WORLD WORLDWIDE INFORMATION News Journal Update - (en) anarkismo.net, I-5 AF: A critique of tactical formalism in anarchist organization (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 There is a difference between strategic divergence and ideological opposition.

Nevertheless, even in tendencies that have relatively high ideological affinity,
this misunderstanding can be found and has consistently led to splits in both
anarchism and in popular movements. Some tendencies do not aim to organize on the
political level, and in our current context, it makes sense to elaborate on the
particular organizational and strategic problems with this kind of anarchist
politics because, for us, part of our role as a small engine within a growing
Popular Power is to keep generating and dissipating liberatory theory and practices.
In the history of anarchism, tactical and strategic lines have often been
confused for ideological lines. However, there is a difference between strategic
divergence and ideological opposition. Nevertheless, even in tendencies that have
relatively high ideological affinity, such as social anarchism, this
misunderstanding can be found and has consistently led to splits in both
anarchism and in popular movements. Some in these tendencies are not concerned
with unifying strategically or holding an explicitly revolutionary line. In other
words, they do not aim to organize on the political level, and in our current
context, it makes sense to elaborate on the particular organizational and
strategic problems with this kind of anarchist politics.

Anglophone anarchist-communists have progressed these polemics, but the tactical
and strategic aspects of their critiques are often overlooked due to misplaced
ideological defensiveness. Our position is that organizational dualism must be
practiced in order to maintain and develop an anarchist strategy and political
line that is applicable to a variety of situations and can adapt as contexts
change. Militancy like this requires the grouping together of an active minority
that is interested in developing a common political program, a program built on
trust, ethics, and revolutionary objectives. It is about putting everyone on the
same page strategically in order to progress the political line.

The social level is more popular and massive than the political level. It is a
pluralistic environment that can wash out, dilute, and co-opt revolutionary
movements. On the social level, only the most organized and well defined
political tendencies are distinct. Everything else can start to seem the same.
Taking this into account, Tommy Lawson lays out the main problems that
organizational dualism attempts to address, explaining that the:

"concept of the 'social' and 'political levels' aims at clarifying confusion and
mistakes in previous anarchist theory. The conflation of the two has led to not
only theoretical, but organisational errors amongst other currents of anarchism,
in particular anarcho-syndicalism[...]The social level is where basic class
struggle occurs. Struggles at this level are popular, wide ranging and mobilise
significant numbers of not only the working class, but periphery and intermediate
classes around immediate demands[...]In contrast the political level is where
individuals, organisations and parties operate with particular frameworks and
ideologies, aiming to achieve particular goals." (from "Foundational Concepts of
the Specific Anarchist Organization")

In a Brazilian context, the Anarchist Federation of Rio de Janeiro (FARJ) also
mentions syndicalism when addressing an absence or lack of organizational dualism
among anarchists:

"Even the concept of anarcho-syndicalism, at various times, sought to
suppress[the]difference between levels of activity, blending anarchist ideology
with trade unionism. These and other attempts to ideologise social movements, in
our understanding, weaken both the social movements - which no longer operate
around concrete issues like land, housing, employment etc. - as well as anarchism
itself, since it does not allow for the deepening of ideological struggles, which
occur in the midst of the social movement. It also weakens, since the goal of
these anarchists to turn all the militants of the social movements into
anarchists is impossible, unless they significantly reduce and weaken the
movements. In this way, or even on seeing that it is natural to find people of
different ideologies in social movements that will never be anarchists, these
anarchists get frustrated, and often shy away from struggles. As a consequence of
this anarchism is often confined to itself." (from Social Anarchism and Organisation)

What is needed is a specific anarchist organization, something distinctly
different from an affinity group or unique squadron of tactical specialists
engaged in fronts of struggle on their own. Without political organization,
anarchists allow sectarians to perpetuate virtue signaling and divisiveness in
pluralistic spaces. This drains the capacity of the people who make up the movement:

"a mutual aid project - perhaps as part of a general strategy of "base" or simply
party building - grants[a]sect a positive reputation, as well as a means to
recruit. Well-meaning people get sucked into front groups, and the sect has a
ready-made defense against all critics: unlike you who are all talk, we're
actually out there, serving the people! The masses are hungry, and the party is
here to help." (from "Socialism is not charity: why we're against "mutual aid"")

These organizations are satisfied by mere affiliation or association, amassing
members and supporters but never cultivating militancy. While it is certainly
true that militancy means "getting your hands dirty" and "doing the real work",
it also means opening yourself up to explicit culpability when plans are not
executed correctly and have unanticipated consequences. Militancy requires being
responsible for mistakes and committing to continue working them out. In our own
context, we also see that:

"there are anarchists who conceive of the anarchist organisation as a broad
grouping that federates all those who call themselves anarchists, serving as a
convergence space for the realisation of actions with complete autonomy. In
anarchism, broadly speaking, this division between the social and political
levels is also not accepted by all the currents, which understand the anarchist
organisation in a diffuse manner, it being able to be a social movement, an
organisation, an affinity group, a study group, a community, a co-operative etc."
(from Social Anarchism and Organisation)

A real weakness of politically strategizing around large parties and
organizations is that they require the one organizational space to serve for
social debate and for political unification. Often, the minimal amount of formal
unity around "anarchistic" tactics is considered a political movement and begins
down the one-way road of seeking popular recognition while at the same time
carrying a lot of ideological baggage into popular spaces. This spectacle is not
what we mean when we talk about anarchist militancy.

Because anarchism is a politics of direct action aimed at transforming society
through class struggle and self-management, we understand the specific anarchist
organization, not the popular assembly or the union, to be the primary factor for
revolutionary strategy and orientation. Mass organizations and social movements
are terrains of struggle, not concentrations of ideological unity. Still, it is
not uncommon for already-existing groupings to act as blockades to both political
organizing and popular organizing. They alienate people from revolutionary
movements and prevent politics from getting specific enough. On the political
level, this happens by limiting the debate and mistaking tactical agreement for
ideological unity. All of this usually occurs without ever explicitly discussing
strategy, some people even taking offense when certain militants attempt to take
up the task. For this reason, we think that:

"[tactical]allegiance is insufficient for organizing revolutionaries because
there must also be a place, in addition to the activism, for revolutionaries to
cultivate militancy[...]This avoids confusion and debate about fundamental
positions in the future, making the established line easier to hold over time,
something which is necessary when collaborating and compromising with a popular
coalition." (from "How do you say especifismo in English")

Here, it is important to point out that we do not take issue with the forms of
struggle advocated by different anarchist groups and activists. Participating in
different places in the struggle is not necessarily a critique of other forms of
radical engagement; it is a positive program of direct action. For us, their
tactics are not problematic in and of themselves. We agree with FARJ that:

"Although we never question whether these organisations are anarchist (for us,
they all are), they do not, in most cases, converge with our way of conceiving
anarchist organisation." (from Social Anarchism and Organisation)

We also see strategic and theoretical problems with their political practice and
its revolutionary potential:

"It should go without saying that providing meals for the homeless is never
itself a bad thing to do, whether you're a Catholic or a Stalinist[...]The basic
mistake in our view is to approach improvements in conditions as ends in
themselves, nullifying any serious strategy. They're only strategically valuable
insofar as they strengthen the working-class and allow it to move forward in the
fight against capitalism." (from "Socialism is not charity: why we're against
"mutual aid"")

In North America, anarchism is not stuck in the "affinity group" model; it's more
like our affinity groups are isolated in tactical stations. When we use terms
such as "tactical anarchism", "stations", and "forms", we are referring to the
practices of anarchists who are firmly rooted in their own projects and either
don't want to or don't know how to get out. They continue to force their
particular form of engagement in spite of its limitations:

"To make an organization mutual is not an easy task, particularly when most
people only approach such organisations in order to solve a problem that they are
currently experiencing, whether it's a lack of food, unpaid wages, or whatever.
Once the problem is solved - or if the group is unable to help - people have a
tendency to withdraw." (from "Socialism is not charity: why we're against "mutual
aid"")

The people who don't withdraw remain stuck but wrongfully pride themselves in
their unquestioning commitment to their station, but resisting movement does not
bode well for revolutionaries who are supposedly working toward social
transformation on a massive scale.

Beginning from the premise that tactics lead to other tactics, we can understand
any use of a single tactic as the result of a distinction from a previous tactic
and a move toward another tactic. For us, acting with strategy means connecting
the movements from one tactic to another in a way that makes this movement as
intentional as possible. A collective action could be a repetition of a previous
tactic, or it could be drastically different from it. Either way, none of these
small units of action serves as a strategy on its own. If only a single tactic is
needed to successfully accomplish an objective, then the strategy would be to
repeat the tactic a certain number of times, or to execute the tactic and wait
for the eventual result, or even to wait and only employ the tactic if the
situation does not develop the desired way on its own. This means that even the
most simplistic and minimal conception of tactics requires strategy to inform the
temporal aspect of action. When do we employ a tactic? When do we stop?

Anarchists have developed and employed many tactics to achieve short and long
term goals. It is not this diversity of tactics that is the problem. In the
workplace, we are without a doubt part of the syndicalist project, supporting the
worker's organizations in the class struggle. And during uprisings, let us take
part in the insurrections. In struggles for the neighborhood and the city, let us
assemble as members of our communities. We want anarchist ideas to be influential
in worker's cooperatives, schools, militias, the military, prisons, and mutual
aid collectives. We consider direct action an absolutely fundamental aspect of
anarchist militancy. However, direct action occurs on the social level, and:

"is at its core both strategic and tactical. It attempts to link the means and
ends of struggle.[It]is working class people taking action to achieve a
particular goal by
themselves, bypassing bourgeois representational and legal
means.[...]Anarchist-Communists seek to avoid the fetishisation of small scale
and individual actions as 'direct action.' This is not to say that we do not
support individuals fighting against oppressive circumstances, but that direct
action should be understood[...]as a transformative practice of mass, collective
and class based action." (from Foundational Concepts of the Specific Anarchist
Organization)

So, above all, we need to foster these values and liberatory practices among the
people themselves. Let us not hold on to our favorite, most cherished and
familiar tactical forms, as the closely guarded jewels of anarchism. The purpose
of the specific anarchist organization is:

"[resolving]the contradictions between the need for unified militancy and the
need for pluralism in mass movements[...]It must meet anarchists at the political
level, with a unified strategy. And it must meet oppressed peoples, in their
struggles on the social level, with liberatory political practices that meet the
immediate needs of the community." (from "How do you say especifismo in English")

We do not consider it our task to lay foundations for tactical stations, attract
other people to fill them, and then, eventually, lead these same people to
revolution proper. This kind of politics, practiced without respect to context,
is vanguardist, and can easily slip into sectarianism. Anarchism comes from, and
is meant to be, where the people are. It evolves out of their struggles.
Therefore, it has to be able to articulate itself in multiple forms, attempting
to connect instances of struggle, by organizing as an active minority inside of a
larger Popular Power. This requires federalism, which:

"is one of the most distinguishing features of anarchist politics. It is at the
same time a theory of how anarchist organisations ought to be structured, and a
model for revolutionary social organisation." (from "Foundational Concepts of the
Specific Anarchist Organization")

We have to organize ourselves. And we have to federate with each other. It is not
the task of anarchists to build the new world within the shell of the old; that
would be the task of the people themselves, through struggle and self-management.
As for the political organization, its role is to act as a small motor that
nurtures revolutionary momentum toward the new society, through its innumerable
gestational stages and forms.

Anarchism in North America does not currently reflect this intention. Much of
what are considered anarchist and libertarian currents, today, position
themselves somewhere along rigid tactical lines. Each camp holds a position that,
implicitly or explicitly, requires allegiance to their chosen tactical form,
persistently and dogmatically upholding it as the most effective method, the most
appropriate site, the most prefigurative model of a free society:

"At times, loyalty can be so dependent on employing and defending the use of a
single tactic that questioning the strategy behind it seems like a political
attack. But truly revolutionary politics must be based on deeper and more
developed interpretations of current events and situations. Tactics alone cannot
define political lines." (from "How do you say especifismo in English?")

Questions of strategy cannot be answered from the perspective of a single, fixed
position in the struggle. Tactics themselves are rigid, sharp, and situated,
whereas their employment can, and must, be dynamic. The political organization
must persist through the complex multiplicity of crises and specific struggles
that exist on the social level, and this must happen regardless of:

"[the]challenging reality[...]that different sectors of society have vastly
different needs. If a political organization aims to engage in different
movements within society, these movements will require their own knowledge,
study, theory, and strategy[...]giving them the full respect and genuine effort
that they deserve and require to become effective social forces. By organizing
their activities into "fronts" of engagement, a specific group can stay acutely
aware of its organizational capacity and its positionality within popular
struggles." (from "How do you say especifismo in English?")

Yet, certain tactical forms, which verge on the sectarian, are often held up by
their adherents, including anarchists, as sufficient revolutionary strategies in
themselves. Black Flag Sydney criticizes what they call "service-provision
approaches":

"a sort of practice whereby small groups of volunteers gather together to provide
some kind of philanthropic service[...]The rise of this sort of tactics forces us
- organisationalist, social anarchists - to critically reflect. Whilst we are
sympathetic with the desire to break out of lefty bubbles and "do something
more", our concern is that the gradual rise in enthusiasm for these approaches
may not be sustainable, precisely because they function as a kind of political
dead end - particularly when they are taken in isolation from broader social
politics." (from "Socialism is not charity: why we're against "mutual aid"")

In our own North American context, these forms include: syndicalism
(revolutionary and trade unionism), insurrectionism (activism, spontaneism),
communalism (autonomism, utopian socialism, and libertarian municipalism),
mutualism (cooperatives and libertarian socialist reformism), philanthropy
(rhetorically referred to as mutual aid), educationalism (infotainment,
homeschooling and unschooling), religious anarchism, as well as military and
anti-fascist formations (anarchist gun clubs, proto-militias, antifa). This list
could no doubt be extended, but as Matt Crossin writes, the staunch sectarians
who are exclusively focused on these tactics:

"believe that anarchists - being opposed to bosses and governments - should, as
our primary strategy, create parallel, self-managed institutions, such as worker
co-operatives, community assemblies, mutual aid groups and so on. The argument
goes that as such organisations proliferate, they will constitute a form of a
Popular Power which not only provides an attractive vision of another world, but
leaves the capitalists without workers and the State irrelevant." (from
"Anarchists and Dual Power: Situation or Strategy?")

While these strategic arguments are commonly accepted, we see three distinct
problems with being too focused on formalistic approaches and overlooking the
risks of anarchist sectarianism.

First, these projects are driven by minoritarian ideological beliefs and
therefore risk ideologizing social level struggles, mass organizations, and
popular movements. This will inevitably deprive the social level of a mass base:

"It is not uncommon, particularly in North America, to see anarchism defined as
an ideology rooted in 'direct democracy', consensus decision making, and the
maintenance of 'horizontal' (i.e. 'non-hierarchical') social relations,
particularly in autonomous zones or public spaces[...]it places at the centre of
its definition an adherence to very specific forms of procedure and interpersonal
behaviour while downplaying the political ends a 'horizontal' movement should be
trying to establish." (from "Anarchists and Neo anarchists: Horizontalism and
Autonomous Spaces")

This does little to advance social movements. Instead, it produces an
intermediate, third rail objective, discarding strategy in favor of expedient,
politically correct tactics and the development of a level of organization which
is neither wholly political nor social. This creates an organization whose only
function is to emit a strict set of tactical practices, in defense of a
"movement" that is lacking dynamism. For dissidents and activists, the objective
may be the creation of a network, a general assembly, a counterculture, or a
protest movement. For socialists, it may mean "building the Left", growing a
politically compliant base for the Party. Radical liberals funnel efforts into
coalitions of socially progressive capitalists and reformist NGOs. In each case,
this ideologically-minded construction diverts energy away from the formation of
Popular Power, resulting in an opposition which, whether it wants to or not,
mirrors the system it aims to overthrow.

Second, these tactics commit to a course of action which may or may not be
appropriate for a particular time and place, unnecessarily limiting the
engagements of a political organization. We agree with the Federación Anarquista
de Rosario (FAR) who describe their own organizational method as something that:

"respects the specificity and the dynamics of each space of struggle, making it
so that social spaces stay open to compañerxs of different ideologies, combined
with the fact that the political organization can function cohesively by not
staying tied to the dynamic of the social struggle." (translated from "Qué es el
anarquismo?")

If (or when) a particular struggle wanes (assuming the choice of tactical form is
appropriate) without insertion into multiple fronts, organizations focused on the
perpetuation of a single tactical station will lose the social vector of their
anarchism and will have to start over from scratch. Avoiding this dilemma is the
reason for emphasizing the social vector of anarchist practice:

"All of our actual reflection aims to think of a strategic model of organisation
that enables a recovery of the social vector, in that this points to our
objective of overcoming capitalism, the state and for the establishment of
libertarian socialism. What we seek, in this context, is only a station in the
struggle: as we emphasised at our foundation: "Here we present the FARJ, without
asking for anything other than a fighting station, lest righteous and profoundly
beautiful dreams die." (From Social Anarchism and Organization)

The social vector is fundamental for revolutionary transformation, but it is made
up of multiple stations that are not always strategically oriented. The political
organization is a unified station in the struggle. It is a "fighting station",
specifically aimed at progressing toward libertarian socialism in a strategic
way. This means adapting to the demands of a given situation while staying
independent of social movements.

Third and finally, by devoting all anarchist militancy to isolated tactical
stations, there is an insufficient political organization of anarchists, leaving
people to assume ideological and theoretical unity when there has been no work
put into developing them. This, again, is insufficient since, for anarchists,
organization:

"is both socially and politically necessary for revolutionary action and for the
building of a communist society." (from Foundational Concepts of the Specific
Anarchist Organization)

An absence of political organization leads to what may seem practical but are, in
fact, overly simplified conclusions about how strategy and theory don't really
need to be discussed. According to critics of specific anarchist organizing:

"ideas should arise spontaneously. They denounce discussion, persuasion,
convincing, exchange, influence as external to social movements and, therefore,
authoritarian." (from Social Anarchism and Organisation)

This usually means that the people who appear most committed hold a powerful sway
when new questions are raised. Never talking about strategy has the unintended
effect of creating a soft-power hierarchy within an organization since:

"[the]establishment of such 'centralism', usually in the name of efficiency, has
a tendency to stifle initiative and freedom. It can often exaggerate inequalities
in an organisation by granting privileges to small minorities." (from
"Foundational Concepts of the Specific Anarchist Organization")

For us, it is correct to use the terms "authoritarian" and "centralist" to refer
to anarchist organizations that refuse to question the course of action so long
as it remains committed to the primary, foundational tactic of the group. As we
have already said, tactical unity is necessary but insufficient, and it too often
serves as the basis for every kind of organizing work, even on the political level.

It is in this way that tactics are mistakenly understood as strategic positions.
For people defending their own lowest common denominator forms of organization,
critiques of tactics are wrongfully interpreted as ideological threats. But
strategically speaking:

"there is no way to fully 'prefigure' anarchy and communism through 'directly
democratic' spaces of 'autonomy'. Anarchism requires a specific anarchist
movement and anarchist practice. Though we must certainly organise ourselves from
the bottom up, with a consistent federalist structure, we can not simply bring
about our ideal by 'living anarchisticly' or relating to one another as
'horizontally' as possible. Similarly, the content of anarchism can not be
limited to the structure of our movement - its content of revolutionary class
struggle must be maintained." (from "Anarchists and Neo-anarchists: Horizontalism
and Autonomous Spaces'')

So, from a revolutionary perspective, we are critiquing the "constructionism" of
anarchists who unquestionably and constantly insist on these tactical forms.
Similarly to FARJ, in discussing:

"the "specific anarchist organisation" from this particular perspective, we are
not speaking about any anarchist organisation." (from Social Anarchism and
Organisation)

The political organization necessary for revolutionary militancy must be engaged
in multiple fronts, not limited to a single station in the struggle. The specific
anarchist organization has to be responsive and agile enough to meaningfully work
toward a revolutionary point of rupture.
By insisting on prefiguring the ends, anarchist stations can become too focused
on the perfection of their own tactic, preventing the possibility for collective
strategy which is the link between means and ends. Failing to effectively
federate leads tactical expertise to become cumbersome, dogmatic, and idealistic.
Federalism serves to prevent:

"the growth of domination in social relations and the creation of a leadership
clique separate from the mass of members.[...]formal structures and
accountability actually do more to prevent degeneration than to create it." (from
"Foundational Concepts of the Specific Anarchist Organization")

Additionally, persistent tactical forms often require too much militant effort to
sustain in the long term. They drain organizations and reproduce a cycle of
burnout. Most of all, they prioritize prefiguration at the expense of building up
Popular Power. This relates to FAR's point that:
"[the]objective of Federalism is a new institutionality, where there is no place
for any kind of privileges, whether economic, social, or political." (translated
from "Qué es el Anarquismo?")

Here, we could make a distinction between a dynamic "institutionality" that could
be applied, practiced, and spread to many different fronts as opposed to a more
fixed, ideological institution which has an uncompromising character and an
evangelizing outlook. In a more concrete sense, a situation composed of multiple
dual powers is likely to create regional privileges, so organizing federally
through (and beyond) these different forms is not only ideal but necessary for
the abolition of the world-wide system of domination.

We are not making a simple argument about local versus international focus.
Rather, we see the focus on prefigurative, tactically inflexible forms and the
details of their construction as a flaw in what is often referred to as a "dual
power strategy". This is the course of action proposed by multiple libertarian
socialist currents today, especially in the US:

"the proponents of Dual Power argue that we can improve our position under
capitalism, and ultimately achieve anarchy, by cobbling together whatever
resources we can muster and managing them in an autonomous, cooperative manner.
In practice, this would mean the better off among us providing goods and services
to those of us who are worse off (a form of service provision often confused with
the concept of 'mutual aid') and cooperative businesses competing with
traditional firms on the market." (from "Anarchists and Dual Power: Situation or
Strategy?")

This problem could be avoided relatively simply, but it would require greater
strategic understanding from anarchists, both in their social analysis and in
their militancy:

"[...]through actively encouraging people with common affinity to organize
themselves, the strategy of especifismo, which is based on unity on the political
level, becomes a tool that can be used by a political grouping within a mass
movement. And through mobilizing week after week to define a political program,
an ideologically unified group can simultaneously provide safe social space for
people who are not accepted by contemporary popular culture. These people could
be outcasted politically, culturally, racially, etc. and for them, ideological
and theoretical unity may provide a continuity of support that is not possible in
other groups. This has value for the individuals as well as the political agenda
since continuity will make the flow of militants and radical ideas as obvious and
as open as possible." (from "How do you say especifismo in English?")

This flow of political militants complements and interacts with social movements,
but anarchist political movements cannot allow their own organizing objectives to
be dissolved inside of the social level. Betting everything on the revolutionary
potential of a single sector of society is a mistake.

Organizational dualism is different than communalism and syndicalism, which
sometimes refer to a "third sector", arguing that a dual power institution, built
outside of the system, would be capable of overthrowing other institutions,
inside of the system. But theoretically, where can we locate this potential dual
power if not on the social or political levels? This is a theoretical and
strategic flaw of these kinds of projects and an example of the constant need for
the production and dissemination of theory by a political organization. If a dual
power project is an intermediate level of organizing, then a strategy for social
transformation would have to encourage movement outward, developing from the dual
power center, in two distinct but complementary tracks: toward political
organization and toward popular organization.

Since social revolution depends on the development of a mass movement, the
development of a single dual power might make sense tactically, but it will
always need to fit inside of a larger strategy involving multiple dual power
centers and anticipating the challenges created by such a situation.

Again, any strategy attempting to build power must emphasize federalism. It must
be practiced at every level of organization, even locally, in the present not the
future. Self-managed power, without federalism on the local, regional, national,
and international levels and without federalism across different sectors of
society, will only mean more work for the people of the community. This could
even be to the benefit of the State and capitalism since without strong
federations, alternative powers built outside of the system will simplify the
tasks of the State. This means that dual power and self-management are not
revolutionary forces, on their own. They need federalism and its
"new institutionality" to give the alternative power a revolutionary potential.

A dual power is something potentially created outside of and away from the
struggles produced by the dominant forces. In some cases, they may be entirely
divorced from struggles. There is even the risk of a single dual power becoming
too successful, breaking away towards full autonomy only to find itself isolated
and without any leverage inside of the system it opposes. In this way, for
example, a highly organized sector of workers could stand to benefit more from
the threat of taking their workplace and its existing power relations hostage
than from immediately transforming it into a self-managed cooperative. Class
society reproduces inherently conflictual spaces, full of contradictions that
cannot be avoided by alternatives attempting to position themselves "outside" of
it. Capitalism can only be destroyed by engaging its contradictions.

Bolstered by the refrain that it's "part of a dual power strategy", the
insistence on a single tactical form (by communalists, syndicalists, etc.) leaves
the actual strategy ambiguous and open-ended. In the interest of our
revolutionary objectives, we must be willing to talk about community assemblies,
and other tactical forms as tools, instruments that have the potential to be used
wrongly or badly, equipment that is not universally applicable and can be made to
be redundant. We have to be ready and willing to put a lot of work into stations
for various durations of time and still be able to abandon them as the strategic
situation requires. There is a significant difference between "creating
assemblies" and "assembling". The former is the prefigurative building of
institutions, and the latter is the grouped mobilization of people for the
purpose of decision-making.

We should be trying to develop Popular Power out of the struggles occurring in
society today. Though this power comes from the exploitative, dominating
conditions of the capitalist system, its objectives are for a new society,
managed by the people themselves. A truly self-managed and federalized Popular
Power is able to mobilize freely towards ends which no single group or individual
can dictate or direct. Anarchists should not be concerned with a strategy for
growing a political sect because anarchism is not the practice of prefiguring
societal institutions. Our emphasis on being present in social struggles will
sometimes mean that we choose to leave behind our preferred tactical stations and
projects, ensuring that we proceed with strategy. For anarchists practicing
organizational dualism, our focus should be on organizing our militancy so that
people may move more easily and consistently between stations, and so that
stations can find a suitable position within active fronts of struggle.

To reiterate, we are specifically critiquing a non-strategic employment of and
dogmatic allegiance to tactics. When they are used with strategy, tactical
stations are helpful and necessary, serving as entry points for social insertion
and training grounds for militant formation.

Tactical stations can be groupings that organize the most active people at a
particular site of struggle. In this way, a station could be a point of social
insertion for the political organization and an opportunity for others to have
contact with its political line. For example, in a struggle around housing, it
could make sense to organize the most agitated residents of an apartment complex
for self-education and information sharing purposes. And there could be lots of
reasons to keep these sessions going, to "hold the station".

The mutual aspect of mutual aid could be more frequently accomplished if we
positioned aid stations at specific points of struggle. They could serve as sites
of recovery and consistent support during struggles, especially if they are
ongoing. But these sites should be additions to strategic engagement in more
massive, popular movements on the social level. They cannot realistically help
everyone, and they lose their revolutionary potential in moralism and
indiscriminate application.

Between events in a struggle, there will always be times when debriefing and
evaluating the course of action are required. Militants will depend on tactical
stations being up and running for this exact purpose, but it is common to
overlook their preparation and maintenance until they are needed in a crisis or
uprising. It is wrong to assume that any place can effectively serve this
impromptu function. For the successful longevity of the revolutionary movement,
political organizations will need these specific kinds of outposts, and the
militants of the organizations will need to know where to find them.

Finally, a strategic tactical station could also serve a training, regrouping,
and preparation function. These kinds of stations are the farthest away from
active struggle but are no less relevant to a successful long term strategy. Part
of our role as a small engine within a growing Popular Power is to keep
generating and dissipating liberatory theory and practices. Tactical stations for
learning and development could be internal, serving members of an organization in
order to train them for political militancy, or they could be external, serving
as an educational resource for radicalizing people coming from the social level.
Afterall, this is the essence of organizational dualism: strategically and
organizationally developing in two complementary directions.

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32759
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