Do you agree that the following provides a useful guideline for how anarchists should organise

Do you agree that the following provides a useful guideline for how anarchists should organise. The 'General Union' referred to is an anarchist organisations, not necessarly a workplace one.

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1. Unity of theory

Theory is the force which guides the activity of individual people and individual organizations along a specific route towards a specific goal. Naturally, it must be shared by all persons and all organizations who join the General Union. The activity of the general anarchist Union, both in general and in detail, must be perfectly consistent with the theoretical principles professed by the Union.

2. Unity of tactics or the collective method of action

The tactical methods employed by the individual members or groups within the Union must likewise be united, strictly consistent with one another as well as with the overall theory and tactics of the Union.

Sharing a general (common) tactical line within the movement is of crucial importance for the existence of the organization and of the entire movement: it rids the movement of the confusion arising from the existence of multiple mutually antagonistic tactics and focuses all the movement’s forces on a common direction leading to a specific objective.

3. Collective responsibility

The practice of operating on one’s individual responsibility must be strictly condemned and rejected within the ranks of the anarchist movement.

The areas of revolutionary, social and political life are profoundly collective in nature. Revolutionary public activity in those areas cannot be based upon the individual responsibility of single militants.

The general anarchist movement's executive body - the Anarchist Union - takes a decisive stand against the tactic of unaccountable individualism and introduces the principle of collective responsibility into its ranks: the union as a whole is answerable for the revolutionary and political activity of each member of the union; likewise, each of its members is answerable for the revolutionary and political activity of the union as a whole.

4. Federalism

Anarchism has always rejected centralist organization both where the social life of the masses is concerned as well as in the area of its political activity. The system of centralization relies upon the stifling of the spirit of criticism, initiative and independence of every individual and upon the masses' blind obedience to the "centre". The natural and inevitable upshot of this system is slavishness and mechanization, both in public life and in the life of parties.

Contrary to centralism, anarchism has always advocated and defended the principle of federalism, which combines the independence of the individual or organization with their initiative and service to the common cause.

By combining the idea of the independence and fullness of each individual's rights with service of social requirements and instincts, federalism paves the way to every wholesome manifestation of the faculties of each individual.

But very often the federalist principle has been warped in anarchist ranks; too often has it been taken to mean primarily the right to display one's ego and neglect one’s duties towards the organization.

This distortion has caused a great deal of disorganization within our movement in the past and it is time to put an end to it once and for all.

Federalism means the free agreement of individuals and entire organizations upon collective endeavour, in order to achieve a common objective.

Now, any such agreement and any federative union based thereon can only become a reality (rather than exist only on paper) if the essential condition is fulfilled that all parties to the agreement and to the union fully honour the obligations they take on and abide by the decisions reached jointly.

In any social project, however great the federalist basis on which it is built, there can be no rights without responsibilities, just as there cannot be decisions without these being implemented. That is all the more unacceptable in an anarchist organization which takes only obligations upon itself with regard to the workers and their social revolution.

As a result, the federalist type of anarchist organization, while acknowledging the right of every member of the organization to independence, freedom of opinion, personal initiative and individual liberty, entrusts each member with specific organizational duties, requiring that these be duly performed and that decisions jointly made also be put into effect.

Only in this way will the federalist principle come to life and the anarchist organization function properly and move towards the goal it has set.

Jack I think that's JoeBlack's point. He's taking the main points from the Platform, and so trying to say that the ideas of the Platform are just common sense, and so people shouldn't slag it off as some are doing on the Platform thread.

Well you might think so but others disagree

http://struggle.ws/platform/malatesta_project.html

Also my experience is that many anarchists are not only opposed to such unity but also opposed to the system (majority voting) that can be used to reach it. Indeed even at this early stage I see someone has said No to the question "Do you agree that the following provides a useful guideline for how anarchists should organise'

Well yes and no.

Yes I do think they are just common sense.

No in that quite large sections of the anarchist movement today and historically have rejected such common sense as akin to leninism.

No also as the issue is a little more complex then it first appears as I think the Malatesta quote demonstrates.

I was isolating the quote to see if that could get away from knee jerk responses to the origin of the quote. Given the standard of debate here that is probably a bit hopeful but it would be interesting if people voted on the text not on the source of the text.

Yeah that's what I figured. But as Jack didn't I thought it would be best to explain...

Hi

This means minimal theory. I’m not convinced there’s the critical mass behind communism required to make an essentially Marxist union viable.

Love

LR

I'm not - I do however think you were reacting to the source of the text rather than the text.

And on the common sense - part of the problem with the anarchist movement is that this isn't seen as common sense. And I don't mean the rejection of the particular document, I mean the rejection of the ideas above.

This is precisely the problem with the Platform tho - if you distil it down to a few common sense points then most people would agree with them, but I think a lot of the problems arise in the details:

1. How are the union's theoretical principles to be arrived at?

2. What mechanism determines which tactics are in accord with the principls of the union? Can a minority continue within the organisation while dissenting from the majority opinion (like the Friends of Durruti)?

3. How will this collective responsibility be determined and enforced?

4. How does "the independence of the individual" match up with "Revolutionary public activity in those areas cannot be based upon the individual responsibility of single militants."? In fact, how does federalism co-exist with unity of theory, tactics and collective action more generally?

So in theory I'm in favour of unity amongst anarchists and the basic points. But its the details of how that organisation works that matter.

Jack - Doesn't that go back to the disagreement you and Joe have over whether individualists etc should be actively exposed to common sense or just be ignored?

Hi

I agree with Jack. The issue is not "to solve the problem with the anarchist movement" but the problem of disabling the bourgeoisie and implementing the working class project. How do the anarchists intend to contribute to that? Form their Union? Thanks a lot, we can’t wait, honestly.

Love

LR

Well its easy to pick on the handful of extreme loonies but my impression is that opposition to these ideas is more widespread than this. For instance I'm not sure which if any of the 3 national federation in Britian would go for a yes rather than a no here. AFAIK all 3 stop at a basic aims and priciples although I could be wrong.

I think typically what people do is they fudge this question precisely through the 'common sense' mechanism. That is they refuse the need to formally agree these points because they are 'common sense' but as soon as an issue of controversy arises they are ignored. I've actually more respect for a position which argues against from the word go.

DMW I'm trying to avoid a discussion of the source on this thread (there is another one running on it also in thought, maybe raise this there). I agree that the question of how these ideas are implemented is next on the agenda but obviously there is only a point discussing this amongst those who think implementation is a good thing in itself so we can treat is as a serperate issue here.

One example of implementation is to be found at http://www.wsm.ie/story/32

I agree with weasel here.

Joe, platformists do not have monopoly on such a basic characteristics of any organisational anarchists such as agreement (or unity) on theory and tactics, or some kind of federalism.

AF and SolFed both have tactical and theoretical unity. Platformists would dismiss that as a very low level of unity, but i think thats a wrong assesment. Just the fact that there is two fairly identical class struggle anarchist groups highlights the fact that there is quite a deep level tactical and theoretical unity required which makes one to choose which one, if any, of the feds they would join.

I votes yes because like jack i think the points made are just common sense and i am a wee bit annoyed how platformist groups act like they are the only ones around with tactical and theoretical unity and federalism in the core of their group.

I wasn't aware I was discussing the source - I mean, the word 'platform' is inevitably going to be used on a thread like this.

Obviously there's no point debating this with someone whois opposed to organisation per se, so as far as I'm concerned the only really interesting point is in debating the details of how an anarchist organisation should be run. And I think that would have to include a debate about how federalism and collective responsibility co-exist. They're both fine in theory, but the process of adjudicating between them is the important issue to my mind.

I've only skimmed it, but as an organisational model that looks fine to me.

I don't know much about the AFs internal organisation, but the Solfed constitution strikes me as matching up pretty well with the 4 points in the OP. The disagreements between pro-organisation anarchists are over different things.

It doesn't have to be - we can just discuss the text as a piece of text. This is often pretty useful when, as here, there tend to be strong opinions on the source which if discussed led the discussion on a tangent

Actually I would have thought SolFed was the closest of the 3 to the approach the text outlines (a good reason for seperating the text from the source as SF members are also most likely to be hostile to the source).

Actually no I don't think this is what this is. I think Joe is basically responding to revol68'sand some others) quite vicious attacks on the Platform, denouncing it as Leninist or neo-Leninist. Joe is responding by pointing out what he believes to be the key bits of the Platform – things which all the Platform-haterz on the other thread would most likely agree with.

As far as I can tell though revol68's problem with the Platform is over the concept of the "ladership of ideas". I haven't been able to understand where he is coming from on this issue for what a year with quite a few arguments, so I'm waiting to discuss it with him in person…

That was the trigger but its also from my experience with Anarkismo.net and indeed here in Ireland where we have been trying to implement the equivalent of the Executive committee in the shape of our delegate council. I became curious about just how 'common sense' such ideas were and the poll seemed one way to measure this at least in relation to Britain.

BTW I'm happy enought to discuss the source rather than the text over at http://www.libcom.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10487 so if people want responses to stuff post it there

Exactly - the biggest difference between say the AF and Solfed has always struck me as over workplace strategy and unions. Disagreements about the details of internal organisation don't strike me as being necessarily ones of principle, and hence they could be resolved if so desired.

So I'm voting yes after all.

I actually thought JoeBlack2 was joking at first. Do you really want unity of theory, action, the denouncing of dissent, and a federalism that is only permissible providing it keeps in line with the centre?

Most people seem to agree this is "common sense" - but I fail to see how it is any different to democratic centralism? and what is anarchist about it?

i think you are misunderstanding either what this means or what anarchism is. if you take a (deliberately silly example) line that under anarchist organisation everything goes, that is already some level of theoretical and tactical unity which would prevent those who do not believe that everything goes from joining the group.

think of the tactical and theoretical unity as a framework which makes meaningful discussion and dissent even possible. If you disagree about the fundamental positions of your politics then you can't really have meaningful dissent either.