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
Comments
"whether tenant networks can…
"whether tenant networks can collectively resist evictions"
This phrase captures the whole problem with this article -it grossly fails to adequately consider the whole issue of the impact of corporate unionism and the intertwined corporate media predominance and how realistically it can be tackled with an appropriate strategy - if tenants were collectively resisting evictions what about the full force of the state eg the police surely being used against the tenants assuming they got over their low morale and atomisation? With the corporate union bosses integrated into the corporate set up isolating these tenants action via heading off or sabotaging any moves by workers to take direct action to provide industrial solidarity. The corporate media also likely to coverup the whole action by the tenants. The Rightwing Trot groups of today which collaborate with the corporate union bosses and political establishment would also be encouraging tenants into useless legalistic blind alleys or lobbying politicians.
However in the well known case of the NSW BLF (Builders Labourers Federation) in the late 60's early 70's - the closest we have come to an anarcho-syndicalist style union in Australia prior to the emergence of corporate unionism - the famous green bans were imposed stopping developments leading to mass evictions. However in today's situation with corporate unionism - it can't be tackled by so called anarchists acting as help mates of the union bosses.
The newly formed ACF (Anarchist Communist Fed.) section in Queensland has mentioned it is involved in putting out the publication "Hardhat" covering up for the bureaucratic and corrupt nature of the CFMMEU (Building/Construction/Maritime) corporate union and support for the smoke and mirrors of enterprise bargaining via providing some left/fake militant camouflage - seems copying various groups from Marxist Leninist heritage which have taken a rightward shift for some years now. In articles in the ACF Victorian publication "The Picket Line" also seems to be crudely covering up for the corporate unions bosses with the ludicrous statement " that we shouldn't oppose union officials just because they are union officials" grossly underestimating the massive web of corruption and tentacles of the ALP Octopus they are entangled.
To tackle the issue of getting a syndicalist movement going in the Building and Construction industry in Australia and other countries like the UK - would require getting a strike wave movement going across industry raising grass roots morale - and syndicalist transport workers and even a breakaway transport workers union emerging taking solidarity action and helping achieve employer recognition of a break away syndicalist building workers union also very important in helping out tenants campaigns and issues. Integral to all this would be tackling the issue of "Black Listing".
Today we need the outside-the-job organisation doing the long range serious industrial organising - assisting grass roots networks to get this going. Focusing on one strategic sector. Not squandering limited resources and personnel into all manner of sectors mentioned in the above article - doing everything and getting nowhere of any significance - but perhaps providing excuses for social occasions. Not becoming stooges of the union bosses and helping them out with their smoke and mirrors performance and covering up for their corruption and integration into the corporate set up.
See via google search on Anarchist Library Rebel Worker Review of "A Beautiful Idea: A History of Freedom Press"
Thanks for your comment. I…
Thanks for your comment. I appreciate you taking the time to engage, and for sharing the Australian context. The experience of the NSW BLF and your warnings about the grip of corporate unionism are valuable.
However, I think you’ve built something of a straw man here. You’ve latched onto a single illustrative phrase "whether tenant networks can collectively resist evictions" and treated it as if it were the totality of my argument. It wasn't. It was an example of the kind of capacity a strategic organisation needs to aim for.
My piece isn't a tactical guide on how to resist an eviction in 2026. It's a strategic argument about the form of organisation required to build that capacity in the first place. You've projected the specific, and very real, difficulties of the Australian industrial landscape onto my example and used them to dismiss the broader question I'm asking. That question is simple:
What kind of organisation can move beyond cultural preservation and actually accumulate the power to intervene?
The British context you've ignored to make your point actually sharpens my argument. ie: We have the London Renters Union, a mass organisation of tenants that has won concrete fights and built real power in communities through deep organising, plus they are networking with all kinds of unions (radicals and mainstreams) and communities. We have some movements in the major unions like the RMT, UCU, Unite, Unison, CWU... slowly leaning to broke from the Labour Party and openly fighting the government, which opens possibilities of changes inside the union to some degree. Exist networks like Troublemakers at Work, organising rank-and-file workers to challenge bureaucracy from below.
These are not signs that the problem is solved. They are precisely the kind of living, breathing class struggles that a coherent, disciplined political anarchist organisation could, and should, strategically insert itself into. The existence of these movements doesn't make my argument obsolete. It makes it urgent.
The question remains:
Do we have an organisation capable of intervening in those struggles with political unity and a long-term strategy, or will we remain a collection of networks content to preserve our own culture?
In solidarity
According to a WSWS Report:…
According to a WSWS Report: ASLEF (UK Train Drivers Union) General Secretary Mick Whelan announced an agreement to justify vetoing mandated industrial action—calling it off only two days before 450 train drivers were due to walk out for the first of 22 days of strikes over successive weekends between August 31 and November 10. 2024
However, Labour felt free to do so thank to Whelan’s well-documented public assurances that a restructuring of terms and conditions could be discussed once a pay settlement was reached. Last year, he offered the Tories and TOCs what he described as a “face-saving deal” to deliver “any changes and productivity they were looking for.”
A Memorandum of Understanding with the TOCs agreed last November saw the RMT(Other Grades Rail Union) annul a third renewed strike mandate based on a 5 percent pay award for 2022-3, with the second year of the deal tied to changes in working practices and negotiated separately at each TOC. Even now Lynch is asking for no more than what has been offered to ASLEF.
Seems a similar situation with the corporate unions we have in Australia. These movements in important unions you refer to don't seem to be achieving significant results countering the employer offensive - In NSW Australia various restructuring for privatisation of the NSW Railways pushes have been defeated since the late 1990's by grass roots activists assisted by the ASN. Involving focusing limited resources and personnel in one strategic area- transport industries. Without that such victories would be impossible. It would be exactly the same in the UK - the thing would be to approach those in these movements to get involved in a transport paper like www.sparksweb.org - over many years we have actually helped set up and helped in numerous ways various opposition groups/movements in transport industries and another. Given difficult and harsh conditions you would face and the low morale/flaking out of some etc all forces would have to be focused there getting together the outside-the-job organisation linking up with on the job networks to conduct the work regionally and eventually on a national level. It would be a very big and expensive job. Also your electoral authorities likely infiltrated by British Labour Party machine/M15/Cops networks similar to our situation would rig and defeat any ballot for constitutional changes to syndicalise/ultra democratise the corporate unions. Why not? In Australia a similar cabal (ASIO/Rightwing ALP Machine/Cops) can get what ever every result they want in these ballots.
You seem to be mezmerised by the Trot Groups/Mainstream Political parties to a degree wanting to get involved in everything going and getting nowhere or taken in by illusions. Also apart from launching such an industrial paper - you should also look at launching a national paper - like www.rebelworker.org avoiding of course left subculture/identity politics exotic rubbish. in this way encouraging syndicalist education and networking to orient those in those movements you mention to adopting a syndicalist orientation and preparing for the big push in the context of the strike wave movement to launch major breakaway union movements. Again a big job which would feed from the above industrial paper and from these movements in different industries. This project should also be focused on by your limited forces.
In the case of a big set piece thing like mass evictions involving many thousands - despite these mass tenants groups you mention - it will end in disaster for the tenants. Like the corporate union officials in the above UK report - betraying their members - they would without a doubt betray the tenants or take some token action as a stunt - the officials of the CFMEU in Sydney a year or so ago did something like that re evictions of housing commission tenants in the Inner Sydney suburb of Glebe. In the case of mass evictions involving 1000's - the full force of the state is likely to be used and the tenants isolated by the unions bosses and corporate media - a ramification of such a defeat is likely to be the loss of rights won.
Notes
See in RW Dec.2018-Jan.2019 Vol.36 No. 3(223) RTBU Elections 2019:Were they rigged?" on www.rebelworker.org
& "From Corporate Bureaucratic Unions to Grassroots Controlled Unionism: Perspectives from Australia Today" in RW Vol.41 No.3 (235) Dec.2023 - Jan. 2024
Looks like asn you've done…
Looks like asn you've done it again. Another wall of text about Australia, another set of examples meant to prove that nothing in the UK matters because it doesn't fit your template.
Let me be blunt: your method isn't anarchist organising. It's Trotskyism with a syndicalist hat on. The industrial paper as the centre of gravity, the "strategic sector" fetish, the outside-the-job vanguard that will swoop in with the correct line. It's a blueprint, just not ours. We've seen it before. It produces small sects that talk endlessly about the coming strike wave while everyone else gets on with organising.
You accuse Calder of being mesmerised by "Trot groups" and "mainstream parties". The irony is you're the one peddling a variant of the same logic: that a tiny group of disciplined cadres with a newspaper can orient an entire class.
I believe Calder sounds more like Especifismo. That It's about building political organisation to serve and strengthen autonomous working class struggle, not to direct it from the outside.
Someone that has been involved in unions on the last years can perfectly see that there's a growing layer of rank-and-file militants influenced by McAlevey's approach - deep organising, structure tests, actual majorities. Not waiting for the newspaper, but building power where people are. That's the terrain we need to be on. Not as saviours, but as participants with political clarity.
It's alarming your final point: that the state will crush any serious movement, so why bother? That's not revolutionary politics. That's paralysis dressed up as hard-headedness. If the state is always going to win, what exactly are you building for? The point is to build enough power to resist back and build a new libertarian communist future.
If your answer to every initiative is "the cops and the union bureaucrats will stop it", you're not preparing for revolution. You're making excuses for doing nothing.
You are seeing ASN activity…
You are seeing ASN activity through the prism of the Trot groups and the marxist leninist heritage to a crude and ludicrous extent - our work as a catalytic network has played a key role in grass roots activists winning important struggles and defeating important spearheads of the employer eg restructuring of the NSW Railways for privatisation particularly helping militants on dicey workplace issues, raising morale of workers, countering management/union boss propaganda etc. Readers circles in the context of the strike wave can transform into grass roots organisations and collective discussion of articles can lead to collective action by those in strategic sectors. The initiator and spokesman for the Drivers for Affirmative action was heavily involved in our industrial work/network and a "newspaper" Sparks but radically different from the Trot press of course particularly of today which mostly covers up for the union bosses and hardly any actual worker reading it - and the early stages of a strike wave and direct action wave movement. A key backdrop was the defeat of restructuring of the City Rail station network stations in Sydney for privatisation contributing to militants winning a mass meeting to support their motions for a campaign. Exactly what anarcho-syndicalist militants should be doing and getting going. Giving a good impression to militants and others on the job - re assisting them effectively on issues they are concerned. But Ragnar doesn't seem very impressed of course. Stop this nonsense!!!
There are different levels of commitment in such a network or any group- if you Ragnar want to live in reality land - definitely you need highly self disciplined militants to do the unsupervised long range serious work and probably a lot of the bank rolling in the harsh and difficult conditions in transport industries and keeping other publications/organsing going in the UK and here in Oz- others with less commitment lower morale etc - can do less important critical but useful regular stuff.
You need to cultivate and get involved these industrial guerrilla fighters/mavericks - One way of helping their "cultivation" would be for one dimension of a national paper to be a sort of theoretical journal as it relates to anarcho-syndicalist industrial organising/tactics and strategic involving analysis/discussion of various strike wave movements and the history of various syndicalist/anarchist movements and particularly focusing on getting various transitional phases leading to the formation of a mass a-s union confederation to confront your TUC or our ACTU. One dimension of RW is that. Why not set up study/discussion groups on these lines which could feed into the national paper with articles and book reviews? Such a network would be obviously a voluntary association with no place for brain washing and psychological manipulation techniques or democratic centralism/central committees which you get in Trot groups and Anarcho Trot/Stalinist sects and cults eg in Australia in the years leading up to and following the hijacking by a cult of Jura Books in 2013 in Sydney by a cult and ASF No.2. from its beginning. See on Libcom.org thread "New Org in Sydney." You Ragnar seem to be engaging in wild slandering which resembles Stalinist political practice or just hypnotised by the .Trot groups
Re the issue of mass pickets of tenants being attacked by the full force of the State - the Iron heel - with disastrous consequences we have seen something similar. Remember the British Miners strike 1984-85, Wapping etc - where you seem to have had legit mass pickets unlike here in Australia with eg the Patricks/Maritime dispute of 1998. Isolated by the corporate unions and heavily attacked by the Iron Heel with as you well know had disastrous consequences. We must get this strategic industrial organising going and being brutally realistic about what people and can and cannot do or be relied upon and focused on the sector which can get the strike/direct action wave going. With transitional steps toward mass anarcho-syndicalist unions we can better help these tenants and others achieving important victories and avoiding a likely disastrous defeat. (See essay on the Barcelona Rent Strike of 1931 by Nick Rider in For Anarchism ed by Goodway)
The the NSW BLF example I gave - was a sort of transitional step toward mass a-s unionism but was defeated by a sort of Iron Heel particularly due its failure to expand into other states in the BLF and throughout the building industry - and link up and inspire similar movements in other industries. It was largely isolated by the bureaucratic reformist unions of those days. leading to the defeat of the Mundey/Owens group in the mid 1970's and takeover by the Maoist Gallagher Federal BLF.
I suggest you read and reread this reference also on Libcom.org re some highlights of our work over some decades "From Corporate Bureaucratic Unions to Grassroots Controlled Unionism: Perspectives from Australia Today" in RW Vol.41 No.3 (235) Dec.2023 - Jan. 2024 and also RW Review of "Green Bans Red Union" about the NSW BLF in archive section of www.rebelworker.org
ASN, since you keep avoiding…
ASN, since you keep avoiding the actual argument and just pile on more Australian examples, let's try a different approach. Here's why your latest comment isn't the devastating rebuttal you think it is.
The fallacies:
1. Ad hominem: "You're engaging in wild slandering which resembles Stalinist political practice", "Stop this nonsense!!!", "hypnotised by Trot groups". Attacking me instead of the argument.
2. False analogy: Comparing 1980s miners' strikes or 1990s Australian rail disputes to the current UK context as if they're identical situations with identical lessons.
3. Anecdotal evidence: "The Drivers for Affirmative Action spokesman was involved in our network", "we helped defeat rail privatisation". Isolated examples don't prove a universal method.
4. Circular reasoning: Our work has played a key role because we say it has, therefore it's what anarcho-syndicalists should be doing.
5. Straw man: Still pretending I'm advocating for doing everything everywhere, when I've been clear in other posts about building a focused, specific organisation rooted in workplace and community struggle (that's not be doing everything everywhere).
6. Appeal to authority: Citing your own publications (rebelworker.org, sparksweb.org) as if they're peer-reviewed evidence rather than your own output.
7. Slippery slope: Mass tenant resistance will inevitably end in "disaster" and "loss of rights", therefore don't try unless you follow our blueprint.
8. TINA ("there is no alternative"): Your model of catalytic network + industrial paper + strategic sector is presented as the only serious option. Everything else is illusion.
Why it's Trotskyist:
You can call it "catalytic" all you like. The substance is the same: a disciplined core of "highly self‑directed militants" (your words) doing the "unsupervised long‑range serious work" and bankrolling, with a newspaper that sets the line, focused on one "strategic sector" (transport) as the lever to trigger the wider strike wave. That's not especifismo. That's not anarcho‑syndicalism. That's the Leninist conception of the vanguard party, just without the central committee on paper. The difference matters because we don't want an organisation that "orients" the class from outside; we want one that serves and strengthens autonomous working‑class struggle from within.
Leninism involves democratic…
Leninism involves democratic centralism with a central committee - there is none of that - our industrial newspaper particularly involves assisting the agitation and self organisation of the grass roots eg Drivers for Affirmative Action (DAA) of March 2004 - an informal self managed workers organisation of sorts taking direct action similar to train drivers taking direct action in France leading to strike waves in 1986-87 and Dec. 1995 and large formal organisations ie coordinating committees. DAA was an excellent example of autonomous workers struggle and organisation but of an informal type which contributed to significantly . We were helping get this going we are in line with what you are advocating. But you are not achieving it seems.
Our industrial paper has no set line - workers who see things differently to us re strategy have contributed to the paper for many years and also in RW - these publications are more expressions of different workers views on the job and facilitating there self activity -Forums for debate and discussion amongst the grass roots. All sorts of militants from an array of political parties have been involved over many years. They have had their own sections and reprinted in RW with rarely any cracking of the editorial whip. Stop this crude slanderous nonsense resembling Stalnist political practice!!
If we look at historical precedents getting the strike wave movement has led major splits from bureaucratic reformist unions or Francoist unions -which did lead to massive growth of a-s style or influenced union formations eg resurgence/rebuilding of the CNT in Spain in late 1970's at its peak claiming 300,000 or so members , massive growth of CNT-F to an estimated 100.000 and numerous breakaways from the CGT in France associated with the 1947 strike wave etc.
In the early days in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries before the impact of corporate unionism, the full blown emergence of the deep state, the rise of leninism and mass Stalinism, successes of the employer offensive, greatly raised workers morale generally- in anarchist groups and syndicalist groups - self disciplined militants with high morale often from blue collar working class origins, were not uncommon - mass syndicalist movements would never have been built with out them - See "Wobblies of the World" by Peter Cole and "Red November Black November" on the lead up to the formation of the IWW in the USA and early years . You and others need to do the necessary historical research. These study and discussion groups I am advocating would be useful in this regard.
Today with low morale of workers and a different social base and the above factors - you don't get many of these industrial organising mavericks which can scorch holes in the employer offensive and get the processes leading to the transitional steps toward mass syndicalist unions going Today with this low morale, middle class/student social base, influence of identity politics, demoralised workers involvement - when you have "formal" anarchist/Trot/a-s groups you would end up with this sect and extreme sect - cult phenomena - organisation as end in itself with micro bureaucracy providing rituals and ceremonies, activity as an end in self - excuses for social occasions - so as to get over the alienation of bourgeois. society or like the rightwing Trot and Anarcho Trot groups of today drawn into a rightwing direction and covering up for and collaborating with the corporate union bosses.
More words, more Australian…
More words, more Australian examples, more deflection. Let's do this quickly.
Again the fallacies:
1. Straw man: I never said your group has a central committee or formal democratic centralism. I said your METHOD, a disciplined vanguard with a newspaper orienting the class from outside, is Leninist/Troskist in FUNCTION. You're arguing against something I didn't claim.
2. False equivalence: You cite DAA as an example of autonomous workers' self-organisation, as if that proves your network isn't vanguardist. Helping something emerge isn't the same as building a political organisation. No one's arguing against rank-and-file initiative.
3. Appeal to authority (recycled): More historical references. More suggestions we read your sources. The question isn't whether the IWW or the CNT existed. It's whether your specific model works here, now.
4. Red herring: You bring up student social base, identity politics, middle-class alienation, micro-bureaucracies. These might be real problems. They're not responses to the point about your method mirroring vanguard politics.
5. False dichotomy: Either we do what you do (catalytic network, industrial paper, no formal organisation) or we end up as "sects and extreme cults" with "rituals and ceremonies". There's no middle ground in your world. No possibility of a serious especifismo organisation that avoids both traps.
6. Ad hominem (continued): "You are not achieving it seems." "Crude slanderous nonsense resembling Stalinist political practice." Still attacking the person, still not engaging with the substance.
7. Circular reasoning: Your network works because it helped DAA. DAA proves your network works. Around we go.
You've written paragraphs and said nothing new. The question remains: if your model is the only viable one, why has it taken decades to build what you've built? And if the state always wins, why are you still publishing?
PD: the topic is wether or not, in UK, we build a platform or network, similar to AFed with the Eclipse Committee project or we try to build an Especifismo organisation or both! or whatever we want to do...
I said your METHOD, a…
I said your METHOD, a disciplined vanguard with a newspaper orienting the class from outside, is Leninist/Troskist in FUNCTION. You're arguing against something I didn't claim.
You are resorting to crude slander in line with Stalinist political practice - presumably you have absorbed stalinist political culture from the leftist milieu like those anarcho stalinists in the thread toward an Anarchist Federation in Australia on libcom.org.
But there is no vanguard - there is a catalytic network involving those on the job and outside
the job "within the class" acting as the yeast to facilitate the bread of workers self organisation of sorts to rise -and it has - DAA is an example of that amongst others - for example the Kick Start group in Sydney buses in 2002 involving bus drivers from half a dozen bus depots in much more harsh conditions. There are varying levels of self discipline and commitment and capacity for work in our network- Sparks helps gets this on the job organising and action alchemy going creating readers circles on the job which can be transformed into grass roots organisations taking important direct action if based in strategic sectors in certain circumstances - DAA's work to rule campaign of march 2004 was preceded by an important victory in late 2003 by train drivers -a tiny article in Sparks/RW about a small section of concern to drivers was going to be abolished - readers were angered following collective discussion and put pressure on the union officials - who threatened industrial action which would affect millions over the issue and subsequently management backed off - saving the section which also was of concern to these drivers and also us. These informal grass roots organisations would have been the base later on of DAA.
Any move for major splits to form a-s style unions would have to be discussed and approved by grass roots assemblies surely . There would be no attempt by us to manipulate them into such action - it would be similar to DAA emergence "autonomous" but perhaps at mass meetings. There certainly would be no consideration by us to orchestrate such mass meetings like the union bosses and actual Trots/real vanguardist would do or the Anarcho Stalinists at Jura Books in early 2004. Such mass meetings would be completely self managed. Stop these ignorant slanders!!!
"3. Appeal to authority (recycled): More historical references. More suggestions we read your sources. The question isn't whether the IWW or the CNT existed. It's whether your specific model works here, now."
But these historical precedents and the French strike waves in 1947 86/87 and Dec.1995 and our study of them provides us with insights for strategy today - how major splits from the mainstreams unions can occur and be facilitated - where we should focus limited resources and those who have high levels of discipline and capable of serious long range work and others with less capacity should focus. You just have an anti-intellectual orientation it seems. You and others need to get over it - these discussion and study groups I have proposed would help you get over it.
DAA was similar to the early stages of some of these strike waves which had the potential to lead to major splits from the corporate unions. So certainly of relevance to us today.
The question remains: if your model is the only viable one, why has it taken decades to build what you've built? And if the state always wins, why are you still publishing?
I have already mentioned some of the problems we and you would face making getting major a-s splits from the corporate unions difficult to get going in the above article "From Bureaucratic Corporate Unionism to Grass roots controlled Direct Action Unionism....." & "Debate on Rank & File Groups & Industrial Organising" in RW Dec.2025- Jan.2026.
With DAA of March 2004 we may have come very close to continuing this movement and taking this direction - however the flyer with a program for DAA we got out with the "spokesman" of the movement came out one day too late - we did move fast but not fast enough - those in DAA has already been bought off with bonuses. With the drivers being bought off - a rebel train guards grouping probably the same size as DAA which we made contact with and was impressed by our flyers directed to them lost enthusiasm.
"And if the state always wins, why are you still publishing? "
I have given you some examples of workers - train drivers/railworkers winning things of concern to them assisted by us and interwoven with our work over the years - so the state/employers aren't always winning! Also moves for Driver Only Operation of Trains in NSW since 2010 have been defeated associated with our work. Again idiotic standers. In the above article there is the case in the public service - when ASN activity helped workers defeat moves by management/union bosses to introduce thurs. night and sat. mornings extended DSS/Centrelink office opening hours and abolishing penalty rates- in the 1990's. To my knowledge this victory/achievement is still in place today.
In regard to the type of organisation - you need one which can help tackle the issue of corporate unionism - if you can't tackle that - like in the Thatcher era you would be facing the isolation of various groups leading to reverses. Also with the clouds of war building up - even more nasty stuff awaits you in the UK and we in other countries. Particularly an interweaving of networks would be important - involving cores and layers of peripheries.You need compartmentalising, need to know and vetting procedures in place as best as you can to pursue the long range strategic clandestine industrial organising, To tackle the corporate unionism and employer offensive issues.. Transport industries should be an obvious focus of this work. If you are competing with the Trot groups in all manner of areas and the influence of the Stalinist legacy upon you although unconscious you are likely to be become like them - and spiral into sect and cult land in the current circumstances.
I am pointing you to a hard road - based on all my wealth of experience and all my historical research - I see no know other road for you and others to take. I can't guarantee to you success - no one can. But playing numbers games and admiring the micro bureaucratic structures operating like clock work - similar to the finest of Swiss Cookoo clocks and the lascivious massaging of macro bureaucratic structures is not the way to go.
This is a shame because I…
This is a shame because I think there is an urgent need for more discussion about anarchist strategy (much I could say about the near-total absence of any organised anarchist presence in Birmingham bin strike solidarity stuff, for instance), but I also find ASN's posts consistently unreadable. Is the outward-looking industrial newspaper aimed at railworkers this impossible to read?
You need to read articles …
You need to read articles from RW I have referred to and concentrate more perhaps by putting down that bottle of vodka you have been imbibing
R Totale wrote: This is a…
It is indeed: http://www.rebelworker.org/archive/sparks/latest.pdf
Another article around…
Another article around important debates in UK https://libcom.org/article/beyond-reaction-towards-strategic-anarchist-approach-fighting-far-right-britain