From Regeneración, we're publishing the interview conducted by the magazine Ekintza Zuzena with a comrade for its 2025 issue (https://www.nodo50.org/ekintza/2025/numero-51-de-la-revista-ekintza-zuzena/), as it reviews the fundamental threads of our movement.

A preliminary question: How would you define and situate the historically known platformist anarchism? And what about specificist anarchism?

I'll start with some historical notes. First, the Platform emerged in France in the 1920s among anarchist militants who came from Russia. Finally at peace, after a long revolutionary war they couldn't win, they were able to take stock of their journey as a movement during the Russian Revolution. The Dyelo Truda group (one of those exile groups composed of prominent figures such as Nestor Makhno, Pyotr Arshinov, Ida Mett, Gregori Maksimov, and others) concluded that the cause of the defeat by the Bolsheviks was the lack of organization, program, and discipline of the Russian anarchist movement. They had acted differently in each place. There were never any overall strategic plans or forums to discuss them. The Bolsheviks were able to defeat them city by city, region by region, without putting up a fight on any level other than in Ukraine.

Dyelo Truda proposed a new organizational model: the General Union of Anarchists. This model sought to unify the most active elements of anarchism into a single organization under the program outlined in The Platform. I will clarify that it was not a complete program, but a partial one, as they recognized. The full program would have to be debated within this General Union once it was underway.

This new platformism was highly critical of the "anarchist synthesis," an organizational model that blended anarchists from all currents of anarchism into a single organization. According to the platformists, the lack of homogeneity of approaches "would inevitably lead to disintegration when confronted with reality." In other words, it would render the organization ineffective in the face of the major challenges facing any movement. They were extremely critical of anarchist individualism and nihilism ("chaotic anarchism," they called it). They were also unconvinced by anarcho-syndicalism, since in Russia it had been oriented almost exclusively toward industrial workers, neglecting the peasantry, which was the majority social component in Russia.

So, which anarchist militants were they addressing?

We base our hope on other militants: on those who remain faithful to anarchism, having experienced and suffered the tragedy of the anarchist movement, and painfully seek a solution.[1]

Therefore, they proposed an organization with tactical and strategic unity and discipline. Militants should not join an organization to do whatever they wished, but to fulfill its program. Dyelo Truda intended the Platform to be the revolutionary backbone and meeting point of Russian anarchism, given that at the time they were speaking to exiles, although it would soon be extended to all territories.

These approaches were the reason why the Platform fell out of favor with many militants in other countries at the time, and its development was thus slowed. However, its ideas were the driving force behind the Bulgarian Anarchist Communist Federation, which was strongly present in the resistance to the 1934 coup d'état, in the partisan resistance of World War II, and in the postwar period against Soviet domination, until it was finally liquidated in 1948. These ideas also took root in France, among a sector of anarchism that maintained them from its beginnings until the postwar period. And later, they were promoted again by the Libertarian Communist Federation, with Georges Fontenis as its leading exponent. This FCL greatly influenced European anarchism in the 1950s and 1960s, with the French movement being one of the key movements for anarcho-communism today.

Especifismo, for its part, arose directly from the Uruguayan FAU in 1956. Paradoxically, they didn't discover The Plafaform until many years later. Their starting point was Errico Malatesta, whose emphasis on specific organization and refutation of individualism caught their attention. Another of their role models was Mikhail Bakunin, who was enormously important to our movement, promoting specific organizations such as the International Alliance for Socialist Democracy. And their other reference point was Uruguay's earlier specific organizations, organic constructions from the 1920s and 1930s. Thanks to those older militants, who had been in the fray for years, it became clear that the task of political organization wasn't philosophizing and holding meetings, but rather how to approach the tasks of the different work fronts: union, student, neighborhood, and internal.

Their first task was to create the Organic Charter, in which they situated their organization in the Latin American context of the 1950s and outlined short-, medium-, and long-term plans. The younger militants sought to avoid automatically transferring other plans and formulas that had been used in other historical situations. Their anarchism would have to be rooted in the country and its concrete reality.

This especificism (from “specific” organization) was put into practice alone for years by the FAU until it was also taken up by Argentine groups in the 70s. It must be said that they never contemplated anarchist synthesis because nobody really took this avenue of organization into consideration.[2] The FAU went through different stages and even strategic objectives that brought it closer to the Latin American popular national movement of the 70s, which was in its stage of greatest visibility and size, with numerous social fronts and even its own armed organization, the OPR-33.

In the 1990s, especifismo moved away from these perspectives and began to spread to other countries such as Brazil and Chile. From there, in the 2000s, it began to converge with the anarcho-communist movement typical of Europe and the Anglo-Saxon world, and today it is part of the same international movement.

In Latin America, these organizations do not publicly call themselves Especifistas, but rather "organized anarchism," which is also the name given to the International Coordinator of the organizations of our movement.

Although we like these models of anarchism, which we understand as the most capable of influencing reality through anarchism, we must clarify that we are neither a Russian, French, nor Latin American organization, so we will have to create a local anarchism, with the makeup of that local anarchism, to operate in the 21st century.

What is your assessment of the current state of the Iberian libertarian movement, and what challenges and needs do you see in your field?

A movement is a set of actions, ideas and efforts organized by a group of people who share common goals to influence society. Starting from this perspective, you will agree that there is no single homogeneous libertarian movement, given that there are no common objectives across this amalgam of individuals, collectives, initiatives, scenes, spaces, organizations, or unions that claim to be anarchists.

Based on this premise, we could first identify a libertarian movement that seeks to achieve libertarian communism. This would be composed of anarcho-syndicalism and some anarchist collectives and organizations, as well as their related social or cultural projects that help them reach a wider audience.

There are also other paradigms similar to libertarian communism but with different characteristics. I'm talking about communalism, democratic confederalism, the anti-capitalist side of cooperativism, a part of autonomy (whether Marxist or indigenist) and similar proposals, or the radical environmental and anti-development movement. These people tend to be fellow travelers of anarchism and, to some extent, even come from its ranks or have passed through its collectives or organizations, but, for whatever reason, they have disassociated themselves from the libertarian movement as we understand it. Therefore, these initiatives cannot be considered part of our movement; rather, they build and participate in others.

Therefore, speaking of the libertarian movement itself, we have a considerable union space—without achieving the strength of yesteryear, of course—made up of the CGT and CNT and all their offshoots (Solidaridad Obrera, CNT-AIT, SAS Madrid, STS-C, and other smaller union groups). This movement has a considerable presence throughout Spain. It's true that it's a divided and often inter-struggle union space, which diminishes its potential and contributes to its discredit. It's also true that for some unions, libertarian communism is such a far-reaching aspiration that it's not even considered in their current strategy.

If anarcho-syndicalism is the spearhead, there are also organizations or organic initiatives behind it that were founded to contribute to the goal I mentioned earlier. These would be the anarchist synthesis organizations and collectives (this includes what was once called "neighborhood anarchism"), the anarcho-communist ones (currently called "specific," which seems to be the most popular word right now), and the insurrectionist ones. Their strength is limited to their own members, and their influence extends to the broader spaces in which they operate. We're talking about some very specific neighborhoods where they operate. Their presence influences the anti-capitalist scene in the places where they operate, and they are generally based in the urban areas and cities of their metropolitan areas (Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Seville, Valencia, Zaragoza, Granada, A Coruña, etc.). And their real impact comes from their militant capacity and commitment. That's why they have influence.

Next, we have what we can understand as informal anarchism, autonomism, or, as Murray Bookchin would say, "lifestyle anarchism". We could almost consider it a subcultural scene rather than a political movement, but I don't deny the interest of many of the people who participate in it in transforming society at its roots. It inherited part of that subcultural component from the Iberian Peninsula punk scene, which so influenced the anarchism of the 1990s and 2000s.

This informal anarchism or autonomism organizes events that can occasionally become massive, such as protests, protest camps or anarchist book fairs, but they generally remain spaces for socializing and networking rather than for social intervention. As a criticism, they run the risk of falling into inbreeding by residing solely on the margins of the social mainstream. In this sector, we can find both people whose goal is libertarian communism and also those who are not interested and seek to live as freely as possible in today's society.

However, through informal organizations, various networks and coordinators of squatted social centers, libertarian athenaeums, media outlets and counter-information organizations have been launched, and they have participated in other social movements such as anti-militarism, environmentalism and the fight against the globalization of capital.

In Spain, during the 1990s and 2000s, a dualism prevailed: anarcho-syndicalism, understood as a political organization, and informal anarchism, generally anti-organization. This was almost hegemonic, and there was little room for organizational attempts that lasted rather short (the second Autonomous Struggle, Libertarian Alternative, Galician Anarchist Federation, local and regional libertarian assemblies, networks of libertarian athenaeums, and CSOs, etc.). During those years, a peninsular-wide libertarian space was never established, beyond the FIJL linked to insurrectionalism or the FAI, which by 2000 already seemed focused exclusively on libertarian culture.

However, the movement later gained momentum. The youth movement built organizations: the FIJA and the first FEL, as well as some local libertarian youth organizations. Anarcho-independence movements were strengthened with Negres Tempestes in Catalonia, which generated their own momentum. This was a time of heightened anti-development struggles, attracting hundreds of people. Anarchist book fairs proliferated. Anarchist websites such as Alasbarricadas and Klinamen, and other more diverse ones such as Indymedia, LaHaine and Kaosenlared, received thousands of visits; there were still various publications in the form of fanzines, magazines, and newspapers.

From 2010-12, anarchism began to unite, developing in neighborhood or municipal and regional assemblies. This coincided with the period following the 15M movement. In some cases, such as in Catalonia, federations were formed between these groups. But all this lasted only a short time, lasting two, three, or five years, with the exception of some groups that achieved generational change, as was the case with Heura Negra in Vallcarca (Barcelona). Those local libertarian assemblies were the political school for most activists of our time, because there were truly that many groups.

The lack of consolidation of these collectives paralleled the crisis of insurrectionalism as a result of the repressive measures it suffered between 2011 and 2016. But it wasn't just a repressive issue, it was also a political one. Whatever happened, all of this paralyzed their political project of the Coordinated Anarchist Groups. This crisis demobilized part of their militancy or caused it to drift toward other, more practical projects, and also prevented it from renewing itself generationally.

The most political anarchism, so to speak, was also articulated during that time. For example, Embat in Catalonia, Apoyo Mutuo in Madrid, Aragon, and Seville, Aunar in Aragon, and the Libertarian Student Federation (FEL). We're not going to lie to anyone: we're talking about a very small scene that didn't even manage to become a proper movement, despite our intentions.

Regarding Embat, our analysis of the period after the 15M was that many essentially libertarian ideas and practices had been seen, but they were barely articulated by the libertarian movement. Proposals were taken to town squares individually and embraced by a politically diverse audience. We were aware—we saw them—that in those same squares there were Marxist or social democratic political organizations that had the goal of increasing their own membership. So we understood that it was necessary to have our very own organization to channel that spontaneous libertarian spirit toward a revolutionary perspective. That's why Embat was born.

During this period, we were able to garner some sympathy, but we failed to attract those libertarian people who were embedded in the social and popular movements. Most of them preferred to continue without a specific organization. This proved fatal with the emergence of Podemos in 2014. Many people who should have been previously organized as anarchists ended up joining the circles and candidacies of Podemos, Ganemos, Sí Se Puede, Más Madrid, or the CUP in Catalonia. Without a strategic line of their own, they adopted social democratic lines until they burned out and went home or until they completely converted to those positions.

Meanwhile, people from libertarian assemblies, insurrectionalist movements or informal anarchism gradually entered anarcho-syndicalism. This time not to turn it into a political organization as in the 1990s, but rather because of labor issues or to help develop some social and cultural area within the unions. They also entered the housing struggle, this time without the intention of "radicalizing the struggle," but rather as just another actor. Something similar must have occurred in the 1980s with people emerging from libertarian athenaeums.

During those years, 2015-2020, we should highlight the influence of the Federation of Anarchists of Gran Canaria in the libertarian field. Their approach combined elements of social and insurrectionary anarchism under an identitarian anarchist discourse that championed "neighborhood anarchism." They were also the driving force behind the first Tenants' Union in the entire state and, at the time, advocated for a rent strike. They managed to bring anarchism to the most disadvantaged neighborhoods of Gran Canaria, reaching a range of people who hadn't been reached in decades. The FAGC attempted to replicate their neighborhood anarchism elsewhere in the state, giving dozens of talks and writing numerous texts. However, this didn't succeed and no one on the Peninsula copied his model, which was a shame, since we have always loved anarchism with such strong social roots.

After the 2020 pandemic, we experienced the rise of the GKS/Socialist Movement and its great impact among the youth of the revolutionary left. Anarchism was literally out of the picture at that time, as we have seen. The ambiguous discourse—half Leninist, half autonomous-libertarian—that this socialist movement had in its early days attracted groups of young militants to those areas. Even people who had previously been active in social or insurrectionalist anarchism, which put a good part of our movement on guard.

Consequently, the need to offer an anarchist organizational alternative became clear. Thus, Alternativa Libertaria and Liza were born in Madrid in 2023 (the former later joined the latter), now Hedra in Alicante, Impulso in Granada, the Seminario de Estudios Libertarios Galegos (Galician Libertarian Studies Seminar), and, within synthetic anarchism, the Horizontal network at the state level (although it hasn't made much headway so far) and some new groups. Libertarian Action of Zaragoza even joined the FAI, a group well established in its neighborhood. Currently, some anarchist assemblies are being re-established in various cities, such as Seville, with that plural or synthetic character that we previously saw in other similar ones. All of this occurs in a context of true growth of anarcho-syndicalism, which has also opened new study centers and cultural organizations.

In short, it has been necessary to offer strong organizations in response to the need of working-class youth to organize. Right now, our entire political space is under construction. Even so, many territories remain with virtually no libertarian entity beyond anarcho-syndicalism, a few propaganda orgs, okupied social centres or music bands.

We are concerned that no assessment has been made of the 2010-2020 decade and that collectives are emerging that uncritically copy the same models that entered into crisis in those years. Because there are not many spaces for interrelation between currents, no kind of collective teaching is being transmitted, a starting point that comrades starting out now can take as a reference. This could be the role of Ekintza Zuzena.

In the summer of 2024, the First Meeting of Especifist Anarchism was held in Catalonia. What need did this initiative respond to, and what is your assessment of it?

The Meeting was a response to previous contacts between the various organizations and groups that exist in Spain and claim to be part of the especifist movement. We intended to draw the attention of this unorganized, but still pro-organizational, libertarian community in the state. That is, those people who now feel the need to have someone supporting them to work politically as anarchists without fearing the other currents of the socialist left.

At that time, about 80 people gathered at the Calafou factory (Vallbona d'Anoia), exceeding our expectations. Many people came who did not belong to the organizing organizations (Batzac, Embat, FEL, Liza and Regeneración Libertaria), and we had some very fruitful discussions with like-minded people from Granada, Galicia, and elsewhere.

During the meeting, a greeting was recorded for Black Rose, our sister organization in the United States, on the occasion of its Convention (something like the annual congress they hold there).

A strong point was the quality of the debate, with very solid arguments. It was also clear that everyone was pulling in the same direction: the need for political organization and social integration—which is to be expected at a meeting of this tendency, but which is not a common occurrence in current anarchism, and that's why it pleasantly surprised us.

And a weak point was the lack of communicative capacity our movement still has, usually allergic to audiovisual media and with no desire to be the center of attention or make a spectacle of its own everyday life. Admittedly, this demonstrates a modicum of common sense, but I think it's also positive to make a little noise, to be known and seen.

What groups or initiatives are currently promoting this movement, and what are their goals?

The initiatives currently promoting this movement in Spain are as follows, in order of creation:

- Federación Estudiantil Libertaria (FEL). Emerging in 2008 from several student assemblies in Madrid, Catalonia and Aragon, it was rebuilt in 2014 after a, let's say, generational hiatus, and has lasted until this year. Its tendency was oriented toward "social and organized anarchism" until recently, when it began to define itself as specific. As student groups come and go quite quickly, it hasn't managed to consolidate in recent years and now only existed in Catalonia. At the end of last year, it joined Batzac, forming its student front.

- Regeneración Libertaria. A web portal created in 2012 as a space for current analysis, theoretical articles, social studies, and libertarian culture within social and organized anarchism. Last year, given that its current members adhere to the Especifista movement, they decided to put the medium at the service of a common project. So today it is the official portal of the Especifist movement or organized anarchism in the Spanish state. It serves as a link between the organizations that promote it and as a point of debate and exchange of ideas.

- Embat, Organització Llibertària de Catalunya. Founded in 2013 as Procés Embat[3] (like the previous ones, under the paradigm of "social and organized anarchism") and since 2015 under its current name. It is an organization that has gone through different stages: one of consolidation, acting as a network of activists (2013-15); another of social integration as an organization (2015-19); another very active during the Independence Procés (2017-18), the 2020 hiatus, which was used to create our Political Line[4], and the current era. We are currently active in the areas of housing, education, feminism, eco-social issues, and labor.

- Batzac, Libertarian Youth . Founded in 2017, it organizes young people who, in most cases, have not previously participated in activism. Until now, it had not declared itself a specialist organization, but rather a social anarchist organization. This is due to its interest in achieving specific social integration, as it does in housing, in the student sphere, and in the workplace. It has recently embraced the FEL (Libertarian Student Federation) in Catalonia.

-Liza, Plataforma Organizativa de Madrid. Founded in 2023, it brought together a group of people in need of organization who shared a strategic and tactical vision halfway between platformism and especifism. Its emergence was combined with good online communication and great activity, which enlivened the Iberian scene, resulting in the current semblance of coordination. Its integration is primarily in housing and neighborhoods. It's also worth highlighting their interest in debating with the rest of the anarchist movement, confronting autonomist and anti-organizational tendencies. Liza absorbed an organizational project called Alternativa Libertaria, which emerged from FEL Madrid.

- Impulso – Granada defines itself as a space for reflection on organized anarchism. Created at the end of 2024, for now, it's precisely that which defines them: a space for debate and training around the ideas of organized anarchism in Granada. Their intention is to move forward gradually, without skipping steps, until culminating in a political organization.

- Hedra, Organización Especifista de Alicante. This is a recent arrival, having been created in January 2025. It is the first to be created under the label of especifismo, as its theoretical foundations draw directly from the primary texts of this movement. Its integration is in housing and in the neighborhood through a group of associations.

I will also mention the publishing house Teima. Currently working on publishing a book by Felipe Correa, called Black Flag. The publisher will publish texts from our movement in Spanish. However, there are some publishers that publish books in our vein, such as Descontrol in Barcelona or Ardora y Bastiana in Galicia.

In addition to these organizations, which are public, there are other initiatives in other parts of the country that have not yet come to light, and which I won't mention so as not to jinx them. Some of them come from anarchist synthesis collectives or assemblies that are drifting toward our style of anarchism. By the way, none of them come from Euskal Herria, so let's see if anyone is interested!

Regarding the stated objectives, the priority is to create a broader anarchist movement with a greater impact on society, bringing anarchism back to the forefront of social struggle.

It's worth mentioning that we are also coordinating with other European organizations of our same current and with those from the rest of the world. The current international coordination brings together more than twenty organizations, and several more are in the process of joining. The best-known are the Union Communiste Libertaire (French-speaking European countries), Die Plattform (Germany), Anarchist Communist Group (UK), Black Rose Federation (USA), Federación Anarquista Uruguaya, Federación Anarquista de Rosario (Argentina), Coordinadora Anarquista de Brasil (Anarchist Coordinator of Brazil) and Tekoshina Anarsist (Rojava). We are also in contact with other new initiatives currently being created. In some ways, it seems to be a parallel process to that in Spain, which indicates that the anarchist movement is seeking to be better organized.

The concept of popular power has had its greatest diffusion in Latin America, where it has generated significant debate. What is your interpretation or definition of the issue of popular power? How would you differentiate it from left-wing populism?

It was in the 1960-70s that the FAU opted to borrow this concept from the Chilean MIR, the Tupamaros, and other movements of the time that combined various forms of Marxism (primarily Leninism and Guevarism), Liberation Theology, national liberation, and Latin Americanism (those who maintain that Latin America is one country). It should be added that anarchism also influenced this amalgamation, something that is often overlooked. In the 1960s, people's power replaced Leninist concept of "dual power."

The Latin American anarchists of the time understood this as logical, since this dual power (those soviets that coexist with the bourgeois state in an advanced phase of the class struggle, once the revolutionary stage has been reached) in turn drew on the ideas of Bakunin.

In the FAU of the 1950s and 1960s, there was a lively debate about the historical subjects who should carry out the revolution. Given the configuration of Uruguayan society at the time, it was necessary to create a subject that would unite all the oppressed sectors of society. The idea of ​​"the people" was used, but the people were understood as those "below". They had nothing to do with the bourgeoisie. It was somewhat like when the historical CNT-FAI spoke of "the working people" in their newspapers and manifestos. They didn't refer solely to the proletariat, since at that time, to ordinary people, it sounded like talk of factories and little else.

In this relationship between ideology and the production of historical subjects—a relationship that, if it didn't exist, would mean neither ideology nor subject—moments of ideological validity are formed. Historical subjects/agents expand and lead to the hegemony of social bodies, based on the validity of ideologies.[5]

As the class struggle unfolded in Latin America, alliances between the organized labor movement, the student movement, the first feminist associations, the peasantry, and grassroots collectives centered on identity, such as Afros, mestizo, and indigenous peoples, came into play. Furthermore, in the 1970s, the social war received support from the self-employed and small business owners expelled from industrial production. The class struggle often moved to neighborhoods or communities far from the city, and elements of counterpower were generated from below in the midst of the struggle. This was popular power: the people in motion, diffuse, anonymous, contradictory, creative, festive, and combative. Land seizures, industrial cordons, armed groups, occupation of universities—this was popular power in the eyes of ordinary people. In no way should it be confused with interclassism, with its conscious "from below" nature.

In the 2000s, the critique began. The especifist or organized anarchist organizations used popular power in their political language. But Marxist organizations did too. In Cuba and Venezuela, all ministries carried the tagline "popular power." So the term was also linked to the socialist state. Comrades critical of the concept of popular power also pointed out that anarchism was being abandoned within the especifist ranks toward Marxism or national populism. Some anarchists even went further, denying the adherence to anarchism of our entire movement, viewing it as a crypto-Marxism as a whole. This is the origin of the conflict.

With Embat, it was even comical to see that, during the first few years, certain people would always come to all our talks and say that popular power couldn't be anarchist in any way. Ironically, we held the opinion that, in reality, everyone understood us perfectly, except for the "most anarchist" ones. No one seemed to have the slightest problem with the Black Power movement of the American Black Panthers, a concept roughly equivalent to popular power.

However, the passing of the years has largely mitigated those debates. If some organizations or individuals drifted toward other ideological positions, the vast majority did not, contributing to the libertarian movement as a whole, and not just to our current in particular. Today, in Spain, this concept has been largely accepted, even by people who come from other currents, such as anarcho-syndicalism or by libertarians who are active in neighborhoods or housing projects without ever having been on our wavelength.

Regarding left-wing populism, we must say that it engages in interclassism, mixing working-class demands with more bourgeois middle-class ones. This would be the main difference. Specificism defends a "strong people" [Pueblo Fuerte] built as a front for the classes oppressed by capitalism and the state. Although we speak of both currents of popular power, there are substantial differences. Let's see what the specificist view is:

We proclaim the most complete socialization of all spheres of social activity. The socialization of the means of production exercised by the organs of real representation of society and not by the State; the socialization of education, the administration of justice, defense organizations, the sources of knowledge and information, and most especially the socialization of political power. In this last aspect, we advocate the abolition of the State and governmental forms of power as the only guarantee of eliminating all forms of domination. […]

We are fully convinced that this is effectively possible through direct democracy, exercised by grassroots popular organizations organized in a self-managed manner and linked within a federalist framework, where these same popular organizations are expressed in new institutional forms. Today we know more firmly than ever that the model of society we propose is not only possible but is practically, and in accordance with the historical and revolutionary experience of different peoples of the world, the only valid path to truly building socialism.[6]

It would be bold to say this isn't anarchism.

To what extent can the desire not to remain locked in the [activist/anarchist] ghetto and to participate (with a non-dogmatic discourse) in current social struggles or processes lead to political contradictions with anarchist or basic principles of the society for which you fight? Do you remember any occasions when you experienced this dilemma?

Social processes are complex by nature. There are many forces at play and many vested interests. The challenge is to build transformative collective interests in a democratic, transparent, and fraternal environment.

For Embat, the crucible was 2017. We had to position ourselves in a tremendously complex scenario. The Spanish state was in crisis and Catalan society demanded a response. This was the referendum. In just a few months, we experienced a large-scale process of collective empowerment. In just a few weeks, I'd say. The movement was already underway, but the events encouraged many more people to join the process. Counter-power structures were created, the committees for the defense of the Republic. They operated as assemblies, calling for actions and demonstrations. But they also had the opportunity to be spaces for territorial counter-power. Another initiative worth considering was the Constituent Procés, which proposed a constituent assembly for an independent Catalonia that would accommodate the most advanced social aspects. Social and union movements also joined the process in their own way. They joined and were responsible for the famous general strike of October 3rd, one of the most widely followed in Catalan history. The slogan of blocking transportation—trains, roads, and in 2019, the airport—naturally emerged. Something that had only been theorized about in anti-capitalist debate years before and was dismissed due to a lack of strength was put into practice.

Although we were perfectly aware that the leadership of this entire process was in the hands of the "traditional" Catalan political class, we also saw what was happening below. Our response was that we had to be there. We always felt that much more could have been done if all the social and union movements had acted unitedly and as a bloc. But this would have required a much greater organized anarchism, which is what we are trying to build.

Another complex and conflictive moment in which we had to take a stand was during the pandemic. Embat's position denounced the police state and the state's militarization of public spaces, while workers in "essential services" were forced to go to work without sufficient protective measures. We also highlighted the devastating effects of the privatization of healthcare and the management of nursing homes and clinics by private entities. At the same time, we welcomed the self-organized mutual support groups that emerged in many places, as well as the grassroots initiatives in which we participated, such as the Social Shock Plan or the attempted rent strike that was proposed during those months. I would add that we took advantage of the lockdown internally to develop our political line, which required much debate. And during that time, the International Coordination, in which we participated, was also strengthened.

The contradictions were clear within our libertarian movement: some focused on denouncing the police state and the infantilization of people, while others preferred to focus on denouncing privatization and self-organization. We didn't see a unified approach, and each of us fought a bit of our own battle. Perhaps what united us most was those proposed shock plans and similar ones.

NOTES

[1] This excerpt can be found in the Introduction to The Platform https://www.nestormakhno.info/spanish/platform/introduccion.htm

[2] For more information, see The Strategy of Especifismo. Interview by Felipe Correa with Juan Carlos Mechoso: http://federacionanarquistauruguaya.uy/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/La-Estrategia-del-Especifismo.pdf

[3] Embat in Catalan refers to the crash of a wave against a rock. It sounded powerful and poetic to us, and it seemed a better name than the typical acronyms of other libertarian organizations of our time.

[4] This was when Especifismo was adopted as one of the guiding principles. The Political Line can be consulted at: https://embat.info/programa-i-linia-politica/

[5] Popular Power from a Libertarian Perspective. https://federacionanarquistauruguaya.uy/poder-popular-desde-lo-libertario-fau/

[6]Ibid.

Tensions et défis actuels autour des
constructions populaires autonomes

Diego Naim Saiegh
Institut de Théorie et d'Histoire Anarchiste – ITHA

Introduction

Dans le travail suivant, nous approfondirons certaines implications qui se manifestent aujourd’hui dans la réalisation de processus de construction populaire autonomes – en soulignant ceux qui, en raison de leurs perspectives politiques et méthodologiques, peuvent être inclus dans une matrice libertaire – dans un contexte historique traversé par les marques du chômage structurel, la croissance de la pauvreté et, d’une manière générale, par la précarité de la vie en tant que forme sociale. Nous tenterons de proposer, à travers notre parcours, certains fils d’analyse sur certains problèmes à affronter selon le contexte susmentionné, notamment dans le cadre de nos sociétés périphériques latino-américaines et quelques hypothèses sur les défis à relever pour les surmonter dans une optique émancipatrice.

Maintenant, avant d’aborder les questions soulevées, il nous semble important, ne serait-ce que dans ses grandes lignes, de souligner quelques idées générales sur le lien entre l’anarchisme et les processus d’organisation populaire, ainsi que quelques lignes sur ce que nous entendons par rapport à la construction d’une matrice libertaire.

Une perspective politico-méthodologique de la construction populaire

Si l’anarchisme en tant que courant de praxis révolutionnaire a eu tout au long de son histoire – outre ses différentes tendances – une « raison d’être », celle-ci était principalement donnée par le fait de fournir une base matérielle à la trame de ses postulats avec pour perspective émancipatrice l’organisation et la lutte nécessaires à cet effet de ceux qui sont soumis aux injustices du système de domination capitaliste d’État. Michel Bakounine a dit à ce sujet:

Il est vrai qu’il existe [dans le peuple] une grande force élémentaire, force sans doute supérieure à celle du gouvernement et à celle des classes dirigeantes prises dans leur ensemble, mais sans organisation, la force élémentaire n’est pas une force réelle. C’est cet avantage indéniable de la force organisée sur la force élémentaire du peuple, sur lequel repose le pouvoir de l’État. Le problème n’est donc pas de savoir si [le peuple] peut se révolter, mais s’il est capable de construire une organisation qui lui fournira les moyens d’atteindre une fin victorieuse. Non pas à une victoire fortuite, mais à un triomphe prolongé et définitif [1].

Dans le même esprit, l’Italien Malatesta a déclaré que les classes opprimées et exploitées:

ne pourront jamais s’émanciper tant qu’elles n’auront pas trouvé dans l’union, la force morale, la force économique et la force physique nécessaires pour vaincre la force organisée des oppresseurs [2].

De ces considérations découle donc l’importance stratégique que revêt le développement et la promotion d’organisations populaires capables de conduire et de soutenir ledit processus pour un processus de transformation sociale, constituant ainsi une force sociale articulée capable d’affronter et éventuellement de transcender le pouvoir. Or, cette impulsion vers le rôle principal de l’organisation du social d’en bas doit compter, à partir d’une logique libertaire, avec certains critères et lignes directrices qui se distinguent des autres logiques et qui donnent lieu à sa propre empreinte.

Pour l’instant, nous partons de la conception que les groupes des classes populaires doivent avoir comme première tâche d’action, la lutte pour la conquête des intérêts matériels qui rassemblent leur classe dans le cadre de ses besoins les plus immédiats. Pour cela, l’arc de confluence doit être le plus large possible. Autrement dit, il ne doit pas être traversé a priori par des limitations politiques-idéologiques, religieuses ou autres [3]. Mais cette tâche première d’action ne doit pas être étanche, mais dynamique. Elle doit être combinée de manière dialectique avec une tâche de lutte émancipatrice visant à dépasser les structures du système dominant, cherchant ainsi à construire des «embryons» de pratiques et d’organismes sociaux qui préfigurent une société libre d’exploitation et d’oppression.

L’organisation de la classe est donc dans cette perspective, comme outil d’action et de lutte, mais aussi comme école de participation démocratique et comme bastion de construction de la capacité d’autodétermination populaire, devenant, à son tour, un bastion dans le développement d’une société autogestionnaire; le pouvoir d’en bas, du peuple organisé lui-même. Cette tâche complémentaire élargit le champ de la simple revendication sociale et lui donne une orientation politique claire. La politique en termes de politique de classe autonome et donc de réappropriation également de la sphère politique comme espace d’auto-activité, d’autogestion et d’auto-institution sociale, mais aussi comme école de participation démocratique et comme bastion de construction de la capacité d’autodétermination populaire, devenant, à son tour, un bastion dans le développement d’un pouvoir autogéré d’en bas, à partir du peuple organisé lui-même.

En ces termes, cette perspective, même si elle n’établit pas de lien organique immédiat avec une approche idéologique fermée – prenant en compte, comme indiqué plus haut, l’ampleur nécessaire des confluences pour mener à bien la tâche première de la lutte protestataire – propose, une matrice que, soutenue par certaines prérogatives et lignes de construction politico-méthodologiques, nous pouvons identifier comme libertaire. Des paramètres tels que la lutte et l’action directe sans intermédiaires, la démocratie de base, l’organisation fédérative, l’indépendance de classe, la pratique préfigurative, l’antiparlementarisme, entre autres, nous montrent clairement un profil de construction au sein du peuple que l’anarchisme, en tant que courant, a historiquement porté en avant lorsque s’impliquer dans la lutte des classes, tant depuis les origines du mouvement ouvrier organisé que dans le cadre des luttes que les mouvements sociaux contemporains développent depuis plusieurs décennies jusqu’à nos jours et qui ont influencé – et continuent même d’influencer – différentes organisations populaires qui n’en ressortent pas forcément dynamisées par des militants dudit courant. Dans cette perspective d’organisation et de construction populaires que nous appelons génériquement autonomes, nous allons maintenant tenter d’analyser le panorama actuel sur lequel ces formations doivent développer leurs luttes, ainsi que les problèmes et défis auxquels elles sont confrontées lorsqu’elles y sont confrontées.

Un panorama actuel

À l’heure où nous entrons dans la troisième décennie du XXIe siècle, il ne semble pas nouveau que nous nous trouvions plongés dans une crise profonde qui, de différentes voix, est présentée comme civilisationnelle et aux multiples dimensions. Crise qui s’impose comme systémique, multifocale et mondiale, comme caractéristiques du capitalisme, en plus de certaines manifestations spécifiques aux pays ou aux régions. Un premier point pour aborder sa portée consiste sûrement à visualiser que, depuis quelques décennies et de manière de plus en plus accentuée, le processus d’expansionnisme illimité du capitalisme érode nécessairement ses propres conditions d’existence antérieures.

Alors que la substance du capital est la génération et la régénération de valeur à travers le travail abstrait – vivant mais aliéné – accumulé dans le champ de production avec ses conditions de possibilité dans le champ reproductif et l’environnement naturel. Sa volonté d’augmenter constamment la productivité – de pair avec la compétitivité – l’amène à accorder une importance croissante à la science et à la technologie dans la production. La corrélation et la tendance croissante de celles-ci sont de rendre constamment anachronique ce même processus, basé sur le travail – seul générateur de valeur. Ce faisant, le capitalisme scie la branche sur laquelle il repose: la valorisation de la valeur à travers le travail vivant et l’environnement qui la rend possible.

Bien que – et bien que cela puisse paraître contradictoire avec ce qui précède – aient proliféré ces dernières années une série de « nouveaux emplois », ceux-ci, en raison de leurs caractéristiques – informels, précaires, externalisés, « uberisés », sans droits – non seulement n’ont aucun impact sur la tendance à la dévaluation et à la réduction structurelle du travail formel qui existe encore, mais ils continuent également à être une « fuite en avant » que, avec d’autres dispositifs, le capitalisme mondial développe pour surmonter ses propres limites intrinsèques, mais qui, même s’ils sont efficaces pour réactiver le marché, les profits de certains secteurs ne vont pas générer à court terme, même de loin, un nouveau cycle de prospérité, car les technologies – qui ne produisent pas de valeur – et qui remplacent le travail humain, ne peuvent être éliminées de la production, c’est-à-dire « ils ne reviennent pas ». Ainsi, Il ne s’agit pas d’un « retournement cyclique » classique qui aurait pu se produire à un autre stade, mais plutôt d’une tendance qui s’annonce déjà comme une crise sans retour. En outre, dans ce contexte:

les grandes entreprises tentent de promouvoir un nouveau cycle expansionniste pour protéger leurs bénéfices à court terme. Pour y parvenir, comme cela s’est produit lors des crises précédentes, ils ont renouvelé leur engagement à élargir la frontière commerciale à travers la dynamique d’accumulation par dépossession. De même, dans le cadre de la financiarisation mondiale, ils favorisent la création de nouvelles bulles spéculatives pour retrouver, au moins dans l’immédiat, des niveaux élevés de rentabilité [4].

Ceci, insistons-nous, « fait avancer » mais laisse le problème sous-jacent non résolu, à savoir que même si la quantité de biens et de services peut croître, ensemble et à moyen terme, ils représentent une quantité de plus en plus petite de valeur. De même, l’argent – produit de la spéculation financière – qui circule dans le monde est « fictif » puisqu’il ne représente pas en réalité un travail investi de manière «productive» [5]. Le capitalisme est de plus en plus confronté à ses barrières économiques internes ainsi qu’à ses limitations externes naturelles – écologiques – qui, bien qu’elles présentent un horizon temporel diversifié – et dans ce domaine les luttes sociales jouent un rôle – ne peuvent être stoppées, en même temps de sa propre logique. En bref:

le capitalisme mondial a fait avancer ses contradictions, dans le temps et dans l’espace, mais il se rapproche de plus en plus de ses propres limites. L’instabilité permanente des marchés en raison de l’augmentation de la financiarisation, de l’extension de l’exploitation du travail et des inégalités sociales qui excluent de larges couches de la population de la société de consommation, de la remise en question de la division sexuelle du travail et de la nécessité de repenser la répartition des tâches productives et reproductives, l’épuisement des sources d’énergie et des ressources matérielles nécessaires au métabolisme agro-industriel-urbain-financier, les impacts du modèle économique sur les écosystèmes et le dérèglement climatique, sont autant d’entre eux,[6].

Ce panorama complète une série de définitions à prendre en compte. D’une part, et pour tout ce qui précède, il n’est pas possible de revenir à un modèle d’accumulation basé sur l’emploi massif – typique de l’ère fordiste déjà surmontée – donc un retour au «plein emploi» ou au «plein emploi» n’est pas possible, formalité massive et à défaut, ni aux recettes keynésiennes ni au rôle central de l’Etat. L’État, complice de la logique du capital, ne peut, à ce stade, « dans le meilleur des cas », que cibler certaines politiques, qui en plus de devenir des dispositifs de discipline sociale, aboutissent à entretenir et accroître des formes de précarité [ 7].

Mais les choses ne s’arrêtent pas là si l’on suppose que l’économie a pour but le bien-être des sujets, ayant comme moyen le travail et la production de biens et de services pour la satisfaction des besoins vitaux. Dans la logique du capital, et surtout avec une accentuation accrue ces derniers temps, ces termes sont pervertis et la fin d’une vie durable se transforme en un moyen pour une fin différente d’accumulation capitaliste. Cela met sur la table la configuration d’une matrice qui se manifeste avec une visibilité croissante dans le néolibéralisme et qui cristallise la précarité non seulement référencée au travail, mais comme une véritable forme sociale à caractère totalisant et en constante augmentation. Cela constitue également un conflit radical et insoluble entre la durabilité de la vie humaine et écologique et le capitalisme, que certains analystes synthétisent comme un conflit « capital-vie »:

lorsque la vie est un moyen pour atteindre une fin différente, elle est toujours menacée; la tension peut parfois s’atténuer […] mais tôt ou tard viendra un moment de désengagement où l’accumulation se fera non pas en maintenant la vie, mais au prix de sa négation ou de sa destruction [ 8].

L’ensemble de ce processus général connaît un développement étroitement lié en Amérique latine, en tant que région périphérique, bien qu’il comporte des éléments particuliers. Il s’agissait, en principe et pendant plusieurs décennies, de tout un contexte de reconfiguration sociale qui signifiait l’accentuation des inégalités préexistantes et l’émergence de nouveaux écarts politiques, économiques, sociaux et culturels, constituant ainsi un scénario caractérisé, d’une part, par la fragmentation et la perte de pouvoir des secteurs populaires, et d’autre part, par la concentration politique et économique dans les élites du pouvoir internationalisé, qui était loin d’être linéaire:

De nombreux changements dans l’ordre économique ont commencé dans les années 1970 [dans la grande majorité des cas, avec des dictatures génocidaires]. Les transformations de la structure sociale ont commencé à devenir visibles dans les années 1980, au cours de la «décennie perdue», qui a culminé avec de forts épisodes d’hyperinflation et ouvert la porte à la mise en œuvre des réformes néolibérales des années 1990 [9].

En même temps:

il faut tenir compte du fait que si le premier moment de la mondialisation néolibérale, dans les années 1990, a été marqué par les privatisations et l’ajustement fiscal, le deuxième moment va de pair avec la généralisation d’un modèle extractif-exportateur visant à consolider et à creuser les écarts sociaux entre les pays du nord et du sud, basés sur le pillage de ressources naturelles de plus en plus rares, la pollution irréversible, l’extension de la monoculture et la perte de biodiversité qui en résulte [10] .

Cela dit, nous ne pouvons manquer de souligner une fois de plus que ceux-ci sont encore des manifestations d’un système mondial et qui a, comme nous l’avons déjà noté, la précarité et l’exclusion comme marque structurelle, posant à la région comme un espace concret où des corps, des vies et des territoires sont sacrifiés à ce stade au nom de la reproduction du capital transnationalisé, en plus de tel ou tel gouvernement se déclarant « progressiste » ou « populaire ».

Face à ce panorama, depuis la fin des années 80 et fondamentalement depuis les années 90, nous assistons à une confluence progressive de différents processus de lutte qui ont pris forme à travers différents moyens et qui ont connu certaines étapes qui ont marqué leur développement. Il est important de noter, à leur tour, que la chute du mur de Berlin en 1989 et l’effondrement de l’URSS en 1991 n’ont pas seulement entraîné l’effondrement des régimes du « socialisme réel », la crise des partis communistes, les socialistes, les syndicats traditionnels et les mouvements de guérilla, notamment en Amérique latine, mais aussi la faillite de tout un paradigme révolutionnaire qui avait imprégné la majeure partie de la gauche tout au long du XXe siècle. C’est que le développement imparable des forces productives amènerait le socialisme et cela, associé à la dynamique de lutte impulsée en particulier par le prolétariat, le seul sujet social doté d’une capacité de transformation – fondamentalement urbain, industriel et destinataire d’une « mission historique à remplir » – la société sans classe. Tout cela approfondit, comme nous l’avons dit, la désorientation et la crise des anciennes formes organisationnelles et méthodologiques, mais permet, de manière dialectique, en ligne avec la logique renouvelée de la domination capitaliste, l’émergence progressive de nouveaux axes de confrontation, ainsi que de nouveaux discours critiques, sujets sociaux et nouvelles formes de construction populaire, déjà en phase avec ce que nous connaissons aujourd’hui comme mouvements sociaux qui en réalité, et pour être exact, dans certains cas, plutôt que « nouveaux », nous devrions parler de formats et de schémas de conflits antagonistes « retravaillés », étant donné que bon nombre de ces initiatives avaient déjà eu un début de conception lors des événements connus sous le nom de Le « Mai français » de 1968, où, entre autres questions, ont pu se faire jour tout un ensemble de points de vue et de perspectives qui, sous le titre exhaustif de « nouvelle gauche », impliquaient même une revalorisation de tout un ensemble de prérogatives – dont nous avons développé beaucoup de points dans la première partie de cet ouvrage – de nature socialiste libertaire qui, pendant une courte période, était entrée dans un cône d’ombre.

En soulignant, maintenant, l’ampleur qu’a eu ces derniers temps sur notre continent le cadre des luttes développées par les mouvements sociaux mentionnés ci-dessus, apparus dans les années 1990, il est essentiel de souligner qu’ils ont eu – et continuent d’avoir – une grande importance. Un rôle plus important et plus global que la simple action de résistance:

Les mouvements sociaux se sont révélés être plus qu’une simple réponse défensive aux changements dans la corrélation des forces sociales et aux fortes transformations de leurs conditions de vie et de reproduction. En réalité, avec toutes leurs complexités et nuances nationales, les mouvements sociaux latino-américains ont développé une dimension plus proactive, qui ouvre la possibilité de réfléchir à de nouvelles alternatives émancipatrices basées sur la défense et la promotion de la vie et de la diversité [12].

Tensions et défis…

En termes généraux, le scénario à partir duquel les organisations et constructions populaires d’aujourd’hui, et en particulier celles conçues à partir d’une matrice libertaire ou génériquement autonome, doivent développer leurs luttes. Il est maintenant nécessaire d’établir quelques défis pour surmonter certains problèmes et tensions que présente le même scénario, afin de pouvoir prescrire quelques clés d’orientation émancipatrice pour les temps actuels.

Nous avons dit plus haut que face au processus de développement critique du capitalisme à ce stade, qui, entre autres problèmes, laisse de plus en plus hors de son orbite la formalité massive du travail, les États – et en particulier dans une grande partie de l’Amérique latine – s’efforcent de « remédier » à cette situation [13] avec toute une batterie de ressources, de programmes et de politiques ciblées, en essayant ainsi de contenir, mais aussi de discipliner, les secteurs populaires touchés par ces conséquences et d’autres conséquences structurelles du développement actuel du capital [14].

En ce qui concerne ce problème, il y a eu – il y a toujours – de nombreux débats dans le domaine des organisations populaires sur la manière d’affronter cette situation, de considérer ou non le conflit sur ces ressources comme un axe de lutte valable et si cela peut s’inscrire dans une perspective autonome de construction étant donné la relation inexorable que celle-ci confère avec l’État et la tendance à l’institutionnalisation qu’elle implique pour le champ d’exercice des organisations et de leurs luttes. Il va sans dire qu’à cet égard, les différentes réalités de chaque espace national ont leur base, mais, si, comme nous l’avons soutenu, ces mesures font encore partie d’un tout, cadre structurel-mondial, certaines réflexions deviennent pertinentes.

Si l’on part du principe que, dans ce contexte, l’éventail des axes de lutte protestataire n’est pas épuisé par les ressources étatiques concentrées, il est également vrai que, de par leurs caractéristiques, ils acquièrent une empreinte extrêmement importante dans les conditions actuelles pour faire face aux luttes pour une amélioration minime des conditions de vie dans le cadre d’un système qui laisse de plus en plus de secteurs de la population hors des circuits formels de travail [15] et donc, aussi, hors des circuits de consommation et de réassurance de leurs conditions de subsistance de base.

Maintenant, le nœud problématique par rapport à la tendance à l’institutionnalisation – qu’il serait plus correct de qualifier de formation de l’État [16] – que cela implique, bien qu’il présente effectivement une menace pour l’autonomie des constructions populaires régies par cette logique, sa configuration ne doit pas nécessairement être prescrite comme absolue. Compte tenu du scénario toujours dynamique des luttes sociales et des relations de pouvoir, le dilemme conditionnant a priori doit être considéré comme faisant partie d’un contexte de relations conflictuelles et de tension permanente où le défi se présente, non seulement dans le conflit sur les demandes d’appropriation organisée des ressources en question, mais aussi dans la lutte politique contre la logique étatique de modelage et d’aliénation.

Une autre question qu’il nous semble important de souligner dans ce cours de tensions et de défis concerne l’ordre du stratégique. Si, comme nous l’avons déjà dit, les organisations populaires autonomes et, en leur sein, fondamentalement celles traversées par une matrice libertaire, se positionnent grosso modo avec un objectif politique général de changement social en termes de résultat populaire orienté vers l’auto-activité, l’autogestion et l’autogestion, pour être cohérent avec ces postulats, il devient essentiel, en tant qu’élément stratégique, que l’on conjugue le renforcement et la consolidation organisationnelle de ces expressions populaires, mais aussi le développement continu de leur propre capacité de force – matérielle et contre-hégémonique – dans l’opposition et la confrontation au pouvoir des classes dominantes. Autrement dit, la construction d’un pouvoir populaire – que l’on pourrait considérer comme autogéré – devient vital. Il faut instituer également des espaces, des territoires, des mécanismes et des relations qui préfigurent et soutiennent le projet d’une société autogérée.

Compte tenu de cette prémisse stratégique et de tout ce que nous avons exposé en termes du processus historique que nous traversons, nous pensons qu’elle doit, à son tour, être complétée par une autre perspective qui se présente aujourd’hui comme essentielle: la multisectoralité. En fait, si depuis quelque temps on ne peut pas parler d’une classe homogène ou d’un secteur populaire spécifique qui représente l’autosuffisance ou une centralité manifeste en termes d’antagonisme et de dépassement du développement des conditions actuelles du capitalisme, car les contradictions sont multiples – économique, social, politique, culturel, environnemental – et social, le sujet de la confrontation se présente alors comme multiple. Une stratégie appropriée impliquerait donc, en ce sens, la possibilité d’articuler ces contradictions et ce sujet multiple dans une projection commune. Cela implique clairement de considérer un horizon de lutte qui tente de dépasser le cadre des revendications spécifiques mais fragmentaires de tel ou tel secteur en particulier, en dessinant une perspective engagée dans leur intégration dans des espaces à caractère multisectoriel.

¿Et sur quel axe pourrait a priori rassembler la diversité des revendications qui traversent l’univers des expressions des luttes populaires? Si, comme nous l’avons dit, dans ce contexte la logique du capital – en crise – non seulement pervertit, mais menace également la subsistance – humaine et écologique – en configurant une matrice de précarité sociale généralisée, cela pourrait être un bon point à considérer comme lien commun compte tenu de la transversalité qu’il implique aux différents secteurs soumis à cette dynamique d’expropriation et de prédation.

Face à la crise civilisationnelle, la contre-proposition ne peut pas être de récupérer la « production » […] mais d’ouvrir deux débats : qu’est-ce qu’une vie qui vaut la peine d’être vécue et comment collectiviser la responsabilité de garantir ses conditions de possibilité […] [17].

Or, face à une telle orientation générale et à partir de la congruence à avoir entre elle et les moyens pour sa réalisation, il nous importe de prescrire que ces moyens à leur tour, dans ce contexte de crise systémique, doivent jouer un rôle de tension dialectique entre les possibilités d’avancées conflictuelles vers un projet de rupture et le blocage du continuum, l’auto-érosion du capitalisme à ce stade. Ce serait un peu ce que proposait Walter Benjamin à propos du « frein d’urgence » pour éviter de se précipiter dans le vide, en promouvant une série de contre-mouvements qui fonctionnent comme des « barrages » à l’opposé de certaines perspectives « accélérationnistes » qui reproduisent et continuent à stimuler la logique du capital à mesure qu’elle continue d’émerger. Et cela pourrait être développé avec des mesures et des revendications qui, entre autres, cherchent à détourner les ressources de la logique du marché et à s’engager dans son expansion et son universalisation, à réduire la journée de travail et à répartir le travail formel qui existe encore, à socialiser et à exposer la production de richesse comme attribut historico-social, miser sur la définanciarisation de l’économie, à la protection de l’environnement… Bref, ils tendent à prioriser et à stimuler la pérennité d’une vie digne en dehors des paramètres de précarité tout en servant de cadre à la recomposition des forces du bas social, laissant place à la reconstitution d’un imaginaire social antagoniste et préparant un horizon de transformation révolutionnaire.

Cette série de mesures, ainsi que d’autres possibles, pensons-nous, n’annulent pas la dynamique historique de la lutte des classes, mais au contraire l’étendent et la complexifient en fonction des exigences du processus historique en cours, et non en étant justifiées a priori. Comme certains diraient, en tant que « simples réformes », elles ne parviennent pas, dans leur ensemble et sur la base de certaines de leurs dimensions, à être considérées comme perturbatrices de la logique capitaliste contemporaine. Pour cette raison, aucune ne peut être prise isolément et comme une fin en soi, mais plutôt comme des mesures ou des instruments qui, interdépendants, sont configurés comme objets de dispute dans un processus dynamique de lutte plus grande, visant à renverser l’état de choses.

Les références:

[1] BAKOUNINE, Mijail. La liberté. Œuvres choisies de Bakounine. Buenos Aires: Éditorial Agebe, 2005.
[2] VERNON, Richard. Malatesta. Pensée et action révolutionnaires. Buenos Aires: Éditorial Utopia Libertaria, 2007.
[3] Dans le cadre de cette grande première expérience de confluence ouvrière telle que l’Association Internationale des Travailleurs, Mijaíl Bakunin a établi; « L’Internationale accepte dans son giron, faisant abstraction absolue de toutes les différences de croyances politiques et religieuses, tous les travailleurs honnêtes, à la seule condition qu’ils acceptent dans toutes ses conséquences la solidarité de la lutte ouvrière contre le capital bourgeois, exploiteur du travail. …». Dans: NETTLAU, Max. La vie de Michel Bakounine. Michael Bakounine, une biographie. Londres: imprimé en privé, 1896-1900.
[4] RAMIRO, Pedro/GONZÁLEZ, Erika. La reconstruction non durable du statu quo: reprise ou confrontation. Dans: Viento Sur Nº176, 6 AOÛT 2021 https://vientosur.info/la-insostenible-reconstruccion-del-business-as-usual-recuperacion-vs-confrontacion/
[5] JAPPE, Anselme. Vers une histoire de la critique de la valeur. Noms, Revista de Filosofía, 2018. https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/NOMBRES/article/view/21237
[6] RAMIRO, Pedro/GONZÁLEZ, Erika. Op Cit.
[7] À tel point que par exemple en Argentine et à travers un rapport récent, il a été confirmé que dans 7 provinces le secteur précaire et informel dépasse en nombre le secteur des travailleurs formels privés, et à la lumière de cela, en plus du euphémisme qui voit habituellement cela comme une « augmentation des emplois », la réponse de l’État, à travers les déclarations d’un responsable du ministère du Développement social, est « c’est pourquoi il est important de formaliser et de développer l’économie populaire » .. Ce que cela montre en réalité, c’est que ce qui a augmenté à pas de géant, c’est le chômage et le travail de subsistance informel et précaire et que l’État est le seul qui promeut ce panorama (en collaboration avec certaines organisations liées à cette idée). cristallisation de cette situation à travers l’allocation éventuelle de ressources (simplement palliatives) pour consolider une modalité précaire de « travail » sous l’orbite de l’État lui-même. Dans: VALES, Laura. Dans 7 provinces, il y a déjà plus de travailleurs dans l’économie populaire que dans le secteur privé. https://www.pagina12.com.ar/365051-en-7-provincias-ya-hay-mas-trabajadores-de-la-economia-popul
[8] PÉREZ OROZCO, Amaia. La durabilité de la vie au centre… Et qu’est-ce que cela signifie? Dans: L’écologie du travail : le travail qui soutient la vie, coord. de Laura Mora Cabello de Alba, Juan Escribano Gutiérrez. Espagne: Bomarzo, 2015.
[9] SVAMPA, Maristella. Changement d’époque. Mouvements sociaux et pouvoir politique -1ère éd. – Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI Editores Argentine, 2008.
[10] SVAMPA, Maristella. Op. Cit.
[11] L’une des caractéristiques fondamentales des mouvements sociaux qui se sont constitués au cours des dernières décennies sur la base de la reconfiguration du scénario de luttes dans notre région, se retrouve dans la reformulation du territoire, non plus seulement comme un simple espace de reproduction sociale, mais comme nouveau scénario de lutte et de construction nourri par le pouvoir, la dynamique et la dimension stratégique.
[12] SVAMPA, Maristella. Op. Cit.
[13] Non sans recourir – avant et même après – à la répression et à la criminalisation des expressions de protestation contre les conditions générées par les lignes directrices du modèle d’accumulation que les États eux-mêmes soutenaient.
[14] Pour le dire en termes foucaldiens, l’État néolibéral développe le contrôle biopolitique de la population pauvre. Orienté vers une stratégie de maîtrise des conflits sociaux et de la misère, son objectif est d’intégrer les exclus en tant qu’exclus. Dans: SVAMPA, Maristella. Cinq thèses sur la nouvelle matrice populaire. IIGG, Faculté des Sciences Sociales, UBA: novembre 2003. Il convient de noter que si les États sont les plus grands promoteurs de ces politiques, ils ne sont pas les seuls. Des ONG et des organisations multilatérales de différents types ont également développé et continuent de développer ce type de mesures, en les articulant souvent avec les politiques des États.
[15] Sans aucune perspective apparente que cette situation puisse, compte tenu de ses caractéristiques structurelles, être inversée dans un délai considérable au-delà de certaines déclamations démagogiques des politiciens et hommes d’affaires actuels.
[16] Nous comprenons ici la formation de l’État comme l’une des formes possibles d’institutionnalisation les plus spécifiquement associées au processus d’aliénation étatique conduisant à « façonner » des constructions autonomes à l’image et à la ressemblance de la logique étatique et subordonnées à ses propres mécanismes.
[17] PÉREZ OROZCO, Amaia. Crise multidimensionnelle et durabilité de la vie . Enquêtes féministes, ISSN 2171-6080, No. 2, 2011, p. 29-53. https://doi.org/10.5209/rev_INFE.2011.v2.38603

Este mayo de 2025 anarkismo.net celebra dos décadas como nodo global del anarquismo organizado. En un comienzo fue propuesto como una revista internacional de la corriente comunista libertaria o anarco-comunista. Desde esta propuesta, la iniciativa evolucionó hacia un portal web multilingüe inaugurado el 1 de mayo de 2005. La historia de anarkismo.net refleja la trayectoria de toda la corriente en su conjunto.

Hoy en día, con más de 15.000 artículos en 10 idiomas, anarkismo.net sigue siendo un archivo vivo y un espacio para quienes construyen poder popular desde abajo. Como escribiera Nestor McNab en 2005: «No somos una internacional, sino una herramienta para que las luchas respiren y se encuentren».

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El sindicalismo alternativo y la toma de contacto

El primer “hilo negro” de toda nuestra historia. En los años 90 existían varias organizaciones de tipo anarco-comunista: Organisation Socialiste Libertaire (OSL, Suiza), OSL Argentina, Alternative Libertaire (Francia),[1] Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchistici (FdCA, Italia),[2] Federación Anarquista Uruguaya (FAU),[3] entre otras más. Funcionaban desde la década anterior y mantenían contacto entre sí.

De esta serie de organizaciones, cabrá destacar el anarco-comunismo francés, que procedía de los años 50, teniendo en esa época la Federación Comunista Libertaria y destacados militantes teóricos como Georges Fontenis, o posteriormente Daniel Guérin y orgánicas como el Moviment Communiste Libertaire, la Organisation Revolutionaire Anarchiste o la Organisation Communiste Libertaire (OCL). Las organizaciones y las revistas de esta corriente se habían sucedido en el tiempo, llegando a los años 90 con gran prestigio en el movimiento anarquista europeo. De la misma forma podemos destacar el anarco-comunismo suizo e italiano, que corrió en paralelo, pero sin tener la misma fortaleza que su movimiento homólogo galo.

Por su parte, en América Latina fue la FAU uruguaya la organización más destacada debido a su trayectoria revolucionaria y a su resistencia frente la dictadura. Volvemos a encontrarnos una organización nacida en los años 50, que logró gran importancia en los años 60 y 70. Tras unos años de ser barrida por la represión, había logrado reorganizarse a mediados de los años 80. Y no solo eso, debido a su trabajo político influyó en otros grupos latinoamericanos, como veremos más adelante.

Volviendo al relato principal, a comienzos de los años 90 las organizaciones europeas tenían militantes también en el llamado “sindicalismo alternativo”, algunos con cargos orgánicos. Por lo tanto, algunos militantes tuvieron la oportunidad de conocerse personalmente a través de los encuentros del sindicalismo alternativo. Uno de aquellos militantes en el estado español era José María Olaizola. Durante toda la década de los 90 fue Secretario de Relaciones Internacionales de la CGT-E y, entre 1993 y 2001, su Secretario General. La CGT, por entonces, tenía como objetivo construir una internacional. En sus propias palabras: [4]

“Dicha intervención tenía el propósito de crear tanto una internacional anarcosindicalista y alternativa y una internacional libertaria, anarquista, y que ambas formasen un movimiento libertario internacional. En este quehacer la CGT inició e intervino en muchas iniciativas. Hubo muchos viajes, mucho contacto personal. ”

En las organizaciones específicas hay que diferenciar la parte política de la parte social o sindical (a menudo denominada “frente”). En caso del sindicalismo, la militancia específica actuaba mediante los frentes sociales o sindicales, y por el hecho de ser buenos militantes, solían acceder a cargos orgánicos en los sindicatos en los que participaban.

El primer encuentro del sindicalismo alternativo fue organizado en Barcelona por la CGT-E en noviembre de 1991. A partir de esos momentos se desarrollaron los contactos con el sindicato SUD-Solidaires francés,[5] Unicobas Italia,[6] la SAC sueca [7] y con otros sindicatos de base más, todos ellos bastante pequeños.

“El primer encuentro del sindicalismo alternativo lo organizamos en Barcelona el 29, 30 de noviembre y 1 de Diciembre de 1991 con sindicatos franceses SUD, en los [que] participaban militantes de AL, como Patrice Spadoni, conocido militante plataformista con quien tuvimos un relación continuada, después Laurent Esquerre de AL también. Conocía a anarquistas franceses por mi exilio parisino. Estuvo también la CGT de Correcteurs, muy potente sindicato francés gestionado por anarquistas de diferentes ramas, en el que Jacky Toublet era un militante muy destacado miembro de [la] FA, la CRT de Suiza [8] donde estaba Arístides Pedraza de la OSL suiza, sindicatos italianos, vascos, uno inglés y otro ruso ambos muy pequeños y, la SAC sueca que siempre era reticente a que alguien quisiera crear una nueva internacional y entre los Italianos estaba Unicobas (Stefano D'Errico su secretario general). Por cierto en este encuentro tuvo un importante papel Emili Cortavitarte quien junto a Chema Berro hicieron de coordinadores del encuentro en representación de la CGT.”

[9]

En 1995 se celebró un encuentro libertario internacional en Ruesta, un pueblo aragonés cedido a la CGT-E. A este encuentro acudieron militantes anarquistas franceses, italianos, suizos, polacos y de otras procedencias. Ruesta tuvo su importancia para establecer unos vínculos personales a nivel internacional.

En Ruesta hubo bastante participación de la militancia de Alternative Libertaire y de OSL (Suiza), acaso porque se lo tomaron como el campamento de verano de la organización francesa. En menor número, llegaron representantes de la FdCA, de Workers Solidarity Movement (Irlanda), de Al-Badil al-Tahriri (Líbano; su nombre en árabe significa Alternativa Libertaria) y de la Federación Anarquista Polaca. [10] Respecto al sindicalismo, la mayoría de los participantes eran de la CGT y la SUD, aunque también hubo gente de Solidaridad Obrera (estado español) y de la SAC (Suecia).

A partir de entonces, esas organizaciones y sus delegados se fueron encontrando en otros eventos internacionales como las marchas contra el paro europeas, las contracumbres y las protestas altermundialistas, como las de Niza (2000), Barcelona (2001) o Génova (2001), así como en otros encuentros impulsados por el sindicalismo alternativo – es decir, CGT-E, SUD-Solidaires, Unicobas, SAC, Solidaridad Obrera… – en los que formaban bloques libertarios. Sigue Olaizola:

“De aquí surgió un grupo en los hechos, no en los papeles, que trabajamos porque teníamos una visión estratégica común alejándonos del sectarismo Jacky, Aristides, Stefano, se incorporó Gerard Mêlinand (CNT fancesa proviniente de OCL...), y posteriormente Juan Carlos Mechoso, FAU; todos para mi grandes amigos y maestros. […]”
“Teníamos una excelente relación con la FdCA italiana plataformista: Saberio Craparo, Donato Romito, Adriana Dadá y Gianni Cimbalo, todos grandes amigos. En toda esta ebullición andaba y nos reuníamos con cierta periodicidad. ”

Los uruguayos apostillan que estos contactos no fueron casuales en absoluto. Muchos de los viajes al extranjero fueron orgánicos: estaban decididos por la organización. “Si los viajes personales cuadraban, se buscaban vínculos más en lo orgánico y no por la libre”. [11] Algunos de estos viajes podrían durar meses, convirtiéndose en largas estancias de intercambio político.

El 1 de mayo del 2000, la CNT francesa (también llamada “Vignoles”) organizó las jornadas “Un autre futur”. Las jornadas contaron con el apoyo de Alternative Libertaire y de la Federation Anarchiste, y sirvieron para unir el anarquismo francés. A la manifestación fueron unas 6000 personas detrás de la pancarta de la CNT, un hito casi histórico.

Pero también esas jornadas sirvieron de punto de encuentro de las organizaciones libertarias sindicalistas: CNT-F, SAC, Unicobas, Industrial Workers of the World, FAU (Alemania), RKAS (Ucrania), Confederación Democrática del Trabajo (Marruecos) y SKT (Siberia)[12] y otros países.[13] Y de nuevo fueron también lugar de socialización de militantes anarco-comunistas franceses, italianos, irlandeses…

En todos estos casos cuando se habla de toma de contacto a nivel político, no se trata solamente de coincidir por casualidad en algún evento o de intercambiar algún mensaje por internet. En bastantes casos se trataba de viajar a un lugar, convivir y establecer vínculos personales, impregnarse de lo que se hacía en ese lugar y debatir, sobre todo debatir, y aprender para trasladarlo al lugar de origen... y luego volver a debatir. Los vínculos personales eran centrales en todo este proceso.

El plataformismo en internet

El segundo “hilo negro” está relacionado con la gran conectividad que proporcionó la tecnología. En los albores de internet surgieron varios portales web de tendencia anarquista: A-infos, Infoshop, Spunk y algunos otros, que surgieron en los años 90. Uno de aquellos sitios web fue el de la organización plataformista irlandesa Workers Solidarity Movement (WSM).[14] En pocos años se subieron a internet centenares de textos clásicos de la historia del anarquismo y de la corriente anarco-comunista o plataformista. Con ello esta corriente ganaría bastantes simpatizantes por todo el mundo. Posteriormente, rehicieron la web y la pusieron online bajo el dominio struggle.ws, dejando la web de WSM para textos relacionados con la propia organización. Este trabajo de difusión y formación fructificaría pronto mediante la creación de una organización sudafricana, el Workers Solidarity Front (WSF), inspirada en su hermana irlandesa.

Poco antes del año 2000 entre ambas organizaciones (o militantes de las mismas) crearon la lista de correo “Anarchist Platform”. En su presentación identificaban claramente a qué tipo de militantes se dirigían [15]:

Nos identificamos como anarquistas y con la tradición «Plataformista» dentro del anarquismo, que incluye grupos y publicaciones como «La Plataforma Organizativa de los Comunistas Libertarios», los «Amigos de Durruti» y el «Manifiesto del Comunismo Libertario». Nos identificamos en líneas generales con la práctica organizativa defendida por esta tradición, aunque no necesariamente con todo lo que hicieron o dijeron. Es decir, es un punto de partida para nuestra política, no un punto final.

El documento de apertura de la lista de correo guarda una gran similitud con el que posteriormente tendrá anarkismo.net. Es típico de las organizaciones políticas emitir un documento de “puntos de unidad” o un “mission statement” que explique las políticas básicas de la organización.

Podemos observar también, que consideraban que sus referentes eran La Plataforma de 1926, del grupo Dielo Truda; Los Amigos de Durruti de la Revolución española; y el Manifiesto escrito por Georges Fontenis en 1953. Estos tres textos enfatizan la necesidad de contar con una potente organización específica anarquista que tendrá la función de articular la militancia anarquista que interviene en las organizaciones de masas. A la postre, esas organizaciones sociales son las que harán la Revolución Social. Estos son los mismos textos que reivindicó FdCA en su 30 aniversario, celebrado en 2016.[16]

La sudafricana ZACF (también conocida como Zabalaza) [17] (creada poco después de disolverse el WSF) se inspiraba también en los mismos textos, que consideraba como sus referentes fundamentales. Años después, añadiría a la lista el texto «Anarquismo Social y Organización» que publicó la organización brasileña FARJ tras su primer congreso de 2008.[18]

La lista de correo, como vemos, puso en contacto a militantes de todas partes, aunque predominantemente del mundo anglosajón. La lista fue utilizada para convocar a un encuentro presencial entre organizaciones plataformistas celebrado en Génova en el 2001, durante la contracumbre alterglobalización, a iniciativa de la organización italiana.[19]

Añadiremos que en abril de 2001, se celebró en Quebec (Canadá) la cumbre de jefes de estado de los países del continente americano. Para la ocasión se publicó una “Declaración Internacional de los Comunistas Libertarios” que cargaba contra la globalización capitalista y terminaba su comunicado llamando a construir la sociedad socialista libertaria. Entre las organizaciones firmantes había bastantes organizaciones plataformistas (NEFAC, WSM, ORA-S Chequia, OCL-Francia, OSL Argentina, Alternative Libertaire de Francia y su homónima del Líbano) junto a organizaciones anarcosindicalistas de la AIT y específicas de síntesis. Fue una excepción, ya que raramente se volverían a juntar estas corrientes.[20]

Solidaridad Internacional Libertaria

Según lo que hemos visto anteriormente, algunos militantes tenían en mente crear una internacional sindicalista alternativa y una internacional libertaria. La conexión definitiva y estable entre Europa y América Latina se dio hacia 1994, aunque había contactos anteriormente. El hispano-suizo Arístides Pedraza era uno de aquellos nexos y puso en contacto a Juan Carlos Mechoso con los militantes de Barcelona. [21] A partir de entonces se entabló una relación muy buena. Entre los militantes españoles, franceses y suizos les costearon a sus compañeros latinoamericanos los viajes, les organizaron charlas, ruedas de prensa y reuniones. De esta manera en la CGT-E conocieron a “Juan Carlos y Juan Pilo de la FAU, los brasileños Eduardo, "el Bocha", "el Gaucho", Verónica de la OSL argentina, en aquellos momentos ayudamos a costear los gastos de tres ateneos en Uruguay, Cerro, Colón y Acacias.” (Olaizola) [22]

La formalización de esta red de contactos y organizaciones daría lugar a la Solidaridad Internacional Libertaria (SIL). Este puede ser nuestro tercer hilo negro. Estaba impulsada por organizaciones diversas de tendencia comunista libertaria, así como anarcosindicalista, mientras que otros grupos tenían un anarquismo social menos definido políticamente. [23] Su primera reunión se celebró en Madrid el 1 de abril de 2001 a iniciativa de la CGT-E. [24] El texto fundacional fue obra de Juan Carlos Mechoso (Montevideo), Pepe García Rey, alias “Ramón Germinal” (Granada) y Paco Marcellán (Madrid): [25]

Hoy apoyamos, como primer paso, la constitución de una red libertaria mundial en la que todos los grupos de afinidad que así lo deseen encuentren su espacio, abierta a organizaciones libertarias, asociaciones, ateneos, sindicatos y otros colectivos libertarios. Esta red servirá para difundir el apoyo mutuo y la solidaridad en las luchas, funcionará como fuente de información y debate para el mundo libertario, organizará encuentros internacionales, creará escuelas de formación, empleará videoconferencias, Internet y todo tipo de herramientas disponibles para articular estrategias que permitan introducir y guiar la idea libertaria en las diversas luchas sociales.

[26]

Respecto a la lista de organizaciones, tenemos a la OSL (Suiza), Alternative Libertaire (Francia), Al-Badil al-Tahriri (Líbano), FAU (Uruguay), Federación Anarquista Gaucha (FAG, Brasil), [27] la ORA-Solidarita de la República Checa, [28] todos estos de tendencia anarco-comunista, la red antifascista francesa No Pasarán, la organización magonista [29] CIPO-RFM (México) [30], y las organizaciones anarcosindicalistas CGT-E, SAC (Suecia), Unicobas (Italia) y CNT-F (Vignoles, Francia). Esta última participó en la primera reunión, pero se retiró de la red SIL. Mientras tanto, al poco tiempo se incorporaron FdCA (Italia), ZACF (Sudáfrica) [31], AUCA (Argentina) [32], NEFAC (Norteamérica) [33] y la recién creada la Red Libertaria Apoyo Mutuo (estado español), que fue un intento de organización específica que no tuvo mucho recorrido.

Posteriormente, se celebraron un par de reuniones internacionales más en los años siguientes. Su contexto es el del movimiento de resistencia a la globalización capitalista, que en Europa se caracterizó por las contracumbres contra los encuentros del gran capital (como los del Banco Mundial, el G8 o los de la Unión Europea) que se acompañaron de multitudinarias protestas.

Gracias a su existencia se financiaron algunos proyectos, como la imprenta “Aragón” y un ateneo en Uruguay, un centro comunitario, una cooperativa y una imprenta en Brasil, un local en Cuba, o el apoyo para el periódico de la OSL argentina. Lo más importante es que en la SIL se conocieron diversos militantes europeos y latinoamericanos, se pagaron viajes, se editaron libros, se publicaron periódicos, y se pagaron actos públicos de las organizaciones y bastantes cosas más.

Como podemos imaginarnos, estos contactos son la razón de muchas jornadas, conferencias, debates, entrevistas conjuntos entre varios de estos militantes que fueron realizando hasta bien entrada la década de 2010. [34]

Sin embargo, esta iniciativa de solidaridad internacionalista tampoco duró demasiado tiempo. La SIL se había creado en un período de reflujo del movimiento alterglobalización. Además, la CGT cambió de secretariado y no siguieron desarrollando estos contactos.

El ELAOPA, las Jornadas Anarquistas de Porto Alegre y la primera CALA

Al otro lado del Océano Atlántico encontramos el cuarto hilo de construcción internacional. Los encuentros entre la FAU, la FAG brasileña y los grupos argentinos habían sido habituales en los años 90. Este trabajo había dado sus frutos, puesto que a comienzos del nuevo siglo ya existían otros grupos de la corriente en otros países. Ahora habría que articularlos.

A escala nacional, por un lado, los grupos y organizaciones brasileñas crearon el Foro del Anarquismo Organizado (FAO), creado en 2002. Era un espacio de debate ideológico, teórico y estratégico para dar un salto de escala en Brasil. Por el otro, se había dado procesos similares en Chile (1999), con el Congreso de Unificación anarco-comunista (CUAC). No exactamente a partir del CUAC, pero sin suda influida por ese proceso, en 2002 se creó la Organización Comunista Libertaria chilena. [35]

Dentro del marco del Foro Social Mundial (FSM), celebrado en Porto Alegre en 2003, surgió el llamado Encuentro Latinoamericano de Organizaciones Populares Autónomas (ELAOPA). [36] El encuentro planteaba un espacio diferenciado del FSM, tomado por las ONG, los partidos políticos y hasta por iniciativas empresariales. Desde el sector radical de los movimientos populares se reivindicaba la autonomía de clase y la creación de una alianza de los movimientos sociales fuera de las instituciones. El ELAOPA tenía los siguientes principios:

1. La Construcción de Poder Popular.
2. Una Perspectiva antipatriarcal y anticolonial.
3. El protagonismo popular y la Acción Directa.
4. La Solidaridad de Clase, el Apoyo Mutuo y el Internacionalismo.

En siguientes eventos, el ELAOPA se desvinculó del FSM y fue cambiando de ciudad, celebrándose cada dos años, aproximadamente. En el año 2025 se ha celebrado el XV encuentro en Santiago de Chile con más de 400 personas que representaban numerosas organizaciones de base. [37]

El ELAOPA es un encuentro entre organizaciones sociales y populares y raramente alguna de ellas se reivindica como libertaria, si acaso se reivindican como “autónomas”, “clasistas”, “populares” o dicen que tienen “influencias libertarias”. Sin embargo, la militancia del llamado “anarquismo especifista” tenía presencia en bastantes de aquellas organizaciones. Estamos hablando de la militancia social y barrial de las mencionadas FAU, FAG y otras, que actuaba en estos movimientos populares, y aprovecharon los encuentros de ELAOPA para reunirse también.

Con el ELAOPA surgía una oportunidad para el encuentro cara a cara entre la militancia libertaria. Por lo tanto, se creó un evento propio que normalmente se celebraba al día siguiente de terminar el Encuentro popular: las Jornadas Anarquistas. Eran (y son) un espacio no solo de propaganda o de cultura libertaria, sino también de debate estratégico con la mente puesta en la intervención en las luchas sociales y la promoción de la corriente. [38]

Los esfuerzos tuvieron mucho éxito. Para el período 2007-2008, se había producido la creación de varias organizaciones comunistas libertarias nuevas, algunas con pretensión de ser de ámbito nacional:

La situación del especificismo “plataformista” es considerablemente más variada y compleja. Ya vimos en su oportuno momento que como tales debía considerarse a la Organización Socialista Libertaria, Rojo y Negro, Comunismo Libertario, la Organización Revolucionaria Anarquista y el Colectivo Comunista Libertario en Argentina; a la Organización del Poder Popular Libertario en Bolivia; a los nucleamientos que giran alrededor del Forum del Anarquismo Organizado y a la Uniâo Popular Anarquista [Unipa] en Brasil; a la Organización Comunista Libertaria, el Colectivo de Agitación Libertaria y el Movimiento Libertario Joaquín Murieta en Chile; a la Alianza Comunista Libertaria en México; a Qhispikay Llaqta en Perú y, por último, a la Federación Anarquista Uruguaya, la Organización Libertaria Cimarrón, la Federación Libertaria y Bandera Negra en Uruguay.

[39]

Con toda esta serie de grupos, como es lógico, también surgieron iniciativas de articulación a mayor escala. El mayor intento de la época fue la Coordinación Anarquista Latinoamericana (CALA), creada en 2004 por la FAU (Uruguay), la FAG (Brasil), AUCA de Argentina, Lucha Libertaria y UNIPA de Brasil. [40] Pero esta UNIPA rompió con la corriente para crear su propio espacio político, el “bakuninismo”, priorizando las alianzas con la Alianza Comunista Libertaria de México y la Organización Revolucionaria Anarquista de la Argentina. Más adelante, se añadió el Foro del Anarquismo Organizado de Brasil. Esta primera CALA duró unos pocos años.

La CALA se adhirió al anarquismo especifista. Defendían una estrategia de poder popular democrática y rupturista, pero nunca entraron a definir las características de la sociedad post-revolucionaria. Entendían el especifismo como la organización política anarquista. Por tanto, no se diferenciaban del plataformismo más que en la tradición particular anarquista latinoamericana y en el tiempo en el que ambas propuestas tuvieron lugar. Por consiguiente, la vocación es idéntica, a pesar de algunos desarrollos propios.

La creación del portal web anarkismo.net

Como hemos visto antes, la SIL ya había logrado poner en contacto unas 11 organizaciones de tipo anarco-comunista, habiendo otras 3 que no se definían así, pero que, con un poco de trabajo político, podrían haberlo sido sin mayor problema. La desaparición de la red SIL dejó un vacío organizativo que llenaría anarkismo.net.

En palabras de José Antonio Gutiérrez [41]:

La idea de Anarkismo.net nació en primera instancia como la idea de hacer una revista internacional. Aproximadamente en 1999 comenzamos a conversar con un compañero de Alternative Libertaire y yo, que entonces era encargado de relaciones internacionales del CUAC, a discutir la necesidad de conocernos mejor como organizaciones libertarias que estábamos en el ala del plataformismo. Había entonces una lista de emails en la cual intercambiábamos discusiones y experiencias, pero sentíamos que necesitábamos artículos más en profundidad para entender mejor nuestra política desde nuestros contextos y prácticas. Nuestra idea era hacer un almanaque anual internacional del anarco-comunismo, con información de los países en los que teníamos presencia y de sus organizaciones, un balance anual que fuera muy reflexivo y crítico.

Así comenzamos a conversar esta idea, y en Febrero de 2002, coincidimos en Dublín con Nestor McNabb de la FdCA [Federazione dei Communisti Anarchici] y estaba Andrew Flood del WSM. Nos reunimos los tres en un pub del centro de Dublín, en South William Street, el pub se llama Grogan's. Ahí conversamos la idea del almanaque anual y la idea fue creciendo, la llevamos a nuestras organizaciones y con el crecimiento de internet, decidimos que por un asunto de presupuesto y de facilidad de distribución, etc. era mucho mejor tener un sitio internacional del anarco-comunismo.

Así nació la idea de Anarkismo, un sitio de carácter anarco-comunista y plurilinguistico, por eso el nombre, que es “anarquismo” en esperanto. El sitio, después de mucho trabajo, fue lanzado el primero de mayo de 2005, una fecha muy simbólica. La idea comenzó como un sitio web, pero la idea de facilitar el intercambio entre las organizaciones y conocernos mejor, era desde el primer momento con el fin de acercarnos políticamente e ir generando tendencia. No queríamos plantear una internacional de nombre, sino que queríamos que el trabajo internacional y el intercambio de experiencias fuera, gradual y orgánicamente, dando paso a una mayor cohesión como tendencia, como corriente, de cara a crear una federación internacional con bases sólidas. Esa fue la intención desde el principio.

Militantes como Nestor McNab (irlandés que vivía en Roma), Paul Bowman, Andrew Flood o Ian McKay (Irlanda), Jonathan Payn (Sudáfrica), Dimitris Troaditis (primero Atenas y, después, Melbourne), Adam Weaver (Miami), Nicolas Phoebus (Quebec), Wayne Price (Nueva York) y el chileno José Antonio Gutierrez, entre otras, fueron las personas clave en el desarrollo político, técnico y editorial del nuevo portal. Se habían conocido a través de la lista de correos “Anarchist Platform” y de otros encuentros presenciales. Habían leído los artículos que habían escrito los demás y los habían difundido o traducido en sus respectivos territorios e idiomas.

Entre las organizaciones fundadoras de anarkismo.net no podían faltar las mencionadas FAU, FAG, FdCA y Alternative Libertaire (Francia). No todas entraron a la vez, sino que algunas estaban en contacto desde los inicios, pero se tomaron un tiempo en decidirse (por ejemplo, FAU y OSL). Junto a las organizaciones a las que pertenecían los compañeros antes nombrados, se sentaron las bases de un proyecto que hizo posible la articulación internacional de toda la corriente anarco-comunista o plataformista. [42]

Por entonces, en la primera mitad de los 2000, ya existían unas cuantas nuevas organizaciones con cierta relevancia para la corriente comunista libertaria. Por nombrar algunas: NEFAC (noroeste de Estados Unidos y Canadá oriental), el CUAC y OCL (Chile), OSL y FACA (Argentina), además de las ya conocidas, ZACF (Sudáfrica), Alternative Libertaire (Francia), FdCA (Italia) y WSM (Irlanda).

Como vemos, en los grupos anarquistas predominaba la presencia masculina y, por ello, prácticamente todos los delegados internacionales eran hombres. Las mujeres iban a los encuentros la mayor parte de las veces cuando las delegaciones de sus organizaciones se componían de varias personas.

Es igualmente necesario mencionar que los roles que jugó la militancia de las organizaciones en los encuentros internaciones fue posible gracias al trabajo de numerosas y numerosos compañeros que marcaron de una forma u otra el desarrollo y la dinamización de sus organizaciones. Esto se produjo de múltiples formas: creando aportes teóricos, estratégicos o elementos de debate; reuniéndose en distintos ámbitos; difundiendo experiencias; o contribuyendo al fortalecimiento de los lazos. Cada cual aportó su granito de arena.

La corriente encuadrada en el anarco-comunismo entendía que el anarquismo, si quería tener algún tipo de relevancia, debería estar bien organizado y, por supuesto, tomarse en serio su participación en las luchas colectivas, buscando potenciarlas y articulando política y estratégicamente a toda la gente libertaria que existía en su seno.

Nos definimos como Anarquistas Comunistas porque pertenecemos a la tradición anarquista que reconoce la necesidad de una organización dual: una organización anarquista «específica» que trabaja dentro y junto a las organizaciones de masas de la clase trabajadora.

[43]

Cada organización tenía su web y sus periódicos desde los que proyectaban su estrategia. Los más difundidos eran la revista mensual Alternative Libertaire y Courant Alternatif [44] en Francia y Alternativa Libertaria en Italia, que provenían de los años 70 y ya tenían su público.

En internet, además de anarkismo.net, los sitios más prolíficos del anarco-comunismo fueron la web británica libcom.org, en donde se publicaron docenas de biografías relacionadas con el makhnovismo habitualmente escritas por Nick Heath [45]; la web de Nestor McNab nestormakhno.info; makhno.ru, en lengua rusa; el sitio Anarchist and the Platformist Tradition [46] o la propia A-Infos, en cuyo grupo editorial estaba el anarquista israelí, Ilan Shalif, anarco-comunista convencido. [47] Estos sitios web contribuyeron a extender la corriente, como antes habían hecho struggle.ws o zabalaza.net.

Una coordinación, no una internacional

Anarkismo.net no aspiraba a ser una internacional, sino una herramienta para compartir informaciones sobre las luchas locales, teoría y estrategias. Funcionaba mediante un Colectivo de Delegados y otro Editorial, tomando un rol político el primero y un rol técnico el segundo.

Había quien prefería una estructura más definida – caminando hacia una Internacional – como Alternative Libertaire, mientras otros preferían mantenerla como espacio abierto. A pesar de esta diferencia, se realizaron algunas campañas de solidaridad, como la del apoyo a la insurrección de Oaxaca (2005-06).

En estos años se fue fortaleciendo esta corriente en América Latina, especialmente en Chile (OCL, FEL), Argentina (Columna Libertaria Joaquín Penina, [48] Red Libertaria) y Brasil (FARJ) [49], donde surgieron numerosos grupos, webs y blogs. Y se fue consolidando su forma de interpretar el anarco-comunismo, llamada “especifismo”. A esto contribuyeron varios autores brasileños como Bruno Lima, Rafael Viana o Felipe Correa que construyeron el Instituto de Teoría e Historia Anarquista (ITHA) con los sudafricanos Lucien van der Walt, Michael Schmidt o Jonathan Payn, así como otros militantes, como el mencionado Dimitris Troaditis o el argentino Emilio Crisi, entre otros. El ITHA ha sido casi como una especie de think tank de textos académicos de la corriente.

Correa definió el especifismo como: [50]

Es una corriente que sostiene un conjunto de posiciones frente a los grandes debates estratégicos del anarquismo. Primero, en relación al debate organizacional, los especifistas sostienen la necesidad de un dualismo organizacional, a partir del cual los anarquistas se articulan en una organización política, como anarquistas, y en las organizaciones sociales (sindicatos y movimientos sociales), como trabajadores. En segundo lugar, frente al debate sobre el papel de las reformas, los especifistas consideran que, según la forma en que se busquen y conquisten, pueden contribuir a un proceso revolucionario. En tercer lugar, en relación con el debate sobre la violencia, los especifistas consideran que siempre debe realizarse en el contexto y concomitantemente con la construcción de movimientos de masas. En el plano social, de los movimientos de masas, el Especifismo promueve un programa que tiene numerosas afinidades con el sindicalismo revolucionario.

En América Latina esta corriente lanzó iniciativas y tendencias dentro de los sindicatos obreros, así como del movimiento estudiantil y barrial, como por ejemplo, los FEL o frentes estudiantiles libertarios (presente en varios países, aunque en su inicio surgió en Chile), Resistência Popular en Brasil o la Federación de Organizaciones de Base en Argentina, entre otras.

Para no hablar de especifismo o plataformismo, que resulta difícil de comprender para el gran público, en la corriente se prefirió utilizar el concepto de anarquismo organizado. En otros lugares se utilizó el concepto anarquismo social y organizado, para acotar aún más a quiénes se dirigían.

En otros lugares del mundo también aparecieron grupos anarco-comunistas, destacando los de Rusia (Acción Autónoma [51] – y también en su órbita de influencia: Armenia, Georgia, Bulgaria e Israel), Ucrania (RKAS-Makhno), Turquía (AKI, KaraKizil, Liberter), Australia (MAGC) [52], Grecia (Federación Anarquista de Grecia Occidental) y con influencia en otros territorios. En los primeros casos, el anarco-comunismo estaría mezclado con el insurreccionalismo y, en los últimos, sus caminos estarían deslindados.

En noviembre de 2008 se celebraría en Washington la primera cumbre del G20. Para esta ocasión se emitió la “Declaración anarco-comunista sobre la crisis económica global y la Reunión del G20”. Eran los comienzos de la crisis. Había estallado la burbuja inmobiliaria y financiera unos pocos meses antes y se hablaba de colapso. Los estados tuvieron que realizar un rescate económico a la banca para evitar males mayores. 11 organizaciones firmaron la declaración. Firmaron varias organizaciones ya mencionadas en otras ocasiones. Las nuevas eran Common Cause (Ontario, Canadá), Union Communiste Libertaire (Quebec, Canadá), Unión Socialista Libertaria (Perú), Liberty & Solidarity (L&S, Gran Bretaña) [53] y dos organizaciones de síntesis: la Asociación Obrera de Canarias y la Federación Anarquista de Berlín. [54]

Tiempo después, en febrero de 2010, se reunieron en París 6 organizaciones de la corriente: la FdCA (Italia), L&S (Gran Bretaña), WSM (Irlanda), la OSL (Suiza), Motmakt («Contrapoder», Noruega) y Alternative libertaire (Francia). Su objetivo era evaluar el estado del movimiento comunista libertario en Europa y favorecer una coordinación continental. Crearon grupos de trabajo, para mantener las relaciones y avanzar en la coordinación. [55]

La maduración de la red

Hacia el período 2010-13, los distintos grupos y organizaciones que se reivindicaban del anarco-comunismo y que ya estaban en relación mutua, como hemos visto, consolidaron la red. Fue entonces cuando se estabilizó el Colectivo Editorial de Anarkismo, que ya hemos visto que estaba compuesto de un delegado de cada una de las organizaciones. Ponemos una tabla con las organizaciones que componían anarkismo en 2010 y en 2015:

2010
Alternative Libertaire (France)
Buffalo Class Action (USA)
Chasqui Anarquista (Ecuador)
Colectivo Socialista Libertaria (Uruguay)
Common Action (USA)
Common Cause (Canada)
Convergencia Juvenil Clasista "Hijos del Pueblo" (Ecuador)
Estrategia Libertaria (Chile)
Federação Anarquista de São Paulo (Brazil)
Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
Federação Anarquista Gaúcha / Foro del Anarquismo Organizado (Brazil)
Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici (Italy)
Four Star Anarchist Organization (USA)
"Hombre y Sociedad" (Chile)
Humboldt Grassroots (USA)
Liberty & Solidarity (UK)
Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (Australia)
Miami Autonomy & Solidarity (USA)
Motmakt (Norway)
North-Eastern Federation of Anarchist Communists (USA)
Organización Revolucionaria Anarquista - Voz Negra (Chile)
Organisation Socialiste Libertaire (Switzerland)
Red Libertaria de Buenos Aires (Argentina)
Red Libertaria Popular Mateo Kramer (Colombia)
Solidarity & Defense (USA)
Union Communiste Libertaire (Canada)
Unión Socialista Libertaria (Peru)
Workers Solidarity Movement (Ireland)
Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (South Africa)

2015
Alternativa Libertaria/FdCA (Italy)
Alternative Libertaire (France)
Black Rose Anarchist Federation / Federación Anarquista Rosa Negra (USA)
Common Cause (Canada)
Coordination des Groupes Anarchistes (France)
Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
Federação Anarquista Gaúcha / Coordenação Anarquista Brasileira (Brazil)
Federación Anarquista Uruguaya (Uruguay)
Grupo Anarquista Bifurcación (Colombia)
Grupo Libertario Vía Libre (Colombia)
Humboldt Grassroots (USA)
Libertäre Aktion Winterthur (Switzerland)
Libertarian Communist Group / Grwp Gomiwnyddol Libertaraidd (Wales/Cymru)
Libertære Socialister (Denmark)
Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (Australia)
Motmakt (Norway)
Organisation Socialiste Libertaire (Switzerland)
Organização Anarquista Socialismo Libertário (Brazil)
Organización Socialista Libertaria (Uruguay)
Prairie Struggle Organization (Canada)
Workers Solidarity Movement (Ireland)
Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (South Africa)

En este listado ya podemos ver la desaparición de NEFAC de Norteamérica, que se redujo a unos grupos en Nueva Inglaterra (Buffalo y Nueva York) y Canadá (por ejemplo, Common Cause y UCL). Con el tiempo, en 2014, los grupos de Estados Unidos crearon una federación, Black Rose/Rosa Negra. [56] También podemos apreciar la fundación, en 2012, de la Coordenação Anarquista Brasileira a partir de los grupos preexistentes (como FAG, FARJ, OASL, CAZP y otros) [57]que se articulaban en torno al foro FAO y que ya pertenecían a la red Anarkismo.

El resto de organizaciones son las que continuaban con la tradición comunista libertaria o anarco-comunista cuya tradición viene de los años 70 y 80, tales como Alternative Libertaire (Francia), FdCA (Italia), OSL (Suiza, se unió a Anarkismo en 2010), la FAU (Uruguay) o WSM (Irlanda).

La CGA francesa era una escisión de la Federación Anarquista Francófona tras su llamamiento a apoyar a Jacques Chirac en las elecciones presidenciales para evitar que triunfase Le Pen. Con el tiempo la CGA derivó hacia el anarco-comunismo y acabaría fusionada en 2019 con Alternative Libertaire, creando la Union Communiste Libertaire (UCL), que actualmente es la mayor organización de este tipo en todo el mundo.

Cada organización tiene su historia y sería demasiado largo desarrollarlas todas aquí. Lo que resulta obvio es que esta corriente se articulaba a escala global y pudo aprovechar el auge del radicalismo que sobrevolaba el planeta en 2011, de la misma manera que la SIL se desarrolló durante el movimiento alterglobalización.

En 2011 tuvo lugar la Primavera Árabe, el movimiento de los indignados y las ocupaciones de las plazas. También fue el momento de entrada en el activismo de una nueva generación. Surgió con fuerza la Revolución de Rojava. Aparecieron organizaciones anarco-comunistas en Egipto (Movimiento Socialista Libertario, MSL), Israel (Unidad) y Tunicia, de breve existencia, así como nuevas intentonas en Irán, Líbano o Jordania.

En aquel año se hizo un comunicado de solidaridad con 46 activistas detenidos en Zimbabwe. Lo firmaron 11 organizaciones comunistas libertarias. [58] Ese mismo año se firmó la declaración de solidaridad con la lucha popular de Egipto, cuyo pueblo acababa de derrocar el régimen de Mubarak. [59] Esta vez eran 23 organizaciones las que firmaron. Como novedades, las organizaciones de Egipto (MSL), Colombia (grupo Vía Libre y CELIP), Chile (Federación Comunista Libertaria y Revista “Política y Sociedad”) y Estados Unidos (Autonomía y Solidaridad de Miami). También firmaron una serie de grupos anarcosindicalistas como la CGT-E, Solidaridad Obrera, WSA (Estados Unidos) y el ICEA (estado español). [60]

De nuevo, la red Anarkismo no quiso formalizarse como una estructura más sólida – como una federación internacional – para evitar caer en rivalidades y en competencia con las demás internacionales libertarias, por entonces, la AIT y la IFA, pero es innegable que estaba funcionado de forma bastante coordinada.

En 2012 se volvieron a reunir 8 organizaciones europeas en Londres. [61] Además de hablar de coordinarse mejor, sacaron una campaña contra la deuda soberana. Por su parte, ese mismo año, en Sao Paolo se celebraron las Jornadas Anarquistas convocadas por la Federación Anarquista Uruguaya (FAU) y el Foro del Anarquismo Organizado de Brasil (FAO) [62] para desarrollar el anarquismo especifista en el continente. En aquella ocasión aprobaron documentos estratégicos en torno a los conceptos de poder popular y de federalismo.

Hablar de “popular” significa dotar el proyecto de poder un carácter eminentemente clasista, aunque debamos destacar que hablamos de poder desde una perspectiva libertaria. Un proyecto de los/as oprimidos/as que se da a partir de los movimientos populares y que hace una acumulación de fuerza social necesaria para un enfrentamiento de largo aliento, con pasos firmes, fuertes, bien marcados, que creemos necesario desde el punto de vista ideológico. [63]

Fue a partir de entonces que el movimiento anarquista adoptaría de forma más decidida esta concepción teórica, más típica del desarrollo de la lucha de clases en América Latina, y pronto también llegaría a Europa a través de Embat (Catalunya) y Libertäre Aktion (Berna).

En agosto de 2012 tuvo lugar el mayor encuentro presencial de la corriente: Saint Imier (Suiza). Aprovechando el Encuentro Internacional Anarquista, se colocó una carpa llamada “Anarkismo” que sería el punto de encuentro para los militantes internacionales de la corriente y sus simpatizantes. Aproximadamente la mitad de las 30 organizaciones que estaban en contacto con anarkismo.net en esos momentos, enviaron delegados al Encuentro y se celebró una conferencia de delegados. Se constataba el enorme crecimiento de esta corriente en América Latina y se veía un gran desarrollo desde los comienzos del portal web.

Desde la perspectiva de la delegación del WSM, las diversas reuniones de Anarkismo celebradas durante la semana fueron una valiosa oportunidad de conocer a compañeros con quienes quizás nunca nos hubiéramos cruzado y de revitalizar nuestra participación en la red Anarkismo. La propia red continúa expandiéndose desde sus inicios muy modestos en 2005, tanto en términos del número de organizaciones involucradas, [de] dispersión geográfica de estas organizaciones y, lo más importante, [desde] una mayor cooperación entre ellas. Cuando cada organización presentó su trabajo durante la mañana de la reunión global, fue llamativo el enfoque político y organizativo común que compartimos, a pesar de operar en contextos muy diferentes. También quedó claro que, en particular, las organizaciones sudamericanas han experimentado un crecimiento significativo en número e influencia en los últimos años.

[64]

Como medida positiva: en la preparación del Encuentro colaboraron las organizaciones sintetistas y plataformistas suizas y francesas que no siempre tenían buenas relaciones. Pero no todo el mundo se hacía ilusiones. Los problemas organizativos fueron muchos y de lo que más careció el Encuentro fue precisamente de claridad programática:

Otra cuestión muy diferente hubiese sido si, previamente durante tres o dos años, se hubiese preparado y llevado a cabo un debate alrededor de un análisis de coyuntura común, se hubiese impulsado una coordinación y federación real de organizaciones y de luchas, se hubiese avanzado en tener un programa común... podríamos pensar, y tendríamos elementos reales para valorar, que fruto de dicho trabajo en St. Imier o cualquier otro lugar se culminase, y la lógica de dicha culminación no sería un encuentro sino la creación una internacional anarquista.

[65]

En 2014 se firmó un comunicado conjunto del Primero de Mayo entre varias organizaciones: [66] ZACF (Sudáfrica), WSM (Irlanda), OSL (Suiza), Collectife Communiste Libertaire (Bienne, Suiza), FdCA (Italia), WSA (Estados Unidos), Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (Australia) y Prairie Struggle (Estados Unidos). Y meses más tarde, 14 organizaciones de la corriente firmaron otro comunicado de apoyo a la resistencia kurda. [67] Este fue el último comunicado conjunto de esta época.

Los días 18 y 19 de noviembre de 2017 se reunieron en Génova varias organizaciones europeas para intercambiar análisis y para establecer un plan de acción europeo. Se reunieron Alternativa Libertaria/FdCA (el nuevo nombre de la veterana organización italiana), Alternative Libertaire (Francia), CGA (Francia), Libertarian Socialist Federation (Gales, Gran Bretaña), OSL (Suiza) y WSM (Irlanda). [68] Embat (Catalunya) envió su saludo al encuentro, y a partir de entonces entró mucho más en contacto con esta corriente.

Para 2020 la Union Communiste Libertaire de Francia hacía un extenso mapeo del movimiento [69]:

En todos aquellos años se fue forjando la tradición de enviarle saludos a cada organización de la corriente que celebrase un congreso. Esto ayudaba a forjar un movimiento internacional y a que toda la militancia tuviese en mente que pertenecía a un movimiento mucho mayor que su propia organización o de sus contextos locales. [70]

Tiempo de reflujo

No todo fueron buenas noticias para la corriente, además de la espinosa cuestión chilena, que pronto veremos, entre 2018 y 2021 se disolvieron WSM [71] y Zabalaza, así como otros grupos locales y regionales en Norteamérica al no lograr relevo generacional. Además, otras organizaciones también entraron en crisis, sin llegar a disolverse, como Motmakt (Noruega), [72] con quien se perdió el contacto. Varias organizaciones europeas desaparecieron (en Dinamarca, Portugal, Chequia o Turquía) o sus movimientos no fueron capaces de lograr estabilidad (Gran Bretaña o Rusia). En América se perdieron las organizaciones de Bolivia y Perú, hubo rupturas en Argentina, Chile y en los Estados Unidos.

Otra ruptura de esta época fue la que sufrió la Anarchist Federation (Gran Bretaña). Esta organización, creada en 1986 como anarco-comunista, ya hacía tiempo que era de síntesis. En 2018 tuvo un conflicto interno y salió de ella un sector que formaría el Anarchist Communist Group (ACG), [73] ya de marcada tendencia comunista libertaria. El ACG vino a suceder a las organizaciones plataformistas británicas que nunca lograron arraigar, como L&S o la LSF. Aun así, quedaron y quedan diversos grupos anarco-comunistas que no se plantean unirse al ACG todavía.

Las causas de estas crisis son diversas. Por ejemplo, se dieron varias situaciones sociales y políticas en varios estados que hacían imposible cultivar las relaciones internacionales. Estas relaciones se veían interrumpidas también en caso de crisis internas y rupturas dentro de las organizaciones. Otro problema para realizar unas relaciones internacionales con solvencia fue el rápido cambio de delegados, teniendo varias organizaciones delegados que no hablaban inglés, mientras que otros compañeros que habían gestionado estas relaciones pasaron a realizar otras funciones dentro de sus organizaciones. Peor lo pasó FdCA, puesto que en solamente cuatro meses de 2018 perdieron a Donato Romito y Monia Andreani, fallecidos. En otros casos se priorizó una construcción más interna, mejorando la inserción a nivel social y territorial, pero relegando a un segundo plano el ámbito internacional. Por último, no poco daño haría el caso de Michael Schmidt y su expulsión de anarkismo.net e ITHA. [74]

El caso chileno

En este punto habría que hablar del movimiento en Chile. Su origen se remonta a 1999, con la celebración del CUAC, iniciando un proceso que daría origen posteriormente a la OCL en 2002. Al año siguiente, se impulsaría un Frente Estudiantil Libertario (FEL) y, en 2006, a partir de la llamada “revuelta de los pingüinos” (estudiantes de secundaria) el FEL crecería exponencialmente. Logró atraerse numerosa militancia y cuando esa generación estudiantil pasó a la universidad llegarían a liderar el movimiento estudiantil, habitualmente controlado por comunistas y autonomistas. Militantes como Felipe Ramírez, Fabián Araneda o Melissa Sepúlveda ocuparon importantes cargos electos en la Federación Estudiantil Chilena (de carácter unitaria y semiinstitucional), que en esos momentos era uno de los movimientos populares más potentes de Chile. De entre sus iniciativas más destacables, su línea gráfica, muy colorista y reconocible, que copiaron y adaptaron muchos colectivos de otros lugares. Llenaron Chile de murales a través de sus unidades muralistas Ernesto Miranda. [75]

Tiempo después todo ese espacio político se fusionó en Izquierda Libertaria. Esta nueva organización adoptó otras líneas estratégicas diferentes al magma comunista libertario que había impulsado el movimiento hasta ese momento, virando hacia un socialismo libertario mucho menos definido, más acorde con el marxismo libertario. A su vez, lograron un tamaño nunca visto para una organización libertaria en estas últimas décadas, rivalizando con otros partidos u organizaciones políticas mucho más asentadas en el panorama chileno.

En ese escenario un sector de los libertarios -que me atrevería a decir que es mayoritario- ha realizado una serie de reflexiones que han ido dando forma a la apuesta política denominada “Ruptura Democrática” en diversos artículos y documentos públicos así como en procesos de discusión internos. A pesar de esto aún existen algunas confusiones respecto a las implicancias de esta apuesta, que buscaremos en cierta medida aclarar con este artículo. [76]

Los sectores comunistas libertarios chilenos comenzaron a apoyar las opciones electorales de izquierda desde 2013. Al principio lo hicieron de forma táctica, sin intervenir en las campañas, pero llamando a votar por una ruptura democrática para derribar el régimen democrático de tipo reaccionario que mandaba en el país. Más tarde, en el proceso electoral de 2018, Izquierda Libertaria se unió al Frente Amplio, que se presentaba a las elecciones parlamentarias. Debido a su participación, la militante libertaria, Gael Yeomans salió elegida como diputada. [77] A partir de entonces IL ha tenido más diputados regionales y nacionales y también senadores. Esos esfuerzos culminaron con un gobierno progresista en el país dirigido por un exlíder estudiantil de tendencia autonomista de la misma época que el FEL, Gabriel Boric. Sin embargo, no ha producido la esperada radicalización de la sociedad para construir alternativas revolucionarias en clave socialista a través del poder popular y del poder constituyente. Chile continúa siendo un estado capitalista – de corte progresista eso sí – sin el menor atisbo de políticas socializadoras.

Como se ve, Izquierda Libertaria [78] había abandonado los postulados comunistas libertarios tradicionales, y fue señalada por los rivales y oponentes a la corriente de dentro del anarquismo como una derivación lógica de todo el anarquismo especifista. Por ello, y por otras causas también, sufrió algunas escisiones,[79] como Solidaridad FCL [80], que a su vez algunas de éstas siguieron el camino parlamentarista, teniendo nuevas escisiones.

A nivel latinoamericano el movimiento especifista tomó distancia de todos estos grupos chilenos hasta que surgió la Federación Anarquista Santiago (FAS) [81] en 2019, de nuevo alineada con el resto del movimiento internacional. Esta FAS, por lo tanto, surge como una ruptura con la impronta que tomó el comunismo libertario chileno, retornando al especifismo latinoamericano.

De la red a la Coordinación

Entre 2015 y 2019 el movimiento vivió un retroceso causado por cuestiones que ya hemos visto anteriormente, provocando divisiones en algunas organizaciones de la corriente, que dificultaban el entendimiento, que fomentaban la desorientación o directamente que desembocaron en la disolución de algunas organizaciones y la destrucción de movimientos enteros, tal como hemos visto.

No todo fueron decepciones, desde luego. Si en 2018 había surgido una organización británica de carácter nacional (la ACG), en 2019 se fundó Die Plattform en Alemania, el estado europeo más grande que hasta el momento había carecido de organizaciones de la corriente.

En las Jornadas Anarquistas de 2019 las organizaciones latinoamericanas hablaban de la necesidad de un relanzamiento de la corriente. [82] En este momento reivindicaban el especifismo o, lo que es lo mismo, el anarquismo políticamente organizado, y pretendían que se afianzara en todas las regiones. Su comunicado definía el rol de la organización política anarquista, que se debería encargar de elaborar la teoría y las herramientas de análisis para conocer la realidad y poder actuar mejor en ella. Hacían hincapié en el trabajo político interno de cada organización para evitar confusionismos y callejones sin salida.

En la inserción se nos va la vida, pero es necesaria junto a ella la Organización Política, ese pequeño motor que empuja al movimiento popular. La Organización Política Anarquista en la concepción especifista no es vanguardista, sino de abnegación militante, con la finalidad de incentivar y orientar un proceso de ruptura revolucionaria con amplia participación del pueblo organizado. Respetando profundamente lo específico de ese nivel. Ese proceso lo hemos llamado Poder Popular, proceso de construcción de los organismos de poder del pueblo con los que se sustituirán las estructuras de poder burgués. Entonces, inserción social y organización política van de la mano y se articulan horizontalmente de un modo muy diferente al que han propuesto y desarrollado todos los vanguardismos de la izquierda hasta el momento, que no han hecho más que limitar el desarrollo de las organizaciones populares e instrumentalizarlas como "aparatos" útiles a sus partidos. Por ello el Anarquismo Especifista habla de Pueblo Fuerte y no de "partido fuerte" como lo han planteado todas las corrientes del marxismo. Propugnamos un Pueblo Fuerte, un pueblo constructor de su destino y de sus instancias y grados de libertad según su experiencia de luchas y desarrollo y avances en el proceso de ruptura.

Fruto de esta iniciativa se comenzaron a poner las bases para un nuevo trabajo internacional. En diciembre de 2019 fue refundada la Coordinación Anarquista de Latinoamérica (CALA), formada entre la CAB (Brasil), [83] la FAR (Argentina) [84] y la FAU (Uruguay). Estas organizaciones fueron un polo articulador de toda la corriente y tomaron el relevo de las europeas, que habían llevado la voz cantante hasta entonces.

“…Estamos convencidos que el Anarquismo debe ser operativo, ágil, estar a tono con las nuevas realidades sociales para enfrentar la crudeza que este despiadado sistema impone a los de abajo. Pero para ello, reiteramos, el Anarquismo debe organizarse políticamente. Es la Organización Política la que permite procesar a los militantes las necesarias discusiones y debates, hacer los pertinentes análisis de coyuntura, definir los planes de acción y desarrollo, afinar la táctica con precisión, pero también diseñar una estrategia finalista y la adecuación de dicha estrategia a cada período de acción, a cada coyuntura…”

[85]

Con la CALA se dinamizó extraordinariamente toda la corriente comunista libertaria internacional, a partir de los notables esfuerzos de Nathaniel Clavijo (Uruguay), que contó con la ayuda de Dimitris Troaditis (ahora desde Melbourne, Australia), Jonathan Payn (ahora desde Estambul), Johnny Rumpf (Berna, Suiza) y Gio (Francia) para rearticular la corriente. Como siempre, los veteranos tiran de los más jóvenes hasta que éstos comprenden el funcionamiento.

En 2020, el año de la Pandemia Global, se pusieron las bases de una coordinación internacional mejor articulada que antes. A partir de entonces las reuniones fueron mucho más estables, al poderse hacer de forma telemática. Las reuniones se celebraban cada mes o dos meses y se fue fraguando una coordinación bastante natural.

La razón de tantas reuniones fue la necesidad de la corriente de publicar comunicados. El primero fue para dar apoyo a la revuelta chilena y exigir la libertad de las personas detenidas en las jornadas de diciembre de 2019. [86] Más tarde se firmaría conjuntamente con ocasión del Primero de Mayo, luego del 28 de Junio día de Stonewall, luego para dar apoyo al pueblo norteamericano tras el asesinato policial de George Floyd, también para el 19 de Julio, contra la represión en Turquía, para el 8 de marzo, para conmemorar el aniversario de Krondstadt, la Comuna de París, sobre la Pandemia, contra la guerra de Ucrania, el genocidio de Gaza y un largo etcétera. En cada ocasión firmaban entre 12 y 25 organizaciones de todo el mundo. Otro de los proyectos fue apoyar a los compañeros anarquistas del Sudán, [87] que necesitaban ayuda económica para abandonar el país. En estos tiempos algunas de aquellas personas están regresando.

Otras iniciativas articuladoras han sido las escuelas y campamentos de verano, que realiza cada organización por su cuenta, como los que organiza Embat o UCL desde 2018 y 2020, respectivamente. En el caso de la primera, en el 2024 contribuyó a organizar el primer encuentro especifista del estado español, junto con las organizaciones Liza (Madrid) y Batzac - Joventuts Llibertàries (Catalunya), a la que fueron personas de otros lugares, y de otras organizaciones. De la misma forma, a los campamentos franceses asisten militantes británicos, alemanes, suizos, españoles o italianos, según la ocasión. Die Plattform también ha organizado campamentos de este tipo, mientras que en Australia se celebraba una Escuela Política Anarquista, que ha ayudado a articular la tendencia hasta construirse una federación anarquista allí. Por último, en este verano se celebrará el primer campamento de la ACG británica.

Para el público externo la gestación del anarquismo organizado podría parecer bastante informal. Sin embargo, ha sido un proceso orgánico. Existía una praxis previa que viene desde los años 90. Al principio existe un nivel personal, compuesto por militantes que a veces se reúnen sin mandato de sus organizaciones. Después se da el nivel de reuniones formales de las organizaciones, que son representadas por delegados. El tercer nivel sería el de los grupos de trabajo conjuntos entre militantes de distintos países que sacan adelante proyectos concretos. Es necesario saber leer el proceso y entender los ritmos, que a veces son rápidos y otras lentos. El caso es que a partir de 2020 la dinámica se aceleró.

En definitiva, la Coordinación hacia 2022 estaba compuesta por las siguientes organizaciones:

Alternativa Libertaria (AL/FdCA) – Italia
Anarchist Communist Group (ACG) – Gran Bretaña
Federación Anarquista – Grecia
Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement (AWSM) – Aotearoa/Nueva Zelanda
Coordenação Anarquista Brasileira (CAB) – Brasil
Federación Anarquista de Rosario (FAR) – Argentina
Federación Anarquista Uruguaya (FAU) – Uruguay
Embat, Organització Llibertària de Catalunya
Libertäre Aktion (LA) – Suiza
Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (MACG) – Australia
Organización Anarquista de Córdoba (OAC) – Argentina
Organización Anarquista de Santa Cruz (OASC) – Argentina
Organización Anarquista de Tucumán (OAT) – Argentina
Roja y Negra – Organización Politica Anarquista (Buenos Aires) – Argentina
Organisation Socialiste Libertaire (OSL) – Suiza
Tekosina Anarsist (TA) – Rojava
Union Communiste Libertaire (UCL) – Francia, Bélgica y Suiza
Grupo Libertario Vía Libre – Colombia

También participaron unas organizaciones de Turquía como DAF [88] o Karala, que ya están disueltas. En estos casos, estas organizaciones no se definían como comunistas libertarias o anarco-comunistas, sino anarquistas a secas, pero siempre existió entendimiento mutuo. De la misma forma que se ha mantenido siempre relación con Tekosîna Anarsîst, [89] organización compuesta por militantes anarquistas internacionales en Rojava.

En algunas de las primeras reuniones también se tuvo contactos con organizaciones de Irán y de Filipinas, aunque se vio que no compartían las bases fundamentales de la corriente y se desligaron los caminos. De todas formas, a partir de 2020 se constató un crecimiento del número de grupos y militantes por todo el mundo. En algunos países este crecimiento ha dado pie al establecimiento de organizaciones nacionales con varios grupos locales, como en Australia, Alemania o Argentina.

La mayoría de organizaciones en esta época se centraron en aprobar y trabajar sobre sus propios programas, superando el modelo de aquellos grupos anarquistas que solamente tenían una lectura vaga de la realidad y a su militancia solamente la unía los principios, el lejano objetivo del comunismo libertario y poco más.

La Coordinación Internacional del Anarquismo Organizado

El resultado de lo anterior ha sido la construcción formal de la Coordinación a finales de 2024. Esta Coordinación no tiene forma de Internacional propiamente dicha, sino de red. Tiene secciones continentales en Europa, en las Américas, y tal vez a medio plazo se haga algo similar en Asia-Pacífico, pero principalmente se articula a nivel global.

Uno de sus proyectos es la propia web anarkismo.net, que ahora actúa como vocero o portavoz de toda la corriente a nivel internacional.

Desde la época de los comunicados, se ha incorporado una organización surcoreana y la federación Black Rose de Estados Unidos. Hay varias más que aparecen por doquier, creándose un mapa cada vez más complejo y difícil de seguir.

Lo que habría que resaltar es la insistencia de la CALA en una unidad teórica y estratégica de todas las organizaciones de la Coordinación, lo cual ha servido para que casi todas las organizaciones se autoevalúen y lleven a cabo sus debates ideológicos, teóricos y estratégicos dando pie a análisis de coyuntura, programas y líneas políticas. En ese momento varias organizaciones no latinoamericanas pasaron a autodenominarse también especifistas y aparecieron algunas nuevas en otros lugares con esa definición, obviando construcciones más tradicionales en sus regiones.

Respecto a las organizaciones coordinadas en la actualidad, son:

América
Black Rose Anarchist Federation / Federación Anarquista Rosa Negra – Estados Unidos
Grupo Libertario Vía Libre - Colombia
Federación Anarquista Santiago - Chile
Roja y Negra, Organización Política Anarquista - Buenos Aires, Argentina
Federación Anarquista Uruguaya (CALA)
Coordenação Anarquista Brasileira (CALA):
Federação Anarquista Gaúcha - Rio Grande do Sul
Federação Anarquista Cabana - Belem do Pará
Organização Resistência Libertária - Ceará
Federação Anarquista Quilombo de Resistência - Bahia
Federação Anarquista dos Palmares - Alagoas
Coletivo Anarquista Luta de Classe - Paraná
Coletivo Anarquista Bandeira Negra - Santa Catarina
Organização Anarquista Maria Iêda - Pernambuco
También hay una construcción anarquista en la Argentina formada por:
Federación Anarquista de Rosario (CALA)
Organización Anarquista de Tucumán
Organización Anarquista de Córdoba
Organización Anarquista de Santa Cruz
Organización Revolucionaria Anarquista - Buenos Aires

Europa
Anarchist Communist Group – Gran Bretaña
Die Plattform - Alemania
Embat, Organització Llibertària de Catalunya
Midada, Libertär, Sozialistisch, Organisiert - Suiza
Organisation Socialiste Libertaire - Suiza
Union Communiste Libertaire - Francia, Bélgica y Suiza

Oriente Medio
Tekosna Anarsist - Rojava

Asia Pacífico
Anarchist Worker Solidarity Movement – Nueva Zelanda
Anarchist Solidarity / Anarchist Yondae / 아나키스트 연대 – Corea del Sur
Anarchist Communist Federation - Australia:
ACF-Brisbaine - Anarchist Communists Meanjin
ACF-Melbourne - Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group
ACF-Geelong - Geelong Anarchist Communists

En estos momentos hay otros grupos y organizaciones comunistas libertarias en Estados Unidos, Canadá, Brasil (a destacar la nueva OSL por su tamaño), Italia, España, Gran Bretaña, Francia, Países Bajos, Alemania, Suecia, Finlandia, Grecia, Chipre, Turquía, Indonesia y Nueva Zelanda, que no pertenecen a la Coordinación Internacional, pero que guardan contacto con una o con varias organizaciones de la corriente, que suman ya varias decenas entre todas. Por supuesto, también forman parte activa de todo el movimiento, ya que la Coordinación no es ni mucho menos todo el movimiento ni lo pretende ser. En todo caso estos cientos (o miles ya) de militantes internacionales construyen una alternativa libertaria sólida que ya se ha situado en el movimiento anarquista general.

Balance

Terminaremos repasando los períodos de la corriente:

La corriente anarco-comunista del anarquismo viene desde sus mismos inicios con la Alianza Internacional por la Democracia Socialista. Se puede seguir su tradición a lo largo de las décadas. Después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial esta corriente quedó reducida a muy pocos países. De ellos, Francia, Italia y Uruguay tuvieron los movimientos más destacados y llegaron hasta los años 80 a pesar de todo tipo de dificultades.

En los 80 se crearon varias organizaciones sólidas que durarían bastantes años: OSL (fundada en 1982 en Suiza), WSM (fundada en 1984, Irlanda), FdCA (1986, Italia), Union des Travailleurs Communistes Libertaires (1986, Francia), FAG (1985, Brasil), FAU (reorganizada en 1986, Uruguay), Anarchist Federation (1986, Gran Bretaña, que al comienzo era anarco-comunista). Estas organizaciones mantenían contactos entre sí, pero en el movimiento anarquista predominaban – y con mucho – las corrientes sintetista y anarcosindicalista.

En los años 90 van surgiendo nuevas organizaciones. Alternative Libertaire (1991, Francia; derivada de anteriores organizaciones), FAG (1995) y OSL (1997) en Brasil; OSL (1996), ORA (Rosario) y AUCA (La Plata) en Argentina; CUAC en Chile (1999), entre otras; varios grupos en Estados Unidos y Canadá; ORA (1996, República Checa); WSF (1995, Sudáfrica)… Van tomando relación orgánica, por un lado, en Latinoamérica a través de la FAU y la FAG, por el otro, en Europa a través de Alternative Libertaire, OSL y FdCA, cuyos frentes sindicales se acercan a la CGT-E, y ésta las invita a sus encuentros. En paralelo surge la lista de correo Anarchist Platform, que va poniendo en contacto el plataformismo anglosajón.

En los años 1999-2003 se acelera la articulación de la corriente a través del movimiento de resistencia a la globalización capitalista. Surgen grupos y organizaciones en muchos lugares (demasiados como para enumerarlos aquí), se generan espacios de interrelación como ELAOPA, las Jornadas Anarquistas y la CALA en Latinoamérica y la SIL en Europa, aunque ésta también apoya solidariamente las iniciativas del Sur. Toda la corriente anarco-comunista se expande.

Período 2004-2009. Son años de reflujo de las luchas sociales. Y, sin embargo, la corriente ya mantenía relaciones políticas. Fruto de ello es la creación de anarkismo.net (2005), la firma de declaraciones de solidaridad y los primeros encuentros internacionales. Estalla la crisis económica y financiera global de 2008.

En los años 2010-2014 se produce de nuevo una fuerte expansión y articulación. Se multiplican las iniciativas: se consolida la red anarkismo, se firman nuevas declaraciones, se celebra el encuentro de Saint Imier (2012) y surgen nuevos grupos y organizaciones y el movimiento anarquista llega a nuevos países en los que no tenía presencia en Asia y África.

Período 2015-2019. Otra vez un período de reflujo. Hay algunas organizaciones veteranas que se disuelven, otras entran en crisis y estancamiento, otras se dividen o cambian de línea ideológica. Sin embargo, la inercia anterior sigue produciendo nuevas organizaciones.

Por último, el período que va desde 2020 hasta nuestros días, ha dado pie a una mayor coordinación internacional y a un clima que favorece la creación de nuevas organizaciones, ayudado por la crisis que vivieron otras corrientes del anarquismo. En este momento la corriente comunista libertaria ya no es desconocida. No es grande, desde luego, pero demuestra una apariencia mucho más sólida que otras corrientes del anarquismo.

Bibliografía

Fuentes primarias:

CAB (2012). Princípios e Práticas do Especifismo.

Declaración programática de la Coordenação Anarquista Brasileira. Enlace CAB.

FAU (2003). Huerta Grande: Documento de Organización.

Texto fundacional del especifismo uruguayo. Disponible en: FAU Digital.

FAU (2003). El anarquismo en el movimiento antiglobalización.

SIL (2001). Declaración de Madrid.

Documento fundacional de la red. Disponible en: FDCA Archives.

WSM (2000). The Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists.

Traducción al inglés de la Plataforma de 1926. Libcom.org.

ZACF (2010). Towards a Fresh Revolution.

Análisis estratégico de la federación sudafricana. Zabalaza.net.

WSM (2001). Report from the Genoa Counter-Summit. Relato de las protestas de Génova. Libcom.org.

Recursos en línea

Manifiesto Comunista Libertario (Fontenis):

Texto completo en español

Archivos de la SIL:

FDCA Historical Documents

La plataforma organizativa para una Unión General de Anarquistas

Archivo Nestor Makhno

Publicaciones

Corrêa, F. (2012). Social Anarchism and Organisation. AK Press.

Correa, F. (2015). Anarquismo social y organización: La propuesta específica. Editorial Eleuterio.

Correa, F. (2022). Elementos de la Teoría y la Estrategia Anarquista [Entrevista por M. Walmsley]. Anarkismo.net.

Fontenis, G. (1954/2013). Manifiesto Comunista Libertario. Edición crítica con prólogo de Frank Mintz. Fundación Anselmo Lorenzo.

García, V. (2017). La Izquierda Libertaria en Chile: De la resistencia a la política institucional. LOM Ediciones.

Gutiérrez, J.A. (2015). El anarquismo en América Latina: La utopía libertaria al sur del río Bravo. Eleuterio.

Lima Rocha, B. (2013). Anarquismo y lucha de clases: Una visión desde América Latina. Revista Utopía y Praxis Latinoamericana, 18(60), 13-28.

Lima Rocha, B. (2017). Militância política e estratégia revolucionária: O caso da Federação Anarquista Gaúcha. En Anarquismo & Educação (pp. 77-94). Editora Fi.

Méndez, N. & Vallota, A. (2018). El anarquismo en América Latina: Redes, prácticas y militancias. CEHIPOL.

Olaizola Albéniz, J. M. (2013). La necesidad de organizarse los anarquistas (II). Anarquia.cat. https://www.anarquia.cat/la-necesidad-de-organizarse-los-anarquistas-ii/

Payn, J. (2018). Building Counter-Power: The ZACF and the South African Left. Interface: A Journal for and About Social Movements.

Rugai, R. (2020). Especifismo: A construção do poder popular na América Latina. Editora Faísca.

Troaditis, D. (2020). From Delo Truda to Anarkismo.net: A Century of Anarchist Organizing. Anarchist Studies.

Van der Walt, L. & Schmidt, M. (2009). Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism. AK Press.

NOTAS

1 https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/

2 https://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/wpAL/

3 https://federacionanarquistauruguaya.uy/

4 Comunicación con José María Olaizola, 20/05/2025

5 Esta organización sindical francesa se remonta a 1981 como agrupación de 10 federaciones autónomas y sindicatos nacionales de carácter independiente. Tuvo bastante influencia de las corrientes trotskistas y, en algunos casos puntuales, también libertarias. En los años 90 tenía unos 50-60.000 afiliados.

6 Conocida como CIB Unicobas, es una organización del sindicalismo de base italiano de fenómeno “Cobas” (comités de base). Unicobas se fundó en 1991 y entró rápidamente en contacto con el sindicalismo alternativo. Contaba con 5000 adherentes.

7 Organización anarcosindicalista fundada en Suecia en 1910 bajo el nombre de Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation, En los años 50 fue excluida de la AIT, entrando en conflicto con la CNT española del exilio. Desde entonces existió una rivalidad. Cuando se dividió la CNT española en los años 80, dando lugar a la CGT, esta nueva organización retomó el contacto con el sindicato sueco.

8 La Confédération Romande du Travail (CRT) fue fundada a comienzos de los años 70 por el sindicalismo cristiano. Después algunos años, debido a la influencia de sindicalistas de lucha, cambió de orientación y pasó a formar parte del sector de sindicatos y tendencias de aquella época que intentaron desarrollar un sindicalismo alternativo. Se disolvió en 1996. Su legado de sindicalismo combativo sería recogido más adelante por la SUD del cantón de Vaud.

9 Ídem.

10 En ingrlés, ver “International Libertarian Meeting”. https://web.archive.org/web/20080223130405/http://flag.blackened.net/rev...

En francés, ver Alternative Libertaire, n. 36, octubre de 1995, p.14-15:

https://www.archivesautonomies.org/IMG/pdf/communismelib/alternative-lib...

11 Conversación con Nathaniel Clavijo, 23/05/2025.

12 [Sibersakaya Konfederatsia Truda] Confederación del Trabajo de Siberia (SKT) fue creada en marzo de 1995 por los anarcosindicalistas siberianos, agrupados hasta entonces en una «Confederación de los anarcosindicalistas» que actuó desde 1989 hasta los 2000. Llegó a tener unos 5000 afiliados, según sus cifras.

13 Lucien Van der Walt, “Report on Le Autre Futur” summit Paris. 26/08/2015

https://lucienvanderwalt.com/2015/08/26/lucien-van-der-walt-2000-report-...

14 https://www.wsm.ie/

15 Announcing Anarchist Platform Email List.

https://www.struggle.ws/exwsm/c/announcing-anarchist-platform-email-list...

16 Trenta anni di vita… 01/11/2016

https://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/wpAL/blog/2016/11/01/1986-2016-30-...

17 https://zabalaza.net/

18 El texto se puede leer en idioma original aquí:

https://www.cabn.libertar.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/FARJ_-_ANARQUIS...

19 Entrevista a la FdCA por parte de NEFAC, 2003

https://anarchistplatform.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/the-global-influence-...

20 Contre la globalisation capitaliste!. Alternative Libertaire #96, mai 2001, p. 11

https://www.archivesautonomies.org/IMG/pdf/communismelib/alternative-lib...

21 Se podría encontrar una referencia escrita en la última página del periódico del XVII Congreso de la CGT en A Coruña. 20/10/2013. Juan Pilo indica que el viaje de Mechoso a Europa aceleró los contactos. Entre otros, contactaron con Olaizola, por entonces Secretario General de la CGT.

https://cgt.org.es/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/diario3.qxd_.pdf

22 Olaizola, 20/05/2025

23 Ver algunos comunicados de la RL en la web de Radio Klara:

https://www.radioklara.org/radioklara/?tag=red-libertaria-apoyo-mutuo

24 Naissance d'un réseau international libertaire. Extrait du numéro de mai d'Alternative Libertaire (France):

https://www.ainfos.ca/01/jun/ainfos00171.html

25 Consulta con José María Olaizola. 18/05/2025

26 Declaration of the International Libertarian Meeting. 31/03/2001

https://www.fdca.it/fdcaen/ILS/ils_madrid.htm

27 https://www.instagram.com/fag.cab/

28 Entrevista a la ORA por parte de NEFAC, 2003:

https://anarchistplatform.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/the-global-influence-...

29 El “magonismo” se considera un tipo de comunismo libertario natural de México. Tiene en cuenta la influencia de los pueblos indígenas y bebe de sus usos y costumbres tradicionales y de sus formas organizativas comunitarias. Estas ideas se popularizaron en los años 90. El concepto “magonismo” viene de Ricardo Flores Magón, uno de los impulsores de la Revolución Mexicana de 1910, que era anarco-comunista.

30 El Consejo Indígena Popular de Oaxaca “Ricardo Flores Magón” estuvo activo entre 1997 y 2006 aproximadamente. Era una coordinación de distintas organizaciones locales indígenas del estado de Oaxaca. A nivel internacional se movió en ambientes libertarios.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consejo_Ind%C3%ADgena_Popular_de_Oaxaca_%2...

31 Las siglas vienen de Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation.

32 https://www.nodo50.org/auca/menu%20que%20es%20auca.html

33 NEFAC viene de North Eastern Anarchist Federation. Unía grupos de Nueva Inglaterra y Quebec. Sus textos se pueden leer aquí:

https://libcom.org/tags/nefac

34 Como ejemplo, las jornadas de 2008 que organizó la CGT en Madrid, "Una crítica libertaria de la actual coyuntura"

https://info.nodo50.org/Jornadas-Una-critica-libertaria-de.html

35 Para más información, leer a José Antonio Gutiérrez, “Reflexiones sobre veinte años anarco-comunismo en Chile”, 24/02/2020.

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31737

36 Para ver las fotos del primer encuentro:

https://www.nodo50.org/rprj/elaopa/fotos.htm

Para ver algunos documentos iniciales del ELAOPA:

https://www.nodo50.org/rprj/elaopa/forum.htm

37 Encuentro Latinoamericano de Organizaciones Populares Autónomas (ELAOPA) en Santiago de Chile. Rojo y Negro nº 397, febrero 2025.

https://rojoynegro.info/articulo/encuentro-latinoamericano-de-organizaci...

38 Declaración final de las Jornadas Anarquistas 2003:

https://federacionanarquistauruguaya.uy/declaracion-final-de-las-jornada...

39 Listado publicado por Daniel Barret, Los sediciosos despertares de la anarquía. Buenos Aires: Libros de Anarres, 2011. pp. 153-154

40 https://uniaoanarquista.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/el-anar...

41 Anarkismo.net. Entrevista a uno de los fundadores

https://ithanarquista.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/jose-anto...

42 Cuando se articuló una red anarco-comunista, las organizaciones anarcosindicalistas, como la CGT, la SAC o la CNT-Vignoles, y sindicalistas de base, como Unicobas o la SUD, se reunieron por su parte en nuevas redes, como la FESAL, la Red Sindical Internacional de Solidaridad y de Luchas o la Coordinadora Rojinegra.

43 Fragmento de la entrevista que le hizo Acción Autónoma de Rusia a la ZACF en 2010. La entrevista se puede leer en:

https://zabalaza.net/2010/12/07/autonomous-action-russia-interviews-the-...

44 http://oclibertaire.free.fr/

45 Nick Heath, actualmente es militante del Anarchist Communist Group. Publica bajo el pseudónimo de BattleScarred.

46 https://anarchistplatform.wordpress.com/

47 A Ilan le hicieron una extensa entrevista en 2025:

https://alasbarricadas.org/noticias/node/57055

48 https://columnalibertaria.blogspot.com/

49 http://www.farj.org/

50 Felipe Corrêa.Entrevista con Mya Walmsey. Elementos de la Teoría y la Estrategia Anarquista. Una entrevista con Felipe Corrêa. marzo 2022.

51 https://avtonom.org/en

52 https://melbacg.au/

53 https://libcom.org/tags/liberty-solidarity

54 Declaración anarco-comunista sobre la crisis económica global y la Reunión del G20, 17/11/2008. https://www.anarkismo.net/article/10681

55 Europe: les communistes libertaires reserrent les liens. 02/03/2010 https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Europe-Les-communistes-libert...

Los acuerdos se pueden leer aquí: https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Rencontre-europeenne-de-group...

56 https://www.blackrosefed.org/about/

57 La CAB no disolvería las secretarías internacionales de cada organización regional o local de la Coordinadora hasta 2016, participando de forma independiente cada una en las coordinaciones internacionales hasta entonces.

58 Declaración de solidaridad internacional con los 46 activistas detenidos en Zimbabwe. 28/02/2011.

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/18895?search_text=declaraci%F3n+intern...

59 Declaración Internacional Libertaria en solidaridad con la lucha popular en Egipto, 25/11/2011

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/21228

60 http://www.iceautogestion.org/index.php/es/

61 WSM takes part in Conference of European Anarkismo organizations in London. 31/03/2011 https://www.struggle.ws/exwsm/c/wsm-conference-european-anarkismo-london...

62 El foro FAO fue precursor de la CAB. Era el espacio en el que se reunían las organizaciones brasileñas para debatir.

63 Jornadas Anarquistas Enero 2011. Sao Paolo. 27/04/2011

https://federacionanarquistauruguaya.uy/jornadas-anarquistas-enero-janei...

64 Delegation returns from International Anarchist Gathering at St Imier. 21/08/2012

https://www.struggle.ws/exwsm/sites/default/files/MaydayAnarchistStateme...

65 José María Olaizola Albéniz. La necesidad de organizarse los anarquistas (II). Hernani, 27 de Enero de 2013

https://www.anarquia.cat/la-necesidad-de-organizarse-los-anarquistas-ii/

66 May Day. Building a new workers movement. https://www.struggle.ws/exwsm/sites/default/files/MaydayAnarchistStateme...

67 Declaración internacional Libertaria de Solidaridad con la Resistencia Kurda, 22/10/2014

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/27505

68 Noi comunisti anarchici/libertari nella lotta di classe, nell'Europa del capitale, 11/12/2017

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/30713

69 El mapa no se ha actualizado, así que sirve para contatar el estado del movimiento comunista libertario en ese año.

70 Tomemos como ejemplo estos mensajes que recibió UCL en 2015:

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Messages-internationaux

71 WSM closing statement

https://libcom.org/article/workers-solidarity-movement-closing-statement

72 https://www.motmakt.no/

73 https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/

74 2017 Statement on Michael Schmidt Case / Declaração sobre o caso Michael Schmidt

https://ithanarquista.wordpress.com/2017/03/23/2017-statement-on-michael...

75 Entrevista a la UMLEM, 04/03/2008:

https://www.alasbarricadas.org/noticias/node/7092

76 Felipe Ramírez, Una apuesta revolucionaria de la Izquierda Libertaria. 03/11/2013

https://periodico-solidaridad.blogspot.com/2013/11/declaracion-nacional-...

77 Ver https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izquierda_Libertaria

78 https://www.instagram.com/izqlibertaria/?hl=es

79 Sobre el quiebre de Izquierda Libertaria, algunos militantes hicieron este comunicado:

https://www.tercerainformacion.es/articulo/internacional/30/03/2017/chil...

80 https://solidaridadfcl.org

81 https://fasanarquista7.wordpress.com/

82 Jornadas Anarquistas 2019, 20/03/2019.

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31339

83 https://www.instagram.com/cabanarquista/

84 https://www.instagram.com/far_rosario/

85 Comunicado de lanzamiento de la CALA. 15/12/2019

https://federacionanarquistauruguaya.uy/comunicado-de-lanzamiento-de-la-...

86 Declaración conjunta internacionalista por la libertad de las y los presos politicos de la revuelta social de la región chilena, 12/12/2019

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32109

87 Update on the Campaing for the Sudanese Anarchists. 18/04/2024

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32877?search_text=Sudan

88 https://www.facebook.com/DAFederasyon/

89 https://tekosinaanarsist.noblogs.org/

Miguel G. Gómez (@BlackSpartak)

Alternative unionism and the first contact

The first "black thread" in our entire history. In the 1990s, several anarcho-communist organizations existed: Organisation Socialiste Libertaire (OSL, Switzerland), OSL Argentina, Alternative Libertaire (France),[1] Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchistici (FdCA, Italy),[2] Federación Anarquista Uruguaya (FAU),[3] among others. They had been operating since the previous decade and maintained contact with each other.

Of this series of organizations, it is worth highlighting French anarcho-communism, which emerged in the 1950s. At that time, it featured the Libertarian Communist Federation and prominent theorists such as Georges Fontenis and later Daniel Guérin, as well as organizations such as the Moviment Communiste Libertaire, the Organisation Revolutionaire Anarchiste and the Organisation Communiste Libertaire (OCL). Organizations and journals of this movement had emerged over time, reaching the 1990s with great prestige in the European anarchist movement. Similarly, we can highlight Swiss and Italian anarcho-communism, which ran parallel, but without the same strength as their French counterpart.

In Latin America, the Uruguayan FAU was the most prominent organization due to its revolutionary trajectory and its resistance to the dictatorship. We again find an organization born in the 1950s, which achieved great importance in the 1960s and 1970s. After a few years of being swept away by repression, it managed to reorganize itself in the mid-1980s. Not only that, but due to its political work, it influenced other Latin American groups, as we will see later.

Returning to the main story, in the early 1990s, European organizations also had militants in the so-called "alternative unionism," some holding organizational positions. Therefore, some militants had the opportunity to meet each other personally through alternative union meetings. One of those militants in Spain was José María Olaizola. Throughout the 1990s, he served as Secretary of International Relations for the CGT-E and, between 1993 and 2001, as its Secretary General. At that time, the CGT's goal was to build an international. In his own words: [4]

“This intervention had the purpose of creating both an anarcho-syndicalist and alternative international and a libertarian, anarchist international, and for the two to form an international libertarian movement. In this endeavor, the CGT initiated and participated in many initiatives. There was a lot of travel, a lot of personal contact.”

In specific organizations, it is necessary to differentiate between the political and social or union components (often referred to as "fronts"). In the case of trade unionism, specific militants acted through social or union fronts and, because they were strong militants, they often obtained organizational positions in the unions in which they participated.

The first meeting of alternative unionism was organized in Barcelona by the CGT-E in November 1991. From that moment on, contacts developed with the French SUD-Solidaires union,[5] Unicobas Italy,[6] the Swedish SAC,[7] and other grassroots unions, all of them quite small.

“We organized the first meeting of alternative unionism in Barcelona on November 29, 30, and December 1, 1991, with French SUD unions, in which AL militants participated, such as Patrice Spadoni, a well-known platformist militant with whom we had an ongoing relationship, and then Laurent Esquerre of AL as well. I knew French anarchists due to my exile in Paris. Also present were the CGT of Correcteurs, a very powerful French union run by anarchists of different branches, in which Jacky Toublet was a very prominent militant member of the FA; the CRT of Switzerland [8], where Arístides Pedraza of the Swiss OSL was present; Italian and Basque unions, one English and one Russian, both very small; and the Swedish SAC, which was always reluctant to let anyone want to create a new international; and among the Italians was Unicobas (Stefano D'Errico, its general secretary). Incidentally, both Emili Cortavitarte and Chema Berro played an important role in this meeting. acting as coordinators of the meeting, representing the CGT.”[9]

In 1995, an international libertarian meeting was held in Ruesta, a town in Aragon ceded to the CGT-E. French, Italian, Swiss, Polish, and other anarchist militants attended. Ruesta was important for establishing personal ties internationally.

Ruesta saw significant participation from members of Alternative Libertaire and OSL (Switzerland), perhaps because they viewed it as the French organization's summer camp. In smaller numbers also attended a few members from the FdCA, the Workers Solidarity Movement (Ireland), Al-Badil al-Tahriri (Lebanon; its name in Arabic means Libertarian Alternative), and the Polish Anarchist Federation.[10] Regarding trade unionism, the majority of participants were from the CGT and SUD, although there were also people from Solidaridad Obrera (Spain) and SAC (Sweden).

From then on, these organisations and their delegates met at other international events such as the European marches against unemployment, counter-summits and alter-globalisation protests, such as those in Nice (2000), Barcelona (2001) or Genoa (2001), as well as at other meetings promoted by alternative trade unionism – that is, CGT-E, SUD-Solidaires, Unicobas, SAC, Solidaridad Obrera… – where they formed libertarian blocks. Olaizola continues:

“From here, a group emerged in practice, not just on paper, and we worked together because we had a common strategic vision, moving away from sectarianism. Jacky, Aristides, Stefano, then Gerard Mêlinand (French CNT from OCL...) joined, and later Juan Carlos Mechoso (FAU): all of them great friends and mentors for me. […]”

“We had an excellent relationship with the Italian platformist FdCA: Saberio Craparo, Donato Romito, Adriana Dadá, and Gianni Cimbalo, all great friends. I was involved in all this turmoil, and we met periodically.”

The Uruguayans add that these contacts were not at all casual. Many of the trips abroad were organic: they were decided by the organization. “If personal trips were appropriate, connections were sought more organically rather than spontaneously.”[11] Some of these trips could last months, turning into long stays for political exchange.

On May 1, 2000, the French CNT (also known as “Vignoles”) organized the “Un Autre Futur” days. The events were supported by Alternative Libertaire and the Federation Anarchiste and served to unite French anarchism. Some 6,000 people attended the demonstration behind the CNT banner, a near-historical milestone.

But those events also served as a meeting point for libertarian syndicalist organizations: CNT-F, SAC, Unicobas, Industrial Workers of the World, FAU (Germany), RKAS (Ukraine), Democratic Confederation of Labor (Morocco) and SKT (Siberia)[12] and other countries.[13] And again, they were also a place of socialization for French, Italian, and Irish anarcho-communist militants.

In all these cases, when we talk about making contact at the political level, it's not just a matter of coincidentally meeting at an event or exchanging messages online. In many cases, it was about traveling to a place, living together, and establishing personal connections, absorbing what was happening there and debating—especially debating—and learning to transfer it back to one's place of origin... and then debating again. Personal connections were central to this entire process.

Platformism on the Internet

The second "black thread" is related to the greater connectivity provided by technology. At the dawn of the internet, several anarchist-leaning websites emerged: A-infos, Infoshop, Spunk, and a few others, which emerged in the 1990s. One of those websites was that of the Irish platformist organization Workers Solidarity Movement (WSM) [14]. In just a few years, hundreds of classic texts on the history of anarchism and the anarcho-communist or platformist movement and theory were uploaded to the internet. This movement gained a significant following around the world. Later, they redesigned the website and put it online under the domain struggle.ws, leaving the WSM website for texts related to the organization itself. This dissemination and training work would soon bear fruit with the creation of a South African organization, the Workers Solidarity Front (WSF), inspired by its Irish sister organization.

Shortly before 2000, both organizations (or members of both) created the "Anarchist Platform" mailing list. In their presentation, they clearly identified the type of members they were addressing:[15]

We identify as anarchists and with the "Platformist" tradition within anarchism, which includes groups and publications such as "The Organizational Platform of Libertarian Communists," the "Friends of Durruti," and the "Manifesto of Libertarian Communism." We broadly identify with the organizational practices defended by this tradition, though not necessarily with everything they did or said. In other words, it is a starting point for our politics, not an end point.

The mailing list's opening document bears a strong resemblance to the one that would later be published by anarkismo.net. It is typical for political organizations to issue a "points of unity" document or a "mission statement" that explains the organization's basic policies.

We can also see that they considered their references to be the 1926 Platform of the Delo Truda group; the Friends of Durruti of the Spanish Revolution; and the Manifesto written by Georges Fontenis in 1953. These three texts emphasize the need for a powerful, specific anarchist organization that will articulate the anarchist militancy that intervenes in mass organizations. Ultimately, these social organizations are the ones that will bring the Social Revolution. These are the same texts that FdCA claimed on its 30th anniversary, celebrated in 2016. [16]

The South African ZACF (also known as Zabalaza) [17] (created shortly after the dissolution of the WSF) was also inspired by the same texts, which it considered its fundamental references. Years later, it would add to the list the text "Social Anarchism and Organization," published by the Brazilian organization FARJ after its first congress in 2008. [18]

The mailing list, as we can see, brought together activists from all over the world, although predominantly from the English-speaking world. The list was used to convene an in-person meeting of platformist organizations held in Genoa in 2001, during the alterglobalization counter-summit, at the initiative of the Italian organization. [19]

We should add that in April 2001, the summit of heads of state of the countries of the American continent was held in Quebec, Canada. For the occasion, an "International Declaration of Libertarian Communists" was published, which attacked capitalist globalization and concluded its statement by calling for the construction of a libertarian socialist society. Among the signatories were several platformist organizations (NEFAC, WSM, ORA-S Czech Republic, OCL-France, OSL Argentina, Alternative Libertaire of France and its Lebanese counterpart) along with anarcho-syndicalist organizations from the IWA and specific synthesis organizations. This was an exception, as these currents would rarely come together again. [20]

International Libertarian Solidarity

As we have seen previously, some activists had in mind the creation of an alternative syndicalist international and a libertarian international. The definitive and stable connection between Europe and Latin America occurred around 1994, although contacts had existed before then. The Spanish-Swiss Arístides Pedraza was one of those links and put Juan Carlos Mechoso in touch with the Barcelona militants.[21] From then on, a very good relationship was established. The Spanish, French, and Swiss activists paid for their Latin American comrades' travels, organized talks, press conferences, and meetings. In this way, within the CGT-E, they met "Juan Carlos and Juan Pilo from the FAU, the Brazilians Eduardo, "el Bocha," "el Gaucho," and Verónica from the Argentine OSL. At that time, we helped cover the costs of three ‘ateneos’ in Uruguay, Cerro, Colón, and Acacias." (Olaizola) [22]

The formalization of this network of contacts and organizations would give rise to International Libertarian Solidarity (SIL). This may be our third thread. It was driven by diverse organizations with libertarian communist and anarcho-syndicalist tendencies, while other groups had a less politically defined social anarchism. [23] Its first meeting was held in Madrid on April 1, 2001, at the initiative of the CGT-E.[24] The founding text was written by Juan Carlos Mechoso (Montevideo), Pepe García Rey, alias "Ramón Germinal" (Granada), and Paco Marcellán (Madrid): [25]

Today, as a first step, we support the establishment of a global libertarian network in which all affinity groups that so wish can find their space, open to libertarian organizations, associations, athenaeums, unions, and other libertarian collectives. This network will serve to spread mutual support and solidarity in the struggles, it will function as a source of information and debate for the libertarian world, it will organize international meetings, it will create training schools, it will use videoconferences, the Internet and all kinds of available tools to articulate strategies that allow the introduction and guidance of the libertarian idea in the various social struggles. [26]

Regarding the list of organizations, we have the OSL (Switzerland), Alternative Libertaire (France), Al-Badil al-Tahriri (Lebanon), FAU (Uruguay), the Gaucha Anarchist Federation (FAG, Brazil),[27] the ORA-Solidarita of the Czech Republic,[28] all of them anarcho-communist tendencies, and also the French anti-fascist network No Pasarán, the Magonista[29] organization, CIPO-RFM (Mexico)[30], and the anarcho-syndicalist organizations CGT-E, SAC (Sweden), Unicobas (Italy) and CNT-F (Vignoles, France). The latter participated just in the first meeting, but withdrew from the SIL network. Meanwhile, FdCA (Italy), ZACF (South Africa)[31], AUCA (Argentina)[32], NEFAC (North America)[33], and the newly created Red Libertaria Apoyo Mutuo (Spain) soon joined the network. This attempt at a specific organization in Spain didn't achieve much success.

A couple more international meetings were held in the following years. Their context was that of the resistance movement against capitalist globalization, which in Europe was characterized by counter-summits against meetings of the big Capital (such as those of the World Bank, the G8, or the European Union), which were accompanied by mass protests.

Thanks to their existence, several projects were funded, such as the "Aragón" printing press and an athenaeum in Uruguay, a community center, a cooperative, and a printing press in Brazil, a local office in Cuba, and support for the newspaper of the Argentine NGO. The most important thing is that the SIL brought together various European and Latin American activists, funded trips, published books, published newspapers, funded public events for the organizations, and much more.

As we can imagine, these contacts led to many joint workshops, conferences, debates, and interviews between several of these particular activists that continued well into the 2010s.[34]

However, this initiative of internationalist solidarity didn't last long either. The SIL was created during the period of decline in the alterglobalization movement. Furthermore, the CGT (Spain) changed its secretariat, and these contacts were no longer developed.

ELAOPA, the Porto Alegre Anarchist Conference, and the first CALA

On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, we find the fourth thread of international construction. Meetings between the FAU, the Brazilian FAG, and Argentine groups had been common in the 1990s. This work had borne fruit, as by the beginning of the new century, other groups of this movement already existed in other countries. Now it was time to articulate them.

On the national level, on the one hand, Brazilian groups and organizations created the Forum of Organized Anarchism (FAO), established in 2002. It was a space for ideological, theoretical, and strategic debate, taking the scale of the event to a new level in Brazil. On the other hand, similar processes had taken place in Chile (1999), with the Anarcho-Communist Unification Congress (CUAC). Not exactly from the CUAC, but certainly influenced by that process, the Chilean Libertarian Communist Organization (OCL) was created in 2002.[35]

Within the framework of the World Social Forum (WSF), held in Porto Alegre in 2003, the so-called Latin American Meeting of Autonomous Popular Organizations (ELAOPA) emerged.[36] The meeting proposed a space separate from the WSF, which was comprised of NGOs, political parties, and even business initiatives. The radical sector of popular movements called for class autonomy and the creation of an alliance of social movements outside of institutions. ELAOPA had the following principles:

1. The Construction of Popular Power.

2. An Anti-patriarchal and Anti-colonial Perspective.

3. Popular Protagonism and Direct Action.

4. Class Solidarity, Mutual Aid, and Internationalism.

In subsequent events, ELAOPA disassociated itself from the WSF and moved to another city, holding meetings approximately every two years. In 2025, the 15th meeting was held in Santiago, Chile, with more than 400 people representing numerous grassroots organizations.[37]

ELAOPA is a meeting of social and popular organizations, and rarely do any of them claim to be libertarian; at most, they claim to be "autonomous," "classist," "popular," or claim to have "libertarian influences." However, the militancy of so-called "anarquismo especifista" was present in many of those organizations. We are talking about the unionist, social and neighborhood militancy of the aforementioned FAU, FAG, and others, who were active in these popular movements and took advantage of the ELAOPA meetings to meet as well.

With ELAOPA, an opportunity arose for face-to-face encounters among libertarian militancy. Therefore, a separate event was created, typically held the day after the Popular Meeting ended: the Jornadas Anarquistas (Anarchist Days). They were (and are) a space not only for propaganda or libertarian culture, but also for strategic debate focused on intervention in social struggles and the promotion of the movement.[38]

The efforts were very successful. By the 2007-2008 period, several new libertarian communist organizations had been created, some with the aim of being national in scope:

The situation of "platformist" specificism is considerably more varied and complex. We already saw at the appropriate time that the Organización Comunista Libertaria, Rojo y Negro, Comunismo Libertario, the Organización Revolucionaria Anarquista, and the Colectivo Comunista Libertario in Argentina should be considered as such; the Organización Poder Popular Libertario in Bolivia; to the groups that revolve around the Forum of Organized Anarchism and the Uniâo Popular Anarquista [Unipa] in Brazil; to the Organización Comunista Libertaria, the Agitación Libertaria Collective, and the Movimiento Libertario Joaquín Murieta in Chile; to the Alianza Comunista Libertaria in Mexico; to Qhispikay Llaqta in Peru; and finally, to the Uruguayan Anarchist Federation, the Cimarrón Libertarian Organization, the Libertarian Federation, and Bandera Negra in Uruguay.[39]

Along with this array of groups, naturally, larger-scale initiatives for coordination also emerged. The largest attempt of the era was the Latin American Anarchist Coordination (CALA), created in 2004 by the FAU (Uruguay), the FAG (Brazil), AUCA (Argentina), Lucha Libertaria, and UNIPA (Brazil).[40] However, this UNIPA broke with the current to create its own political space, "Bakuninism," prioritizing alliances with the Libertarian Communist Alliance (ALC) of Mexico and the Anarchist Revolutionary Organization (ORA) of Argentina. Later, the Forum of Organized Anarchism (FOR) of Brazil was added to CALA. This first CALA lasted only a few years.

CALA adhered to especifist anarchism. They defended a strategy of democratic and disruptive popular power, but they never attempted to define the characteristics of a post-revolutionary society. They understood especifism as anarchist political organization. Therefore, they differed from platformism only in their particular Latin American anarchist tradition and the time in which both proposals emerged. Consequently, their vocation is identical, despite some distinctive developments.

The Creation of the anarkismo.net Website

As we have seen before, the SIL had already managed to connect some 11 anarcho-communist organizations, with another 3 that did not define themselves as such, but, with a little political work, could have adopt it without much difficulty. The disappearance of the SIL network left an organizational void that anarkismo.net would fill.

In the words of José Antonio Gutiérrez:[41]

The idea for Anarkismo.net was initially born as the idea of ​​creating an international magazine. Around 1999, we began talking with a comrade from Alternative Libertaire and myself, who was then in charge of international relations at CUAC [Chile], to discuss the need to get to know each other better as libertarian organizations that were on the platformist wing. There was then an email list where we exchanged discussions and experiences, but we felt we needed more in-depth articles to better understand our politics from our contexts and practices. Our idea was to create an annual international almanac of anarcho-communism, with information on the countries where we were present and their organizations, a highly reflective and critical annual review.

So we began to discuss this idea, and in February 2002, we met Nestor McNabb of the FdCA [Federazione dei Communisti Anarchici] in Dublin, along with Andrew Flood of the WSM. The three of us met at a pub in downtown Dublin, on South William Street. The pub is called Grogan's. There we discussed the idea of ​​an annual almanac, and the idea grew. We took it to our organizations, and with the growth of the internet, we decided that, for reasons of budget, ease of distribution, etc., it was much better to have an international site on anarcho-communism.

Thus, the idea of ​​Anarkismo was born, an anarcho-communist and multilingual site, hence the name, which is "anarchism" in Esperanto. The site, after much work, was launched on May 1, 2005, a very symbolic date. The idea began as a website, but the goal from the outset was to facilitate exchanges between organizations and better understand each other, with the aim of bringing us closer together politically and generating a trend. We didn't want to propose an international organization in name only; rather, we wanted international work and the exchange of experiences to develop gradually and organically, giving way to greater cohesion as a trend, as a movement, with a view to creating an international federation with solid foundations. That was the intention from the beginning.

Militants such as Nestor McNab (Irishman living in Rome), Paul Bowman, Andrew Flood, and Ian McKay (Ireland), Jonathan Payn (South Africa), Dimitris Troaditis (first in Athens and later in Melbourne), Adam Weaver (Miami), Nicolas Phoebus (Quebec), Wayne Price (New York) and the Chilean José Antonio Gutierrez, among others, were key figures in the political, technical, and editorial development of the new portal. They had met through the "Anarchist Platform" mailing list and other in-person meetings. They had read each other's articles and disseminated or translated them in their respective territories and languages.

Among the founding organizations of anarkismo.net were the aforementioned FAU, FAG, FdCA, and Alternative Libertaire (France). Not all of them joined at the same time, but some had been in contact from the beginning but took some time to decide (for example, FAU and OSL). Together with the organizations to which the aforementioned comrades belonged, the foundations were laid for a project that made possible the international articulation of the entire anarcho-communist or platformist movement.[42]

By then, in the first half of the 2000s, several new organizations already existed with some relevance to the libertarian communist movement. To name a few: NEFAC (Northwestern United States and Eastern Canada), CUAC and OCL (Chile), OSL and FACA (Argentina), in addition to the already well-known ZACF (South Africa), Alternative Libertaire (France), FdCA (Italy), and WSM (Ireland).

As we can see, the anarchist groups were predominantly male, and therefore, practically all the international delegates were men. Women attended the meetings most often when the delegations from their organizations were composed of several people.

It is equally important to mention that the roles played by the organizations' militancy in the international meetings were made possible thanks to the work of numerous comrades who, in one way or another, influenced the development and dynamism of their organizations. This occurred in multiple ways: creating theoretical, strategic, or debate contributions; meeting in different settings; disseminating experiences; or contributing to strengthening ties. Each person contributed their own grain of sand.

The movement framed within anarcho-communism understood that anarchism, if it wanted to have any relevance, should be well organized and, of course, take seriously its participation in collective struggles, seeking to empower them, and politically and strategically coordinating all the libertarian people within it.

We define ourselves as Communist Anarchists because we belong to the anarchist tradition that recognizes the need for a dual organization: a "specific" anarchist organization that works within and alongside the mass organizations of the working class.

[43]

Each organization had its own website and journals from which they projected their strategy. The most widely distributed were the monthly magazines Alternative Libertaire and Courant Alternatif [44] in France, and Alternativa Libertaria in Italy, which dated back to the 1970s and already had a readership.

On the internet, in addition to anarkismo.net, the most prolific anarcho-communist sites were the British website libcom.org, which published dozens of biographies related to Makhnovism, usually written by Nick Heath [45]; Nestor McNab's website nestormakhno.info; makhno.ru, in Russian; the Anarchist and the Platformist Tradition website[46]; and A-Infos itself, whose editorial team included the Israeli anarchist Ilan Shalif, a staunch anarcho-communist. [47] These websites contributed to spreading the movement, as struggle.ws and zabalaza.net had done before them.

A Coordination, Not an International

Anarkismo.net did not aspire to be an international, but rather a tool for sharing information about local struggles, theory, and strategies. It operated through a Collective of Delegates and an Editorial Collective, with the former taking on a political role and the latter a technical one.

Some preferred a more defined structure—moving towards an International—like Alternative Libertaire, while others preferred to maintain it as an open space. Despite this difference, some solidarity campaigns were carried out, such as the one in support of the Oaxaca uprising (2005-06).

Over the years, this movement grew stronger in Latin America, especially in Chile (OCL, FEL), Argentina (Joaquín Penina Libertarian Column [48], Red Libertaria, and Brazil (FARJ), where numerous groups, websites, and blogs emerged. And its way of interpreting anarcho-communism, called "specificism," became consolidated. Several Brazilian authors, such as Bruno Lima, Rafael Viana, and Felipe Correa, who founded the Institute of Anarchist Theory and History (ITHA) along with South Africans Lucien van der Walt, Michael Schmidt and Jonathan Payn, contributed to this. Other activists, such as the aforementioned Dimitris Troaditis and the Argentine Emilio Crisi, among others, also contributed to this. The ITHA has almost served as a think tank for academic texts within the movement.

Correa defined especifismo as:[50]

It is a movement that upholds a set of positions regarding the major strategic debates of anarchism. First, in relation to the organizational debate, Especifistas maintain the need for an organizational dualism, based on which anarchists articulate themselves within a political organization, as anarchists, and within social organizations (unions and social movements), as workers. Second, regarding the debate on the role of reforms, Especifistas believe that, depending on how they are sought and achieved, they can contribute to a revolutionary process. Third, regarding the debate on violence, Especifistas believe that it must always be carried out in the context of and concomitant with the construction of mass movements. On the social level, of mass movements, Especifismo promotes a program that has numerous affinities with revolutionary syndicalism.

In Latin America, this movement launched initiatives and trends within labor unions, as well as within the student and neighborhood movements, such as the FEL (libertarian student fronts, present in several countries, although initially emerged in Chile), Resistência Popular in Brazil, and the Federation of Base Organizations (FOB) in Argentina, among others.

To avoid referring to specificism or platformism, which are difficult for the general public to understand, the movement preferred to use the concept of organized anarchism. Elsewhere, the term "social and organized anarchism" was used to further narrow its target audience.

Anarcho-communist groups also emerged elsewhere in the world, most notably in Russia (Autonomous Action [51] – and also in its sphere of influence: Armenia, Georgia, Bulgaria, and Israel), Ukraine (RKAS-Makhno), Turkey (AKI, KaraKizil, Liberter), Australia (MAGC)[52], Greece (Western Greece Anarchist Federation), and with influence in other territories. In the former cases, anarcho-communism was mixed with insurrectionalism, while in the latter, their paths were distinct.

In November 2008, the first G20 summit was held in Washington. For this occasion, the "Anarcho-Communist Declaration on the Global Economic Crisis and the G20 Meeting" was issued. It was the beginning of the crisis. The real estate and financial bubbles had burst a few months earlier, and there was talk of collapse. States had to bail out banks to avoid further damage. Eleven organizations signed the declaration. Several organizations already mentioned on other occasions signed the agreement. The new ones were Common Cause (Ontario, Canada), Union Communiste Libertaire (Quebec, Canada), Unión Socialista Libertaria (Peru), Liberty & Solidarity (L&S, Great Britain) [53] and two synthesis organizations: the Asociación Obrera Canaria and the Anarchist Federation of Berlin. [54]

Sometime later, in February 2010, six organizations from the current met in Paris: the FdCA (Italy), L&S (Great Britain)[53], WSM (Ireland), OSL (Switzerland), Motmakt ("Counterpower", Norway), and Alternative libertaire (France). Their objective was to assess the state of the libertarian communist movement in Europe and promote continental coordination. They created working groups to maintain relations and advance coordination.[55]

The Maturity of the Network

Around the period 2010-2013, the various groups and organizations that claimed to be anarcho-communists and that were already in mutual contact, as we have seen, consolidated the network. It was then that the Anarkismo Editorial Collective was stabilized, which, as we have already seen, was composed of a delegate from each of the organizations. Here is a table showing the organizations that comprised Anarkismo in 2010 and 2015:

2010
Alternative Libertaire (France)
Buffalo Class Action (USA)
Chasqui Anarquista (Ecuador)
Colectivo Socialista Libertaria (Uruguay)
Common Action (USA)
Common Cause (Canada)
Convergencia Juvenil Clasista "Hijos del Pueblo" (Ecuador)
Estrategia Libertaria (Chile)
Federação Anarquista de São Paulo (Brazil)
Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
Federação Anarquista Gaúcha / Foro del Anarquismo Organizado (Brazil)
Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici (Italy)
Four Star Anarchist Organization (USA)
"Hombre y Sociedad" (Chile)
Humboldt Grassroots (USA)
Liberty & Solidarity (UK)
Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (Australia)
Miami Autonomy & Solidarity (USA)
Motmakt (Norway)
North-Eastern Federation of Anarchist Communists (USA)
Organización Revolucionaria Anarquista - Voz Negra (Chile)
Organisation Socialiste Libertaire (Switzerland)
Red Libertaria de Buenos Aires (Argentina)
Red Libertaria Popular Mateo Kramer (Colombia)
Solidarity & Defense (USA)
Union Communiste Libertaire (Canada)
Unión Socialista Libertaria (Peru)
Workers Solidarity Movement (Ireland)
Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (South Africa)

2015
Alternativa Libertaria/FdCA (Italy)
Alternative Libertaire (France)
Black Rose Anarchist Federation / Federación Anarquista Rosa Negra (USA)
Common Cause (Canada)
Coordination des Groupes Anarchistes (France)
Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
Federação Anarquista Gaúcha / Coordenação Anarquista Brasileira (Brazil)
Federación Anarquista Uruguaya (Uruguay)
Grupo Anarquista Bifurcación (Colombia)
Grupo Libertario Vía Libre (Colombia)
Humboldt Grassroots (USA)
Libertäre Aktion Winterthur (Switzerland)
Libertarian Communist Group / Grwp Gomiwnyddol Libertaraidd (Wales/Cymru)
Libertære Socialister (Denmark)
Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (Australia)
Motmakt (Norway)
Organisation Socialiste Libertaire (Switzerland)
Organização Anarquista Socialismo Libertário (Brazil)
Organización Socialista Libertaria (Uruguay)
Prairie Struggle Organization (Canada)
Workers Solidarity Movement (Ireland)
Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (South Africa)

In this list, we can already see the disappearance of NEFAC from North America, which was reduced to a few groups in New England (Buffalo and New York) and Canada (e.g., Common Cause and UCL). Eventually, in 2014, the US groups created a federation, Black Rose. [56] We can also see the founding, in 2012, of the Coordenação Anarquista Brasileira (Brazilian Anarchist Coordination), based on pre-existing groups (such as FAG, FARJ, OASL, CAZP, and others) [57] that were organized around the FAO forum and already belonged to the Anarkismo network.

The remaining organizations continued the libertarian communist or anarcho-communist tradition dating back to the 1970s and 1980s, such as Alternative Libertaire (France), FdCA (Italy), OSL (Switzerland, joined Anarkismo in 2010), the FAU (Uruguay) and WSM (Ireland).

The French CGA was a split from the Francophone Anarchist Federation following its call to support Jacques Chirac in the presidential elections to prevent Le Pen from winning. Over time, the CGA shifted towards anarcho-communism and eventually merged with Alternative Libertaire in 2019, creating the Union Communiste Libertaire (UCL), which is currently the largest organization of its kind in the world.

Each organization has its own history, and it would take too long to describe them all here. What is obvious is that this movement was articulated on a global scale and was able to take advantage of the rise of radicalism that swept the planet in 2011, in the same way that the SIL developed during the alterglobalization movement.

2011 saw the Arab Spring, the Indignados movement, and the square occupations. It was also the moment when a new generation entered activism. The Rojava Revolution emerged with force. Anarcho-communist organizations emerged in Egypt (the Libertarian Socialist Movement, MSL), Israel (Unity), and Tunisia, which had only existed for a short time, as well as new attempts in Iran, Lebanon, and Jordan.

That year, a statement of solidarity was issued with 46 activists detained in Zimbabwe. It was signed by 11 libertarian communist organizations. [58] That same year, the declaration of solidarity with the popular struggle in Egypt, whose people had just overthrown the Mubarak regime, was signed. [59] This time, 23 organizations signed. New initiatives included organizations from Egypt (MSL), Colombia (Vía Libre and CELIP), Chile (Libertarian Communist Federation and the magazine "Política y Sociedad"), and the United States (Autonomy and Solidarity of Miami). A number of anarcho-syndicalist groups, such as the CGT-E, Solidaridad Obrera, WSA (United States), and the ICEA (Spain), also signed the agreement. [60]

Once again, the Anarkismo network declined to formalize itself as a more solid structure—as an international federation—to avoid falling into rivalries and competition with the other libertarian internationals, the IWA and IFA at the time. However, it is undeniable that it was functioning in a fairly coordinated manner.

In 2012, eight European organizations met again in London. [61] In addition to talking about improving coordination, they launched a campaign against sovereign debt. That same year, Jornadas Anarquistas were held in Sao Paulo, convened by the Uruguayan Anarchist Federation (FAU) and the Forum of Organized Anarchism of Brazil (FAO) [62] to develop especifist anarchism on the continent. On that occasion, they approved strategic documents around the concepts of popular power and federalism.

To speak of "popular" means to imbue the project of power with an eminently classist character, although we must emphasize that we speak of power from a libertarian perspective. A project of the oppressed that arises from popular movements and that accumulates the social force necessary for a long-term confrontation, with firm, strong, and well-defined steps, which we believe are necessary from an ideological point of view.

[63]

It was from then on that the anarchist movement would more decisively adopt this theoretical conception, more typical of the development of the class struggle in Latin America, and it would soon also reach Europe through Embat (Catalonia) and Libertäre Aktion (Bern).

In August 2012, the largest in-person meeting of the movement took place: in Saint Imier (Switzerland). Taking advantage of the International Anarchist Meeting, a tent called "Anarkismo" was set up as a meeting point for the movement's international militants and sympathizers. Approximately half of the 30 organizations that were in contact with anarkismo.net at the time sent delegates to the International Meeting, and a conference of delegates was held. The enormous growth of this movement in Latin America was evident, and a significant development was seen since the beginning of the website.

From the perspective of the WSM delegation, the various Anarkismo meetings held during the week were a valuable opportunity to meet comrades we might never have crossed paths with and to revitalize our involvement in the Anarkismo network. The network itself continues to expand since its very modest beginnings in 2005, both in terms of the number of organizations involved, the geographical dispersion of these organizations, and, most importantly, increased cooperation between them. When each organization presented its work during the morning of the global meeting, it was striking to see the common political and organizational approach we share, despite operating in very different contexts. It also became clear that South American organizations in particular have experienced significant growth in number and influence in recent years.

[64]

As a positive measure: Swiss and French synthesist and platformist organizations, which did not always enjoy good relations, collaborated in the preparation of the Meeting. But not everyone was under the same illusions. The organizational problems were numerous, and what the Meeting lacked most was precisely programmatic clarity:

It would have been a very different matter if, for three or two years in advance, a debate had been prepared and carried out around a common analysis of the situation, a real coordination and federation of organizations and struggles had been promoted, and progress had been made toward establishing a common program... we would be able to reflect and we would have real elements to evaluate, that the fruit of this work in St. Imier or elsewhere would have culminated, and the logic of this culmination would not be a meeting but the creation of an anarchist international.

[65]

In 2014, a joint May Day communiqué was signed by several organizations: [66] ZACF (South Africa), WSM (Ireland), OSL (Switzerland), Collectife Communiste Libertaire (Bienne, Switzerland), FdCA (Italy), WSA (United States), Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (Australia), and Prairie Struggle (United States). Months later, 14 organizations from the movement signed another communiqué in support of the Kurdish resistance. [67] This was the last joint communiqué of this era.

On November 18 and 19, 2017, several European organizations met in Genoa to exchange analyses and establish a European action plan. The Alternativa Libertaria/FdCA (the new name of the veteran Italian organization), Alternative Libertaire (France), CGA (France), the Libertarian Socialist Federation (Wales, Great Britain), OSL (Switzerland), and WSM (Ireland) met.[68] Embat (Catalonia) sent his greetings to the meeting, and from then on, he became much more closely involved with this movement.

By 2020, the Union Communiste Libertaire of France was doing an extensive mapping of the movement:[69]

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?reseau-international-8794

Over the years, a tradition developed of sending greetings to each organization of the current that held a congress. This helped to forge an international movement and made all activists aware that they belonged to a movement much larger than their own organization or local context. [70]

Time Ebb

It wasn't all good news for the movement. In addition to the thorny Chilean issue, which we will soon discuss, between 2018 and 2021, WSM [71] and Zabalaza dissolved, as did other local and regional groups in North America, due to a failure to achieve generational change. Furthermore, other organizations also entered into crisis, without dissolving, such as Motmakt (Norway),[72] with whom contact was lost. Several European organizations disappeared (in Denmark, Portugal, the Czech Republic, and Turkey) or their movements were unable to achieve stability (Great Britain or Russia). In the Americas, organizations in Bolivia and Peru were lost, and there were splits in Argentina, Chile, and the United States.

Another split during this period was that suffered by the Anarchist Federation (Great Britain). This organization, created in 1986 as an anarcho-communist, had long been a synthetist federation. In 2018, there was an internal conflict in AF, and a sector emerged from it that would form the Anarchist Communist Group (ACG),[73] already with a marked libertarian communist tendency. The ACG succeeded British platformist organizations that never managed to take root, such as L&S or the LSF. Even so, several anarcho-communist groups remained that have not yet considered joining the ACG.

The causes of these crises are diverse. For example, various social and political situations arose in several states that made it impossible to cultivate international relations. These relations were also interrupted in the event of internal crises and ruptures within the organizations. Another problem for maintaining stable international relations was the rapid change of delegates, with several organizations having delegates who did not speak English, while other comrades who had managed these relations moved on to other functions within their organizations. FdCA fared worse, as in just four months of 2018, they lost Donato Romito and Monia Andreani to pass away. In other cases, a more internal approach was prioritized, improving integration at the social and territorial levels, but relegating the international arena to a secondary level. Finally, the case of Michael Schmidt and his expulsion from anarkismo.net and ITHA was not without damage. [74]

The Chilean Case

At this point, we should talk about the movement in Chile. Its origins date back to 1999, with the celebration of the CUAC, initiating a process that would later give rise to the OCL in 2002. The following year, a Libertarian Student Front (FEL) was launched, and in 2006, following the so-called "Penguin Revolt" (high school students), the FEL grew exponentially. It managed to attract numerous activists, and when that generation of students went to university, they came to lead the student movement, usually controlled by communists and autonomists. Activists such as Felipe Ramírez, Fabián Araneda, and Melissa Sepúlveda held important elected positions in the Chilean Student Federation (FECH, which is unitary and semi-institutional), which at the time was one of the most powerful popular movements in Chile. Among their most notable initiatives was their highly colorful and recognizable graphic style, which was copied and adapted by many collectives elsewhere. They filled Chile with murals through their Ernesto Miranda muralist units. [75]

Some time later, this entire political space merged into the Izquierda Libertaria (Libertarian Left). This new organization adopted strategic lines different from the libertarian communist magma that had driven the movement up to that point, shifting toward a much less defined libertarian socialism, more in line with libertarian Marxism. At the same time, they achieved a scale never seen before for a libertarian organization in recent decades, rivaling other political parties and organizations much more established in the Chilean scene.

In this context, a sector of libertarians—which I would venture to say is the majority—has made a series of reflections that have shaped the political approach known as "Democratic Rupture" in various articles and public documents, as well as in internal discussion processes. Despite this, there is still some confusion regarding the implications of this wager, which we will try to clarify to some extent with this article.

[76]

Chilean libertarian communist sectors began supporting leftist electoral options in 2013. At first, they did so tactically, without intervening in the campaigns, but calling for a vote for a democratic rupture to overthrow the reactionary democratic regime that ruled the country. Later, in the 2018 electoral process, the Izquierda Libertaria the Frente Amplio (Broad Front), which was running in the parliamentary elections. Due to its participation, libertarian activist Gael Yeomans was elected as a deputy.[77] Since then, the Izquierda Libertaria has had more regional and national deputies, as well as senators. These efforts culminated in a progressive government in the country led by Gabriel Boric, a former autonomist student leader from the same era as the FEL. However, this has not produced the expected radicalization of society to build revolutionary alternatives in a socialist sense through popular power and constituent power. Chile continues to be a capitalist state—of a progressive nature, admittedly—without the slightest hint of socializing policies.

As can be seen, the Izquierda Libertaria [78] had abandoned traditional libertarian communist postulates and was pointed out by rivals and opponents of the anarchist communist current within anarchism as a logical derivation of all especifist anarchism. For this reason, and for other reasons as well, it suffered some splits,[79] such as Solidaridad FCL,[80] some of which in turn followed the parliamentary path, resulting in further splits.

At the Latin American level, the especifist movement distanced itself from all these Chilean groups until the Santiago Anarchist Federation (FAS)[81] emerged in 2019, once again aligned with the rest of the international movement. This FAS, therefore, emerges as a break with the imprint taken by Chilean libertarian communism, returning to Latin American especifism.

From Network to Coordination

Between 2015 and 2019, the movement experienced a setback caused by issues we have already seen, causing divisions in some organizations within the movement, hindering understanding, fostering disorientation, or directly leading to the dissolution of some organizations and the destruction of entire movements, as we have seen.

Not everything was disappointing, of course. While a national British organization (the ACG) had emerged in 2018, in 2019 Die Plattform was founded in Germany, the largest European state that until then had lacked organizations of the movement.

At the 2019 Jornadas Anarquistas, Latin American organizations spoke of the need to relaunch the movement.[82] At this time, they championed especifism, or, in other words, politically organized anarchism, and sought to consolidate it in all regions. Their communiqué defined the role of the anarchist political organization, which should be responsible for developing the theory and analytical tools to understand reality and better operate within it. They emphasized the internal political work of each organization to avoid confusion and dead ends.

Our lives depend on [our social] insertions, but the Political Organization, that small engine that drives the popular movement, is necessary alongside it. The Anarchist Political Organization, in the especifist conception, is not avant-garde, but rather one of militant self-denial, with the aim of incentivizing and guiding a process of revolutionary rupture with broad participation of the organized people. We deeply respect the specific nature of that level. We have called this process Popular Power, a process of building the organizations of popular power that will replace the bourgeois power structures. Thus, social insertion and political organization go hand in hand and are articulated horizontally in a very different way than that proposed and developed by all the vanguardist movements of the left to date, which have done nothing more than limit the development of popular organizations and instrumentalize them as "apparatuses" useful to their parties. For this reason, Especifist Anarchism speaks of a Strong People [Pueblo Fuerte] and not a "strong party," as all currents of Marxism have proposed. We advocate a Strong People, a people who construct their destiny and their own opportunities and degrees of freedom according to their experience of struggle, development, and progress in the process of rupture.

As a result of this initiative, the foundations for new international work began to be laid. In December 2019, the Latin American Anarchist Coordination (CALA) was re-established, formed by the CAB (Brazil),[84] the FAR (Argentina),[85] and the FAU (Uruguay). These organizations served as a focal point for the entire movement and took over from the European organizations, which had been leading the way until then.

“…We are convinced that Anarchism must be operational, agile, and in tune with new social realities in order to confront the harshness that this ruthless system imposes on those at the bottom. But to do so, we reiterate, Anarchism must be politically organized. It is Political Organization that allows militants to process the necessary discussions and debates, make pertinent analyses of the conjuncture, define action and development plans, fine-tune tactics, and also design a final strategy and adapt that strategy to each period of action, to each conjuncture…”

[85]

With CALA, the entire international libertarian communist movement was extraordinarily energized, starting with the notable efforts of Nathaniel Clavijo (Uruguay), who enlisted the help of Dimitris Troaditis (now based in Melbourne, Australia), Jonathan Payn (now in Istanbul), Johnny Rumpf (Bern, Switzerland), and Gio (France) to reorganize the movement. As always, the veterans pull the younger ones until they understand how it works.

In 2020, the year of the global pandemic, the foundations were laid for a more articulated international coordination than before. From then on, meetings became much more stable, as they could be held online. Meetings were held every month or two, and a fairly natural coordination took shape.

The reason for so many meetings was the movement's need to publish international statements. The first was to support the Chilean uprising and demand the freedom of those arrested during the December 2019 protests.[86] Later, it was signed jointly on May Day, then on June 28th, Stonewall Day, then to support the American people after the police murder of George Floyd, also on July 19th, against the repression in Turkey, on March 8th, to commemorate the anniversary of Krondstadt, the Paris Commune, on the pandemic, against the war in Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza, and many others. On each occasion, between 12 and 25 organizations from around the world signed.

Another project was to support anarchist comrades in Sudan,[87] who needed financial assistance to leave the country. These days, some of those people are returning. Other coordinating initiatives have been the summer camps and schools, organized by each organization independently, such as those organized by Embat and UCL since 2018 and 2020, respectively. In the case of the former, in 2024 it helped organize the first especifist meeting in Spain, together with the organizations Liza (Madrid) and Batzac - Joventuts Llibertàries (Catalonia), which was attended by people from other places and other organizations. Similarly, the French camps are attended by British, German, Swiss, Spanish, or Italian activists, depending on the occasion. Die Plattform has also organized such camps, while an Anarchist Political School was held in Australia, which has helped articulate the tendency until an anarchist federation has been formed there. Finally, this summer the first camp of the British ACG will be held.

To an outside audience, the development of organized anarchism might seem quite informal. However, it has been an organic process. There was a prior praxis dating back to the 1990s. Initially, there was a personal level, comprised of activists who sometimes met without a mandate from their organizations. Then came the level of formal meetings of the organizations, represented by delegates. The third level would be joint working groups between activists from different countries that carry out specific projects. It is necessary to know how to read the process and understand the rhythms, which are sometimes fast and other times slow. The fact is that, starting in 2020, the dynamic accelerated.

In short, the Coordination towards 2022 was composed of the following organizations:

• Alternativa Libertaria (AL/FdCA) – Italy
• Anarchist Communist Group (ACG) – Great Britain
• Federación Anarquista – Greece
• Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement (AWSM) – Aotearoa/New Zealand
• Coordenação Anarquista Brasileira (CAB) – Brazil
• Federación Anarquista de Rosario (FAR) – Argentina
• Federación Anarquista Uruguaya (FAU) – Uruguay
• Embat, Organització Llibertària de Catalunya
• Libertäre Aktion (LA) – Switzerland
• Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (MACG) – Australia
• Organización Anarquista de Córdoba (OAC) – Argentina
• Organización Anarquista de Santa Cruz (OASC) – Argentina
• Organización Anarquista de Tucumán (OAT) – Argentina
• Roja y Negra – Organización Politica Anarquista (Buenos Aires) – Argentina
• Organisation Socialiste Libertaire (OSL) – Switzerland
• Tekoşina Anarşist (TA) – Rojava
• Union Communiste Libertaire (UCL) – France, Belgium y Switzerland
• Grupo Libertario Vía Libre – Colombia

Some organizations from Turkey, such as DAF[88] and Karala, which have since dissolved, also participated. In these cases, these organizations did not define themselves as libertarian communists or anarcho-communists, but simply anarchists, but there was always mutual understanding. Similarly, relations have always been maintained with Tekoşîna Anarşîst,[89] an organization composed of international anarchist militants in Rojava.

In some of the early meetings, contacts were also made with organizations from Iran and the Philippines, although it was clear that they did not share the basic foundations of the movement, and their paths diverged. Nevertheless, starting in 2020, a growth in the number of groups and militants worldwide was noted. In some countries, this growth has led to the establishment of national organizations with several local groups, such as in Australia, Germany, and Argentina.

Most organizations during this period focused on approving and working on their own programs, moving beyond the model of those anarchist groups that had only a vague understanding of reality and whose militancy was united only by principles, the distant goal of libertarian communism and little else.

The International Coordination of Organized Anarchism

The result of the above has been the formal construction of the Coordination at the end of 2024. This Coordination does not have the form of an International, but rather a network. It has continental sections in Europe and the Americas, and perhaps something similar will be done in the Asia-Pacific in the medium term, but it is primarily articulated at a global level.

One of its projects is the website anarkismo.net, which now acts as a speaker for the entire movement internationally.

Since the time of the communiqués, a South Korean organization and the Black Rose Federation of the United States have joined. Several more have appeared throughout, creating an increasingly complex and difficult-to-follow map.

What is worth highlighting is CALA's insistence on the theoretical and strategic unity of all the Coordination's organizations. This has allowed almost all organizations to self-evaluate and conduct their ideological, theoretical, and strategic debates, leading to current situation analyses, programs, and political lines. At that time, several non-Latin American organizations also began to call themselves "especifist," and new ones emerged elsewhere with that definition, ignoring more traditional constructs in their regions.

Regarding the currently coordinated organizations, they are:

America
• Black Rose Anarchist Federation / Federación Anarquista Rosa Negra – United States
• Grupo Libertario Vía Libre - Colombia
• Federación Anarquista Santiago - Chile
• Roja y Negra, Organización Política Anarquista - Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Federación Anarquista Uruguaya (CALA)
• Coordenação Anarquista Brasileira (CALA):
• Federação Anarquista Gaúcha - Rio Grande do Sul
• Federação Anarquista Cabana - Belem do Pará
• Organização Resistência Libertária - Ceará
• Federação Anarquista Quilombo de Resistência - Bahia
• Federação Anarquista dos Palmares - Alagoas
• Coletivo Anarquista Luta de Classe - Paraná
• Coletivo Anarquista Bandeira Negra - Santa Catarina
• Organização Anarquista Maria Iêda - Pernambuco
• También hay una construcción anarquista en la Argentina formada por:
• Federación Anarquista de Rosario (CALA)
• Organización Anarquista de Tucumán
• Organización Anarquista de Córdoba
• Organización Anarquista de Santa Cruz
• Organización Revolucionaria Anarquista - Buenos Aires

Europe
• Anarchist Communist Group – Great Britain
• Die Plattform - Germany
• Embat, Organització Llibertària de Catalunya
• Midada, Libertär, Sozialistisch, Organisiert - Switzerland
• Organisation Socialiste Libertaire - Switzerland
• Union Communiste Libertaire - France, Belgium y Switzerland

Middle East
• Tekoşîna Anarşîst - Rojava

Pacific Asia
• Anarchist Worker Solidarity Movement – New Zealand
• Anarchist Solidarity / Anarchist Yondae / 아나키스트 연대 – South Korea
• Anarchist Communist Federation - Australia:
• ACF-Brisbaine - Anarchist Communists Meanjin
• ACF-Melbourne - Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group
• ACF-Geelong - Geelong Anarchist Communists

Currently, there are other libertarian communist groups and organizations in the United States, Canada, Brazil (the new OSL is noteworthy due to its size), Italy, Spain, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Indonesia, and New Zealand. These groups do not belong to the International Coordination, but maintain contact with one or more of the current's organizations, which now number several dozens altogether. Of course, they are also an active part of the entire movement, as the Coordination is by no means the entire movement, nor does it claim to be. In any case, these hundreds (or thousands already) of international militants are building a solid libertarian alternative that has already positioned itself within the broader anarchist movement.

Overview

We will conclude by reviewing the current's periods:

• The anarcho-communist current of anarchism dates back to its very beginnings with the International Alliance for Socialist Democracy. Its tradition can be traced over the decades. After World War II, this current was reduced to very few countries. Of these, France, Italy, and Uruguay had the most prominent movements, surviving into the 1980s despite all kinds of difficulties.

• In the 1980s, several solid organizations were created that would last for many years: OSL (founded in 1982 in Switzerland), WSM (founded in 1984, Ireland), FdCA (1986, Italy), Union des Travailleurs Communistes Libertaires (1986, France), FAG (1985, Brazil), FAU (reorganized in 1986, Uruguay), and Anarchist Federation (1986, Great Britain, which was initially anarcho-communist). These organizations maintained contact with each other, but the synthesist and anarcho-syndicalist currents predominated by far within the anarchist movement.

• In the 1990s, new organizations began to emerge. Alternative Libertaire (1991, France; derived from previous organizations), FAG (1995), and OSL (1997) in Brazil; OSL (1996), ORA (Rosario), and AUCA (La Plata) in Argentina; CUAC in Chile (1999), among others; various groups in the United States and Canada; ORA (1996, Czech Republic); WSF (1995, South Africa)… Forming an organic relationship, on the one hand, in Latin America through the FAU and FAG, and on the other, in Europe through Alternative Libertaire, OSL, and FdCA, whose union fronts are approaching the CGT-E, and the latter invites them to its meetings. In parallel, the Anarchist Platform mailing list emerged, bringing Anglo-Saxon platformism into contact.

• In the years 1999-2003, the articulation of the movement accelerated through the resistance movement against capitalist globalization. Groups and organizations emerged in many places (too many to list here), creating spaces for interaction, such as ELAOPA, the Jornadas Anarquistas, and CALA in Latin America, and SIL in Europe, although the latter also provided solidarity with initiatives in the South. The entire anarcho-communist movement expanded.

• 2004-2009 period. These were years of ebb and flow in social struggles. Yet, the movement already maintained political relations. This resulted in the creation of anarkismo.net (2005), the signing of solidarity declarations and the first international meetings. The global economic and financial crisis of 2008 erupted.

• In the years 2010-2014, there was again a strong expansion and coordination. Initiatives multiplied: the anarchism network consolidated, new declarations were signed, the Saint Imier meeting was held (2012), and new groups and organizations emerged, and the anarchist movement reached new countries where it had no presence in Asia and Africa.

• 2015-2019 Period. Once again, a period of ebb and flow. Some veteran organizations disbanded, others entered into crisis and stagnation, and others suffered from splits or changed their ideological line. However, the previous inertia continued to produce new organizations.

• Finally, the period from 2020 to the present has given rise to greater international coordination and a climate conducive to the creation of new organizations, aided by the crisis experienced by other currents of anarchism. At this point, the libertarian communist movement is no longer unknown. It is not large, of course, but it appears much more solid than other currents of anarchism.

Bibliography

Primary Sources:

CAB (2012). Principles and Practices of Especifismo.

Programmatic Declaration of the Brazilian Anarchist Coordination. CAB Link.

FAU (2003). Huerta Grande: Organizational Document.

Founding Text of Uruguayan Especifismo. Available at: FAU Digital.

FAU (2003). Anarchism in the Anti-Globalization Movement.

SIL (2001). Madrid Declaration.

Founding Document of the Network. Available at: FDCA Archives.

WSM (2000). The Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists.

English translation of the 1926 Platform. Libcom.org.

ZACF (2010). Towards a Fresh Revolution.

Strategic Analysis of the South African Federation. Zabalaza.net.

WSM (2001). Report from the Genoa Counter-Summit. Account of the Genoa protests. Libcom.org.

Online Resources

Libertarian Communist Manifesto (Fontenis):

Full text in Spanish

SIL Archives:

FDCA Historical Documents

The Organizational Platform for a General Union of Anarchists

Nestor Makhno Archive

Publications

Corrêa, F. (2012). Social Anarchism and Organization. AK Press.

Corrêa, F. (2015). Social Anarchism and Organization: The Specific Proposal. Eleuterio Press.

Corrêa, F. (2022). Elements of Anarchist Theory and Strategy [Interview by M. Walmsley]. Anarkismo.net.

Fontenis, G. (1954/2013). Libertarian Communist Manifesto. Critical edition with foreword by Frank Mintz. Anselmo Lorenzo Foundation.

García, V. (2017). The Libertarian Left in Chile: From resistance to institutional politics. LOM Editions.

Gutiérrez, J.A. (2015). Anarchism in Latin America: The libertarian utopia south of the Rio Grande. Eleutherius.

Lima Rocha, B. (2013). Anarchism and class struggle: A view from Latin America. Utopía y Praxis Latinoamericana Magazine, 18(60), 13-28.

Lima Rocha, B. (2017). Political militancy and revolutionary strategy: The case of the Gaúcha Anarchist Federation. In Anarchism & Education (pp. 77-94). Editor Fi.

Méndez, N. & Vallota, A. (2018). Anarchism in Latin America: Networks, practices and militancy. CEHIPOL.

Olaizola Albéniz, J. M. (2013). The need to organize anarchists (II). Anarquia.cat. https://www.anarquia.cat/la-necesidad-de-organizarse-los-anarquistas-ii/

Payn, J. (2018). Building Counter-Power: The ZACF and the South African Left. Interface: A Journal for and About Social Movements.

Rugai, R. (2020). Specificism: The construction of popular power in Latin America. Faísca Editor.

Troaditis, D. (2020). From Delo Truda to Anarkismo.net: A Century of Anarchist Organizing. Anarchist Studies.

Van der Walt, L. & Schmidt, M. (2009). Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism. AK Press.

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NOTES

1 https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/

2 https://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/wpAL/

3 https://federacionanarquistauruguaya.uy/

4 Mail communication with José María Olaizola, 05/20/2025

5 This French trade union organization dates back to 1981 as a grouping of 10 autonomous federations and independent national unions. It was significantly influenced by Trotskyist and, in some cases, libertarian currents. In the 1990s, it had around 50,000-60,000 members.

6 Known as CIB Unicobas, it is an organization of Italian grassroots trade unionism, part of the "Cobas" (grassroots committees) phenomenon. Unicobas was founded in 1991 and quickly came into contact with alternative trade unionism. It had 5,000 members.

7. An anarcho-syndicalist organization founded in Sweden in 1910 under the name Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation. In the 1950s it was excluded from the IWA, entering into conflict with the exiled Spanish CNT. A rivalry existed ever since. When the Spanish CNT split in the 1980s, giving rise to the CGT, this new organization resumed contact with the Swedish union.

8. The Confédération Romande du Travail (CRT) was founded in the early 1970s by Christian syndicalism. Several years later, due to the influence of militant trade unionists, it changed direction and became part of the sector of unions and tendencies of that time that sought to develop an alternative unionism. It dissolved in 1996. Its legacy of militant unionism would later be taken up by the SUD of the canton of Vaud.

9. Ibid.

10 In English, see “International Libertarian Meeting.” https://web.archive.org/web/20080223130405/http://flag.blackened.net/rev…

In French, see Alternative Libertaire, no. 36, October 1995, pp. 14-15:

https://www.archivesautonomies.org/IMG/pdf/communismelib/alternative-lib…

11 Conversation with Nathaniel Clavijo, 05/23/2025.

12 [Sibersakaya Konfederatsia Truda] The Siberian Confederation of Labor (SKT) was founded in March 1995 by Siberian anarcho-syndicalists, who until then had been grouped in a "Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists" that operated from 1989 to 2000. It grew to around 5,000 members, according to its own source.

13 Lucien Van der Walt, "Report on Le Autre Futur" (Report on the Other Future), Paris summit, August 26, 2015

https://lucienvanderwalt.com/2015/08/26/lucien-van-der-walt-2000-report-...

14 https://www.wsm.ie/

15 Announcing Anarchist Platform Email List

https://www.struggle.ws/exwsm/c/announcing-anarchist-platform-email-list…

16 Thirty Years of Life… 11/01/2016

https://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/wpAL/blog/2016/11/01/1986-2016-30-...

17 https://zabalaza.net/

18 The text can be read in its original language here:

https://www.cabn.libertar.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/FARJ_-_ANARQUIS…

19 Interview with the FdCA by NEFAC, 2003

https://anarchistplatform.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/the-global-influence-...

20 Against Capitalist Globalization! Alternative Libertaire #96, May 2001, p. 11

https://www.archivesautonomies.org/IMG/pdf/communismelib/alternative-lib…

21 A written reference can be found on the back page of the newspaper of the XVII CGT Congress in A Coruña, October 20, 2013. Juan Pilo indicates that Mechoso's trip to Europe accelerated contacts. Among others, they contacted Olaizola, then Secretary General of the CGT.

https://cgt.org.es/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/diario3.qxd_.pdf

22 Olaizola, 05/20/2025

23 See some RL statements on the Radio Klara website:

https://www.radioklara.org/radioklara/?tag=red-libertaria-apoyo-mutuo

24 Naissance d'un réseau international libertaire. Extrait de mai number from Alternative Libertaire (France):

https://www.ainfos.ca/01/jun/ainfos00171.html

25 Consultation with José María Olaizola. 05/18/2025

26 Declaration of the International Libertarian Meeting. March 31, 2001

https://www.fdca.it/fdcaen/ILS/ils_madrid.htm

27 https://www.instagram.com/fag.cab/

28 Interview with ORA by NEFAC, 2003:

https://anarchistplatform.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/the-global-influence-...

29 "Magonism" is considered a type of libertarian communism native to Mexico. It takes into account the influence of indigenous peoples and draws on their traditional customs and forms of community organization. These ideas became popular in the 1990s. The concept of "Magonism" comes from Ricardo Flores Magón, one of the driving forces of the 1910 Mexican Revolution, who was an anarchist.

The Ricardo Flores Magón Popular Indigenous Council of Oaxaca (CIPO-RFM) was active between approximately 1997 and 2006. It coordinated various local indigenous organizations in the state of Oaxaca. It moved internationally within libertarian circles. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consejo_Ind%C3%ADgena_Popular_de_Oaxaca_%2…

31 The acronym stands for Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation.

32 https://www.nodo50.org/auca/menu%20que%20es%20auca.html

33 NEFAC stands for North Eastern Anarchist Federation. It united groups from New England and Quebec. Their texts can be found here:

https://libcom.org/tags/nefac

34 For example, the 2008 conference organized by the CGT in Madrid, "A Libertarian Critique of the Current Situation"

https://info.nodo50.org/Jornadas-Una-critica-libertaria-de.html

35 For more information, read José Antonio Gutiérrez, "Reflections on Twenty Years of Anarcho-Communism in Chile," February 24, 2020.

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31737

36 To see photos of the first meeting:

https://www.nodo50.org/rprj/elaopa/fotos.htm

To see some initial ELAOPA documents:

https://www.nodo50.org/rprj/elaopa/forum.htm

37 Latin American Meeting of Autonomous Popular Organizations (ELAOPA) in Santiago, Chile. Rojo y Negro No. 397, February 2025.

https://rojoynegro.info/articulo/encuentro-latinoamericano-de-organizaci…

38 Final Declaration of the 2003 Anarchist Conference:

https://federacionanarquistauruguaya.uy/declaracion-final-de-las-jornada…

39 List published by Daniel Barret, The Seditious Awakenings of Anarchy. Buenos Aires: Libros de Anarres, 2011. pp. 153-154

40 https://uniaoanarquista.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/el-anar…

41 Anarkismo.net. Interview with one of the founders

https://ithanarquista.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/jose-anto…

42 When an anarcho-communist network was formed, anarcho-syndicalist organizations, such as the CGT, the SAC, or the CNT-Vignoles, and grassroots trade unionists, such as Unicobas or the SUD, joined together in new networks, such as FESAL, the International Trade Union Network of Solidarity and Struggle, or the Coordinadora Rojinegra.

43 Excerpt from the interview Autonomous Action of Russia conducted with the ZACF in 2010. The interview can be read at:

https://zabalaza.net/2010/12/07/autonomous-action-russia-interviews-the-...

44 http://oclibertaire.free.fr/

45 Nick Heath is currently a member of the Anarchist Communist Group. He publishes under the pseudonym BattleScarred.

46 https://anarchistplatform.wordpress.com/

47 Ilan was interviewed extensively in 2025:

https://alasbarricadas.org/noticias/node/57055

48 https://columnalibertaria.blogspot.com/

49 http://www.farj.org/

50 Felipe Corrêa. Interview with Mya Walmsey. Elements of Anarchist Theory and Strategy. An interview with Felipe Corrêa. March 2022.

51 https://avtonom.org/en

52 https://melbacg.au/

53 https://libcom.org/tags/liberty-solidarity

54 Anarcho-Communist Declaration on the Global Economic Crisis and the G20 Meeting, 11/17/2008. https://www.anarkismo.net/article/10681

55 Europe: Libertarian Communists Resist Liaisons. 02/03/2010 https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Europe-Les-communistes-libert…

The agreements can be read here: https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Rencontre-europeenne-de-group…

56 https://www.blackrosefed.org/about/

57 The CAB would not dissolve the international secretariats of each regional or local organization of the Coordinator until 2016, with each participating independently in international coordination until then.

58 Declaration of international solidarity with the 46 activists detained in Zimbabwe. 02/28/2011

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/18895?search_text=declaraci%F3n+intern…

59 International Libertarian Declaration in solidarity with the popular struggle in Egypt, 11/25/2011

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/21228

60 http://www.iceautogestion.org/index.php/es/

61 WSM takes part in Conference of European Anarchist Organizations in London. March 31, 2011 https://www.struggle.ws/exwsm/c/wsm-conference-european-anarkismo-london…

62 The FAO forum was a precursor to the CAB. It was the space where Brazilian organizations met for debate.

63 Anarchist Conference January 2011. Sao Paulo. April 27, 2011

https://federacionanarquistauruguaya.uy/jornadas-anarquistas-enero-janei…

64 Delegation returns from International Anarchist Gathering at St. Imier. August 21, 2012

https://www.struggle.ws/exwsm/sites/default/files/MaydayAnarchistStateme…

65 José María Olaizola Albéniz. The Need for Anarchists to Organize (II). Hernani, January 27, 2013

https://www.anarquia.cat/la-necesidad-de-organizarse-los-anarquistas-ii/

66 May Day. Building a New Workers' Movement. https://www.struggle.ws/exwsm/sites/default/files/MaydayAnarchistStateme…

67 International Libertarian Declaration of Solidarity with the Kurdish Resistance, 10/22/2014

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/27505

68 We Anarchist/Liberal Communists in the Classroom, in the Europe of Capital, 12/11/2017

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/30713

69 The map has not been updated, so it serves to show the state of the libertarian communist movement that year.

70 Consider, for example, these messages received by UCL in 2015:

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Messages-internationaux

71 WSM Closing Statement

https://libcom.org/article/workers-solidarity-movement-closing-statement

72 https://www.motmakt.no/

73 https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/

74 2017 Statement on Michael Schmidt Case / Declaração sobre o caso Michael Schmidt

https://ithanarquista.wordpress.com/2017/03/23/2017-statement-on-michael…

75 Interview with UMLEM, 04/03/2008:

https://www.alasbarricadas.org/noticias/node/7092

76 Felipe Ramírez, A Bet Revolutionary movement of the Libertarian Left. 03/11/2013

https://periodico-solidaridad.blogspot.com/2013/11/declaracion-nacional-...

77 See https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izquierda_Libertaria

78 https://www.instagram.com/izqlibertaria/?hl=es

79 Regarding the breakup of the Libertarian Left, some activists issued this statement:

https://www.tercerainformacion.es/articulo/internacional/30/03/2017/chil…

80 https://solidaridadfcl.org

81 https://fasanarquista7.wordpress.com/

82 Anarchist Conference 2019, 03/20/2019.

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/31339

83 https://www.instagram.com/cabanarquista/

84 https://www.instagram.com/far_rosario/

85 CALA Launch Statement. December 15, 2019

https://federacionanarquistauruguaya.uy/comunicado-de-lanzamiento-de-la-...

86 Joint Internationalist Declaration for the Freedom of the Political Prisoners of the Social Uprising in the Chilean Region, December 12, 2019

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32109

87 Update on the Campaign for the Sudanese Anarchists. April 18, 2024

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32877?search_text=Sudan

88 https://www.facebook.com/DAFederasyon/

89 https://tekosinaanarsist.noblogs.org/

Foglio telematico di lotta Alternativa Libertaria sui Referendum dell’8-9 Giugno su lavoro e cittadinanza

Clicca qui sotto per scaricarlo:

https://alternativalibertaria.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/foglio-alternativa-libertaria-giugno-2025-scheda.pdf

Esce il numero 35 de Il Cantiere!

In questo numero:

Dal 25 Aprile al Primo Maggio- Alternativa Libertaria/FdCA – pag. 3

“La Guerra” – Le Formiche – Boris Vian- pag. 5

Le contraddizioni del sistema economico capitalistico sono un puzzle irrisolvibile – Cristiano Valente – pag. 7

Se otto ore vi sembran poche – Tommaso Santino – pag.11

Lo Statuto dei Lavoratori – Carmine Valente – pag.14

Lo scontro tra potenze capitaliste e l’accaparramento delle risorse minerarie del Congo – Virgilio Caletti e Lino Roveredo – pag.16

La caccia agli stranieri: la situazione in Francia – Plateforme Communiste Libertaire – pag.19

Un profilo storico dell’anarcosindacalismo in Germania a cura di David Bernardini – L’anarcosindacalismo in Germania – Gerhard Wartemberg – pag. 22

Il totalitarismo nella storia del novecento: la lettura di Gunther Anders – Roberto Manfredini – pag. 25

Barcellona, Maggio 1937: La borghesia e gli stalinisti uccidono la rivoluzione – Fontenis – Berneri- pag. 27

Poesia – L’Angolo delle Brigate – a cura di Rosa Colella – pag. 31

Puoi scaricare il pdf nella sezione “La nostra stampa” del sito!

A different reading of several concepts
By Zaher Baher
April 2025
1. Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism

This concept was introduced by Lenin, who wrote this book in 1916 during World War I (WW1) while he was in Switzerland, a year before the October Revolution. In writing this book, Lenin greatly benefited from Marx's economic analysis.
The research that Lenin conducted and presented in this book is based on several key points and events in the stages of imperialism, which have been given different titles by economists and historians. According to their definitions, a strong nation or rather, a powerful state expands its influence over weaker countries or regions through political, economic, or military control. This often involves colonization, exploitation, the plundering of resources, and the domination of local populations.
Imperialism has existed in various forms throughout history, but the term is most commonly associated with the period from the 15th to the 20th century. Earlier examples include empires such as the Roman, Persian, and Chinese empires, which expanded by conquering territories.
For Lenin, the term was broadened to explain the economic and political causes of imperialism and its role in triggering global conflicts such as WWI. He argued that imperialism was a natural evolution of capitalism, driven by monopoly and finance capital, which sought new markets through colonial expansion. Lenin defined imperialism as the ‘Highest stage of capitalism,’ in which large corporations and banks dominate economies and seek new markets and resources abroad.
He identifies five main characteristics of imperialism:
1. Capitalism leads to the concentration of production and the rise of monopoly capital, which dominates all industries.
2. The merger of banking and industrial capital results in the emergence of financial oligarchies.
3. The export of capital (investment in foreign markets) becomes more significant than the export of goods.
4. The formation of international capitalist monopolies that divide the world among themselves.
5. The territorial division of the world among the imperialist powers is completed, leading to conflict.
Drawing on Marx's writings on economics, Lenin understood that capitalism was evolving toward monopoly, with small businesses being exploited by large corporations. The issue of currency and monetary institutions was an inevitable response to the phenomenon of capitalism. At its core, capitalism is characterized by the conflict between companies and wealth, which leads to exploitation and ultimately to great wars. Lenin saw WWI as a direct consequence of imperialism’s competition for colonies, raw materials, and markets.

Was Lenin's concept right?

Before answering the question, I must emphasize that Marxists, like religious individuals, are ideologists. They continue to believe that definitions of modern capitalism, formulated in a specific historical context, remain valid even after all these years. Their biggest challenge much like that of religious individuals is their tendency to detach interpretation, discourse, and concepts from their original source, time, place, and reality.
If we examine the reality of modern capitalism, the progress and changes that it has undergone, it becomes clear that this concept is flawed and has become obsolete. Rejecting it is not difficult, as the justifications used to support it can now be objectively assessed as either true or false.
Lenin believed that capitalism would inevitably collapse and that socialism would emerge, leaving no further stage or development for capitalism beyond imperialism. However, we see that instead of collapsing, capitalism has largely sustained itself through various reforms, such as the implementation of different service policies, globalization, and the advancement of new technologies and innovations.
Another argument made by Lenin was that capitalism is inherently monopolistic. However, with the rise of neoliberalism, global trade, the digital economy, and the occurrence of various short- and long-term wars, capitalism has not only managed to modernize itself but has also expanded beyond mere monopolization. Large corporations engage in intense competition to create new markets and revitalize existing ones, ensuring their continued relevance and profitability.
Another key principle in Lenin's concept was that foreign investment and expansion often occurred through force and occupation. However, today, we see that many of these transactions are voluntary, and states do not always act under pressure from one another. Instead, numerous trade and industrial agreements exist between countries. Additionally, states employ economic strategies such as adjusting interest rates, managing inflation, and imposing tariffs. These measures influence both the value of their currency and the dynamics of production and trade.
Another important point to consider, despite the existence of exploitation and cheap labour, is that most investments and large-scale projects today are carried out through contracts between major corporations and the states that require these projects, or between states themselves. In the modern era, no country can complete all its projects solely with its own companies or government resources; instead, they rely on large corporations or other states to execute these projects.
For example, many African countries are undertaking major projects such as roads, large bridges, dams, and various other infrastructure developments through partnerships with China and Chinese companies. Additionally, many states finance these projects through loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, despite the fact that the contractual conditions can be extremely challenging and stringent. While some projects or loans may be necessary and unavoidable, they are largely undertaken voluntarily rather than being imposed through occupation, exploitation, or the forced extraction of resources.
In conclusion, some of Lenin’s assertions remain valid, particularly regarding the persistence of great power hegemony, war, and oppression, which continue to this day. However, while economic hegemony still exists, it has evolved into a more complex and resilient system than Lenin initially predicted.
In my opinion, imperialism is not the highest stage of capitalism. Capitalism has moved beyond that stage and has now reached the stage of globalization. Globalization and imperialism are two distinct phases with different definitions and paths of development. While imperialism was indeed a stage in capitalism’s evolution, it was not its peak. Imperialism existed in a time when globalization had not yet emerged, and with the rise of globalization, imperialism as it once existed has ceased to be relevant.

2 The Third World Theory

In my opinion, this theory is closely connected to the earlier discussion on imperialism, despite the years that separate them. According to Lenin, imperialism is not only the primary enemy of the working class but also the arch-enemy of colonized nations, as it involves occupying and plundering their natural and human resources while preventing them from achieving independence and progress. Although Lenin did not specifically use the concept of the ‘Third World’ his theory inherently applies to regions and countries that were once occupied and exploited by imperialist powers. It is essentially the basis of the theory of the third world theory.
In this context, Lenin believed that the struggle for national liberation should be initiated, with the workers of the country serving as the main force in this struggle alongside the national liberation movement. Lenin wrote several important texts on this issue, including ‘The Right of Nations to Self-Determination’ (1914–), where he argued that oppressed nations have the right to secede and form independent states. He emphasized that Marxists must support this right while simultaneously advocating for the unity of the proletariat. Lenin stressed the importance of addressing the issue of oppressed nations, particularly those in Asia, in their quest for independence from imperialist powers.
Lenin elaborates on the connection between the socialist revolution and the struggle for national liberation in his 1916 text, ‘The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination’ (1916). He emphasizes that the right to self-determination is a democratic right that fosters unity among workers across different nations. Written in February of that year, these writings extensively discuss national liberation movements, anti-imperialism, and the role of oppressed nations in the global revolutionary struggle. Lenin's works highlight the liberation struggles of nations in Asia, Africa, and other colonized regions.
When Lenin wrote ‘Imperialism is the Highest Stage of Capitalism in1917, he once again emphasized the role of revolutionary movements in Asia. His views on national liberation and national destiny aligned closely with many anti-colonial movements across Asia.
Later, in 1920, Lenin revisited this topic in his Theses on ‘National and Colonial Questions’, presented at the Second Congress of the Communist International. There, he reaffirmed his belief that communists should support anti-colonial and national liberation movements.
Obviously, Lenin relied on the positions of Marx and Engels, who wrote on the issue of Ireland and Poland in their time and supported the independence of both countries, which they believed would benefit the labor movement in both countries.
The above writings were part of a series in which Lenin addressed the national liberation movement. However, despite these contributions, the idea of the ‘Third World Theory’ did not immediately develop into a fully universal theory. Instead, Lenin’s work laid a strong foundation for the theory, which evolved through various stages and efforts before eventually developing into the ‘Third World Theory.’
Third World Theory later emerged as a political and economic concept during the pre and post-Cold War era, initially taking shape in the 1950s and 1960s. The theory focused on countries that were neither aligned with the Western Bloc (led by the U.S. and its NATO allies) nor the Eastern Bloc (led by the former Soviet Union and its allies). Instead, these nations mostly former colonies in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East sought to establish their own independent political and economic paths.
The concept or term Third World Theory was first introduced by French demographer Alfred Sauvy. He drew a comparison between the Third World and the Third Estate in pre-revolutionary 19th-century France. The term originally referred to the common people, who were marginalized and exploited, highlighting their need for revolution.
The political and ideological development of ‘Third World Theory’ then entered a new stage, closely linked to the leaders and thinkers of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and anti-imperialist struggles. To this end, Asian and African leaders gathered in 1955 at a conference in Indonesia to promote cooperation and oppose colonialism. In 1961, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was officially founded in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. The ‘Third World’ thus became a symbol of resistance, anti-imperialism, and the aspiration for a new world order.
The formation of the Chinese Communist Party and the movement led by Mao Zedong, culminating in their victory in 1949, played a crucial role in linking Mao’s theories on nationalism and anti-imperialism with Lenin’s theses. This connection significantly influenced other national movements and contributed to the further development of ‘Third World Theory’. As the theory evolved, it entered a new stage and, by the 1970s, became a manifesto for various movements that sought to challenge imperialism and assert national sovereignty.

The essence of the Third World Theory

Since the 1970s, the theory of the Third World has gained significant meaning in both form and content. Many communist parties, as well as other groups under different names but still adhering to communist ideologies, have expressed the world in this way and shaped their tactics and goals accordingly. Their vision of the world introduced a new purpose and redefined its structure.
The First World consisted of the Great Powers (the USA and the USSR), which the theory identified as two imperialist forces. The Second World included developed industrialized countries, such as European countries and several others, positioned between the powerful nations and the industrially backward countries. The Third World comprised nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, which were considered underdeveloped.
According to this theory, the main conflict for these parties, including the left and the communists, is the conflict between their country and the two countries that are considered imperialists (US and Russia). In this regard, they believed that the Third World was the primary force for revolutionary change.
The expansion and damage of the theory reached the point where it became the ultimate criterion for defining the revolutionary movement. Whoever fought against imperialism was a revolutionary. Even worse than this, the theory was ignoring the oppression role of the internal national bourgeoisie because it was considered a patriotic power. So therefore the fight against the bourgeoisie and the domestic capitalists, who were considered national capitalists or patriotic capitalists rejected overruled by these parties and organisation. The theory has seen considered domestic capitalists as a step toward the socialist revolution because supporting those means developing the country's economy in terms of industry, which means increasing the number of workers by industrializing it and taking the country towards capitalism. According to this theory it brings us closer to the socialist revolution.
The two worst aspects of this theory were that, in some countries, pro-Russian parties supported their governments due to their alignment with Russia, believing that this would lead the country towards socialism through capitalism and supporting the Russia under the so called policy of the non-capitalistic development towards socialism. In countries such as Iraq, it was different, the Communist Party convinced their members and the public that socialism could be achieved through a democratic state or a people's democracy state by developing a non-capitalist path.
Another disadvantage drawback of this theory is that even among leftists, social democrats, and parties such as the Socialist Workers Party in the UK, their stance on international conflicts has been shaped by this framework. For example, during the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s, they supported Iran. This position was particularly evident in the British Socialist Workers Party at the time.
In contemporary conflicts, such as the war between Russia and Ukraine, these leftists support Ukraine because they see Russia as the main imperialist force. Similarly, in conflicts involving Hezbollah, Hamas, and other groups against Israel, leftists take the side of these organizations against Israel, viewing it as a major U.S. military base. According to the 'Third World Theory,' they also support countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, and other Latin American nations governed by leftist parties that oppose the United States. Thus, the theory of the three worlds has become a criterion for these leftists to determine which powers align with or oppose the United States in global conflicts.
Applying this theory to any of the fields mentioned above serves the capitalist system by dividing workers, turning themselves against each other, and weakening their collective struggle. Furthermore, the misuse of the concept of imperialism is a critical mistake that could severely harm the workers' movement and the masses.
Today, the entire world operates under capitalism, though it is divided into developed and undeveloped industrialized countries. The conflicts between these states are essentially wars of oppression and attacks on the workers' movement, both directly and indirectly. The names of these states, the parties that govern them, and their claims are irrelevant. This serves as a justification for categorizing capitalism into two parts: imperialism, the “negative” aspect of capitalism, and the other, which is seen as the "good" part of capitalism.
Everyone’s struggle must focus on striking at the capitalists, local and national governments, and the system’s main pillar: the state. This is the only radical and comprehensive way to bring down the system itself. It is not about supporting the state in its wars but rather rebelling against it by any way possible, both individually and collectively. The core of the struggle is to address the conflict between the capitalist state and the workers, and the masses, with the goal of eliminating wage labour system and dismantling the greatest pillar of capitalism: the state.
Unfortunately, the ‘Third World Theory’ still exists today and continues to play a significant role in dividing and misleading us. It leads us to trust the national regime, the nation-state, and the idea of a legitimate war against "imperialism," which is seen by them as the great fortress of capitalism.
In my opinion, the concept of imperialism, as used by some anarchists, is incorrect. It divides capitalism and capitalist states into "good" and "bad," which in turn divides the working class, the masses, and their movements. This is a clear distortion of the idea that capitalism is a global system, and its opposing movement must also be global. This approach represents a return to the Third World theory, and it’s use serves to defend the war between capitalist states by justifying one side and demonizing the other. Whether done consciously or unconsciously, this approach is rooted in the Third World Theory, which has caused significant harm to our movement in the past.

3 The Nation-state

The common definition of a nation-state is a country where most of the population shares a common language, culture, ethnicity, or historical background. It has a defined territory with recognized borders and a government that holds sovereignty (control) over both the land and its people. A central authority enforces laws and is said to maintain order and security. Additionally, a nation-state is recognized as an independent entity by other states and international organizations, often maintaining diplomatic relations through envoys and diplomats.
In addition to the above, the nation-state is believed to have full control over its internal and external affairs, maintaining independence in this regard. It is also commonly described as a national achievement and a political entity defined by a shared cultural, linguistic, or national identity.
The nation-state is often described as having citizens who are relatively homogeneous in factors such as language, race, or ancestry. The idea is that the political boundaries of the state align with the cultural boundaries of the nation. It is believed that this sense of shared identity fosters a feeling of ownership over the country and its governance, allowing the nation-state to maintain stability, national unity, and social cohesion.
But is that true?
Today, when we examine any nation-state in the world, we must question whether this concept promoted by authorities, national parties, nationalists, social democrats, and even some leftists is right? Does a state truly exist under the name of a nation-state? How much longer will this idea continue to dominate our thinking simply because it is favoured by academics, economists, and intellectuals who serve the system?
In my opinion, there is substantial evidence to prove that the term is incorrect. However, I will focus on three key points that clearly demonstrate the flaws in this concept.
First, no state or country is truly independent, especially in terms of economic self-sufficiency, which is essential for political independence. Even major powers like the United States, Japan, Germany, and Britain rely on others to a varying degree, both economically and, at times, politically.
In this case, there is no need to rely on statistics, as it is evident that international trade, participation in trade institutions, economic agreements, and industrial treaties all demonstrate this dependence. Anyone who shops in a market or searches online will find that many versions of the same product come from different countries. Therefore, neither states nor countries are truly independent, nor can they remain so. This is a defining feature of capitalist progress and globalization. If any modern state or country attempts to withdraw from this system, it will gradually weaken and may even collapse.
Second, the nation-state, whose core institution is the government, primarily serves a particular class typically a small minority of elites and the upper class. In most of these states and countries, the general population and citizens do not necessarily belong to the dominant national identity as defined by the state. Furthermore, the nation-state prioritizes the interests of large corporations, capitalists, and the wealthy—regardless of race or gender rather than those of the majority, including mainly workers and the exploited. Therefore, it is misleading to label a state as a "nation-state" simply because its official language aligns with that of the dominant nation. Moreover, due to globalization, the indigenous cultures of many nations have weakened or even partially disappeared.

Third, the idea that nation-states are defined by a common language and culture is inaccurate. Nearly all states, aside from their dominant national group, include ethnic minorities, some of whom have lived there for generations. These minorities have their own distinct cultures, traditions, and religions, which are not shared with the dominant nation or other minority groups. While they may coexist and respect one another, their cultural identities remain separate.
That being said, there is no denying that English is the official language in Britain, French in France and German in Germany, just as other countries have their own official languages used by everyone. However, these official languages are not necessarily learned or adopted voluntarily by non-English or non-French or non-German communities. In fact, the living conditions in these countries often compel people to learn the official language English in the UK, French in France and German in Germany. Education, writing, public speaking, work, theatre, and market transactions are all conducted in the official language, rather than in the native languages of minority communities.
This is despite the fact that in many nation-states, such as Iran, Iraq, India, Sri Lanka, Turkey, China, Rwanda, Congo, and many others, the ruling class of the dominant nation often implements discriminatory policies. These include the repression of minority groups through violence, arrests, expulsions, and the banning of their languages, cultures, and religions.
It is clear that the nation-state does not embody the basic principles outlined above, and the concepts associated with it do not truly apply. The term "nation-state" turns out to be a misleading or meaningless label, rather than a reflection of reality. Capitalism has intentionally used this concept to its advantage, benefiting from it in numerous ways while also using it as an excuse for both leftist and nationalist movements to fight whether peacefully or with arms. In the context of armed movements, the system itself has been the primary winner and beneficiary. Therefore, through the use of this term, capitalism has benefited in every possible way.

4 White man

The concept of the white man regarding race, culture, and social relationships has, like many other concepts and phenomena, evolved to some extent over time and throughout the different stages of human history.
Ancient civilizations, such as the Greeks and Romans, did not classify people by 'race' in the modern sense. Instead, they differentiated individuals based on culture, language, and geography. While they did recognize physical differences, such as skin colour, these distinctions did not imply a social (categories) or systemic hierarchy as they would in later periods.
It is generally understood that the term 'white man' refers to an individual classified as belonging to the white racial group, typically associated with people of European descent. From a historical perspective, this concept is not solely biological, as its meaning is also shaped by historical developments and the individual's position within a social context.
Like the concept of race itself, the idea of the 'white man' has been modernized and adapted over time to reflect social status. For instance, during the colonization of nations and the transatlantic slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries, the concept of race began to take shape and was developed to justify the enslavement of Africans and the displacement of indigenous peoples. However, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Irish, Italian, and Eastern European immigrants were not considered fully 'white' in the United States. The colony of Virginia (in what is now the United States) is often cited as one of the earliest places, in the late 1600s, where 'whiteness' was legally defined and used to create a social divide between poor Europeans and enslaved Africans.
Undoubtedly, the law has long served as an effective tool for ruling class and classes to enforce their interests. Throughout history, repression, slavery, and even discrimination against women have been legalized in many countries to benefit those in power. In the past, laws and policies in places like in the United States and European colonies granted legal privileges to 'white' people, often at the expense of excluding others. These laws and policies promoted racial hierarchies as a means of maintaining power and justifying inequality.
In short, the term 'white man,' when associated with racial issues, was primarily coined during the periods of colonialism and slavery. It served to establish a system of privilege and power for Europeans and their descendants. Race, as it is used in society, is a social construct rather than a concept grounded in biology.
Considering the above, can we still use the idea of whiteness or white skin, or the concept of the white person, in today's context?
Although in societies where the term has been used it is associated with social, political, and economic privileges, I find the use of the term 'white man' problematic for at least two reasons:
First, there are millions of 'white' women and men in predominantly 'white' societies whose living conditions and social status are no better than those of Black people and others of different skin colours. Like many others in these societies, they face oppression and marginalization, regardless of race, nationality, or citizenship. Their political and economic interests are suppressed by the same economic and political system that oppresses both white and non-white individuals. Their struggle unites them against the exploiters, the state, and the state’s laws.
Second, some Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic, (BAME) individuals have held high social and political positions, such as Rishi Sunak (The Prime Minister of the UK from 25/10/22 to 05/07/2024), Humza Yousaf (First Minister of Scotland and Leader of the Scottish National Party from March 2023 to May 2024), and Kemi Badenoch, the current leader of the Conservative Party in the UK and Nadhim Zahawi the former Chancellor of the Exchequer. In addition, there are dozens of non-white Members of Parliament in Westminster, Scotland, and Wales, who hold political power and play a role in shaping the policies of their parties and countries.
Of course, this is true not only for Britain but also for the entire region of Europe, the United States, and the Scandinavian countries.
Therefore, the issue of race should not be viewed as a biological phenomenon, but rather as a matter of superiority, domination, and political and economic status. We could even argue that they have no distinct race, nation, or country; their passports represent their wealth, which grants them that social status. This concept is completely rejected, especially when it carries historical weight or is used in the context of power dynamics or stereotypes.
That being said, it cannot be denied that racism remains a significant issue in these countries, driven by political, legal, and economic factors that the state both directly and indirectly fosters to divide its citizens for its own interests.

5 All wars are wars for power

The term “class war” was not commonly used before the 19th century, but the concept of conflict between social classes had existed for centuries. For example, in medieval Europe, peasant uprisings such as the English Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 and the German Peasants’ War of 1524–1525 were essentially struggles between social classes, even though the specific term “class war” was not explicitly used at the time.
In France, during the Revolution (1789–1799), veterans, intellectuals, and revolutionaries of the time used terminology that closely resembled the concept of “class war.”
The term “class war” was largely popularized by the French anarchist and socialist thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in the mid-nineteenth century. He was among the first to explicitly refer to “class war,” rather than merely “class struggle.” In his writings, Proudhon described the economic and social conflict between workers and capitalists as a form of war.
However, the concept of “class war” as an explicit notion of violent or revolutionary class struggle was later developed further by Marxists and other socialists, particularly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The idea was more thoroughly explored and debated, and over time, class warfare came to be increasingly associated with authoritarianism.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels primarily used the term "class struggle", Klassenkampf in German—rather than "class war," although they did refer to class warfare when discussing revolutionary confrontation. This language first appeared in ‘The Communist Manifesto’ (1848), where they famously wrote that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle." They argued that this struggle would ultimately lead to the overthrow of the bourgeoisie by the proletariat. Engels, in particular, referred more explicitly to "class war" in some of his letters and speeches when discussing revolution.
Mikhail Bakunin, the Russian anarchist, frequently invoked the idea of class war to describe violent revolutionary action against the state and capitalists. During and after the Paris Commune of 1871, the use of the term “class war” became firmly established among revolutionaries, especially following the brutal suppression of the uprising by French authorities.
Marx and Engels, along with later Marxist thinkers, viewed class struggle as a real and driving force behind material conditions. They agreed that the bourgeoisie (the capitalist class) and the proletariat had fundamentally opposing interests, which formed the foundation of their social conflict. All of them connected the proletarian goal to the seizure of state power as a means to eliminate class differences and ultimately abolish classes altogether.
In many cases, the theory of class struggle was used as a tool to mobilize the masses and popularize revolutionary movements. However, the result was often the creation of a new ruling power rather than the actual dissolution of class divisions. Revolutionary leaders, in their pursuit of popular support, frequently invoked the idea of class war to inspire and rally workers and peasants.
In my opinion, many of the wars throughout history that have been labelled as class wars were not truly about class struggle, but rather about power and the seizure of power. These conflicts were often framed in terms of economic inequality and oppression, which served as means to rally support and legitimize the cause. While it is true that many individuals participated in these wars suffering, becoming disabled, or even sacrificing their lives and families—the core of these conflicts was ultimately about the struggle for power. Uprisings, revolutions, and struggles often resulted in the rise of new elites, rather than the creation of a truly classless society. Once in power, these leaders tended to prioritize maintaining their own authority over attaining genuine classless society and social equality.
Disguised wars have often been labelled as class wars, such as the French Revolution (1789–1799), in which the Jacobins overthrew the aristocracy, only to establish a new elite, followed by Napoleon's eventual rise to power.
The Russian Revolution of 1917, led by the Bolsheviks, is another example of a power struggle that was initially framed as a class struggle but, in reality, was a struggle for power. Over time, the scope of this power struggle became so concentrated that authority shifted from the broader revolutionary movement to the central committee of the Bolshevik Party. Similarly, the Chinese Communist Party's revolution, led by Mao Zedong, which culminated in victory in 1949, was also fundamentally a struggle for power.
Other examples include the wars between the Safavid and Ottoman Empires, the wars between some Arab countries and Israel in 1967 and 1973, the wars in Southeast Asia, the Falklands War, the Iran-Iraq War, the two Gulf Wars, and the ongoing conflict between Hamas, Hezbollah, and Israel, as well as the war between Russia and Ukraine. It is evident that all these conflicts whether class-based, religious, or ethnic are essentially struggles for power, including self-defence wars to prevent foreign powers from replacing domestic authority.
None of these wars can be considered class wars; rather, they are struggles to regain or seize power. Whether one side attacked and the other defended is irrelevant to the core issue these are wars driven by the desire for control and authority.
As I mentioned earlier, both Proudhon and Bakunin spoke of class war, class struggle, or class violence, but they never framed these as authoritarian wars or wars fought to seize power. Similarly, although anarchists acknowledge the existence of class struggle, it is not for the purpose of gaining political power. For them, political struggle is not a means or a bridge to achieve political power or the supremacy of one class over another. Instead, it is a means to destroy the supremacy of all classes and eradicate all forms of political power. Therefore, it can be said that, both theoretically and practically, anarchists were the only ones who did not use class struggle or class war as a tool to gain power.

I will conclude with a question: If all these wars were truly class wars and not struggles for power, why have none of them eliminated the distinctions between class and power? Why, instead, have they deepened the class divide and strengthened power as a form of state authority?

Zaherbaher.com

Chers camarades,
notre Organisation ─ Alternativa Libertaria/Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici ─ vous adresse ses salutations les plus fraternelles et ses meilleurs vœux pour les Journées d'Eté Rouge et Noir 2024.
Outre les camarades de l'UCL, nous saluons les camarades de Die Plattform et d'Embat, dont nous savons qu'ils seront présents à Bécours pour participer aux activités, aux débats et à la confrontation politique de cette semaine.
Cette année, nous ne pourrons malheureusement pas être présents à vos côtés, mais nous tenons néanmoins à vous adresser nos salutations et à vous faire part de notre brève contribution.
Tout d'abord, nous espérons que nos Organisations pourront coopérer de plus en plus étroitement et fructueusement. Nous pensons que le réseau Anarkismo doit grandir et s'améliorer, et nous sommes engagés dans la naissance, la croissance et la formalisation d'une coordination européenne réelle et efficace de nos Organisations.
En ces temps de résurgence de l'extrême droite et d'attaques de plus en plus graves de la bourgeoisie contre les droits et les conditions de vie des travailleurs et des travailleuses et contre l'environnement, il est impératif que les communistes anarchistes sachent se confronter, étudier et agir de concert et efficacement pour constituer une force révolutionnaire capable de contribuer, avec d'autres, à la résistance sociale et syndicale et aux mobilisations de masse contre la droite au pouvoir.
Les domaines de la lutte des classes, de l'intervention syndicale, de l'activisme social, écologique et antimilitariste sont d'une importance primordiale pour nous et c'est là que nous sommes le plus présents avec nos militants. C'est dans ces domaines que nous vous invitons à collaborer, en identifiant des stratégies et des tactiques d'intervention communes et incisives.
L'internationalisme et la solidarité avec les prolétaires des pays en guerre, les droits des minorités LGBTQ+, les luttes pour une école et une université laïques, libres et de masse sont d'autres axes sur lesquels nous devons travailler ensemble.
Notre Organisation est actuellement engagée, dans les localités où elle est présente avec ses militants, dans l'intervention syndicale au sein de la CGIL, le plus grand syndicat d'Italie, au sein de la minorité critique, sur des positions anti-réformistes et anti-bureaucratiques inspirées par les mots d'ordre d'unité de classe, de progression des acquis salariaux et des droits, et de transformation radicale de la société dans un sens anticapitaliste, communiste et libertaire.
Nous sommes également engagés dans le mouvement antimilitariste et anti-impérialiste, participant aux luttes pour la fermeture des bases militaires de l'OTAN en Italie, mais aussi dans le mouvement écologique et pour une consommation critique et consciente. Avec d'autres groupes libertaires, nous participons à des initiatives culturelles et à la propagande politique de nos idées communes.
Avec nos forces limitées, nous sommes toujours prêts à travailler ensemble, toujours plus unis vers la perspective d'une Organisation internationale des communistes anarchistes et libertaires qui puisse servir de référence aux nouvelles générations de militants dans les luttes présentes et futures.
Secrétariat National
Alternativa Libertaria/Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici
Août 2024

Dear comrades,
In recent months, our Organization has been engaged in an intense and difficult debate during which different visions of priorities and areas of political intervention emerged, as well as different ways of interpreting the organization and its functioning.
At the end of this debate, some comrades gradually decided to take different paths from ours.
The Council of Delegates and the National Secretariat of our Organization have endeavored in every way to prevent this, proposing a unified political solution and a new Congress to be built together.
We are deeply saddened by the choice of these comrades, with whom we have shared many years of militancy and political battles.
We consider this matter even more serious and painful at a historical moment when the bourgeoisie's attack on the lives and rights of workers is intensifying; when reactionary forces are re-emerging and asserting themselves in many countries; when imperialist wars are making more and more victims among the proletarians forced to fight each other.
The unity of the workers' movement, of revolutionary forces, and of the organizations of anarchist and libertarian communists is now more indispensable than ever, and we will continue to pursue it as an absolute priority of our Organization.
Alternativa Libertaria/FdCA therefore intends to strengthen relationships with the organizations adhering to the Anarkismo network by contributing to the common political elaboration and intervention for the strengthening of international Anarchist Communism.
We do not consider it appropriate at this time to detail the different positions taken in the political debate that led to the aforementioned departure.
The documents that have been produced are, however, available to the comrades of our sister Organizations adhering to the Anarkismo network.

July 21, 2024

118th Council of Delegates of Alternativa Libertaria/FdCA

Content warning: This text involves talking about sexual violence and death.

In August 2023, we, anarchist organisations from five continents, launched an international solidarity campaign. Its aim was and is to support Sudanese anarchists fleeing war and repression in their country and to ensure that they arrive safely in a destination country of their choice. Six months have now passed since our first call for solidarity. In this short text, we would like to report on the current situation and the continuation of our campaign.

First things first: the majority of the small group of anarchist comrades with whom we have been in contact since 2022 and whom we have been supporting in their journey into exile since last year have now managed to leave Sudan. A small number of comrades is still in the country and is part of the resistance committees in Sudan. Among other things, they are working to support displaced people. The resistance committees help women in refugee camps to form their own committees to defend themselves. They also organize independent activities for children and young people because there is currently no school due to the war. But working under the military emergency law is dangerous. Our comrades on the ground need support to leave the country, because the political situation for activists and revolutionaries is increasingly uncertain and there are many arbitrary arrests. A terrible piece of news that recently reached us showed just how dangerous the situation is: In her attempt to flee the capital Khartoum, our comrade Sarah was raped and murdered by members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). We share the deep pain of our comrades over this loss.

The fact that we have been able to carry out international solidarity work at all - albeit on an extremely limited scale - is thanks to the great support of many organizations and individuals from all parts of the world. With their help we have been able to significantly exceed the original donation goal of 2000 US dollars. We would like to take this opportunity to express our warmest thanks to all those people who have supported this campaign and put their solidarity into practice!

However, the costs of our project have also significantly exceeded expectations. The main reason for this is the extremely unstable and worsening situation in Sudan. The war between the Sudanese army and the RSF militia has been going on for almost a year now. The fighting intensifies with each passing month. Over 14,000 people have already been killed. More and more parts of the country are being drawn into the fighting, more and more blood is being shed, more and more people are being displaced. Mass exodus and war have led to an unbearable famine that is worsening every day. The lives of hundreds of thousands of people are acutely at stake. It is a game that is also being played by international actors. The weapons used by the RSF against the civilian population are partly funded by the European Union. The EU deployed the militia as a border force in the service of its migration defense for at least a few years, has been arming them for this purpose and is very likely still doing so (1,2). Currently, there are in increasing indications that the United Arab Emirates, for example, are supplying the RSF with sophisticated weapons systems to keep the war going (3).

In addition to the war in their own country, the repressive border regimes of the surrounding countries also make it difficult for our comrades to flee Sudan. The prices for VISAs to enter the northern neighboring country of Egypt, for example, have skyrocketed. The few remaining transportation routes have also become enormously more expensive. A large part of the money raised by the campaign has therefore already been spent. We need more money to enable our last comrades to flee Sudan and to finance the continuing journey of the other comrades. We will therefore be stepping up our efforts for the campaign once again in the coming months. In some regions, our organizations will spread the campaign, which has so far mainly had a digital presence, even more widely on the ground. We also want to draw attention to the general, catastrophic situation of the people from below in Sudan and help to break through the blanket of silence that the governments and their press have prepared over the events there.

We call on all trade unions, social and political organisations and all individuals in solidarity to stand with the Sudanese anarchists and continue to support the campaign. Spread the word in your organisations and movements. Use all public channels available to you. Donate to the campaign. Every form of help counts.

Unite against war and repression!
International solidarity with the Sudanese anarchists!

Sources:
1: https://migration-control.info/en/blog/how-the-european-union-finances-oppression/
2: https://www.sudanuprising.net/the-rapid-support-forces-and-the-european-unions-migration-control-policy-in-sudan.html
3: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/29/world/africa/sudan-war-united-arab-emirates-chad.html

The Italian Errico Malatesta (1853—1932) was a comrade and friend of Michael Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin. Calling himself an anarchist-socialist, he was respected and loved by large numbers of anarchists and workers, in Italy and other countries. He was closely watched by the police forces of several nations. He had escaped imprisonment in Italy and lived in various countries in Europe, the Middle East, the U.S.A., and Latin America. Four times he spent time in Britain. This volume has collected works from his longest stay there, from 1900 to 1913, from when he was 48 to 61.

Britain, secure in its wealth and imperial power, was the most open European country in providing asylum to political refugees—so long as they obeyed local laws. As a result, the UK had communities of anarchists and other socialists from all over Europe. There was also an overlapping colony of Italians. Malatesta lived in London, supporting himself by running a small electrician’s shop. Only at one point, in 1912, did the police and courts make a serious effort to expel him. This set off massive demonstrations of British and immigrant workers and outcries from liberal newspapers and politicians. The attempt at expulsion was dropped.

However, Malatesta was frustrated by being penned up in Britain. He made several efforts to produce an anarchist-socialist paper which would circulate in Italy, but with limited success. He participated in anarchist activities in Britain, but his English, while apparently serviceable, was not fluent (when not speaking Italian, he preferred French). This volume includes his translated articles, pamphlets, and written speeches, as well as interviews of him by both bourgeois and radical newspapers. There are also reports by police spies (at least one of whom passed as a close comrade). They faithfully recorded his speeches and private comments and passed them on to their superiors.

In the course of Malatesta’s lengthy sojourn in London, he discussed a number of topics which were important to anarchists then and are still important. He was not an major theorist of political economy or history, but he was brilliant about strategic and tactical issues of the anarchist movement. This makes the study of Malatesta’s collected work valuable even today.

Terrorism

Around the time the book begins, in 1900, an Italian anarchist who had been living in the U.S., went back to Europe and assassinated Humbert, the Italian king. Apparently Malatesta had met the assassin, Bresci, briefly while in Patterson NJ. Otherwise he knew nothing about the affair. However the press continually tried to interview him about it, seeking to tie anarchism to assassination.

Malatesta always opposed indiscriminate mass terrorism (such as throwing bombs into restaurants). Nor did he call for assassination of prominent individuals, whether kings, presidents, or big businesspeople. In general, it did not advance the cause. His approach had become one of building revolutionary anarchist organizations, to participate in mass struggles. However, he was understanding of the motives of individual anarchists driven to assassination—and not sympathetic at all to the rulers and exploiters whom they killed. The Italian king, he noted, had previously ordered soldiers to massacre peasants and workers.

When US President William McKinley was shot dead by Czolgosz, who claimed to be anarchist, Malatesta called the president, “the head of [the] North American oligarchy, the instrument and defender of the great capitalists, the traitor of the Cubans and Filipinos, the man who authorized the massacre of the Hazelton strikers, the tortures of the Idaho miners and the thousand disgraces being committed in the ‘model republic.’” (Malatesta 2023; p. 75) He felt no sorrow for the death of this man, only compassion for the assassin, who “with good or bad strategy,” sacrificed himself for “the cause of freedom and equality.” (p. 75)

However, he did not advocate this as a political strategy. It was more important to win workers to reliance upon themselves rather than kings, bosses, and official leaders. “…Overthrowing monarchy…cannot be accomplished by murder. The Sovereigns who die would only be succeeded by other Sovereigns. We must kill kings in the hearts of the people; we must assassinate toleration of kings in the public conscience; we must shoot loyalty and stab allegiance to tyranny of whatever form wherever it exists.” (p. 59)

In another incident in London, a small group of Russian anarchist exiles was interrupted in the process of robbing a jewelry store. There was a shoot-out with the police (led by Home Secretary Winston Churchill) which ended in the death of some officers and all the robbers. As it happened, one of the thieves had met Malatesta at an anarchist club, and ended up buying a gas tank from him, claiming a benevolent use for it. In fact it was used to break open the jewelry safe.

Malatesta patiently explained to the police and the newspapers that he had no foreknowledge of the robbery. However he wrote that it was unfair to link the robbers’ actions with their anarchist politics. Was a murder in the U.S. blamed on the murderer being a Democrat or Republican? Were thieves’ thievery usually ascribed to their opinions on Free Trade versus Tariffs? Or perhaps their belief in vegetarianism? No, they were essentially regarded as thieves, regardless of their beliefs on politics, economics, or religion. The same should be true for these jewelry thieves, whatever their views on anarchism.

Syndicalism/Trade Unionism

By the last decades of the 19th century, many anarchists had given up on only actions and propaganda by individuals and small groups. These tactics had mainly resulted in isolation and futility. Instead many turned toward mass organizing and the trade unions. Anarchists joined, and worked to organize, labor unions in several countries. (Often these efforts were called “syndicalism,” which is the French for “unionism.”)

There remained anarchists who opposed unions: individualists and anti-organizational communists. But most turned in the pro-union direction. This gave a big boost to the anarchist movement at the time.

Errico Malatesta had long been an advocate of unions. He had contacts with militant unionists throughout Britain and other countries. In London in this period, he directly participated in unionizing waiters and catering staff. He gave support to the struggles of tailors to form a union, which led to a large strike.

“Syndicalism, or more precisely the labor movement…has always found me a resolute, but not blind, advocate.…I see it as a particularly propitious terrain for our revolutionary propaganda and…a point of contact between the masses and ourselves.” (p. 240)

But once it was decided that anarchists should participate in the labor movement, the next question was how should they participate? What should be the relation between anarchist activists and the trade unions? On this question, differences among anarchists were made explicit at the 1907 anarchist conference held in Amsterdam.

At the conference, Malatesta took issue with the views of Pierre Monatte, who spoke for the French syndicalist movement. Malatesta argued, “The conclusion Monatte reached is that syndicalism is a necessary and sufficient means of social revolution. In other words, Monatte declares that syndicalism is sufficient unto itself. And this, in my opinion, is a radically false doctrine.” (p. 240)

The unions had great advantages, as they brought together working people in enterprises, industries, cities, and regions. They included only workers, and not capitalists or management. They had the potential of stopping businesses and whole economies, in the pursuit of working class demands. They were schools of cooperation and joint struggle.

Yet, the unions’ very strengths also pointed to certain weaknesses. They are institutions within capitalist society. They exist (at least in the short term) to win a better deal for the workers under capitalism. Therefore they must compromise with the bosses and the state. Further, they need as many members as possible, to counter the power of the bosses. They cannot just recruit revolutionary anarchists and socialists. They must take in workers of every political, economic, and religious persuasion. (A union which only accepted anarchists would not be much of a threat to the bourgeoisie.)

These and other factors brought constant pressure on unions to be more conservative, corrupt, and bureaucratic. All anarchists recognized these tendencies among officials of political parties, even among liberals or socialists. But the same tendencies existed for union officials.

Malatesta drew certain conclusions. Anarchist-socialists should not dissolve themselves into the unions, becoming good union militants (as he understood Monatte to be saying). Instead, they should build revolutionary anarchist groups to operate inside and outside union structures. Nor should they take union offices which gave them power over people. But they could take positions which were clearly carrying out tasks agreed to by the membership—but with no wages higher than the other workers. They should be the best union militants, always advocating more democratic, less bureaucratic, and more militant policies, while still raising their revolutionary libertarian politics.

“In the union, we must remain anarchists, in the full strength and full breadth of the term. The labor movement for me is only a means—evidently the best among all means that are available to us.” (p. 241)

A central concept of the syndicalists was the goal of a general strike. Malatesta had certain criticisms. Not that he opposed the idea of getting all the workers of a city or country to go on strike at the same time. This could show the enormous power of the working class, if it would use it—much more powerful than electing politicians. But there is no magic in a general strike. The capitalist class has supplies stored away with which they could outlast the workers—starve them out. The state has its police and armed forces to break up the strike organization, arrest the organizers, and forcibly drive the workers back to their jobs.

In brief, Malatesta did not believe in the possibility of a successful nonviolent general strike (this is not considering a one-day “general strike” set by the union bureaucrats for show). He felt that a serious general strike would require occupation of factories and workplaces, arming of the workers, and plans for their military self-defense. It would have to be the beginning of a revolution. (Hence the book’s title.)

However much he criticized aspects of syndicalism, Malatesta was completely opposed to “…the anti-organizationalist anarchists, those who are against participation in the labor struggle, establishment of a party, etc. [By ‘party,’ he means here an organization of anarchists—WP] ….The secret of our success lies in knowing how to reconcile revolutionary action and spirit with everyday practical action; in knowing how to participate in small struggles without losing sight of the great and definitive struggle.” (p. 78)

War and National Self-Determination

This collection of writings by and about Malatesta ends in 1913. Therefore it does not cover his response to World War I which began the next year—nor his break with Kropotkin for supporting the imperialist Allies in the war.

However, in the period covered here, he could see the increase in wars, both between imperialist powers and between imperial states and oppressed peoples. “…Weaker nations are robbed of their independence. The kaiser of Germany urges his troops to give the Chinese no quarter; the British government treats the Boers…as rebels, and burns their farms, hunts down housewives…and re-enacts Spain’s ghastly feats in Cuba; the Sultan [of Turkey] has the Armenians slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands; and the American government massacres the Filipinos, having first cravenly betrayed them.” (p. 33)

He opposed all sides in wars among imperialist governments—as he was to do during World War I. The only solution to such wars was the social revolution.

But Malatesta supported oppressed nations which rebelled against imperial domination. (Some ignorant people believe that it is un-anarchist to support such wars. Yet Malatesta did, as did Bakunin, Kropotkin, Makhno, and many other anarchists—even though they rarely used the term “national self-determination”.) Malatesta wrote, “…True socialism consists of hoping for and provoking, when possible, the subjected people to drive away the invaders, whoever they are.” (p. 58)

This does not mean that anarchist-socialists have to agree with the politics of the rebelling people. Speaking of the Boers, who were fighting the British empire, he wrote without illusions, “The regime they will probably establish will certainly not have our sympathies; their social, political, religious ideas are the antipodes of our own.” (p. 59) Nevertheless, it would be better if they win and British imperialists are defeated. For the people of the imperialist country, “It is not the victory but the defeat of England that will be of use to the English people, that will prepare them for socialism.” (p. 58) (The British won.)

The Italian and Turkish states went to war over north Africa around 1912. Malatesta condemned both sides, but supported the struggle of the Arab population. “I hope that the Arabs rise up and throw both the Turks and the Italians into the sea.” (p. 321)

He understood that “love of birthplace” (p. 328) was typically felt by people, including their roots in the community, their childhood language, their love of local nature, and perhaps their pride in the contributions their people have made to world culture. But this natural sentiment is then misused by the rulers to develop a patriotism which masks class division and exploitation.

The rulers “…turned gentle love of homeland into that feeling of antipathy…toward other peoples which usually goes by the name of patriotism, and which the domestic oppressors in various countries exploit to their advantage. ….We are internationalists…We extend our homeland to the whole world, feel ourselves to be brothers to all human beings, and seek well-being, freedom, and autonomy for every individual and group…..We abhor war…and we champion the fight against the ruling classes.” (p. 329)

As can be seen, to Malatesta, internationalism did not conflict with support for “autonomy for every…group.” This included groups of people who held a common identity as a nation. Anarchists are internationalist, but
unlike the centralism of Lenin, anarchists do not want a homogenous world state. They advocate regionalism, pluralism, and decentralized federations. This particular passage went on to support the Arabs against Italian imperialism. “…It is the Arabs’ revolt against the Italian tyrant that is noble and holy.” (p. 329)

Yet Malatesta may be faulted for his lack of concern about racism. In supporting the Boers, and even when listing their extreme (antipodal) differences with anarchists, he does not mention their exploitation of the indigenous Africans. Nor does he make other references to racial oppression (such as in U.S. segregation). This must be put beside his fervent anti- colonialism and support for the rebellion of oppressed peoples.

Similarly, he does not mention the oppression of women or its intersection with class and national exploitation. It is not at all that he was misogynist (like Proudhon). I am sure he treated Emma Goldman as an equal at the 1907 international anarchist conference. But, like most male radicals of his time, he had a “blind spot” in thinking about this major aspect of overall oppression.

Imperialism, war, national oppression, and national revolt are issues which are still with us. Look at Palestine or Ukraine or the Kurds, among other peoples. These issues will be with us as long as capitalism survives, as Malatesta knew.

Other Topics

Besides terrorism, syndicalism, and national wars, Malatesta covered quite a lot of topics in the course of these thirteen years, as we would expect.

He condemned a French anti-clerical town council which outlawed the wearing by priests of their cassocks within the municipal borders. Malatesta was an opponent of religion and certainly of the Catholic Church. But he did not believe that people would be won from it by means of police coercion. That would only provoke resistance. At most, it would replace the religious priests with secularist ones, “which would all the same preach subjugation to masters….” (p. 68)

Today, the French government forbids Muslim girls and women from wearing headscarfs in schools and other public buildings—in the name of “secular” government. The left and feminists are divided on how to respond. “Oh, when will those who call themselves friends of freedom, decide to desire truly freedom for all!” (p.68)

Unlike Kropotkin, Elisee Reclus or (more recently) Murray Bookchin, there was not much of an ecological dimension to Malatesta. However he was concerned with the way landlords and capitalists had kept Italian agriculture backward. He believed that under anarchy, the peasants would be able to make the barren lands bloom.

By 1913, his experience with state socialists was mainly with the reformist Marxist “democratic socialists” (social democrats). This was four years before the Russian Revolution, which ended in the dictatorship of Lenin’s Bolsheviks and the rise of authoritarian state capitalism.

Yet he was prescient enough to write: “…Depending on the direction in which competing and opposite efforts of men and parties succeed in driving the movement, the coming social revolution could open to humanity the main road to full emancipation, or simply serve to elevate a new layer of the privileged above the masses, leaving unscathed the principle of authority and privilege.” (p. 102) The validity of this anarchist insight (which goes back to Proudhon and Bakunin) has been repeatedly demonstrated.

All the subjects Errico Malatesta discussed in this period had one guiding social philosophy. Quoting the famous lines written by, but not created by, Marx: “…The emancipation of the workers must be conquered by the workers themselves.…Throughout history the oppressed have never achieved anything beyond what they were able to take, push away pimps and philanthropists and politicos, take their own fate in their own hands, and decide to act directly.” (p. 220) This was the principle of Malatesta’s revolutionary anarchist-socialism and remains true today.

References
Malatesta, Errico (2023).  The Armed Strike: The Long London Exile of 1900—13.  The Complete Works of Errico Malatesta.  Vol. V.  (Ed.: Davide Turcato; Trans.: Andrea Asali).  Chico CA:  AK Press.

 

The Israeli military has ordered the residents of the northern half of Gaza to evacuate within 24 hours. It is impossible for over one million people to do this in such a short time. The order can only be interpreted as a public relations formality and prelude to genocide. All workers and soldiers in a position to prevent this have a duty to act.

[Français]

The order to evacuate is a sign that the IDF is about to launch a ground invasion of Gaza that will make no distinction between civilians and combatants and from which there is no safe refuge. The result will be a massacre.

What is being prepared is not about bringing Hamas to justice. It is the collective punishment of an entire people, dominated by an apartheid system, which the far-right government in Israel wants to see eradicated. The legal prohibition against genocide erected in 1945 will be rendered utterly meaningless.

Enlisted soldiers of the IDF must defy their orders. They are being sent to kill innocent men, women, and children who only want to be free, and to live. To end this atrocity they need to mutiny. They must march on Jerusalem and arrest their criminal government.

Workers of Israel must strike and cut off supplies to the military and cripple Netanyahu’s war.

Sailors of the US Navy in the Eastern Meditarranean should also defy their orders. Otherwise, they will be complicit in the destruction of homes and the murder of families. If they sail their ships home to port they will be welcomed as true defenders of human rights and justice.

Workers of the US — Israel’s immunity from justice depends largely on your government’s aid and support. Take to the streets. Raise this with your co-workers and unions. Demand an end to American complicity in apartheid and genocide. Action can be taken in support by workers across the globe through solidarity protests. Local challenges to ruling class and media complicity with Israel’s crimes can begin to coalesce international pressure.

Wherever work is done which contributes to the Israeli war machine, the workers must strike, cut off trade, and close down any activity assisting the IDF in their massacre.

We recognise it is likely too late to prevent Israel’s massacre in Gaza. If it can be prevented, it must be. If it cannot be prevented, it must be stopped as early as humanly possible. And once the workers of the world have prevented the planned genocide, we can address the question of peace with justice for all.

“NEVER AGAIN” MEANS NEVER AGAIN – FOR ANYONE

L’ordre d’évacuation est un signe que les FDI sont sur le point de lancer une invasion terrestre de Gaza qui ne fera aucune distinction entre les civils et les combattants et contre laquelle il n’y aura pas de refuge sûr. Le résultat sera un massacre.

Ce qui se prépare n’a rien à voir avec le fait de traduire le Hamas en justice. Il s’agit de la punition collective d’un peuple entier, dominé par un système d’apartheid, que le gouvernement d’extrême droite en Israël veut voir éradiqué. L’interdiction légale du génocide érigée en 1945 sera vidée de son sens.

Les soldats enrôlés de Tsahal doivent défier leurs ordres. Ils sont envoyés pour tuer des hommes, des femmes et des enfants innocents qui ne demandent qu’à être libres et à vivre. Pour mettre fin à cette atrocité, ils doivent se mutiner. Ils doivent marcher sur Jérusalem et arrêter leur gouvernement criminel.

Les travailleurs d’Israël doivent se mettre en grève, couper les vivres à l’armée et paralyser la guerre de Netanyahou.

Les marins de la marine américaine en Méditerranée orientale doivent également défier leurs ordres. Sinon, ils seront complices de la destruction de maisons et du meurtre de familles. S’ils rentrent au port avec leur navire, ils seront accueillis comme de véritables défenseurs des droits de l’homme et de la justice.

Travailleurs des États-Unis - L’immunité d’Israël face à la justice dépend largement de l’aide et du soutien de votre gouvernement. Descendez dans la rue. Parlez-en à vos collègues et à vos syndicats. Exigez la fin de la complicité américaine dans l’apartheid et le génocide. Des actions de soutien peuvent être entreprises par les travailleurs du monde entier dans le cadre de manifestations de solidarité. Les contestations locales de la complicité de la classe dirigeante et des médias avec les crimes d’Israël peuvent commencer à faire converger la pression internationale.

Partout où un travail est effectué qui contribue à la machine de guerre israélienne, les travailleurs doivent faire grève, interrompre le commerce et mettre fin à toute activité qui aide les FDI dans leur massacre.

Nous reconnaissons qu’il est probablement trop tard pour empêcher le massacre d’Israël à Gaza. S’il est possible de l’empêcher, il faut le faire. Si l’on ne peut pas l’empêcher, il faut y mettre un terme dès que possible. Une fois que les travailleurs du monde entier auront empêché le génocide planifié, nous pourrons aborder la question de la paix et de la justice pour tous.

« PLUS JAMAIS » SIGNIFIE PLUS JAMAIS - POUR PERSONNE

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News about the latest militaristic and repressive measures has been flowing in such a stream for weeks that it sometimes interrupts attention to events at the front. There is an increasing impression that the Kremlin and the Office of Zelensky are starting to fight not so much with each other, but with those who do not want to fulfill their “duty to their homeland.” The Ukrainian parliament will soon consider bill No. 10062 on a unified electronic register of conscripts and those liable for military service – modeled on the neighboring chamber, where summons will now be considered served from the moment they appear in it. The Ministry of Defense allowed to draft into the Armed Forces of Ukraine those who are of limited fitness due to hepatitis, cured tuberculosis, asymptomatic HIV, mental problems, etc. Bill No. 9672 proposes to cancel the deferment from the army for recipients of the second higher education, post-graduate students and those who first attended the university after 30 years. Doctors are being stormed with large-scale checks for trading in disability documents. Women from among medical staff and pharmacists will be registered with the military from October 1st, and those who have a military record will have to update their data; after the launch of the e-register, they can be screened out when trying to leave Ukraine. Threats of extradition and punishment to men who went abroad, deceiving the authorities (as the authorities themselves did to them all their lives). The Border Guard Service of Ukraine has already begun to publicly show “educational work” with violators of the western border, forcing them to listen to the anthem and the priest’s sermon, after which they are handed over to the enlistment officers. To detect such citizens in the bushes, the border patrols began using drones with thermal imaging cameras, supposedly so necessary for the front. Then, presumably, they will start to drop grenades or hunting nets on the migrants. In turn, the deputy head of the Russian Guard in Donetsk, former separatist field commander Alexander Khodakovsky called for the creation of barrier detachments for Russian soldiers – because “many are ready to wait from prison for their loved one, who threw away their weapons and refused to fight, just so as not to die.”

Against such an informational background, the story of a Kharkov resident at the military recruitment office of Staryi Sambir in the Lviv region received a huge resonance. This is not the first time that they tried to send into the army those captured trying to escape from the “country of dreams”, this time the mobilizers just did a little less work and video records were transferred to bloggers, instantly exploding social networks with anger. The inmate was kept there from September 12th to 19th, beaten on the head with a pistol, starved, not provided with medical care, threatened with death and that “the police would not look for him.” Even before this video, hardly many people doubted that the cops act in conjunction with the enlistment kidnappers, while the State Bureau of Investigation reported on the 19th that the deputy chief of one of the departments in the Sambir districtal recruitment center and its driver are detained. They face up to 10 years in prison under Part 3 of Art. 406 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code (violation of statutory rules, relationships by military personnel using weapons). The Bureau requested that both be taken into custody without bail; the court in Lviv sent them under round-the-clock house arrest for 2 months. The National Agency on Corruption Prevention has found suspicious property worth 4.4 million hryvnias owned by the chief of the same facility. Of course, even if they are found guilty and imprisoned, it will not change anything systemically – power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The investigation established that the suspects illegally detained at least two men – residents of Kharkov and Krivoy Rog. After being detained by border guards during unauthorized crossing the border with Poland, they were taken to the enlistment office, where the servicemen tried to force them to go through the medical examination. One of these refusers was kept for 10 days, another one for 7 days.

The resident of Krivoy Rog says that his name is Roman Kuzmenko, born November 12, 1985. Our compatriot is 43 years old and he was hospitalized with a concussion; he introduces himself as Vadim Spokoynyi (Ukrainian spelling – Vadym Spokiynyi). “Vadym is an animator. His stage name is Max. The first weeks Vadym was in Kharkiv – he volunteered a lot, helped people, tried to entertain children in bomb shelters so that they would not be so sad and scared. Later, he moved to Staryi Sambir with his acquaintance Dina. They didn't have a home here, so they temporarily lived in a van near the river. I helped them find accommodation. Later, his father also moved in with Vadym, he has a disability, does not walk much, is practically bedridden. His father somehow found the strength to come to the Military Commissariat. But they didn't let him in. They didn't even let me see each other. It's terrible. He is not a criminal and is not in a pre-trial detention center”, his local comrade Sofia Ryzhenko told the LMN newsletter. She does not know whether Vadim has official guardianship over his father. “Can you imagine what it's like to be an animator and work with children? He is very kind, harmless. Well, how can you force a person to sign that he will go to war, if he is afraid of it or cannot?”, the girl asks a rhetorical question. The fact that he, with such a peaceful character, showed an iron will and managed to withstand many days of attempts to break him is what is most shocking in this situation.

Those living in Staryi Sambir note that this is not the first case of such imprisonment of citizens by the enlistment officers. And, as a Kharkov resident named Ivan shared with us on September 20th, hell was going on there long before the full-scale Russian aggression:

“I got into this recruitment center in 2016. I almost got beaten there too. Barely escaped. They even wanted to send me then to the ATO [Anti-Terrorist Operation, the official name for hostilities in Donbass], despite the fact that I had a referral for a surgery in Kharkov. They said I didn't need surgery. I was registered there, went to sign up through the enlistment office, I had documents that I was undergoing surgery, and receipts for payment. Two drunk doctors came (like a medical commission). They said I didn't need surgery. They decided so without practically examining it. They said that the ATO would be just right for me, since I go to the gym and am in good physical shape. I said that I would probably refuse and am informed a little about my rights. They fucked my brain for a very long time and didn’t hand over the documents, and I also communicated in Russian. This really threw them up. Military commissars generally communicated as with cattle. Like you're pissing to go to the ATO, etc., etc. Although they themselves saw this ATO only on television. Something like this, in short.”

The Ukrainian public is more and more asking the question: how does this state with such everyday practices differ from the Russian one? In particular, Yevgenia, the wife of the Russian mobilized Yevgeniy P. from military unit 61899, turned to the Russian liberal pacifists ASTRA. For refusing to go to the assault with injuries, he and other soldiers were sent to the basement in Zaytsevo (a village controlled by the so-called “Lugansk People’s Republic” near the Kharkov region), where they are threatened and forced to continue fighting. The detainee told his wife about this on September 18th by phone, after which contact with him disappeared. In May, in Bakhmut, he received a fragment wound in the leg, due to which he was sent to the hospital. However, Yevgeniy was not given aid there; the fragment was not removed, his wife says. He was sent home for rehabilitation for a month. A month later, the commander changed, the new one sent a unit to Naro-Fominsk near Moscow. The entire company with wounds was locked in the barracks and kept there for a week. The surgeon then concluded that they could all continue to fight despite their injuries. They were taken in the direction of Svatovo and abandoned in the forest without any means of subsistence. “My relatives and I cut off all the hotlines, reached the head of the unit, but our requests and prayers for the salvation of the guys are simply ignored, citing the fact that, they say, there is a war, etc. This is just madness and absurdity, the boys with wounds were thrown just like cannon fodder!”, the woman told this media.

Ukraine is a prison of the people. Russia is a prison of the peoples. That's all the difference.

Michael Lowy and Oliver Besancenot, two Marxists from the Trotskyist tradition, have made an effort to discuss possible convergences and interactions between Marxism and anarchism. (The little book has been well translated from the French by David Campbell, an anarchist who did most of the work while in jail in New York City.)

At first it might seem absurd to seek overlaps between these two schools of socialism. Anarchism stands for freedom and self-management, but in spite of some achievements its movement has failed to successfully create anarchism in any country. Meanwhile whatever Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels originally intended, Marxism became the ideology of repressive, mass-murdering, state-capitalisms (that is, Stalinism). Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union, authoritarian Marxist governments persist in North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, and especially in the great nation of China. Marxism and anarchism would seem to have little in common. Yet we live in the looming catastrophes of industrial capitalism. People are drawn to its radical alternatives. In this context, it is the failures of each which has drawn some anarchists and Marxists to dialogue, to learn the strengths of the alternate trend. (Although, for all their failures, anarchists never murdered tens of millions of workers, peasants, and others.)

Along with anarchism’s vision of freedom, there is a rising interest in Marxism, particularly in its analysis of how capitalism works and what might be done to end it. Some radicals focus on the humanistic, working class, and ecological aspects of Marx’s Marxism, rather than its statist, centralist, and determinist aspects. This looks to libertarian-democratic and “ultra-left” trends in Marxism, such as William Morris, the council communists, Luxemburgists, autonomists, the Johnson-Forrest Tendency, Socialisme ou Barbarie, and unorthodox and dissident Trotskyists. Unlike Stalinism, these trends in Marxism might be partners in a dialogue with revolutionary anarchists. (See Price 2017.)

Che

The authors claim to be libertarian Marxists, in opposition to both Stalinism and to social democracy (reformist “democratic socialism”). They want to see what they can learn from anarchism—and what revolutionary anarchism can learn from their view of Marxism. I am all for a Marxist-anarchist dialogue and have written some material seeking to advance it (e.g., Price 2022).

A lot depends on what one means by “Marxism” (as well as “anarchism”). The authors are admirers of Che Guevara. They have written books about him and his “revolutionary legacy” (Lowy 2007; Besancenot & Lowy 2009). In the text, they claim that the struggle of the Mexican Zapatistas show “traces of the revolutionary ethic that lead directly back to Che.” (p. 76) They do not note that the founders of the Zapatistas had abandoned the elitist guerrilla strategy of Che. They further declare that “Marx’s writings…form the political basis of the revolutionary humanism of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara.” (p. 124)

Actually Che Guevara was an admirer of Joseph Stalin. Che played a major role in turning the Cuban revolution into a one-party, one-man, dictatorship, with a state-capitalist economy, allied with Soviet Russian imperialism. Within the upper circles of the Castroite regime, Che was a strong proponent of increasing centralization and of repression of the workers. He sincerely sought to spread the revolution (as he understood the revolution), but his efforts were failures both in Africa and in Bolivia. While he wrote some high-falutin’ philosophical language about socialism, his actual conception was of a totalitarian society. (See Price 2016.)

It may seem unfair to point to the authors’ admiration of Guevara, which is only briefly referred to twice in the text. Yet it is difficult to integrate anarchism with advocacy of a Stalinist-type dictatorship, however well-meaning you might be. (Of course, many of the Trotskyist groupings have been admirers of Fidel Castro and Che; but these don’t advocate “solidarity” with anarchism.) Besancenot and Lowy may misinterpret Che as a “revolutionary humanist,” but how can they ignore his support of the Cuban dictatorship? And then seek a dialogue with anarchism?

Positive Aspects of the Book

And yet, despite this confusing contradiction, some of this book is worthwhile. Besancenot and Lowy are concerned to show “another side of history…that of the alliances and active solidarity between anarchists and Marxists.” (p. 1)

They have brief sections on events in revolutionary history when anarchists and Marxists worked together. This includes the First International, in which anarchists cooperated with Marx for years—until Marx organized the expulsion of Michael Bakunin and forced a split with the anarchists. They cover the U.S. Haymarket Martyrs of 1886. These were anarchists who came out of a Marxist background and who still used the Marxist analysis of capitalism.

They briefly cover the development of anarcho-syndicalism, which shared a revolutionary working class orientation with Marxism. They discuss the Spanish Revolution of the thirties. That revolution was betrayed by most of the Marxist and anarchist leaders, both of which joined the capitalist government together with liberal parties. Their partner, the Communist Party, tried to set up a totalitarian state. A minority of revolutionary anarchists and Marxists did try to advance the revolution, but were overwhelmed. There are brief sections (they can hardly be called “chapters”) on the May-June ’68 almost-revolution in France, on the international demonstrations against “globalization,” and on the Occupy movement.

The little book also has nine brief biographical sections on significant revolutionaries. This includes the Marxist Rosa Luxemburg. She had little use for anarchism, but her vision of revolutionary socialist democracy-from-below was compatible with anarchism. Similarly, they discuss Buenaventura Durruti. As an anarchist, he played an important role in the Spanish Revolution. He had little use for Marxism but has been respected by Marxists. The same may be said of the famous anarchist Emma Goldman. In Russia, she originally supported the Revolution and was willing to work with the Leninists—until their authoritarianism drove her into opposition.

Their little biographies include “A Few Libertarian Marxist Thinkers.” Of the three they cite, the most interesting may be Daniel Guerin. His books on anarchism are widely read. In France during World War II, he cooperated with the Trotskyist underground. Working with syndicalists, anarchists, and Trotskyists, he was a prominent opponent of French imperialism in Algeria and an early Gay liberationist. Admiring J.P. Proudhon and Bakunin, but also Luxemburg, he sought a “synthesis” of revolutionary anarchism and libertarian Marxism. (See Guerin 2017)

The Russian Revolution

The part covering the 1917 Russian Revolution is titled, “Points of Conflict,” including a section, “The Split Between Red and Black.” This is where the book’s difficulties show most clearly.

“Initially, there was a convergence between many anarchists—not only Russian but also from around the world—and the Marxist revolutionaries. Soon after, the convergence had become a dramatic clash between the two.…” (p. 80)

The “October” (Soviet) Revolution was organized by the Communists in alliance with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries (peasant-populists) and with anarchists. The initial government was a coalition of the Communists and Left SRs, generally supported by anarchists in the soviets. (“Soviet” means “council.” It originally referred to the popularly elected councils which were rooted in factory committees, village assemblies, and military units.)

But by 1920, the Leninists had banned all alternate parties, including those which had fought on their side in the Russian Civil War. These included the Left SRs and the Left Mensheviks. Anarchists were arrested, jailed, and shot. Not long after, even opposition caucuses in the one legal party were outlawed.

Essentially, the writers favor the rule of the soviets, supported by the revolutionary parties including the Communists—but criticize what happened instead: the rule of the Communist Party, with supposed support by the soviets. This went together with economic changes, “prioritizing centralized nationalization over the local collectivization of the means of production….” (p. 87) They mildly comment, “This choice, like so many others, is questionable.” (same) This is quite the understatement.

Despite this (soft) criticism of the Leninists, Besancenot and Lowy insist that the problem does not lie with Marx. “It is pointless, however, to seek a manufacturing defect in Marxism…on the question of whether to abolish the state immediately or not.” (p. 87) Similarly, they oppose “…drawing a connection between the Lenin years and the Stalin years.” (p. 89) Granted that Marx would have been horrified by what Stalin made out of Marxism—and that V.I. Lenin was no Stalin. Lenin did not aim for a totalitarian state, nor want one. This was unlike Mao Tse-tung, say, who already had Stalinist Russia as a model and goal—as did Che and Fidel.

Yet it is a bit much to deny that Marx’s strategy of working through the state was not a cause of Lenin’s building a party-state, one which laid the basis for Stalinist state-capitalism. And, like Marx, Lenin believed that he and his party knew the truth better than anyone else. This justified the one-party party-state. Believing that his party—and only his party—knew the full truth—and since only his party spoke for the proletariat—Lenin felt justified in suppressing all other points of view, including the anarchists.

In 1921, the sailors at the Kronstadt naval base rebelled. The Kronstadt fortress overlooked the capitol at Petrograd. Influenced by anarchists, the rebels demanded an end to the political monopoly of the Communists, recognition of other left political tendencies, and free elections to the soviets, as well as economic reforms. Emma Goldman urged negotiation with the rebels. Instead, the Communists crushed them militarily, and then shot the captured sailors in batches. To anarchists this was a counterrevolutionary crime. It was comparable to the 1956 crushing of the Hungarian revolution.

The two authors regard this opinion as “one-sided.” “In our view, the conflict between Kronstadt and the Bolshevik government was…a tragic and fraternal confrontation between two revolutionary currents. The responsibility for this tragedy is shared, but falls primarily on those who held power.” (p. 95) “The crushing of the sailors of Kronstadt was not a ‘tragic necessity,’ but an error and a wrong.” (p. 97)

In other words, the anarchist-influenced rebel sailors are partially to blame (they dared to demand socialist democracy) even if the “primary” fault lies with the Communist regime (which chose to massacre the sailors). This choice was a bad mistake, not a counterrevolutionary crime (no one is perfect). Still, both sides were “revolutionary currents.”

It has been argued that the Russian Communists dared not permit several political tendencies to compete in free elections. Given the poverty and destruction which followed World War I and the Civil War, the workers and peasants were unhappy with the Communists. They would likely have voted them out, supposedly with disastrous consequences. The authors quote the Trotskyist (and ex-anarchist) Victor Serge: “If the Bolshevik dictatorship fell, it was only a short step to chaos, and through chaos to a peasant uprising, the massacre of the Communists…and, in the end…another dictatorship, this time anti-proletarian.” (p. 97) They agree with this view. “A Bolshevik defeat would have opened the path to counterrevolution.” (same)

Whether this is true or not, the Bolshevik victory opened the path to (internal) counterrevolution. The one-party Communist dictatorship (assuming it ever was a “proletarian dictatorship”) led to the “anti-proletarian” dictatorship of Stalin and the Stalinist bureaucracy. Along with the super-exploitation of the workers and peasants, it engaged in “the massacre of the Communists” in the purge trials of the ‘thirties—not to mention the massacre of millions of workers and peasants. Somewhat contradicting themselves, Lowy and Besancenot agree. For “the apparatchiks in the Kremlin…the crushing of the marines at Kronstadt was a service…to their ascension to power, a power that from then on could not be contested.” (p. 100) A somewhat similar view is given of the Ukrainian independent revolutionary army organized by the anarchist Nestor Makhno—allied with, and then betrayed by, the Communists.

Policy Issues

The final part of the book is titled “Policy Issues.” It covers more theoretical, strategic, and programmatic topics. Its first section is on the “Individual and [the] Collective.” The authors declare, “the anarchist movement has held the flag of individual emancipation much higher than the Marxist family.” (p. 122)

They then go on to criticize the anarchists for being too much individualistic. They cite Max Stirner, the early-19th century German philosopher of extreme egoist-individualism. Actually Stirner had no influence in the development of anarchist theory or movement, so citing him is irrelevant. Even so, the authors admit, “he foresaw the threat that the specter of the state could potentially hang over the project of individual rights in Germany.” (p. 123) They note that Guerin referred positively to Stirner. As a gay man, Guerin liked Stirner’s opposition to moralism and puritanism, without accepting his extreme individualism.

Similarly, the writers claim that “the old tenets of anarchism [are] poorly suited to such a level of overarching political organization” as was needed in the Ukraine during the Russian Revolution. (p. 103) Actually the anarchist-led Makhnovist movement did a good job of organizing in the Ukraine, in the brief time allowed it. This was despite the need to fight off the Austrian, Polish, Ukrainian nationalist, White counterrevolutionary, and Russian Communist armies.

In any case, Michael Bakunin, among the first revolutionary anarchist-socialists, had a view of liberated individuality as social, productive, and interactive. (So did Marx, especially expressed in his earliest writings.) They summarize, “If it is essential to ‘re-individualize’ the communist project, it is just as necessary to ‘collectivize’ anarchist ideas.” (p. 125) They believe “a revolutionary humanist path remains open,” which they think (bizarrely) is exemplified by “Che Guevara”! (same)

Besancenot and Lowy have a section titled “Making Revolution without Taking Power?” In effect they argue that it is wrong for a revolution to establish a new state (to take state power) but necessary to establish the self-organization of the workers and oppressed (to empower the people). Their examples are the 1871 Paris Commune and the early soviets. They call the Commune “a new form of power that was no longer a state, in the conventional sense, but was nonetheless a government, democratically elected….” (p. 131) Without quibbling over terms (Kropotkin sometimes made the same distinction between “state” and “government”), anarchists can mostly agree, I think.

In a section on “Autonomy and Federalism,” the writers say that their vision of “Communism…intends to entrust as many powers as possible to the base and foster local initiatives.” (p. 132) This is the anarchist conception of decentralized federalism. “From the idea of federalism developed by the anarchists, we can retain the focus on power to the base and voluntary solidarity between collectives.” (p. 135)

There is a section on “Democratic Economic Planning and Self-Management.” Their proposal ”does not correspond in the least to what is often described as ‘central economic planning,’ for the economic and social decisions are not made by any kind of ‘center,’ but determined democratically by the populations concerned.” (p. 139) Like Michael Albert’s “participatory economy” or “Parecon,” their “democratic socialist economic planning…[includes] opposition to the capitalist market and to bureaucratic economic planning, confidence in workers’ self-organization, and anti-authoritarianism.” (p. 140) However, they have some valid criticisms of the Parecon program. They also give credit to Anton Pannekoek of the “council communists”/ libertarian Marxists “for opting for the socialization of the means of production under the control of the producers themselves, rather than for their nationalization from above.” (p. 150)

The theme of decentralist federalism is continued in “Direct and Representative Democracy.” In this section, the authors recognize that anarchists and Marxists have had important differences on these topics. But they claim that “some significant convergences can still be found. For example, both are favorable to forms of direct democracy in social struggles: general assemblies, self-organized strikes and pickets, etc.” (p. 142)

This may be true. But it covers-over an important difference. Anarchists can accept election of delegates to higher federal councils, but they insist that the base assemblies must have face-to-face direct democracy. Marx and Engels, even in their most radically democratic writings (for example, on the Paris Commune) advocated an extremely democratic form of representative democracy. They had no conception of basing this in face-to-face direct democracy. This is the anarchist tradition.

There is also a very brief discussion of whether revolutionary socialists should run and/or vote in bourgeois elections. They accept the view of both traditions that socialism cannot be achieved through elections. However, they still believe that it may be useful to run and vote, for various reasons. “Our point of view in this debate is closer to the Marxist tradition” than to the anarchist tradition of anti-electoralism. (p. 143) They do not mention that council communists and other “ultra-left” libertarian Marxists have been opposed to participation in elections. Anarchists would argue that history has demonstrated the failures of an electoralist/parliamentary strategy.

In “Union and Party,” Besancenot and Lowy summarize the lessons of the Russian Revolution and other revolutions and near-revolutions. They argue that the struggle needs radical parties and organizations (including anarchist federations) as well as mass organizations, such as labor unions and also popular councils. Parties are formed on agreements about particular programs. They are necessary to fight for a revolutionary program against reformists, liberals, conservatives, and fascists (for these will certainly have their parties). There is a historical tendency among anarchists of revolutionary federations. This includes Bakunin’s “Brotherhoods,” Makhno and others’ advocacy of the “Platform,” the Spanish FAI, and the current especifismo of Latin Americans.

The mass organizations provide “the framework of regular and sovereign general assemblies, open to all workers who want to mobilize…[in] the natural organ of the struggle….They can also…elect delegates, also dismissible, to participate in a coordination where the delegates from different assemblies meet to unify their activities….The power to make decisions belongs to the base…. This democratic option for organization prefigures today the way society could function tomorrow.” (p. 151)

A number of important topics are not covered in this book. These include feminism and the dominance of straight males. Also issues of white supremacy and racism, colonialism, imperialism, and national self-determination. Economic developments of world capitalism are not discussed. The writers themselves mention that they have not covered education of children, nor the vital issue of opposing fascism.

But there is consideration of the very important topic of environmentalism. This is in the section, “Ecosocialism and Anarchist Ecology.” The authors base much of their ecosocialism on the anarchist writings of Murray Bookchin, although they note that Bookchin also used concepts from Marx. Bookchin analyzed capitalist commodification, competition, and, above all, its drive to accumulate, as destroying the ecology. Bookchin wrote about the need for a new, noncapitalist, society, decentralized and directly democratic, with a liberatory transformation of technology. “…We can only admire Murray Bookchin’s coherence and clear-sightedness.” (p. 154)

They make some criticisms of Bookchin. They deny his view that there is a “post-scarcity” world. While agreeing with Bookchin on the need for economic, technological, and political decentralization, they insist on federalist coordination and planning on regional, continental, and world levels. Considering their proletarian perspective, it is odd that they do not express disagreement with Bookchin’s rejection of the major role of the working class in a revolution. Also, surprisingly, there is no reference to research about ecological themes in Marx’s works by ecological Marxist theorists. This includes John Bellamy Foster and others. (See Foster 2009.)

Revolutionary Conclusion

Besancenot and Lowy conclude with “Toward a Libertarian Marxism.” They state that “Our point of departure…is Marxism.” (p. 158) That is where they come from. They do not believe that there can be a final definition of “libertarian Marxism.” They do believe that “Marxists have much to learn from…the anarchists.” (p. 158)

Their aim, they declare, is not to create a better Marxism, with tips from anarchism. (Similarly, my goal is not to replace anarchism with a nicer version of Marxism.) Instead, “The future emancipatory battles of our century will also see this convergence, in both action and thought, of the two great revolutionary currents of the past, of the present, and of the future—Marxism and anarchism, the red flag and the black flag.” (p. 159)

The basis of this convergence is that both revolutionary class-struggle anarchism and libertarian (autonomist) Marxism share a goal. This is an international revolution by the working class and its allies among all oppressed—to overthrow the state, capitalism, and all oppressions, and to replace them with the self-organization of the workers and oppressed.

The issue is not an immediate merger of anarchism and Marxism. This is especially true when there is so much variation within each school. As I pointed out in the beginning, Lowy and Besancenot and many others see an authoritarian such as Che Guevara as within their “libertarian” version of Marxism. They may find the Communist suppression of the Kronstadt rebels as justifiable, or perhaps a tragic if understandable error. Such views must limit their dialogue with anarchism. As a revolutionary anarchist, I still find matters of interest in this book. But its limitations are also real.

References

Besancenot, Oliver, & Lowy, Michael (2009). Che Guevara: His Revolutionary Legacy. NY: Monthly Review Press.

Foster, John Bellamy (2009). The Ecological Revolution; Making Peace with the Planet. NY: Monthly Review Press.

Guerin, Daniel (2017). For a Libertarian Communism. (Ed.: David Berry; Trans.: Mitchell Abidor) Oakland CA: PM Press.

Lowy, Michael (2007). The Marxism of Che Guevara: Philosophy, Economics, Revolutionary Warfare. Rowman and Littlefield.

Lowy, Michael, & Besancenot, Oliver (2023; originally in French, 2014). Revolutionary Affinities: Toward a Marxist-Anarchist Solidarity. (Trans.: David Campbell). Oakland CA: PM Press.

Price, Wayne (2016). “The Authoritarian Vision of Che Guevara; Review of Samuel Farber, The Politics of Che Guevara”
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/29795
search_text=Wayne+Price

Price, Wayne (2017). “What is Libertarian Socialism? An Anarchist-Marxist Dialogue; Review of A. Prichard, R. Kinna, S. Pinta, & D. Berry (Eds.). Libertarian Socialism; Politics in Black and Red”
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/30411?search_text=Wayne

Price, Wayne (2022). “An Anarchist Guide to The Communist Manifesto of Marx & Engels.”
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32578?search_text=Wayne

*written for www.Anarkismo.net

Michael Lowy and Oliver Besancenot, two Marxists from the Trotskyist tradition, have made an effort to discuss possible convergences and interactions between Marxism and anarchism. (The little book has been well translated from the French by David Campbell, an anarchist who did most of the work while in jail in New York City.)

At first it might seem absurd to seek overlaps between these two schools of socialism. Anarchism stands for freedom and self-management, but in spite of some achievements its movement has failed to successfully create anarchism in any country. Meanwhile whatever Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels originally intended, Marxism became the ideology of repressive, mass-murdering, state-capitalisms (that is, Stalinism). Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union, authoritarian Marxist governments persist in North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, and especially in the great nation of China. Marxism and anarchism would seem to have little in common. Yet we live in the looming catastrophes of industrial capitalism. People are drawn to its radical alternatives. In this context, it is the failures of each which has drawn some anarchists and Marxists to dialogue, to learn the strengths of the alternate trend. (Although, for all their failures, anarchists never murdered tens of millions of workers, peasants, and others.)

Along with anarchism’s vision of freedom, there is a rising interest in Marxism, particularly in its analysis of how capitalism works and what might be done to end it. Some radicals focus on the humanistic, working class, and ecological aspects of Marx’s Marxism, rather than its statist, centralist, and determinist aspects. This looks to libertarian-democratic and “ultra-left” trends in Marxism, such as William Morris, the council communists, Luxemburgists, autonomists, the Johnson-Forrest Tendency, Socialisme ou Barbarie, and unorthodox and dissident Trotskyists. Unlike Stalinism, these trends in Marxism might be partners in a dialogue with revolutionary anarchists. (See Price 2017.)

Che

The authors claim to be libertarian Marxists, in opposition to both Stalinism and to social democracy (reformist “democratic socialism”). They want to see what they can learn from anarchism—and what revolutionary anarchism can learn from their view of Marxism. I am all for a Marxist-anarchist dialogue and have written some material seeking to advance it (e.g., Price 2022).

A lot depends on what one means by “Marxism” (as well as “anarchism”). The authors are admirers of Che Guevara. They have written books about him and his “revolutionary legacy” (Lowy 2007; Besancenot & Lowy 2009). In the text, they claim that the struggle of the Mexican Zapatistas show “traces of the revolutionary ethic that lead directly back to Che.” (p. 76) They do not note that the founders of the Zapatistas had abandoned the elitist guerrilla strategy of Che. They further declare that “Marx’s writings…form the political basis of the revolutionary humanism of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara.” (p. 124)

Actually Che Guevara was an admirer of Joseph Stalin. Che played a major role in turning the Cuban revolution into a one-party, one-man, dictatorship, with a state-capitalist economy, allied with Soviet Russian imperialism. Within the upper circles of the Castroite regime, Che was a strong proponent of increasing centralization and of repression of the workers. He sincerely sought to spread the revolution (as he understood the revolution), but his efforts were failures both in Africa and in Bolivia. While he wrote some high-falutin’ philosophical language about socialism, his actual conception was of a totalitarian society. (See Price 2016.)

It may seem unfair to point to the authors’ admiration of Guevara, which is only briefly referred to twice in the text. Yet it is difficult to integrate anarchism with advocacy of a Stalinist-type dictatorship, however well-meaning you might be. (Of course, many of the Trotskyist groupings have been admirers of Fidel Castro and Che; but these don’t advocate “solidarity” with anarchism.) Besancenot and Lowy may misinterpret Che as a “revolutionary humanist,” but how can they ignore his support of the Cuban dictatorship? And then seek a dialogue with anarchism?

Positive Aspects of the Book

And yet, despite this confusing contradiction, some of this book is worthwhile. Besancenot and Lowy are concerned to show “another side of history…that of the alliances and active solidarity between anarchists and Marxists.” (p. 1)

They have brief sections on events in revolutionary history when anarchists and Marxists worked together. This includes the First International, in which anarchists cooperated with Marx for years—until Marx organized the expulsion of Michael Bakunin and forced a split with the anarchists. They cover the U.S. Haymarket Martyrs of 1886. These were anarchists who came out of a Marxist background and who still used the Marxist analysis of capitalism.

They briefly cover the development of anarcho-syndicalism, which shared a revolutionary working class orientation with Marxism. They discuss the Spanish Revolution of the thirties. That revolution was betrayed by most of the Marxist and anarchist leaders, both of which joined the capitalist government together with liberal parties. Their partner, the Communist Party, tried to set up a totalitarian state. A minority of revolutionary anarchists and Marxists did try to advance the revolution, but were overwhelmed. There are brief sections (they can hardly be called “chapters”) on the May-June ’68 almost-revolution in France, on the international demonstrations against “globalization,” and on the Occupy movement.

The little book also has nine brief biographical sections on significant revolutionaries. This includes the Marxist Rosa Luxemburg. She had little use for anarchism, but her vision of revolutionary socialist democracy-from-below was compatible with anarchism. Similarly, they discuss Buenaventura Durruti. As an anarchist, he played an important role in the Spanish Revolution. He had little use for Marxism but has been respected by Marxists. The same may be said of the famous anarchist Emma Goldman. In Russia, she originally supported the Revolution and was willing to work with the Leninists—until their authoritarianism drove her into opposition.

Their little biographies include “A Few Libertarian Marxist Thinkers.” Of the three they cite, the most interesting may be Daniel Guerin. His books on anarchism are widely read. In France during World War II, he cooperated with the Trotskyist underground. Working with syndicalists, anarchists, and Trotskyists, he was a prominent opponent of French imperialism in Algeria and an early Gay liberationist. Admiring J.P. Proudhon and Bakunin, but also Luxemburg, he sought a “synthesis” of revolutionary anarchism and libertarian Marxism. (See Guerin 2017)

The Russian Revolution

The part covering the 1917 Russian Revolution is titled, “Points of Conflict,” including a section, “The Split Between Red and Black.” This is where the book’s difficulties show most clearly.

“Initially, there was a convergence between many anarchists—not only Russian but also from around the world—and the Marxist revolutionaries. Soon after, the convergence had become a dramatic clash between the two.…” (p. 80)

The “October” (Soviet) Revolution was organized by the Communists in alliance with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries (peasant-populists) and with anarchists. The initial government was a coalition of the Communists and Left SRs, generally supported by anarchists in the soviets. (“Soviet” means “council.” It originally referred to the popularly elected councils which were rooted in factory committees, village assemblies, and military units.)

But by 1920, the Leninists had banned all alternate parties, including those which had fought on their side in the Russian Civil War. These included the Left SRs and the Left Mensheviks. Anarchists were arrested, jailed, and shot. Not long after, even opposition caucuses in the one legal party were outlawed.

Essentially, the writers favor the rule of the soviets, supported by the revolutionary parties including the Communists—but criticize what happened instead: the rule of the Communist Party, with supposed support by the soviets. This went together with economic changes, “prioritizing centralized nationalization over the local collectivization of the means of production….” (p. 87) They mildly comment, “This choice, like so many others, is questionable.” (same) This is quite the understatement.

Despite this (soft) criticism of the Leninists, Besancenot and Lowy insist that the problem does not lie with Marx. “It is pointless, however, to seek a manufacturing defect in Marxism…on the question of whether to abolish the state immediately or not.” (p. 87) Similarly, they oppose “…drawing a connection between the Lenin years and the Stalin years.” (p. 89) Granted that Marx would have been horrified by what Stalin made out of Marxism—and that V.I. Lenin was no Stalin. Lenin did not aim for a totalitarian state, nor want one. This was unlike Mao Tse-tung, say, who already had Stalinist Russia as a model and goal—as did Che and Fidel.

Yet it is a bit much to deny that Marx’s strategy of working through the state was not a cause of Lenin’s building a party-state, one which laid the basis for Stalinist state-capitalism. And, like Marx, Lenin believed that he and his party knew the truth better than anyone else. This justified the one-party party-state. Believing that his party—and only his party—knew the full truth—and since only his party spoke for the proletariat—Lenin felt justified in suppressing all other points of view, including the anarchists.

In 1921, the sailors at the Kronstadt naval base rebelled. The Kronstadt fortress overlooked the capitol at Petrograd. Influenced by anarchists, the rebels demanded an end to the political monopoly of the Communists, recognition of other left political tendencies, and free elections to the soviets, as well as economic reforms. Emma Goldman urged negotiation with the rebels. Instead, the Communists crushed them militarily, and then shot the captured sailors in batches. To anarchists this was a counterrevolutionary crime. It was comparable to the 1956 crushing of the Hungarian revolution.

The two authors regard this opinion as “one-sided.” “In our view, the conflict between Kronstadt and the Bolshevik government was…a tragic and fraternal confrontation between two revolutionary currents. The responsibility for this tragedy is shared, but falls primarily on those who held power.” (p. 95) “The crushing of the sailors of Kronstadt was not a ‘tragic necessity,’ but an error and a wrong.” (p. 97)

In other words, the anarchist-influenced rebel sailors are partially to blame (they dared to demand socialist democracy) even if the “primary” fault lies with the Communist regime (which chose to massacre the sailors). This choice was a bad mistake, not a counterrevolutionary crime (no one is perfect). Still, both sides were “revolutionary currents.”

It has been argued that the Russian Communists dared not permit several political tendencies to compete in free elections. Given the poverty and destruction which followed World War I and the Civil War, the workers and peasants were unhappy with the Communists. They would likely have voted them out, supposedly with disastrous consequences. The authors quote the Trotskyist (and ex-anarchist) Victor Serge: “If the Bolshevik dictatorship fell, it was only a short step to chaos, and through chaos to a peasant uprising, the massacre of the Communists…and, in the end…another dictatorship, this time anti-proletarian.” (p. 97) They agree with this view. “A Bolshevik defeat would have opened the path to counterrevolution.” (same)

Whether this is true or not, the Bolshevik victory opened the path to (internal) counterrevolution. The one-party Communist dictatorship (assuming it ever was a “proletarian dictatorship”) led to the “anti-proletarian” dictatorship of Stalin and the Stalinist bureaucracy. Along with the super-exploitation of the workers and peasants, it engaged in “the massacre of the Communists” in the purge trials of the ‘thirties—not to mention the massacre of millions of workers and peasants. Somewhat contradicting themselves, Lowy and Besancenot agree. For “the apparatchiks in the Kremlin…the crushing of the marines at Kronstadt was a service…to their ascension to power, a power that from then on could not be contested.” (p. 100) A somewhat similar view is given of the Ukrainian independent revolutionary army organized by the anarchist Nestor Makhno—allied with, and then betrayed by, the Communists.

Policy Issues

The final part of the book is titled “Policy Issues.” It covers more theoretical, strategic, and programmatic topics. Its first section is on the “Individual and [the] Collective.” The authors declare, “the anarchist movement has held the flag of individual emancipation much higher than the Marxist family.” (p. 122)

They then go on to criticize the anarchists for being too much individualistic. They cite Max Stirner, the early-19th century German philosopher of extreme egoist-individualism. Actually Stirner had no influence in the development of anarchist theory or movement, so citing him is irrelevant. Even so, the authors admit, “he foresaw the threat that the specter of the state could potentially hang over the project of individual rights in Germany.” (p. 123) They note that Guerin referred positively to Stirner. As a gay man, Guerin liked Stirner’s opposition to moralism and puritanism, without accepting his extreme individualism.

Similarly, the writers claim that “the old tenets of anarchism [are] poorly suited to such a level of overarching political organization” as was needed in the Ukraine during the Russian Revolution. (p. 103) Actually the anarchist-led Makhnovist movement did a good job of organizing in the Ukraine, in the brief time allowed it. This was despite the need to fight off the Austrian, Polish, Ukrainian nationalist, White counterrevolutionary, and Russian Communist armies.

In any case, Michael Bakunin, among the first revolutionary anarchist-socialists, had a view of liberated individuality as social, productive, and interactive. (So did Marx, especially expressed in his earliest writings.) They summarize, “If it is essential to ‘re-individualize’ the communist project, it is just as necessary to ‘collectivize’ anarchist ideas.” (p. 125) They believe “a revolutionary humanist path remains open,” which they think (bizarrely) is exemplified by “Che Guevara”! (same)

Besancenot and Lowy have a section titled “Making Revolution without Taking Power?” In effect they argue that it is wrong for a revolution to establish a new state (to take state power) but necessary to establish the self-organization of the workers and oppressed (to empower the people). Their examples are the 1871 Paris Commune and the early soviets. They call the Commune “a new form of power that was no longer a state, in the conventional sense, but was nonetheless a government, democratically elected….” (p. 131) Without quibbling over terms (Kropotkin sometimes made the same distinction between “state” and “government”), anarchists can mostly agree, I think.

In a section on “Autonomy and Federalism,” the writers say that their vision of “Communism…intends to entrust as many powers as possible to the base and foster local initiatives.” (p. 132) This is the anarchist conception of decentralized federalism. “From the idea of federalism developed by the anarchists, we can retain the focus on power to the base and voluntary solidarity between collectives.” (p. 135)

There is a section on “Democratic Economic Planning and Self-Management.” Their proposal ”does not correspond in the least to what is often described as ‘central economic planning,’ for the economic and social decisions are not made by any kind of ‘center,’ but determined democratically by the populations concerned.” (p. 139) Like Michael Albert’s “participatory economy” or “Parecon,” their “democratic socialist economic planning…[includes] opposition to the capitalist market and to bureaucratic economic planning, confidence in workers’ self-organization, and anti-authoritarianism.” (p. 140) However, they have some valid criticisms of the Parecon program. They also give credit to Anton Pannekoek of the “council communists”/ libertarian Marxists “for opting for the socialization of the means of production under the control of the producers themselves, rather than for their nationalization from above.” (p. 150)

The theme of decentralist federalism is continued in “Direct and Representative Democracy.” In this section, the authors recognize that anarchists and Marxists have had important differences on these topics. But they claim that “some significant convergences can still be found. For example, both are favorable to forms of direct democracy in social struggles: general assemblies, self-organized strikes and pickets, etc.” (p. 142)

This may be true. But it covers-over an important difference. Anarchists can accept election of delegates to higher federal councils, but they insist that the base assemblies must have face-to-face direct democracy. Marx and Engels, even in their most radically democratic writings (for example, on the Paris Commune) advocated an extremely democratic form of representative democracy. They had no conception of basing this in face-to-face direct democracy. This is the anarchist tradition.

There is also a very brief discussion of whether revolutionary socialists should run and/or vote in bourgeois elections. They accept the view of both traditions that socialism cannot be achieved through elections. However, they still believe that it may be useful to run and vote, for various reasons. “Our point of view in this debate is closer to the Marxist tradition” than to the anarchist tradition of anti-electoralism. (p. 143) They do not mention that council communists and other “ultra-left” libertarian Marxists have been opposed to participation in elections. Anarchists would argue that history has demonstrated the failures of an electoralist/parliamentary strategy.

In “Union and Party,” Besancenot and Lowy summarize the lessons of the Russian Revolution and other revolutions and near-revolutions. They argue that the struggle needs radical parties and organizations (including anarchist federations) as well as mass organizations, such as labor unions and also popular councils. Parties are formed on agreements about particular programs. They are necessary to fight for a revolutionary program against reformists, liberals, conservatives, and fascists (for these will certainly have their parties). There is a historical tendency among anarchists of revolutionary federations. This includes Bakunin’s “Brotherhoods,” Makhno and others’ advocacy of the “Platform,” the Spanish FAI, and the current especifismo of Latin Americans.

The mass organizations provide “the framework of regular and sovereign general assemblies, open to all workers who want to mobilize…[in] the natural organ of the struggle….They can also…elect delegates, also dismissible, to participate in a coordination where the delegates from different assemblies meet to unify their activities….The power to make decisions belongs to the base…. This democratic option for organization prefigures today the way society could function tomorrow.” (p. 151)

A number of important topics are not covered in this book. These include feminism and the dominance of straight males. Also issues of white supremacy and racism, colonialism, imperialism, and national self-determination. Economic developments of world capitalism are not discussed. The writers themselves mention that they have not covered education of children, nor the vital issue of opposing fascism.

But there is consideration of the very important topic of environmentalism. This is in the section, “Ecosocialism and Anarchist Ecology.” The authors base much of their ecosocialism on the anarchist writings of Murray Bookchin, although they note that Bookchin also used concepts from Marx. Bookchin analyzed capitalist commodification, competition, and, above all, its drive to accumulate, as destroying the ecology. Bookchin wrote about the need for a new, noncapitalist, society, decentralized and directly democratic, with a liberatory transformation of technology. “…We can only admire Murray Bookchin’s coherence and clear-sightedness.” (p. 154)

They make some criticisms of Bookchin. They deny his view that there is a “post-scarcity” world. While agreeing with Bookchin on the need for economic, technological, and political decentralization, they insist on federalist coordination and planning on regional, continental, and world levels. Considering their proletarian perspective, it is odd that they do not express disagreement with Bookchin’s rejection of the major role of the working class in a revolution. Also, surprisingly, there is no reference to research about ecological themes in Marx’s works by ecological Marxist theorists. This includes John Bellamy Foster and others. (See Foster 2009.)

Revolutionary Conclusion

Besancenot and Lowy conclude with “Toward a Libertarian Marxism.” They state that “Our point of departure…is Marxism.” (p. 158) That is where they come from. They do not believe that there can be a final definition of “libertarian Marxism.” They do believe that “Marxists have much to learn from…the anarchists.” (p. 158)

Their aim, they declare, is not to create a better Marxism, with tips from anarchism. (Similarly, my goal is not to replace anarchism with a nicer version of Marxism.) Instead, “The future emancipatory battles of our century will also see this convergence, in both action and thought, of the two great revolutionary currents of the past, of the present, and of the future—Marxism and anarchism, the red flag and the black flag.” (p. 159)

The basis of this convergence is that both revolutionary class-struggle anarchism and libertarian (autonomist) Marxism share a goal. This is an international revolution by the working class and its allies among all oppressed—to overthrow the state, capitalism, and all oppressions, and to replace them with the self-organization of the workers and oppressed.

The issue is not an immediate merger of anarchism and Marxism. This is especially true when there is so much variation within each school. As I pointed out in the beginning, Lowy and Besancenot and many others see an authoritarian such as Che Guevara as within their “libertarian” version of Marxism. They may find the Communist suppression of the Kronstadt rebels as justifiable, or perhaps a tragic if understandable error. Such views must limit their dialogue with anarchism. As a revolutionary anarchist, I still find matters of interest in this book. But its limitations are also real.

References

Besancenot, Oliver, & Lowy, Michael (2009). Che Guevara: His Revolutionary Legacy. NY: Monthly Review Press.

Foster, John Bellamy (2009). The Ecological Revolution; Making Peace with the Planet. NY: Monthly Review Press.

Guerin, Daniel (2017). For a Libertarian Communism. (Ed.: David Berry; Trans.: Mitchell Abidor) Oakland CA: PM Press.

Lowy, Michael (2007). The Marxism of Che Guevara: Philosophy, Economics, Revolutionary Warfare. Rowman and Littlefield.

Lowy, Michael, & Besancenot, Oliver (2023; originally in French, 2014). Revolutionary Affinities: Toward a Marxist-Anarchist Solidarity. (Trans.: David Campbell). Oakland CA: PM Press.

Price, Wayne (2016). “The Authoritarian Vision of Che Guevara; Review of Samuel Farber, The Politics of Che Guevara”
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/29795
search_text=Wayne+Price

Price, Wayne (2017). “What is Libertarian Socialism? An Anarchist-Marxist Dialogue; Review of A. Prichard, R. Kinna, S. Pinta, & D. Berry (Eds.). Libertarian Socialism; Politics in Black and Red”
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/30411?search_text=Wayne

Price, Wayne (2022). “An Anarchist Guide to The Communist Manifesto of Marx & Engels.”
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32578?search_text=Wayne

*written for www.Anarkismo.net

1 – We have seen statements about the work of TA outside of the battlefield, from medical support to education. This second one is of great interest to us, could you please clarify a bit on how you proceed with educational campaigns, not only amongst yourselves but also with local communities? Are there any lessons you wish to share about the role (and process) of revolutionary education? How do you see pedagogy as not only a tool, but also a space within the struggles you must face?

Education is what builds the foundations of a new society. It is often our best tool to defend ourselves and our communities. The kurdish liberation movement values education a lot, and this also brought us to reflect on our approach. In rojava it is a common practice to join educations of several months, where militants from different places have no other work than learn and develop. This is not a new practice from rojava, the kurdish movement has been working on their educational methods for decades. Joining some of those educations, we also noticed how much our understanding of education is connected to school, university and other state systems. And how much we should develop our own educational programs, shaped by our own political views and values. In this, the pedagogy of the oppressed of Paulo Freire can give very important perspectives.

Revolutionary education can be everything we do, if we learn from it in an organized way. Closed educations allow us to work deeper on one topic, like learning about the philosophy and political views of Abdullah Ocalan, study the proposals of Makhno or Malatesta about organized anarchism and the different attempts to put it in practice, or learn about first aid and medical care during war situations. But this also has to come with practice, which is often the best education, like when we work in society with our kurdish, arab and other comrades, when we build our organization day to day, or when we work as combat medics in the front lines. Theory brings knowledge and helps to build understanding and confidence, but is practical work what builds our experience.

Some knowledge we carry with us, is scarce here, and is important to collectivize it. We have been running educations of first aid and tactical field care to kurdish, arab and armenian comrades. We also shared our knowledge and experiences among ourselves, sometimes in short seminar formats sometimes in longer closed educations. This helped us to build our capacities and a common frame as organization, practically as well as ideologically. With time, our methods and systems of education are getting more adapted to our needs, reflecting not only of what we want to teach and learn but also how we want to do it. For some comrades it is helpful to read or listen a seminar for several ours, for others is better to do things and learn on practice. We try to keep this in mind but also challenge ourselves, like by encouraging comrades that are more familiar with academic areas to work on the ground, and push for ideological development and theoretical works with those more oriented to field work.

2- In previous statements you have discussed the need for revolutionaries to disengage from individualistic, selfish mindsets, as well as issues of ego when dealing with comrades and organization. How have you within TA managed to deal with such mindsets? We recognize this view, where anarchism and revolutionary struggle continuously straddle a difficult line between lifestyle and commodity, not allowing us to build meaningful relations on the march to liberation. Are there any lessons or warnings from your own activities that can be parted?

That is a very difficult question, because it is one of the main challenges we face. Anarchism has always discussed the contradictions between individual militants and the need revolutionary organizations. We are working to balance those points, because we see very important arguments to be made on both sides. As many anarchists before us, we reached the conclusion that organization is a necessity, not as an aim in itself but as a means to an end. We don’t accept unnecessary hierarchies and we value the individuality of our militants, often referring to the idea that “there is no organization without militants, there is no militant without organization”. With this we also want to point out the importance of individual responsibility towards the organization, as well as collective responsibility of the organization towards the individuals.

Becoming a militant of a revolutionary organization comes with individual and collective contradictions. The main aspects of our personalities have been shaped by the societies we have grown up in. Life in capitalist modernity relies on individualization. In school, in the work place, in the media we consume, we are told that individual freedom is everything that matters. “Your freedom ends where the freedom of other starts” is often the main idea running our societies. It denies collective belonging and it promotes individualist mindset and values. Is therefore no surprise that individualist anarchism manage to thrive in those capitalist societies we come from, because it connects with those individualist values that liberalism promotes. We want to challenge that. We believe our only way out is solidarity and mutual aid, and for this we have to challenge the deeply rooted individualism that we all carry with us.

Individualism can take many forms. Some are more obvious, like selfishness, elitism, or narcissism; but more subtle forms can take more time to notice, like refusing help when needed, not sharing information or knowledge with comrades, not listening or considering others proposals and ideas. We all have traces of individualism, and they are often connected with our ego and the image we have and we project of ourselves. Overcoming this requires that we are able to evaluate ourselves and others as well as our ways of relating. Criticism and self-criticism go hand in hand, we need to be able to acknowledge our shortcomings to meaningfully engage with the shortcomings of others. Admitting to ourselves that there is a difference between how we perceive ourselves/how we want to be perceived and how other perceive us can be painful. However acknowledging that gap opens the door for us to develop. Everyone has this gap, for some it is wider, for some it is more narrow, and to challenge it can create space to grow and learn. Keeping this in mind, we can build better relations that are founded in honesty and trust.

Trust is scarce in our societies. It is much easier to learn to suspect, to be afraid of your neighbor, to step on your co-workers to get upper hand and get a better piece of the cake. Capitalism relies on competition, and lying and selling yourself, on the society of spectacle. There is no place for honesty and trust in a system that is based on performance, on appearance of what you are not, on faking it and believing that one day you will make it. To be honest and transparent with our comrades necessitates vulnerability. We had been told to hide those things, to not let others see our weak points, to present ourself as the all-capable person that can do anything that is needed. All those individualist traits play against us, specially in difficult moments when stress and hardships reveal the things we try to hide.

We have been working on these issues by putting into practice tools like tekmil and platform, which we learned from the kurdish movement. We also explored other methods, and lately we have been deepening our knowledge on conflict resolution, with restorative circles and transformative justice. Transformative justice provides a good approach, connected to our ideological values and oriented towards topics like responsibility and accountability, that should always be the base of our organizing. We learned that organization is a struggle in itself, and that contradictions, conflicts and challenges will always arise in our organizing. In absence of hierarchical structures, how we take decisions and how we solve conflicts is a very important part of our organizing.

3- Maybe related to above, how is inter-personal conflict resolved at large in NES? We have seen several abstract perspectives, but little of actual accounts on the processes of justice and equity, how are such issues dealth with? Do the several autonomous groups have the freedom to deal with them “in-house”? Are all conflict resolutions centralized?

There are currently two justice systems at play in NES. One similar to state justice and one more based on communitarian justice. The communitarian system consists of peasant consensus committees and local councils that are often composed of religious leaders and community elders. These encourage people to take responsibility and agency over their own problems. However this system is not working so well, unfortunately. Because of this many conflicts are still settled through the state-like legal justice system that is half inherited from the Al-Assad regime and half reorganized by the Autonomous Administration. It is an awkward mix that works with the tools at hand in a difficult situation. The union of lawyers played an important role, as well as the effort to write the “social contract” of AANES, some kind of constitution that is revisited every few years in discussions with different political and social organizations.

The reasons that lead the Autonomous Administration to put more efforts to reorganize the general legal system instead of promoting the communitarian justice councils is not so clear to us. We suggest you talk to justice committee of the AANES directly, they will be better able to answer that. Besides these, there are also the women’s autonomous structures such as the women’s houses (mala jin) and women’s law. These have played and are playing an important role in addressing problems around gender as well as finding solutions around family conflict concerning women (marriage, divorce, abuse, etc.).

Councils, committees, communes, and autonomous organizations have some degree of freedom to deal with conflict “in-house”. How exactly it is approached and if people involve the state-like legal system depends on the nature and size of the conflict as well as the people and groups involved. With crimes that have big social impact, like brutal murders or organized treason (giving intelligence to Turkey that is used to assassinate revolutionaries, helping ISIS to plan and carry out attacks), there have been popular trials. Those trials gather different representatives of the social community, especially those more affected by the crime judged, and function as popular jury to decide the penalty.

For our organization and for organizations in europe we think it is important we come to understand the value of transformative justice, and that we build capacity to start offering alternatives to the legal ‘justice’ system, which is a racist ableist punitive lie and deeply connected to nation-state power. The topic on transformative justice has been on the table in leftist circles in europe for a while. We see it is slowly moving into a more practical phase now. Let us start with small practical adjustments, once we start gaining some experiences from the daily life, we can and should supplement them with some reading/study/theory. Conflict resolution cannot be learned from books, its fundaments can only be learned in practice, books will be very helpful to improve us but only if we are already putting it in practice. We will have to make many mistakes, and that is fine. We have a lot to unlearn from the state imposed systems of ‘justice’. We are making an imperfect start by using tools like tekmil, restorative circles and autonomous women’s structures to build on this.

4- What is the current status of art and self-expression within rojava? Has there been the chance and space for people to be able to perform, create, or show artistic creation? How is such received? How has the changing facets of the conflict affected it?

Tevgera Çand û Hûner (Tev-çand, the organization of art and culture) is a coordination of all the art and culture centers, present in every city. Most of those centers have different groups, like dance, music, theater, cinema, paint, literature, sculpture, etc. They mainly promote art connected to kurdish culture, language and identity. Every ethnic group is encouraged to promote its own traditional art and culture while also making space for other forms of art outside folkloric tradition. Tev-çand has a political approach to art, seeing it as a vehicle to share and spread the values of the revolution. A couple of successful examples are Hunergeha Welat - with their youtube channel publishing new songs and videoclips made in rojava - or the Komina Film a Rojava - the cinema commune that produced several movies, shorts, clips. Komina Film a Rojava recently published a series about rojava called “Evina Kurd” (kurdish love).

The local groups often perform in local celebrations, festive days and other cultural events. In the last years some of those groups and artists are gaining experience and getting more professional, and we start to see their art in different theaters, expositions and events. Art is seen as popular and cultural wealth, and there is no process of commodification around it. Theater, cinema and music are performed and shared for free, and we have never seen any cultural event with entrance fee. This is part of the political approach on ethics and aesthetics that is promoted. To keep it short, we can simply point the efforts to connect aesthetics to political and ethical revolutionary values. This approach challenges the standards of beauty that capitalist modernity tries to impose, seeing art as a vehicle of expression of the people, of the society and its values. A lot of art is connected to the resistance against ISIS and turkish fascism, with special focus on women’s resistances and YPJ, but also about the historical roots and struggles of the kurdish people.

In that approach to art we can see a shift that the revolution brought, that maybe started even before rojava. Kurdish cinema from the 20th century is often tragic, about the massacres and the exile that kurdish people suffered. Dengbêj, a traditional music/poetry, is also infused with stories of destroyed villages, murdered families and orphaned children. It is in this new century that kurdish art has started to reflect a new image. One not so focused on kurds just as victims of inhumane tragedies, but also as actors of change. The songs of YPG and YPJ defeating ISIS or the guerrillas fighting in the mountains, the new movies of the resistance in Sur or in Kobane, the big celebrations of NewRoz (kurdish new year) are examples of a rebirth of the kurdish people and their will to resist. They are not just a people whose faith is suffering, they are a stateless nation whose land has been occupied and whose villages burned down. They learned from other anticolonial struggles and from revolutionary movements of national liberation and they will take their destiny in their hands. They will defend their land and their culture, building a future for next generations, with weapons but also with music, with dance, with cinema.

5- What is TA’s view on the role of religion, and how has it affected their capacity to connect and relate to local communities? Have there been challenges, or chanegs in attitude of the militants? In the west we struggle to separate anti-clericalism from base islamophobia nad eurocentrism, what lessons have you gained from your insertion in Kurdish and Arab societies?

Religion is not the problem for us when it is connected to the people and ethics, it is a problem when religion is connected to power and rule. It is this wielding of authority that we are against, as you also touching with anti-clericalism. Some anarchists came here with atheist backgrounds, and when asked about our religion is easy for us to answer we have no religion. But this answer is often understood as if we have no ethics, and also made us reflect how most of us, even if not practitioners, had been raised in a christian culture.

We agree with you that we in the west can do a bad job at separating anti-clericalism from islamophobia and eurocentrism. The society we are in is overwhelmingly muslim (with small minorities of other belief), nearly everyone has belief in the Quran, even if not everyone describes themselves as practicing muslims. This reality grounds our work with people here. We should understand the importance religion holds to the people and local comrades. Knowing a little, or a lot, about islam is very helpful when we discuss with local comrades. Arguing from religion for a revolutionary perspective is a tactic that has proven successful. It is necessary to respect peoples religious conviction, but at the same time we also critique or question comrades when this leads them to take actions that are not in line with the revolutionary values in NES. There are efforts to build a democratic islam, looking at the ethical side of islamic religion and not so much at the Sharia law. This is a necessary process to come to terms with the aftermath of islamist fundamentalism carried out as theocratic fascism by ISIS. Though from the outside it might seem like ISIS is no more, the fight against its ideology very much continues here. In some regions of NES, ISIS ideology is still widespread and it will take time and effort for everyone to move towards a democratic islam.

6- Anarchist and so-called revolutionary movements in Europe have struggled for decades find something which can overcame our own weaknesses and smallness, looking at methods old and new. What is your perspective on this? Do you also agree or feel the movements are limiting themselves, and if so why? Lack of use of insurrectionary violence, lack of structures directing the struggle, lack of resources, lack of conviction?

This is a very important point and question you bring up here. We agree that movements are limiting themselves. We see the issue at the core as a lack of organizations that can create and promote long term aims perspectives, as currently we mostly see affinity based groups with short term thinking.

The wave of insurrectionism in the 90’s, especially in italy, brought a short term struggle perspective that seemed to promote effectivity. In some ways, it worked, however it did so at the cost of undermining organizational capacity. Organization capacity is crucial. By becoming an organization, we as TA, now have the ability to accumulate experience, we do not constantly have to start anew. We can also build lasting projects and relations, we can deepen our understanding and learning of other organizations that have struggled and are struggling. Not only on an individual level, but on an organizational one. Meaning that such knowledge and experiences cease to become merely tied to one person or one cell or affinity group, but that the whole organization takes ownership of it. This greatly grows our capacity as an organization.

To develop as a revolutionary organization is not easy, we already talked about this. We have to break with the liberal individualist mindset that is so deeply ingrained with capitalist socialization. Our societies are organized around those capitalist values, and to change it we have to develop our own values and social institutions, to anticipate the society we want. The things you mention lacking in anarchist movements (structures to direct the struggle, resources, conviction, action) can often be connected to the lack of organization. If we find ourselves isolated, as individuals or in small groups, our capacity to influence and change the society around us diminish. As we can learn many things in rojava, there are also many lessons we can take from the anarchist organizations in latin america. The ideas of “especifismo” (english: specifism), a theoretical frame oriented to develop specific anarchist organizations, are the result of decades of struggle. We can track them back to platformist proposal of Peter Arshinov and Nestor Maknho, but developed in practice by the Federacion Anarquista de Uruguay (FAU). As portugese anarchists, you have easy access to the materials and texts developed by brazilian anarchist organizations.

7- There was critique recently of the focus and resources given by western leftists towards nascent anarchist movements in Ukraine, who, without true autonomous structures and being inserted in statist armies, have received generous support and funds, while non-white movements have struggled for a fraction of this support. Do you agree with this critique?

We assume you are referring to the article “Anarchist who Fought in rojava: Response to ‘No War But Class War’ Debate”, that can be found on Abolition Media. We agree with the article that the amount of resources sent to Ukraine from western leftist is very disproportional with the amount of material support comrades in NES have gotten, especially given that the revolution here is so explicitly rooted in libertarian revolutionary ideology and praxis, where this is more debatable for Ukraine as the article pointed out. “Solidarity is something you can hold in your hands”, a slogan popularized by the anti-imperialist group KAK, active in Denmark in the 70s, is a statement we can very much find ourselves in. While NES has gotten an alright amount of solidarity pictures, awareness campaigns, diplomatics campaigns, etc. on the side of material, financial or other support that we can “hold in our hands” the western left has absolutely not given it serious effort.

That being said, the war in Ukraine has been going on for a bit over a year now, the war in rojava for over 10 years. Of course these timescales also have an effect. Ukraine is on the news and we aren’t, we won’t be either, until a new invasion, and even then we will only receive a fraction of the media attention that Ukraine is getting. When we look broader than Ukraine and rojava, we ask: who has been looking at the genocidal warfare in Tigray or the recent war unfolding in Sudan? Who has been organizing material support for those conflicts? The Tigray peoples self-defense forces have a long revolutionary tradition, with a project similar to the ideas of democratic confederalism. In Sudan we have recently see a military escalation after big mobilizations and uprisings shook the country, that had a remarkable anarchist organized movement not common to find in most of African countries. But few articles are written about it, and even less anarchist book-fairs discussions about those conflicts. It is not fair either that those movements received little to no media coverage, let alone material support. This is part of the colonialism that we are trying to fight against. For us this is also a reason to stay with rojava, where values of anticolonialism are very much alive.

Coming back to Ukraine, Anarchists have been struggling since the beginning of the recent conflict, they were there at Maidan square and tried to organize form there. Probably this is not the place to discuss how much this movement is rooted in the historical anarchist movement in Ukraine, with the Black Liberation Peasants Army and the Makhnovist revolution, but nowadays the presence of anarchists is crucial to question the nationalist narrative of the far-right, that has been a dominating presence in the protest in Ukraine from the start. We have a responsibility as anarchists to take our place in such times, we cannot leave all the space to the far-right, because if we do they will take it. Now the current situation in Ukraine is not a revolution aligned with our principles, but it is our task to push our principles to the forefront and make them known. We can quote Malatesta when saying that “We are in any case one of the forces acting in the society, and history will advance, as always, in the directions resultant of all the forces”.

Historically war and revolution have an important connection. War environments see state authority stumble and authority diffuse in some places. The state isn’t always there anymore to provide people with infrastructure and resources. This means there are often windows of opportunity to assist in the self organization and management of the people, initially primarily along lines of mutual aid and solidarity. This is a situation in which bringing our ideology and applying it in practice with the people can be a useful way of strengthening our tendency, as Malatesta says.

We support our anarchist comrades fighting in Ukraine, we have an approach of critical solidarity to the people of Ukraine and aim to engage the contradictions that it brings up and not devolve into a binary and dogmatic approach. We would also like to draw your attention to comrade Leshiy and comrade Ciya, they have both spend time in NES and fell on the Ukrainian front lines together with other anarchist comrades in Ukrainan front lines. We grieve this loss, and aim to learn from their lives and decisions, they also show us a way of nuanced analysis and consideration that has space for the contradictions that inevitably come up when we get our hands dirty in revolution. We agreed with the comrade who wrote the article that it is very easy to be purist and judgmental about decisions made in Ukraine and rojava from a comfortable armchair. Participating in an actual revolution or armed conflict will quickly make it clear that there are often no “clean” or clear-cut solutions and being a revolutionary in action, not just in words, means gaining a deep understanding of nuanced analysis and contradictions.

8 - How can we assist you in TA; materially or otherwise?

The main points in which we can see your assistance to be help us are; a) ideological development b) engaged network c) resist repression d) militants e) resources

a) Ideological development of anarchist struggle is the basis for us to move forward. We see that we have come to a point where we realize as european anarchists that affinity based organizing alone is not sufficient. We need anarchist organization or structures that keep us together not just based on personal affinity, but in an organized way, to be able to think long term and develop a wider strategy. By further developing anarchist ideology and praxis in our current context, we strengthen each other.

b) Engaged networks are a foundation to exchange discussion, projects, resources and experiences. We see this in the form of building long term relations with solid organizations, and such exchange can take place through visits and exchange of militants as well as other forms of communication. Related to the point about ideological development, this includes reading and discussing each other statements and letters, learning from each other experience and giving feedback, proposals and critique on them.

c) Networks also leads into resisting repression. In the past years, militants who have been to rojava and the kurdish movement in general have been increasingly criminalized. Quite a few comrades are spending time in prison or are in other kinds of legal problems. We need anarchists everywhere to push back against this criminalization.

d) We need more militants to join us in rojava to fight and struggle here. There is also opportunity for comrades are already organized in europe to join us here while remaining connected to their european organization. We would like this actually. We see this as a potential way to strengthen ties between our organization and anarchist organizations in europe.

e) On the directly material side, we need money. Since exactly what materials we need changes from time to time, sending materials directly can be a little tricky, though we can talk about this if there is a desire to do something like that. With money directly we can allocate it to the most pressing needs and make adjustments when necessary in this every changing situation we are in.

ORO CONVERSATORIO: A 50 AÑOS DEL GOLPE CÍVICO MILITAR
Los desafíos y tareas del anarquismo

Viernes 30 de septiembre // 18:00 hrs
Lugar: Vicuña Mackenna 636 - TRASOL

Viernes 6 de octubre // 18:00 hrs
Lugar: Calle Clave 437 - FLORA

Organizan:
Asamblea Anarquista Valparaíso
Federación Anarquista Santiago

Taller de Estudios Anarquistas:
La experiencia de los paros nacionales en Colombia

Del 14 de septiembre al 5 de octubre
Jueves 600 pm
La Redada Miscelánea Cultural (Calle 17 #2-51)
Bogotá

Primera sesión: Introducción y primeras experiencias (1944-1957) 14 de septiembre
Segunda sesión: Auge y crisis (1963-1990) 28 de septiembre
Tercera sesión: Recomposición y estallido (1999-2021) 5 de octubre

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