Anarchist organizations

rudolph rocker's 'anarcho syndicalism' is a classic. jose peirats multi-volume work on the CNT in the spanish revolution is meant to be authoritative (but very detailed i've been told, which is good or bad depending on what you're after) ...

Ben Franks' recent book 'rebel alliances' has a pretty good overview of UK currents and organisations. i haven't really read much on this myself tbh

malatesta's criticism of the Platform is worth reading.

I would also suggestion section J.3 from "An Anarchist FAQ" for an introduction:

J.3 What forms of organisation do anarchists build?
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secJ3.html

I know Rocker wrote critiques of the platform as well but as far as I know they don't exist in English. Anyone have them, or in german even?

I would be interested in seeing those criticisms from Rocker as well.

Facing the Enemy by Alexander Skirda is quite good, though the writing can be a little clunky in places. I've been told it's the translation. Also G.P. Maximoff's 'program of anarcho syndicalism' is quite good though you really kinda got to read between the lines to find any theory in it, but taken in the context of the broader Russian revolution it's quite interesting. It is also not a piece of stunning prose, more written in point form than anything else. Read similarily Berkman's What is Anarchist Communism is also really good, compared to the other two its beutifully written, though very much for a working class audience it uses very stripped down prose. I particularly like Berkman's treatment of the military question, and if you counterpose it to the problems the red army faced is actually really good.

actually, if we're going to deal with the criticism of the Platform, you might also wish to actually read the Platform itself. whether you hate it or love it, the Platform has to be one of the most influential ideas about Anarchist organization today:

http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/newplatform/org_plat.htm

this page has the Platform, and it also has a link to the WSM version (i'm not sure how the two differ).

i'm just posting this quick, if i think of anything else, i'll put it up here.

If you wanted to read something short about a recent attempt to organise industrially along anarchosyndicalist lines, there's the Kate Sharpley Library Pamphlet, The couriers are revolting.

For recent stuff in north america I recomend the North Eastern Federation of Anarchist Communists or NEFAC. nefac.net

There is a NEFAC section in the international section of this forum.

We are located in the North East of the US and Canada but have contact in your region, some former members of the now defunct FRAC, Federation of Revolutionary Anarchist Collectives (Great lakes), which was active in your area until a few years ago.

Also check out broadleft.org for a pretty comprehensive list of international anarchist organisations.

The Workers Solidarity Alliance is another good anarchist organisation that is active in the US.

As far as I can tell anarcho-communist organizations have always been small, marginal, and sectarian splits off of larger anarchist organizations that have historically had less impact than the broader anarchist movement. This was true in Argentina and Brazil, but also europe where the anarcho-communist/platformist trends were always dwarfed by the larger and more active anarchosyndicalist movement. In many of the histories I've read there have been splits and hostility around specifically anarchocommunist organizations, and many have slid towards bolshevism. That isn't to say there's anything in the ideology of anarchocommunism that is sectarian or bolshevist say, just that historically individuals have used it when splitting or forming small ideological cliques.

There are some exceptions though like the spanish FAI (and the portuguese section), which I'd like to read more about. I've heard Stuart Christie's book critiques them well, and the Friends of Durruti (who have their own problems) do as well. Any recommendations on either of those?

Especifismo is another trend that I believe actually has had some engagement of struggle and impact. This article explores some of these trends though less of the history. As I understand it the anarchist federation in Uruguay has been active in struggle for a while though I know none of the details. I met the brazilian FAG, and they seem small and not that optimistic about themselves (radicals always have bad self-esteem), but I have also heard they do good work amongst informal recycling workers and some community organizing stuff. More needs to be written in English about these issues.

Personally I'm interested in the anarchist movement of the late 19th-early 20th century US. From what I can gather it had great strength and impact though it seems to be mostly through other non-anarchist organizations or anti-organizatonal groups (like ol' crazy Luigi). There had to have been anarchist organizations though amongst the anarchocommunists of that time.

Also sweden... I know nothing about it.

The groupin Uraguay has been around for about 50 years and are the real basis for the especifismo analysis.

Platformism has always been small, but its also very new nd came into play at a time when aanrchism had already failed in the face of authoritarian commnism. This is the very basis for the platformist critique.

The spanish example shows the need for more focused anarchist organisation, the friends of Durutti where too little too late.

I can only speak for myslef and this reflects on many in NEFAC, many of us feel that in practice we are working with Maletestas criticisms in mind, although this happened more organically than any formal plan.

I think Especifismo is the most relevant anarchist ideology, if you can call it that, for anarchists of the left today and something that most of us in NEFAC strive towards in practice.

That’s not really true. Three significant present day English speaking platformist organisations Nefac, the WSM, Zabalaza aren’t splits of anything.

Anarcho-syndicalist unions and specifically anarchist organisations have different focuses but are complimentary. Comparing them in terms of size of membership doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Pretty obviously anarcho-syndicalist organisations, by virtue of organising workers irrespective of their particular political views, are going to be way bigger than an organisation composed solely of ideological anarchists.

Especifismo seems pretty much the same thing as platformism.

While I think platformism puts more focus on the structure of the organisation and is a little too rigid for some, especifismo is mre based on the practice of social insertion.

The two are very similar and I think are comming from esentially the same place, the need for anarchists to haver their shit togeather and reach people in struggle, not remaining an isolated ideological and cultural phenominum at the fringe of society.

Anarchism will never becoe an ideology of the majority, but we have to atleast be known and respected by the majority. Which is not what alot of anarchists are working towards unfortunately (Im not speaking of any one tendancy here).

Id like t hear criticisms of the Friends Of Durutti Group. Never have before...

booeyshewy wrote:

well worth checking out paul avrich's anarchist voices - oral history of anarchism in america.

Jimm-

You may be right about the WSM and Zabalaza, though I thought the WSM was a split from earlier organizations? NEFAC was a split though depending how far back you go (Love and Rage, that trotskyist party). It has taken on a life of its own, and love and rage wasn't really a vibrant organization either though. I was thinking more historically pre-platformist groups in places like Argentina, Chile, and Brazil. Also the present Italian platformist group falls under that trend. My point is just that whatever the strengths of such groups they have had little impact historically compared to other forms of anarchist organization (irrespective of whether they will or not).

Platformism and especifismo are different not so much in theory as in practise. As I understand the work of US NEFAC-ers there has been a tendency towards activist activity as in demos and the like and working within the trade unions. The FAU and FAG have worked more of the level of community struggles of the most oppressed and not so much within organs of hierarchy (autonomously or otherwise). This could be wrong as I heard it only second hand from a brazilian comrade, so please correct me.

Was it? Simply because some members of Nefac were once members of other organisations doesn’t make them a split from those organisations. By that criterion pretty much every political grouping is a split from something else. A split, in the common meaning of the word, is where a faction of an organisation breaks away from the main group to form their own. I wasn’t aware that Nefac originated in this kind of circumstance. Perhaps if they have a poster here, he or she could clarify. The WSM wasn’t a split.

Compared to what, when? Pre-World War II anarcho-syndicalism, where circumstances were so different that it barely warrants discussion? And, again, there is no contradiction between anarchist-syndicalism and a specifically anarchist organisation. Old Makhno and the lads emphasised the importance of the revolutionary unions, which was obvious at that time.

The notable thing was that anarchist-syndicalist unions were mass organisations, therefore platformist, bakunist types were inevitably attracted them, simply because of the belief that they needed to be involved where workers were in struggle. The principle hasn’t changed, but the type of mass organisations have: there are very few, unfortunately, significant anarchist-syndicalist unions left – something I hope will change.

Even if true, which doesn’t appear to be so, then it could be because of different circumstances of the different organisations.

So?

The important point is not whether the anarchist organisation is involved in trade union and workers’ struggles or at the level of community struggle. What’s important is that anarchists are involved with struggle, particularly ones which involve good numbers of people and with the potential to radicalise those affected in a libertarian direction. Whether that is trade unions or community struggles depends on the circumstances and is purely a tactical decision.

Incidentally the WSM are mainly involved in community struggle at the moment, and have been for a few years. Unfortunately our trade union presence is not good (ironically given that we’d like it to be, but probably a reflection of where our membership is in terms of age).

Secondly if anarchists just involved themselves in struggles which weren’t burdened with “organs of hierarchy” then, either we would be really irrelevant or we must be surprisingly close to a revolution. The whole point of political activity is to persuade those of a different view of the value of anarchism. Therefore being involved with trade unions is not any less worthy if progress can be made here as well as in helping improve the quality of people’s lives. And I am sceptical of the extent of truly non-hierarchical community struggles anyway, but that doesn’t mean we should retreat from them if they were “organs of hierarchy”.

I’d guess that espeficismo and platformist are essentially bakunist approaches with different names due to them being cooked up at different times in different cultures in different languages. Which would suggest that there’s something to the idea

There are about five years between the death of LandR and the formation of NEFAC and the people who where involved in Love and Rage didnt join till later, so Im not sure what you are getting at there.

NEFAC dose do community work.

People in Boston founded their own tenants rights group, here in Montreal we founded a libertarian labour suport network.

Im also involved in a very small, neighborhood based anti facist comittee.

Im not sure where you are getting your info about nefac from but your missing some important details.

Also I wnat to repeat the concerns mentioned above.

If people arnt involved in groups with structure, they arnt involved in struggle.

I know where you're coming from but I wouldn't feel happy with that, speaking as a platformist, because Bakunin's ideas of an invisible dictatorship, a red association strike me as more akin to a terrorist cell network and probably have their modern equivalent in the various Leninist guerrilas across the globe. Bakunin was pals with Nechayev who advanced this model and filled out the pairs 'ideas' specifically on this question, till the two had a falling out once Bakunin realised the guy was even more of a psycho than him; Nechayev went on to dress up as various characters to convince his recruits they were part of a vast underground anti-Tsarist movement; imagine what might have happened had such a character ever achieved power.

It's interesting how history treats various characters - anarchists recall how Marx moved the meeting of the IWMA to the USA to make sure there was no opposition, but they don't recall all of Bakunins connivance to take it over by creating various sections to pack it so's he could have his way. Equally libertarians celebrate guys like Bakunin (a terrorist fantasist) and yet they give guys like Louis Blanquis a bad name for preaching something similar but much less authoritarian because they preached their ideas in public.

Err no, no and no - you really need to do some research before coming to such big conclusions.

The WSM was not a split from any other organisation.
NEFAC was not a split from any other organisation, Love and Rage had voted to disband quite a bit before NEFAC was formed - by different people.
The Italian organisation your thinking of is the FdCA and far from this being a split it is the opposite, it formed as the result of two exisiting groups deciding to fuse.

Platformist groups tend to emerge from fusions rather than splits, AFAIK NEFAC was formed when several pre-existing local groups decided to come together. The same was true of the WSM which brought together groups in Dublin and Cork. And for free the same was true of the Chilean OCL - it started out with the name CUAC which translated as something like Anarchist Communist Unification Congress.

I'm not sure what this means or how you are measuring it. It would seem for instance the the authors of the platform (Makhno et al) had some minor impact in the western Ukraine between 1918-21 for instance. After this date outside of Spain and Korea anarchism went into a decline that it is only now emerging from. In the case of Spain it would seem the group closest to a good position were the faction of the CNT know as the 'Friends of Durruti', widely identified as being part of the inspiration for the post war platformists.

In terms of today no anarchist group has the numbers to 'impact historically' in any major way. But it would certainly be the case that the WSM has played a significant and indeed central role in some important struggles in Ireland, in particular for abortion rights but also in terms of war, globalisation and in a lesser way community struggles. Like anarchists everywhere we are a long way from 'impacting historically' but our experience to date would suggest that if we continue to grow and don't fuck up this would be poossible in the right circumstances.

A problem with this measurementyou are trying to use comes down to the method of 'social insertion'. Syndicalists will mostly do things in the name of their organisation, any impact they have will therefore be very visible to outsiders. Platformists because of social insertion will be found in organisations of struggle the working class have created. Struggles will take place in the name of that organisation not of the platformist group so the platformist contribution could be quite invisible to those outsite that struggle.

Sometimes delibretly so, we removed a very good article to be found in RBR9 on platformist involvement in a massive community based housing struggle because it became appearent that the facts of their level of involvement was being used to attack that movement. (Time has passed and this should be going online soon). In Ireland we have come under the same sort of attack on a couple of occasions, here for example is our response to one of those attacks

Sunday Independent claims anarchists are 'infiltrating' bin tax campaign
The mouthpiece of millionaire Tony O'Reilly, the Sunday Independent, got terribly excited when it 'discovered' there were anarchists involved in the bin tax campaign. Or, as it oddly put it, anarchists of the Workers Solidarity Movement had "infiltrated the campaign in significant numbers". The Sindo was also outraged that anarchists have also been active in anti-war protests at Shannon and in Reclaim the Streets, in particular the infamous Gardai riot on Dame St on May 6th 2001.
continues at http://www.struggle.ws/wsm/anarchistnews/29/sindo.html

That paper is by far the largest selling Sunday paper in Ireland

The problem here is that you are trying to compare apples and oranges and in doing so missing the whole point of social insertion.

NEFAC operates in the richest countires in the world. The FAU and FAG operate in two countires that are the among the poorest in their hemisphere. There are loads of other differences beside. The idea that the area one of those groups might intervene in would automatically be correct for the other is so mechanical as to be useless. I would presume the reality of all three organisations is that they looked at conditions where they were located, they looked at the skillls and experiences there members had, they looked at what class struggle already existed and then the decided where to put their efforts based on this. Sure for any one of them there may have been wrong choices and their may have been better options but you can't tell this by comparing them to each other, ony in comparison to the actual conditions etc that are found locally.

One of the major problems in modern anarchism is the tendency to choose some historical or geographically distant organisation to romanatsise and proceed to try and mecahnically copy whatever they did or do without regard to local conditions. The key test in decision maaking becomes 'what would jesus do' with the CNT or whoever substituted for jesus

I think you probably need to read some less hostile stuff about Bakunin in particular material from anarchist communist sources. The above interpretation of Bakunin requires the exclusion of a lot of what he actually wrote in explaning his strategy. I'd also recomment reading the letter where he cut off his relationship with Nechayev as this is a very useful demolition of the 'secret dictatorship' interpretation.

A good anarchist communist introduction is
Bakunin's ideas on revolutionary organisation (RBR6 Winter 2002)
The Russian revolutionary Micheal Bakunin is often presented as the 'founding father' of anarchism. He was a larger than life figure whose disputes with Marx in the 1st international form an essential role in the clarification of the role of the vanguard and of the state in the revolutionary process. Yet his concrete ideas on anarchist organisation are not so well known.
http://www.struggle.ws/rbr/rbr6/bakunin.html

Also see
Bakunin to Nechayev on the role of secret revolutionary societies, June 2, 1870,
http://struggle.ws/anarchists/bakunin/writings/nechayev_secret_disagree.html

For a complete and very good biograophy Brian Morris, Bakunin: The Philosophy of Freedom, 1993 although I believe there is also a well regarded recent publicaton.

It's important to understand three things about Bakunins legacy
1. His writings were either not edited or badly edited meaninng you can select a single quote from somewhere in them for anything you want to prove. He even used anarchism to mean chaos at times!
2. He wasn't always an anarchist, prior to around 1867 he was a left republican
3. Later misinterpretations of Bakunin were used by marxists to attack Lenin, the misinterpreations were often assumed to be accurate when they were not (by anarchists as well as marxists.)

There are some very signifcant legtimate criticims of Bakunin (his anti-semitism first and foremost) but the secret dictatorship thing is not among them.

Working within the trade unions doesn't necessarily mean involvement in struggles though - they aren't equivalent.

Again, that "organs of hierarchy" are involved in something happening, doesn't preclude being involved in some way as well. That's not the same thing at all as working within that "organ of hierarchy" itself. Presumably whether there was any struggle going on involving it or not. What you're doing is conflating organisations with workers, organisations with struggle. There's no necessary correlation given the large numbers of anti-working class organisations that abound.

Really? So you think that if we persuade enough people of the "value of anarchism", then we'll get where we want then? I really don't think things work like that at all. My primary motivation for political activity is persuading people that they might be able to defend or improve their conditions via collective struggle, and that they can do this off their own bat without appealing to outside agencies. Whether that's on a purely practical level at work when we refuse to take on extra tasks or whether it's circulating news, history and analysis of more significant ones occurring elsewhere. I'm highly critical of much of what passes as anarchism, so why would I want to persuade anyone of its value?

Are you serious? Now I think people should organise them into groups for various reasons, both formal and informal, but simply "being oranised" or "having a structure" is no guarantee of anything.

When I was in Porto Alegre talking to folks in the FAG, they were definitely involved in the CUT unions. They are part of rank and file opposition groups in those unions, such as the metal workers, city employees and petroleum workers. This is in addition to the barrio committees they've organized, and the Association of Recyclers.

Especifismo has a concept of organizational dualism, that is, an organization of revolutionary Left-libertarian activists, and the mass organizations have different roles.

Workers Solidarity Alliance has a similar concept, which we developed from our own experience, not by adhering to some pre-existing formula such as the FAU's especifismo or Platformism. But I think our concept is very close to
especifismo, as I understand it.

If the mass of the people are to control the society they need to control the process of change, and thus have mass organizations through which they become active, mobilized, develop consciousness in struggle, train people to acquire relevant skills, and so on. This is part of the protracted process of mass empowerment. At the same time, we don't expect, at present, people who are involved in mass struggles to necessarily agree 100% with a revolutionary libertarian anti-capitalist vision and strategy. But through involvement in mass social struggles, and in mass organizations in the community and workplaces, we build a social base for our ideas, for our strategic and programatic orientation. It's best if we can develop mass organizations that are actually self-managed, controlled by the participants, so that ordinary people learn and gain confidence, and develop their organizational strength and sense of collective power. But very often the organizations through which struggles are organized are imperfect from our point of view, in having some sort of professional hierarchy or top-down structure, or in other ways. But it's necessary for us to be involved anyway. In the case of the hierarchical unions, this can lead to ideas of forms of rank-and-file organization independent of the bureaucacy.

WSA therefore conceives of itself as a political activist
organization, a revolutionary organization, not a mass organization or proto-union or anything like that.

When WSA was affiliated to the IWA, we were different than most of the other affiliates in that way. We had adhered to the IWA I think because we were rejecting a "synthesist" type of concept of a loosey-goosey anarchist political organization in favor of an organization that has a more unified political orientation. Libertarian syndicalism provided us with a program, even tho we extended it to the community, to community organization as well as workplace organization, and extended our analysis beyond class, to embrace an anti-racist and anti-patriarchal analysis, which is essential to the USA.

We've found that calling ourselves "anarcho-syndicalists" has been sometimes confusing for other people. Many anarchists seem to think this means we are claiming to be a union or proto-union, not a political group. They're forgetting that a revolutionary activist organization can advocate a syndicalist strategy, that is, a strategy of development of mass organizations genuinely controlled by their participants, through which they can self-manage their struggles, seeing this as prefiguring a society of generalized self-management and socialized production.

t.

Nobody's saying that they're equivalent, just that they aren't mutually exclusive!

And what you're doing is buying into the ultraleft orthodoxy that says workers couldn't possibly be willingly invested in the "organs of hierarchy" themselves. Are you seriously suggesting that truly revolutionary workers should refuse to join a trade union because they are putatively "anti-working class"?

There it is again, "ouside agencies". Every social organization must be either completely organic to the class or completely alien from it. Man. I sometimes complain about my fellow anarchists being unable to handle contradiction but whatever you are must really take the cake.

I'm with you on this one--I do see the value of informal groups also.

Good thread by the way. Hi Nate.

No not really. I'm a member of a union (although it's a really shit nasty one [Unison fwiw]with about 5% membership at my workplace), but I'd not get involved in the union politics - like leadership elections, the bullshit "young Unison members" meetings they send me junk mail about, doubt I'd be a shop steward either.

I don't think there's any chance of changing Unison from what it is, and I know that if there was any serious militancy at my workplace, they'd use it as a recruiting ground then fuck it up. Since I'd hope I'd be really pushing for that level of militancy and heavily involved, I wouldn't want to be tied into an organisation (recruiting for it, representing it etc.) that I know wouldn't do anything for it, even if it didn't actively act against it. For example, during the national pensions strike in April (the same week I handed in my application form), I was told that none of the Unison members, including the shop steward, at my workplace were "doing anything" for the strike - what's the point.

But I'm a member in the same way I have house insurance - it can be handy for individual grievances and maybe for contract/health and safety advice.

Will get to the rest later- dinner time now!

I have some facts wrong that I want to correct, but also there are some clarifications needed. First I'm not saying fuck platformists or anarcho-communist organizations. I believe in the need for such organizations, and when the situation was different considered joining one such organization where I live. In general I'd like people not to take my statements as a hostile position, and I apologize if I was too loose with my language.

My point is that in the case of anarcho-communist organizations I don't know of any that weren't historically insignificant relative to the rest of the movement. Specifically I was thinking of such splits that occurred in the anarchist movement of Latin America in the 19th and early 20th century. (here's the point) In terms of this period there is little we can say about such groups since they tended to be smaller and generally came about through splits and then faded away into history. No one is disagreeing with that right? People are just disagreeing about the platformist stuff I take it?

People want to make an identification between anarcho-communist groups and platformist groups, though I wasn't doing that. Before the platform anarcho-communist groups existed, and not all such groups after were platformist. Platformist organizations tend to be much more grounded in recent history and so I wasn't really considering them.

NEFAC- I was using splits too broadly. I understand that the birth of NEFAC came from multiple collectives each with their own history. One such source was the disbanding of Love and Rage. Call it what you will, I would call it a split. One group formed a maoist party, another helped form BTR, another helped form NEFAC, etc. The sentence I put after that was that now NEFAC has taken on a life of its own beyond the former L&R members so it's not that important.

As for the social insertion debate let me clarify. I think there are people and collectives in NEFAC that are doing very different things. When I made the comments I had in mind I was thinking specifically of (to give a few examples) the building of a hierarchical trade union local (IATSE) by NEFAC workers at a movie theater. I've heard many within NEFAC now recognize a number of mistakes in that path that was taken, but I'm not privy to such debates. I think in the view of outsiders the article about NEFAC people becoming union organizers and a former NEFAC person going into a management position within a union has clouded the issue. Personally I think most in NEFAC probably don't support building hierarchical unions and participating in the bureaucracy (and probably do good work I don't hear about), but that there is a vocal and loud minority who do.

The other thing I was thinking of was this article in NEA by a NEFAC member assessing NEFAC's history wherein he argues that NEFAC has remained too stuck trying to organize within anarchism and not enough in the social movements they participate in. I don't mean that in a derogatory manner since it is a self-criticism. For that reason it seems like there could be some differences drawn between NEFAC and especificismo. I think the especificists would not build new unions branches in workplaces they organize (I could be wrong about that), and they emphasize organizing within social movements rather than the anarcho-activist milieu. For that reason I said the theory is the same though practise is different.

Now that doesn't mean I'm applying the same standards to different parts of the world. The social structures and struggles are obviously going to be different. My logic wasn't that the actions needto be identical, but that they need to be within social movements at the rank and file level rather than at the level of the bureaucracies. You can't tell from afar what a struggle is like by a structure since the people within it and their struggles are the key. Moreover some of the work NEFAC is doing would fall under the social insertion method for example the dairy farmer organizing maybe, the vermont workers' center, OCAP stuff, tenant's stuff, etc.

WSM- I was honestly asking about the WSM because I've only read fragments. Wasn't there something with an Irish section of the AF? I think I was confusing the split within the organization early on with the whole SWP affair. Sorry if I spoke too soon. I was looking for clarification not a fight.

FdCA- I was under the impression the FdCA was a split off of the larger Italian Anarchist Federation (which I know little about), but looking back at the interview I was thinking of it is unclear if it was people who dropped out of the FAI or if they were never in the FAI.

Finally on "historical significance" I didn't mean "were worthless" "did nothing" etc. What I meant was played a crucial role in mass struggle that we can study and learn from in trying to grasp the questions of organization on a mass scale. There are other questions too like about successful organizations outside of the time of mass struggle. This is relevant to us, but I was just lamenting not having many models to investigate outside of anarchosyndicalist ones. Now for examples Makhno's group is a good one, Ricardo Flores' Magon groups, as is maybe the CIPO in Oaxaca and the others I mentioned earlier.

I know there was a big split in Japan between anarchists and syndicalists, not sure what the numbers involved were like though, although there were loads in total (tens of thousands).

I think you're getting a couple of threads mixed up. Organise! was formed from the Anarchist Federation (Ireland) and the Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation. I understand one AF member left Organise but still pays subs to the UK AF. I believe (possibly wrongly) that WSM was in discussion as well when those two groups merged, but didn't - that's not a split though

Ah got it, my bad. Yeah I was mixing up Organize with the AF(Ireland).

The AF had a number of members in Ireland. They decided that it made more sense to work closely with a group of anarcho-syndicalists and between them they set up Organise. One of them keeps in close touch with us, but is not a member. One of the AF Ireland decided to stay with the AF. The WSM didn't fit into the picture at all. As far as I know, they are not a split from anything.

When the AF started as the ACF, it was heavily influenced by platformism too. Again, it was not a split, rather a coming together of people who had been in different organisations. We've moved away from the platform since then, though. However, there is still a residual belief in collective responsibility, shared priorities and an internal democracy based on membership rather than friendship or affinity networks.

It strikes me as self-evident that anarchist communist groups in pre-revolutionary situations will tend to be small and mostly based on propaganda activities. They have grown as the class struggle heats up.

And personally, I don't give a damn about Bakunin or any of the other "great men" of anarchism. Our real politics, not the ideological tools we use to dress it up, comes from the real experiences of real workers in struggle.

Hello everybody, interesting conversation, which I just started to read. More to follow.

--mitch

I want to take back this comment, it was more a gag reaction to a new wave of post leftism we are dealing with in Montreal.

Obviously informal networks and communities form the bakbone of many important struggles, specifically strikes in smaller communities.

I has als been hugely important to tap into informal networks while doing neighborhood based anti racist organising.