If we are not prepared to defend and argue for anarchist ideas, others will speak for us.

Hi comrades,

I want to thank (our comrade) for their well-thought out letter to the group. I admire their willingness to reevaluate their thinking and the emphasis they put on rejecting rigidity and authoritarian internal cultures. I also share their evaluation of (our friends) as being inward-looking, self-referential, suspicious of dissent and more concerned with maintaining themselves than engaging in struggle. I feel however that the question is not a choice between organisation or no organisation, but what kind of organisation.

I am not convinced that we should abandon the idea of a specific anarchist organisation. Anarchists must organise in the here and now despite unfavourable conditions, coordinate as anarchists with a shared minimum program and remain present, visible and influential within broader movements. I don’t believe that we should wait for a higher level of struggle before organising ourselves politically.

Not building anarchist organisations now risks leaving the field open to statist, NGO-style and authoritarian currents when struggle eventually rises. Without organisations in place, anarchists become a loose network of individuals who cannot act coherently. Organisation precedes struggle. While Australia may be in a period of low struggle, anarchists do not wait for struggle, they help to generate it by organising in everyday life. Low struggle is an argument for organisation, not postponing it.

Unity in action across the left is a worthy ambition, but anarchists must enter alliances as anarchists, with clear commitments and an independent capacity to act. As a witness of efforts to establish a mass multi-tendency socialist organisation (2), I do not share any sort of optimism for this model. Organisations that include authoritarians are prone to centralisation and in such formations, anarchists often become marginalised or silenced. This is because without strategic coherence anarchists are condemned to be a powerless minority. (3)

The lesson of Occupy and many other struggles that give rise to the possibility of mass struggle has been that upsurges do not spontaneously produce effective organisation. They produce chaos in which more structured groups, often of an authoritarian or liberal nature, win influence. In the absence of real alternatives, electoralist groups like Socialist Alternative and the Greens fill the vacuum. If we are not prepared to defend and argue for anarchist ideas, others will speak for us.

Returning to the local context. If a group is dominated by a few individuals, dissent is punished and internal life substitutes real struggle, then it is not an anarchist organisation in any meaningful sense. Our local experience, however, isn’t an argument against anarchist organisation, only against bad anarchist organisation. I am in full agreement that sect behaviour is a problem but disagree with the diagnosis.
Small political organisations are not inherently sects. I don’t see a pressing need down the track to accumulate members, rigid adherence to a line or to eventually merge into a federation. (4) A small, coherent group with a light but real organisational framework that can agree on principles, strategy and decision-making methods can respond effectively to future developments, including broader realignments if the situation necessitates it. What I am arguing for is an organisation with a focus on concrete struggle, a federalist structure, voluntary coordination, openness, a rejection of internal hierarchy and minimal points of unity.

One of my favourite analogies comes from the IWW, which sees groups as tributaries that eventually merge into a great river. While (our friend) is correct in identifying the need for a mass-organisation rooted in class politics, we shouldn’t deny the need for organisations that can influence the path the river takes.

On some of (our friends)’s alternative proposals (social centres, networks etc.), I am in favour of them, but I do believe that there needs to be a coherent anarchist political nucleus behind them. Social centres without direction become activist hubs with no strategic orientation: take (the local centre) under (the synthesists) as an example. Networks without a political anchor drift into liberalism or fade out and while workplace organising is good, without organisation militants lose the ability to coordinate, retain lessons or influence broader developments.

We should aim to reject the sect spirit, avoid authoritarian patterns and stay connected to real struggle. But dissolving into networks and waiting for better times doesn’t inspire much hope. Specific anarchist organisations are necessary precisely because struggle is low, giving us the opportunity to prepare, experiment, learn and be ready to help in guiding larger movements when they arise.

(...)

Looking forward to seeing you all soon,
(Etc...)

(1) (...)

(2) I’m referring to the Socialist Alliance in the early 2000s. I was a member of the state executive of the youth wing and departed in 2006 after my disillusionment in Leninism. Socialist Alliance was at first a big-tent socialist grouping of several powerful socialist groups. It resulted in the destruction of most of them. Today the Alliance is a rebranded Democratic Socialist Party that has dwindled into insignificance.
When I left Alliance I went on to help form a synthesist anarchist group, which eventually collapsed due to its political incoherence. My experience with these sorts of appeals to unity has permanently convinced me of the need for internally coherent organisations.

(3) On this point it is worth considering Black Rose / Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation’s response to the Libertarian Socialist Caucus of the DSA on the subject of ‘social insertion’ into larger formations. Clarifying Especifismo: A Response to DSA-LSC's 'Letter to the Libertarian Left'

(4) A letter in Partisan makes some good points on this: “If a sect doesn’t break down, it calcifies into an efficient membership machine, who’s only purpose is to maintain its due paying membership enough to tread water above the suffocating pull of splits and depoliticisation.” LETTER: Where did Black Flag Sydney go? – PARTISAN!