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Title: Why a Vanguard? Author: Alfredo M. Bonanno Date: 1977 Language: en Topics: organization Source: Retrieved on October 10, 2010 from http://digitalelephant.blogspot.com/2010/08/why-vanguard.html Notes: Original title: Avanguardia, perche? published in Movimento e progetto rivoluzionaria, Edizioni Anarchismo — Nuovi contributi per una rivoluzione anarchica — 1 — 1977. translated by Jean Weir
The ideas that follow are aimed at going into the problem of the
relations between the movement of the exploited and the revolutionary
anarchist movement.
The conclusion is very simple and constitutes the starting point of a
reflection that we are proposing to all comrades: it is not within the
enclosure of the specific anarchist movement that one works for the
revolution, but outside in the reality of struggles, which at this
moment do not see us present. In this sense the anarchist movement still
has a long way to go. In the face of the urgency of the situation it has
become imperative for all sincere revolutionary anarchist comrades to
reflect on the ways and conditions of organising oneself to contribute
to the widening, in the libertarian sense, of the present situation of
crises and discomfort.
The time for hesitation and waiting is over. May whoever is available
for the revolutionary struggle seek his or her comrades and not indulge
in waiting for a sign or clarification on the part of the specific
movement.
AMB
The problem of the vanguard has been gone into by all conscious
revolutionaries past and present. They fear its dangers and try to see
what causes it and how to eliminate it or attenuate its effects.
The problem is far more serious for anarchists. They do not accept the
political expedients that other revolutionaries end up justifying in
their haste to take power.
All the same, anarchists also end up producing vanguards but they are
careful not to call them such, a word they detest. But we have no fig
leaf with which to cover up reality, and if this includes structures
that are the same or similar to those of the authoritarians, it is
pointless to try to conceal the fact simply by using different words.
Is a vanguard necessary then?
There is no simple answer to this. Anarchists have tended to bury their
heads in the sand until now, hoping to solve the problem through the use
of metaphors.
We feel we must take a step forward and risk upsetting those that are
obstinately holding on to their positions like the same old octopus on
the same old rock.
Many have cut the problem short by simply stating that there is a need
for a vanguard. Pushing the underlying ideology — always present in
anarchism — in an authoritarian direction, they pull their sleeves up
and set to work. With the aid of some extremely distilled and refined
theories, they start to build mysterious constructions that are maxims
of control and selection.
Such a position does not differ much from those who, categorically
denying that there is any such thing as a vanguard in anarchism, refuse
to see reality as it is.
This tendency — usually wrapped up in humanistic rhetoric bordering on
nebulous idealism — is the sworn enemy of the former which it accuses of
being the most sinister Leninism camouflaged as anarchism. On the other
hand, the more sharp-witted part of the movement, aware of the
difficulties involved in trying to justify some of the leadership,
replace the term “vanguard” with “active minority” and similar
euphemisms.
However, the problem is not just a question of words. We are not
interested in substituting one term with another and explaining why, but
are trying to get to the root of the problems that such a concept leads
to.
And the question does not change if we call the “thing” a vanguard or an
active minority.
What is this thing then? What is a revolutionary vanguard?
The answer looks simple: it is an organic whole composed of the
individuals that make it up. This organisation tends to cut itself off
from and impose itself upon the revolutionary movement that produced it.
Let us look at this in stages.
There are many ways to justify the need for a specific organisation to
take on certain problems that mass organisations cannot solve.
Obviously, those who make up this organisation must have three
attributes: a) knowledge; b) commitment; c) time. Power establishes
itself on the basis of authoritativeness rather than authority in the
narrow sense of the word. We are talking of revolutionary organisations
in general, but let us not lose sight of those we are particularly
interested in examining, anarchist organisations. It is precisely in the
latter that elements of authoritativeness predominate over authority,
leaving the underlying problem intact: that of the growth and
consolidation of an organisation (therefore of a group of people) that
exerts control over the rest of the movement.
The revolution is eminently an organisational event, so it is no wonder
that a process of organisational superstructuring comes about when base
organisations multiply. This could quite well be limited (at least in
the early stages) by pointing to the questions that such an organisation
should concern itself with and controlling it through a recall of its
delegates. We shall see why such expedients (limitation of tasks and
recall of delegates) constitute very fragile bulwarks, and how these are
often simply used to solve consciences, i.e. as alibis, rather than as
instruments with which to limit power as such.
When the counterrevolution lets loose, this group tends to close in on
itself. Repression and clandestinity have the effect of making it turn
into a militarised group which (suddenly or gradually) loses its
relationship with the old base organisations, the first to succumb to
the repression. At other times the predominant organisational group
splits into a number of separate or coordinated groups that — still
limited in number — carry on the struggle, often drawing in those from
the base organisation who prefer to go into clandestinity. We are
looking at an extreme situation here that reduces the value of the work
done at other times when the counterrevolution leaves the revolutionary
movement relatively in peace. But the problems arising from this
radicalisation are none other than those that already existed, now in a
more rarified, obvious, form.
The conditions leading to the formation of the vanguard are therefore
linked to the development of revolutionary activity itself. An
organisation formed of men and women — the best available — emerges, and
along with it the danger of its beginning to reason independently in
keeping with the logic of all organisations, their main priority
becoming their own survival.
Such a conclusion would seem to implicate the inevitability of a
vanguard, yet, on the contrary, I believe that it is possible to go
beyond a minority logic. However, in order for this to become clear a
number of points need to be considered.
Nothing is possible without organisation. Human life would stop and
everything would fall into chaos. Organisation is indispensable to man
to such an extent that any improvement in the latter, even if carried
out by tyrants, is to be considered something positive. The very idea of
progress would never have come about had organisation not been essential
to man. In this sense, if history is the development of anything it is
the development of something organised.
The power structure is a fairly refined organisation aimed at attaining
ends for the benefit of a minority. The majority are engaged in bringing
about these ends. But we cannot deny that the interests of the minority
also hold certain positive aspects for the majority. The latter would
rebel or die otherwise and the former’s aims would not be reached.
The power structure is full of expedients for obtaining the maximum
whilst giving the minimum. It elaborates these expedients and puts them
into effect, modifying them from time to time in relation to the
struggle carried out by the majority, i.e. the exploited.
The latter, as a result of various — all dramatic — experiences of
struggle, have developed organisations of their own to make the clash
more effective. These have gradually entered the logic of exploitation
and become an integral part of it, coinciding with power’s discovery of
the untenability of absolutism and the idiocy of fascist irrationalism.
This is how democratic power was born, an organisation that continues to
exploit the majority to the benefit of the minority but does so using
the majority’s own organisations of defence.
Moreover, what has made this possible is the fact that the defence
organisations of the majority have nearly always come into effect after
becoming legalised.
But organisational activity should not necessarily be seen as something
that is built from the outside by specialists who make decisions
according to their own aims. This interpretation contains two basic
errors: what we could call the biological error, and the functionalist
one. According to this way of thinking an organisation must structure
itself more or less like an organism (have a head and limbs, therefore a
hierarchy) and fulfil the essential requirements of efficiency and
functionality. If the exploited majority cannot defend themselves
because they are dispersed in single units (like the cells of organic
tissue), we must put these cells together and build a body with a
precious structure (i.e. trades unions and unions in general) suited to
the aims in view, to oppose the bosses in the process of exploitation
and to defend the majority.
The justification for this is the concept that, because the bosses’
structure is monolithic, the defence structure should also be so.
The biological and functionalist analogy also dominated in the field of
political defence, as party structures increased in importance alongside
the decline of absolutist States.
The justification, the monolithicity of the State.
This is all quite pathetic. The great irony of history lies in the fact
that it was power itself to decide the terms of the huge defence
organisations. These terms were produced on an organic and functional
basis, often as the involuntary consequence of certain modifications
within the power structure itself. Clearly an organism of defence is a
product of a particular historical period, and nearly always
consolidates in a precise relationship with the power structure that
conditions it and renders it possible.
An incredible number of comrades maintain that they are revolutionary
yet insist on the validity of using the defence structures of the
exploited. They see the latter as instruments of struggle, unaware of
the intimate relationship of dependency that exists between them and the
structures of power.
But history has contributed to clarifying this question. Each time the
exploited have moved from defence to attack and a revolutionary
mechanism has sprung into effect, other kinds of organisational
structure have arisen.
The problem of the great defence organisations of the exploited is not
the fact that they exist — something that is natural and ineliminable —
but precisely the defensive dimension that they have adopted. That is
why they “copy” the organisations of the adversary and use the same
logic.
On the other hand, organisations of attack do not reproduce the
biological functionalism of the defensive ones. These organisational
forms have no intention of becoming a great monolithic structure, so
allow the process of breaking up to continue. They do not want to
reproduce the model of the adversary by using the same logic. It is true
that organisations of defence can also be mobilised to attack but this
turns out to be a military-style clash that might look revolutionary but
which can have no other outcome than the persistence of the old power or
the birth of a new one, possibly more tyrannical than the first.
Organisations of attack, on the other hand, are born on the basis of a
social logic that takes people’s needs, the level of exploitation and
the extent of radicalisation that the clash has reached into account.
These organisations do not suffer from functionalist illusions. They
cannot be improved upon, they do not hope to “grow”. Neither do they put
themselves in the logic of a “dialogue” with power. They are for the
destruction of all power from the moment they appear, so in their very
logic they are already “complete” in themselves. They can of course
perfect themselves from the point of view of tactics, the preparation of
their individual components or aspects of the military clash. But as far
as the organisational aspect is concerned there is nothing to be
improved upon and vice versa. They are beyond the logic of power. They
are “outlaws”.
Not seeking quantitative growth they have no need for a “head” or
“limbs”. They orientate themselves towards the reality of exploitation,
emerging in their organisational completeness at the moment in which
they attack power. They do not have one function among others, but have
the “definitive function” of destroying power.
It is not important to describe here what forms these organisations of
attack have taken in the history of the exploited (councils, soviets,
committees, etc.), or might take in the near future. Nor are we
interested in discussing an important and immediately obvious
characteristic of these organisations, autonomy.
On the contrary, we feel that it is necessary to reflect upon two
things: a) that these organisations never lose sight of the individual
(that is also an organisation); b) in the destructive moment they become
a model for the construction of the future society.
Now we have acquired a new problem. The single individual is an
organisation, or rather is the fundamental organisation. Here the
confusion concerning an apparent contradiction between individualism and
anarchist communism disappears. While the former sometimes adopts
attitudes that are strangely absurd (the defence of small property, the
will to power, a disdain for communist life, etc.), most of this is no
more than isolated attitudes that have had little contact with the
reality of the struggles of the exploited. A typical case is that of the
humanists who recognise themselves in anarchism but, hindered by their
idealistic interpretation of the vicissitudes of man, end up losing the
essential foundation of the exploiter/exploited relationship. They bring
the attributes of the old God down to earth and turn them into a new
myth, quite similar to the old one that only served the designs of
power.
This kind of individualism is clearly a distortion of the more rational
doctrines of egoism. It denies the concept of organisation and tends to
see man as continually realising himself within an animalistic dimension
of the struggle for life. It sees the communist dimension as the
negation of human development, the sacrifice of the individual to the
good society. It fights for the liberation of the individual outside a
communitarian perspective, avoiding the fundamental premise that the
slavery of one single individual in the world is also my own.
On the contrary, when individualism is seen correctly it starts from the
concept that, although simple and basic from the point of view of social
dynamics, the individual is already a complex organisation. This
organisation can establish precise relationships with other
organisation-individuals and is capable of changing or regulating them.
It can even realise itself in the absolute sacrifice, the conscious
negation of itself — death — when this seems necessary in order to
overturn the exploiter-exploited relationship that renders the
organisation-individual incomplete and unhappy.
Supreme egoism, i.e. autonomy, is the organisational perfectionment of
the individual, a precise relationship that does not infringe upon other
organisation-individuals.
A proper exposition of this problem is extremely important for
anarchism. It leads to a clearer vision of the struggle against
exploitation, even when this comes about in situations that are
confusing or in not quite orthodox organisational forms. When it comes
to defence it should be said that anarchist structures often condemn any
form of struggle that is produced independently of themselves,
considering them to be individualist in the negative sense of the word
and branding them “objectively provocatory”.
For individualism, the essential point is that the individual is an
autonomous organisation that usually reacts against what has been
established by power, often by working out its own precepts, clarifying
itself and taking the initiative. At that moment a precise moral event
sets in motion: the individual, no longer an unconscious instrument in
the hands of power, acquires an autonomous perspective that is of an
essentially organisational character.
The other aspect of the organisational moment we have defined “attack”
is its preparation as the destructive instrument to act upon the reality
of exploitation, and as a model to build from once this relationship is
abolished.
Objective conditions push the great mass of exploited to look for these
organisational models, which are impeded by the power of the adversary.
If the heavy power structure starts to show signs of weakness at some
point, needs and problems must be faced differently. Usually, in
building forms of attack, the mass also build forms to solve the
problems of survival. The latter are very significant because they are
based on communist relations.
The main element of the organisational structuring of defence is
quantitative growth. This has been conditioned by the logic of power.
The greater the numbers, the more an organisation is considered to be
significant, strong, well known, important. In this sense, if the power
structure is the stronger organisation, if it is at its peak and covers
every manifestation of associated life, any organisation that intends to
contrast it and represent the rights of the great majority of exploited
must aim to be as strong as possible.
At first glance such statements seem quite unexceptional. And so they
are if one puts oneself in the logic of power. If we want to defend
ourselves from an evil force we need to oppose it with a good force
i.e., one that is, if not equally strong, at least strong enough to
scare it. But in this way one is putting oneself in the logic of power,
unaware that any significant growth in numbers simply shifts the class
relationship without actually putting the latter in question. It does
not abolish classes.
By channelling revolutionary and reformist organisations towards the
quantitative illusion, power has obtained one great result. It has
equalised the latter at the organisational level, reducing differences
to whoever shouts loudest. And we well know how he that shouts loudest
is often the one most easily disposed to stopping shouting all of a
sudden, or to start shouting for the opposite side.
Revolutionary organisations cannot grow quantitatively. If they do, that
being in the logic of power, the difference between revolutionaries and
reformists becomes no more than a question of semantics, something that
power does not fear.
Of course, quantity does not catch the reformists unaware. Betrayal is
implicit in their discourse and so is their insertion into relations
that are managed by power. Now dominated by the structures of
exploitation, they act out the role assigned to them in the modern
liberal-social setup.
On the other hand, even revolutionaries in good faith fall prey to the
quantitative illusion. That is the point that interests us most, which
we want to go into here.
A revolutionary comrade must be considered to be in good faith until
proved otherwise. Questions of clarification and criticism must never be
at a personal level but must focus on the comrade’s choices and the
consequences that they have on the whole organisation. In this sense the
comrade’s good faith must be put to the test through a decisive action
that gets to the root of things and does not stop at appearances, in
other words through a penetrating action that is not limited to the
field of abstract revolutionary ideology.
The quantitative illusion is very important for authoritarian comrades,
but always within certain limits. They realise that they are starting
off on the wrong foot and that it is not possible to go beyond something
that would merely like to become part of real situations of struggle.
Unfortunately, they often prefer to wait for that to come about (i.e. be
facilitated) by the precipitation of events. They proceed to build
strong organisations that are revolutionary in appearance alone, being
in fact organisations of defence, therefore losers before they start.
Numerical growth in the latter leads comrades to foster this illusion.
It makes them feel strong and secure. So they grow steadfastly in that
direction, which is precisely what power wants: the acceptance of an
innocuous expression of revolution as something that is quantitative and
nothing else, so it is easily pulled back into the logic of the power
system.
The illusion of quantity is absolutely critical for anarchist
organisations, which cannot become useless, sterile and
counterproductive, their growth simply quantitative. Nor would it be
plausible for them to simply wait for events to precipitate. Anarchists
would not be able to act in something that is structured as a defence
organisation, as they would not be willing to transform it into a
pyramidal structure. At a radical point in the struggle when events
precipitate, they would be forced to put their organisation to the test,
dismember it and take it back to the elementary form that it should have
had at the start. Much of the history of anarchism can be seen from this
optic: the failure of the Russian revolution, the authoritarian
involution of the Spanish one.
Many anarchists are now playing the part of Penelope, weaving what they
know they will have to unstitch, precisely at the moment when the aims
they are struggling for come about. Apart from a few marginal efforts,
the present organisational forms of the anarchist movement are no
different from any other organisation that is far from the reality of
the struggle. These organisations must accept the quantitative logic if
they do not want to seem anachronistic (or elitist), even though they
know that such a logic inevitably leads to their denying the basic
principles of anarchism, or to the complete undoing of what they have
just built.
If one holds on to the illusion of quantity, the role of the vanguard
must unavoidably be accepted. Authoritarians have nothing against this.
Anarchists, on the other hand, have a great deal against it.
Unfortunately, this being ‘against’ the vanguard often turns into a
sterile debate, the argument often turning to the difference between
authoritarian structures and libertarian ones. This point deserves to be
gone into further.
At this point we want to go into the concept of the group. Up until now
we have been speaking about organisation, comparing various
organisations that are objectively different but which all borrow the
logic of defence, therefore of power. These organisations are different
in many aspects but share one fundamental one, their capacity to be used
by power. Organisations for economic defence, political defence,
reformist organisations and revolutionary organisations are all the same
— words are meaningless — if they operate in forms that are outside the
struggle.
However, within that uniformity there is a difference between a
structure by groups and a structure by sections or other synonyms that
usually characterise unions and parties. If we look closely we can find
a semblance of reality, still external to the reality of the struggle
but which claims to make a difference. The structure made up of groups
considers itself to be libertarian and accuses the other of being
authoritarian.
Basically, it is easy to make this accusation as it is welcomed by those
responsible for the authoritarian parties and organisations themselves.
In fact, central committees, hierarchies and other similar devices are
not concealed but are justified by a series of discourses on the need
for the leader, representation, a transitional period and other
fantasies that are not worth mentioning here because they are as old as
the hills.
On the other hand, a structure by groups is seen as the basis of every
libertarian organisation. This is correct, but we need to know what kind
of groups we are talking about. Nothing prevents authoritarian
organisations from being based on groups, or the existence of actual
authoritarian groups. In fact the libertarian structure should not be
considered a typical group structure but rather one that is
characterised from within and distinguishes itself from the other kinds.
The authoritarian group has a leader and a hierarchical microstructure.
The leader makes the most important decisions without consulting the
group members, and makes them one at a time in such a way that the
others never know what the next decision will be. This situation of
uncertainty is what makes it possible for the leader’s authority to
become permanent, and from time to time the latter is called upon to set
out tasks for all the others. Nothing prevents vanguardist organisations
from structuring themselves this way. Moreover, this is often quite a
normal state of affairs in situations of clandestinity.
The libertarian group does not have a leader and does not have an
internal hierarchical structure. The distribution of tasks is decided
upon collectively. The line of behaviour is decided by all of the
components of the group and members can choose to carry out one task
rather than another, always with common agreement. The state of
uncertainty that exists in the face of a new event does not paralyse or
traumatize anyone and does not require the intervention of a
“specialist”, in that each individual is already aware of the situation
and is prepared to face it along with all the others.
If we are assuming that only authoritarian groups can constitute a
vanguard, we must look at the conditions that would prevent a
libertarian group from producing one.
Just because the libertarian group does not have a leader does not mean
that it is not capable of producing a vanguard. In itself this simple
fact is not alarming, it becomes serious when the group is operating in
a situation outside the struggle. Let us see why.
Above all, let us see how leaders do emerge within such groups. We have
said that decisions are worked out as openly as possible. Everybody
participates. But not everybody has the same level of preparation. It
therefore transpires that discussions move in the direction of one or
more particular points that correspond to the ideas of those who are
better prepared. In other words, the components of the group start to
divide, not on the basis of their own ideas, which can often be quite
vague or superficial, but on the basis of some interpretative lines
supplied by the better prepared elements. Then there is a passage from
polarisation to concentration, usually because the theses of the leaders
(by now identifiable) reach some agreement, i.e. divergences are blunted
in order to reach unanimity. In extreme cases, where a concentration of
opinion is not possible, a fracture and consequent separation results.
The problem of the formation of a majority and minority, or the
libertarian equivalent of the same, is not relevant here. What concerns
us is that the polarisation of opinions comes about on the basis of
interpretative lines that are supplied by some elements (a minority
within the group) constituted by the leaders. It should be added that
these elements are usually the ones that frequent the group most
assiduously, participate in all the work, engage themselves totally.
That often coincides with a certain level of freedom from other kinds of
work that are necessary in order to live. Without referring to the
extreme case of revolutionary professionalism, we could say that the
leaders of libertarian groups are usually comrades with a certain amount
of time at their disposal, which they dedicate to the life of the group.
The group unavoidably takes on their physiognomy, their cultural and
social characteristics that involuntarily but consistently select
themselves.
The other great problem is that, alongside the existence of leaders, it
is often possible to identify the existence of “problematics” that are
introduced to the group by the same, then submitted to the process of
democratic scrutiny for discussion, etc. In this way the choice of
methods of struggle, the theoretical foundations and various political
positions are dealt with outside the group then, with a typically
paternalistic process, everything is then discussed with all the
comrades. The group thus becomes an objective, abstract entity for the
individuals that make it up, as its relations only enter the reality of
some of them. A formal difference in the style of command within the
group turns out to be even more conditioned than the authoritarian one.
In other words we are faced with an essentially authoritarian structure
that is far more efficient than the authoritarian group itself. The
latter always has the problem of how to overcome individual uncertainty
in the case of having to act in the leader’s absence. The libertarian
group, on the other hand, reaches an envious homogeneity of decision by
acting as we have just seen, although there is little to be envied at
the subjective level.
The worst question they have to face is how to pilot problems instead of
confronting the group with them directly. Now, such a situation is
impossible if the group is acting directly within the struggle when, as
we shall see further on, a whole series of other problematics arise. So,
given that the group is acting in an external organisation, tied as we
have said to the illusory perspective of quantity, it becomes
indispensable for someone within the group to carry out the fundamental
tasks. On the contrary, in the case where the group is acting within
struggles, the function of the leader is quite simply that of
orientation on the grounds of his wider preparation and availability of
time, not that of choosing the problems to be discussed.
This distinction is of the greatest importance. It marks the watershed
between the fictitious movement and the real movement.
horizontal one
A group, in that it is an elemental structure of a wider organisational
reality, would be insignificant if it were to remain isolated from other
groups. It would contain all the defects of an external organisation
without managing to have any effect on a wider range of opinion.
If the group consolidates on the basis of affinity emerging from the
ideas and opinions of some of the leaders, as well as its geographical
situation, which also exerts an influence, that does not mean that it
cannot develop a wider organisational base. It can establish relations
with other groups — those not too far from its own positions — based on
some of the theses put forward by the leaders.
These relations can come about vertically in the case of authoritarian
groups, or horizontally in the case of libertarian ones. It is the
horizontal structure that we are interested in looking at here, as this
is characteristic of anarchist groups.
Various groups federate or keep in contact in one way or another,
supporting each other in the minimum common intention that can be drawn
from a few basic principles and theoretical points worked out in
advance. Even a loose agreement concerning these ideas and principles is
sufficient to guarantee the persistence of the horizontal structure. No
one group predominates over any other, no group claims to carry out the
function of leader, and no group makes a decision concerning the others
without getting in touch with the rest of the federation or informal
union, who then state what they want. They can also use common
instruments such as papers or commissions. These are edited or compiled
by various groups, or by one single group, following a discussion among
delegates, using various procedures (ratification of the group, recall
of delegates, etc.) in order to try to guarantee the structure as far as
possible, keeping it horizontal.
Things are not quite like that in reality. Inevitable processes favour
the formation of a group of leaders that take over the federation or
union of groups, pushing them towards the basic interpretation of the
underlying thesis which, according to them, is the only one that is
valid for all the comrades. This is not reached directly. As we have
seen, each group produces its leaders, usually one or two, maximum
three. Very often their preparation and availability are greater than
that of the others. In this way a true leader emerges. We know how the
retrieval of opinion works, the process of decision-making within
groups. The phenomenon of polarisation is overcome, often in order to
try to give the group uniformity and cohesion but when taken to a wider
level (geographically), these phenomena do not fail to reappear.
It can be instructive to read accounts of debates or reports written by
delegates from individual groups to see what we are talking about. The
polarisation of ideas is quite evident. Usually only the leaders are
present at wider meetings, each one of whom is more “inside” the
problems of their own particular group. More often than not it is they
who have worked out the ideas that the group has ended up attributing to
itself. Hence a great divergence on whatever problem is being faced,
with a strong possibility of never reaching any precise conclusions.
Usually a broad program is established, be it old or new, with
propositions that are general enough for everyone to agree with. Care is
taken to limit the program to general principles, otherwise the internal
contradictions represented by the various interpretations would be
irreconcilable.
Even if the structure remains horizontal, if the revocable delegate
tries to avoid any form of professionalism, if the debate within the
structure is always alive — in fact, the further it finds itself from
the various points of struggle the more virulent it gets — that does not
mean that spontaneous formations acting along the lines of a vanguard do
not appear.
So now we have a series of groups that organise in a structure that is
outside the struggle. By this fact alone they see themselves as the
conscious vanguard of something that is considered to be
unconsciousness, therefore in need of being approached and receiving
clarification. Propaganda and proselytism are important for this
enlightened kind of vanguard. Within the latter, through an inevitable
process of selection, an even more restricted vanguard is formed, a
group of leaders that act starting from certain decisions concerning
basic ideas and the interpretation of individual problems that do not
always come from a wider base but are often elaborated in specific
places, i.e. at meetings of the restricted vanguard.
One thus becomes aware of the extreme apex of an organised whole, that
takes on the task of piloting an instrument for acting on the mass in
one way or another.
As far as the organised structure as a whole is concerned, its reduction
to a vanguard comes about because it is detached from the real struggle
and because it is seen as an instrument by the leaders who want to use
it as such.
At first glance it would seem that such things regard authoritarian
structures rather than libertarian ones, because, as we said they go
against the latter’s aims and intentions. Each and every militant that
enters a libertarian group is making a choice, not just on the basis of
an abstract program but also because he or she wants to live
differently, with a way of working together that is free from that
absurd situation of authoritarian groups where only the leader or
leaders know what is to be done and everyone else waits to take orders.
When it actually comes to it, reality takes charge of changing opinions
one way or another.
Authoritarian groups are finding it more and more difficult to hold on
to the classic centralised structure. Leaders are conceding a certain
freedom of action to their subalterns, even if processes of reification,
i.e. the transformation of the organisational apparatus into a “thing”
are always in act, considerably influencing the behaviour of the
individual militants.
In libertarian groups, as we have seen, the idyllic situation of maximum
freedom of expression is impeded by the lack of preparation and scarce
availability of most of the members. For this reason a certain
decision-making power ends up in the hands of a few leaders.
This situation is the same as the former in appearance alone. In reality
we are looking at two very different forms of degeneration that lead to
different consequences. In the first case, i.e. in the authoritarian
structure, the process of reification is such that individual militants
become so integrated with the organisation that it becomes inconceivable
for them to imagine that the latter could make a mistake. Hence their
failure to question orders from above. The structure must be right,
precisely because of some of its internal, quite irrational,
characteristics. Its reflection as an organised structure cannot be
wrong, in that they live the same life as the organisation. They
personify it in a way, giving it a human semblance. The personality cult
and all its consequences are a logical conclusion of this direction.
In the second case, i.e. in the horizontal, libertarian structure,
methods of discussion, a minimum of decency and various other elements
contribute to preventing a reification of the organisation. Even many
elements of the base who have nothing to say on certain arguments do not
accept the typically authoritarian principle that the organisation is
always right. In this case the leaders’ authority should more correctly
be called authoritativeness, although the use of a different word does
not alter the consequences of the phenomenon.
It should be added that there quite often exists what is know as an
esprit de corps. Militants of a libertarian organisation should be free
from such absurdities. Yet reality shows us how one often becomes a
prisoner of them. The militant at the base of the organised structure
sees the latter in a certain way, that usually coincides with the way
the leader that influences it sees it. By simply accepting this
situation, he cannot see his organisation at the same level as others
do. He sees something better in it, something more fitting to the
principles he vaguely feels are close to his “truth”, which are codified
succinctly for the non-initiated. The leader is even closer to
identifying with the organisation. He feels there is something
definitive in it, feels it is “his” to a much greater degree than the
simple militant does. Whereas for the latter the intermediary of the
leader was necessary, for him the relationship is direct. He feels the
pulsations directly. All this leads to his being extremely indulgent
towards his own organisation and extremely critical of others.
An irrational evaluation of the organisation one belongs to can lead to
strange situations. A great deal of effort is made to expand, perfect
and fortify a structure, without analysing whether it corresponds to the
needs of the struggle that it is supposed to be involved in. All kinds
of excuses are invented to camouflage the priority given to internal
work compared to that beyond the organisation. It is said that it is not
the right moment to do this or that, while it is always the time for the
work of internal growth, in that it is always the moment for waiting and
preparing to defend oneself from the attacks of the exploiters. The
outside is no longer seen as a field of struggle, a specific situation
that can be analysed, or as the necessary condition for preventing
abnormal growth or sterile conformity to past models, but only for
finding new militants. Proselytism is the most important part of the
organisation’s activities. In a few extreme cases the struggle, any
struggle whatsoever, is not carried out on the basis of the positive
consequences that it might determine in the exploited masses, but on the
basis of the propaganda that it might create for the organisation. Hence
a position of stalemate in the relation of the struggle between
exploiter and exploited is reached. If the relation concerns the problem
of abortion, for example, the latter is not faced in terms of how the
problem concerns the mass of exploited, but only in view of an outcome
in quantitative terms, and what the negative consequences of going in
the opposite direction would be for the organisation.
The first sets himself up as a constant point of reference. He gets his
authority from the position he occupies within the authoritarian
structure, a position that has — usually — been gained through total
dedication to the organisation itself, as well as his considerable
competence and preparation. He comes to be considered the interpreter of
the will of the organisation, therefore, indirectly, given that the
latter is considered holder of the truth, he is considered interpreter
and holder of the truth. The irrational relationship at the root of a
militant’s belonging to an authoritarian structure, consolidates itself
in his relationship with the direct head. The indirect leader, the one
who places himself at the top of the pyramid, then comes to be invested
with those charismatic forms that have a very strong irrational content.
Because there is no way to control the validity of his work, apart from
through the action of the intermediate leaders, the supreme head becomes
more a symbol than anything else, a symbol dispenser of charisma, i.e.
the truth.
Here it is necessary to point out the great difference that there is
between this situation and the counterrevolutionary authoritarian
structure. This is a delicate question. Objectively speaking an
authoritarian structure is always counterrevolutionary, because it
always tries to put obstacles in the way of ultimate liberation. But it
should be distinguished from the structures deliberately created by the
bosses to reach their aims. In this sense, let’s say, a fascist
organisational structure gives rise to certain hierarchical relations
that are flights from freedom, each single component grasps the charisma
of the head because he is scared of the freedom that he could find
elsewhere, because he has that special petit bourgeois vision of life
that makes him take refuge and comfort in the fixed structures of
authoritarianism. For the fascist, the acceptation of the authoritarian
structure is not a concession, it is a point of stability: his interior
conflict, typically existential, is resolved in the total and definitive
delegation, in the flight. The other possibility, that he vaguely sees,
the possibility of living free, scares him because the schema of
tradition, family, honour, homeland, and other such rubbish, suffocate
him, making him see freedom as chaos without rules, in which old the old
ghosts, that he has always run away from, equality in the first place,
would end up multiplying.
The authoritarian comrade is a comrade who intends to consciously make
the choice of freedom. He is not afraid, in fact all of his action is
aimed at breaking with the past, with tradition. Acceptance of the
authoritarian structure is the lesser of two evils for the militant who
naively convinces himself that nothing lasting can be obtained without
sacrifice. For this reason he is ready for the extreme sacrifice, the
sacrifice of his own freedom. Herein lies the tragedy. A person
struggling for freedom ends up sacrificing the latter in the illusion
that he is continuing to struggle for it. Even the acceptance of
charisma is always a mediated fact that involves a process of
“snobbery”, self-importance, little moral blackmails with oneself. He
usually starts off seeing the leader as a “comrade”, accepting him as
one who is more prepared and more aware. He would never admit to a
direct charismatic process. Then, as he is gradually absorbed into the
authoritarian structure he realises that any possibility of control from
the base is minimal. Next there is his accusation of superficial
snobbery. He finally ends up taking orders and sacrificing himself to
the structure itself which, as an indissoluble whole, he identifies with
freedom and truth.
Now let us look at the situation of the libertarian leader. He should
not become a point of reference. If he is, that has happened against his
will, as a direct consequence of his having more free time and due to
his greater involvement and preparation. As far as he is concerned, one
could speak of authoritativeness rather than authority. He cannot be
accused of interpreting the will of the organisation as the latter is
composed of the wills of all the members. Finally, as the organisation
itself is not considered the depository of truth, the leader towards
whom some militants turn in no way interprets or spreads the truth.
In actual fact, considerable modifications do occur within this schema.
The leader does end up becoming a point of reference, otherwise the
diversity of opinions within the structure would be enormous and make it
almost impossible to reach any decision. This organisation also ends up
being seen by militants in a deformed, irrational way as “their
organisation” due to the simple fact that they chose it as the
organisation which, although not carrier of the truth, is almost
certainly the one that gets closer to that than any other. Consequently,
even if the leader is not the interpreter or holder of truth he can in a
sense be considered something similar, a comrade to have faith in, so
much so as to accept his conclusions even if one does not fully grasp
them. All this comes about in the hope that we too will manage to see
clearly in the future in order to put the comrade, who for the time
being serves as a point of reference, into a proper critical dimension.
This awaiting better moments when we will all have time, when our
preparation is more accurate and detailed, also conceals renunciation
and accommodation. It conceals the acceptance of a situation that it is
very difficult to alter, which we are not really interested in going
into as such.
Then there is the question of the relationship between leaders. Another
delicate problem. If the clash between authoritarian leaders is taken
for granted as a result of the ranks that are built within the vertical
structure, one should not be able to say the same thing about
libertarian leaders. They also have clashes of opinion, find themselves
opposing those who diverge from their own point of view, have to
overcome organisational obstacles caused by the different tendencies,
but the means that they have recourse to should be different.
On the contrary, one often sees that the means employed are not so
different at all. The libertarian leader cannot let predominance over
the tendency he represents escape him, without risking the very negation
of the tendency and a distortion of the relationship with the part of
the base that he represents. There might be a hint of a relationship of
exchange, or reciprocal influence, between base and leader within the
wider organised structure. That does not alter the fact that the precise
interest of the leader, even a libertarian one, emerges to seal this
relationship, protecting it from the influence of other tendencies that
might threaten the clarity of his own position.
Hence the clash with other leaders. An idea of the intensity of the
clash is given by the rush for commissions and tasks to be carried out
within the organisation. Nothing changes because these commissions are
unpaid and produce a considerable burden of work and fatigue: they are
recompensed by influence and solidity. One could say that the more
widely a leader’s activity is developed within the organisation, the
clearer and less attackable his point of reference becomes.
One should not generalise however. In the libertarian organisational
structure, the formation of militants makes it possible for there to be
a constant exchange of ideas in circulation that ends up emarginating
tendencies that become crystallized. Then the comrade or comrades who
identify with that crystallized tendency, even when they keep in touch
with certain instruments such as papers, reviews, commissions and other
things, still end up creating a vacuum around themselves.
The libertarian organisation, even the one farthest from the struggle,
cannot fail to face the problem of aims and methods. And the discussion
of methods ends up creating relationships within the organisation that
render possible a debate which, although sterile at times, often leads
to unexpected results in other organisations.
It should be added that comrades in the libertarian organisation are
there by their own free choice. Generally speaking, belonging to a
libertarian organisation, even those with quite unclear perspectives,
involves risk, sacrifice, awareness of these risks and sacrifices and a
fairly clear evaluation of the reasons that determined such a choice. At
any level whatsoever, anarchist militants are indisputably militants who
can make decisions and question any doubts about positions or tendencies
that are not quite tenable (at least in their opinion). This fact, which
often gives rise to arguments, endless discussions, splits and conflict
between tendencies and has been considered the weak point of anarchism,
is actually one of its points of strength and vitality. Obtuse
uniformity would kill any lively tendency in favour of the grey will of
the winning side.
militant
Anarchist methodology vaguely gives us a model of a certain kind of
militant. More often than not this indication is not gained from the
reality of intervention in struggle, but from an idealisation of the
latter.
Moreover, it is possible to see the evolution of this model throughout
the history of the libertarian movement and the profound transformations
that have taken place from 1968 onwards.
The definition has precise characteristics: a coherent choice of means
for reaching the aims of justice, equality and freedom; intervention in
the quick of social struggles; refusal to prioritize the economic factor
in the evolving of the exploited/exploiter conflict; the elevation of a
liberatory culture to oppose the bourgeois culture of repression;
optimism; faith in man and his innate gifts; an a priori refusal of
doctrines; use of the empirical method “try and try again”; specific
solicitations on the social conflict in act with means of every kind
(insurrectional-violent or pacifist-educational).
This framework is not complete but it gives the rough contours of a
perspective that cannot be brought about in practice. Offspring of
social contradictions and the social struggle, anarchist militants are
not only products of their time, they would be insignificant automata if
they were to base their action on abstract principles without relating
them to the requirements of their intervention in reality.
It should not be forgotten that one of the most important points of
anarchism is precisely its ethical preoccupation, and this would
disappear if one were to try to obliterate the contradictory vitality of
the individual in favour of an idealism detached from history and its
events. If the strong point of anarchism is its methodology, great
freedom of action is possible within that framework. In fact, if one
were to dictate the main rules of anarchism in Ten Commandments,
throwing out anyone that failed to manifest the intention to follow them
scrupulously down to the last detail, and there was an accentuation of
internal norms and elaborate codes intended to confuse ideas or create
conflict, one would end up with a minority of revolutionaries with very
limited choices. This character model is marked by a net subordination
of one’s own happiness, interests and need for a private life to the
aims of the organisation and the revolution. By making the model of
reference rigid, people become rigid, personality falls into second
place. The abstract ideals of justice, equality and freedom come to be
considered important enough to justify self-oblivion, the nullification
of any stimulus towards the different (which ends up being considered
bourgeois, so is condemned).
Once they have conformed to the basic rigid model these comrades would
no doubt be disposed to make any sacrifice imaginable for the ideal,
even their own lives, but they would be throwing the cold veil of
separation between themselves, the ideal (now “their ideal”) and other
comrades, i.e., they would come to deny the unitarian and collective
process that the elaboration of the revolutionary model implies. Their
aim would be to apply in the sphere of reality the model that they had
crystallized in the sphere of analysis, without taking account of any
possible individual or group differences. Phenomena such as the birth of
a so-called “objective consciousness” would surface, leading to
suspicion, intolerance, exclusivity.
We are looking at this extreme situation here simply to point out the
dangers of a crystallisation of a model of anarchist intervention. In
reality, such a model must, in our opinion, result from constant
elaboration, verification and modification by all comrades, always
within the basic methodological perspective, which is that of the
correct choice of means for reaching the aims of justice, equality and
freedom.
Specific historical transformation has produced different kinds of
militants. There can be no doubt that the character of the French
comrades engaged in the struggle against the reaction up until 1890
differed greatly from those of the anarcho-syndicalist comrades who
later tried to address the struggle towards claiming better conditions,
convinced that that was still within a revolutionary perspective. Just
as there can be no doubt that profound differences existed between the
Spanish comrades of the FAI and the Italian comrades of similar
organisations. The same goes for the German comrades that went to work
in America and those who stayed at home, for the English comrades in
London and the Scottish ones, etc. The ‘model’ proposed by Ravachol is
not the same as that proposed by Henry, nor is it the same as that which
Bonnot was to propose. While basically remaining within the realm of
illegality, profoundly different characteristics emerge, leading to
differences in analyses and tendencies.
It is also possible to see differences at the level of language. The
language of anarchist writings from 1880 to 1895 in France is different
from that between 1895 and 1914. Galleani’s style differs from
Malatesta’s but is very similar to that of Cipriani and Ciancabilla.
The variety and flourishing of models since 1968 is even greater.
The development of cultural analysis, the widening of revolutionary
reading, the French phenomenon of May, a faster circulation of ideas,
the breakdown in traditional university structures, the crisis of the
most sacred values of the bourgeois world (science, projectuality,
salubrity, integrity), have all produced rapid changes. Anyone that
fails to adapt to the new era ends up being out of date and inefficient.
The persistence of old schema, even by very valid comrades, is the sign
of a difficulty in making the model pliable, but one goes ahead in any
case and new lines of intervention are developed. Amidst contrasts and
colossal blunders, amidst intuition and attempts at internal repression,
a profound cultural modification of the world anarchist movement comes
about. Hence the emergence of a new kind of militant that is still in
formation, one that flees rhetoric like the plague and only focuses on a
few points, but does so clearly.
The new anarchist militant places himself or herself in the libertarian
tradition but at the same time they try with all their might to sift
through the cultural contribution of the revolutionary left, as well as
cultural models of the bourgeoisie. This has opened up many
contradictions from which deep theoretical splits have arisen, but these
are very positive, breaking the circle of a cultural closure that had
ended up with outdated analytical models. Basically, if one were to draw
up a short inventory of the theoretical baggage of the anarchism of the
’fifties, especially in Italy, one would have to admit that some of the
old models (revolutionary syndicalism, Malatestian critique, Gorian
humanism, late-Bakuninist collectivism, Kropotkinian determinism) have
become acritical rhetoric. Also models that are more directly influenced
by action such as the ethical and strategic evaluation of armed
struggle, have been influenced by this cultural atrophy. The actions of
Sabate and Facerias were isolated acritically, often praised, often
condemned, without the message they contain being able to emerge in the
form of a concrete proposal to comrades beyond a mythisisation of armed
action for the sake of it.
If we were to look at some of the examples that were fossilized by this
cultural atrophying, we would have to point to the Sorel of the myth of
the general strike (behind revolutionary syndicalism), the Malatesta of
the final years (influenced by Gori’s humanism), the Kropotkin of Ethics
and Modern Science and Anarchy (as well as a little of Mutual Aid). That
would imply a direct intervention in the reality that is trying to
revive syndical models, now decidedly oriented in a reformist and
authoritarian direction, a logic of waiting and naturalist and
determinist ethical discourses.
Revolutionary culture’s sudden break (also the authoritarian strain)
with certain schema of the past (for example the sudden refusal of
Crocian historicism and the immediate — acritical — acceptance of
Marxism), produced considerable reflexes, also within the anarchist
movement that was debating themes and facing problems that had
previously been hidden under the ashes of badly digested rhetoric.
It is the ethical question that interests us here. Not that of text
books but of the relationship with life, the question facing all
militants that find themselves traumatically living the experience of
being an anarchist in a society of exploiters and parvenus, exploited
and acquiescent. And when anarchists refuse the bourgeois model at the
same time as they refuse the authoritarian-collectivist model of the
Marxists and Stalinists, they end up facing the problem of a socialised
personality in a personalised society, a development of total
self-management of the person in a society that does not crush man but
exalts him and offers the possibility of living a coherent life.
So the project of a militant that does not hide difficulties from
himself, does not have recourse to a huge apparatus of phrases and
commonplaces, in fact is almost afraid to use slogans and uniform
speech, forcing himself to work for the satisfaction of the global needs
of society as well as that of individuals and groups. It is the problem
of participation, of opening out and relating to others, refusing the
party apparatus, refusing the bourgeois ideology of civic consciousness.
The debate has moved away from the clash between individual and
organisation, the rights of the individual and those of the specific
organisation (of the revolutionary syndicalist or simply revolutionary
kind). It now concerns the autonomy of the militant’s personality in a
dimension of collective responsibility, within the process of the growth
of social revolutionary consciousness that cannot be left to itself.
As the dominant ideology conformed to economic progress (between the
’fifties and ’sixties) an anticonformism that attempted to rethink some
of the traditional models of political struggle appeared. Then, with the
modifications in the very structure of power, the economic reflux and
the entrance of the reformist forces of the Left into the dominant
class, anticonformism becomes more responsible: quality of life opposes
itself to the quantitative reduction in the class conflict. The stimulus
of the individual, the ethical stimulus, is added to the material one
with its partial analysis of a counterpower that had come to be
conditioned by a certain culture of power (political science and its
negation): politics starts living a new process of opening out.
This profound renewal is also part of a global crisis in the values of
late capitalist society. It cannot be said with precision whether the
fall of consumerist structures are a cause or effect of this crisis that
has lead a great number of people to suspend their judgement and open up
a kind of “parenthesis”, a life that refuses what is offered by capital.
In this world, which at the same time is out of this world, this
“parenthesis” is no longer restricted to an elite but is a mass
phenomenon that is too great to be ignored.
Today the anarchist is also conditioned by all this. It is all very well
to say that anarchists are not “perfect”, they are not “strange” beings
from another planet, possessors of truth capable of finding the right
answers and methods for intervening in any situation. Just as they are
not the monsters of violence and terror that a certain press in the
service of the bosses portrays them as. Nevertheless, they are not
“revealers” of truth. And it is precisely for this reason that we can
attempt, for the first time as far as we know, to outline the character
of the anarchist militant of the past few years, at least within the
limits of experiences in European countries where the movement has some
significance today: Italy, France, Spain (Spanish emigration), Germany,
England. If we were to consider anarchism a well-defined, crystallized
doctrine, we would have to conclude that anarchists are born such and
that anyone that “feels” for anarchy is either enrolled in some
anarchist federation and shouts “Long live Bakunin”, or reads no books
at all and swears on the negativity of culture.
On the contrary, if we see anarchism as the theoretical and practical
experience that emerges with a precise methodology in social struggles
at certain times, we see anarchist militants as men and women of their
time who are influenced by prevailing ideas — and the specific methods
of anarchism — , and are involved in struggles against the class in
power. The more the era is rich in contradictions, the more the crisis
in the power structure becomes evident and the more the instruments that
once belonged exclusively to the revolutionary forces come to be used by
power for the repression. The more confusing reality becomes, the more
anarchist methods become a relevant perspective. This is not absolute or
taken for granted, we need to verify things so that the struggle against
power can be organised correctly rather than resurge from the
revolutionary cinders of the past.
So, anarchists are also people that live the contradictions of their
time. Their character cannot escape the consequences. Their personality
will end up hosting a crucial conflict between the ascetic aspect of the
revolutionary: abnegation, agreement, and the ethical aspect of the
individual that opens up to autonomy and the organisation of society in
the egalitarian sense, seeing the limits and the need for progressive
approximation. It is much easier to intervene in reality and change it,
however limited the action might be, than to intervene in reality,
change it and in so doing, change oneself.
If more space is given to the first aspect of the conflict, we will have
one kind of intervention in reality, that leading to the formation of a
vanguard. In the second hypothesis we would see a growth in the
anarchist movement directly, in the reality of the struggle, with the
possible constitution of specific organisations that are expressions of
this reality in struggles where it would be difficult for them to become
vanguards.
This seems to us to be the most important problem that needs to be
faced. It is a complex problem, as the passage from the dimension of the
individual to the collective one is not just marked by the
organisational forms but also by the aims that the organisation gives
itself, those of the people that make it up, etc. If the tendency we
have defined “ascetic” can lead to the formation of a vanguard due to a
rationalisation of the conflict, the tendency which, with equal caution,
we have defined “ethical” can make the same mistake due to an
abstraction of the conflict as a result of the quantitative illusion.
We should say right away that in making a distinction between the
“ascetic” tendency and the “ethical” one we are not implying that the
moral aspect is absent from the former. This is a fundamental aspect of
anarchist methodology (as we have said): the choice of means we use
irremediably affects the ends we reach.
This said, it should be added that the problem of violence cannot be
solved by discriminating between the two tendencies. A comparison such
as “ascetic” = violence, “ethic” = nonviolence does not make sense.
Always on the basis of the anarchist principle that refuses that “the
end justifies the means”, violence can legitimately be used for
liberation without being seen as ambiguous moral relativism.
It goes without saying that in the clash with power, in the revolution,
one is often forced to make choices between the greater or lesser evil.
Debit and credit exists, even in ethics. But the contingent factors that
explain some mistakes must never be raised to a moral justification of
anarchist action.
Reality, with all its nuances, complications and contradictions, is
reflected in the contradictory personality of man, and consequently also
in the anarchist. So we can see that anarchist methodology is nourished
and modified by analyses that use various instruments, from the
intuition of individuals who decide to carry out a single action, to an
organisation that acts upon the reality around it.
But the anarchist, employing his or her methodology with exactitude and
recognising the contradictory aspects, causes modifications in reality
that are both cause and the effect of the resulting contradictions.
All the same, it is not easy to see where reality ends and appearances
begin in the conflict. It is not easy to separate men from their
ideologies, and this can lead to an attempt to isolate certain levels of
intervention by separating them from the ideological processes that
cover them. We often hear serenades to “doing” which, in the best
hypothesis, are naive romanticism. “Doing” cannot be autonomous, i.e. it
cannot justify itself alone.
To turn means into an end in themselves would correspond to the ascetic
excess of the revolutionary, and if this is also quite a rational
phenomenon (in the framework of the destructive process), as it cuts the
conflict between total and partial in too net a fashion. It denies the
latter, affirming the former, but camouflages both poles of the clash
thus making the distinction problematical. This is the extreme case of
an armed minority that have been radicalised by certain processes in the
clash that are imputable to their strategy (on the one hand), but also
and perhaps primarily to the decisions of power. Real motivations,
specific tendencies between individuals and social groups are
disregarded in favour of an acritical exaltation of the clash, the value
of the armed “deed”, attack and univocity of will. The militant is
deformed by objective consequences and as this is happening he thinks
that he is in charge of the situation. He becomes a professional,
enclosing the outside world into the asphyxiating framework of the
frontal clash, and from this perspective claims to judge the rest of
reality. Once again ideological alienation (always present), reflects
fundamental alienation. Then, in concrete, the requirements of the clash
itself necessitates these operative reductions. It reenters the logic of
the division of labour, one that it cannot escape as it is not possible
to flee such a dimension in the absence of a decisively revolutionary
and globalising act of rupture. That does not alter the fact that
radicalisation exists and is logically founded, we were about to say
“necessary”, just as it does not alter the fact that this should be
supported when there are cops and all their variety of accomplices on
the other side of the barricade. But that cannot deny us the right to
reflect and criticise. And the restrictive dimension, the dimension
which in restriction wants totality, that is, that can (theoretically)
aspire to totality precisely because it has reduced the world and all
its deeds to a pocket dimension, should be criticised. The vanguard that
comes out of this is as ambitious as ever. The greater the risks run to
procure means, the easier it is for them to become an end in themselves.
In this way the vanguard moves in the direction of becoming independent
of its own aims, even to the point of replacing them.
One obstacle to revolution is the fact that in coming up against reality
the vanguard, rather than consider itself a means, ends up preferring
its own aims. These in no way conform to the general aims of the
revolution, i.e. the definitive liberation of man.
We must distinguish between the model of the vanguard that we are
looking at here and the classical one suggested by Marxism. For
Marxists, the vanguard acts as mediator between the immediate and the
historical interests of the working class. The paradox is that this
vanguard must interpret the interests of the class whose conditions of
development it must create. For the ascetic kind of revolutionary
vanguard the problem of “mediation” does not exist, only that of
“action”. Only once the clash has evolved due to the reaction of power
is it possible to speak of a real coagulation of vanguardist forms, with
all the ensuing consequences (transformation into a military wing,
professional deformation, etc.).
Yet, in our opinion, this is not the most delicate point of the conflict
between totality and part. Far more radical is the underlying problem,
the conflict within the militant as an individual.
The clash between totality and part is consistently present for the
militant engaged in the struggle and, in the long run, this marks his
character profoundly. It deforms his vision of life to the point of, at
times — in the face of great delusions — making him refuse to accept
reality. We see the extent of the problem in the anguished cry of
Cafiero or in the painful writings of Coeurderoy.
The revolution is a globalising concept of human involvement. It is
totality. It does not allow joint ownership, cohabitation or compromise.
The anarchist struggle is the supreme recognition of the principle of
realisable totality whilst safeguarding the value of the individual, an
addition of great complexity in that it refuses to see revolutionary
means as ends in themselves. In this case totality becomes crystal
clear, dazzling. Everything goes towards it, one’s self, one’s family,
one’s affections, one’s habits, one’s hopes.
But all that (which no matter how grand it might sound to the individual
is still very small) soon burns out in the immense furnace of
revolutionary totality. And so one wants to act quickly to speed up a
process that takes its own time and goes at its own pace. We begin to
feel it weighing on us as though we had to carry it upon our shoulders.
Then we are forced to stand before the inexorable tribunal of the part.
To measure growth, estimate distances, consider relations, indicate
perspectives. We start to pay more attention to the pace of events. We
start to save ourselves, preparing for the long road ahead. We would
like it to go on for ever, our revolution, but we realise that we cannot
imprison totality within the limits of our desires, and we end up giving
in to care and strategy. We note that we are not alone, that facing us
and our project of liberation are the masses (who are not necessarily
ready to free themselves) and power. In full evidence and revolutionary
mystery, there before us stands a contradictory but constant
relationship between totality and part, dream and reality, ideal and
strategic project.
Some, enclosing totality inside a more restricted dimension, asceticise
their intervention. They wrap themselves up in a microcosm that they
recognise as such, which they intend to take to infinity, perfecting it,
claiming that it is capable of reproducing all the conditions of
revolutionary totality on a reduced scale. Through this reduction they
are trying to propose a “model”, give an example, a point of reference
so that many other “little” totalities will be formed, all together
capable of forming such a vast totality as to get close to the final
one. In one way or another this decision leads to the vanguard closing
in on itself. Through the activity of criminalisation, power will do the
rest.
Others, fully accepting the concept of partiality, dispose themselves
favourably to long periods of time, i.e. quantitative measurement. For
these comrades, basic doing turns into basic thinking. The relationship
with the mass becomes educational and moves into the particular, the
specific. The link with the totality that was made on the basis of a
more or less globalising analysis becomes purely theoretical. In this
way the quantitative degeneration of the ethical tendency is born, just
as in the preceding case there was a qualitative degeneration of the
ascetic tendency. Although different (the first open, the second
closed), these positions are both open to criticism.
“Revolutionary alienation” is the awareness of the contrast between
totality and part. It is disgust for the latter united with the
possibility of the former, leading to a form of extraneation that is
experienced as extreme discomfort in the face of the transformation of
the system.
In a way we are faced with a phenomenon similar to so-called “unhappy
consciousness” resulting from an inadequate reaction to one’s class
situation. Only, while unhappy consciousness is above all a sense of
discomfort before a class dislocation that one ends up feeling estranged
to, revolutionary alienation is the final breaking point in the process.
It is the awareness of not being able to realise totality, of losing
something in an effort towards totality, which we feel is the only
possible road to revolution.
We turn to a profound critique of the “human” significance of the
revolutionary being because one feels oneself to be a “thing”. This
process of reification comes about in the clash between the persistence
of partiality and the continual return of the need for totality.
This is not the “crisis” of the bourgeois who crumbles because of the
saturation of a life-style that has deliberately been built for him with
fabricated needs and stimuli studied in the laboratories of power. It is
not the crisis of consumerist well-being, boredom and remote-controlled
action, a constant repetition of programmed change.
It is not the suspension of involvement or judgement, a taking refuge in
an aristocratic dimension of reflection, or the power of the intellect
regulating the universe of one’s thoughts and illuding oneself that one
is regulating the world. It is not a cutting off from the things of
reality in order to go in search of the perfect utopian society, through
numbers, verses or the preferred Icaria.
It is not a “piloted” upheaval in a reality that is held suspended with
the help of some vehicle or other (drugs or whatever), that can
correspond to, or actually be, the effect of the mass product, following
fashion or a scale of values that the system itself can no longer
uphold.
It is not alienation in the Marxist sense of the term, the loss of
something that belongs to us, in the first place the social product,
because it is through the product of our work alone that we recognise
ourselves as human beings. It is not, that is, the alienation of the
worker that reacts in a certain way before the forced perspective that
the system of production is offering him.
The alienation we are talking about here is a lack of something, (a
process of generic alienation) but is also a lack of oneself, the self
that identifies with revolutionary totality. It is precisely this
perspective (totality) that provides an outlet from the general form of
alienation without, moreover, managing to completely avoid the danger of
alienation reemerging through the frustration of the need for
revolutionary totality.
When the alienated worker recognises his alienation, he becomes
conscious of it and overcomes it. In this way he enters the
revolutionary perspective. This can fall upon him like a ton of bricks
if he is not able to fulfil what the absence of primitive alienation
forces upon him: complete liberation and the realisation of
revolutionary totality. In this way, the very perspective of liberation
risks turning into a further form of alienation, that of lack of
totality.
This situation is far more serious for anarchist revolutionaries. Having
neither the charisma of the leader or the organisation, they have
nothing to hold on to. Assessment of their own work is of little help;
with one simple reflection they can put it into second place in the
perspective of revolutionary totality. If they try to see something
wrong with their situation, thus convincing themselves that a small
enclosed portion of reality is the microcosm that produces totality,
they transform themselves into a vanguardist mechanism and reify
alienation to the point of not being able see it any more, just as
happened in the phase of primitive alienation before the awakening of
consciousness. They thus reify their own alienation, accepting the
solution of partiality (analyses and long periods of intervention).
The fact is that revolutionary alienation is not simply a relationship
that is lacking in something (totality), it is also consciousness of
this lack. In other words, it is not just the recognition that something
is missing, it is also a recognition of not being able to do without
what the latter.
Do all anarchists engaged in the revolutionary struggle reach this
conclusion? There is no simple answer to that.
One thing that is certain is that if anarchism is the refusal of
authority, it is also a critical reflection on the basic conditions of
life and all the ensuing contradictions. In a sense, one of the
characteristics of anarchists is that they go into these contradictions
as it would be strange for authoritarian revolutionaries to gain
consciousness of this alienation through the tight mesh of the party
structure that they find themselves operating in. But if this alienation
is a consequence of a critical examination of reality, it should not be
considered something negative but rather a necessary step, a difficult
stage that needs to be overcome. To sum up, it is not the antechamber of
revolutionary engagement, but is the result of it, the consequence of
it. It is not even the ultimate solution, the final wall from which to
recede and commit suicide, but the passage to a further phase of the
deepening of one’s knowledge and gaining maturity.
Before going any further it is necessary to look at the conditions of
this particular kind of alienation.
The process starts from the absolute value given to the individual. Any
proposal to sacrifice the latter to revolutionary strategy, or even to
revolutionary totality, is rejected. The engagement can be total, can go
as far as complete dedication and death, but can never reach the
annulling of the individual. Anarchists who die for the revolution do
not reject the value of the individual, on the contrary they take the
latter to the maximum degree, as the sacrifice that leads to a society
where sacrifice will be impossible, a freed society. In all their
opening towards the struggle, in all the collective action that they
feel and make their own, they never lose the individual dimension.
Alienation comes to them when they realise that only by accepting a
worse form of alienation (the primitive kind or that of centralised
power) will they be able to escape the danger of seeing the project of
the liberation of the individual disappear. In actual fact, the
individual at least manages to partially realise himself under the
conditions of primitive alienation, albeit in a deformed (alienated)
way. But anarchists want the complete realisation of the individual and
want this in the social perspective of total liberation. They find
themselves in a serious crisis that comes from the contrast between
individual and totality. Entering a partial dimension would heal many
aspects of this crisis but would reproduce another alienated form, the
vanguard.
Alienation only becomes a crucial factor when one is aware that one is
alienated. And this is an effect of the individual’s will, of moving in
a situation of stalemate with no way forward leading to a consideration
of the other possibility, the conscious refusal of totality as the
immediate aim. The greater this awareness, the more the individual will
open up to other possibilities.
But simple awareness, recognising that one is in a state of “crisis”
could push the individual to sacrifice everything in order to come
through the latter in the shortest possible time. Intolerance of a
situation of uncertainty can push someone that is accustomed to
radicalising their action to extreme solutions. If totality leads to
“crisis”, if it is this aim that spoils the revolutionary project by
upsetting the destructive order that one imagined was deterministically
progressive, we must cut off this pole of contrast. In order to do so it
becomes necessary to undervalue it, accuse it of being utopian, a
fantasy, unfounded, deforming, petit bourgeois. The ultimate accusation
is precisely this last one. Anything that annoys us becomes a product of
bourgeois ideology and its shop-keeping accountancy. A product of
commodities and their reification.
However, by acting in this way one realises that one is losing a lot.
For a time one is convinced that one has solved the problem, then it
reappears. The perspective of revolutionary totality is what contained
the quality of the revolution, its liberatory essence. Quality is the
only thing that can give us the feeling of the totality of liberation at
any moment when we are acting progressively. Only quality can make us
live the final moment that we will never see, but which we must
nevertheless feel present, like a reflex that allows us to know where we
are. And this quality is often fantastic, utopian. It is very difficult
for it to relate with quantification. By struggling for revolutionary
totality we grasp the quality of the revolution and relive it in our
actions, in the small things that begin to acquire a progressive sense
of liberation. But all that also brings us alienation, discomfort,
suffering.
When we suffer, we remember the things of the past with a sense of loss.
This could be seen as nostalgia for primitive alienation. The world of
reification can be a nice little port in the storm and, with this going
backwards the suffering goes full circle. In horror we realise that
alienation consists of not wanting to be something one could be but is
in itself meaningless, and not being able to be something one would like
to be, that means everything.
Make no mistake, we are not looking for a detailed revision of
individualism, personalism or voluntaristic rationalism here. Certainly
what we know of the vicissitudes of the person (the transformation of
the mask) is not worth mentioning and is the fruit of bourgeois
irrationalism (existentialism, phenomenology, etc.). Much more would be
necessary, and it is not possible to go into that here. It is important
to understand that we are concerned with the relationship
individual/collectivity. Painful contradictions emerge in anarchist
militants not because they are individuals, but because they are
individuals who recognise their own value and that of the mass as two
values that are in opposition to each other but which cannot be
substituted the one for the other.
If revolutionary tension comes from the fact that the revolution is a
totalizing project, a project that revokes the quality of life and
claims to transform the latter completely, particular contradictions
arise from the need for the individual anarchist to establish a correct
relationship with the mass in order to avoid carrying out one single
aspect of their decision alone.
The revolutionary encompasses the totality of the life of the
individual. Hence the possibility of the realisation of the totality of
the revolution (therefore also the totality of life) that is reflected
in quality. But revolutionary decision is not something abstract. It is
not a “possibility” or a “necessity” according to the perspective of
whoever brings it about. It is real, it leads to profound changes in the
individual and in this sense is “necessary”. But in order to be such it
must go beyond “possibility”, i.e. must be realised. If the latter is
not realised, even through constant engagement, it will never become a
necessity. Herein lies the drama: it is the struggle that leads to going
from approximation to this necessary aspect of revolutionary decision,
leading to all the alienating consequences.
But possibility and necessity do not go hand in hand. Possibility draws
in personal involvement and can even reach necessity, but only as a move
towards something, as the singling out of an objective. Necessity as
such, as the conscious place of the profound modification of the quality
of life, comes from the mass, from what the mass produce. In a word,
necessity comes from the masses’ self-organisation.
One can wrap oneself up in the plots of revolutionary possibility to
infinity. One can dream of insurrectional clashes or fantasize about
long-term educational projects to the point of exhaustion, even to the
point of insufferance and annoyance. Not for this does one reach the
dimension where possibility becomes necessity, i.e. the recognition of
the need for this resolution, the acceptance of the only valid road,
that of going towards the self-organisation of the mass.
When we catch a glimpse of this perspective, the myriad of
possibilities, the very possibility of a probable solution of an
approaching totality, become unbearable for us. Time is required to
realise this possibility, and that is what we lack. We want to run. We
want the totality we caught a glimpse of to materialise. We want the
waiting to become reality. This situation has no outlet in the current
aspect of suffering. It is an intimate laceration, a contradiction that
— when you think about it — is the reflex of the class factor, with even
greater awareness, more suffering. And, because the process of awareness
is one-way, the suffering of class laceration cannot be eliminated.
Let us examine the other form of alienation for a moment, the
better-known one. This is an objective fact, i.e. the result of being
deprived of something (the social product of one’s work). With the
awakening of consciousness (increased awareness) one also gains an
awareness of alienation. The mechanism for correcting the situation of
suffering, so-called class consciousness, would not make sense or would
be a mere objective fact, if it did not include the possibilities that
this creates. Religious residuals act at this level, pushing this class
consciousness towards the search for mediated solutions such as looking
for a guide. That obviously cannot be seen as a correction of the
situation of suffering, but merely its “repression”.
Other difficulties arise at different level of awareness. The refusal of
the guide in some way corresponds to the refusal of the father. The
self-organisation of the struggle necessitates the a priori refusal to
discharge the responsibility of struggles on to someone or something. It
is always the level of awareness that is growing.
The development of this awareness in the individual leads to what we
have called revolutionary alienation under the conditions examined
above. The developing of the self-organisation of struggles determines a
transient feeling of discomfort, suffering, despondency in the mass that
can be compared to that of revolutionary alienation at a different
level.
But, whereas from the point of view of the individual there is only one
sequence of possibilities and an unnerving need for revolutionary
totality, from the point of view of the self-organising mass there is a
progressive identification with a need that is becoming clear. In this
case suffering and discomfort is the discovery of something that exists,
no matter how small, not something that will become, because anything
that is projected into the future (starting from the necessity of the
present) is merely quantitative growth.
So the suffering of the individual comes from lack of quality
(revolutionary totality), a lack that offers an infinite series of
possibilities that project themselves on to the need for the
self-organisation of the mass. On the other hand, the mass are
experiencing a stirring-up, discomfort, real suffering, because they are
beginning to discover the fact of self-organisation.
This dual situation of discomfort characterises the “human” field of the
revolutionary clash and supplies us with the key for solving the problem
of the vanguard. Before facing this final question it is necessary to
clarify the structural relationship that exists between individual,
minority and mass and examine the tension that emerges from it.
Individual activity cannot be seen as something autonomous starting from
which reality becomes thinkable through its organisation of the
struggle. There is no such thing as a homogeneity of intent. In
observing the attitudes and activities of the single individual one
cannot reconstruct reality simply with an adjunctive action. The
contradictoriness of the latter is far more complex than that of the
individual and, moreover, is sustained by different structures. While
the individual, through awareness of oneself, can reach revolutionary
possibility and the need for revolutionary totality (hence alienation
and its overcoming in revolutionary tension); the second, through
self-organisation, reaches revolutionary necessity directly, so the
growth of a first nucleus, no matter how small, is already the
revolutionary totality at disposition.
We are faced with tendencies going in two different directions that
might never meet, at least in the sense of eliminating differences and
creating liberated reality beyond the reality of the struggles. In fact
the other encounter, that of the guide and the party with the minority
in the lead as memory and revolutionary reservoir of the mass, is not a
real encounter but the denial of the very concept of encounter from the
revolutionary point of view.
In fact, revolutionary totality, the new society, is not
deterministically certain. Perhaps obscurantists will always manage to
prevail and force the revolutionary project back, destroying progress
and reestablishing barbarity. This note of precarity and instability is
also to be found in revolutionary tension, rendering necessary a
continual effort of assessment, verification, precision.
The presence and development of self-organised forms of struggle are not
sufficient to guarantee the final resolution of theory in praxis, their
unification in the liberated society. It is only a question of a
tendency, including in this concept the profound sense of suffering
derived from the gestation of new forms of struggle. All this produces a
state of tension, of restlessness, in the movement of the exploited. New
forces arise, new needs emerge, ideals and idols of the past are
destroyed.
The tension of the movement of the exploited arises from the awareness
of the discrepancy between one’s being theory, and one’s realisation in
practice. This contradiction affects the movement deeply, often
unleashing one part of it against the other, thus playing the game of
the forces of power. But this tension is vital, it is the essential
strength of coordination towards the future. It is from within it that
the destructive and creative capacities of the revolution explode.
The anarchist minority also carry a profound laceration. The rigidity of
the closed model seen as the reproduction of revolutionary totality
risks depriving it of the quality of the revolution, that is of the new
quality of life. Only by accepting this renunciation and falling victim
to the quantitative illusion will it succeed in silencing the intimate
tension that plagues it. But in so doing it also destroys the meaning of
its own revolutionary anarchist project, cutting off any real contact
with the masses. Not only that, its militants, as individuals conscious
of revolutionary possibility in that they are (knowingly) cut out of the
revolutionary totality, are personally living another tension that is
felt all the more because it touches the life of each one. This other
tension cannot be satisfied with quantitative games, globalising
analyses or memories of the proletariat. It needs to identify itself in
another, still wider, tension, that of the mass itself. Either the
minority accepts living the tension of the single individuals that
compose it while at the same time living the tension of the mass, or it
is condemned to remain a vanguard and, as such, to become responsible
for all the consequences that ensue.
Consciousness of revolutionary tension is the first sign of going beyond
alienation.
For the movement of the exploited this consciousness expresses itself in
a more organic search for the self-organisation of struggles. What was
once lost in the individual behaviour of atomised defence against
repression and exploitation, an individual reaction in order to
reevaluate the life extinguished by the integrative process of
capitalism, now becomes a quantifying project. The movement of the
exploited begins to give itself an autonomous structure, it starts
seeking new internal relations and links. In this research and
realisation tension becomes construction. Theory increasingly takes form
and begins to resemble practice more and more.
For the anarchist minority, the awareness of revolutionary tension is a
sign of maturity. It gradually rids itself of the quantitative illusion,
of feeling itself to be carrier of “truth”, an “external” force, a
“memory”. This is only possible on condition that the internal tension
be lightened, that the single militants see the revolutionary
relationship possibility-totality, have been struggling against
alienation and been able to go beyond it in a personal tension. The
latter now reappears at the level of a minority, to find its place
within the wider tension of the movement of the exploited, the only
dimension in which it is possible to find a constructive road towards
quantitative growth.
To conclude, we can define the vanguard as an involution, a giving in in
the face of the revolutionary anarchist project. Now we can see that the
definition “an organic whole composed of individuals” that we made at
the beginning is no longer sufficient. The actual composition of the
vanguard becomes less important in the face of its significance within
the complex framework of revolutionary relations. The vanguard is
therefore an escape from the sensations of suffering and panic that are
caused by revolutionary alienation; it is the refusal of tension towards
the movement of the exploited, a tension that the latter develops in its
contradictory relationship between self-organisation and delegation of
the struggle. The vanguard takes the place of the quantitative task of
the movement of the exploited, wanting to reproduce at a reduced level
(either with edifying aims or with the aim of domination), the reality
of the struggles as a whole. It is a desire to quantify the
unquantifiable. It is a violent deformation of revolutionary possibility
into fictitious necessity (totality). The vanguard is the acceptance of
a globalising analysis that claims to “take account of everything” in an
exclusively theoretical field, fictitiously doing what the movement of
the exploited bring about in reality by becoming theory and praxis at
the same time.
On the contrary, full knowledge of revolutionary alienation allows
access to individual revolutionary tension, which would lose itself in a
postponement to the infinity of the total project of the revolution,
were it not to find its correct development within the tension of the
minority. If this gives up in the face of obstacles, it transforms
itself into a vanguard and acts accordingly. The tension of the minority
extinguishes itself in the quantitative illusion and in the analytical
project that claims to be global. The tension of the individual recedes
into the suffering of alienation, finding comfort in a thousand little
facets of the quantitative project cut off from the mass. In fact, the
more pressing the suffering caused by revolutionary alienation; the
greater the detachment, loss of totality and the quality of revolution,
the more paltry the engagement in quantitative daily praxis will be in
solving a guilty conscience. If the tension of the minority is inserted
within the wider tension of the movement of the exploited a point of
contact is made between self-organisation and delegation of struggles.
It develops a solicitation for self-organisation, adding one’s own
revolutionary tension to that of the movement of the exploited,
developing the anarchist revolutionary project fully in harmony with
this movement’s theory.
The more detail and clarification this theory acquires; the more it
becomes conscious of itself, advances in the self-organisation of the
struggle, gives itself an autonomous structure, connects internal
relations and establishes links, the more it will renounce the false
perspective of the delegate (parties and unions). The traditional
function of the anarchist minority will diminish, and, losing its value,
its revolutionary tension will increase. In fact, the aim of the
anarchist movement is to contribute to the construction of a society in
which there will no longer be exploitation. And exploitation no longer
existing, there will no longer be a need for the political struggle,
movements and consequently not even the anarchist movement.
The final negation of the anarchist minority as such will not be the
decision of a group or something that happens outside the minority. It
will be the realisation of revolutionary tension in revolutionary
totality, the liberated society. In this final phase, the movement of
the exploited will realise its own theory (that will no longer differ
from its practice), and through this realisation the vicissitudes of the
anarchist minority will come to an end.