anarkismo.net: 1st Congress of the Anarchist Federation of Rosario (ca)

7 years of the Columna Libertaria Joaquín Penina ---- During the months of March and April 
we held our first congress as a political organisation. We opened a new phase in our 
organisation and that is why we have decided to reflect this by changing its name for one 
that takes fuller account of our organisational forms and our horizons of construction. As 
such, the Anarchist Federation of Rosario is the continuation of the Columna Libertaria 
Joaquín Penina. ---- We have been organised as anarchists for seven years, in which we 
have tried to make our libertarian contribution to the resistance and struggles of our 
oppressed class. This journey which, although with comings and goings, fruit of successes 
and failures, demonstrates a marked tendency to consolidate ourselves as a political 
organisation, a reference of organised anarchism in the city of Rosario, and it is as such 
that we believe we can (and must) take another step in strengthening our anarchist 
political organisation.

The systematisation and conclusions of the congress have in large part been fruit of 
collective discussion, of the revision of our political practice, the use of and search 
for specific tools of analysis consistent with anarchist practice, and of the contribution 
of other especifista organisations in the region that began to struggle before us and 
whose experiences have nurtured us. In this sense we feel ourselves part of a collective 
effort to build an anarchism of struggle that is classist*, organised and capable of 
social interpellation. An anarchism in which, although its historical roots are 
long-standing, we can not fail to mention the great contribution that the Uruguayan 
Anarchist Federation made to our current and that it has been sustaining for more than 
half a century.

We were able to share and realise this congress with comrades from the Uruguayan Anarchist 
Federation (Federación Anarquista Uruguaya - FAU), as well as with comrades from the 
Brazilian Anarchist Coordination (Coordenação Anarquista Brasileira - CAB), comrades from 
Chile, from other parts of the country and notable comrades from the struggle in our city. 
Below we share a summary of some of the themes addressed at the congress, concerning our 
historic phase, programme and strategy.

FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SYSTEM OF CAPITALIST DOMINATION!
FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A SELF-MANAGED SOCIETY!
MILITANT ANARCHISM AGAINST THE DOMINANT CLASS!
LONG LIVE ANARCHY!

F.A.R (Anarchist Federation of Rosario - Federación Anarquista de Rosario)

1. Historical context: a stage of resistance for those at the bottom

When characterising the current period we find the system of capitalist domination in its 
neoliberal phase. Thus we can see how in the search for refinement, this model of power of 
domination is conditioned both by the various processes of resistance from below as well 
as by infighting within the ruling class itself. Establishing, then, reconfigurations in 
its strategy of political, cultural, social, economic, ideological, legal and military 
oppression. From the previously developed analysis we can see that some of the fundamental 
characteristics of this model of power are:
o Interventionism of imperialist projects as one of the principal strategies, expressed by 
the invasion of territories, the promotion of civil wars and the stimulation of political 
and economic instabilities in dependent countries.

o Geopolitical arrangement of large areas of the world in the service of the strategy of 
domination of the different hegemonic powers and the international division of labour. 
Political-economic regionalisation according to blocs.

o Primacy of the extractivist model following a period of dominance of finance capital 
that left the elites of the poorest countries in a greater degree of dependence on the 
(super) powers, creating a devastating effect on the oppressed classes.

o Speculation and control of extractive capital to the point that it has generated an 
unprecedented food crisis at global level provoking a recessionary period.

o Financial leakage that was muted by the ruling class and the most powerful states in the 
world based on the interests of the major powers.

o Increased interference by international credit agencies in dependent countries.

o Ideological-cultural triumph of neoliberalism expressed in social fragmentation and 
commodification in the logic of social relations.

o Widening of the gap between rich and poor, increasing poverty and the precariousness of 
life.

o Increase in famines, epidemics and endemic diseases, worsened by natural disasters and 
food crisis.

o In Latin America the political class guaranteed this new phase of the model of 
capitalist power through a re-priming of economies based on the international devision of 
labour, either through a continuation of conservative projects of the elites of the 
region, or through a shift toward projects of local political sectors of nationalist and 
socialist rhetoric. The latter based on an institutional rearrangement of the state in 
response to various popular outbursts.

o New forms of social control, among which stand out targeted policies that sharpen social 
fragmentation and consolidate the exclusion of a large part of the world's population, 
both from work as well as from access to basic services.

o In Argentina preeminence of the interference of foreign powers and extractive capital 
after the control and emptying of financial capital that ended up marginalising a large 
part of the popular sectors.

o Deepening of the configuration of a centralised map of power mounted on 
historic-structural elements that generated a greater dependency of the provinces on the 
National State.

o Unprecedented energy crisis that generated greater foreign debt.

o Institutional validity and political-ideologocial inheritance of the repressive 
structure of the state expressed in the organisation and actioning of security forces and 
intelligence services.

o Open confrontation between dominant sectors at the economic, political, legal, cultural 
and ideological level, among others.

o Confrontation between popular sectors in the context of growing social violence as a 
product of persistent inequality, precariousness of life and increased drug trafficking as 
a catalysing factor.

Moreover we can see that, with few exceptions, there is a discontinuity in the 
accumulation process of the resistance of the oppressed sectors against the power model. 
This is expressed in a greater fragmentation and regionalisation thereof. Although during 
this stage, waves of popular unrest by region, local uprisings as well as sectoral 
struggles have and continue to occur with different intensity, but these experiences have 
not become catalysts for spatially or temporally broader resistance. Notwithstanding the 
above, there are some processes of resistance that have had significant levels of 
accumulation and have some potential that could allow for an offensive move against the 
dominant sectors. Among them stand out the two decades of indigenous-peasant uprising of 
the Zapatistas in Chiapas and the recent revolutionary process initiated by sectors of the 
Kurdish people in Rojava after years of liberation struggle against states in the region. 
Highlighted in these processes are articulating elements based on ethnicity, 
multiculturalism and the struggle against patriarchy, among others. Both processes of 
confrontation with the system of local domination restore hope in the possibility of 
building a self-managed society.

2) Our conception of programme: a praxis for building self-management

Based on the discussions that arose for this new moment in the organisation and which were 
addressed systematically during the congress, the need for a more planned orientation of 
our militant force was crystallised in the need to have a programme that gives consistency 
and guidance to our daily practice in relation to our finalist objectives.
In this sense we understand by programme a set of proposals for action aimed at developing 
a project of transformation of reality from an anarchist praxis and towards an anarchist 
horizon, conceiving this programme as something provisional, subject to be tried and 
tested by reality.

In this sense, the idea would be to attempt to plan guidelines that go a bit beyond what 
appears to us as immediate. So the programmatic necessarily leads us to consider the 
temporal dimension of what we do, and although there is always talk of short-, medium- and 
long-term, in general the analyses and proposals are often framed in the extremes. It 
tends to build a more than imaginary bridge from the short to long term, without trying to 
delineate the medium term.

To conceive our programme according to our theoretical and ideological definitions we 
reject any kind of apriorism or determinism. In this sense we understand that you can not 
define once and for all the scope of these guidelines, nor the way in which we will 
conquer our objectives, since it will depend on the particular experience that we present 
as an oppressed class in the struggle against domination. As Malatesta expressed: "we do 
not claim to have prepared a pre-packaged solution, infallible and universal to all 
problems that come to mind." In any case, through our praxis we can elucidate more or less 
precisely the reality of the concrete social formation in which we find ourselves and the 
guidelines and projects that we believe contribute to the process, in order to improve our 
practice of social transformation. For us an effective political practice requires, 
therefore, activity aimed at elucidating the social-historical (theoretical activity), 
harmonious application of the values and goals of transformation (ideology) and concrete 
political means to achieve it (political practice). The three elements are fused into a 
dialectical unity which constitutes an effort at the social transformation that the 
organisation postulates (praxis [1]). It is in this sense that we understand the 
programmatic definitions that have been made so far [2].

3) Strategy: Finalist objectives, methodology and tools for building our utopia

We understand as finalist objectives the distruction of the system of capitalist 
domination and the construction of a self-managed society.
The destruction of the system of domination can be framed in the search for a 
revolutionary process of rupture with the current social order, which occurs in parallel 
with the construction of a self-managed or anarchist society.

Returning to Errandonea we define Social Revolution as "profound modification or 
alteration of the system, affecting its fundamental aspects and identity (the model of 
power). It can be understood as revolution and occurs when social conflicts become open 
and conscious class struggle, extrapolating spheres and generalising to all social 
relationships" [3].

A rupture [4] with the model of power of domination, and the construction of a model of 
self-managed power, necessarily leads us to discard statist and institutional routes in 
our strategy for being contradictory with the aim of social revolution. In this sense 
Bakunin refers to the social revolution, "... it is precisely this ancient system of 
organisation by force that the social revolution must put an end to, giving the masses 
their full freedom, to groups, to municipalities, to associations, to individuals 
themselves, and destroying once and for all the historic cause of all violence; power and 
the very existence of the State... "[5]

That is why we advocate self-management, libertarian federalism, anarcho-feminism and 
anti-colonialism as methodologies of social organisation that can transform the model of 
power of domination in order to convert it into self-managed power.

We propose, therefore, a federal organisation of society through basic organs of 
discussion and decision, which jointly developing ways of decentralised administration 
through a dynamic and directly controlled system, may create a vast network of 
self-managed organisms that reanimate the social fabric and that can in a moment of 
rupture with this system, make this revolutionary, thus constituting the basis of a new 
social organisation [6].

In the economic sphere, this process will go hand in hand with the abolition of private 
property and the pooling together of all the means of production, everything produced and 
all vital resources for humanity. The form of building a new egalitarian society entails 
collective product distribution based on the identification of needs, and where work is 
distributed fairly and according to individual abilities. [7] Directing all economic 
activity towards the sustainability of life; understanding that the economic also includes 
all actions relating to the reproduction of individuals and should also be conducted 
within a framework of respect for and protection of the environment in which we live.

In the political-cultural sphere, the destruction of patriarchy [8] in pursuit of a just 
society which does not discriminate based on people's gender will involve not only the 
questioning of institutions such as family, compulsory heterosexuality and the state; but 
requires, starting from now, the construction of other types of relationships on par with 
the specific struggle for demands coming from social movements. For this, anarcho-feminism 
together with gender perspective and gender equality [9] as methodological tools will 
allow us to recognise the origins and expressions of this type of oppression, generating 
positions of rupture and directing specific actions against patriarchy and machismo.

But we understand these organisational models in relation to the processes of struggle, 
and the particularities of each locality; understanding by this cultural, language, 
lifestyle and ethnic integrity. So, we do not think of revolution as a phenomenon of 
homogenising society, but precisely as able to bring forth those individual, collective, 
cultural, regional, etc. particularities that do not negate others and that are recognised 
and strengthened in difference. On this subject the author Maia Ramnath clearly expresses 
that, "Where ethnicity is brutalised and culture decimated it is insensitive to disregard 
the value of ethnic pride, affirming the right to exist as such; not forgetting that 
cultural expression must include the right to redefine the practices of one's own culture 
over time, in dialogue with multiple external and internal influences, without sanctifying 
a closed tradition... The decolonisation of culture should not mean rewinding to a 'pure' 
original condition, but to restore the atrophied ability to grow freely without external 
interference that reduces the scope of potential"[10]. That is why we advocate 
anti-colonialism [11] as a perspective and methodology of action that points toward the 
cultural self-management of peoples.

From this perspective, then, we consider it possible and necessary to point to overall 
changes in society, and thus reject those views that believe that these methodologies and 
principles are only realisable on a small scale. For us prefigurative politics is also 
nourished by political and ideological imaginations that will be forged in concrete 
struggles; if our starting point is the impossibility of a self-managed social 
organisation it is possible that this conditions our practice from today and makes that 
impossibility for tomorrow real. In this sense "we understand that ideas have a kind of 
materiality, they are tangible, palpable. They are as compelling as an economic measure or 
a political decision". [12]

This profound alteration of the model of power to be a process at once destructive and 
constructive can not, for us, occur spontaneously, as a simple evolution, but must be 
sought and built through a strategy of building self-managed popular power.

The consistency of our strategy with our finalists objectives will occur through the 
self-managed character of the web of social relations that constitute the social force we 
aim to build. Understanding that this self-managed character will be such, meanwhile, it 
enters into dispute with domination, since social forces and the configuration of a 
self-managed power occur as part of the class struggle.

For this we highlight four fundamental and basic features of the strategy for the period:

- Social insertion:

We believe in a process of radical transformation of society in which the oppressed class 
take their destiny into their own hands. For this, the existence of social organisations 
to drive and sustain the process is essential. That is, to confront the organised ruling 
class it is indispensable to have the organised force of those from below.

In this sense, the anarchist organisation and its members should be inserted wherever the 
popular experience - social struggle - takes place, promoting and forming part of their 
organisational experiences. In other words, our ideas only work in as much as they are 
part of our political practice in the context of experiences of social organisation [13].

- Political organisation:

The political organisation is a strategic element for us, as we believe it serves as an 
enhancer of social struggles, that feed back to it, providing an ideological vision 
antagonistic to the values imposed by the dominant vision; moulding organisational 
alternatives and resistance that tend towards building a revolutionary praxis in an 
anarchist direction.

This is how the tasks of political organisation are related to the construction, on the 
one hand, of a collective ideological vision, namely, to weave in the lived social 
experience a web of our own meanings in relation to the way of seeing the world and acting 
on it. On the other hand, a common theoretical framework is required, namely a series of 
elements and tools that enable us to analyse as profoundly as possible the historical 
processes of which we are part. Translated into an act in unity of action, that is, based 
on collective guidelines that guide us in developing a project of revolutionary rupture, 
defining our strategies and tactics for the period in question, thus providing from our 
political practice in social struggles, traversed by a style and profile of our own 
consistent with our libertarian principles [14].

- Building self-managed popular power

The construction of self-managed popular power summarises the strategic orientation of our 
forces and also provides an analysis of how we consider social processes, class struggle 
and the state.

"Our fundamental political proposal consists of the destruction of the state both as a 
special institutional sphere of political domination and the abolition of governmental 
forms that constitute a power separated from the whole population....
Well now, when we talked of appropriation by society, by all the people, of the 
possibility to perform the functions held by the dominant classes or groups, we are 
referring, in essence, precisely to the disappearance of the state and with it all the 
culture of power that sustains and reproduces it. "[15]

According to our point of view:
"to reintegrate political power into society is to replace the state and government in 
their tutelary and habitually repressive functions. It is to socialise the mechanisms of 
expression and decision that should be their own and abandon the mechanisms of repression 
and violent coercion to benefit relations of coexistence based on responsible freedom and 
freely agreed commitment.
In terms of libertarian embodiment this means that political power takes the form of 
direct democracy, exerted from grassroots institutions and the globalised instances that 
express them...

This is a road we propose so that all people can genuinely express their needs, can 
discuss them, confront and ripen them. And that they can capture this process of 
development and exchange in general political decisions. These are some of the foundations 
of what we understand as popular power. Popular power which, we reiterate, is conceived by 
us as as revolutionary power driven by popular organisations, where the political and 
social acquire and stabilise a new articulation. Without such coordination, we estimate, 
there will be no real self-managed power. "[16]

- Libertarian Methodology: the organisation as school of life
We propose the construction of a liberating methodology for our political practice as a 
strategic element, as we believe it provides coherence, cohesion and possibility for the 
concrete realisation of those programmatic definitions that we have reached. It is in this 
sense a methodology of action, a way even to disseminate our practice and project, because 
the organisation is not only expressed in statements and declarations, but also in its 
daily practice.

We understand by libertarian methodology the consistent application, both at the 
individual and organisational level, of the methodologies and perspectives defended by the 
organisation, as developed above.

LAST WORDS

Building on the strengths that we learned to build, and trying to learn from mistakes and 
limitations we had to face, it is that we face this new stage of the organisation with the 
expectation of improving and developing our practice according to the definitions 
mentioned above. Thus, the development of a program to guide us toward developing a 
strategy to break with this system of oppression which channels and enhances our daily 
militancy towards building a self-managed social force - together with the consolidation 
of the political organisation in its libertarian federal operation; materialising this 
development as a Federation.
The historic moment we are experiencing - and which demands the task of analysing it in 
depth from an anarchist perspective - presents us great complexities for our objectives, 
but also presents us with the ethical challenge of making every possible effort to 
confront the system of domination unwaveringly, with ideological firmness and conviction. 
In this sense, we have decided to organise ourselves as anarchists in the FAR, to 
potentiate this historical praxis of the oppressed, which is anarchism, and we undertake 
that challenge as the main task of our lives.

[1] Rafael Viana - Teoría, ideología y práctica política: La praxis Anarquista 
-https://ithanarquista.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/rafae...ia-id...
2] "Revolutionary praxis does not, therefore, have to produce the overall and detailed 
schema of the society that it aims to establish, nor to guarantee in the absolute that 
this society will be able to solve all the problems that may ever arise. It is enough to 
show that, in what is proposed, there is no inconsistency and, as far as the eye can see, 
its realisation would vastly increase the capacity of society to deal with its problems, 
"Cornelius Castoriadis - The imaginary institution of society

[3] Errandonea, Alfredo - Sociología de la Dominación.

[4] "Bachelar tells us that epistemological changes occur through ruptures and 
discontinuities with the above. He say it especially for the sciences. For the 
social-political it seems it also serves as a premise. We must discontinue what there is 
to give birth to new possibilities, to discontinue you must make ruptures. Perhaps every 
day and in several camps." Wellington Gallarza and Malvina Tavares document. Work material 
towards joint FAU-FAG theoretical training.

[5] Bakunin Mikhail. The Paris Commune and the idea of the state

[6] Declaracion de principios Columna Libertaria Malatesta, Joaquin Penina, Durruti.2012

[7] Declaracion de principios Columna Libertaria Malatesta, Joaquin Penina, Durruti.2012

[8] We understand patriarchy as a system of sexual-political social relations based on 
different institutions and the interclass and inter-gender solidarity established by men 
who as a social group and individually and collectively oppress other genders both 
individually and collectively, dominating their bodies and their products, be it by 
"peaceful" means or through the use of violence.

[9] Feminism (or for us anarco-feminismo) being considered a practice that seeks the 
liberation of people oppressed by gender, in particular, and everyone in general, is a 
body of ideas that makes exposes, denounces and struggles against the patriarchal order; 
in a dialectical movement with practices of personal and collective transformation.

Also, the gender perspective as a theoretical framework adopted for this program involves: 
a) recognising the power relations that exist between the genders, generally favourable to 
men as a social group; b) that these relationships have been socially and historically 
constituted and are constitutive of people c) that they traverse the entire social fabric 
and link with other social relations such as class, ethnicity, age, religion. This gender 
perspective is not contingent on its adoption by women nor is it directed exclusively to 
them; but seeks to observe reality from the perspective of genders and their power 
relations to see if they are reproducing or combatting them (there are no gender-neutral 
decisions or actions).

Additionally, gender equality is established as a set of tools and mechanisms that - 
recognising that men, women, transgender, transvestites, gays and lesbians have different 
needs and interests and establish asymmetrical relations of power - seek to ensure equal 
opportunity in participation (in all areas of life, including political). That is, it 
seeks to eliminate social inequality based on gender, on the one hand, and on the other 
the disrespect of difference.

[10] Maia Ramnath - Decolonizing Anarchism

11] Returning to Maia Ramnath we define imperialism as a projection of the power of a 
political entity beyond its territorial jurisdiction, by economic or military means, in a 
strong or gentle manner, or some combination of these. And Colonialism as domination 
through the imposition of culture.

[12] Wellington Gallarza and Malvina Tavares document. Work material towards joint FAU-FAG 
theoretical training.

[13] Declaracion de principios Columna Libertaria Malatesta, Joaquin Penina, Durruti. 2012

[14] Declaracion de principios Columna Libertaria Malatesta, Joaquin Penina, Durruti. 2012

[15] Declaración de principios de FAU adopted at the Xth Congress (Montevideo, March 1993)

[16] Ibid.

by Federación Anarquista de Rosario - FAR

Related Link:http://federacionanarquistaderosario.blogspot.com/

http://anarkismo.net/article/28111