We present here a translation of an article which appeared on July 7,
2024 in the recently revived Spanish anarchist journal Regeneración
Libertaria. The journal describes itself as "a portal for the
revolutionary anarchist tendency, concretely of the especifista current,
adapted to the Iberian Peninsula". ---- Despite its original theoretical
texts appearing in Spanish, the anarchist strategy of especifismo has
only recently begun to make an impact on anarchism in Spain and
Catalonia, places where the movement has historically found its
expression through anarcho-syndicalist labor unions such as the CNT and
CGT. This context becomes relevant to the article as the author, a CNT
militant, aims to address the tension between especifismo's commitment
to organizational dualism and the revolutionary syndicalist view which
sees no need for political organization outside of the union.
The recent introduction of especifismo to the Iberian Peninsula can be
attributed largely to the work of organizations such as Embat and LiZA,
whose militants have been producing articles, participating in social
struggles, and holding seminars in Spain, Catalonia, and Portugal.
We are encouraged to see our European comrades taking up these ideas,
debating them, and seeking to adapt them to their own context.
Article in the original Spanish: 'El especifismo ante sus críticos'.
Minor changes have been made in the course of translation for the
purposes of clarity.
Translation by Cameron Pádraig.
Especifist anarchism advocates the need for a theoretical, strategic,
and tactical organization-bound together with a program-under the banner
of libertarian socialism. This is the 'specifically anarchist'
organization, hence the term especifismo. It is a meeting point between
affinities of social and organized anarchism, the aim of which is to
influence social movements or 'mass organizations'. In this way
especifismo embraces 'organizational dualism', because the anarchist
organization is not meaningful unless it is oriented towards the various
popular struggles. The specific organization aims to plant, within
social movements, a revolutionary seed which can provide consistency
through the ups and downs of social conflict and the political cycle.
Most of the criticisms of especfiismo accuse it of promoting 'entryism',
vanguardism, or of aiming to create a secretly coordinated minority who
hope to manipulate social movements for their own purposes. These are
suspicions that we understand to be legitimate but that, we believe, if
they are made from a place of honesty and real concern, arise from a
misunderstanding of the basic elements of the strategy.
Especifista anarchism advocates the idea of popular power. This notion
maintains that social revolution will come about only through the
organized masses themselves. It rests on the firm belief that the
popular classes must be the protagonists and subjects of the social
revolution. Proponents of popular power are committed to the principle
that social struggles must be self-managed by the popular classes,
struggles wherein popular structures are built based on the active
participation of a broad majority and on democratic decision-making
mechanisms. The concrete practice of especifismo is to make these mass
organizations and social movements sites of genuine learning and popular
participation.
Therefore, if we especifistas are truly committed to our principles, it
would not make sense for us to seek executive control over social
movements which possess the features that we are seeking to create.
Moreover, the specific organization is not an end in itself. In other
words, the strategy of especifismo is not concerned with growing a
permanent vanguard party, but instead with the construction and
orientation of mass movements toward a social revolutionary horizon.
Especifismo shuns the vanguardist thesis and instead affirms that the
libertarian communist militant must insert themselves within popular
struggles, standing shoulder to shoulder with the people-not acting
above them or 'from the shadows'.
We know that not everyone is an anarchist, in fact even within anarchism
itself there is no broad consensus on political action. In this way the
specific organization is a space of unity for those of us who recognize
that a shared strategy, analysis of the conjuncture, and training to be
indispensable. We recognize ourselves to be heirs to the socialist
tradition, and as such we understand that together we will think better.
We reject 'anarchist' individualism, which we believe to be a liberal
deviation of recent decades.
Returning to the idea of popular power, much of the aim of especifista
anarchism, through concrete praxis, is to build mass organizations and
social movements that are participatory and democratic. Part of its task
is to identify the presence of other political groups and organizations
within these mass movements, to understand their strategy, and
occasionally to confront them. Our aim in these mass movements is to
equip participants within them with effective tools for
self-organization and action. We aim to prevent these mass movements
from being co-opted, deactivated or controlled by institutional and/or
vanguardist tendencies. That is to say, especifismo seeks the opposite
of co-optation or entryism. It instead seeks to organize and radicalize
the popular masses under their own will and desire for liberation.
One of the fundamental principles of anarchism is a commitment to
'prefiguration'. This posits that the modes of organization and tactics
carried out must accurately reflect the future society being sought.
This commitment runs through our modes of organization, of action and
our militant code of ethics. In each case we do not recognize a division
between means and ends. We believe that the tactics we deploy are loaded
with meaning and we do not want to build a new world which smuggles in
the endemic evils of the current one. That is why especifismo has a
clear ethical code. Transparency, clarity, and honesty in the
communication of our intentions are paramount. The strategies of
entryism or co-optation are usually marked by unethical stratagems such
as the control of certain working groups by a minority organized from
outside, the taking of formal and informal power, and/or the use of
ambiguous language that conceals intent. These elements are reflective
of vanguardism, a revolutionary strategy which engenders a future class
society directed by a bureaucratic-intellectual elite. Especifista
anarchists see the antidote to such an arrangement to be the popular
participation of the mass of people in a society via the frameworks of
federalism and socialized control of production. We argue that this mode
of social organization generates a broad institutionality that cannot
easily be taken over by a privileged minority or intellectuals.
Turning now toward revolutionary syndicalism, there is a quite
understandable debate in this context regarding the existence of the
specific anarchist organization. This emerges from the understanding
within revolutionary syndicalism of the syndicate (the revolutionary
labor union) as the structure that synthesizes political organization
and mass organization. In this vision, the syndicate is the organization
that will replace the State as the administrator of society until the
emergence of total communism. We formally support this political
commitment and its strategy, however, it does not seem contradictory to
us to maintain the existence of a specific anarchist organization where
anarcho-syndicalist militants meet to establish a strategic coherence,
to share experiences of struggle and to have theoretical debates beyond
the trade union spaces.
Revolutionary syndicalism is the popular materialization of the working
class constituted in trade unions. It is that which orients itself
mainly towards seizing control of society's productive means. The
problem is that, often, it is difficult to attract young militants to
anarcho-syndicalism because they do not find within it a space relevant
to them. A variety of factors cause this difficulty: theoretical
underdevelopment, material circumstances, and/or the demands that union
work implies. We contend that the anarchist organization can be a space
to form and develop the anarcho-syndicalist militants of the future, to
arm them with the capacity to conduct analytical, strategic, and
tactical work effectively. As stated above, it can be a place that
serves as a political school for many politically disoriented people.
In a context where we might confuse the trees for the forest, the
anarchist political organization should be the mountain we can climb to
survey the wider landscape. A place that generates the solid
revolutionary base for different mass movements, that interconnects them
and that energizes anarcho-syndicalism with pragmatic and trained
militants. We understand that there are reasons for doubt and we
celebrate these organizational debates. They show that the libertarian
space is coming back to life after many years of theoretical stagnation,
sectarianism, disorganization and purely aesthetic activism. The task
ahead is still quite big, but no less exciting for that.
https://blackrosefed.org/especifismo-before-its-critics/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
2024 in the recently revived Spanish anarchist journal Regeneración
Libertaria. The journal describes itself as "a portal for the
revolutionary anarchist tendency, concretely of the especifista current,
adapted to the Iberian Peninsula". ---- Despite its original theoretical
texts appearing in Spanish, the anarchist strategy of especifismo has
only recently begun to make an impact on anarchism in Spain and
Catalonia, places where the movement has historically found its
expression through anarcho-syndicalist labor unions such as the CNT and
CGT. This context becomes relevant to the article as the author, a CNT
militant, aims to address the tension between especifismo's commitment
to organizational dualism and the revolutionary syndicalist view which
sees no need for political organization outside of the union.
The recent introduction of especifismo to the Iberian Peninsula can be
attributed largely to the work of organizations such as Embat and LiZA,
whose militants have been producing articles, participating in social
struggles, and holding seminars in Spain, Catalonia, and Portugal.
We are encouraged to see our European comrades taking up these ideas,
debating them, and seeking to adapt them to their own context.
Article in the original Spanish: 'El especifismo ante sus críticos'.
Minor changes have been made in the course of translation for the
purposes of clarity.
Translation by Cameron Pádraig.
Especifist anarchism advocates the need for a theoretical, strategic,
and tactical organization-bound together with a program-under the banner
of libertarian socialism. This is the 'specifically anarchist'
organization, hence the term especifismo. It is a meeting point between
affinities of social and organized anarchism, the aim of which is to
influence social movements or 'mass organizations'. In this way
especifismo embraces 'organizational dualism', because the anarchist
organization is not meaningful unless it is oriented towards the various
popular struggles. The specific organization aims to plant, within
social movements, a revolutionary seed which can provide consistency
through the ups and downs of social conflict and the political cycle.
Most of the criticisms of especfiismo accuse it of promoting 'entryism',
vanguardism, or of aiming to create a secretly coordinated minority who
hope to manipulate social movements for their own purposes. These are
suspicions that we understand to be legitimate but that, we believe, if
they are made from a place of honesty and real concern, arise from a
misunderstanding of the basic elements of the strategy.
Especifista anarchism advocates the idea of popular power. This notion
maintains that social revolution will come about only through the
organized masses themselves. It rests on the firm belief that the
popular classes must be the protagonists and subjects of the social
revolution. Proponents of popular power are committed to the principle
that social struggles must be self-managed by the popular classes,
struggles wherein popular structures are built based on the active
participation of a broad majority and on democratic decision-making
mechanisms. The concrete practice of especifismo is to make these mass
organizations and social movements sites of genuine learning and popular
participation.
Therefore, if we especifistas are truly committed to our principles, it
would not make sense for us to seek executive control over social
movements which possess the features that we are seeking to create.
Moreover, the specific organization is not an end in itself. In other
words, the strategy of especifismo is not concerned with growing a
permanent vanguard party, but instead with the construction and
orientation of mass movements toward a social revolutionary horizon.
Especifismo shuns the vanguardist thesis and instead affirms that the
libertarian communist militant must insert themselves within popular
struggles, standing shoulder to shoulder with the people-not acting
above them or 'from the shadows'.
We know that not everyone is an anarchist, in fact even within anarchism
itself there is no broad consensus on political action. In this way the
specific organization is a space of unity for those of us who recognize
that a shared strategy, analysis of the conjuncture, and training to be
indispensable. We recognize ourselves to be heirs to the socialist
tradition, and as such we understand that together we will think better.
We reject 'anarchist' individualism, which we believe to be a liberal
deviation of recent decades.
Returning to the idea of popular power, much of the aim of especifista
anarchism, through concrete praxis, is to build mass organizations and
social movements that are participatory and democratic. Part of its task
is to identify the presence of other political groups and organizations
within these mass movements, to understand their strategy, and
occasionally to confront them. Our aim in these mass movements is to
equip participants within them with effective tools for
self-organization and action. We aim to prevent these mass movements
from being co-opted, deactivated or controlled by institutional and/or
vanguardist tendencies. That is to say, especifismo seeks the opposite
of co-optation or entryism. It instead seeks to organize and radicalize
the popular masses under their own will and desire for liberation.
One of the fundamental principles of anarchism is a commitment to
'prefiguration'. This posits that the modes of organization and tactics
carried out must accurately reflect the future society being sought.
This commitment runs through our modes of organization, of action and
our militant code of ethics. In each case we do not recognize a division
between means and ends. We believe that the tactics we deploy are loaded
with meaning and we do not want to build a new world which smuggles in
the endemic evils of the current one. That is why especifismo has a
clear ethical code. Transparency, clarity, and honesty in the
communication of our intentions are paramount. The strategies of
entryism or co-optation are usually marked by unethical stratagems such
as the control of certain working groups by a minority organized from
outside, the taking of formal and informal power, and/or the use of
ambiguous language that conceals intent. These elements are reflective
of vanguardism, a revolutionary strategy which engenders a future class
society directed by a bureaucratic-intellectual elite. Especifista
anarchists see the antidote to such an arrangement to be the popular
participation of the mass of people in a society via the frameworks of
federalism and socialized control of production. We argue that this mode
of social organization generates a broad institutionality that cannot
easily be taken over by a privileged minority or intellectuals.
Turning now toward revolutionary syndicalism, there is a quite
understandable debate in this context regarding the existence of the
specific anarchist organization. This emerges from the understanding
within revolutionary syndicalism of the syndicate (the revolutionary
labor union) as the structure that synthesizes political organization
and mass organization. In this vision, the syndicate is the organization
that will replace the State as the administrator of society until the
emergence of total communism. We formally support this political
commitment and its strategy, however, it does not seem contradictory to
us to maintain the existence of a specific anarchist organization where
anarcho-syndicalist militants meet to establish a strategic coherence,
to share experiences of struggle and to have theoretical debates beyond
the trade union spaces.
Revolutionary syndicalism is the popular materialization of the working
class constituted in trade unions. It is that which orients itself
mainly towards seizing control of society's productive means. The
problem is that, often, it is difficult to attract young militants to
anarcho-syndicalism because they do not find within it a space relevant
to them. A variety of factors cause this difficulty: theoretical
underdevelopment, material circumstances, and/or the demands that union
work implies. We contend that the anarchist organization can be a space
to form and develop the anarcho-syndicalist militants of the future, to
arm them with the capacity to conduct analytical, strategic, and
tactical work effectively. As stated above, it can be a place that
serves as a political school for many politically disoriented people.
In a context where we might confuse the trees for the forest, the
anarchist political organization should be the mountain we can climb to
survey the wider landscape. A place that generates the solid
revolutionary base for different mass movements, that interconnects them
and that energizes anarcho-syndicalism with pragmatic and trained
militants. We understand that there are reasons for doubt and we
celebrate these organizational debates. They show that the libertarian
space is coming back to life after many years of theoretical stagnation,
sectarianism, disorganization and purely aesthetic activism. The task
ahead is still quite big, but no less exciting for that.
https://blackrosefed.org/especifismo-before-its-critics/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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