A Response to ‘Platformism vs. Syndicalism’: Why the Distinction Still Matters

Debney’s belief that anarchists can cooperate across tendencies is good. The experience of the CNT and FAI is justly called ‘the heroic years’ by Bookchin and I share his appreciation of their militant rank and file’s courageous struggle. But heroism isn’t organisation, and we need to look at the past soberly and without romanticisation. Fundamentally the CNT and FAI were uncoordinated, improvising rather than developing strategies, and their lack of theoretical development led them into statist collaboration and eventual defeat.

There is a misconception that platformism and anarcho-syndicalism are distinct ideologies, but they can be understood as strategic variations within anarchism aimed at achieving a stateless, communist society. While different tendencies can have bitter arguments, it is important to avoid fragmentation and sectarianism in the petty sense – but this shouldn’t come at the expense of important tactical and theoretical questions. Some of the points raised here may appear as splitting hairs, or competing for the title of best anarchist historian, but I believe that they need to be addressed and considered in turn.

The first issue is definitional. Debney refers to Malatesta as a platformist, which needs to be refuted as it conflates Malatesta’s preference for anarchist organisation with platformism. Platformism is not simply an inclination for organisation, it is a specific current of anarchist-communism with specific principles. Malatesta approached the principles outlined in The Platform, but he never claimed them as his own. He was in fact harshly critical of The Platform at first, arguing that the model proposed by Delo Truda would in practice become a hierarchical vanguard party in the style of the Bolsheviks. He debated this with Makhno, who in turn believed that Malatesta’s confidence in plural organisations promised only long-term ineffectiveness. This was not a minor argument; it essentially cuts to the core of what anarchist organisations should be, though Malatesta and Makhno eventually acknowledged that many of their own disagreements were due to language barriers and a lack of context.

Contemporaneously, Sébastien Faure wrote his article The Anarchist Synthesis, in which he questioned why anarchists should be divided into competing ‘schools’ (anarcho-syndicalism, anarcho-communism and individualist anarchism) when they could unite without sacrificing their principles. In his view, division was a luxury that anarchists couldn’t afford – a synthesis could mutually enrich each tendency without diluting them to a lowest common denominator.

Delo Truda recognised from experience that this unity of tendencies would collapse the moment the situation demanded clarity and coordination, as had happened in the slaughterhouse of the Russian Civil War. For veterans of this conflict, Faure’s model was hopeless from the outset; too slow, too contradictory and incapable of coordinated action. How can people with incompatible social and organisational visions and different revolutionary strategies intervene in mass struggle? By contrast, Delo Truda argued for tactical and theoretical unity and collective responsibility – the means to be a revolutionary force.

Like platformism and anarchist-communism, Debney conflates syndicalism and anarcho-syndicalism. In modern times this conflation is common because the broader syndicalist tradition has largely vanished and due to the dominance of the CNT’s legacy, but this ignores the fact that historically syndicalism was a multitendency movement, not inherently anarchist. Why does this matter here? Because the CNT explicitly identified itself with anarchism in 1919, declaring its desired end to be anarchist communism.

This explicit definition means that the CNT was, at least in theory, not a neutral mass union but a political–ideological organisation. Its articulated anarchist program only further complicates the thrust of Debney’s argument. If the CNT was itself an anarchist organisation, why was there a need for the FAI, also anarchist, to keep it “on an anarchist path” (CNT 1936)? What emerges is an organisational overlap: the CNT appears simultaneously as both a union and a political body, while the FAI functions as both a political network and a pressure group. Rather than a clear ‘platformist–syndicalist symbiosis’, this is an arrangement both ambiguous and unstable, the sort of thing that The Platform sought to overcome. This is not merely a semantic issue, it determines whether the CNT is understood as a mass organisation or as an explicitly anarchist political union, two distinct modes with radically different implications for revolutionary strategy.

Although the CNT held a formal commitment to anarchist communism, it was never a fully anarchist organisation. Only about a third of its members were anarchists, the rest being militant, class-conscious workers drawn to the CNT’s effectiveness or because it was the strongest labour union in their area (Heath 2022, 312). Workers often join unions during disputes only to leave or maintain a paper membership once some sort of resolution has been reached, and this was true of the CNT. Illustrating that point, Baker uses the 1932 example of three hundred workers who joined the CNT in Casas Viejas, joining mainly “because it was necessary to find a job, and they did not subsequently absorb anarchist ideas” (2023, 294-295).

Pessimistically, an organisation can formally commit to an ideology without gaining genuine adherence from its general membership. The Australian Labor Party (ALP), for example, maintained a constitutional, though symbolic, commitment to socialism for 94 years. From the perspective of both platformists and anarcho-syndicalists, this doesn’t need to be a problem. The priority remains the mass organisation of workers, all the better if this occurs in a union that is predisposed toward anarchist goals. The question becomes how to extend struggle beyond immediate economic gains and cultivate genuinely revolutionary consciousness. Who carries out this work? According to Debney, the answer is the FAI – right?

Debney presents the CNT as the practical force of the masses, with the FAI acting in the background as a kind of moral guardian against corruption. Yet this framing is directly contradicted by CNT labour historian Frank Mintz, who argues that depicting the two organisations as “mutually complementary is historically wrong” (2013, 179), even though the claim is sometimes repeated within the CNT itself. Debney further labels the FAI a platformist organisation, but unfortunately this is also misleading. Far from having any sort of ideological unity, FAI members frequently held “a minimum of anarchist convictions” (Christie 1997, 46) and as for tactical unity, the FAI deliberately avoided leadership in any form:

“It was never its aim to act as a leadership or anything of the sort — to begin with they had no slogans, nor was any line laid down, let alone any adherence to any hierarchical structure… This is what outside historians ought to grasp once and for all: that neither Durruti, nor Ascaso, nor García Oliver — to name only the great CNT spokesmen — issued any watchwords to the ‘masses’, let alone delivered any operational plan or conspiratorial scheme to the bulk of the CNT membership.” (Carrasquer cited in Christie 1997, 47)

Debney asserts that the FAI functioned as a ‘forum’ for reflection and meditation on the ‘revolutionary gymnastics’ of the CNT, a sort of contemplative, guiding conscience of the movement. The reality was far messier. Even Bookchin, who was reluctant to criticise the CNT and FAI’s organisational weaknesses, notes that the FAI:

“…was not a politically homogenous organization which followed a fixed ‘line’ … The FAI was not oriented towards theory; in fact, it produced few theoreticians of any ability… It placed actions above ideas, courage above circumspection, impulse above reason and experience… in the FAI there was no consensus about how to proceed in a revolutionary situation. On this critical issue it contained divided tendencies whose basic disagreements were never fully resolved.” (Bookchin 1998, 224).

Instead, the ‘conscious minority’ within the CNT was convinced that the working class was capable of revolutionary transformation without any need for ideological development or leadership. Makhno, by contrast, recognised the treacherous path the Spanish anarchists were treading on, noting that these organisational deficiencies seriously undermined their chances of success:

“As I see it, the FAI and the CNT must … be able to call upon action groups in every village and town: likewise, they must not be afraid to assume the reins of the strategic, organizational and theoretical revolutionary leadership of the toilers’ movement.” (Makhno 1931).

This advice was not heeded, and the consequences of the FAI’s ideological and strategic underdevelopment were severe. By 1933, the FAI was controlled by “rootless intellectuals and economics planners”, essentially a “structure of vested interests serving to apply the brakes to the spontaneous revolutionary activity of the rank and file and repress the new generation of revolutionary activists” (Christie 1997, vii-viii).

Following the failure of the fascist coup and the effective disintegration of the state, the CNT and FAI found themselves exercising de facto authority across large parts of Spain. Rather than consolidating this revolutionary situation, its leadership instead moved to … subordinate the revolution to a state that had already collapsed! Members of the CNT’s leadership accepted government portfolios and moves were soon made to integrate the CNT’s armed formations into the Republican military command structure.

Whether or not survival could have been guaranteed by following the revolutionary road is conjecture, all that we can base our analysis on is the fact that collaboration proved to be catastrophic. The Stalinist secret police arrested and murdered thousands of anarchists, and within the Republican army, where the Communist Party and Soviet advisors exercised disproportionate influence, anarchist units were deliberately sent into “headlong ‘kamikaze’ attacks which were certain to result in the slaughter of the libertarian troops” (Tellez 1974, 31). Things came to a head with the May Events of 1937 and finally the defeat of the Republic.

It could be said that the CNT and FAI’s downfall was because it had strayed too far from anarchism, rather than blaming anarchism itself as Marxists are fond of doing. The fact that the leadership clique of the CNT lead it down this road was certainly against the wishes of the broad membership, including Durruti, “who subscribed wholeheartedly to the case for immediate social revolution” (Mintz 2013, 190). In 1975, J. Manuel Molina, one of the FAI’s founders, articulated the mistake the Spanish made in ignoring The Platform:

“The platform of Archinov and other Russian anarchists had very little influence on the movement in exile or within the country. Very few defenders. You know that we had become very radical and we viewed any modification or revision [of anarchism] with reservation. The Platform was an attempt to renew, to give greater character and capacity to the international anarchist movement in light of the Russian Revolution, particularly in the Ukraine. Today, after our own experience, it seems to me that their effort was not fully appreciated.” (cited in Casas 1986, 106).

The Platform emerged to address the weaknesses that arise from organisational ambiguity. For anarchist-communists, the key lesson is that mass organisations and political organisations operate on distinct planes – confusing the two leads to strategic drift. Unions can articulate the economic interests of their members, but they cannot construct long-term strategies, ideological unity or coherent revolutionary programs. These are tasks that belong to specific political organisations with shared theory, collective responsibility and the ability to intervene across multiple fronts.

Platformists do not fetishise discipline, they insist on theoretical and tactical unity because without a common political line, organisations cannot act effectively. This is why anarchist-communists don’t agree with Debney’s belief that the “organisational nous of the CNT-FAI has yet to be topped” (2026). The Uruguayan Anarchist Federation (FAU) understood this lesson clearly, with militants organising in unions, neighbourhood committees, student movements and armed self-defence groups, always as a coordinated political project. Strategically intervening in the labour movement, it “led much of the general strike and factory occupations that fought the military coup in 1974” (Lawson 2022). The FAU’s strength was in its clarity – an organisation capable of analysing the situation, setting strategic priorities and acting. The fact that rank and file Communist Party of Australia members were able to radicalise the Builders Labourers Federation throughout the 1960s-70s shows that this can be accomplished here as well.

Debney argues in favour of “multiple strategies”, asks us to “trust your own judgement”, start “working together” (2026), but this isn’t the issue. It’s not whether different approaches can coexist, but whether they can produce a coherent revolutionary approach. This is why the debate still matters. Underlying problems still exist. Unions tend towards reformism because they must represent all workers, not just the most radical layer, political groups risk alienating themselves from the class and movements strain to coordinate across sectors and communities. We can’t overcome these sorts of problems by appealing to the memory of the CNT and the FAI as they existed a century ago.

The lesson of the CNT-FAI experience is that revolutionary organisation requires a clear understanding of what different forms of organisation can and cannot do. The kind of questions we need to be asking include: what sort of organisations build power, how do we sustain revolutionary impetus, how is coordination achieved without centralisation – and so on.

In Australia there is no real point emulating the experience of the CNT and FAI in the 1930s. Syndicalism found some expression in the IWW and OBU but never consolidated as a mass movement. The ALP and Australian Workers Union made sure that the labour movement developed along parliamentary and bureaucratic lines, prompting Lenin to ask, “What sort of peculiar capitalist country is this, in which the workers’ representatives, predominate … and yet the capitalist system is in no danger?” (1913). Subsequently there is no mass syndicalist movement to symbiose with. What does exist are highly bureaucratised unions, atomised communities and a small anarchist milieu with limited organisational capacity. In this context anarcho-syndicalism “does not solve anarchism’s organizational problems, since it is concerned solely with penetration of the unions, and … little can be done in the labour movement unless an anarchist organization is created first” (Casas 1986, 103).

If we’re serious about bringing about change, we shouldn’t want a subculture where anarchists all get along at the expense of coherency. What we need are political organisations that can develop militants and intervene meaningfully. The FAU demonstrated that even numerically small groups can shape the terrain and act effectively in complex situations by understanding material conditions through careful analysis (FAU 1972). While the Spanish forever proved “the potential of the mass of the working class to overthrow the state and capitalism by mass insurrection”, the Uruguayans underlined the fact that “blind action is useless much as theory without practice is useless” (Lawson 2022). Both offer vital lessons, but it is a dead end to try and resurrect the 1930s. Ultimately, Debney's article reveals a deep ignorance on important debates. The solution isn't to ignore them but to engage with them to avoid traps that anarchists have already fallen into and find organisational solutions in the Australian context. The organisational form determines the strategic capacity of a movement.

REEFERENCES

Baker, Zoe. 2023. Means and Ends: The Revolutionary Practice of Anarchism in Europe and the United States. Chico: AK Press.

Bookchin, Murray. 1998. The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years 1868–1936. Chico: AK Press.

Christie, Stuart. 1997. We, the Anarchists! A Study of the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI) 1927–1937. Oakland: AK Press.

Confederación Nacional del Trabajo. 1936. Resolutions from the Zaragoza Congress. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/confederacion-nacional-del-trabajo-cnt-the-cnt-resolutions-from-the-zaragoza-congress-1936.

Debney, Ben. 2026. “Platformism vs. Syndicalism.” Class Autonomy. https://classautonomy.info/platformism-vs-syndicalism/.

Delo Truda. 1926. Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/dielo-truda-workers-cause-organisational-platform-of-the-libertarian-communists.

Federación Anarquista Uruguaya. 1972. Huerta Grande: Theory, Ideology and Political Practice. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/federacion-anarquista-uruguaya-huerta-grande.

Gómez Casas, Juan. 1986. Anarchist Organisation: The History of the FAI. Montreal-Buffalo: Black Rose Books.

Heath, Nick. 2022. The Idea. Newtownabbey: Just Books.

Lawson, Tommy. 2022. Foundational Concepts of the Specific Anarchist Organisation. https://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/library/tommy-lawson-foundational-concepts-of-the-specific-anarchist-organisation.

Lenin, Vladimir. 1913. “In Australia.” https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/jun/13.htm.

Makhno, Nestor. 1931. “Open Letter to the Spanish Anarchists.” https://libcom.org/article/17-open-letter-spanish-anarchists.

Mintz, Frank. 2013. Anarchism and Worker’s Self-Management in Revolutionary Spain. Oakland: AK Press.

Tellez, Antonio. 1974. Sabate: Guerilla Extraordinary. London: Cienfuegos Press Book Club.