WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE ITALY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #22-25 - Bakunin and Mass Organization (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 These brief notes are an adaptation of Gino Cerrito's "The Role of

Anarchist Organization." They are also a tribute to this great historian
and activist; we hope they contribute to the rediscovery of this
important text. ---- Tiziano Antonelli ---- In the years surrounding the
Paris Commune, Mikhail Bakunin reached a definitive formulation of the
mass organization and the anarchist organization that would bring
together the conscious anarchist minority.
Regarding this latter organization, the Russian revolutionary realized
that the problem was, ultimately, one of means-ends synthesis, a human
moral problem, a problem based on the tools employed by the "enlightened
minority" in the struggle against the state and for collective and
individual freedom, a problem whose core is the action of "popular
self-determination, on the basis of absolute equality, of complete and
multifaceted human freedom." Only these humanistic and solidaristic
elements can save the revolution from the authoritarian order or the
arbitrary will of Jacobin minorities.

Only an "enlightened minority" with "a thought that expresses the
desires, instincts, essence, and needs of the people," strong in its
"clearly understood purpose amidst a crowd struggling aimlessly and
without principle 'in the milieu of the doule des hommes luttants sans
bout et sans plan'" can solve the problem of social revolution. For such
a minority, rejecting all vanity, greed, and personal ambition, would
direct the popular revolution toward its just libertarian and federalist
goals.

As for mass organization, Mikhail Bakunin, his friends, and all young
anti-authoritarian internationalists in general seem excited by the
events. For them, despite everything, with its resistance, its heroism,
its internal vicissitudes, and the faith it instilled in workers and the
radical bourgeoisie itself, the Paris Commune was tangible proof of the
possibility of further mass insurrectionary movements. But the
revolutionary organization's continued efforts in this direction must
now be based on the recognition that the masses are not only demanding
radical social transformation; they are primarily demanding an
improvement in their current and intolerable living conditions.

Bakunin himself-whose ideas were echoed by several internationalist
periodicals of the time-supported the establishment of trade
associations as a tool for revolutionary association, solidarity, and
the struggle against the employers to achieve more humane living
conditions. "To interest and draw the entire proletariat into the work
of the International," Bakunin wrote in La protestation de l'Alliance of
1871, "it was and is necessary to approach it not with general ideas,
but with a real and living understanding of its real ills... To touch
the heart and win the confidence, assent, adherence, and cooperation of
the uneducated proletariat... we must begin by speaking to them not
about general ills... nor about the general causes that cause them, but
about particular, daily, private ills. We must talk to them about their
profession and the conditions of their work in the very place where they
live... And when proposing to them the means useful for combating their
ills and improving their position, we must not begin by speaking to them
about those general and revolutionary means...[because]they would
probably understand nothing of all those means... No, we must begin by
proposing to them the means whose usefulness natural common sense and
daily experience cannot fail to recognize and be tempted to reject.
These initial means are...": the establishment of factory unions, the
federation of organizations within the same trade and locality, and the
creation of resistance funds to be used during strikes. These local
trade-based workers' organizations form the section of the International
and are one and the same, establishing a federal link with the sections
in other localities.

This was precisely the type of organization that spontaneously formed in
Romagna, where in December 1871 the sections created a "local federal
unit" known as the Fascio Operaio. The discussions within this Fascio
Operaio regarding whether to join one of the two main currents of the
International Workingmen's Association, or whether to opt for complete
autonomy, prove the validity of Bakunin's considerations regarding the
difficulties of propaganda among the working masses. Their ability to
comprehend the major organizational problems being debated within the
IWA was limited, and they were often inclined to accept certain
solutions not because of their understanding of them, but rather because
of a personal relationship, trust in a person, or a direct link with the
representative of a certain movement. This relationship was particularly
important in southern Italy; and it was precisely on such connections
that the very uniformity of choice among Bakunin's followers and the
groups they managed to influence was sometimes based.
The trade union, the federation of workers' organizations, strikes, and
worker solidarity through resistance funds were not-for Bakunin-to
preclude systematic insurrectionary pressure. Believing it was essential
to seize every opportunity to spark popular movements aimed at educating
the masses, bringing them closer to the ultimate goal, Bakunin and the
anarchists focused their attention on the economically less advanced
countries where the Commune had had significant effects: Russia, but
especially Spain and Italy. However, to realize this project of
revolutionary incitement, seizing favorable opportunities everywhere, it
was necessary to focus precisely on the decision-making autonomy of
local sections, thereby eliminating any centralist structure.

These ideas of Mikhail Bakunin would inform the action of the
anti-authoritarian tendency of the IWA and would remain alive in the
anarchist movement in France and Spain, inspiring the major achievements
of the workers' movement in those countries.

Gino Cerrito

Adapted from "The Role of Anarchist Organization" by Tiziano Antonelli

https://umanitanova.org/bakunin-e-lorganizzazione-di-massa
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