(en) Britain, AFED Organise! #81 - Anarchism and Organisation by Errico Malatesta

Organisation which is, after all, only the practice of cooperation and solidarity, is a 
natural and necessary condition of social life; it is an inescapable fact which forces 
itself on everybody, as much on human society in general as on any group of people who are 
working towards a common objective. Since humanity neither wishes to, nor can, live in 
isolation it is inevitable that those people who have neither the means, nor a 
sufficiently developed social conscience to permit them to associate freely with those of 
a like mind and with common interests, are subjected to the organisation by others, 
generally constituted in a class or as a ruling group, with the aim of exploiting the 
labor of others for their personal advantage. And the agelong oppression of the masses by 
a small privileged group has always been the result of the inability of the oppressed to 
agree among themselves to organise with others for production, for enjoyment and for the 
possible needs of defense against whoever might wish to exploit and oppress them. 
Anarchism exists to remedy this state of affairs ...

Now, it seems to us that organisation,
that is to say, association for a spe-
cific purpose and with the structure
and means required to attain it, is a
necessary aspect of social life. A hu-
man being in isolation cannot even
live the life of a beast, for they would
be unable to obtain nourishment
for themselves, except perhaps in
tropical regions or when the popula-
tion is exceptionally sparse; and they
would be, without exception, unable
to rise much above the level of an
animal. Having therefore to join with
other humans, or more accurately,
finding themselves united to them
as a consequence of the evolution-
ary antecedents of the species, they
must submit to the will of others
(be enslaved) or subject others to
his/her will (be in authority) or live
with others in fraternal agreement
in the interests of the greatest good
of all (be an associate). Nobody can
escape from this necessity.

Admitting as a possibility the exist-
ence of a community organised
without authority, that is without
compulsion ? and anarchists must
admit the possibility, or anarchism
would have no meaning ? let us pass
on to discuss the organisation of the
anarchist movement.

In this case too, organisation seems
useful and necessary. If a movement
means the whole ? individuals with a
common objective which they exert
themselves to attain ? it is natural
that they should agree among them-
selves, join forces, share out the tasks
and take all those steps which they
think will lead to the achievement of
those objectives. To remain isolated,
each individual acting or seeking to
act on their own without coordina-
tion, without preparation, without
their modest efforts to a strong
group, means condemning oneself
to impotence, wasting ones efforts
in small ineffectual action, and to
lose faith very soon in ones aims and
possibly being reduced to complete
inactivity.

A mathematician, a chemist, a
psychologist or a sociologist may
say they have no programme or are
concerned only with establishing the
truth. They seek knowledge, they are
not seeking to do something. But
anarchism and socialism are not sci-
ences; they are proposals, projects,
that anarchists and socialists seek to
realize and which, therefore need to
be formulated as definite programs.

If it is true that organisation creates
leaders; if it is true that anarchists are
unable to come together and arrive
at an agreement without submit-
ting themselves to an authority, this
means that they are not yet very
good anarchists, and before thinking
of establishing an anarchist society
within the world they must think
of making themselves able to live
anarchistically. The remedy does not
lie in the abolition of organisation
but in the growing consciousness
of each individual member. In small
as well as large societies, apart from
brute force, of which it cannot be a
question for us, the origin and jus-
tification for authority lies in social
disorganisation.

When a community has needs and
its members do not know how to
organise spontaneously to provide
them, someone comes forward, an
authority who satisfies those needs
by utilising the services of all and
directing them to their liking. If the
roads are unsafe and the people do
not know what measures to take, a
police force emerges which in return
for whatever services it renders
expects to be supported and paid, as
well as imposing itself and throwing
its weight around; if some article is
needed, and the community does
not know how to arrange with the
distant producers to supply it in
exchange for goods produced locally,
the merchant will appear, who will
profit by dealing with the needs of
one section to sell and of the other
to buy, and impose his/her own
prices both on the producer and the
consumer. This is what has happened
in our midst; the less organised we
have been, the more prone are we to
be imposed on by a few individuals.
And this is understandable. So much
so that organisation, far from creating
authority, is the only cure for it and
the only means whereby each one of
us will get used to taking an active
and conscious part in the collective
work, and cease being passive instru-
ments in the hands of leaders.

But an organisation, it is argued, pre-
supposes an obligation to coordinate
ones own activities with those of oth-
ers; thus it violates liberty and fetters
initiative. As we see it, what really
takes away liberty and makes initia-
tive impossible is the isolation which
renders it powerless. Freedom is not
an abstract right but the possibility of
acting; this is true among ourselves
as well as society as a whole. And it
is by cooperation with our fellow
human beings that we find the means
to express our activity and our power
of initiative.

An anarchist organization must
allow for complete autonomy, and
independence, and therefore full
responsibility, to individuals and
groups; free agreement between
those who think it useful to come
together for cooperative action, for
common aims; a moral duty to fulfill
ones pledges and to take no action
which is contrary to the accepted
programme. On such bases one then
introduces practical forms and suit-
able instruments to give real life to
the organisation. Thus the groups,
the federation of groups, the federa-
tions of federations, meetings, con-
gresses, correspondence committees
and so on. But this also must be done
freely, in such a way as not to restrict
the thought and the initiative of
individual members, but only to give
greater scope to the efforts which
in isolation would be impossible or
ineffective. Thus for an anarchist or-
ganisation congress, in spite of all the
disadvantages from which they suffer
as representative bodies, are free
from authoritarianism in any shape
or form because they do not legislate
and do not impose their delibera-
tions on others. They serve to main-
tain and increase personal contacts
among the most active comrades, to
summarize and encourage program-
matic studies on the ways and means
for action; to acquaint everybody
with the situation in the regions and
the kind of action most urgently
needed; to summarise the various
currents of anarchist opinions at the
time and to prepare some kind of sta-
tistics therefrom. And their decisions
are not binding, but simply sugges-
tions, advice and proposals to submit
to all concerned, and they do not
become binding and executive ex-
cept for those who accept them and
for as long as they accept them. The
administrative organs they nominate
? Correspondence Commissions,
etc. ? have no directive powers, do
not take initiatives except for those
who specifically solicit and approve
of them, and have no authority to
impose their own views, which they
can certainly hold and propagate as
groups of comrades, but which can-
not be presented as the official views
of the organisation. They publish the
resolutions of the congresses and
the opinions and proposals com-
municated to them by groups and
individuals; and they act for those
who want to make use of them, to
facilitate relations between groups,
and cooperation between those who
are in agreement on various initia-
tives; each is free to correspond with
whoever he/she likes direct, or make
use of the other committees nomi-
nated by specific groupings.

In an anarchist organisation indi-
vidual members can express any34
opinion and use every tactic which is
not in contradiction with the accept-
ed principles and does not interfere
with the activities of others. In every
case a particular organization last
so long as the reasons for union are
superior to those for dissension; oth-
erwise it disbands and makes way for
other, more homogenous groupings.
Certainly the life and permanence
of an organization is a condition for
success in the long struggle before us,
and besides, it is natural that every
institution should by instinct aim at
lasting indefinitely. But the duration
of a libertarian organisation must be
the result of the spiritual affinity of
its members and of the adaptability
of its constitution to the continually
changing circumstances. When it can
no longer serve a useful purpose it is
better that it should die.

We would certainly be happy if we
could all get along well together and
unite all the forces of anarchism in
a strong movement; but we do not
believe in the solidity of organisa-
tions which are built on concessions
and assumptions and in which there
is no real agreement and sympathy
between members. Better disunited
than badly united. But we would
wish that each individual joined their
friends and that there should be no
isolated forces, or lost forces.

It remains for us to speak of the
organisation of the working and op-
pressed masses for resistance against
both the government and the em-
ployers. Workers will never be able
to emancipate themselves so long as
they do not find in union the moral,
economic and physical strength that
is needed to subdue the organised
might of the oppressors.

There have been anarchists, and there
still are some, who while recognising
the need to organise today for propa-
ganda and action, are hostile to all
organisations which do not have an-
archism as their goal or which do not
follow anarchist methods of struggle.
To those comrades it seemed that all
organised forces for an objective less
than radically revolutionary, were
forces that the revolution was being
deprived of. It seems to us instead,
and experience has surely already
confirmed our view, that their ap-
proach would condemn the anarchist
movement to a state of perpetual
sterility. To make propaganda we
must be amongst the people, and it
is in the workers? associations that
workers find their comrades and es-
pecially those who are most disposed
to understand and accept our ideas.
But even when it is possible to do
as much propaganda as we wished
outside the associations, this could
not have a noticeable effect on the
working masses. Apart from a small
number of individuals more edu-
cated and capable of abstract thought
and theoretical enthusiasms, the
worker cannot arrive at anarchism
in one leap. To become a convinced
anarchist, and not in name only, they
must begin to feel the solidarity that
joins them to their comrades, and to
learn to cooperate with others in de-
fense of common interests and that,
by struggling against the bosses and
against the government that supports
them, should realize that bosses and
governments are useless parasites
and that the workers could man-
age the domestic economy by their
own efforts. And when the worker
has understood this, he or she is an
anarchist even if they do not refer to
themselves as such.

Furthermore, to encourage popular
organisations of all kinds is the logi-
cal consequence of our basic ideas,
and should therefore be an integral
part of our programme. An authori-
tarian party, which aims at captur-
ing power to impose its ideas, has
an interest in the people remaining
an amorphous mass, unable to act
for themselves and therefore always
easily dominated. And it follows,
logically, that it cannot desire more
than that much organisation, and
of the kind it needs to attain power:
Electoral organisations if it hopes to
achieve it by legal means; Military
organisation if it relies on violent ac-
tion. But we anarchists do not want
to emancipate the people; we want
the people to emancipate themselves.
We do not believe in the good that
comes from above and imposed by
force; we want the new way of life to
emerge from the body of the people
and correspond to the state of their
development and advance as they
advance. It matters to us therefore
that all interests and opinions should
find their expression in a conscious
organisation and should influence
communal life in proportion to their
importance.

We have undertaken the task of
struggling against existing social
organisation, and of overcoming the
obstacles to the advent of a new soci-
ety in which freedom and well being
would be assured to everybody. To
achieve this objective we organise
ourselves and seek to become as
numerous and as strong as possible.
But if it were only our anarchist
groupings that were organised; if the
workers were to remain isolated like
so many units unconcerned about
each other and only linked by the
common chain; if we ourselves be-
sides being organised as anarchists in
a federation, were not as workers or-
ganised with other workers, we could
achieve nothing at all, or at most, we
might be able to impose ourselves ...
and then it would not be the triumph
of anarchism, but our triumph. We
could then go on calling ourselves
anarchists, but in reality we should
simply be rulers, and as impotent as
all rulers are where the general good
is concerned.