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/
_________________________________________
Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten