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Title: Going on the Offensive Author: Lusbert Garcia Date: September 1, 2020 Language: en Topics: revolutionary strategy, Revolutionary Anarchism, Black Rose Anarchist Federation Source: Retrieved on 2020-09-03 from https://blackrosefed.org/going-on-the-offensive-movements-multisectorality-political-strategy/ Notes: Translation by Enrique Guerrero-LĂłpez and Leticia RZ.
In an era of pandemic and mass protest we are witnessing an uptick in
political militancy, from attacks on police stations and the seizure of
space to wildcat strikes and rent strikes. These are promising
developments, but the balance of class forces remains lopsided,
evidenced by the massive corporate bailout package, countless workers
being exposed to unsafe working conditions, and mounting unemployment.
While COVID-19 has limited our ability to respond to the crisis, we need
to discover creative ways to intervene in the current moment to meet the
urgent needs that have arisen and think through how to prepare ourselves
for the post-pandemic period—whenever that may be—to tip the balance of
forces in our favor. We will have to defend ourselves against austerity
and other attacks, but we can’t limit our activity to a defensive
posture. In this piece, Spanish anarchist Lusbert Garcia offers a
framework for orienting our organizing efforts toward strategic sectors
in society and makes the case for linking these sites of struggle over
time into a broad-based, multisectoral movement that can put us on the
offensive.
---
By making a brief analysis of current social movements, we can see that
they do not work together, that is, in a synchronous way between
movements that operate in different areas of struggle. First off, this
article is a complement to the translation of the article “A debate on
the politics of alliances [Un debate sobre la polĂtica de alianzas]”
where I talk in broad strokes about the numerous areas or sectors of
struggle and think through how to build a multisectoral movement, that
is, a broad movement made up of a network of social movements that work
in coordination in different sectors and at the same time are
articulated based on the common denominator of autonomy, feminism and
anti-capitalism.
We know that the root of all problems lies in the capitalist system and
the modern states that support it, and that this economic, political and
social system supports a production model based on private ownership of
the means of production and private benefit as a fundamental principle.
All this constitutes what we know as the structural, and its
manifestations in all areas of our lives, which is known as the
conjunctural, of which we could mainly highlight: territory, labor,
public services, accommodation and repression. When we analyze the
political-social space, we must recognize the conjunctural problems that
manifest as a consequence of the material structure:
interests of the class which rules over the territory enter into
conflict with those of the working class. It is the physical space in
which all struggles will take place, so we can highlight the following
areas: neighborhood or district if we talk about cities, rural and land
struggles if we talk about undeveloped or non-industrialized areas, and
we could even include the national liberation struggles for the
self-determination of peoples against imperialism. Environmentalism and
food sovereignty would also fall into this category.
is the battlefield where capital and labor meet most directly. In this
area we can mention the workers’ movement that is articulated around
unionism. Although we have to differentiate between unionism that
advocates social peace—that model that always leads to class
conciliation, betraying the working class—and the revolutionary or class
unionism that advocates the exacerbation of class conflict in the
workplace.
century during the rural exodus caused by industrial development and the
creation of working-class neighborhoods. Today, with capitalist
restructuring underway again in advanced capitalist countries and those
in development, access to housing is again a social problem that affects
the working class as it finds itself with less economic capacity to face
mortgages and rents, as well as access to decent housing. Faced with
this problem, movements against evictions have sprung up in many
countries, as did the squatter movement a little earlier.
restructuring, markets are increasingly interfering with these services
through budget cuts, outsourcing and privatizations. Here we can
mention: Education, Health, water and sanitation, public transport, and
pensions, among others; and the respective social movements that arise
in response to cuts and privatizations, such as the student movement,
White Tide[1] and other movements against the privatization of water,
the fight against increases in rates on public transport, etc.
therefore, it is important that we begin to see repression as an
obstacle and a social problem that seeks to curb our social and
political activities while serving the ruling class to perpetuate its
dominance. In this regard, we must speak about the anti-repression issue
and face repression collectively and outside of our own militant
circles, as yet another social movement.
Within each sector there are also subsectors. For example, within the
student movement, those who organize in the University will not be the
same as those from professional training and those from secondary
education. In the labor world, the labor movement would be divided
between the various productive branches such as construction,
transportation, services, etc. In other words, the substantive demands
of the student movement would be the same regardless of the subsector,
even if they differ on particular and specific issues. This is also seen
within the labor movement, where the substantive demands can be the
increase in the minimum wage, reduction of working hours, etc., and the
particular demands would be improvements in the collective bargaining
agreement, for example.
However, we must not take all these sectors in struggle as isolated
elements, but as a set of conjunctural battle fronts that have their
origin in the capitalist system, and therefore, connected to each other.
And here comes the main question: how to connect these sectors in
struggle under a common political-social denominator based on
anti-capitalism, feminism, anti-racism and internationalism. Looking for
the connection between various sectors is not very difficult. Let’s see
some examples:
movement.
for their lands.
classic.
in the sector.
In the previous examples, we can see that they have points in common
with each other, which can lead them to converge and overcome
sectoriality, that is, working in isolation in a specific area without
coordination with the rest. We can even go a little further and connect
neighborhood movements, squatting, anti-eviction with the municipality,
with the workers and student movements, constituting a network of
movements that could unite with the peasant and indigenous movement
(this would occur in Latin American countries mainly; Europe or the US
would be very difficult). And since all these social movements will
suffer repression along with the political-social collectives and
organizations, it is important that the anti-repression struggle be
articulated from the neighborhoods, neighborhood associations, etc.
A century ago, in full industrial development, the labor movement
occupied the central pillar of class and social conflict. Today we can
no longer use this premise as no front is gaining greater importance
than the rest, which leads us to discard the hierarchy of struggles to
put on the table the idea-force of networked movements. When we arrive
at this point, it is when we must consider multisectorality, that is,
articulate common discourses that allow the alliance of the various
sectors in struggle, respecting their autonomy but maintaining common
bases on which to build broad movements, escalate conflicts and go from
resistance, that is, defensive positions, to offense.
The limitations that sectoriality has leads us to think about
transcending the struggles of specific scopes to wider movements to
articulate an offense. I developed the issue of multisectorality
precisely due to the limitations that each sector in struggle had, and
therefore, in isolation they could not go beyond the defense of social
problems that specifically affect that sector. Before talking about the
offensive, we will address the principal limitations of each sector.
the labor movement is no longer the central axis of struggle, but one
more among the many that exist despite being the one where the
capital-labor conflict is most directly confronted. The main limitation
in the labor movement is the economic sphere. Trade unionism itself
cannot become a revolutionary movement, since it is limited to the field
of the productive model within the capitalist system. However, unionism
can serve to organize the working class and aspire to seize the means of
production and self-manage them. However, if self-managed projects do
not emerge from the market economy, it will not be a transformation at
the root.
operate, students will find a great limitation in terms of claiming an
alternative model to the current one increasingly oriented towards
markets. Thus, the educational models inspired by free teaching within a
capitalist society are very limited precisely by the regulations of the
States and the funding they require. Such an educational model is
unthinkable in class society.
limitation lies precisely in the financing. Like many things in this
capitalist society, if we do not want Health, Education, supplies and
such to be privatized, such financing could only come from the general
budgets of the State, without allowing the interference of private
companies. Although under their management they may come to carry more
weight in the community, rather than under the State’s administration.
economic, physical and psychological wear and tear is involved due to
the few results that are achieved despite the great efforts invested.
This is a confrontation against a greater force, which is the armed wing
of the State. Its main limitation is the need for very extensive support
networks to overcome the isolation and overload of militancy, as well as
the high risks they run.
capitalist countries would not make much sense beyond small organic
farming cooperatives, whose limitation resides in the little weight that
the field has in addition to a total absence of peasant movements. But
this is not the case with Latin American countries in which there are
strong peasant and indigenous movements. Although the peasantry fits
within the working class, its scope of action is not the same as that of
the urban proletariat, in addition to the fact that the immediate
conflicts in the fields are not the same as in the cities. Furthermore,
even if the peasant and indigenous movements get land and constitute
autonomous territories, they are on the periphery of the capitalist
nuclei that are the cities.
strengths of these struggles is the construction of the local social
fabric, its main limitation is the territorial one, since they exist at
the local level. However, it has great potential if they connect with
other sectors in struggle.
The limitations that we see in each sector in struggle means that they
only adopt a defensive posture, trying only to resist the onslaught of
neoliberalism. If we look at the enemy, we can see how since the 1970s
neoliberalism, since it emerged as a way out of the crisis then, is
continuously going on the offensive: attacking the Soviet bloc first and
seeking alliances with European states, continuously attacking labor and
social rights, supporting and promoting coups in Latin America and
Central America, etc., until today with the implementation of the euro
and the EU, pushing back on labor rights in each labor reform, reaching
into state public services such as Education, Health, pensions, water,
etc., and now with the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
(TTIP) that will allow less regulation in environmental protection, more
setbacks in labor rights, more power for multinational corporations and
investment funds with private supranational courts that can judge
governments that harm their profit rates, among other things.
That is why we ask ourselves, how can it be that neoliberalism is
continuously on the offensive while the social movements are always on
the defensive? And this is a problem that comes mainly from the lack of
political alliances between sectors built under a common discursive
denominator, that is, a road map with proposals and demands that allow
progress, not just resistance. And this advance can only come through
the articulation of a multisectoral popular movement, because that is
the only way we overcome the limitations that come with each sector in
struggle. I want to note that this is only a sketch for the purpose of
serving as a contribution towards building future roadmaps and it may
possibly be missing several things. I will put some brief examples
below:
to the labor market, since most students will enter the job market after
their training. The line is increasingly blurred between the labor
market and training, which is seen in business practices both in
vocational training and University. Furthermore, with this new labor
panorama in which continuous training and the concepts of retraining
were introduced, in reality they require the “recycling” of workers to
follow the demands of competences in the labor market. That is why the
student movement necessarily has to have connections with (class)
unionism.
purchasing power of the working class, access to decent housing is also
worsening, as is the problem of evictions, so they will necessarily have
to connect with the struggles for housing and also contribute to
building a social fabric that breaks isolation, putting mutual aid and
solidarity into practice in neighborhoods. Also, due to the
gentrification suffered by neighborhoods due to real estate speculation
and the conversion of neighborhoods into spaces for consumer leisure,
there is a need to open political and social spaces to counteract the
consumerist and hyper individualistic culture of capitalist societies
and to constitute focal points of resistance.
essential that the anti-repression issue be inserted in all sectors and
be made visible as a problem that affects everyone and from which
everyone can suffer.
An offensive strategy begins by recognizing that each area of ​​struggle
and its problems are not separate and specific problems, but rather
originate from a common material structure, which is capitalism in its
neoliberal phase and the modern states that support it. Said offensive
strategy does not consist in attacking the symbols of capitalism and the
State nor in the vanguard positions of a militant minority, but must
arise from the political articulation of the entire popular movement,
which is not only capable of winning victories in every sector, but
rather have the capacity to materialize alternatives that transcend the
sector itself. For example, to be able to start alternative educational
projects, it is necessary not only to seize the centers for community
management, but also to have insertion in the neighborhoods and in the
labor market promoting the values ​​of the commons, to keep them from
remaining marginal projects. From this point on, the political
articulation of the movements should focus on programs that respond to
the needs of the moment and implement them in each context, based on
anti-capitalism, mutual aid and solidarity, autonomy and horizontality,
as well as feminism, internationalism and anti-racism.
We are aware that we are still very far from being able to put an
offensive strategy in place against the capitalist system, and this is
precisely because, as anarchists in particular, we are not building the
social bases that would be the social force that allows us to articulate
ourselves as a political force. For this reason, we must consider social
insertion as the first step in the ambitious task of revolutionary
social transformation. We must be able to respond to immediate problems
and empower social movements as a short-term strategy to pull off small
victories and draw strength from them in order to aspire to greater
objectives. The offensive involves direct political-social combat
against the capitalist system and the sharpening of the class struggle
promoted by a broad and politically articulated popular movement.
For any popular movement to go on the offensive, it is also essential
that they have roadmaps and political strategy. What is political
strategy? Strategy, in general, is a set of tactics aimed at achieving a
goal in a complex environment where a multitude of factors come into
play. And specifically, political strategy has to start from
conjunctural analysis, a tool by which detailed information is extracted
from the environment around us in order to intervene on the political
and social stage in order to achieve a series of changes, allowing us to
move toward achieving our ultimate goals. From that necessary
conjunctural analysis, we can see that our final goals are currently
unattainable, at least in the medium and long term, which leads us to
set intermediate and more achievable goals, that allow us to advance
positions. This is where political strategy enters.
The absence of a political strategy makes it so that movements pull by
inertia, that is, they move defensively in the face of the need to stop
the attacks of the ruling class without knowing how to counterattack. In
other words, they are forced by the conjuncture and not driven by a
confrontational perspective. The expression “something must be done”
perfectly illustrates this problem, which manifests itself in reality
through action-reaction methodologies; that is, of responding only when
there is a significant attack, of vague and very generalist or
conservative proposals for wanting to go back to an earlier phase or
maintain the current state of affairs The main consequences of the lack
of political strategies are movements becoming disoriented and adrift
(in the worst cases), being always influenced by the conjuncture,
encountering dead ends, volatility and routes that lead back to zero.
Within the libertarian movement itself, the dynamic is similar, although
efforts are already being made to overcome it with new initiatives that
have recently emerged. Lack of political strategy has condemned us to
marginality and isolation.
The need to overcome “something must be done” involves having a
strategic vision; that is, overcoming the defeatist airs that
mobilizations through inertia entail and putting strategies for action
and intervention in the political and social scene on the table. For
this reason, we have to ask ourselves something that Lenin once did:
“what is to be done?” Adapting it to our situation, that would be: what
is to be done with each sector-wide problem (housing, public services,
work, education, territory)? What is to be done in the face of the
ineffectiveness and illegitimacy of rival political forces —which are
not our enemies, because the enemies are the political forces of the
dominant one that is in direct confrontation against us? What is to be
done in the face of cuts in social rights in general and the continuous
neoliberal offensive? What is to be done in the face of opportunism and
the rise of fascism? … the answers to these would serve as the basis for
preparing roadmaps and programs focused on social intervention. From
this strategic vision, we will see the various political options as
forces, whose real strength will reside in the legitimation given to
them from the grassroots. One must also keep in mind that political
forces will tend to occupy as much space as they can, meaning, if a
political force leaves a space, it will be taken up by another. Thus, if
there are no alternatives proposed outside of institutions, betting on
autonomy, confluence and coordination, and the radicalization of social
movements under common discourses that aim at overcoming capitalism and
other forms of domination, it will not take long for these movements to
be co-opted by political parties that adapt their discourse to bring
social movements to the polls, with their consequent demobilization and
assimilation by the system. And this is what is currently happening.
For this reason, the offensive approach not only involves building a
multisectoral movement, but also adopting political strategies that
allow the advancement of the entire popular movement. The offensive is
inseparable from the political strategy, in fact, it is from the
political strategy that we consider these premises of offense and
multisectorality. And I would even add that strategic vision must start
from the first moment in which we aspire to a radical transformation of
society; that it must aim to build, strengthen and promote the autonomy
of social movements; that once this task has been carried out, it must
aspire to an articulation of multisectorality and therefore, to build a
political force with real strength capable of achieving changes not only
in this situation, but in transforming the structure (capitalist
relations of production, neocolonialism, heteropatriarchy, white
supremacy, etc …). In general, it is focused on increasing our strength
as oppressed social classes.
Before finishing, to better illustrate the concept of political
strategy, we could look at a hypothetical scenario in which, on the one
hand, the main unions go through a general delegitimation and go into
decline due to loss of membership, the disillusionment and distrust of
the working class, and the loss of its of ability to convene; and on the
other, the percentage of unionized workers is relatively low (let’s say
around 10%). Given this situation in which a rival force is weakening,
we must take advantage of this delegitimation to fill the gaps they have
left. In this case, the best thing to do would be for class struggle
unions to position themselves as functional tools for the defense of the
interests of the working class, to encourage the participation of the
membership and sympathizers, to know how to respond swiftly to job
insecurity, temporality and subcontracting in all productive sectors,
from small businesses to large companies and, above all, to extract
victories, even small ones; achieve them, maintain them and aspire to
bigger ones.
We could also escalate this hypothetical scenario and arrive at the
confluence of the labor movement and combative unionism with student
struggles and struggles for decent housing as well as with the squatter
movement. And another hypothetical scenario, within the libertarian
sphere, would be to put aside as far as possible the ideological
confrontation with other political tendencies within the left and opt
for escaping marginality and outnumber them in real force before other
tendencies do, which leads us to work in the social field through
insertion in social movements, to respond to immediate social problems
and promote struggles, to achieve the necessary social base to really
advance popular movements and give them as libertarian a character as
possible, capable of standing up to the capitalist system by creating
confrontational alternatives.
In summary, political strategy aims to push by creating political
alternatives that aspire to overcome the existing order. Political
strategy also implies some cunning and a lot of ambition, inserting
ourselves into the material reality, taking advantage of the
opportunities that are presented to us and intervening or attacking, not
symbolically but in a systematic and planned way; having consistency in
our political and social activities, and not leaving everything to
improvisation; accumulating experiences so as to not have to start from
scratch; and not attacking through brute force, but with the force
emanating from popular self-organization and its political articulation.
In this sense, political strategy is what gives content to the
offensive.
---
Lusbert Garcia is an anarchist communist writer based in Spain. This
article is based on the merger of three articles previously with
RegeneraciĂłn.
[1] White Tide was an anti-privatization movement that began in Madrid
in 2013 and spread throughout Spain.