The making of the Spanish CNT-IWA (2010-2024)

This post and it's title should indicate that this is a post made by an official of the CNT-CIT, and is a criticism by an opponent, and the post is not written by anyone in the CNT-AIT union federation

https://zsp.net.pl/making-international-conferedation-labor-spain-0

The Making of the International Conferedation of Labor in Spain
Anonim, nie., 22/09/2024 - 17:56
The Spanish union which constituted a founding member of the International Confederation of Labor is known by the acronyms CNT-CIT and it is claiming through a series of lawsuits against the CNT-AIT that it the CNT-AIT belongs to an international which, according to their lawsuits „does not exist” and that the CNT-AIT is not the CNT-AIT. Recently, an article entitled „The making of the Spanish CNT-IWA” appeared on a well-known left website with the aim of trying to justify these lawsuits by building a case against the CNT-AIT. The following article is written in response and addresses a number of the assertations made therein.

Unlike the author of the article, I am publishing under my own identity and with full disclosure of who I am. Readers will make of it what they will. I am a long-time activist, associated not primarily with the anarchist movement, but with some other activity related activity, most notably union and tenant organizing. I am a founding member of the ZSP, which has been in the IWA since 2009, so in a position to see the drama unfold in that international organization. I was also a founding member of an organization called Workers' Initiative, which is in the ICL. Our local group left that organization because of numerous incidents which for us were signs of a clear break with anarchosyndicalism. It is because we insist that organizations which were founded in line with anarchosyndicalism follow a coherent practice, that we might be labelled with various epitaths from those who have a more fluid approach. Despite all, our focus has always been on workers' horizontal self-organization. We are not a theoretical propaganda group, but we are practioners of our philosophy. I have participated in a couple of strikes in my life and have helped other workers in such efforts. Personally, I am not as attached to the anarchist label as I am to the practice of mutual aid, direct action and horizontality in the organizations I work with. Currently, I serve as Secretary of the IWA, the same international federation that the CNT-AIT belongs to, which the CNT-CIT claims to the courts that it „does not exist”. It is with this function, but also in light of everything that I have witnessed and know about that I stand on the side of the CNT-AIT and stand by the position of the IWA that this organization IS the continuation of the CNT-AIT in Spain.

The title of the article,”the making of the CNT-AIT 2010-2024” clearly seeks to imply that our Section of the IWA, the CNT-AIT, is not really that organization. We of course disagree with this as we see it as the only legitimate continuation, in terms of following the Statutes of the CNT-AIT, in terms of maintaining its adherence to horizontal syndicalist organization and the IWA's practices which stem from libertarian thought, particularly in relation to several important ideas of anarcho-communism. I will explain why we consider this but also will address a number of the assertations made supposedly by CNT through one Salvochea (apparently using a nickname inspired by „the anarchist mayor”).

The Cordoba Congress and Precedents

No doubt that a major turning point in the organization formerly known as CNT-AIT was in 2010 at the Cordoba Congress. (I did not attend that Congress personally, however I have all the documents and have spoken to numerous participants, from both sides of the conflict. In 2010, the ZSP and myself personally had good contacts on both sides and we did not have a clear idea yet, until we started to notice numerous problems. I mention this to make clear that we did not have any „side” in this conflict at that point.) However, prior to this, many of the problems of the CNT and a clear line of conflict could be seen. The IX Congress of the CNT (then CNT-AIT) was also contested and there were various irregularities, including the stealing of the Congress documents. It was only with the intervention of the IWA Secretariat, who had personally collected copies of everything, that the documents were restored for the membership of the CNT. (Ironically, it was in Spain at the IWA XXV Congress that the Congress documents also mysteriously disappeared, but were again recovered from the Sections (except the CNT) by the IWA Secretariat.)

A False Narrative trying to Portray an Incompatibility of Ideas and Practice

The author of this article, is clearly trying to paint a very one-sided picture of the situation to pander to some section of English-speaking readers who have already shown their preferences. The tactic is to portray a clearly false picture. He writes as if the part of the CNT-AIT which adheres to some ideological guidelines, was „without showing any revolutionary praxis anywhere in Spain”. So here is the ideological construct which attempts to build a false paradigm, based on a construction and what they want people to believe: that having ideals is not compatible with having any „practice”.

Sentences such as these no doubt resonate with those who have already made substantial compromises, convincing themselves that this is the „only way”. With this we can see both the falsehood and the mechanism by which he appeals to a certain segment of people who have made the choices they have made. For us here in the ZSP, it is completely obvious that we could have become a larger organization had we made numerous compromises; for example, had our most talented people taken leadership roles and signed up people who just paid to belong for getting our services. We had this opportunity at several times, but we don't see the point of becoming just another union. This isn't why we are here.

However, this does not mean that we are an anarchist specific group, nor does it mean we are marginal or lacking practice.

Sad Realities and the Hierarchy of (Self) Importance

People like the author probably see it another way, because they keep repeated this mantra. As if the organizations that now comprise the CNT-AIT never had any „real” activity at all. It is quite insulting and it is quite sad for us knowing that this is the type of accusations our comrades in Spain faced for quite some while. However, the ZSP soon learned, as early as 2011, that to that part of the CNT, nobody was doing „real enough” activity to earn respect, especially in the IWA, which they refer to as „non-existent” or which they tend to dismiss in various ways, seen later in the article. This shows how a certain philosophy develops, which builds a hierarchy of importance of those with numerical advantage. However, this runs contrary to many basic tenets of the internationalist views of anarcho-communism, where all communities are supposed to be equal and where, in international matters and decision making, we are supposed to deal as equals. Ours is not the system where the most powerful or those with the most money expect to make decisions and force their will; we are the IWA, not the IMF. It is quite disturbing to come to the realization that there are people who somehow claim to adhere to libertarian principles whose highest principle is „might=right” and who appear to uphold bourgeois notions of representative democracy as opposed to advocating for an equality that transcends the imbalances of the current paradigms of power.

Who is „all”?

The author goes on to claim that „This view can be confirmed by all the movements and organisations that were related to the CNT in those years”. In other words, although it should be obvious that part of the CNT would NOT confirm this view, he claims that ALL can confirm this. It is with this type of arrogance that many members of the now CNT-CIT have treated their own views as the views of „everybody”. This is of course an excellent example of the atmosphere within the CNT which led to the current situation. Those who felt that they „spoke for everybody” usually dismissed the concerns or opinions of others and, where not possible, tried to lead to the „dismissal” of those people from the Confederation.

References Devoid of Context

It is quite interesting that the author mentions, but says nothing of substance about the following „ Others, on the other hand, could point to internal conflicts in the Seville Local Federation or other unions during the 2000s.” Perhaps he is already convinced that by writing on the favourite organ of those who favor this type of syndicalism that whatever is written will not raise any questions. However, one only has to look at different problems in Seville and Andalucia in general to see what kind of problems many of our comrades faced. It was in this area that the union of Seville in particular broke the Statutes of the CNT-AIT in various ways when they bought votes by subscribing with more members than they actually had to sway votes in the regional towards the „new vision” promoted by some folks in that sector and where they syphoned money and resources from the CNT-AIT to set up a front union in a local enterprise where CNT members ran for work councils. And created a fake union of bus drivers to get even more votes. These practices were confirmed when the regional set up an investigation. As a result of all this, some of these unions and people remained or were able to get back into the CNT, despite the Statutes being clear that they should be expelled and not let back. The other result is that the union who denounced these practices, Cadiz, was then expelled from the CNT-AIT, their offices raided, their library stolen and then people physically attacked (only to be rescued by some people from the local community).

(The author later spins some tale of „recouperating property”, however the stolen library was gathered through donations of the local activists, so even for those who recognize the „property” line, this does not hold water.)

So yes, we can point to this and, in doing so, state that in that regional federation of Andalucia, Seville and Cordoba, possessing a large amount of votes by fact of representation of workers who just paid some dues but did not actively participate in the life of the CNT-AIT, were able to overlook the facts and the infringement of CNT-AIT statutes and accomplish the elimination of a union which did not breach anything. Further to this, other unions were expelled and a number of attempts to expel other unions followed. For reasons such as the fact that the names of several unions appeared together on stickers for a common campaign and some of these unions were expelled from the CNT already.

Let us be clear: this meant that, according to the „leaders” of the Andalucia hierarchy, any joint activity, even symbolic, of CNT-AIT unions with the expelled would be reason enough to merit their expulsion in turn?

In the narrative promoted by Salvochea and friends, this probably does not matter at all. He would like readers to believe that, besides those unions like Seville or Cordoba, the other ones were „not real” had „no practice” or whatever myth so frequently peddled to appeal to the folks that apparently have no real problem with such problematic behaviour and practices as exhibited by this sector. Ultimately, this is what it boils down to: feeling confident that just saying „we are the majority” can justify just about anything to enough people in the world.

Rude awakening to this problem

The problems created in this region were so serious that many people who observed them were very concerned at these serious anti-statutory actions in the CNT. Personally, it was not until 2011, when the IWA Plenary came to my city, did it all start to become clear to me that some people in the CNT were seriously abusing the organic process. This was highlighted in the Plenary by objections to proposals made by the CNT which had not been approved by the organic process of the organization and the question of whether to treat them. For an explanation, the proposals to an IWA meeting should be approved by the organization submitting them as a whole – not a single union of that organization. Or the Secretaries. Yet, this is what we saw. Had the unions of the CNT-AIT been supplanted by their Secretaries and the unions which adhered to a certain line, thus were able to go around the established statutory process?

More and more absurd things were happening, some of which I didn't understand. At the aforementioned Plenary, I was followed into the bathroom by the then-International Secretary of CNT, who was screaming some bizaare conspiracy theory about us having contact with the CNT-AIT Cadiz (who I believed were not yet expelled) screaming about how „Cadiz doesn't exist”. What kind of lunacy did we get ourselves into? None of us had any type of contact with these people and only later did we find out what was happening. (Actually because we were curious at what this person was so upset about.) Apparently the situation in Andalucia caused paranoia also on the international level. I've seen several texts which accuse a lot of CNT-AIT unions of exhibiting paranoia, but personally, it came down on me and other members of my union from the side of the consituants of CNT-CIT. I didn't know it at the time, but it was a harbinger of things to come.

Authoritarian Dynamics

The author is also confident that he can speak about „sectarian dynamics” and just rely on preconceived notions spread about CNT-AIT. After mentioning conflicts in Andalucia, without giving the slightest background of what happened, he states in the next sentence that those „sectarian dynamics” disappeared from the CNT by 2010. Sorry, but there is a serious logical break here. The issues in Andalucia were issues of „sectarian dynamics”? Or were they issues of breaking the statutes and then using a skewed voting system to anti-statutorially expel those who exposed the scam? I have read the documents and it seems clear to me that the latter was the problem. Reading this, one can see how uncritically some respond to buzz words like „sectarian” and how this type of behaviour has become a political problem on a global scale as people use the words to emotionally charge debates and obfuscate the facts. It is quite sad that „CNT” claims that this is showing the majority of people in the now CNT-CIT to be „anarcho-syndicalists”. What in the situation in Andalucia was even remotely reminiscent of the „anarcho” part of anarcho-syndicalism?

The author moves on to promote some post 2010 practices of CNT (now CNT-CIT) which he claims that the CNT-AIT are against. One is about the lawyers. This of course can be looked at in different ways. You can believe that it is better to educate members to act as lawyers or to promote having a cadre of professionals. One can see how there could be different arguments here or there. However, there also has to be some certain amount of accountability and transparency. Some questions arise. For example, if the CNT fights against „false autonomous” labor relations (also known as independent contractors). The CNT-CIT people claim they have „no paid positions” and technically, they did not have a labor relationship with the lawyers who were independent contractors. So, a bit of a contradiction, kept in order to claim to membership that there are „no paid people”. If you have a lawyer who is the partner of the General Secretary, providing incoming for the household derived from CNT members dues, this also raises questions of nepotism. Finally, the most serious questions involved whether the lawyers received explicit mandates from the membership to do what they did, or whether they took orders from the defacto leadership of the union. Here we can specifically refer to the lawsuits brought against the CNT-AIT. Many people from CNT-CIT have claimed that they were only told about them after the fact. Some people only learned about them from the CNT-AIT.

When Being Radical Becomes Conservative

Personally, I find the sort of speech used by in the article to be similar to Donald Trump calling Kamala Harris a Marxist. He continues to promolgate the use of labels such as „conservative” and „orthodox” onto the CNT-AIT and this is, in my opinion, really misleading language. The CNT-AIT is an organization which is now and was then an organization looking towards a radical transformation of society, something that is, if anything, looking towards the future and far ahead of its time. The word „conservative” has various negative connotations as being „adverse to change”, but the CNT-AIT wants nothing more than to change the existing social and economic relations, the existing power relations. This is something I have no doubt about. So, is it enough to believe this implication that the part of the CNT which remained in IWA just didn't want to change?

All I can say is that not all change is necessarily a good thing. Changing towards a more vertical, specialized organization is certainly not good. And if we look back at the history of anarcho-syndicalism or even revolutionary syndicalism historically, we have seen many such moves away from more radical ideas. One person can label the attempts to tow the line as „conservatism” while others can see it as avoiding the slippery slope that so many organizations have gone down before.

„Property” which is Clearly Theft

Since „the CNT” mentions another institution with paid employees, I will refer to FAL. This is Fundacion Anselmo Lorenzo, which houses a large archives. The IWA unfortunately sent our archives to FAL before we understood what was happening inside the CNT. (My union actually proposed this and I personally was delegated to collect and catalog these archives and sent them to Madrid.) Since that time, both the IWA Secretariat and all members of the IWA have been denied access to these archives, which are kept in poor conditions in a warehouse, outside of FAL premises. The IWA has repeated asked to take these archives back, but they do not answer any correspondece. This is a situation dating to 2012. Therefore, we consider that our archives were clearly stolen by FAL. FAL is controlled by people who claim in courts that the IWA „doesn't exist” but for the purposes of bragging about their positions, they list the IWA archives as „their collection”. In the past, members from different CNT unions volunteered to manage the FAL archives, but at a certain point, and in circumstances which were not transparent to anybody, certain people became the paid „keepers” while others who were volunteers lost access. In the eyes of „CNT”, nothing wrong here. Probably he also thinks it's cool that they stole our archives (because why would we need them if we „don't exist”?)

This is where we can see some absurd things in the CNT. Some defenders of CNT-CIT continue to claim that there are „no employed persons”, especially when CNT-AIT members talk about it, but here you have it.
Paying for Services?

Personally, I don't care to compare CNT of the past with CNT-CIT of today, and whether an organization of 0.5% of its former size have the same justifications for paid staff as possibly it had before. That's a stupid theoretical exercise. The only clear conclusion from this all is that the CNT-CIT have no problem with this, which is clear from the fact that they also tried to convince the IWA that people should be „paid for services” and attempted to get us to approve paying CNT members for services as well. These proposals were discussed and struck down. (One of our questions to CNT was about whether they thought it was OK if the comrades from the lower wage countries offered lowered prices than them for their services.) It is clear to us that people have a right to have different opinions about this, but that we are closer to the idea against paid services and that in the CNT, there were different ideas about this matter.

I Represent More People than You

Finally about changing to porportional voting. The author clearly is a proponent, but there are questions raised about this. For example, if you have a large union where most of the membership does not care about issues or attend the meetings, but let just a few people decide issues. Unfortunately, I and others have observed this happening in a few unions, so in this way, the votes are a tool for individuals to have more power. It is not a way to exercise „democracy” in a better way – unless what you are talking about is REPRESENTATIVE democracy – in which case it helps those who represent.

Frankly, we are quite astonished about how this topic became seen, however we are quite certain that the bourgeois democratic influences on this type of syndicalism are very clear in this question. As association is supposed to be mutual or not at all, which is a clear anarchist tenet, it is clear that those who do not agree to that way can do something else and do not need to be bound to those who want to implement other practices.

Calling the Kettle Black

Personally, I find it sort of incredible that the author complains of „tasteless tactics” of those from the CNT-AIT. Clearly there were conflicts and heated debates and I have no doubt they turned ugly (hence by strong belief that CNT-AIT and CNT-CIT are best off as separate organizations). But how ironic that the people who were following me into the bathroom with paranoid rantings, trying to physically block me from the 2013 Congress in Valencia, chasing me into the room, harrassing me, stealing the documents, beating up some members of CNT-AIT, trying to steal the microphone from me in 2015, which almost lead to a fight – all of these really disgusting and uncomradely actions that we have witnessed and faced, that this author complains about people making long speeches. Come on.

Did they really think that by exhibiting this kind of lunatic behaviour to us we were going to see them as the victims of mobbing, rather than the ones creating all sorts of problems with whomever they disagreed with?

The author, goes on to use the epiteth „Taliban”, a choice of label which is clearly inappropriate and indicative of the level of discourse that was promoted in the post 2010 CNT. It is quite amazing to see this author speaking of conspiracy theories in light of the ones that were later levelled against all sorts of members of the CNT-AIT and even against myself. The height of conspiracy theories was later developed by people trying to make purges in the CNT who invented a theory that I, in 2010, conspired with a woman (who I had never met or corresponded with – in another words, a complete stranger), to derail the 2010 CNT Congress. Not only was this not true, but in 2010 I had no position on internal functioning in CNT. We sent a warm greeting to this Congress.

Accusations from Persons inside CNT (CIT)

Personally, when reading the article, my mind is sort of blown since I read some of the great conspiracy theories of what became of the CNT-CIT and, in my particular case, have seen a complete fabrication. It is clear that since some people (but not enough in my opinion) have asked questions about these lawsuits that CNT-CIT have brought against CNT-AIT, this article is meant is to paint the CNT-AIT as the devil or worse and to undermine their assertations that they are who they say they are. I do not doubt that there was lots of stuff said on the internet, from both sides, but my personal observations tell me that those behind this article and the like tended to wander from the truth more often than others.

Anarcho-syndicalism Cannot be Devoid of its Libertarian Elements

Coming back to more concrete issues of anarcho-syndicalism, I would like again to express my personal view that anarcho-syndicalism is different than anarchist specific groups but for me, this doesn't mean going away from anarchist practices. My union does not consist of „only anarchists”. Neither does the CNT-AIT. It never defined itself this way. There are some organizations in the world that disagree with this approach; personally I don't agree with them, but it is not a cause for conflict. When the CNT tries to portray this as a chasm between anarchists and anarcho-syndicalism, it is clear that he is constructing an alternative reality, to again try to convince people that CNT-AIT organizations are not „unions”. The level of consciousness on this topic in some places in the world is currently so low that this is the „right message” to convey to his target audience; it just isn't true.

Omissions and Bias

Further the article goes superficially into some accounts of expulsions and other matters in the CNT. These come from one side and, as you can expect, there are the other points of view. (There will be links at the bottom about some of these experiences). From what I know, there are many omissions here and all of these accounts are slanted. It is hard for people from the outside to keep up, but we have the alternative view that the so-called „small” unions were particularly targetted for expulsion. As well as anybody who called out any of that Sector for behaviour (such as the Cadiz expulsion).

What Happened in Relation to the IWA?

Finally the article comes to the IWA so, having been Secretary of the IWA at the time, I have good knowledge of the facts. In as early as 2009, delegated persons of the CNT tried to withhold membership dues to the IWA. I will not get into any question of their reasons, as my interpretation of it will be different then those in CNT-CIT leadership. The fact was that there was no organic decision to do it and, with the intervention of the then IWA Secretary at the 2010 CNT Congress, the money was released. The document, written by the Treasurer (and not the CNT membership) at the time was to the effect that the CNT doesn't have votes porportionate to their contribution, which is again the IMF mentality. (Those who pay more should have more say. Pretty contrary to anarcho-communist ideas I'd say.) Then, later, when I was in the Secretariat of the IWA, again CNT stopped paying its dues. The problems with this were several: first, all CNT-AIT members had paid their money and the statutes required a set amount to be paid to the IWA. Prior to the 2015 Zaragoza Congress, where the author correctly stated that the Congress decided not to pay dues, the leadership of the CNT, namely the Treasurer and Secretary General, decided this for the membership. It was only by accident that prior to 2015, people in CNT-AIT learned about this when in a personal conversation I learned that the dues had been paid and people had no idea that money was not sent to the IWA.

How could that be I asked? Then I learned about the fact that the same Treasurer had not provided financial reports to the membership and this went on for long time. Neither did the CNT unions receive the reports from the IWA Secretariat that noted that the CNT was in arrears. How was it possible? Who was withholding information and why?

Then it turned out that the General Secretary had embezzled thousands from the CNT for a drug habit. He was expelled, but nobody questioned the role of the Treasurer.

When we found out about all this, it was very clear that things were not working as the should in CNT.

We were particularly struck by the fact that many unions of that organization, now CNT-CIT, found all of this normal, meaning that the leadership took action without any mandate whatsoever and only later submitted it to a Congress for approval.

This didn't look like anarcho-syndicalism to us.

The CNT-AIT and the Warsaw Congress, 2016

The article again makes no sense as it claims that the CNT-AIT was born from a group of people who kept paying to the IWA. The fact of the matter is that the 2015 Zaragoza Congress never put a question to the membership as to whether they withdraw from the IWA. The Sector from CNT-CIT may have already had this plan in mind, as early as 2010 perhaps, and certainly from 2013 but perhaps they were thinking that if they didn't pay their dues to the IWA, the Sections would cower and give in to their proposals that they had already rejected twice. As those who have followed no doubt know, this didn't happen. The CNT-AIT was our Section that included the founders of CNT-CIT, up until December 2016 when it became clear that they did not want to remain in the IWA, that they wanted something else, but those of the CNT-AIT, wanted to remain. Thus, we consider the CNT-AIT to be exactly that – the continuation of our Section in Spain. We consider the CNT-CIT to be an organization which wanted to break with the statutes and practices of CNT-AIT, which wanted to go in a different direction and which did so.

As I mentioned, I am a member of the ZSP, I live in Warsaw and in 2016 we hosted this historic Congress of the IWA. I was there and know perfectly well what happened. The CNT leadership had decided that it would not hold any meeting to treat the Warsaw Congress as it intended that the organization would boycott it. The CNT, not having had any meeting to make decisions, also did not delegate anybody to attend this Congress. Some members of CNT-AIT, angry at this decision, which was not taken by the membership but through the actions of the Secretaries not to convoke a meeting, wanted to come to observe the Congress. At this point, the executives of the CNT delegated somebody. (Note that in our opinion, it is only correct when the organization as a whole chooses the delegate.) The person sent was very notorious, a Catalan nationalist who was behind conducting various „investigations” into, among other things, which CNT-AIT members had contacts in the IWA. Another interesting fact was that he was expelled from his union, but re-entered CNT through another one, which was contrary to the CNT statutes of the time. It seemed quite clear that one of the motivations for going was to denounce those who went to the Congress, which was done directly after and served as more reasons for expulsions. Never mind that this person was also not delegated organically to be there.

(Later it is mentioned that comrades in France picketed outside of a meeting in France.This was the same person. It sort of missed the points that the meeting was in fact mostly in attendance by Catalan nationalists and it was a person who had been conducting purges inside the CNT-AIT. Also involved in creating a conspiracy theory against myself. „Poor guy” got picketed. I did share a report of the protest on my personal Facebook. Really treacherous guy and it bothers me to see him portrayed as a victim, knowing what he did.)

As the IWA stipulates that admission to IWA is made through application to a Congress, and as CNT-AIT was being expelled, it was complicated but clear to everybody that as a technicality, we could not expel CNT-AIT and admit it at the same time.

The account provided is somewhat strange in the fact that it claims the CNT submitted to the 2016 Congress a proposal to increase dues but later claims it „withdrew” from the IWA and decided to do this in 2015. No such proposal was ever submitted, neither by the CNT or by anybody else. The CNT did not participate in the 2016 Warsaw Congress. They had no agreements. There was one executively-appointed delegate from the now CNT-CIT and a number of people who attended as observers (with no right to propose anything or vote anything). Why this confabulation?

The other manipulation was the supposed vote to leave the IWA. Rather, proposals were made to „relaunch” the IWA or to stop paying dues. This question and what proceeded was seen by the CNT-AIT as another manipulation as their was actually no mandate from the 2015 Zaragoza Congress to launch CIT. (This is later confirmed in the article itself.)

The Making of the ICL and what happened to CNT

So the „making of the International Confederation of Labor” was something agreed to rather post-factum, not only for the CNT-CIT.

When we see these „accounts” of the whole story, we are also subjected to some interesting tales, like of the 3-person Sections of the IWA, which don't exist. Yes, there are some small Sections in the IWA, but why always the false exaggerations? People must start somewhere and not all comrades around the world are lucky enough to be born into a situation where they have inherited the wealth of tradition. If you don't see that logic, don't be in the IWA. If the CNT-CIT are happier as they are now, OK. People have the right to their opinions, but using lies all the time is not cool.

I am also quite curious about the claim that when the CNT „announced its withdrawal”, other Sections had to deal with it. CNT NEVER announced its withdrawal to the IWA; it left it to the 2016 Congress to decide that CNT had, in fact both withdrawn and is expelled from the IWA. If it had announced its withdrawal, how could it send a delegate (even one not mandated) to the Congress? Why would we let that person in? It is clear that this issue of the CNT was resolved at the Warsaw Congress of 2016.

Again, to clarify the history, the 2016 Congress recognized the de-facto withdrawal of CNT and USI from the IWA and declared it was both recognizing the withdraw and expelling them. FORA was not expelled at the 2016 Congress, another oft-repeated falsehood. It was not clear what their position was at all. At the 2013 Congress they spoke very firmly AGAINST the CNT positions. It was decided to contact them for clarifications and later decided that they had also withdrawn.

One thing that is said is correct: the text speaks about how ICL was formed. Please note, the CNT's agreements was not to form ICL, but „refound” the IWA. This is admitted in the text. („But the agreement was to re-found the IWA and not to create a new organisation (ILC). As a result, there were new controversies within the Confederation.”) However, how can an international federation be „refounded” if that federation repeatedly says no to this proposal?

CNT in Defense of the Vindictive Lawsuits

Now to the lawsuits, which are defended in the article. The first claim of course is that the CNT-CIT is rapidly growing. Turn to the lawsuits which use as one of the main arguments against CNT-AIT, not anything claimed in the article but literally the following claims: „the CNT-AIT prevents us from growing”; „workers are confused about what union they are joining” and „the CNT-AIT doesn't exist because the IWA doesn't exist”.

It is later claimed that these lawsuits is like some „existential” problem for the IWA. What is a problem for us is what they've done and obviously, suing so many unions for 50,000 euros, then expanding the lawsuits on September 18 is a problem for our Section in Spain. In the spirit of solidarity against these attacks, it was decided at Congress that we will campaign in defense of CNT-AIT.

Hiding, Again

Finally, about the authorship of this article, at the end we see that it is signed „CNT”. Is this really an article written by and approved by this organization? Who knows. User is PB, submitted by Salvochea. Therefore I can only refer to the author, not PB or Salvochea, because who knows who wrote this.

I talk about this because this question has been an issue. I sign this reply, with my own name, and, as named in this article, I certainly have a right to reply. Too bad the author or authors of this act as they do, trying to convince the world that this is a statement made by thousands in an attempt to give it more gravitas.

If anybody is interested in some of the background, there are more articles on the internet about the internal divisions and some other matters. Below is a list of some.

Laure Akai
Member of ZSP-IWA

https://newworldinourhearts.blogspot.com/2018/03/los-problemas-en-andalucia.html (in Spanish)
https://newworldinourhearts.blogspot.com/2016/
https://newworldinourhearts.blogspot.com/2016/12/were-leaving-cnt-see-you-in-streets.html
https://newworldinourhearts.blogspot.com/2016/12/cnt-spain-criticizing-committees-and.html
https://newworldinourhearts.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-assembly-of-sov-of-vilagarcia-de.html
https://newworldinourhearts.blogspot.com/2018/12/animal-farm-in-cit.html
https://newworldinourhearts.blogspot.com/2018/11/more-on-purges-in-madrid-and-communique.html

...Sorry folks, my english is not the best and i hope, you will understand my point and I didn't make big fails in formulating....

I would like to add a few thoughts to the debate from the perspective of a German anarcho-syndicalist worker. I became a member in 2011, when the conflicts in the IWA had been going on for several years and seemed to have escalated quite a bit.

Since I became a member, I have been a member in Dresden, an East German city perhaps known to some as one of the big cities in Germany with perhaps the most militant and largest right-wing movement in the whole country. I have been helping to build up our syndicate here since 2011 and it is now the third largest syndicate in the FAU. In contrast to Dresden, the largest syndicates, Berlin and Leipzig, are located in cities with a clear left-wing character, while right-wing demonstrations in Dresden sometimes had 40,000 participants. Our syndicate has always stood for a very broad syndicalist approach, perhaps historically and internationally not unlike FORAism, we have always stood for a high degree of decentralization (our committees, WGs and grassroots sections have an unusually high degree of autonomy for the FAU) and we have always been concerned and opposed to the creation of paid positions in the FAU (and at least to this day there are none, even though this is not clearly forbidden by the FAU statutes per se). During this time, I took part in setting up 4 workplace groups, led three open labor disputes at my workplace and helped to set up a collective workshop. Today I am an agricultural worker and I am helping to build up the corresponding branch section.

When I joined the FAU, I was particularly enthusiastic about the international solidarity. The first actions of our syndicate were mainly solidarity actions for other syndicates of the IWA, also due to a lack of local strength. However, the longer I was a member, the more alienated I became from some of the conditions in the IWA.

Laure's answer was not about the FAU at all. But in our organization we have been making decisions for a very long time according to a mathematical formula that also found its way into the decision-making process of the later ICL: Larger organizations have a greater voting weight, with small sections nevertheless receiving proportionally more influence per member in order to protect minority positions and syndicates in difficult places. In the FAU at the time, we discussed the old decision-making structures of the IWA on a very broad basis (there were local seminars and discussion groups, but also a lot of nationwide exchange) with great confusion. According to these, an organization with 20 members had and would have just as much weight as an organization with several hundred or even several thousand members. Laure defends this concept with the argument that in large organizations, the proportion of those who actively participate in decision-making decreases. There is some truth in this and, among other things, the mechanism that gives small organizations proportionally more influence in our votes is based on this point. But what I think Laure's and other supporters' arguments ignore is this: When organizations reach a certain size, the number of decisions to be made also grows. It is not FACTUALLY possible to have a voice in all matters as an individual. My syndicate, for example, has about 2-6 meetings a week where decisions are made. It's obvious that no member can or wants to be at all these meetings. Especially not if they work 40 hours or more, are perhaps also single parents, etc.. For these reasons, other forms of mediation and, above all, an organizational culture based on TRUST are essential. In my opinion, it is also obvious that the importance of this democratic issue grows when syndicalist organizations actually take on the responsibility of self-administration of a region. As a worker, consumer, resident, I could never go to all the meetings where decisions are made that affect me. In large, anarcho-syndicalist organizations, I am always dependent on the most important points being recorded in fundamental policy decisions and on comrades sitting at the meetings who know my points of view and bring them into the discussion. I don't see how else society could organize itself, especially before we have reached libertarian communism.

And that brings me to the second important argument for such decision-making structures: anarcho-syndicalist organizations only learn about certain organizational problems and realities when they reach a certain size. It is simply a different matter to make decisions with 5 or 250 or 2500 people. A larger organizational context gives you different perspectives, problems and needs. In the IWA, as far as I could see, there were several congresses in a row in which perhaps 10% of the member base, all gathered in the small sections, outvoted 90% of the member base. It should have been clear to everyone that this situation endangered the integrity of the organization as a whole. I also think that Lauren's argument that proportionally more people took part in the decision in smaller sections does not hold water, because the total number of members involved in the decisions of the "large" sections (let's remember that both the IWA and the ICL are still very marginal organizations) was certainly higher. I would not even rule out the possibility that in the years before the FAU was excluded, more members were involved in the future of the IWA at the FAU meetings alone than in the small sections of the IWA together.

Another point that was relevant for me and many others in the FAU was the general understanding of how one can and should or should not approach other actors in the working class. As FAU we had a long tradition with the SAC in Sweden (which after 1945 saved the lives of many members of the old FAUD who were threatened by starvation, at the same time we were well aware that the CNT-E in particular had a difficult history with the SAC). For various reasons, links with the IWW had also been handed down for over 100 years in some cases, and many everyday trade union struggles required us to be in contact with the OZZ IP from Poland. However, all these organizations were branded as "enemies of the ICL" and the FAU was sanctioned because we did not accept being told to break up contact and exchange ideas with these organizations. I think the simple fact that an organization like the IWA only had a few hundred members and, for example, no branch organization, but instead had a fixed list of organizations for which contact bans existed, caused absolute lack of understanding among the broad majority of German anarcho-syndicalists. I think most of them were and are of the opinion that we have our own strategy and principles and that these do not immediately disappear into thin air when we discuss and seek exchange with someone who has different views. It is this mindset of no contact, clear friend/enemy positioning and the importance that some organizations seem to place on separation (felt to be the main focus) that I think has completely alienated the FAU base from the IWA.

In my view, the question of how to proceed with the IWA and the FAU was not discussed lightly, not without sadness and above all very broadly within the FAU, which in my opinion is not a matter of routine, because the topic was very complex and full of requirements and it took a lot of resources to work through the issue and discuss it broadly.

I and many of my comrades also had a lot of doubts about this issue. We shared a lot of criticism of developments in the CNT or problematic organizational issues in the IWW or OZZ IP, for example. We ourselves were not sure whether a separation of the large from the small IWA sections would not mean that both factions would fail. The former as dogmatic small sects, the latter as trade unions that find their way into reformism. In the end, however, we were still in favor of leaving the IWA because we saw no way of overcoming the blockade of the small sections within the IWA. As a grassroots democratic project, the IWA had thus failed for us, because we found it unacceptable that a maximum of 10% of the members dictate their will to the remaining sections and secure it further and further by including more and more micro-sections that are "in line". We therefore voted to leave as a syndicate in an initial decision within the FAU. We hoped that a separation would be possible in a reasonably good way and saw this as the only way for both currents to move forward without sinking into a syndicalist civil war. Leaving the IWA did not receive a qualified majority at the time (but a majority).

Around the same time, my syndicate had a long labor dispute with a 2-month strike in a bar - it was, by the way, the longest known strike that had ever taken place in a German bar. At the time, we were in contact with the Slovakian IWA section and had been invited to report on this labor dispute on site. Shortly before the event, however, we were canceled because, as a syndicate, we had voted to leave the IWA and were therefore obviously enemies of the IWA. We were not asked why, no opportunity was taken to talk to us, not even to convince us. It wasn't about moving forward together. From my point of view, it was all about association loyalties, being right and setting boundaries. It also raises the question of what our internal voting result had any relevance to the Slovakian section. And who wasted their time getting hold of other sections' documents and spreading such trouble among anarcho-syndicalist trade unions? I could think of a thousand better ways to engage with anarcho-syndicalism. It is this paranoia, the politics of suspicion and almost secret service snooping that leads to people talking about sectarianism. Such actions create nothing but a poisoned climate, no added value. Would the Slovak comrades have immediately tipped over into reformism as soon as they met us in real life? Would we have been infected with a disease that would have spread immediately? Or would we not have learned much more from each other, exchanged positions and perhaps found ways to reach a consensus on certain issues? Is it the fear of communication that drives people to leak documents, sow discord and issue contact bans? And what more could the secret services and cops actually do tactically if they wanted to disrupt our organization than what has already happened here?

I tell this anecdote because it made us deeply sad at the time and because it exemplifies how we experienced most of the remaining IWA sections (I would explicitly exclude the SolFed) in this conflict.

I don't presume to have an opinion on what happened in Spain and to sift through the dirty laundry of other country sections here. I would assume that in a conflict that has escalated to such an extent, it would be a miracle if many acts were not committed by both sides that were not in the spirit of revolutionary progress. The question for me, here and now, in a dying world where time is running out: who are the people who are looking ahead to turn the tide instead of resting on petty wars? These are my people.

With this in mind, I would like to call on all anarcho-syndicalist comrades not to marry themselves to three or six letters, to make alliances based on the values and actions of other workers, and to hunt the hell out of self-appointed labor leaders, whether in ICL or IWA or any other section. I would like to call on everyone to insist on a constructive culture of conflict and to rid their organizations of those whose political style is characterized by populism, violence and defamation - no matter which "side" they are arguing for. Because whether these people are deliberate troublemakers (secret services, cops, companies), people who dump their psychological problems on the organization or people who have lost their way politically - it ultimately doesn't matter. We can't afford such a culture of conflict and we have to say goodbye to these people before they shape the whole political style of our movements - otherwise they are dead. And the organized working class remains our only hope in the face of climate change, technological threat and the threat of world war. We simply don't have time for this shit.

In solidarity,
Steff

Your answer goes a little off the topics of the articles but I do appreciate that you wrote your point of view. I will just tell you abour my research and task, which was given to me: write a list of agreements of the IWA. Since the archives are stolen, I could only do this for a certain period of time, but it covered the last 40 years or so. What did I find in the agreements: the instance of the „three” largest unions being outvoted by anything only happened a couple of times and this started with the moves to reform the IWA. Before that, there were no instances of this. The two questions posed were porportional voting and minimum membership. In no other time before that were there instances where the three largest unions were „outvoted” by smaller ones.

So this is a case of giving this „explanation” all the time of a problem that hadn't existed. Also, just to point out, when you give examples of 90 percent of membership being outvoted by 10 percent, it never happened, because the three reform-minded unions that voted for these things never constituted 90 and when you use numbers like 5 and 5000, it is just a theoretical example because we never had an organization with 5 and have not had an organization with 5000 for many decades. I point it out because people just repeat these types of things because they like how it sounds.

If we want to talk concretely about FAU, it made one proposal that was outvoted, but also CNT and USI was against. That was to adopt Esperanto as the third official language of the IWA. (Personally, I think a very impractical proposal.)

So things should be stated very clearly: this was never a problem of larger Sections being systematically outvoted. The vast majority of proposals made by CNT or USI were in fact approved. (FAU made very few proposals.) This only became an issue because of the attempts to reform the IWA based on size.

We are pretty sure that it should have been anticipated and it was a very clever thing to propose something that wouldn't pass, because it was one of the things that gave more reasons to one sector of the CNT to try to take over the IWA and remake it. And I don't use the word take over lightly, because, essentially, if any of these proposals about proportionate voting had passed, there were by no reason to have a federation where all decisions were made by one.

I agree totally that voting inside organizations is very different depending on size, but there is a problem when de-facto some leaders are taking decisions. I think any reasonable person can see that executive decision making should be kept to the necessary minimum and, in my opinion, should be done according to specific mandates.

In any case, I am very surprised about your union having so many meetings. It's not tenable. You should think about whether so much time is necessary. We have tons of things happening but we make constant use of other forms of communication to handle things between meetings because having more than one meeting a week is impossible for us. Some of our comrades also cannot attend all meetings or have a strange work schedule: we send out proposals in advance so they can leave their vote/opinion and not be excluded.

Finally, we were hoping that, everybody having gone their own ways, the most contentious issues were solved and that nothing like what is happening now would happen. Unfortunately, the lawsuits have come, some people just want to end CNT-AIT as a tradition. Whatever happens, we will keep on keeping on and that's it.

The narrative manufactured by the Spanish affiliate of the ICL/CIT to justify the hostile legal action against the CNT-AIT doesn't withstand scrutiny.

I wish to examine it from the perspective of a member of an IWA affiliate in the Asia Pacific region, ASF-IWA.

The manufactured narrative rests on three flimsy supports; the IWA had become sectarian due to rigid ideology, that some IWA affiliates were real unions while others were not and that the decision-making process was 'undemocratic' because these not real unions had one vote the same as the 'real' unions and this constituted being 'dictated to' by a minority.

The attack on the IWA as so ideologically rigid as to be sectarian is not much more than an attempt to justify the abandonment of the organising principles of anarcho-syndicalism. The dismissal of valid criticisms as 'sectarian' is the first tool Marxist-Leninists reach for when they are subject to criticism as a means of silencing it. Being critical is in no way sectarian. Refusing to support workers in struggle on account of not being members of the same union or other workers organisation would be sectarian.

From the moment the ASF was admitted to the IWA in 1988, it was highly critical of the Eurocentrist attitudes prevalent in the IWA. But there was never any question of solidarity with all IWA affiliates.

The ICL/CIT attacks the IWA/AIT for 'ideological rigidity' for no other reason than to justify the centralisation of decison-making into an executive (who should be paid, according to them) that will 'professionalise' the union to the point that it resembles a reformist union however much it purports to be anarcho-syndicalist.

But far more revealing is the narrative pushed by the ICL/CIT that the IWA was undemocratic on account of 'tiny propaganda groups of 5 members' (not real unions) had the same one vote at IWA Congress as a (real) union of 10,000 members.

The problem with this narrative is two-fold;

First the IWA has operated on this basis since at least 1979 when the IWA began a revival spurred by the reconstitution of the CNT. Why did it become a problem only after 30 or so years? One possible explanation could be that whatever the CNT proposed was agreed to as a general rule and it wasn't until the admission of new affiliates, particularly from Eastern Europe, did there seem to be any concern.

Secondly, one Section, one vote was the accepted practice for this whole time as the membership of the IWA is comprised of its affiliates not the number of individual members. This is consistent with the organising principle of anarchist federation By contrast, the IWW, for example, which is not an anarcho-syndicalist organisation, pursues the decison-making process based on the principle of representative democracy; each individual member votes to elect a General Executive Board where decison-making power is constituted. It is on this principle of representative democracy that the GEB claims its mandate to decide.

The objection by what was to become the Spanish affiliate of the ICL/CIT to the suddenly discovered lack of democracy has nothing to do with any democratic principle and everything to do with the desire on their part to centralise power into their hands - an anathema to the practice of anarcho-syndicalism.

The desire on the part of those in what was to become the Spanish affiliate of the ICL/CIT to centralise power into fewer and fewer hands is evidenced by (among other things) the change of the minimum number of members requirement for affiliation to CNT from 5 to 15 the effect of which was to reduce the number of votes to be counted at Congress.

It was this desire to centralise power that gave impetus to the proposal by the CNT to require a minimum number of members of 125 to affiliate to the IWA at the 2010 Congress that would have the effect of reducing the number of votes to be counted to 4. It should come as no surprise that those affiliates that did not have this number of members voted against their own disenfranchisement.

Not satisfied with this decision, the CNT put the exact same proposal to the 2013 Congress only changing the minimum to 100 - again failing to pass. This is against the principle that once a decision is made, it is not revisited unless there is new information that would have a bearing or there has been a change of circumstance. The message from CNT was clear; keep voting until we get the outcome that we want.

Any doubt that the purpose of these proposals was to centralise the decision-making process was extinguished when the founding Congress of ICL/CIT agreed to a minimum of 75 members (up from the originally proposed 50). Why not 125 as originally proposed in 2013?

The fact remains that the size the affiliates that were admitted to the IWA were known to everyone. The one Section, one vote principle has the effect of attenuating power that could otherwise be abused and is a mechanism against the centralisation of power.

In any event, democracy is only truly democratic if everyone participating in the decision has equal access to all the relevant information. This is clearly not the case as evidenced by the lack of knowledge among the membership of the IWW, the FAU and the Spanish affiliate of the ICL/CIT.

The opprobrium directed against the then General Secretary of the IWA, Comrade Laure, was due in no small part to the initiative shown by her to expand the IWA beyond Europe and South America into Asia. The IWA events held in Hong Kong and Taipei in August 2014 was horrifying to the USI, the FAU and what was to become the Spanish affiliate of the ICL/CIT as it threatened to expand the participation in the IWA Congress.

The ICL/CIT remains confined to the Atlantic sphere of Europe and North America despite the focus of capital shifting to Asia where the vast majority of workers of the world live. The ICL/CIT has not grown beyond these narrow confines and can only look forward to its inexorable decline however gradual.

By contrast, the IWA is expanding in the Asia Pacific region at an ever increasing rate. At the last IWA Congress in Alcoy in 2022, the voices and perspectives of comrades from Pakistan and Indonesia were heard for the first time. There are now Sections and Friends Groups as well as emerging Initiatives right across the Asia Pacific region in such places including but not limited to Bangladesh, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and most importantly due to their sheer size, China and India.

None of them, according to the ICL/CIT definition, are 'real' unions. Yet. Indeed, the efforts by the ICL/CIT to develop beyond Europe has been confined to the cultivation of existing unions like the garment workers in Bangladesh whose leadership is made of of members of the Communist Party of Bangladesh or the Inter-Factory Workers Union controlled by the Marxist Partai Rekyat Demokratik in Indonesia. This tells you pretty much all you need to know about the politics of ICL/CIT.

This should come as no surprise as the ICL/CIT is not anarcho-syndicalist they would hardly have any desire to build anarcho-syndicalist unions in Asia.

The anarchist movement in Spain didn't appear out of nowhere. Like every union ever in the world, they all started as an idea promoted by what we would understand as 'tiny propaganda groups'. Staring with the presentation given by Guiseppe Fanelli at a meeting of the Barcelona Workers Education League in 1868.

The current hostile legal action by the Spanish affiliate of ICL/CIT is predicated on the fiction that the IWA/CIT doesn't exist but is motivated by no higher aim than to acquire property belonging to those unions that remain affiliated to CNT-AIT that refused to abandon anarcho-syndicalism in the vain hope that if CNT-AIT is destroyed, so will the IWA/AIT be destroyed.

This won't happen as the IWA/AIT will continue regardless.

Steff, of Leipzig FAU, should spare us the crocodile tears. If you are serious about comradely relations, take action to that end. Start by asking questions. Demand your Spanish affiliate cease it hostile legal action. Same goes for the IWW and any other organisation affiliated.

The problem is not the the ICL/CIT have abandoned anarcho-syndicalism (which is a praxis not an attractive colour scheme). They may do whatever they wish. But to pass it off as anarcho-syndicalism is to perpetrate a fraud.

The legal action by the Spanish affiliate of ICL/CIT is destructive of class solidarity and as such benefits only the global bosses, the enemy of workers everywhere.

The standard you walk past and do nothing about is the standard you accept.