French platformist group's 'who are we?' statement in English
Alternative libertaire is a French libertarian communist organisation founded in 1991.
We are part of the anarcho-communist tradition and the anti-authoritarian workers’ movement as it has existed since the First International, the International Workingmen’s Association. That is to say we’re for a politics based on direct action by oppressed classes and social groups with the aim of revolutionary anti-capitalist workers’ control.
Our roots are in the experience of revolutionaries who, in the political contexts of their times, shared this objective.
- Bakunin and his supporters within the First International.
- The revolutionary syndicalists of the French CGT before 1914.
- The Makhnovists, and the Organizational Platform proposed by the exiled Russian anarchists.
- Spanish anarcho-syndicalism, the experiment in social revolution in 1936 , and in particular the actions of the « Friends of Durruti » group.
- The Libertarian Communist Federation (FCL) and the Libertarian Communist Manifesto by Georges Fontenis in 1954 .
- The Union des travailleurs communistes libertaires (Libertarian Communist Workers’ Union, UTCL), the works of Daniel Guérin and the « Libertarian Communist Project » of 1986 .
To different degrees, and despite their inevitable errors and limitations, these experiences were important steps in the development of the modern libertarian communist movement.
Today Alternative libertaire is developing it’s political action on two fronts :
- The building of an alliance of social movements, to give political weight to the politics of the people against the institutionalised left.
- The building of a libertarian communist current which fuels and is fuelled by the activities of the social movements
AL militants are particularly involved in struggles in the workplace and in the unions, in the CGT or in SUD (sometimes in the CNT), in the fight against unemployment, for the right to housing, in the environmental movement and in the fight against patriarchy. Alternative libertaire endeavours to link these conflicts in today’s society with the perspective of a break with capitalism and the state.
September 23 2008
Taken from Alternative libertaire website
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