Organisation – Preserve or Build what can win?

British anarchism finds itself at a familiar crossroads. Faced with fragmentation, uneven growth and the looming possibility of a harsher political period ahead, we are once again asking what kind of organisation we need. The recent interventions from Eclipse, particularly around the question of “general or specific organisation”, bring that issue into sharp focus. But beneath the terminology lies a more decisive question: are we organising primarily to preserve ourselves, or to build something capable of winning?

This is not a theoretical dilemma. It is a historical one.

In Britain, we have already tested a model centred on broad general federative organisation, cultural infrastructure and plural coexistence. That model sustained a political current. It kept anarchism visible. It ensured that ideas, publications and networks survived through lean years

But survival is not the same as strategic advance.

The question before us now is not whether such structures have value. It is whether they are sufficient for the period we are entering, a period marked by intensified state repression, deepening social crisis and a far-right that feeds on working-class dislocation. If our goal is more than preservation, then the organisational form we choose matters profoundly.

If by “general organisation” we mean a national federation that connects militants across cities, produces shared propaganda, organises conferences and debates, and offers a recognisable identity under which anarchists of differing emphases can gather, then Britain already has a long-standing example in the Anarchist Federation - AFed. For decades it sustained anarchist political culture. It maintained local groups, produced analysis, kept publications alive and ensured that anarchism did not disappear during periods of retreat.

That contribution should not be dismissed. In moments when the wider left collapsed or retreated into electoralism, such structures preserved a revolutionary current.

But preservation is not accumulation.

Despite its continuity and intellectual contribution, the general federation model did not translate into sustained, coordinated insertion into strategic sectors of the working class. It did not anchor long-term workplace organisation in key industries. It did not systematically appeal to militants in logistics, public services or tenant struggles at scale. Its interventions were often principled and sharp, but episodic. Its influence was cultural and ideological more than structural.

This is not a personal criticism of those involved. It is an observation about form. A general organisation tends to stabilise a political scene. It creates space for debate, communication and shared identity. But it does not necessarily generate the level of unity and discipline required for coordinated, long-term intervention in class struggle.

The Eclipse project argues that fragmentation is the problem facing British anarchism, and that what we lack is coordination, infrastructure and a shared national framework capable of bringing together our diversity. Yet the British experience suggests that communication spaces have never been the decisive missing element. We have had bookfairs, social centres, magazines, online platforms and federations. What we have lacked is sustained agreement about strategic priorities, about where militants should be socially inserting themselves, and about how collective resources should be concentrated rather than dispersed.

Infrastructure is not strategy. A network can circulate ideas and connect individuals, but unless it is anchored in shared political direction and expectations of militant practice, it risks becoming a stable meeting ground rather than a force capable of intervention.
It is worth widening the lens further. Plan C, at its height, attempted something different: a looser, movement-oriented network aimed at strategic thinking beyond traditional anarchist forms. It emphasised mapping power, analysing logistics, identifying choke points and experimenting with forms of intervention that could disrupt circulation and governance. In theory, this appeared more dynamic than the traditional federation. It spoke the language of strategy and sought to move beyond subcultural anarchism.

Yet Plan C’s trajectory reveals another lesson. Without durable organisational consolidation, without clear membership discipline and shared long-term commitment, even the most sophisticated strategic analysis remains episodic. It can produce moments of insight and flashes of intervention, but it struggles to anchor itself in the daily life of working-class communities. When momentum fades, the network disperses. What remains are documents and memories rather than embedded force.

Between the general federation model and the looser networked experiment, we see two different attempts to escape marginality. One preserves culture but struggles to concentrate power. The other produces sharp analysis but lacks organisational solidity. Neither has yet solved the problem of accumulation.

Looking beyond the general organisation model makes this clearer. Solidarity Federation has, at times, demonstrated what clarity of orientation can produce. Its emphasis on workplace organising has often yielded more focused interventions than looser pluralist structures. Yet even there, the distinction between political organisation and mass organisation has sometimes blurred, limiting the capacity to maintain a distinct strategic centre and therefore influence the Trade Union movement.

More recently, the Anarchist Communist Group has attempted to move closer to what could be described as a specific political organisation. It has stressed clearer programme, defined strategy and a critique of broad federal coexistence. Its reach remains limited and uneven, but it illustrates something crucial: strategic unity and collective expectations alter the internal logic of organisation. They concentrate energy rather than distribute it across preference and inclination.

The uncomfortable truth is that Britain has never fully developed a stable, nationwide organisation built on sustained political unity, collective responsibility, and systematic social insertion. Our history has oscillated between general broad federations, anarcho-syndicalist experiments and cultural networks. Each has contributed something. None has produced a durable accumulation of an anarchist influence of working-class power.

When someone calls for a general organisation to overcome fragmentation, it is fair to ask why reproducing a structurally similar model would yield a different outcome. The likely reply is that this time the emphasis will be on coordination and strategic development rather than mere coexistence. Yet without prior political unity and agreed expectations of practice, coordination remains aspirational. A network defaults to plural coexistence because that is its structural logic.

Another reply might be that there is no contradiction between general networks and specific organisations, that both can coexist and complement one another. In principle this is true. But the balance of emphasis matters. If the gravitational centre of activity becomes a broad, plural space, then the pressures toward dilution and compromise inevitably grow. Strategic discipline becomes secondary to maintaining unity across differences.

None of this is to deny that networks have their place. Cultural infrastructure matters. Bookfairs, public debates, publishing projects and shared archives are valuable. They preserve memory, develop ideas and create entry points for new comrades. In that sphere, general structures function well. But cultural coherence is not material power. A movement can have a vibrant cultural life and still remain marginal in workplaces, estates and migrant communities.

The urgency invoked around 2029 sharpens the issue. If Britain faces a hard authoritarian turn, what will matter will not be how many anarchists are connected through mailing lists or conferences. It will be whether militants are embedded in workplaces capable of disrupting supply chains, whether tenant networks can collectively resist evictions, whether migrant solidarity structures can withstand repression, and whether anti-fascist capacity is rooted in communities rather than limited to reactive mobilisations.

Those capacities are not built by infrastructure alone. They require long-term social insertion, disciplined coordination and political clarity about priorities. They require militants who understand their participation in unions, tenant groups and community campaigns as part of a collective strategy rather than as isolated local initiatives. They require an organisation that expects something of its members beyond attendance and agreement, one that demands commitment, accountability and sustained engagement.

The divide, ultimately, is not between inclusivity and sectarianism. It is between a model that treats organisation primarily as a space of convergence and one that treats it as an instrument of strategic intervention. British anarchism has excelled at the former. It has struggled with the latter.

We should be honest about what the general model has achieved. It preserved us. It educated us. It maintained a visible presence and prevented dissolution. In periods of weakness, that was no small thing.

But preservation is a defensive posture. It ensures continuity. It does not ensure advance.

If we are serious about confronting the British state, austerity, the hostile environment and the far right, then the question cannot simply be how broadly we network. The question is whether we are prepared to organise with political unity, collective discipline and strategic social insertion into the living struggles of our class.

Organisation, then, is not a neutral technical problem. It is a strategic choice.
We can preserve the milieu, or we can build what can win.

J. F. Calder