Factsheets
Factsheets compiled by libcom.org clearly explaining different issues and topics, and ideas.
Anarchist communism - an introduction
A short introduction to anarchist-communism.
Anarchist communism is a form of anarchism that advocates the abolition of the State and capitalism in favour of a horizontal network of voluntary associations through which everyone will be free to satisfy his or her needs.
Anarchist communism is also known as anarcho-communism, communist anarchism, or, sometimes, libertarian communism. However, while all anarchist communists are libertarian communists, some libertarian communists, such as council communists, are not anarchists. What distinguishes anarchist communism from other variants of libertarian communism is the formers opposition to all forms of political power, hierarchy and domination.
Anarchist communism stresses egalitarianism and the abolition of social hierarchy and class distinctions that arise from unequal wealth distribution, the abolition of capitalism and money, and the collective production and distribution of wealth by means of voluntary associations. In anarchist communism, the state and property no longer exist. Each individual and group is free to contribute to production and to satisfy their needs based on their own choice. Systems of production and distribution are managed by their participants.
The abolition of wage labour is central to anarchist communism. With distribution of wealth being based on self-determined needs, people will be free to engage in whatever activities they find most fulfilling and will no longer have to engage in work for which they have neither the temperament nor the aptitude. Anarchist communists argue that there is no valid way of measuring the value of any one person's economic contributions because all wealth is a collective product of current and preceding generations. Anarchist communists argue that any economic system based on wage labour and private property will require a coercive state apparatus to enforce property rights and to maintain the unequal economic relationships that will inevitably arise.
Well known anarchist communists include Peter, or Piotr, Kropotkin (Russia), Errico Malatesta (Italy) and Nestor Makhno (Ukraine). Kropotkin (pictured above) is often seen as the most important theorist of anarchist communism, outlining his economic ideas in books The Conquest of Bread and Fields, Factories and Workshops. Kropotkin felt co-operation to be more beneficial than competition, arguing in Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution that this was illustrated in nature. Anarchist communist ideas were very influential in the introduction of anarchism to Japan through the efforts of Kôtoku Shûsui in the early 1900s who corresponded with Kropotkin and translated his works. Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman (who were both deported from USA in 1919) became important proponents of ‘Communist anarchism’ and became especially critical of Bolshevism after they discovered its devastating reality first-hand in Russia, and after the Red Army's crushing of the Kronstadt uprising. They in turn had been influenced by German-born émigrée to the USA, Johann Most, who had earlier helped bring anarchist communist thought to Britain though his contact with Frank Kitz in London around 1880 (see Anarchist Communism in Britain for a full historical account).
Many platformists refer to themselves as anarchist communists, although other anarchist communists are uncomfortable with some areas of the Organisational Platform document, such as the issue of ‘collective responsibility’ as supported by Mahkno but opposed by Malatesta. In general anarchist communists of all kinds are critical of some aspects of anarcho-syndicalism which considers workplace self-management by workers as fundamental to the aims (as well as the means) of achieving social revolution and still maintains economic relations based on reward of effort and exchange.
Modern day anarchist communists are represented in several organisations within the International of Anarchist Federations, including the Anarchist Federation (Britain). Platformist anarchist communists include the Workers Solidarity Movement (Ireland) and the North-Eastern Federation of Anarchist Communists (USA). Many nascent Eastern European, Russian and Caucasian anarchist groups identify with anarchist communism and there is a strong anarchist communist current amongst contemporary Latin American and Caribbean anarchist organisations.
Edited by the Anarchist Federation.
Anarcho-syndicalism - an introduction
A short explanation of anarcho-syndicalism and notes on its history.
Anarcho-syndicalism, or anarchosyndicalism, is one of the major forms of social anarchism. The idea behind anarcho-syndicalism is to create an industrial workers' union movement based on anarchist ideas. They therefore advocate decentralised, federated unions that use direct action to get reforms under capitalism until they are strong enough to overthrow it.
The idea is that trade unions divide workers by trade, which can (and has) end up in scabbing. In America, industrial disputes would sometimes see violent clashes between workers of different unions who would ignore each other’s requests to respect picket lines. The aim of anarcho-syndicalism is to unite all workers into ‘One Big Union’ controlled by the members, from the grassroots. This is obviously in deep contrast to the current reformist unions who are filled with layer upon layer of bureaucrats who can call off industrial action regardless of the wishes of the membership. This kind of union democracy puts control of workers’ struggles where it belongs: with the workers themselves.
Anarcho-syndicalists also don’t limit themselves to seeing strikes as the only legitimate form of industrial action. Anarcho-syndicalist unions encourage occupations, sabotage, sit-ins and many other forms of direct action to win industrial disputes.
The aim of the anarcho-syndicalist union is not just to win improved conditions. It would also serve as "the elementary school of Socialism" (Rudolf Rocker, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism, see below). In this way, anarcho-syndicalist unions aim to ‘create the new world in the shell of the old’ and they take very seriously Bakunin’s remark that the workers’ organisations must create "not only the ideas but also the facts of the future" in the pre-revolutionary period. The organisation of the union would prepare workers for the direct democracy, self-activity and mutual aid needed if the future society is to succeed.
Spain 1936 - anarcho-syndicalist workers in the CNT construct armoured cars to fight the fascists in one of the collectivised factories
Anarcho-syndicalists, like all libertarian communists, "are convinced that a Socialist economic order cannot be created by the decrees and statutes of a government, but only by... the taking over of the management of all plants by the producers themselves" (ibid.). Political parties are not just unnecessary for social change, but actually hold it back. These parties (even those claiming to represent the workers) stifle working class self-activity by attempting to either negotiate with government or by trying to lead the working class to victory. Anarcho-syndicalists believe that workers should take direct action to get better conditions at work and gain social and political reforms (while always having revolution and workers’ control as their final goal). An example of this would be the Spanish CNT (National Confederation of Labour) striking for the release of political prisoners in the beginning of the 20th Century, and British construction workers doing the same in the 1970s. Other recent political strikes include general strikes against the second Iraq war in Italy, Spain and Germany.
However, it must be noted that anarcho-syndicalists do not just focus on workplace organising or just the organising of those in paid employment. Anarcho-syndicalists fully support and participate in many forms community organising, arguing for the building of residents’ associations and radical community groups to build working class power in the community using tactics such as rent strikes to gain improvements in conditions. Anarcho-syndicalists also believe in the organisation of the unemployed, housewives, students and other unwaged workers into the ‘One Big Union’.
Between 1905 and 1939, anarcho-syndicalism gained itself a very prominent position in the workers’ movements of France, Italy and Spain (the CNT playing a leading role in the Spanish Civil War and Revolution in 1936-39) as well as in the United States, and in Latin America where anarchism was the predominant force in the workers' movement in many countries.
Today, though not as powerful a force as it once was, it still plays a significant role in workers’ struggles in areas of Western Europe.
Key links
- www.anarchosyndicalism.net - Anarcho-syndicalist website, lots of good info on articles, history etc
- www.syndicalist.org - Website of the excellent US magazine, Anarcho-Syndicalist Review
- www.iww.org - Website of the Industrial Workers of the World. Loads of info on history and theory as well as news on IWW activities in the US
- www.iwa-ait.org - Website of the International Workers’ Association, anarcho-syndicalist international
- www.iww.org.uk - IWW group in the UK
Council communism - an introduction
A short history and explanation of the ideas and practice of council communism.
Council communism was a radical left movement originating in Germany and the Netherlands in the 1920s. Today it continues as an important theoretical current within libertarian communism.
The central (and simple) argument of council communism, in stark contrast to both reformist social democrats and Leninists, is that the workers’ councils which spring up in workplaces and communities are the natural form of working class organisation. This view is obviously opposed to reformist or Leninist arguments which stress that the working class are incapable of doing anything by ourselves and need to rely on vanguard parties, ballot boxes or governments to sort out our problems.
Following from this, council communists argue that society and the economy should be managed by federations of workers’ councils, made up of delegates elected at workplaces and can be recalled at any moment by those who elected them. As such, council communists oppose bureaucratic state socialism. They also oppose the idea of a revolutionary party seizing power, believing that any social upheaval led by one these ‘revolutionary’ parties will just end up in a party dictatorship.
They also believe that the role of the revolutionary party is not to have a revolution for the working class, but just to agitate amongst the class, encouraging people to take control of their own struggles through the directly democratic institutions of workers’ councils.
It’s sometimes been thought that council communists have maintained an ‘outside and against’ position on bureaucratic reformist trade unions, seeing them as a break on workers’ militancy and believing that the leadership, who’s role is seen as little more than ‘cops with flat caps’, will always eventually sell out the membership. It is true that, historically at least, council communists have been anti-trade union. However, this has largely been due to the context in which council communists were writing. For instance, German council communists of the 1920s were fully aware of the German trade unions’ role in betraying the attempted workers’ revolution in 1918. However, in modern times, though keeping a very critical view of trade unions and their undemocratic nature, council communists generally believe that having a union is better for workers than not having one.
Council communists obviously also held a strong criticism of the ‘successful’ Russian revolution of 1917. Though they felt that originally it had a pro-working class nature about it, it ended up being a bourgeois revolution, with the new ‘communist’ leaders replacing the old feudal aristocracy with a state capitalist bureaucracy. The council communists hold that the Bolshevik Party just took over the role of individual capitalists rather then got rid of it.
The council communists emerged largely out of the German rank-and-file trade union movement, who opposed their unions and organised increasingly radical strikes towards the end of 1917 and the beginning of 1918. These formed into the Communist Workers’ Party of Germany (KAPD) whose hey-day was in the attempted German revolution of 1918-19. Similar tendencies developed within the workers’ movements of Italy, Bulgaria and the Netherlands. Council communist ideas have since been taken on by many libertarian communists around the world with groups like Socialisme ou Barbarie and the Situationist International being greatly influenced by them.
By libcom, 2005
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Libertarian communism, capitalism and direct action - an introduction
libcom.org's basic introduction to our understanding of the world as it is, what we think can be done to make it better, and how a libertarian communist society could function.
What is capitalism?
We live in a truly beautiful world. There is easily enough of everything to go around for everyone to live comfortably. However, while a few live in luxury, most of us spend our whole lives slaving away just to get by. We, the working class, own very little property and so to survive we can only do one of three things: work for a boss, claim benefits or steal. And the latter two options are either not available, or very unappealing to most.
This is what capitalism is based on: we have to sell our ability to work - and hours of our life - for a wage. Our work produces things and provides services. But our wages are less than the value of the products and services we provide. The difference between the value of what we make and what we get paid is the profit which is being stolen from us. Someone answering phones may perform work which makes the boss £400, but only gets paid £50 in wages. The rest is taken by the boss and called "profit" - which the bosses are entitled to just because they own the office the phones were answered in. So to make money, you must first have enough money to own something. By this system, the rich get richer and more powerful while we get poorer and, of course, less powerful.
We think that the people doing the work - us - should get the lot!
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| Air pollution kills millions and threatens the survival of the planet |
Capitalism produces things for profit rather than need. For example, in famine-ridden Africa, big corporations will grow cash-crops like cotton while millions starve all around. If you can't pay the mortgage, your house is repossessed. Treatments and medicines for fatal diseases which cost pennies to make are sold for thousands of pounds to pay for marketing, while millions die. Global warming and pollution from fossil fuels threatens the survival of humans on the planet because renewable energy sources threaten oil companies’ profits. This happens all over the world. These are not problems with capitalism that can be fixed, they are capitalism. The relentless drive to accumulate, make profit and expand drives capital. Profits must always come before people and planet because if not enough profit is made the corporation will go bust or be bought out. War, poverty, crime, famine and environmental destruction - these are all signs that capitalism is working perfectly. They are also signs that it is unsustainable and needs to be replaced.
What do we want to replace it with?
We don't want to replace one set of bosses and politicians with another like in the USSR. We want to abolish government and the control of production by the market. We want workers and service users to democratically control their own workplaces and see ordinary people run the world together without money or authority. This is what we call libertarian communism.
This all sounds very far fetched but actually it's more realistic then you think. Think about who actually does the important work in society - i.e. people who produce goods or services. We do!. We know exactly how to run our workplaces because it's us who do it everyday.
All bosses and shareholders do is get in the way and take a huge chunk of the profit. Imagine how much less work we would have to do if all the people who do ultimately pointless work did useful work instead? Many of us spend most of our lives working jobs which produce nothing useful, or no valuable service, such as products with built-in obsolescence, or the entire financial and insurance industries. We would have more time to do what we really wanted to do and truly live out our dreams and desires. We would be happier and more willing to help others because we wouldn't be wasting most of our waking lives either commuting, working in boring, pointless jobs or preparing ourselves to be 'good', 'productive' workers in schools or universities.
Just ask yourself: This week, how much time have I spent with the people I love? Now ask: How much time have I spent at work?
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| Barcelona 1936: a tram. The socialised transport system in the city was run by workers in the anarchist union the CNT, the biggest union in the Spain. |
Everything we would create would be for our benefit and so we would be more willing to work hard. A perfect example of this is during the Spanish Civil War in 1936-39 when factories in self-organised workers' territories (see picture, right)were far more efficient than the factories had been while under capitalist control. And in Argentina today, workers in the Zanon ceramics factory kicked out their boss and began running it themselves and work under better conditions than before.
The idea that we need a central group or individual in charge otherwise nothing would get done is ridiculous. The idea that we work harder with managers breathing down our necks, taking the profit of our work and telling us what to do makes no sense when looked at in any depth. At a corporate conference, one of the speakers asked why workers, after working hard for 8 hours a day, come home and work hard in the house or garden.
The answer is simple. Because we want to. At work, we know we won't benefit from working harder and as soon as the boss turns the corner, of course we'll skive. Why should we work hard for someone who exploits us? In the garden or the home, we do what we want, when we want, for our own benefit and so will work harder for ourselves than a profit-hungry corporation which uses us like machines to be bought and sold.
Things like this, from everyday, present life, are examples of libertarian communism in practice and, more importantly, in practice by ordinary people just getting along with everyday life. The fundamental basis of a socialist society is people co-operating as equals. Our basic co-operative capacity manifests itself even now in a capitalist world – from small things like organising a party where different people prepare and bring food and drink and wash up, to large voluntary co-operative organisations like the Royal National Lifeboat Association. Things like this show that a world free from government and bosses is possible. Things like this show that libertarian communism is possible.
How do we want to get to libertarian communism?
All this sounds good and it is hard to believe that anyone would oppose it. However, there are many. The ruling institutional structures are shaped so that they cannot give up their power and privilege. If individual corporations or governments decide that the current system is unfair and try to change it, the corporations will go bust or be bought out, and the governments bringing in progressive policies – if in isolation and not forced by a mass movement – will fall victim to capital flight, media smears and potential military coups. We need to take power away from them and exercise power ourselves over our own lives. However, although workers out-number the bosses by millions across the country (and by billions across the world) there are the police to beat us up, the prisons to lock us up, the military to shoot us, the schools and the corporate media to mislead us and many other institutions used to keep us soft and obedient.
This is why we need a revolution. Firstly: of ideas. We need to stop believing in capitalism. We need to start seeing each other as equals and unite as workers, as a class, which has been successfully divided with racism, sexism and all sorts of stupid prejudices for centuries. However, changing our ideas is not enough. Because the capitalist class won't give up their power without a fight, we need to be able to defend any gains in freedom that they would try and take from us. Communities will need to be put under direct community control. Workplaces will need to be taken over by the people who work there and run for the benefit of the community, not the bosses. We've done it before and we can do it again. We just need to realise our collective class strength.
What should I do now?
Organise. Get together with like-minded people in your community and start a group to build solidarity in your neighbourhood. Set up community groups and residents' associations and learn to live together without cops, landlords or other assorted government and big business representatives.
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| Fighting the Poll Tax in Trafalgar Square. Though spectacular, the riot was not what stopped the tax - it was the mass non-payment direct action campaign. |
Unite with your workmates to demand better pay and conditions and if your bosses refuse, take collective action like slowdowns and strikes to get them. Organise strong rank and file networks within workplaces and trade unions. Get together with other workers and sack your boss! Link up with other people in your school, college or university and fight for improvements. If they try to raise tuition fees at your Uni - organise mass refusal to pay.
Whatever you do, make sure your organising is based in your normal everyday life. Only by engaging with issues that matter directly to us can we ever build a powerful movement to build a better world.
Collective action of working people and their families in this country stopped Maggie Thatcher's Poll Tax in 1990 and won massive increases in our standard of living over the past 200 years., Across the world working class action has made revolutions, toppled dictators, won shorter working hours... the list is endless. When we work together, we can achieve anything.
So let's be realistic - let's demand the impossible!
libcom group, 2005
Pensions crisis
An in-depth look at the pensions crisis currently hitting the UK, affecting pensions of both public and private sector workers.
What's the issue?
Pensions across both the public and private sectors are under attack, with increasingly strong measures being taken to try and reduce the amount paid to workers on retirement, and increase the amount of time spent at work before retirement is an option.
Who's affected?
Everybody. Although older workers, particularly those thrown out of work during the de-industrialisation of the country are most at risk, younger workers will be those most hurt as they grow older by regulations and changes to pension provision currently being implemented.
And how?
The means and methods of the attacks vary across the public and private sector (see below) but range from straightforward attempts to change the agreed contracts of workers to force them to accept cuts to their pensions, the time at which they can collect and the amount they have to pay in first to direct taking of money from schemes and abandonment of pension funds by companies.
Private sector pensions
Factsheet about the issues around pensions for workers of private sector companies.
Private sector pension schemes are usually run in larger companies, such as those in the FTSE 100 of Britain’s richest corporations.
Although systems vary, a common factor is the existence of a pension ‘pot’ the workforce pay a percentage of their wages into, which is then matched by the company. The pot theoretically acts as working capital to both pay back to the workforce when they retire, and while it remains in the coffers, as investment money to play the stock exchange.
Problems have risen over the last decade to turn this fairly straightforward deal into a battleground between workers and bosses. Companies claim that the pension deal did not take into account rising standards of living, and increased lifespans on the part of the workforce.
Companies have however been largely responsible for the mess, having notoriously taken ‘pensions holidays’ at the behest of Gordon Brown at the height of the stock market boom. When the market crashed, it is thought that some £30bn was wiped off the value of the various pension funds, plunging the sector into crisis.
Company bosses have also been a major factor in destroying the stability of pension funds outside this context. Pension funds are usually administrated by appointed company board members, who in many cases have pursued a high-risk investment strategy (for example, pension funds were heavily involved in technology companies during the dot com crash).
Combined in many cases with saturated market places requiring attacks on workers’ living standards to increase profit margins, and with tycoons such as Phillip Green taking all profits out of their companies as dividends rather than replace the money, this has led to a raft of measures brought in to reduce pension liabilities by taking cash from workers’ pockets.
One widespread initiative has seen companies close pension schemes to new members, while others have spun their pension schemes off entirely from the main company, clearing immediate debts in order to release themselves from further responsibility to keep the schemes running.
Some companies are raising the age of retirement, while most have attempted to switch over from schemes promising ‘final salary’ pensions, which base pension payments on the wage workers retire at, to working life schemes averaging out workers’ wages throughout their employment at the company. Inflation (and factors such as promotion, low starting points etc) mean that the second option always pays out significantly less.
Further problems have been caused by the de-industrialisation process. As the major industries shut down, contributions to pension pots ceased and schemes quickly went bankrupt. This has left a huge swathe of the manufacturing sector workforce facing, not the comfortable retirement they had planned and paid for, but destitution.
In 1987, progressive figures in the EU, who had foreseen the damage such bankruptcies in European manufacture would do to the long-term prospects of hundreds of thousands of people, passed a resolution stating that protection funds be set up by countries like the UK, to provide relief for funds stripped of company support in this manner.
Britain did not set up its own Pension Protection Fund(PPF) until 2004, leaving, according to Amicus, around 65,000 people without support as their employers went under.
The PPF currently requires companies to pay money into a central store (the payments required add up to around £300m a year at present), which is then used, effectively, as an insurance scheme in case companies are unable to meet their pension obligations.
The scheme is not retroactive, and thus does not cover the costs of de-industrialisation.
The CBI have complained that the amount being paid is too high, and that other means must be found to reduce the pension deficit, primarily more attacks on the pension payouts themselves.
Rob Ray
Last reviewed/edited by libcom.org October 2006
Public sector pensions
Factsheet about the issues around pensions for workers of public sector organisations.
A very different animal from private sector pensions, the public sector pension was set up to be effective immediately, and thus did not work on a pension pot principle.
Instead, public pensions, covering all civil servants (approx 1/3 of the working population), are paid directly to the government throughout the working life of the individual. Pensions are then paid back out of existing governmental funds.
In recent years, the government claims the balance of people paying into and out of the pension pot has changed, as people are living longer.
The government have as a result begun to attack retirement ages for public sector workers, proposing that the ’85 rule’ allowing workers to retire after their service and age add up to 85 or more, be scrapped, and that workers only be entitled to their full pensions at the age of 65 (it is currently 60).
The Turner Report, which had proposed the changes, also recommended the gradual raising of pensionable age to 70 if these proposals were accepted.
The proposals directly contravened the accepted standards, and threatened to con millions out of money they had already paid into the pension pot.
Last year, the major public service unions, including the PCS, Unison, Amicus and the T&G vowed to fight the move. A general strike was balloted for close to the May elections, but a halt was called thanks to Labour lobbying of the top ranks of the union and a promise that the party would back down if it was left until after the election.
After the election, the government resumed its plans. The unions against threatened action and at the end of last year a deal was struck, with the government cutting up the pensions issue into national and local level services.
Local level services were left out negotiations, and unions were told that any negotiations would have to be with local government employers on pensions in that area.
National level negotiations, though presented as a victory for the unions, gained everything that the government wanted, albeit over a longer timeframe. Although existing government workers’ pensions are protected, all new workers will be subject to changes in the conditions of their pensions meaning later retirement.
This effectively ended the threat of official union action, and meant that over the course of the next 50 years the government would replace the more reasonable deal currently in effect with one involving a five year increase in working life.
Research has shown that many workers in the poorest-paid and most hazardous sectors will under this plan be dead before they can enjoy their pension. The estimated average loss per worker of the move is £20,000.
In local government, negotiation is still going on as this is being written, but the same deal has effectively been struck. Local governments are trying to get support staff exempted from the deal, including support teachers reservist firemen etc.
Strong incentives are being considered to try and shift emphasis from the public sector’s dependence and increasingly coordinated concern over governmental pensions into a state-sanctioned ‘second pension’.
Financial company Watson Wyatt have estimated the government’s total pensions liabilities (calculated as if it were a company) at £1 trillion, saying that the situation is effectively a growing crisis requiring drastic measures.
Critics of this system of accounting however have pointed out that as the government takes and pays pensions contributions directly, the trends looked at should not be liabilities but amounts paid in and out, which have not changed in the last year.
Rob Ray
Last reviewed/edited by libcom.org October 2006
Platformism - an introduction
A brief history and explanation of "Platformism" - a strain of anarchist communism influenced by a 1926 document The Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists.
Platformism is a current within libertarian communism putting forward specific suggestions on the nature which anarchist organsation should take.
The origins of the Platform lie in the Russian anarchist movement’s experiences during the Russian Revolution and the resulting civil war. One group of anarchist exiles (Dielo Trouda ("Workers’ Cause") group) came together in 1926 and published The Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists, since known as ‘The Platform’. They wrote the pamphlet to examine why the anarchist movement had failed to build on their successes before and during the revolution.
The Platform was an analysis of the disorganisation of the anarchist movement at the time, and was an attempt to push it in a more organised, class struggle direction. The Platform was not an attempt at writing an anarchist manifesto. It was a discussion document and the authors never claimed to have all the answers.
The Platform was written because of what was going on in the international anarchist movement at that time. However, it remains relevant today in its insights on how libertarian communists should organise.
The Platform argues that to create a well organised libertarian communist movement, we need a “grouping of revolutionary worker and peasant forces on a libertarian communist theoretical basis (a specifically libertarian communist organisation)” and “regrouping revolutionary workers and peasants on an economic base of production and consumption (revolutionary workers and peasants organised around production)”.
Though they provided no extra insights on organising around production, their ideas for organising libertarian communist federations was something of controversy amongst many in the anarchist movement. To combat the disarray the movement was in, they suggested forming a “General Union of Anarchists” based on four basic principles: theoretical unity, tactical unity, collective responsibility and federalism.
| Nestor Makhno - Ukrainian guerilla leader |
Theoretical Unity meant simply that if you don’t agree with someone, don’t be in a political group with them! This doesn’t mean that everyone has to agree all the time (they won’t) but there does need to be a certain amount of ideological unity. Everyone being ‘anarchists’ or ‘libertarian’ isn’t enough. If half the group believe in class struggle while the other half don’t, then both sides would benefit from having two smaller groups rather than one big group which spent all its time arguing.
Tactical Unity meant that the members of an organisation should struggle together as an organised force rather than as individuals. Once a strategy has been agreed by the collective, all members should work towards ensuring its success saving resources and time concentrating in a common direction.
Collective Responsibility meant “the entire Union will be responsible for the political and revolutionary activity of each member; in the same way, each member will be responsible for the political and revolutionary activity of the Union.” This means that each member should take part in the collective decision-making process and respect the decisions of the collective.
Federalism is an organisational structure based on “the free agreement of individuals and organisations to work collectively towards a common objective”. All decisions are made by those effected by them as opposed to centralism, where decisions are made by a central committee for those effected by them.
Though Platformism had a shaky start with many prominent anarchists denouncing them as trying to ‘Bolshevise’ anarchism, it has now been taken on by many libertarian communist groups across the world such as the Workers’ Solidarity Movement in Ireland, North Eastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists in North America and the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation in South Africa.
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Situationists - an introduction
A short introduction to the ideas of the Situationists. Based in France, their strand of libertarian Marxism became popular after the mass strikes of 1968.
Situationist ideas came from the European organisation the Situationist International, formed in 1957. While it lasted only 15 years, its ideas were deeply influential, and have been a part of Western society - and radical movements - ever since.
Resisting any attempts to file their ideas into a static ideology, situationism, the SI called attention to the priority of real life, real live activity, which continually experiments and corrects itself, instead of just constantly reiterating a few supposedly eternal truths like the ideologies of Trotskyism, Leninism, Maoism or even anarchism. Static ideologies, however true they may be, tend, like everything else in capitalist society, to rigidify and become fetishised, just one more thing to passively consume.
Partly as a result of this, Situationist ideas are notoriously difficult to explain, and open to a wide degree of interpretation. However, a few facts can be stated. Most introductions to the Situationists focus on their cultural ideas, particularly in relation to detournement ( subverting elements of popular culture) and the development of punk, but the roots of Situationist ideas are in Marxism. Libertarian Marxism, closer to anarchism than authoritarian strands of traditional Marxism, with the central idea that workers are systematically exploited in capitalism and that they should organise and take control of the means of production and organise society on the basis of democratic workers' councils.
The Situationists, or Situs, were the first revolutionary group to analyse capitalism in its current consumerist form. Then as now, in the West most workers were not desperately poor, toiling 12 hours a day in factories and mines (workers' struggles over the previous 150 years saw to that) but the poverty of everyday life had never been greater. Workers were not beaten down with savage repression, so much as with illusions in empty consumer goods, or spectacles, which were imbued by culture and marketing with characteristics they don’t really possess. For example, that purchasing this or that gadget or brand of shoes will make your life complete, or make your sad life like that of the celebrities and models culture shows us.
The Situs argued that increased material wealth of workers was not enough to stop class struggle and ensure capitalism’s perpetual existence, as many on the left argued at the time, since authentic human desires would be always in conflict with alienating capitalist society. Situationist tactics included attempting to create “situations” where humans would interact together as people, not mediated by commodities. They saw in moments of true community the possibility of a future, joyful and un-alienated society.
"People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have corpses in their mouths." 1
In a (anti-)spectacular demonstration of the validity of their ideas, a group of Situationists, along with anarchists, at the Nanterre University were instrumental in sparking the Revolt of May 1968 which swept the country, bringing it to a state of near-revolution, with 10 million workers on General Strike, many of them occupying their workplaces.
The key figure in the SI, Guy Debord, committed suicide in 1994 but Situationist ideas live on, having been made a fundamental part of most anarchist theory today, as well as their thoughts on consumerism which are now held as truisms by most people.
“We have a world of pleasure to win, and nothing to lose but boredom.” 2
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