1. The city of Rosario has a long history of anarchist militants and organizations. How did your particular organization come into being? Why, how, and when did militants come together to form a specific anarchist organization?
FAR: Rosario has a history of anarchist struggle and organization dating back to the late 19th century, with the participation of comrades such as Malatesta, Momo, and Matei, who helped found unions (bricklayers, bakers, dockworkers) as well as build political tools like the Anarchist Circles.The 1920s and 1930s were no exception, with these processes reaching a peak. However, beginning in the 1940s, anarchism in this region entered a significant decline, reducing its practice to individual actions in workplaces or the founding of libraries and study centers, relegating anarchism to an academic or museum-like subject.
By the late 1990s, comrades dedicated to social struggle, who had made contact with the Anarchist Federation of Uruguay (fAu), founded the Anarchist Organization of Rosario (OAR). Although none of us were members of it at the time, we can think of the OAR as a precursor to the FAR. By the mid-2000s, there were already attempts to reorganize politically, between 2006 and 2008 we began to come together-the comrades who would give life to the FAR-first under the name Columna Libertaria Joaquin Penina.
The idea of an anarchist political organization stems from the need for a political space that allows us to think, study, analyze reality, and outline strategies for action to transform it, just as the first comrades who promoted anarchism back in 1880 envisioned. It was vital to establish contact with the Brazilian FAO but mainly with the fAu. Both the former FARJ of Rio de Janeiro and the fAu were pivotal in organizing our first congress in 2015, when we changed the name to FAR, and where we diversified our popular work fronts, giving the union front greater prominence.
Militants who had previously participated in different currents of anarchism (basic anarchism, synthesist, insurrectionist, anarcho-syndicalist) as well as from currents of Marxism (Trotskyism, Maoism, heterodox Marxism) and Peronism converged in the FAR, adopting our political and strategic approach. The influx of comrades has strengthened the territorial front, student experiences in student unions, and the diversification of the union front into unions in industry, services, and the public sector.
As we move toward the 5th FAR Congress, we have a very encouraging outlook, with an influence on the formation of local union coordination as well as on the political advancement of anarchism at the national level, being almost the only option for uniting anarchism on this national scale.
2. From a historical perspective, what have been the most visible manifestations of organized anarchism in Argentina?
FAR: First of all, it's worth clarifying that FAR is not platformist but especifista. We studied platformism back in 2010 but then turned our attention to developing the especifista line. In Argentina, the Alianza Obrera Espartaco, an organization with dual organizational structures and a strong presence, particularly in unions like the construction sector, drew on elements of the Platform.
Through its organizing efforts, Alianza Espartaco played a leading role in the major construction strikes of the 1930s. Forty years later, Resistencia Libertaria took up elements of the Platform, combined with classic readings of anarchism (Bakunin, Christiaan Cornelissen) and Marxism. We understand that by the 1990s, the OSL, and by 2000, the LAC-both based in Buenos Aires-also incorporated elements of the Platform. However, we understand that they drew more heavily on the political axes of the French Platformists of the 1960s from Fontenis's FCL than on original Platformism, which are distinct in their own right.
3. The Platform document is now 100 years old-is it still relevant for the year 2026? How does platformism influence the practical activities of your organization?
FAR: As we mentioned earlier, our organization studied the Platform in 2010, but it did not define our strategy or political line. While it shares elements with especifismo, such as the concern for uniting the scattered militant base; the conscious or unconscious disorganization promoted by other currents of anarchism; the promotion of responsibility, collective discipline, and militant self-discipline within the organization; the theoretical and ideological unity of the organization; and a common strategy, among others.
However, and always referring to original platformism and not that of the 1960s French FCL with which we have greater differences, there are nuances or perhaps some differences with that original platformism. First, regarding the centrality and place occupied by political organization in the strategy, the axis of the strategy regarding the construction of self-managed popular power-what Malatesta called the advance of the Popular Forces. Second, the development of federalism within an organization. Third, the primacy of a sector of the oppressed class in the strategy of building a Front of Oppressed Classes. In any case, it is worth clarifying that the Platform's proposal predates the emergence of especifismo in Uruguay by 30 years.
4. In which mass movements are members of your organization active (e.g., labor unions, tenants' unions, social movements, etc.)?
FAR: Our members are engaged in grassroots organizing and participating in unions-including, in some places, Agrupaciones that share our principles-in industry, the service sector, and the public sector. For example, among chemical workers, retail employees, media workers, restaurant and hotel workers, metalworkers, school teachers and university professors, state employees, judicial workers, legislative branch employees, postal workers, bank employees, and university administrative staff. We are also building a grassroots base among retirees in working-class neighborhoods across the region.
5. The FAR is part of the Construcción Anarquista Federal de Argentina (CAFA). Can you explain why this network was created and what its objectives are?
FAR: At the FAR, we believe that if we envision a social revolution in the future, the scope of our politics must match the scale of our aspirations. In that sense, spreading and promoting especifista anarchism throughout Argentina became a primary task.
We quickly encountered a series of difficulties in this task, given that Argentina is a vast country with a significant diversity of local characteristics and issues that we felt should not be overlooked in the search for a common political practice.
On the contrary, we understood that a dynamic anarchism must engage with the issues that particularly affect each region or province, striving to promote the highest degree of federalism.
That said-and taking into account not only previous local experiences but also the contributions of our sister organizations fAu and CAB-we found it useful to debate and reach consensus on a similar organizational structure for the organizations that form part of CAFA, while also sharing a common political-ideological framework.
Framed in this way, CAFA is a collective and federal working hypothesis aimed at developing especifismo in Argentina, seeking to enhance the precision of our analyses and our influence within social organizations across the country. The main objective is to promote anarchist (especifista) organizations. Another premise is to coordinate strategies for social engagement within trade union, social, territorial, and environmental spheres. Finally, it is necessary to strengthen the CAFA framework by opening the doors to participation for other especifista anarchist organizations in Argentina.
One point to clarify is that CAFA is not a national organization but rather a coordination of organizations in Argentina, shaped by the principles of especifismo, with identical charters, strategies for recruitment, and the same approach to and admission of members, making it easier to establish a dialogue when promoting joint policies at the national level. Furthermore, we understand that the meaning of anarchism-both the word and the political idea-is in dispute. In this sense, CAFA focuses exclusively on producing and disseminating only the theoretical, historical, and propaganda aspects of especifista anarchism. We are convinced that this working hypothesis is allowing us to grow politically and in terms of social and union influence.
6. FAR is also part of the Latin American Anarchist Coordination (CALA), which includes organizations in Brazil, Argentina, and now Chile. Could you describe the campaigns and activities you have carried out together?
FAR: CALA's primary mission has been to spread the word about and promote the formation of especifista anarchist political organizations in Latin America. Therefore, a significant part of its activity has naturally involved the sharing of materials, discussions, and analyses both among the coordination's member organizations and with a broad Latin American network of like-minded individuals.
Beyond these activities, another defining aspect of the Coordination is its policy of solidarity with a wide variety of struggles: With political prisoners in Brazil (2014), with comrades persecuted in the province of Santa Fe (Argentina) as a result of protests against pension reform; as well as in support of broader political processes such as the uprisings in Chile, the indigenous movement in Peru, the Bañados region of Paraguay, and the Palestinian people.
7. The current of organized anarchism is experiencing new growth, with organizations in the organizational dualist model appearing across the globe. Why do you think this is?
FAR: After decades of neoliberal policies across the globe, we once again find ourselves facing a time of change. A present marked by ongoing genocides and wars, a global debt crisis that stifles people's ability to act, coupled with a widespread crisis of representation and mummified democracies incapable of meeting basic human needs-all of this compels us to reevaluate our politics and our strategy.
Traditional politics has been reduced to the almost domestic administration of resources, seeking to prevent the fiscal deficit from growing and allocating ever-larger sums to debt repayment, surveillance, and defense. In the face of this decline of traditional parties, our comrades in the parliamentary left still see hope in participating symbolically in the very institutions that guarantee and legalize austerity and anti-popular measures, devoting time and energy to this, rather than strengthening the building of popular power. Neither the traditional parties nor the party-based left are offering anything new to confront this face of capitalism. They are only concerned with securing their institutional place within this administrative system by proposing solutions within "what is possible" under the legal framework.
We see in the popular exhaustion that there is no longer room for political vanguards or professionals living lives of privilege; the way out of the current quagmire is from below and depends, to be successful, on the participation of a strong people, capable of taking the reins on fundamental issues such as war, artificial intelligence, migration, the climate crisis, productive restructuring, and the strategic sectors of the economy and services.
From this stems the relevance and power of especifismo in these times, as a current of anarchism that throws itself fully into the struggle, actively participating in unions, working-class neighborhoods, social centers, tenants' assemblies, environmental movements, academic circles, etc.
We are convinced that sectoral victories-at the level of every workplace, every neighborhood, every community-are absolutely strategic in the process of restoring confidence in the grassroots' power of self-management. That is why our political organizations do not focus on diagnosing and directing but rather on energizing conflicts, like a small engine, promoting the principles of direct action, class independence, solidarity, class-based feminism, and direct democracy.
This approach or methodology allows us great breadth and the ability to coordinate with a wide variety of sectors in the struggle. Hence, what sets especifismo apart is precisely its "militant profile"; in other words, it is not our proclamations that distinguish us but our concrete political practice, which is being referenced by a growing number of sectors of the oppressed classes, both locally and in different parts of the world.
https://www.blackrosefed.org/platform-100-interviews-vol-1/#federacion-anarquista-rosario-anarchist-federation-of-rosario-argentina
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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