This article is a response to the article "People Power or Class Power"
by Daniel Rashid, published in Red&BlackNotes in the context of a publicdebate taking place in the US between the Black Rose Anarchist
Federation and the Libertarian Socialist Caucus (LSC) of the Democratic
Socialists of America (DSA). If you want to read the original in
English, you can download this PDF:
https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/The_Voice_of_an_Especifismo_Militant.pdf
Ideas move, especially influential ones. Translation is part of this
movement, as is education. Of course, some ideas are lost in
translation. But there is also gain from this movement. Militancy
consists of inserting, defending, and refining certain ideas to ensure
their coherence over time. As a specific activist, I'm often tasked with
bringing a specific set of ideas to anarchist, socialist, and activist
spaces. This has involved translating into English, French, Spanish,
Portuguese, and Catalan. But it's not simply translation work; it's
activism.
Militancy is about taking responsibility for taking a project to new
ground, but in the recent article "People Power or Class Power?" 1 , the
author, Daniel Rashid, never mentions militancy, revealing a major
problem with the Anglophone conception of revolutionary politics.
Without an understanding of militancy as the fundamental force driving
revolutionary ideas around the world, politics seems limited to
selecting the best ingredients for the perfect mix. This reduces
political education to an eclectic, and often personal, conglomeration
of references that are either rejected or added to the soup. But who
articulates a consistent line, the line that runs through study groups,
debates, and writings and still comes out ahead? Without militants
maintaining these lines over time, there would be no revolutionary
corpus to choose from.
When it comes to inserting the ideas of Especifismo into the
Anglosphere, it's more than simply incorporating words from another time
or place into 21st-century discourse. For example, in the "Anarchist
Digest" 2 , the Center for the Study of Especifismo (CES) compiled notes
from seminars with hundreds of participants over several years at an
annual event called Militant Kindergarten . These documents speak with a
collective voice composed of three elements: the participants of
Militant Kindergarten , the militants of CES, and the international
current of Especifismo. This means that these texts, like everything
produced by the organization of which I am a part, are the product of
our effort to translate ideas from an international level to a real
group of people in dialogue, and back to an expanding international
level. These ideas come from diverse sources, both current and
historical, and the participants also come from different places,
geographically and ideologically.
I say all this to point out the organic production of theory involved in
the international current of Especifismo, but also to make clear that,
like Rashid, I write this in my own voice. As a tool, my voice is
different from the voice of my organization, but both have in common the
undeniable influence of Especifismo. For me, it's not about
identification; it's about militant formation and political education.
Translating the ideas of Especifismo from one language to another, from
one continent to another, has shaped me in such a way that I am not
choosing Especifismo and leaving behind platformism, anarchist
communism, or even Marxism. Rather, it is from Especifismo itself that I
receive a political formation that allows me to understand and learn
from other currents, whether anarchist, Marxist, or otherwise.
Criticisms of Especifismo sometimes assume a kind of exoticism related
to Latin America, but the borders between the different "Americas" are
not as clearly delineated in practice as they are on maps. In the United
States, social life takes place in Spanish or English, depending on
location, work, school, family, etc., something evidenced by the
bilingual name Black Rose/Rosa Negra (BRRN) . In this context,
Especifismo has become a natural conduit for the arrival of a certain
style of revolutionary militancy to North America, since Latin America
and Spanish are not exactly foreign. For people like me, it is through
studies of Especifismo that we arrive at communism as committed
militants, not the other way around.
We now turn to the content of Rashid's article. I think that saying that
"mass organizations should not have a specific class base" to point out
a fundamental problem creates the possibility that criticisms become
excuses for not engaging with emerging labor movements. The strategy of
especifismo is to explicitly defend a class bias in mass organizations,
but to do so as rank-and-file participants, not from leadership
positions. Some organizations have referred to this as dual militancy .
Such social embeddedness is obviously necessary, since, today, not even
all unions have a working-class bias, let alone a combative character or
a revolutionary program. It is not the "type" of organization that
determines its position in the class struggle or the content of its
politics. The same is true of the phrase "actor in struggle," which
refers to individuals involved in a developing conflict. These actors
have the potential to organize and structure themselves in various
configurations. Thus, like social movements and mass organizations,
there is nothing about the "actors" that makes them revolutionary or
working class.
In general, I disagree with the use of the term "class reductionism ."
While I've certainly used it before, I've come to consider it an insult
hurled at people from a variety of sources without much significance.
However, I agree with BRRN that class is not the only "site of
domination." Specifically, it is the site of exploitation, what is known
as the economic sphere or what some Marxists call the base or
infrastructure. By rejecting the theoretical separation of the economic,
political, and ideological spheres of society, Rashid reduces the state
to a mere arm of capitalism and limits class power to the economic
sphere. BRRN is right to point out the double game of the state, even if
it is not always a reflection of class struggle.
Domination clearly extends beyond class. Rashid seems to agree on this
point, but he misunderstands BRRN's political practice, as it focuses on
different forms of domination. The argument against domination and
oppression is that these factors cannot be ignored by a revolutionary
project, just as factors of exploitation cannot. They must all be
considered because they are conjunctural conditions of political
practice. Therefore, if we are all willing to engage in struggles beyond
the workplace, the difference really lies in "how we should do it."
Given this, it is not only dogmatic to speak of a "secret to abolishing
white supremacy," but also anti-strategic to claim that this hidden
treasure can only be discovered by searching for the "origin or basis of
class." I don't think this is the path we should follow.
I completely agree that anarchism should not be a simple moral ideology.
In fact, much of my interaction with anarchists is based precisely on
this argument against the moralization of political practice. But it is
a strategic argument, not an ideological one. I don't believe anarchists
should question their most fundamental moral values and ethical
practices. This brings me to another important aspect of especifismo:
the differentiation between ideology, theory, and political practice .
This means that especifismo unites the doctrine of anarchism (ideology)
with a scientific understanding of the ever-expanding world (theory) and
collective activities based on strategy (political practice). The
practices of an organization are not the same as its ideal goals or the
tools and techniques its members use. Therefore, in especifismo, the
political organization combines these elements to produce a
strategy-that is, an analysis, a projection, and a plan.
The BRRN's "Turning the Tide" program exaggerates the "balance" in its
definition of power . 4 For example, the concept of "contested sites of
power" presents power as a zero-sum game, rather than a project to
increase the capacity of social movements outside the state. This ends
up confusing People Power with dual power, relying heavily on the
"asymmetrical" aspect of power relations between all possible groups. I
don't think it's wrong to say that this affects its understanding of
strategy and class. But much of this has already been written by BRRN
activists themselves , 5 implying that these positions are defended from
within the organization, even if they do not currently represent the
unified theoretical line of the entire organization. The same is true of
the CES, where we continue to debate many of the same criticisms raised
in Rashid's article. The externally recognizable theoretical unity of an
organization does not represent the full scope of militant training and
theoretical development that occurs behind the scenes, in militant
seminars, debates, and individual meetings. In specificism, the
political organization is an instance in the struggle to learn new ideas
and form opinions about them. It is the arena of class struggle, a
rearguard support for front-line confrontations.
Theoretical unity, like political analysis, must always occur in
context, from a specific perspective. This is both a methodological and
ethical imperative, which is avoided by overly general statements about
"current society," as if contextual specificity and politics had nothing
to do with class struggle. When BRRN refers to mass organizations as
"large and broad," "oppositional," and "identifiable with one or another
dominated group," it presents a practical definition, collectively
articulated in the voice of its organization.
An organization's ideological and theoretical lines may not necessarily
reflect the personal views of any particular group, as they are
conceived and realized as a group. This ensures a high degree of unity,
which in Especifismo is the basis not only of a political program but
also of the organizational platform itself. However, over time, that
unity must also be refined and strengthened. Therefore, while there may
be ideological, theoretical, and strategic criticisms of its
understanding of mass organizations, BRRN's political program should not
be interpreted as the final word on Especifismo. I'm sure they would
agree. The same should be said of other programs one can read from other
organizations. Especifismo is an international current, not a political
organization or an instance of political practice. By articulating an
organizational understanding of its own political practice, BRRN joins
the international current. For me, it is due to their exemplary activism
that they want to share documents like this publicly and not just
internally. It relates to what is called a "performance model," a term
used by FARJ and Militant Kindergarten that refers to the active
demonstration of commitment and responsibility, i.e., convincing through
action.
The article states that:
The most important thing is not that things interact in general -that is
meaningless -but that they interact as characteristics of a
working-class rebellion, and that their struggles only make sense from
this perspective.
For Rashid, this perspective is a structurally grounded class analysis.
I completely agree and would go so far as to say that the structural
primacy of class is not something that should be questioned in any
socialist project. However, I also understand "from this perspective" to
refer to the conjunctural aspects of a working-class rebellion. Thus,
following McCarthy and Desan, 6 I would say that especifismo is a form
of class analysis that maintains the structural primacy of class without
assuming its political primacy. This relates to conjunctural analysis
and especifismo's emphasis on prefigurative politics over prefigurative
forms and predetermined actors.
The context of a rebellion goes beyond the context of class struggle in
general, since, again, that would be meaningless. We consider the
antagonists of a labor action. They are not "capitalists" in an abstract
sense; they are real people making decisions in the concrete world.
Overlooking the need for conjunctural factors means conceiving of
strategy as something with universal meaning, rather than something that
fits into a particular paradigm or stratagem. This confuses strategy
with ideology, which is neither characterized nor shaped by immediate
conditions. It pretends that strategy focuses solely on our own plan,
not on the plans of our enemies.
Actors at the social level are often driven by necessity, but since they
are limited by will and organizational capacity, their goals should be
short-term gains achieved through combative demonstrations of force. But
actors at the political level are militant. Their organizational forms
are based on unity, and, as I've already said, the content of that unity
depends on the specific organization. To build People's Power, militants
of different persuasions must combine and coordinate their efforts with
social protagonists who have more immediate priorities, as well as with
activists who might not be committed at all to the long-term struggle.
Specificism emphasizes both the political and the conjunctural aspects
of the class struggle because the labor movement, like the tenant
movement or the student movement, is not an omnipresent and uniformly
constituted feature of life. Furthermore, working-class people are not
stereotypes devoid of context or background. They bring their own
baggage with them. That's why it makes no sense to say that a tenants'
union is definitely not organized with tenants as actors, when
sometimes, in some places, it is precisely in the tenants' movement that
people can see a place for all their needs.
Take the Los Angeles Tenants Union (LATU) in California, for example. It
combines federalism and self-management into a genuinely militant
organization. And these are, without a doubt, people "mobilized as
tenants." Indeed, it is by organizing as tenants to specifically address
the problems facing tenants that they can effectively mobilize around
issues such as rising rents, immigration policy, climate change,
international solidarity, and disaster response, to name just a few.
This means that workers from multiple sectors, with multiple identities,
and speaking multiple languages, can be drawn into the struggle against
landlords. That's why I suggest that, rather than using "in isolation"
to describe these diverse cultural and situational factors, it's better
to refer to "multiple points of view." In a mass organization, this is a
feature, not a defect. LATU is an organization where workers join other
dominated classes participating in a tenant front. The same approach
could be applied to the Barcelona rent strike and the student
organization mentioned in Rashid's article. Working-class students and
tenants need to be able to see their actions as part of a broader social
movement. It is from that context that politics can develop around
issues like the exploitative class nature of student life and the
struggle for housing.
A mass organization like LATU is capable of uniting the social strength
of diverse types of workers, including undocumented immigrants and not
only paid workers but also unpaid workers, caregivers. It reaches out to
sections of the working class that don't have direct contact with
bosses, colleagues, or traditional workplaces. There are homeless and
unemployed members, and even the potential to incorporate incarcerated
people into the organization. It is much more than just a "tenants'
union in an apartment building." In the struggle for housing, the Los
Angeles working class has articulated its own collective tradition of
struggle. This history should not be criticized or belittled. Such
perseverance deserves respect and support. LATU is an asset of the
working class, outside of bourgeois institutions. I would venture to say
that if its revolutionary politics have no place in an organization like
LATU, it is because they are not mass politics.
However, there is still debate about whether LATU is truly
representative of a broader tenant movement or simply an example of
effective working-class organizing in a contemporary American city. In
Washington State, for example, tenants have legal rights that extend
beyond the municipal level and are unique in the United States. However,
since they are not the result of mass organizing or fighting for
reforms, there is no tenant movement interested in continuing to gain
strength and incorporating more people. Furthermore, since tenants have
certain guaranteed rights, regardless of how individualistic their
politics, there isn't even an obvious role for tenant unions. This means
that there are no organizations prepared to defend these rights if (or
when) they are challenged. All of this leads us to the need for
revolutionary politics to be contextual and situational, as there are no
structural truths that resolve current problems once and for all.
People's Power is a goal of the general strategy of Especifismo, not a
way of understanding politics in general. As part of a process of
forming the Popular Organization of society, I think it is similar to
what Rashid means by "the organized working class." If "working-class
power" were the name of a type of politics, in Especifista discourse, I
think we would simply say workers' politics. However, in Especifismo,
the specific strategy is based on conjunctural analysis, as class
society has forced class struggle to take multiple forms depending on
various factors, from race and legal employment status to the cost of
living and the effects of climate change. The specific strategy of
Especifista organizations is not about dividing into fronts or
developing different fronts independently. It is about overcoming the
fact that the current working class is fractured and dispersed
throughout society, making it difficult to recognize class struggle
everywhere and forcing people to grapple with sometimes contradictory
priorities.
If an organization's current analysis has led it to the conclusion that
the class struggle isn't divided into fronts, types, modes, or whatever
you want to call it, then it wouldn't make sense to insert its militancy
into multiple struggles. But if this is a current reality recognized by
collective analysis, it would be dogmatic to continue basing its work
solely on a structural class analysis. It would be the same as having
only one general strategy and no limited one. For me, this is exactly
what turns political practice into a project to evangelize people,
trying to convince them to ignore the reality before them in favor of
grand ideas that are supposedly more important. More important than
keeping a job? More important than keeping a home? More important than
not being deported?
As I've said, there are multiple vantage points from which the working
class can view what's happening around them, and things look quite
different from these perspectives. This isn't standpoint epistemology or
any other academically derived post-class theory; it's politics. To be
relevant and influential, politics must be formed, propagated, and
defended. This happens with bourgeois politics, fascist politics, and
working-class politics. Simply "knowing there's something behind it" is
a way of ignoring the political work necessary to develop a program that
can truly support a revolutionary movement, not just a theoretical one.
It's true that the Oppressed Classes Front isn't a concept that has been
widely discussed at the CES. While I agree that theoretically it
"represents the union of diverse social causes," I don't think it's
correct to say that this fits within a single, ambiguous "broad
movement." The unification of disparate struggles into a singular
movement will be the result of federalism, not the dilution of
working-class politics. The path to People's Power must not be too
broad, or it will not put an end to class domination. Only a
working-class understanding of this power can be the basis of a
communist society. Therefore, if some anarcho-communists prefer to rally
around a different term, that's a decision their organizations must make
collectively. I will only caution them not to forget that any adjective
preceding "power," to be revolutionary, must be popular, not only in a
technical sense but also in a vulgar one.
What would it even mean to consider the dominated classes without the
working class?
Obviously, that would not leave enough labor for any socialist politics,
much less for a revolutionary project of People's Power. Therefore, it
should already be clear to comrades that when especifista organizations
refer to the dominated classes, they never exclude the working class. To
the extent that this term means more than just the waged, able-bodied,
and legally eligible labor force, it is erroneous to assume that this is
a consequence of the class definition of especifismo or the ethical
lines of anarchism. Including the oppressed and dominated is also a
priority for a working class that defends itself and seriously fights
for victory. Workers also have ethical values and dynamic definitions of
class. Were the actors in revolutionary Spain "workers led by the CNT"
or workers who rebelled on their own terms? How could it be stated with
certainty that a particular reform favored workers and not tenants or
"the lower class"? Social conditions like rent are not simply reduced to
wages. I think we'd agree that lowering rents to levels workers could
afford wouldn't be enough. Surely not because the entire system must be
abolished, even less because housing is a human right.
Finally, it is true that BRRN does not address violence per se, and
certainly not at the tactical level. But it would be wrong to assume
that Especifismo is disconnected from military strategy, especially when
compared to other anarchist currents. In fact, armed struggle is an
overlapping factor in the historical development of both Platformism and
Especifismo. While they may differ on the details, they agree on the
need for a violent break with the forces of capital, fostered by armed
struggle.
But violence is not simply "organized" in the way it is always proposed
to "organize the working class." There is no reason to assume that an
armed trade union movement or a workers' army is strategically prepared
or personally committed to a protracted struggle against the national
forces of a modern army. What might be considered "popularly acceptable
violence" is the result of political practice. It is the result of the
revolutionary political expression of a popular movement, in all sectors
of society, every day. It is the result of political militancy.
Politics is a fundamental element of power, whether dominant and
exploitative or self-managed and federalist. Dual power, class power,
People's Power, with or without a capital letter, with or without a
hyphen, is built through the political practice of committed
participants, that is, militants. Starting from Carl von Clausewitz's
idea that war is politics by other means, Abraham Guillén makes it clear
that revolutionary war requires popular support . 7 This is the concern
of Especifismo militants and their political and educational organizations.
Carl Eugene Stroud
REFERENCES
See the text here
See the link
"We are committed to a dual-activism strategy, which implies political
and active participation on two levels. From a specifically anarchist
platform, we organize ourselves to intervene in mass movements." (See:
"Founding Text" by Liza, self-described as "a revolutionary organization
of anarchist socialists")
"Many anarchists, past and present, view power as synonymous with the
state, as equivalent to exploitation and domination, as something that
must be destroyed. We, on the other hand, understand power as a
relationship, shaped by the constant struggle between the social forces
of society, particularly between the dominant and dominated classes. The
balance of power between these conflicting classes varies according to
time and place, depending on which side is able to achieve its goals
despite resistance from opposing forces." (See: p. 5 of "Turning the
Tide" by BRRN)
"Tipping the Scales: People Power in an Age of Protest and Pandemic," by
Enrique Guerrero-López and Cameron Pádraig; and "Clearing Up
Especifismo: A Response to DSA-LSC's 'Letter to the Libertarian Left,'"
by BRRN .
"The Problem with Class Abstractionism ," by Michael A. McCarthy and
Mathieu Hikaru Desan
"[...]because a favorable population hides, protects and conceals the
combatants of the liberation army" (See: pp. 205-206 of "Theory of
Violence" by Abraham Guillén)
https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/2025/07/03/la-voz-de-un-militante-del-especifismo/
_________________________________________
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