On Friday 31/1, the third book launch event of our recent publication
"The Platform of the General Union of Anarchists and the Dialogue on It"was held at the Idionymus coffee shop in Korydallos, as well as a
discussion on the issue of anarchist organization. ---- The long and
content-rich dialogue that took place at the hospitable Idionymus, the
rare comradely enthusiasm that characterized it, the common conclusions
that were detected on a multitude of issues, but also the dialectical
discussion of certain individual disagreements, make the event
undoubtedly an absolute success. Furthermore, the active participation
of the majority of comrades, the continuation of discussions even after
the end of the event and the lively interest in identifying and
overcoming deficiencies that hold us back, in order to move forward,
constitute an invaluable gain.
We would like to publicly thank the Idionym for the invitation to hold
the event, as well as all those present, with the hope of meeting again,
in our common struggle.
The written part of our presentation at the event follows
The "Platform of the General Union of Anarchists" is a text of
historical importance for the global anarchist movement, extremely
relevant to this day. This is a draft of a "Platform" for an anarchist
organization, not a fully completed text, published in 1926 by the group
of Russian Exiled Anarchists under the name DeloTruda (Labor Cause).
This draft is divided into three parts: the general section, which sets
out the ideological, tactical and strategic directions of the
organization, the creative section, which sets out the programmatic
ones, and the organizational section, which sets out its organizational
principles.
The Platform cannot be examined outside the historical context in which
it was written. It is essentially the distillation of the experience of
the defeat of the anarchist forces in the Russian Revolution of 1917,
with the dominance of Bolshevism and the subsequent foundation of the
"workers' state" over the proletariat. Furthermore, we cannot fail to
take into account, when studying the "Platform", by whom it was written.
The Platform was not a programmatic and organizational proposal written
by some detached theorists. The members of DeloTruda experienced
first-hand the results of the Bolshevik Power in Russia, the bloody
suppression of the anarchist movement, as well as the internal
weaknesses of the anarchists, which constituted, as they analyze, a
factor of defeat and retreat in this particular historical period.
They were, moreover, active subjects within the revolutionary process,
being key players in the Social Revolution in Ukraine, contributing to
the implementation of anarchist projects, such as the socialization of
land, with management being in the hands of the peasants themselves. At
the same time, they fought on the front lines of the battles to defend
the revolution both against the nationalist forces of the
counter-revolution and against the Red Army, which ultimately suppressed it.
The publication of the "Platform" was followed by a dense and intense
dialogue within the global anarchist movement, which took place mainly
between 1926 and 1930. We present this dialogue in the second chapter of
our publication, in three sections. First, the correspondence between
Maria Ishidin and Pyotr Arshinov from the side of DeloTruda. Second, the
confrontation with the "Synthetists", which demonstrated the intense
ideological and organizational disagreements between DeloTruda and the
group of Russian Synthetists. And in the third part the correspondence
between Enrico Malatesta on the one hand and Nestor Makhno and Pyotr
Arshinov on the other.
Avoiding anachronisms, we believe that the proposals of the "Platform"
are worth analyzing and discussing in the present era in the direction
of the organizational perspective of the anarchist forces and the role
that they will have within the present class and social conditions. If
we want an anarchist movement that will be a catalyst for developments,
then we must delve into the issues raised in the Platform and seek the
reasons why the anarchist proposals did not succeed in the previous
century in establishing themselves on a large geographical scale, while
there were also great movements and great revolutions and moments when
anarchism was their guiding assistant as well (as, for example, in Spain).
We should initially emphasize that the "Platform" did not introduce
"new" proposals to the anarchist movement but developed already
established ones that had begun to move away from the core of the
anarchist worldview due to the osmosis of anarchists with exogenous
currents. This is why the members of Delo Truda speak of a "chronic
disorganization" of the anarchist movement, attributing its causes to
the apotheosis of individuality and a series of theoretical distortions
within it. However, anarchism is a specific ideological and
revolutionary movement that was born within the bosom of the first
international workers' union and was systematized as a class movement
with a revolutionary orientation. It is not a bourgeois philosophy of
life, nor a rights-based and reformist movement, nor does it lend itself
to finding supposedly unconventional lifestyle refuges in order to get
it out "communally" within barbaric capitalism. Anarchism had, has and
should continue to have as its goal the revolutionary reorganization of
society.
Based on this goal, the proposals of the "Platform" are therefore put
forward. What the Platform suggests and which we schematically call
"organizational dualism", i.e. the organization of anarchists both in a
purely anarchist organization with a clear identity and strategic goal,
and their organization at the social and class level (e.g. in trade
unionism, in popular assemblies, etc.) Delo Truda does not invent from
scratch but extends it from Bakunin and the action of anarchists in the
international workers' union. It was there that this idea was first
applied. On the one hand, the anarchists were members of the workers'
union and on the other hand, they were united in the famous "Alliance",
which was the first anarchist organization in history and had a tight
framework of statutory principles and a specific revolutionary program
as a guide for the society they proposed.
On the other hand, the idea of a "revolutionary program" is not
encountered for the first time in the Platform. Kropotkin's statement
that every struggle must have a clear formulation of its purpose is well
known, while as we said before, the "Alliance" was an organization
founded around a revolutionary program. After the "Platform" there is
also the example of the revolutionary program of the CNT, which was even
to be implemented in a large part of Spain. It is no coincidence that
whenever the anarchist movement played a key role in revolutionary
history it was organized and had a clear proposal.
Then two other concepts that the Platform introduces are those of
"ideological and tactical unity" within the framework of the anarchist
organization. Ideological unity first of all means agreement on the
identifying characteristics and principles of the anarchist
organization. This idea opposes the synthesists' proposal for an
organization that includes anarchists of the class struggle and
individualists alike. However, if we accept that anarchism is a class
and revolutionary movement, a product of the anti-authoritarian wing of
the socialist camp, this distances us from any such claim.
Individualists do not fight for the Social Revolution, they do not
recognize the class character of anarchism and in their various versions
they seek personal satisfaction over collective. This logic rests on the
liberal and not on the socialist tradition. It perceives society as a
sum of competing individuals and inevitably leads to the need for power
and hierarchy. The mixture of class and individualist elements within
anarchism has shaped anarchist movements in recent decades, struggling
with their goals, making the conclusions of the "Platform" even more
timely but also, unfortunately, confirmed, since the synthesis between
heterogeneous elements at the level of principles and goals cannot
create a subversion movement with clear goals, as the representatives of
our movement have been saying since its inception.
Tactical unity, on the other hand, concerns the unified character of the
organization. Usually, anarchists have a tendency to recognize the
freedom of the individual as opposed to collective freedom, resulting in
logics of "everyone should do what they like". However, this view is
drawn from the bowels of bourgeois and liberal theory. Anarchism, as
Bakunin also emphasized, "sees" the freedom of all as a prerequisite for
the freedom of each and not the other way around. An organization or a
movement in which everyone does whatever they like implies the
competition of "egos", the hierarchy between the stronger and the
weaker, and also complete inefficiency.
On the other hand, an organization and a movement whose members (and not
isolated individuals) express themselves through the collective
agreement that they have jointly co-formed can both cooperate in
solidarity and not lose their personal characteristics in the
complexities of a perpetual competition of heterogeneous ideas, as the
synthesists wanted then or their devotees today, who argue that
anarchism is not an ideology but a "general idea" that everyone defines
as they please (even borrowing tools, theories and projects from rival
movements).
The ideological and tactical unity through which the unified character
in the theory and practice of the organization is defined, finds its
reflection in the "collective responsibility" that the "Platform"
suggests. Collective responsibility concerns the relationship of the
member with the organization as an indivisible unity which is expressed
through the principle "each member responsible for the organization, the
entire organization responsible for each member". Although there have
been misinterpretations of this passage of the "Platform", we consider
the idea that is derived to be important. If each member is responsible
for the organization and vice versa, then we have the full expression of
the principle of equality which is not lost on the altar of an
individual/organization distinction as a disjunctive relationship, but
the highest pedestal of the anti-hierarchical structure, in which
everyone is responsible for the collective, everyone responsible for the
"individual" without one being "lost" or subordinated to the other. Let
us contrast Marxist-Leninist party discipline on the one hand and the
liberal apotheosis of the individual on the other, in order to
understand the essence of the above principle.
Finally, the "Platform" speaks of federalism, a fundamental feature of
anarchism, which opposes centralism. However, the members of Delo Truda
note, federalism and autonomy (e.g. of a group or a region) cannot be
understood as autonomy from the whole. Let us think about the society we
propose. A great anarchist saying is that "the way we organize ourselves
today should foreshadow the society we envision." Anarchists once spoke
of self-sufficient communities with the rural societies in which they
lived in mind. Could such a thing happen today? Certainly not. Let us
just think about what the autonomy of a province would mean for the city
for the whole of social life. Just as the society of the city could not
survive without agricultural goods, so could a province not live without
industrial goods. How could there be an anarchist political organization
whose each region would be completely autonomous and would do whatever
it wanted against the collective?
As we note in our texts contained in the publication, the most discussed
passages of the "Platform" are those that describe the characteristics
of the structure of the anarchist organization and mainly the above
concepts. This approach is wrong. The organization is nothing more than
the culmination of the program and the project, the result of the
proposal and not the proposal itself.
If today we insist on the importance of the anarchist organization, this
is not at all related to our obsessions with organizational formulas. It
is necessary to move in the direction of organization to unify forces
around a goal and around a revolutionary program that we will promote
deeply within the class struggle. This program, modern and structured on
today's society, will be the compass of our struggle, without which
everything we do is either condemned to be assimilated by the
administrative forces of the system, or is condemned to concern only the
self-referentiality of our political space.
Our collectivity proposes the organization of each comrade and each
comrade to march towards the perspective of the general anarchist
organization. Based on the present, we elaborate the proposals of the
past and not for reasons of satisfying philosophical reflections. This
purpose is served by our publication beyond the undeniable historical
and theoretical value of the "Platform" and the dialogue that
accompanied it. That is why we want the discussion that will follow to
look more at the present and the future than at the past, without
overlooking the importance that critical reading and drawing conclusions
has for us today.
https://protaanka.espivblogs.net/2025/02/04/eisigisi-stin-ekdilosi-vivlioparoysiasi-sto-idionymo-stis-31-1/
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