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Platformism

March 16, 2024

Platformism is an anarchist organizational theory that aims to create a tightly-coordinated anarchist federation. Its main features include a common tactical line, a unified political policy and a commitment to collective responsibility.

First developed by Peter Arshinov in response to the perceived disorganization of the Russian anarchist movement, platformism proposes that a "general union of anarchists" be established to agitate, educate and organize the working classes. It advocates working within existing mass organizations, such as trade unions, in order to transform them into vehicles for a social revolution.

History edit

Precursors edit

The roots of platformism go back as far as the organizational principles of Mikhail Bakunin,[1] particularly in his theory of "organisational dualism". Bakunin proposed that anarchists form their own revolutionary organisations that would encourage workers to rebel against the state and capitalism, and once a social revolution had replaced the state with a federation of voluntary associations, it would then agitate against any attempted reconstitution of the state by political parties.[2]

The Platform's most direct predecessor was the Draft Declaration of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine, adopted in 1919 by the Military Revolutionary Council of the Makhnovshchina. The Draft Declaration called for a "Third Revolution" against the Bolshevik government, in order to establish a regime of free soviets.[3] It centred the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine as the nucleus of this revolution, where the organization's entire membership would carry out the decision-making process.[4] In 1921, the Makhnovists published another Declaration that proclaimed a dictatorship of the proletariat in the form of an anarchist-led trade union system, for which Nestor Makhno himself was accused of Bonapartism.[5]

Meanwhile, the Nabat Confederation of Anarchist Organizations, which had originally been established as a loose-knit organization, developed into a tightly-organized structure with a unified policy and an executive committee, in what a member would later describe as a precursor to platformism.[6]

Formulation edit

 
Peter Arshinov, the main theoretician of the Platform.

After their flight into exile, Russian and Ukrainian anarchists began to call for the reorganization of the anarchist movement, considering that chronic disorganization had led to their defeat during the Revolution.[7] Among the anarcho-communists, Peter Arshinov was the most vocal advocate of reorganization.[8]

On 20 June 1926, the Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft) was published in Delo Truda, with an introduction penned by Arshinov.[9] Considering the goal of anarchism to be a social revolution that would create a stateless and classless society, the Platform proposed the establishment of a General Union of Anarchists to educate the working class and raise class consciousness.[10] This General Union was to be organised according to the principles of theoretical unity, tactical unity and collective responsibility,[11] and would be governed by an executive committee that coordinated collective action and political policy.[12]

Debate edit

The Platform was first presented at a meeting of the Delo Truda group, with attendees also including Bulgarian, Chinese, French and Italian anarchists. At the meeting, Arshinov introduced the document as a way forward for the international anarchist movement to "marshal its forces".[13] Although supported by Nestor Makhno, Arshinov's Platform was opposed by most prominent anarchists at the time.[14] French anarchists in attendance, led by Sebastien Faure, criticised it as Russocentric, considering it unapplicable to the material conditions in France.[15] In the years that followed, Faure's Anarchist Synthesis, which rejected platformism in favor of a more loose-knit organization, contributed to dividing the anarchist movement into "synthesists" and "platformists".[16]

 
Senya Fleshin (left), Volin (center), and Mollie Steimer (right), three of the Platform's main critics.

The Platform's harshest critics included Volin, Senya Fleshin and Mollie Steimer,[17] who denounced the Platform as an attempt to create an anarchist political party,[18] which they feared would inevitably result in the formation of a police state.[17] Arshinov responded by claiming his Platform actually abided by anarchist principles, as it consciously avoided coercion and preserved decentralization.[19] The debate also took a more personal turn as Makhno and Arshinov attacked Volin, which attracted denunciations from other critics of the Platform,[20] including Alexander Berkman, who denounced Makhno as a militarist and Arshinov as a Bolshevik.[19]

After years of defending the ideas of Platformism, in the early 1930s, Arshinov joined the Communist Party and defected to the Soviet Union,[21] where he would disappear during the Great Purge.[22] Nestor Makhno himself died in 1934, leaving the Platform without any prominent defenders.[23] Nevertheless, both the opponents and remaining supporters of the Platform managed to reconcile at Makhno's funeral.[24] Volin himself took up the publication of Makhno's memoirs, which were published in the years after his death.[25]

Organizational developments edit

During the Spanish Revolution of 1936, a number of revolutionary anarchist hard-liners formed the Friends of Durruti Group in opposition to the state's militarisation of the confederal militias.[26] After the Revolution was suppressed, the group published Towards a Fresh Revolution, which called for a revolutionary council to reform the militias and bring the economy back under the control of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), which would effectively have dissolved the government of Spain.[27] In the wake of the 1944 Bulgarian coup d'état, the Federation of Anarchist Communists of Bulgaria (FAKB) issued its own Platform, which argued for a specifically anarcho-communist federation, coordinated by a central secretariat, which would participate in trade unions and prepare for a social revolution.[28]

In 1953, the French anarchist Georges Fontenis published his Manifesto of Libertarian Communism, which attacked the prevailing synthesist orientation of the French anarchist movement, becoming the founding document for the Libertarian Communist Federation (FCL).[29] Drawing from aspects of the Platform, Fontenis' Manifesto called for an anarchist revolutionary vanguard to work within existing mass organizations in order to develop a mass movement, with the eventual aim of dissolving itself into the movement and achieving a social revolution.[30] In the years that followed, the FCL united together with the North African Libertarian Movement (MLNA) to establish the Libertarian Communist International (ICL), but their suppression by the French state forced the organization's dissolution in 1957.[31] Platformism was revived in France during the events of May 68, when the Revolutionary Anarchist Organization (ORA) was founded, although it would remain the minority tendency within the anarchist movement.[32] The formation of the ORA accelerated the establishment of other anarchist federations throughout Europe, such as the Anarchist Federation (AF) in Britain and the Federation of Anarchist Communists (FdCA) in Italy, while the ORA itself would eventually be succeeded by the Libertarian Communist Union (UCL).[33]

Especifismo (English: Specifism) was first developed in 1972 by the Uruguayan Anarchist Federation (FAU), with the publication of its text Huerta Grande, which proposed the creation of a unified political policy directly applicable to the material conditions in Uruguay.[34] The collapse of the ruling right-wing dictatorships towards the end of the Cold War resulted in the emergence of many other especifista groups throughout Latin America, in a process spearheaded by the FAU.[35] In 2003, the Anarkismo.net website was established by an international network of anarcho-communist organizations, including both Latin American especifistas and European platformists, which publishes news and analysis in a variety of different languages.[36]

References edit

  1. ^ Darch 2020, p. 143; Graham 2018, p. 330.
  2. ^ Graham 2018, pp. 330–331.
  3. ^ Schmidt 2013, pp. 61–62.
  4. ^ Schmidt 2013, pp. 62–63.
  5. ^ Darch 2020, p. 75.
  6. ^ Schmidt 2013, p. 66.
  7. ^ Avrich 1971, pp. 238–239; Darch 2020, p. 140; Malet 1982, pp. 163–164, 190; Schmidt 2013, p. 60; Skirda 2002, p. 120.
  8. ^ Avrich 1971, p. 241; Skirda 2002, pp. 122–123.
  9. ^ Darch 2020, p. 143; Skirda 2002, p. 122, 124.
  10. ^ Darch 2020, pp. 143–144.
  11. ^ Darch 2020, p. 143; Schmidt 2013, p. 61; Skirda 2002, pp. 124–125.
  12. ^ Avrich 1971, p. 241; Malet 1982, p. 190; Schmidt 2013, p. 61.
  13. ^ Skirda 2002, p. 124.
  14. ^ Avrich 1971, pp. 241–242; Darch 2020, p. 144; Malet 1982, pp. 163–164, 190–191.
  15. ^ Darch 2020, p. 144; Skirda 2002, p. 124.
  16. ^ Schmidt 2013, p. 63.
  17. ^ a b Avrich 1971, pp. 241–242.
  18. ^ Avrich 1971, pp. 241–242; Darch 2020, p. 144; Malet 1982, pp. 190–191; Skirda 2002, pp. 125–126.
  19. ^ a b Avrich 1971, pp. 242–243.
  20. ^ Avrich 1971, pp. 242–243; Malet 1982, pp. 190–191.
  21. ^ Avrich 1971, pp. 243; Darch 2020, p. 145; Malet 1982, pp. 163–164, 191.
  22. ^ Avrich 1971, pp. 245–246; Darch 2020, p. 145; Malet 1982, pp. 163–164.
  23. ^ Darch 2020, p. 145; Malet 1982, pp. 164, 191–192.
  24. ^ Malet 1982, p. 164.
  25. ^ Malet 1982, p. 190.
  26. ^ Schmidt 2013, pp. 80–81.
  27. ^ Schmidt 2013, p. 81.
  28. ^ Schmidt 2013, pp. 82–84.
  29. ^ Schmidt 2013, pp. 94–95.
  30. ^ Schmidt 2013, pp. 95–96; Skirda 2002, pp. 171–172.
  31. ^ Schmidt 2013, p. 96.
  32. ^ Schmidt 2013, pp. 96–97.
  33. ^ Schmidt 2013, pp. 97–98.
  34. ^ Schmidt 2013, p. 98.
  35. ^ Schmidt 2013, p. 102.
  36. ^ Schmidt 2013, p. 105.

Bibliography edit

  • Avrich, Paul (1971) [1967]. The Russian Anarchists. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-00766-7. OCLC 1154930946.
  • Baker, Zoe (2023). "Organizational Dualism: From Bakunin to the Platform". Means and Ends: The Revolutionary Practice of Anarchism in Europe and the United States. AK Press. pp. 307–346. ISBN 978-1-84935-498-1. OCLC 1345217229.
  • Berry, David (2002). A History of the French Anarchist Movement: 1917 to 1945. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-32026-8. ISSN 0885-9159. LCCN 2001054702.
  • Darch, Colin (2020). Nestor Makhno and Rural Anarchism in Ukraine, 1917-1921. London: Pluto Press. ISBN 9781786805263. OCLC 1225942343.
  • Graham, Robert (2018). "Anarchism and the First International". In Adams, Matthew S.; Levy, Carl (eds.). The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 325–342. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-75620-2_19. ISBN 978-3319756196. S2CID 158605651.
  • Malet, Michael (1982). Nestor Makhno in the Russian Civil War. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-25969-6. OCLC 8514426.
  • Schmidt, Michael (2013) [2012]. Cartography of Revolutionary Anarchism. Edinburgh: AK Press. ISBN 978-1849351386. OCLC 881111188.
  • Skirda, Alexandre (2002). Facing the enemy: A history of anarchist organisation. Translated by Sharkey, Paul. Oakland: AK Press. ISBN 1902593197. OCLC 490977034.
  • Skirda, Alexandre (2004) [1982]. Nestor Makhno–Anarchy's Cossack: The Struggle for Free Soviets in the Ukraine 1917–1921. Translated by Sharkey, Paul. Oakland: AK Press. pp. 274–290. ISBN 978-1-902593-68-5. OCLC 60602979.
  • van der Walt, Lucien; Schmidt, Michael (2009). "Militant Minority: The Question of Anarchist Political Organisation". Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism. Edinburgh: AK Press. pp. 239–270. ISBN 978-1-904859-16-1. LCCN 2006933558. OCLC 1100238201.

Further reading edit

External links edit

  • Anarkismo.net - Multilingual anarchist news site run by over 30 platformist and especifist organisations on five continents

March 16, 2024
platformism, anarchist, organizational, theory, that, aims, create, tightly, coordinated, anarchist, federation, main, features, include, common, tactical, line, unified, political, policy, commitment, collective, responsibility, first, developed, peter, arshi. Platformism is an anarchist organizational theory that aims to create a tightly coordinated anarchist federation Its main features include a common tactical line a unified political policy and a commitment to collective responsibility First developed by Peter Arshinov in response to the perceived disorganization of the Russian anarchist movement platformism proposes that a general union of anarchists be established to agitate educate and organize the working classes It advocates working within existing mass organizations such as trade unions in order to transform them into vehicles for a social revolution Contents 1 History 1 1 Precursors 1 2 Formulation 1 3 Debate 1 4 Organizational developments 2 References 3 Bibliography 4 Further reading 5 External linksHistory editPrecursors edit The roots of platformism go back as far as the organizational principles of Mikhail Bakunin 1 particularly in his theory of organisational dualism Bakunin proposed that anarchists form their own revolutionary organisations that would encourage workers to rebel against the state and capitalism and once a social revolution had replaced the state with a federation of voluntary associations it would then agitate against any attempted reconstitution of the state by political parties 2 The Platform s most direct predecessor was the Draft Declaration of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine adopted in 1919 by the Military Revolutionary Council of the Makhnovshchina The Draft Declaration called for a Third Revolution against the Bolshevik government in order to establish a regime of free soviets 3 It centred the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine as the nucleus of this revolution where the organization s entire membership would carry out the decision making process 4 In 1921 the Makhnovists published another Declaration that proclaimed a dictatorship of the proletariat in the form of an anarchist led trade union system for which Nestor Makhno himself was accused of Bonapartism 5 Meanwhile the Nabat Confederation of Anarchist Organizations which had originally been established as a loose knit organization developed into a tightly organized structure with a unified policy and an executive committee in what a member would later describe as a precursor to platformism 6 Formulation edit nbsp Peter Arshinov the main theoretician of the Platform After their flight into exile Russian and Ukrainian anarchists began to call for the reorganization of the anarchist movement considering that chronic disorganization had led to their defeat during the Revolution 7 Among the anarcho communists Peter Arshinov was the most vocal advocate of reorganization 8 On 20 June 1926 the Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists Draft was published in Delo Truda with an introduction penned by Arshinov 9 Considering the goal of anarchism to be a social revolution that would create a stateless and classless society the Platform proposed the establishment of a General Union of Anarchists to educate the working class and raise class consciousness 10 This General Union was to be organised according to the principles of theoretical unity tactical unity and collective responsibility 11 and would be governed by an executive committee that coordinated collective action and political policy 12 Debate edit The Platform was first presented at a meeting of the Delo Truda group with attendees also including Bulgarian Chinese French and Italian anarchists At the meeting Arshinov introduced the document as a way forward for the international anarchist movement to marshal its forces 13 Although supported by Nestor Makhno Arshinov s Platform was opposed by most prominent anarchists at the time 14 French anarchists in attendance led by Sebastien Faure criticised it as Russocentric considering it unapplicable to the material conditions in France 15 In the years that followed Faure s Anarchist Synthesis which rejected platformism in favor of a more loose knit organization contributed to dividing the anarchist movement into synthesists and platformists 16 nbsp Senya Fleshin left Volin center and Mollie Steimer right three of the Platform s main critics The Platform s harshest critics included Volin Senya Fleshin and Mollie Steimer 17 who denounced the Platform as an attempt to create an anarchist political party 18 which they feared would inevitably result in the formation of a police state 17 Arshinov responded by claiming his Platform actually abided by anarchist principles as it consciously avoided coercion and preserved decentralization 19 The debate also took a more personal turn as Makhno and Arshinov attacked Volin which attracted denunciations from other critics of the Platform 20 including Alexander Berkman who denounced Makhno as a militarist and Arshinov as a Bolshevik 19 After years of defending the ideas of Platformism in the early 1930s Arshinov joined the Communist Party and defected to the Soviet Union 21 where he would disappear during the Great Purge 22 Nestor Makhno himself died in 1934 leaving the Platform without any prominent defenders 23 Nevertheless both the opponents and remaining supporters of the Platform managed to reconcile at Makhno s funeral 24 Volin himself took up the publication of Makhno s memoirs which were published in the years after his death 25 Organizational developments edit During the Spanish Revolution of 1936 a number of revolutionary anarchist hard liners formed the Friends of Durruti Group in opposition to the state s militarisation of the confederal militias 26 After the Revolution was suppressed the group published Towards a Fresh Revolution which called for a revolutionary council to reform the militias and bring the economy back under the control of the Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo CNT which would effectively have dissolved the government of Spain 27 In the wake of the 1944 Bulgarian coup d etat the Federation of Anarchist Communists of Bulgaria FAKB issued its own Platform which argued for a specifically anarcho communist federation coordinated by a central secretariat which would participate in trade unions and prepare for a social revolution 28 In 1953 the French anarchist Georges Fontenis published his Manifesto of Libertarian Communism which attacked the prevailing synthesist orientation of the French anarchist movement becoming the founding document for the Libertarian Communist Federation FCL 29 Drawing from aspects of the Platform Fontenis Manifesto called for an anarchist revolutionary vanguard to work within existing mass organizations in order to develop a mass movement with the eventual aim of dissolving itself into the movement and achieving a social revolution 30 In the years that followed the FCL united together with the North African Libertarian Movement MLNA to establish the Libertarian Communist International ICL but their suppression by the French state forced the organization s dissolution in 1957 31 Platformism was revived in France during the events of May 68 when the Revolutionary Anarchist Organization ORA was founded although it would remain the minority tendency within the anarchist movement 32 The formation of the ORA accelerated the establishment of other anarchist federations throughout Europe such as the Anarchist Federation AF in Britain and the Federation of Anarchist Communists FdCA in Italy while the ORA itself would eventually be succeeded by the Libertarian Communist Union UCL 33 Especifismo English Specifism was first developed in 1972 by the Uruguayan Anarchist Federation FAU with the publication of its text Huerta Grande which proposed the creation of a unified political policy directly applicable to the material conditions in Uruguay 34 The collapse of the ruling right wing dictatorships towards the end of the Cold War resulted in the emergence of many other especifista groups throughout Latin America in a process spearheaded by the FAU 35 In 2003 the Anarkismo net website was established by an international network of anarcho communist organizations including both Latin American especifistas and European platformists which publishes news and analysis in a variety of different languages 36 References edit Darch 2020 p 143 Graham 2018 p 330 Graham 2018 pp 330 331 Schmidt 2013 pp 61 62 Schmidt 2013 pp 62 63 Darch 2020 p 75 Schmidt 2013 p 66 Avrich 1971 pp 238 239 Darch 2020 p 140 Malet 1982 pp 163 164 190 Schmidt 2013 p 60 Skirda 2002 p 120 Avrich 1971 p 241 Skirda 2002 pp 122 123 Darch 2020 p 143 Skirda 2002 p 122 124 Darch 2020 pp 143 144 Darch 2020 p 143 Schmidt 2013 p 61 Skirda 2002 pp 124 125 Avrich 1971 p 241 Malet 1982 p 190 Schmidt 2013 p 61 Skirda 2002 p 124 Avrich 1971 pp 241 242 Darch 2020 p 144 Malet 1982 pp 163 164 190 191 Darch 2020 p 144 Skirda 2002 p 124 Schmidt 2013 p 63 a b Avrich 1971 pp 241 242 Avrich 1971 pp 241 242 Darch 2020 p 144 Malet 1982 pp 190 191 Skirda 2002 pp 125 126 a b Avrich 1971 pp 242 243 Avrich 1971 pp 242 243 Malet 1982 pp 190 191 Avrich 1971 pp 243 Darch 2020 p 145 Malet 1982 pp 163 164 191 Avrich 1971 pp 245 246 Darch 2020 p 145 Malet 1982 pp 163 164 Darch 2020 p 145 Malet 1982 pp 164 191 192 Malet 1982 p 164 Malet 1982 p 190 Schmidt 2013 pp 80 81 Schmidt 2013 p 81 Schmidt 2013 pp 82 84 Schmidt 2013 pp 94 95 Schmidt 2013 pp 95 96 Skirda 2002 pp 171 172 Schmidt 2013 p 96 Schmidt 2013 pp 96 97 Schmidt 2013 pp 97 98 Schmidt 2013 p 98 Schmidt 2013 p 102 Schmidt 2013 p 105 Bibliography editAvrich Paul 1971 1967 The Russian Anarchists Princeton Princeton University Press ISBN 0 691 00766 7 OCLC 1154930946 Baker Zoe 2023 Organizational Dualism From Bakunin to the Platform Means and Ends The Revolutionary Practice of Anarchism in Europe and the United States AK Press pp 307 346 ISBN 978 1 84935 498 1 OCLC 1345217229 Berry David 2002 A History of the French Anarchist Movement 1917 to 1945 Westport CT Greenwood Press ISBN 0 313 32026 8 ISSN 0885 9159 LCCN 2001054702 Darch Colin 2020 Nestor Makhno and Rural Anarchism in Ukraine 1917 1921 London Pluto Press ISBN 9781786805263 OCLC 1225942343 Graham Robert 2018 Anarchism and the First International In Adams Matthew S Levy Carl eds The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism London Palgrave Macmillan pp 325 342 doi 10 1007 978 3 319 75620 2 19 ISBN 978 3319756196 S2CID 158605651 Malet Michael 1982 Nestor Makhno in the Russian Civil War London Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 978 0 333 25969 6 OCLC 8514426 Schmidt Michael 2013 2012 Cartography of Revolutionary Anarchism Edinburgh AK Press ISBN 978 1849351386 OCLC 881111188 Skirda Alexandre 2002 Facing the enemy A history of anarchist organisation Translated by Sharkey Paul Oakland AK Press ISBN 1902593197 OCLC 490977034 Skirda Alexandre 2004 1982 Nestor Makhno Anarchy s Cossack The Struggle for Free Soviets in the Ukraine 1917 1921 Translated by Sharkey Paul Oakland AK Press pp 274 290 ISBN 978 1 902593 68 5 OCLC 60602979 van der Walt Lucien Schmidt Michael 2009 Militant Minority The Question of Anarchist Political Organisation Black Flame The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism Edinburgh AK Press pp 239 270 ISBN 978 1 904859 16 1 LCCN 2006933558 OCLC 1100238201 Further reading editArshinov Peter Makhno Nestor Mett Ida et al 2006 1926 The Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists Translated by McNab Nestor Delo Truda via The Nestor Makhno Archive Balius Jaime 1978 1938 Towards a Fresh Revolution Friends of Durruti Group via The Anarchist Library Fontenis Georges 1953 Manifesto of Libertarian Communism Libertarian Communist Federation via The Anarchist Library Makhno Nestor Malatesta Errico 1927 1930 About the Platform Translated by McNab Nestor via The Anarchist Library External links editAnarkismo net Multilingual anarchist news site run by over 30 platformist and especifist organisations on five continents Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Platformism amp oldid 1197520729 Especifismo, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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