dinsdag 5 mei 2026
WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE ITALY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #10-26 - China: A Celestial Transition. A Five-Year Plan Under the Banner of Confucian Restoration (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
In his end-of-year speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping stated that China's 15th Five-Year Plan will be entirely focused on Artificial Intelligence. The recently concluded 14th Plan (2021-2025) focused on the "dual circulation" strategy (domestic market + foreign trade), driving economic growth not only through exports but also through investment in the domestic economy, particularly by targeting technological independence. The new plan will continue to push for technological independence, but this time through the deployment of AI in industrial processes, consumer products, healthcare, education, and digital governance. The plan aims for AI to be as ubiquitous as electricity or the internet by 2030, thus becoming a major driver of economic growth. The government claims China will become a "smart society" by 2035.
Earlier this year, the Chinese government held its annual "two sessions," or lianghui, during which China's political elite approves the economic policy agenda for the coming year. The term "two sessions" refers to two important political meetings: the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a political advisory committee, and the National People's Congress (NPC), China's highest legislative body.
These are Chinese state assemblies, formally independent of the Communist Party. The consultative conference is largely symbolic, with prominent business figures and local leaders participating in pre-arranged discussions. The real heart of the meeting is the assembly, which officially decides on economic policy. In reality, it merely approves what the ruling elite of the Communist Party has already decided in advance. With approximately two-thirds of its members belonging to the Communist Party, the NPC has never rejected a party-proposed bill.
This year's "Two Sessions" were notable for approving economic policies for the current year and also greenlighting the 15th Five-Year Plan, intended to guide the Chinese economy until the end of this decade.
The Chinese government has set a real GDP growth target of approximately 4.5% to 5% for 2026. This is the first time since 1991 that the target has fallen below 5%. In presenting the economic goals, Prime Minister Li explained that the target had been revised downward due to uncertainties surrounding world trade and the geopolitical situation. Nevertheless, the growth target is modest, and the leadership appears confident of achieving it.
In 2025, China's real GDP growth was 5%, more than double that of the United States and triple that of other major G7 capitalist economies.
Since 2020, the government has set the goal of transforming China into a "middle-tier" economy (according to the World Bank's definition, economies with a per capita gross domestic product of $20,000 at 2020 prices) by 2035. This effectively means doubling per capita GDP over the next 15 years. China is clearly on track to achieve this goal, as it only requires China's per capita income to grow at an average annual rate of 4.17% from now on. But even if this goal were achieved, China's per capita GDP would still only be 27% that of the United States.
China's GDP and growth rates are challenging mainstream Western economists, as well as some economists on the heterodox left. The prevailing view, confirmed by analysts at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, is that the Chinese economy is slowing to a near standstill, heading toward Japanese-style stagnation, and may even collapse into a debt-fueled spiral. We are also told that China has "excessive" production capacity and is suffering from "involution," causing prices to fall and flooding world markets with cheap goods that threaten the market shares of major economies.
Economists have been repeating their recipe for years, and in recent years, China's production has grown without experiencing the crashes that have devastated the most advanced economies. China has avoided any recession or crisis over the past 50 years, even during the COVID pandemic, despite numerous errors and economic policy swings by the autocratic communist leadership. The key to China's economic success undoubtedly lies in its vast state-owned sector, capable of stimulating investment and thus achieving the goals of the national plan. This demonstrates the economic role of public ownership and government-led investment within a national plan.
Communist Party leaders define the Chinese model as "market socialism with Chinese characteristics," and for many analysts, this is sufficient to define China as an economy in transition to socialism.
To resolve this debate, it is not enough to look at the performance of the business cycle, gross domestic product growth, and the achievement of the five-year plan targets. Paradoxically, it is precisely the increase in GDP that can be considered an indicator of the growth of the market economy in China: as ownership of the means of production (including land) shifts from the state to private individuals, the market's weight in the economy increases. Thus, goods that previously passed from one state-owned production unit to another, and therefore were not recorded in the GDP calculation, are now transformed into commodities and passed between various private production units in the form of commodities through purchase and sale, signaling an increase in GDP that is not the result of an increase in the mass of production.
Piketty offers us a table showing ownership of the means of production from 1978 to 2018. According to this table, Chinese state ownership (both central and peripheral) increased from 100% of enterprises (listed and private, of all sizes) in 1978 to 55% in 2017, while Chinese citizen ownership grew to 33%, with the remaining 12% held by foreign investors. If the arrow of time has any meaning, it shows that China is an economy in transition... toward private ownership!
But there is an even more important element than the trend in GDP and ownership of the means of production, and that is the power of the working class. Because socialism is not higher wages or full employment, but the emancipation of the working class from the slavery of wage labor. Not only is the wage system in full swing in China, but there is also a lack of tools, such as councils, that allow actual producers to have a say in production.
The Chinese model is a holistic one based on the Communist Party, around which are organized the government, planning structures, large state-owned financial groups, large private companies, and small and medium-sized businesses with their Party cells. The goal is not to ensure maximum profit, but to guarantee social stability, with its pyramid and hierarchies. For this reason, it is necessary to avoid upheavals, crises, and wars as much as possible. China's transition reinterprets, in modern terms, some characteristics of the Asian mode of production, with state control over the basic means of production and an authoritarian and paternalistic form of government. Throughout China's millennia-long history, this philosophy has inspired most governments, but, despite everything, dynasties have often been overthrown by revolts, a sign that heavenly peace cannot reign in a class-divided society.
This Chinese model can easily be defined as reactionary, and its alliance with the equally reactionary regime in Tehran is natural.
Tiziano Antonelli
https://umanitanova.org/cina-transizione-celeste-un-piano-quinquennale-allinsegna-della-restaurazione-confuciana/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE FRANCE - news journal UPDATE - (en) France, OCL CA #358 - AESH at the Maurice Thorez School in Trappes (78): It's important to know how to continue a strike (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
Classroom Analysis ---- Since the law of February 11, 2005, on disability, the number of students with disabilities enrolled in mainstream schools has increased very rapidly (1). Primarily found in primary and middle schools, these students are supposed to (but are not always) be supported by Teaching Assistants for Students with Disabilities (AESH). These assistants (over 90% of whom are women) help them daily with learning, but also with various other tasks, depending on the student's needs, as assessed by the Departmental Centers for Disabled Persons (MDPH). They also support students with "special needs" (behavioral disorders, attention deficit disorders, hyperactivity, etc.), and are therefore responsible for managing, with the resources available, the diversity in overcrowded classrooms. In total, approximately 130,000 AESHs (Assistants for Students with Disabilities), on fixed-term or permanent contracts, most with imposed part-time hours of 60%, meaning 24 hours of support per week (but present at the workplace for much longer), are exploited by the French National Education system, making them the second largest profession after teachers.
So, who are they? The typical profile is that of a single mother with children, in a precarious situation, who sometimes holds several jobs to supplement her meager salary (a little over half the minimum wage). They come from working-class families or are university graduates who have experienced downward mobility. Depending on their qualifications and therefore their educational background, their relationship with the teacher varies greatly. Indeed, a degree confers a form of legitimacy and recognition on the teacher, which the latter may perceive as competition. They often justify this career choice by citing the free time they have for their children and the relative autonomy they enjoy in their work.
Despite a fairly high turnover rate due to the often difficult nature of the job (acting as a safety valve to manage the diversity of student profiles, containing students in crisis among 30 others), and the lack of financial compensation, they often have a positive perception of their work, typical of caregiving, social work, or community-based professions. Despite their in-depth knowledge of the children they support, they are rendered invisible, undervalued, and have little influence on institutional decisions concerning school-aged children.
Inclusive education: the heist of the century?
In the post-World War II era, to address the consequences of mass schooling in terms of student numbers and diversity, the administration created what sociologists have called "non-teaching staff." In the 1980s, these staff members "were gradually replaced by education technicians, less qualified, less paid, and very often in a precarious employment situation (1)," including the AESH (Assistants for Students with Disabilities).
Moreover, as has already been written in the pages of Courant Alternatif (2), the AESH status is a very convenient creation for the state as employer. Indeed, it is much more expensive to pay specialized educators, doctors, and psychologists to support children with disabilities in specialized institutions than to pay AESH in so-called inclusive schools.
It is therefore within the framework of a double contradiction that we must understand the strikes of these "non-teaching staff." The first contradiction lies in inclusive schools, which, under the guise of good intentions of social mixing within schools, place workers in impossible situations due to a lack of resources and training. The second issue is the creeping contractualization of the national education system, with several tens of percent of contract workers (3) - including AESHs (Assistants for Students with Disabilities) - who have become indispensable to compensate for declining attractiveness, but whose precarious employment and lack of recognition are juxtaposed with that of other civil servants. The Senate's refusal, supported by the government, on January 7, 2026, to create a Category B civil service body for AESHs clearly demonstrates how the state, acting as employer, intends to resolve these contradictions.
The strike against hypocrisy and for recognition
In Trappes, at the Maurice Thorez school, the previous school year's team, under immense pressure due to a critical shortage of AESHs compared to the number of students with special needs enrolled, repeatedly escalated their complaints to management (to no avail), suffered from sick leave, burnout, and other issues. To address the problem, the administration assigned a new team for the 2025-2026 school year, comprising six AESHs. In January, a resignation worsened the staff shortage. Consequences: "in addition to supporting students with disabilities for whom they have a notification, they are asked to support students[from other classes]who do not yet have an AESH. Some AESHs (Assistants for Students with Disabilities) find themselves supporting up to 7 different students[...]in a single day (4)", and the support time per student decreases accordingly (5).
On February 2nd, four AESHs (one of whom was on sick leave), united and determined, supported by SUD-Education 78, began an indefinite strike. Despite intimidation, the lack of participation from the school's teachers, and the administration's certainty that the strike would not last, the AESHs continued until victory. On the third day, they were offered a 12-hour position to replace the resigning AESH, representing 24 hours. This was refused. On the twelfth day, a representative from the academic administration announced the recruitment of an AESH for the position. They made it clear that the strike would continue if this was just an empty promise. On Monday the 16th, they returned to work with their heads held high.
This first victory allowed them to draw several lessons. First, a strike, when self-organized, sustained, and supported by a strike fund, can produce results at the local level, far more so than the "days of action" organized by the major unions (6), but solidarity from teachers is by no means guaranteed (7). Second, recognition of contract workers in the national education system will only be achieved through struggle, as the institutional route is blocked. A media platform exists for the struggles of teaching assistants for students with disabilities (AESH), because the State is immediately confronted with its contradictions. Finally, this is precisely what the administration fears: that this strike will serve as an example, that contract workers, including AESH, will raise their heads and become aware of their collective strength. A victory that calls for others!
zyg, February 18, 2026
Notes
(1) From 28,000 in 2015 to approximately 100,000 in 2022. For figures, a brief history of laws on disability and education, as well as a sociological field study on the work of AESH (Assistants for Students with Disabilities), see *Autonomy in Invisibility: Support Workers for Students with Disabilities*, by Christophe Chevalier, Arthur Imbert, and Alicia Jacquot, *La Nouvelle Revue du Travail*, 2022.
(2) "School Inclusion: A New Offensive by Bourgeois Education," by Philippe Geneste, *Courant Alternatif* no. 305, December 2020.
(3) "Where is School Going?" (4) "Alternative Current No. 325," December 2022
(5) Press release from SUD Education 78, February 6, 2026
(6) "National strike of AESHs: an echo from the Mantois region," Alternative Current No. 314, November 2021
(7) "Rethinking a radical critique of the capitalist school," Alternative Current No. 292, Summer 2019
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4668
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE FRANCE - news journal UPDATE - (en) France, UCL AL #370 - Spotlight - United States: Trans People Facing the Risk of Genocide (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
An American NGO specializing in genocide prevention is raising the alarm about the mechanisms in place under the Trump administration that could ultimately lead to the eradication of trans people in the United States. ---- On February 26, a law came into effect in Kansas invalidating any driver's license or birth certificate that lists a gender different from the one assigned at birth. Approximately 1,700 trans people reportedly received letters asking them to immediately surrender their current licenses, forcing them to make the difficult choice between accepting documents that contradict their gender identity or simply stopping driving altogether.
This is far from the first anti-trans measure in this state, which is working to make life impossible for trans people under its jurisdiction, prompting many of them to flee into exile. Thus, at the end of January, the same state passed a law providing a bounty to any good American citizen who files a lawsuit against someone suspected of using a restroom that does not correspond to their sex assigned at birth. This law not only encourages but also financially rewards the average American who participates in the persecution of transgender people or those perceived as such.
The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, an American NGO dedicated to raising awareness and providing tools to prevent genocide worldwide, issued its third red alert in March concerning a potential genocidal risk to transgender people in the United States. This alert asserts that the Trump administration has entered a new phase in the eradication of transgender people not only from public life but from any form of existence, portraying them as "a cosmic threat to the spiritual health of the nation and the greatest direct global threat to U.S. national security."
The NGO supports its analysis with several points. She describes how the United States denies trans identities by striving to prevent their public expression while attacking the institutions that contribute to reproducing these identities, for example, by prohibiting any mention of LGBTQ+ people in school curricula. This denial is used as a pretext to materially obstruct access to transition pathways.
She also denounces the rhetoric of the Trump camp, which seeks to criminalize all trans people and their supporters by exploiting the actions of individual trans people or by fabricating their involvement in criminal cases, as seen in the assassination of the reactionary influencer Charlie Kirk.
Finally, the various measures facilitating the identification of trans people on their official documents, such as the case of driver's licenses in Kansas, raise serious concerns. History shows us how this forced identification is a tactic frequently used in the development of genocidal projects to target a specific subset of the population, and which generally precedes a phase of confinement. To disrupt this well-oiled machine, and to prevent the worst from happening, it is more important than ever to support our comrades in the United States.
Johanna (UCL Lyon)
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Etats-Unis-Les-personnes-trans-face-au-risque-genocidaire
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE GERMANY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Germany, Dortmund, AGDO: Anarchist perspectives on community (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
The cover shows a young person holding an apple, with a tree trunk to their right. The person and the trunk are depicted in purple, the text in sunflower yellow. The cover reads: The Apple and the Trunk Anarchist Perspectives on Community. ---- The apple doesn't fall far from the tree? As anarchist apples, we usually have a very difficult and complex relationship with the tree. ---- In this zine The Apple and the Tree we have collected artistic and creative works that explore the crises, conflicts, differences, utopias, and practical tips we might encounter on the path to community. It's a search that becomes aware of authoritarian forms, critiques them, and attempts to imagine alternative forms.
In two writing workshops and an open call, we collected and laid out numerous works short stories, non-fiction texts, poems, paintings, and collages. The booklets were printed using the risograph process in purple and sunflower yellow on recycled paper. The number of printed copies is limited and available only through Black Mosquito (black-mosquito.org/de/der-apfel-der-stamm.html) and at the Black Pigeon in Dortmund.The zine can also be read online at archive.org/details/DerApfelUndDerStamm/
https://agdo.noblogs.org/2026/04/03/anarchistische-perspektiven-auf-gemeinschaft/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
WORLD WORLDWIDE NEW ZEALAND - news journal UPDATE - (en) NZ, Aotearoa, AWSM: Polar Blast - The Word That Everyone Owns and Nobody Agrees On. (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
Freedom might be the most contested word in the political vocabulary. It is claimed by libertarians who want to abolish environmental regulations, by neoliberals who mean the right to buy and sell without interference, by nationalists who mean the exclusive sovereignty of one people over a territory, and by anarchists who mean something so different from all of these that it can seem like a different word entirely. When a politician says freedom, you need to ask freedom for whom, from what, to do what, and at whose expense? The same question, asked honestly, reveals that most invocations of freedom in mainstream discourse are not really about freedom at all. They are about power dressed up in liberation's clothing.
For the anarcho-communist, freedom is not an abstraction to be celebrated in speeches and then quietly qualified out of existence. It is a living, material condition, something felt in the body, realised in relationships, built in the daily practice of collective life. It is not the freedom of the market. It is not the freedom of the isolated individual to pursue private interest without interference. It is the freedom of the whole person, embedded in community, liberated from domination in all its forms, from the wage relation, from the state, from patriarchy, from empire, from every structure that compels some people to serve the will of others on pain of hunger, imprisonment, or death.This article is an attempt to think through what freedom actually means from an anarcho-communist standpoint, not as a slogan, but as a concept with real philosophical depth, historical grounding, and practical implications. It is written for two kinds of readers - those already somewhere in the anarchist or libertarian- socialist tradition who want to think more rigorously about what they already believe, and those on the broader left who are unconvinced, who suspect that anarchism is either too individualist, too utopian, or too philosophically thin to carry the weight it claims. The argument is that both groups are, in different ways, working with a concept of freedom that is not yet adequate to the situation we are in. The anarcho-communist tradition offers something better, not a perfect system, but a more honest account of what freedom actually requires and what stands in its way. We begin where any serious political philosophy must - with the question of what it means to be free.
https://thepolarblast.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/to-be-free-together.pdf
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE ITALY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, FDCA, Cantiere #43 - Italy and the Platform - Italian involvement in the debate on the Organizing Platform - Nestor McNab (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
The debate that accompanied the publication of the Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists between June and October 1926 was lively and widespread, involving large numbers of anarchists both in France, where it was published, and abroad. However, since Paris at that time was something of a magnet for anarchists forced to flee their home countries or attracted by the widespread activity of others already present, much of the debate over the proposals of the Group of Russian Anarchists Abroad (GRAZ)[1]concentrated on Paris.
The publication of the Platform was preceded by a series of articles on anarchist organization in Delo Truda, particularly Graz's article " The Problem of Organization and the Notion of Synthesis" from March 1926. The idea of a synthesis of the three main strands of anarchism (anarchist communism, anarcho-syndicalism, and individualism) had been proposed by Sébastien Faure and supported by figures such as Volin. A controversial idea in itself, "synthesisism" would prove, in subsequent years, to be the counterpart to the "platformist" idea of organization, and the organized movement was destined to polarize over the years into federations based on synthesis and those based on tendency.
The debate accompanied the fragmentary publication of the Platform and took place in the pages of several anarchist journals, including the Russian-language newspaper of the initiating group, Delo Truda, and the French daily Le Libertaire. Following comments from some comrades, GRAZ published a Supplement to the Organizational Platform in November 1926 , which addressed some of the points raised by Maria Korn Isidine.
A series of meetings and conferences were also held. The meeting of February 12, 1927, chaired by the Italian anarchist Ugo Fedeli, who had collaborated with Makhno and had initially supported the project, concluded with the decision to establish a Provisional Secretariat that would convene an International Conference, which would lead to the founding of a Revolutionary Anarchist Communist International.
The International Conference was held on 20 March 1927 in Paris and discussed the proposal presented by the Provisional Secretariat, which briefly summarized the debate of the previous months:
As a basis for the union of homogeneous forces and as a minimum logical and tactical ideal on which the comrades should agree, we propose the following points:
Recognition of class struggle as the most important factor in the anarchist system.
Recognition of communist anarchism as the basis of our movement.
Recognition of syndicalism as one of the main methods of struggle of communist anarchism.
The need for a General Union of Anarchists in every country, based on ideological and tactical unity and collective responsibility.
The need for a positive program that can create social revolution.
The conference, however, was interrupted by the French police, who arrested the participants and subsequently expelled many of them from the country. However, before the meeting adjourned, one of the two Italian groups present, the "Thought and Will" Group (represented by Luigi Fabbri, Camillo Berneri, and Ugo Fedeli), managed to have the first point changed to:
Recognition of the struggle of all the exploited and oppressed against the authority of the state and capital as the most important factor in the anarchist system.
This group had also prepared alternative versions of three of the other four points, which due to police action were not decided:
Recognition of workers' and trade union struggle as one of the important methods of anarchists' revolutionary action.
The need for the most general union possible of anarchists in every country, with the same final goal and the same practical tactics, also based on collective responsibility.
The need for a positive program of action with which anarchists can bring about the social revolution.
In the following months, debate over the Platform raged. In April, Volin and a group of other Russian anarchist exiles, including Mollie Steimer and her husband Senya Fleshin, published a scathing, lengthy attack on the Platform .[2]This prompted a stinging collective response in August of that year from the GRAZ,[3]which accused Volin and his group of deliberately misrepresenting the spirit of the draft Organizational Platform . In May 1927, the Provisional Secretariat, consisting of Nestor Makhno, Maxim Ranko, and Chen (Yen-Nian?), issued invitations to join the new Revolutionary Anarchist Communist International, or International Anarchist Communist Federation, on the basis of the original five points above (but excluding the Italians' counterproposals, a fact that certainly would not have been appreciated by Fabbri's group).
The meetings and articles continued, with contributions from Faure, Volin, Linsky, Ranko, Isidine, Grave and Chernjakov among others, not forgetting Arshinov and Makhno. In October of that year, Errico Malatesta, the eminence grise of Italian anarchism who was living in forced isolation in Italy, responded to the Platform proposal in a letter,[4]to which both Petr Arshinov[5]and Makhno replied several months later.[6]Meanwhile, there had also been important interventions by Luigi Fabbri[7]and Maria Korn Isidine,[8]to which Arshinov responded with another article.[9]Only a year later, at the end of 1929, Malatesta was able to respond to Makhno's letter[10]and it must be said that many of his doubts about the project had by then been clarified, although serious problems remained regarding the concept of collective responsibility. Malatesta would, in fact, write once again on this subject in the pages of the French journal Le Libertaire as late as April 1930,[11]stating, however, that he was quite willing to believe that the difficulty might simply be the result of linguistic differences. (At this point it should be remembered that the version of the text used as the basis for consideration by non-Russians was Volin's French translation, and, indeed, Alexandre Skirda has since drawn attention to the somewhat partial nature of this translation. Indeed, there was an exchange of articles on the question of the fidelity of the translation in Le Libertaire in the spring of 1927.) By then, however, the momentum had evaporated, and support for the Platform was limited to only a few groups such as the Union Anarchiste Communiste Révolutionnaire. Arshinov had been expelled to Belgium in January, and one of Makhno's last public acts was his speech to the UACR Congress.
The two Italian groups present at the 1927 meetings went their separate ways. The group represented by Giuseppe Bifolchi, "had already begun its own process of criticism in search of a new revolutionary strategy,[and]lent its support to the program of the Platform[...]. Believing that the concept of internationalism was the true basis for the existence of every anarchist organization, they joined the International Anarchist Communist Federation as its First Italian Section."[12]This group's Manifesto has now been translated into English for the first time.[13]Bifolchi was forced to leave France in April 1928 and went to Belgium. There he founded the monthly Bandiera Nera before moving to Spain during the years of the Spanish Revolution, where he fought as a commander in the Italian Column. Fedeli had edited the Italian version of the trilingual journal International Anarchist Review from November 1924 to June 1925, when it merged with two other journals into La Tempra. He was expelled from France in 1929 and repatriated to Italy in 1933, where he faced prison and confinement after spending periods in Belgium, Argentina and Uruguay.
Naturally, the strong anti-organizational component of Italian anarchism was not interested in the Platform project . Nor were the Italian comrades who had chosen to remain in fascist Italy (with all the difficulties that entailed). Those imprisoned were struggling to survive, while the few who remained free were engaged in anti-fascist activities and tried to keep anarchist ideas alive among Italian workers.
If the short-lived First Italian Section of the Anarchist Communist International was not very successful, this was partly due to fascist repression in Italy, but also to the fact that both Malatesta and the prestigious "Thought and Will" Group eventually distanced themselves from the Platform . Despite apparent disagreements within the latter group, they eventually sent a reply to the invitation of the Provisional Secretariat in which they politely refused the offer to join the initiative, believing that for the moment "the best path to follow is the one that, in four years of public life, the UAI has traced for itself."[14]
Interestingly, while Malatesta's reluctance to endorse the Platform stems primarily from his doubts about "collective responsibility," the letter from the "Thought and Will" Group appears to indicate reservations about the principles of theoretical and tactical unity ("exclusivism"), while their proposals to the International Conference actually endorsed the need for both unity of tactics and collective responsibility.
But the Italian Anarchist Union was already dead. The fascist regime in Italy, which in the preceding years had forced anarchist groups, newspapers (such as Umanità Nova), and the anarchist-dominated revolutionary trade union USI[15]to dissolve, made public life so impossible for Italian anarchists that the UAI's January 1926 congress would be its last.
The UAI, founded in 1919 as the Italian Anarchist Communist Union (UCAI),[16]had been a rather inefficient organization, and indeed for several years before its demise there had been attempts to form a federation that did not include the individualist and anti-organizational elements that were considered by many, Malatesta and Fabbri included, to be responsible for much of the organization's failure to achieve concrete results. In the years following the fascists' rise to power, Italian anarchists became deeply divided: some militants remained in Italy (most of whom would be kept confined to remote areas of the country for over a decade), while many others would emigrate, often first to other European countries, then to the Americas. It was from this point on that the anti-organizational element would become dominant among Italian anarchists, both in Italy and abroad (also thanks to the influence and hegemony exercised by strongly anti-organizational magazines, such as Adunata dei Refrattari, published in New York).
In 1930, the Anarchist Communist Union of Italian Refugees, a progressive organization, was founded in Paris. However, three years later, it was renamed the Anarchist Federation of Italian Refugees, and in November 1935, it completed the process of transformation into a federation of synthesis, becoming the Anarchist Committee for Revolutionary Action.
Things went somewhat better (for a time) for the Platform in France and Bulgaria, where the Bulgarian Anarchist Communist Federation actually adopted the Platform as its constitution. The principles of the Platform were accepted (albeit in an overly strict manner) by the French federation, the Union Anarchiste (founded in 1920 by Faure as a synthesist organization) at its November 1927 congress, when it changed its name to the Union Anarchiste Communiste Révolutionnaire,[17]harking back to the name of the proposed International. Members who were opposed to the change left to found the Association des Fédéralistes Anarchistes,[18]whose theoretical and organizational ethos was epitomized by Faure's La Synthèse Anarchiste .
In 1930, however, a group of trade unionists who voluntarily remained within the UACR managed to gain a majority within the federation, which led to the change of name to Union Anarchiste and a return to a more synthesist approach. Finally, the Fédération Communiste Libertaire[19]was founded by supporters of the Platform in 1935, but this too would disappear during the war years.
Note
[1]Group of Russian Anarchists Abroad.
[2]Some Russian anarchists (Sobol, Schwartz, Steimer, Volin, Lia, Roman, Ervantian, Fleshin), Response to the Platform , April 1927.
[3]GRAZ, Reply to the Confusionists of Anarchism: A Reply to the "Reply to the Platform" of Some Russian Anarchists , 18 August 1927.
[4]A project of anarchist organization , «Il Risveglio», October 1927.
[5]The old and the new in anarchism , «Delo Truda», n. 30, May 1928.
[6]On the organizational platform , «Il Risveglio», December 1929.
[7]On a project of anarchist organization , «Il Martello», 17-24 September 1927.
[8]Organization and party , «Plus Loin» nn. 36-37, March/April 1928.
[9]Old and new elements in anarchism , «Delo Truda», nn. 30-31, November/December 1928.
[10]Reply to Nestor Makhno , «The Awakening», December 1929.
[11]On Collective Responsibility , «Le Libertaire», n. 252, 19 April 1930. English translation under the title On Collective Responsibility available at the Nestor Makhno Archive ( https://www.nestormakhno.info/english/mal_rep3.htm ).
[12]Adriana Dadà, Anarchism in Italy: between movement and party: History and documents of Italian anarchism , Teti publisher, Milan, 1984.
[13]Manifesto of the First Section of the International Anarchist Communist Federation . The original Italian version of the manifesto is in IISG, Fondo U. Fedeli, b. 175, and now also in Dadà, op. cit.
[14]Letter from the "Thought and Will" Group to the Provisional Secretariat of the International Anarchist Communist Federation. See Adriana Dadà, Ugo Fedeli from Russia to France: An Italian anarchist in the debate of international anarchism (1921-1927) , in Annals of the Institute of History , vol. III, University of Florence, Faculty of Education, Florence, 1985.
[15]Italian Trade Union.
[16]The UCAI Congress in Bologna in 1921 had decided to eliminate the term "communist" from the name to avoid confusion with the Bolsheviks.
[17]Revolutionary Anarchist Communist Union.
[18]Association of Anarchist Federalists.
[19]Libertarian Communist Federation.
https://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/wpAL/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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