Platformism

Platformism is a tendency within the wider anarchist movement originally theorised by the Dielo Truda group, and based to a large extent on Nestor Makhno's conception of anarchism. It originated with the publication by the Dielo Truda group of the Organisational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft). The Dielo Truda group, which consisted of exiled Russian anarchist veterans of the 1917 October Revolution, based the Platform on their experiences of the revolution, and the eventual victory of the Bolsheviks over the anarchists and other groups. The Platform attempted to address and explain the anarchist movement's failures during the Russian Revolution. The book drew both praise and criticism from anarchists worldwide, and sparked a major internal debate within the anarchist movement

History

The Organisational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft) was written in 1926 by the "Group of Russian Anarchists Abroad", a group of exiled Russian and Ukrainian anarchists in France who published the Dielo Truda ("Workers' Cause") newspaper. The pamphlet is an analysis of basic anarchist beliefs, a vision of an anarchist society, and recommendations as to how an anarchist organisation should be structured. The four main principles by which an anarchist organisation should operate, according to the Platform, are ideological unity, tactical unity, collective responsibility, and federalism.

Until recently, the Platform was known in English as the Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists, a result of its having been translated from the French edition popularised in the early 1970s. Alexandre Skirda, in his book Facing the Enemy: A history of Anarchist Organization from Proudhon to May 1968 (p. 131), attributes much of the controversy about the Platform to the original 1926 French translation made by its opponent Voline. Later translations to French have corrected some of the mistranslations and the latest English translation, made directly from the Russian original, reflects this.

The Platform argues that "[w]e have vital need of an organisation which, having attracted most of the participants in the anarchist movement, would establish a common tactical and political line for anarchism and thereby serve as a guide for the whole movement".

Many platformist organisations today are unhappy with the designation, often preferring to use descriptions such as "anarchist communist", "social anarchist" or "libertarian communist/socialist". Most agree that the 1926 Platform was sorely lacking in certain areas, and point out that it was actually a draft document, never intended to be adopted in its original form. The Italian FdCA, for example, do not insist on the principle of "tactical unity", which according to them is impossible to achieve over a large area, preferring instead "tactical homogeneity".

Principles

The Platform describes four key organisational features which distinguish platformism from the rest of the anarchist movement. They are:

• Tactical Unity — "A common tactical line in the movement is of decisive importance for the existence of the organisation and the whole movement: it avoids the disastrous effect of several tactics opposing each other; it concentrates the forces of the movement; and gives them a common direction leading to a fixed objective".
• Theoretical Unity — "Theory represents the force which directs the activity of persons and organisations along a defined path towards a determined goal. Naturally it should be common to all the persons and organisations adhering to the General Union. All activity by the General Union, both overall and in its details, should be in perfect concord with the theoretical principles professed by the union".
• Collective Responsibility — "The practice of acting on one's personal responsibility should be decisively condemned and rejected in the ranks of the anarchist movement. The areas of revolutionary life, social and political, are above all profoundly collective by nature. Social revolutionary activity in these areas cannot be based on the personal responsibility of individual militants".
• Federalism — "Against centralism, anarchism has always professed and defended the principle of federalism, which reconciles the independence and initiative of individuals and the organi—ation with service to the common cause".

The Platform today

Today there are organisations inspired by the Platform in many countries, including the Workers Solidarity Movement in Ireland, Common Struggle/Lucha Común in the United States, the Union Communiste Libertaire in Quebec, Common Cause in Ontario, the Federación Comunista Libertaria (FCL) and Organización Comunista Libertaria (OCL) in Chile, the Federación Anarco-Comunista de Argentina (FACA) and Línea Anarco-Comunista (LAC) in Argentina, the Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici (FdCA) in Italy, the Fórum do Anarquismo Organizado in Brazil, Unión Socialista Libertaria in Peru, the Organisation Communiste Libertaire and Alternative Libertaire in France, the Alianza de los Comunistas Libertarios (ACL) in Mexico, the Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (MACG) and Sydney Anarchist Communist Trajectory (SACT) in Australia, Motmakt in Norway, Libertære Socialister in Denmark, Liberty & Solidarity in the UK, the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF) in South Africa, and the Revolutionary Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists by the name of N. I. Makhno (RKAS), which is an international anarcho-syndicalist, platformist confederation with sections and individual members in Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Germany, Latvia, Bulgaria and Israel. Organisations inspired by the Platform were also among the founders of the now-defunct International Libertarian Solidarity network and its successor, the Anarkismo network; which is run collaboratively by roughly 30 platformist organisations around the world.

Criticism

The Platform attracted strong criticism from many sectors on the anarchist movement of the time including some of the most influential anarchists such as Voline, Errico Malatesta, Luigi Fabbri, Camillo Berneri, Max Nettlau, Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman and Gregori Maximoff. Malatesta in a written response to the Platform commented that "[t]heir organisation, being typically authoritarian, far from helping to bring about the victory of anarchist communism, to which they aspire, could only falsify the anarchist spirit and lead to consequences that go against their intentions". However, in his last response to Makhno — after seeing a platformist group in formation — Malatesta concluded that he was actually in agreement with the positions of the platform; but had just been confused by the language they had used:

But all this is perhaps only a question of words.

In my reply to Makhno I already said: "It may be that, by the term collective responsibility, you mean the agreement and solidarity that must exist among the members of an association. And if that is so, your expression would, in my opinion, amount to an improper use of language, and therefore, being only a question of words, we would be closer to understanding each other."

And now, reading what the comrades of the 18e say, I find myself more or less in agreement with their way of conceiving the anarchist organisation (being very far from the authoritarian spirit which the "Platform" seemed to reveal) and I confirm my belief that behind the linguistic differences really lie identical positions.

As an alternative to platformism Voline and Sebastien Faure proposed synthesist anarchist federations, which they envisioned to form under the principles of anarchism without adjectives.

See also

• Synthesis anarchism, Voline's response to platformism.

External links

• Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft) The most accurate translation of the platform in English
• Anarchism and the Platformist Tradition An Archive of Writings on the Platformist Tradition within Anarchism
• Manifesto of The Libertarian Communists Written in 1953 by Georges Fontenis for the Federation Communiste Libertaire of France. It is one of the key texts of this anarchist-communist current.
• A Guide to the Platform based on the older translation
• Towards a Fresh Revolution Written by the Friends of Durruti group following the Spanish Civil War, this text is arguably one of the most important Platformist texts ever written. It reaffirms the early calls from the Russian comrades for tactical and theoretical unity, and better organizational practices, and sheds light on the errors in organization during the Spanish Civil War.
• Anarkismo.net - Multilingual anarchist news site run by over a dozen platformist organisations on five continents
• The Tyranny of Structurelessness: An organizationalist repudiation of anarchism, essay by Jason McQuinn critiquing anti-organisational structures; originally appeared in Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, volume 54
• ¿Wooden shoes or platform shoes? on the organizational platform of the libertarian communists by Bob Black
• About the Platform by Errico Malatesta and Nestor Makhno