1. OSL is a new formation, but it is made up of seasoned militants from FARJ, OASL, RL and COMPA. Within OSL do these groups maintain their distinct identities, or have they officially fused to become federal chapters of OSL? If so, what did this process of fusion entail?
OSL: OSL was formed precisely through a process of organizational merger among these organizations and collectives. Our understanding was that, in order to advance the construction of a national anarchist political organization, it was not enough to maintain merely a coordinating relationship among autonomous organizations; it was necessary to build a common organizational structure, with a deeper ideological, theoretical, strategic, and tactical unity. In our view, this coordination of autonomous or relatively autonomous organizations, which was what existed within the CAB, was a factor that hindered the effective construction of a national anarchist organization.For this reason, FARJ, OASL, RL, COMPA, and other individual militants decided to cease to exist as separate political organizations in order to form a single national organization: the OSL. Of course, we continue to recognize the different historical legacies, regional experiences, and political trajectories that each of these organizations has built over the years. These legacies remain fundamental to the collective construction of the OSL.
However, organizationally, we no longer operate as a federation of autonomous groups, each preserving its own lines. Our local cells and regions have become part of a single national structure, functioning under a common organizational framework, with unified instances, shared political lines, and collective mechanisms for decision-making and accountability.
This merger process involved several years of political and organizational convergence. Since at least 2021, our regional chapter of the then CAB (Southeast-Central-West) had already been functioning in practice in a highly integrated manner, unifying internal processes, political coordination, formulations, and work fronts. This experience
concretely demonstrated the advantages of moving from coordination to a unified political organization.
The general guidelines of the OSL were developed during the different stages of our first congress (I CONOSL), where we debated and decided on issues related to organizational structure, strategy, theory, program, and national expansion. We understand this process as part of an effort to mature Brazilian anarchism and to build a more homogeneous, coherent political tool capable of consistently intervening in the Brazilian class struggle.
2. Let's discuss organizational dualism. The groups which came together to form OSL are well known for their work in receiving, articulating, and transmitting the organizational-strategic concept of especifismo-the most widely known example being FARJ's Social Anarchism and Organization.
We are conducting this interview on the 100th anniversary of the Dielo Truda Group's publication of the Platform. While both especifismo and "platformism" are expressions of organizational dualism, there are often questions about the similarities or differences emphasized in each approach. Does OSL view these differences purely artificial and aesthetic? Or is there a substantive divergence between them?
OSL: We understand that especifismo and platformism are distinct historical expressions of the same anarchist tradition: organizational dualism, whose origins can be traced back to Bakunin and the experience of the Alliance. Both defend the need for a specific anarchist organization with theoretical, ideological, strategic, and tactical unity, working in a complementary manner with popular and mass movements.
For us, the differences between especifismo and platformism are not merely artificial, nor do they constitute irreconcilable divergences. They pertain, above all, to the historical and regional conditions in which these experiences developed. Platformism emerged in the European context following the Russian Revolution, particularly from the experience of the Dielo Truda Group and the critical analysis of anarchist failure in the face of Bolshevism. Especifismo, on the other hand, developed mainly in Latin America, led by the Uruguayan Anarchist Federation (FAU), incorporating reflections on imperialism, dependency, and strategies for social integration in peripheral countries.
The OSL claims both traditions as legitimate heirs to the anarchist organizational dualism of Alliance-based origin. We consider that there are more convergences than divergences between them, and we seek precisely to synthesize their historical, organizational, and strategic contributions into a proposal suited to the contemporary Brazilian and Latin American reality.
3. How does the Platform inform the theory, practice, and/or organizational structure of OSL?
OSL: The Dielo Truda Group's Platform holds fundamental historical importance for our current, especially because it clearly systematized organizational principles that were already present in earlier experiences of revolutionary anarchism. Its defense of theoretical, tactical, and strategic unity, collective responsibility, and federalism contributes directly to our organizational conception.
The OSL understands anarchist organization as a programmatic political organization. We understand that without unity and organic coherence, anarchists tend toward dispersion and an inability to influence the actual processes of class struggle.
We seek to articulate the Platform with the contributions of Latin American especifismo, especially those of FAU, which has delved deeper into issues related to social integration, mass work, and the need for the sustained building of popular power in peripheral and dependent contexts.
Thus, the Platform influences our national organizational structure, our understanding of the role of the specific anarchist organization, and our defense of a revolutionary project based on self-management, federalism, and class struggle.
4. OSL puts forward the concept of Libertarian Materialism as an alternative to both idealism/postmodernism and the classical conception of Dialectical Materialism. Can you articulate briefly the framework of this analysis?
OSL: Our conception of materialism-or libertarian realism-seeks to construct a libertarian social theory capable of interpreting contemporary reality without falling into either the limitations of classical Marxism or the problems of postmodernism and poststructuralism.
On the one hand, we consider it necessary to overcome problematic aspects of Marxism, especially its economistic, deterministic, and statist tendencies, as well as the historical identification between socialization and nationalization (society and the state) that characterized much of the experience of so-called "real socialism." We also understand that certain formulations of "historical materialism" or "dialectical materialism" have ended up crystallizing excessively rigid interpretations of social reality.
On the other hand, we reject the contemporary advance of postmodernism and progressive liberalism in broad sectors of the left. We consider problematic the fragmentation of social analyses, the denial of the centrality of class struggle, epistemological relativism, and the replacement of structural perspectives with exclusively discursive or identity-based approaches.
Our libertarian materialism seeks to affirm a critical science and reason, articulating class, race/ethnicity, gender/sexuality, and nationality within a structural and class-based perspective. We seek to construct our own libertarian social theory, grounded in classical and contemporary anarchist authors, capable of strategically guiding our political practice and our revolutionary project.
5. What areas of mass or base organizing does OSL prioritize or involve itself in presently?
OSL: OSL is active on various fronts of grassroots organizing and social work, seeking to strengthen the self-organization of oppressed classes and build a project of popular power with a socialist and libertarian character.
We are involved in labor, community, student, agrarian, and territorial movements, as well as initiatives related to the struggle for housing, organizing in the periphery, and various forms of popular mobilization. We understand that popular movements constitute the fundamental terrain of the class struggle and that it is from them that real processes of social transformation can emerge.
Our work seeks to strengthen practices of grassroots democracy, direct action, class independence, combativeness, and self-management. We also defend the need for long-term political and organizational accumulation, understanding that revolutionary transformation requires a prolonged process of building social power.
Furthermore, we have made progress in expanding the OSL's organizational reach to different regions of Brazil, seeking to build a national organization effectively rooted in the concrete struggles of the oppressed classes.
6. The current of "organized anarchism" appears to be growing across the world, including in South America, what do you think accounts for this?
OSL: First and foremost, it is important to note that the term "organized anarchism" can be misleading. This is because it has at least two meanings. On the one hand, it can refer solely to the organizationalist wing of anarchism (which opposes the anti-organizationalists), and in this sense, anarcho-syndicalists, synthetists, and other currents would also be included, since they too advocate for organization (albeit in forms different from those we do). On the other hand, various organizations that draw from our tradition (alliance-based, platformist, and specifist) use the term "organized anarchism" to refer to our current. In this case, organized anarchism and our current would be synonymous. It is always good to make this distinction, because we do not advocate "organization"; we advocate a specific form of organization, which differs from others, such as anarcho-syndicalism and synthesism, for example.
In any case, we believe that this organizational growth of anarchism is related to various historical and political factors. First, there is a prolonged crisis of traditional forms of the left, especially social-democratic and Marxist-Leninist experiences, which in many cases have demonstrated profound limitations, both strategically and organizationally.
At the same time, the effects of the problems of state-capitalism-deepening inequalities, the precariousness of labor, the rise of authoritarianism, wars, environmental destruction, and the intensification of forms of domination-have brought the need for revolutionary alternatives back to the forefront.
We understand that this is still a modest process given the scale of the challenges at hand. But we believe that this international strengthening of "organized anarchism" expresses an attempt to rebuild a socialist, revolutionary, and libertarian alternative rooted in the concrete struggles of the oppressed classes.
Compared to other currents of socialism, our understanding is that there is a retreat of anarchism and of all revolutionary expressions of socialism. Internationally, alongside the rise of the far right, there is also a rise in highly centralized and authoritarian expressions of socialism. In Brazil, this is visible, and we do not yet have a thorough analysis to explain this phenomenon. However, regarding anarchism and the revolutionary movement, we believe that organized anarchism has grown and positioned itself as a libertarian socialist alternative approach to the challenges of class struggle.
https://www.blackrosefed.org/platform-100-interviews-vol-1/#organizacao-socialista-libertaria-libertarian-socialist-organization-brazil
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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