some good potlucks and punk shows, a
Food Not Bombs, and an infoshop. But in the end, none of these projects
really developed stronger organisers. None of them led to any sense that
greater social change was on the way. None of them even led to a couple
of new leaders from communities of colour or the working class. This
isnât a very new problem in the US anarchist movement. In the 1930s,
Lucy Parsons noted this:
Anarchism has not produced any organised ability in the present
generation, only a few loose struggling groups scattered over this vast
country, that come together in conferences occasionally, talk to each
other, then go home⊠Do you call this a movement?⊠I went to work for
the International Labour Defense because I wanted to do a little
something to help defend the victims of capitalism who got into trouble,
and not always be talking, talking, talking.
In my experience, the same proved true. Eventually, the purity,
isolation, and outright poor organising skill seemed disingenuous. I
began spending more time organising with broader âsocial justiceâ and
âworker rightsâ groups. While I often had pretty serious disagreements
with the analysis of these groups, at least I saw some degree of real
organising happening, and I felt less isolated in my own community. So,
by the time I went to Argentina, I would have called myself an
anarchist, but I wouldnât have argued for anarchist organisations.
I didnât go to Argentina to learn about anarchism or anarchist
organisation. I went to learn about the workersâ movements that had been
taking over their workplaces. I was intrigued about what made their
workersâ movements so much more militant than ours. The short answer I
discovered is that they arenât afraid of ideology. Anarchist, socialist,
and communist ideas were far more openly discussed than in the United
States. Each of these ideological groupings had multiple organisations,
spaces, and publications, and all had members inside of major unions,
community organisations, and student groups.
It didnât take long for me to meet the Red Libertaria de Buenos Aires, a
citywide organisation of anarchist communists that described themselves
as âespecifistasââa word I had never heard and wouldnât really
understand until months later. To a lesser extent, I also met members of
the FederaciĂłn Libertaria de Argentina.
Almost immediately, I saw real differences between the Red Libertaria
and my previous experiences. At the first Red Libertaria event that I
attended, I met workers organising in their workplaces, students
organising in their student unions, people living in the villas miserias
(shantytowns) engaged in their community organisations. This depth of
presence in oppressed communities was almost the exact opposite of the
isolated subcultural groups I was accustomed to in the US. Even more
important than the diversity in the room, the conversation within was
notably stronger. Anarchism was spoken of as a road map for people
actually engaged in day-to-day struggles. Immediately, I felt I should
pay attention to how they were organising. While there are certainly
anarchists in the US that organise in a manner similar to Argentina,
these methods donât seem to be the standard here. For the most part,
Argentine organising was much different from what I had experienced in
the US.
First, the Red Libertaria had developed clear points of unity. They were
an expressly anarchist communist organisation. They werenât building an
organisation of anyone that called themselves anarchists. Rather, they
developed specific agreements as a pretext for joining. Often, this
approach is treated as authoritarian in US anarchist circles. But having
a clear set of unifying points made organising around those points so
much easier, even if it results in smaller founding groups.
Second, the Red Libertaria didnât use consensus. This was an absolute
shock to me. It had been ingrained in me that consensus was the only
acceptable form of decision making among anarchists. On a global basis,
our attitudes in the US are a bit of an anomaly. In most of the rest of
the world, anarchists donât insist on consensus. As Andrew Cornell
points out in Oppose and Propose!: Lessons from Movement for a New
Society, Quakers brought consensus to US anarchism.
A vital door to creating much larger organisations rather than small
non-sustaining affinity groups, could be opened by allowing for simpler
and quicker forms of decision making.
Third, the Red Libertaria had dues. Members paid dues to ensure a
well-funded organisation and to guarantee that everyone was sharing in
the costs equally. This is important for a couple of reasons. When an
organisation grows in membership, it also grows in resources that help
to fund a space, publications, a media wing, events publicity, etc.
Meanwhile membership shares equitably in the costs of the organisation.
Itâs been shown in many studies that poorer people will often give more
out of their pockets than more well off members. However, a scaled dues
system ensures that those with greater resources help to fund the
organisation to a greater degree.
Combined, these differences in organising techniques paint a pretty
obvious picture. Anarchists in Buenos Aires were building formal
organisation and werenât afraid to be straightforward about that. There
wasnât a need to constantly bend to nearly hegemonic anti-organisational
views. I argue that the anarchist movement in the US has nothing to lose
from at least some of us doing the same. There are plenty of
anti-organisational or informal organisational groupings. Letâs stop
assuming that there is something anti-anarchist about building
intentional and formal organisation. Simplistic and purist internal
policing shouldnât prevent us from experimenting with ways to build
towards revolution.
While even a handful of small process differences increase the strength
of South American anarchist organisations, the critical distinctions
donât stop there. Our differences run much deeper than that. The Red
Libertaria had a more comprehensive understanding of the role of an
ideological anarchist organisation â how it worked to build anarchist
ideas and how it related to broader movements of working class people
and communities. These ideas are called especifismo and have become an
important part of the organised anarchist milieu in South America.
In the US, many of us were introduced to the notion of especifismo
through the article, âEspecifismo: The Anarchist Praxis of Building
Popular Movements and Revolutionary Organisation in South Americaâ by
Adam Weaver in the eleventh issue of The Northeastern Anarchist. While
this article wasnât my introduction to especifismo, Iâve found it to be
a useful summary of those ideas. In his article, Weaver breaks down
especifismo into three succinct points:
unity of ideas and praxis.
develop strategic political and organising work.
movements, which is described as the process of âsocial insertion.â
This basic breakdown provides a road map for the development of
anarchist organisation that has an impact beyond itself.
In the statement, âOur Conception of Anarchist Organisation,â the
Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro (FARJ) say:
This model of organisation maintains that the function of the specific
anarchist organisation is to bring together and co-ordinate the forces
stemming from militant activities, building a tool for solid and
consistent struggle that seeks a finalist objective: social revolution
and libertarian socialism. We believe that work without (or with little)
organisation, in which each one does what they want, poorly articulated
or even isolated, is inefficient. The model of organisation we advocate
seeks to multiply the result and effectiveness of militant forces.
Simply put, itâs through organisation and collective action that our
individual efforts find a more compelling result. And, itâs through
organisation that we allow our efforts to sustain themselves beyond the
activity and participation of solid individual militants and organisers.
Organisations are capable of weathering through the more dormant moments
between mass movements; something that is vital if we are to genuinely
learn from the lessons of each movement in which we participate.
In Buffalo Class Action and in Rochester Red & Black, two local
anarchist organisations inspired by especifismo, my experience has been
that an explicitly anarchist organisation enables us to make the ideas
of anarchism more appealing and relevant to the day-to-day struggles
happening in our towns. In both cases, with little time, we found we
were having an impact beyond ourselves as others heard our ideas and
welcomed our intentional support for specific organisations and their
fights. In the case of Rochester Red & Black, this influence seems to
have gone beyond Rochester. Despite being a group of fewer than twenty,
as I travelled the country speaking, I found quite a few people that
were already familiar with Rochester Red & Black. This kind of impact
couldnât have been accomplished to the same degree by any one individual
in our organisation.
In anarchist circles we seem to be in a never ending conversation about
tactics and whether tactics are effective. In this case, weâre missing
the forest for the trees. One particular tactic isnât universally
effective or ineffective; its efficacy is based on how it is
incorporated into a broader strategy. In many anarchist circles, there
is very little conversation about strategy beyond simple tactical
preferences, and these tactical choices are often based on personal
predisposition for a degree of superficial militancy rather than
effective integration into a larger strategy.
In âHuerta Grande,â the FederaciĂłn Anarquista Uruguaya (FAU) â the
initial developers of the theory of especifismo â share the importance
and connection of theory to the development of strategic organising.
Without a line for the theoretical work, an organisation, no matter how
big it is, will be bewildered by circumstances that it cannot condition
nor comprehend. The political line presumes a program, which means goals
to be achieved at each step. The program indicates which forces are
favorable, which ones are the enemy and which ones are only temporary
allies. But in order to know that we must know profoundly the reality of
our country. Therefore to acquire that knowledge now is a task of the
highest priority. And in order to know we need a theory.
Having a clear strategic program will simultaneously protect our
organisations from manipulation by larger political forces and allow us
to offer strategic direction to people in struggle for concrete gain.
And if we canât offer a genuine path to building militant organisations
that will eventually lead us into revolutionary conditions, how can we
really call ourselves revolutionaries? Without a clear program developed
by anarchists, we will find ourselves stuck working with reformist
organisations while ignoring our own beliefs or being revolutionary in
name onlyâspeaking the most militantly, no matter how impractical our
strategies really are.
Once we have such a theory and a program worked out, what to do with
that program will be a new challenge entirely. Do we move to enact that
program with just our own small group of committed, organised
anarchists? The third point of Weaverâs breakdown of especifismo helps
to clarify the next step.
In many ways, the notion of âsocial insertionâ â as itâs called in South
America â is the heart of especifismo. To thoroughly understand social
insertion, we first need to understand the distinctions between social
movements and political organisations. Basically, social insertion is
how organisations and movements interact as well as the role of the
revolutionary anarchist political organisation within that relationship.
As Iâve said, the anarchist political organisation is simply an
organisation of self-identified anarchists with an articulated unity of
ideas and praxis that are working to develop a strategic program of
revolution leading to anarchist social and economic structures. Of
course, by its nature, this organisation will be fairly small in
comparison to the general population and will expect a high level of
commitment from its membership.
The other essential counterparts in our revolutionary efforts are social
movements and their organisations. In âSocial Anarchism and
Organisation,â the FARJ explains the central role of social movements in
anarchist revolutionary thought:
If the struggle of anarchism points towards the final objectives of
social revolution and libertarian socialism, and if we understand the
exploited classes to be the protagonists of the transformation towards
these goals, there is no other way for anarchism but to seek a way to
interact with these classes.
Social movement is the mass organisation of exploited classes, including
the unions of working people, the tenantsâ organisation in apartment
complexes, the student unions in schools, the popular assemblies of
neighbourhoods, and the self-organisation of the unemployed. Social
movements gain their strength from mass participation more than from
ideological purity. In a workplace struggle, all workers should be
involved, not just the anarchist ones.
The union would marginalize itself to only serve those workers that
identify as anarchists or require that a joining member be anarchist. To
do so would weaken the unionâs ability to fight the bosses and,
ultimately, weaken the struggle against capitalism.
Simply put, an anarchist and anti-vanguardist perspective of revolution
is that the social movements themselves are the revolutionary actors;
their organisations will ultimately bring about a social revolution. The
anarchist organisation is not the vanguard leading the people to
revolution. Rather, the anarchist organisation offers genuine
revolutionary direction to social movements and the exploited classes
that make up those movements.
How do anarchists intend to engage with the broader classes that make up
social movements? Especifista organisations argue that social insertion
is the way that anarchists should engage with those broader classes. The
importance of social insertion canât be overstated. As the FARJ say,
âSocial work and insertion are the most important activities of the
specific anarchist organisation.â
Social insertion is about engaging in social movements and their
organisations as genuine participants.
As participants in a revolutionary anarchist organisation, we would then
be participants and members of two or more organisations. Dual
organisational orientation brings us into direct day-to-day contact with
non-anarchists of the exploited classes, as they engage in organising
and struggle for their survival.
Within these organisations, revolutionary anarchists should openly
advocate for our positions, even when in the minority, to clearly
articulate the perspective that we offer. Our ideas of direct action,
horizontal organising, class struggle, and anti-capitalism should be
openly discussed in the social movements as important strategic elements
of gaining power for the social movement.
It is important to highlight that open advocacy does not mean that
anarchists should attempt to capture leadership of these organisations
or attempt to âideologiseâ a social movement into an anarchist social
movement. Instead, the purpose of open advocacy is to remind the broader
social movements of the power that they hold and their ability to
fundamentally restructure society.
Our revolutionary anarchist ideals will find traction in social
movements through our influence as members of the social movement with a
clear vision of a new world and with the organising skill of long-term
militants. This means that, as anarchists we will teach our ideas to our
companions in struggle by âdoing and showingâ much more than by âtalking
and explaining.â
Active engagement in building the social movement, doing the necessary
day-to-day work to exemplify a strong grassroots social movement member,
and fighting on issues of survival for the exploited classes will grow
our own influence.
Not only will engagement of this sort help the anarchist militants and
organisers to grow their influence, but such direct activity is
essential to informing their strategic and theoretical perspectives. A
perspective divorced from the on-the-ground class struggle canât
possibly know the important local actors, the way they interact, and who
to work with and how. Knowing these details will make us stronger
organisers and better allies to those in our communities and social
movements.
Actively breaking down the division between committed, organised
anarchists and broader, but likely more reformist, social movements is
particularly important in the United States.
Since at least the 1950s leftist organisers have been actively, and
sometimes brutally, separated from larger social movements. Over the
decades, social movements have grown accustomed to having no
revolutionary perspectives openly discussed and argued. At the same
time, ideological groups have grown accustomed to having little or no
influence in the arena of social movements. The result has been social
movements afraid of asserting their own power and even more afraid of
discussing âradicalâ ideas. On the other hand, ideological groups have
developed a habit of creating perfect models of organising that will
never see the light of day and using them to denounce the social
movements for failing in their mission. If weâre ever to see real
change, the division between revolutionary anarchists and social
movements must be broken down. Social movements need us, and we need
them.
I find myself frequently speaking in anarchist circles. In these
circles, Iâve noticed a strong understanding of all the ways in which
social movements need anarchists and our perspectives.
The anarchist critique on the strategies and tactics used by most
movements are familiar. Unfortunately, these critiques are frequently
used to denounce social movements and rationalize our lack of activity
rather than to propose more meaningful ways in which to engage.
However, revolutionaries engaged in social movements often agree with
our perspectives and would also like to see them utilized.
One very obvious strategic perspective of anarchists that seems utterly
lost on those in more reformist social movements is the trap that
electoral and legislative campaigns really are. The anarchist
perspective of direct action as the primary means to demand change is
critical to redirecting energy in many social movements away from their
failed reliance on electoral politics.
When unified and concerted activity by thousands of individuals is your
primary source of power, as it generally is for social movements,
hierarchical organisation is a huge impediment to your own power. The
notions of horizontal organisation offered by anarchists allow for the
individual rank-and-filer to have a genuine sense of ownership of their
organisations and the decisions of those organisations, which in turn
leads to more committed and concerted activity on the part of those
members.
Many social movements exist specifically for empowering groups of people
in exploited classes. In effect, this is participation in class
struggle. Unfortunately, many such groups have no intentional focus on
class struggle. This confusion leads to serious strategic blunders in
selecting allies, accepting funding, and granting influence.
Without an understanding that the organisation must build its own power
to engage in class struggle more effectively, many organisations
undermine themselves. They hand internal power over to those that would
otherwise be class enemies, they accept funding with its many strings
from those same enemies, and then wonder why they canât actually build
power. In truth, theyâve been coopted as a symptom of their own
deficient class consciousness.
In all of these situations, anarchism has a clear perspective to offer
to social movements that would help them strengthen themselves. And if
the anarchists involved were more interested in strengthening the social
movement than they are in always being right, then they will know when
and how to engage those internal debates.
What many anarchist circles in the United States tend to forget is how
important a real connection to broader social movements is for the
anarchist tendency. Rooting the ideas of anarchism in the concrete
day-to-day struggles of marginalized people gives anarchism a necessary
grounding in reality.
In the immediate sense, there is a clear need for organiser training in
the US anarchist movement. After decades of organising largely in
insular circles of other anarchists, weâve lost many of the large-scale
organising and institution-creating skills that many of our predecessors
possessed. The historic difficulties of keeping infoshops and other
anarchist spaces alive are an obvious result of these basic
deficiencies. Given the recent excitement generated by the IWW, in the
anarchist milieu one would expect greater growth in membership. The
waxing and waning of local anarchist organisations is often less the
result of some inherent problem with the notion of organisation than it
is the result of simply lacking basic organisational skill of local
anarchists. Basic organisation of meetings, maintenance of local
publications, development of strong events and mobilizations, and
building local institutions of our movements are all things that we
could stand to learn from broader social movements.
Our collective weakness in organising around peoplesâ everyday
experiences and developing effective responses has led to another huge
problem: a disconnect between anarchism and working-class communities
and communities of colour. These are precisely the communities where the
self-emancipatory ideas of anarchism need to be rooted. And just as
importantly, the daily experiences of these folks help to inform the
strategies, tactics, and thinking of organisers. There is no way that
the anarchist movement can claim to have any genuinely revolutionary
potential without being rooted in those communities that most need
revolution.
A deeply rooted connection to the realities of everyday people has a
more profound impact than simply informing our organising strategies and
tactics; it also gives our ongoing theoretical development a similar
connection to reality. Many modern theories emanating from the US
anarchist milieu have very little meaningful connection to the realities
of marginalized people in our communities, and when we allow ourselves
to remain only in these insular communities, we eventually have debates
that are totally unintelligible to the people around us. If we intend to
build mass movements, this disconnect and its widening nature should
frighten us.
The historical context of especifismo is important if weâre to think
about what it means for us today and the seriousness through which we
should view these ideas. Especifismo came out of Uruguay after years of
dictatorship.
Despite having an incredibly powerful and influential anarchist movement
in the early 1900s, Uruguay entered a dictatorial period from the late
1960s to the early 1980s. During this period, some members of the FAU
engaged in an intense process to learn what allowed them to lose their
country to fascism and how to strengthen future anarchist efforts.
Especifismo embodied the ideas that came from that process and which
quickly found thoughtful adherents in many other South American
countries that were similarly escaping dictatorship.
Similar conclusions were made by other anarchists after similar
experiences. As the Spanish Revolution devolved into a prolonged civil
war, with the fascists taking a more obvious advantage, the Friends of
Durruti rose to defend the importance of a specifically anarchist
revolution. In their statement, âTowards a Fresh Revolution,â the
Friends of Durruti extol the need to learn from the mistakes of the July
revolution:
Revolutions cannot succeed if they have no guiding lights, no immediate
objectives. This is what we find lacking in the July revolution.
Although it had the strength, the CNT did not know how to mould and
shape the activity that arose spontaneously in the street. The very
leadership was startled by events which were, as far as they were
concerned, totally unexpected. They had no idea which course of action
to pursue. There was no theory. Year after year we had spent speculating
around abstractions. What is to be done? The leaders were asking
themselves then. And they allowed the revolution to be lost.
In Russia, anarchists were an essential part of the revolution.
Anarchists there experienced one of the earliest betrayals as
authoritarian communists destroyed the instruments of worker power that
anarchists had helped to create and, ultimately, drove those anarchists
out of the country. A few years later, based in France and looking back
on the Russian Revolution, the group of Russian Anarchists called Dielo
Truda spoke of their thoughts:
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 degree of
sectionalism and confusion. The absence of a general organisation led
many active anarchist militants into the ranks of the Bolsheviks.
In the âOrganisational Platform for a General Union of Anarchists
(Draft),â Dielo Truda set out their ideas of the importance of an
explicitly anarchist organisation built around a unity of theory and
practice, as well as the role it would play and the methods it would
utilize. âAnarchism is no beautiful fantasy, no abstract notion of
philosophy, but a social movement of the working masses; for that reason
alone it must gather its forces into one organisation, constantly
agitating, as demanded by the reality and strategy of the social class
struggle.â
Whether it was seeing the losses of an explicitly anarchist revolution
in Spain or seeing their country devolve into fascism, the lessons of
how an anarchist movement can have a greater impact on a larger scale
are remarkably similar. If we hope to have any meaningful impact in the
United States as the world goes through ongoing crises in global
capitalism, we must consider these lessons seriously.
We donât have time to learn these lessons in our own country. The
political and economic reality of the world and the United Statesâ role
in the world is changing rapidly. The decline of the American standard
of living, the approaching âminority majority,â the weakening ability of
the United States government to enforce its empire abroad, and impending
ecological crises all make the status quo untenable for the elite as
well as the exploited classes. Social upheaval will only increase in
frequency. Spontaneous rebellion, whether militant or reformist, left or
right, will happen.
Such uprisings and upheavals wonât always go our way. They typically go
the direction of those most capable of offering real or seemingly real
answers well-organised anarchist movement capable of offering our ideals
with the strategies and tactics to get us there, what makes us believe
that any upheaval will move us towards true liberty, equality, and
solidarity? I fear that if we donât actively work to further our
influence and increase our skills in day-to-day political and economic
organising, the battle of ideas will be won by much worse people.
Could the approaching âminority majorityâ be used as a lightning rod for
empowering racist and fascist tendencies amongst a scared white working
class?
The answer is yes, it already is. The membership of the Aryan
Brotherhood is estimated as high as twenty thousand in and out of the
prison system. The anti-immigrant sentiment of the Tea Party isnât hard
to turn in a more explicitly fascist direction. What about the right
wing âlibertariansâ? Is there any reason to believe that in a moment of
social disruption that they wouldnât advocate for wholly private,
for-profit policing to âsecure orderâ?
These moments require us to do more than treat anarchism like an
interesting book club. We need to engage in thoughtful, committed and
sincere organising to prepare ourselves and our communities for the
challenges that lie ahead. We need to develop an anarchism with deep
roots in our struggling communities and work within those communities to
develop a counter- hegemonic intellectual and organising tradition. It
is and always has been the only hope for achieving an anarchist future
and is essential to defending against any drift towards fascism. Itâs
apparent to me that especifismo offers vital lessons for us to learn
exactly these things.
While I write this, the local organisation to which I belong, Rochester
Red & Black, is engaged in a nationwide anarchist organisation along
with a number of other local and regional organisations in the United
States. Many of these organisations are informed and inspired by the
methods of organising detailed by the especifista organisations in South
America.
The development of this organisation hasnât been easy. And I donât
imagine that the ongoing organising of the group will be easy either. It
may last through to revolution, or it may fall apart. Either way, to go
through the experiences and struggles with one another and develop such
an organisation is essential to building the anarchist movement in the
US.
Personally, I have high hopes that such a formation will lead to an
anarchist movement that continues to hold its revolutionary ideas while
building real depth in our neighbourhoods, workplaces, schools, and
families. Without a popular anarchism, we canât have a revolutionary
anarchism.
---
Colin OâMalley is an anarchist and organiser living in Rochester, NY,
USA. In 2007, he spent the year in Buenos Aires, Argentina where he
became convinced of the necessity of specific anarchist organisations.
On returning to the US, he helped found Buffalo Class Action and
Rochester Red & Black. Through these organisations he has participated
in the series of Class Struggle Anarchist Conferences that led to the
2013 founding of the nationwide Black Rose Anarchist Federation.