Title: Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists

Author: Dielo Trouda  (Workers' Cause)

Date: 1926

Description: 
Ideas on how anarchists should organise put 
forward by anarchist exiles of the Russan revolution.

Keywords: 
Bolshevism, Mhakno, the Platform, organisation, federalism

First published France 1926 First Irish edition published by 
the Workers Solidarity Movement, PO Box 1528, Dublin 8 
in 1989. This electronic addition published by WSM 1994.

Preface

In 1926 a group of exiled Russian anarchists in France, the 
Dielo Trouda (Workers' Cause) group, published this 
pamphlet. It arose not from some academic study but from 
their experiences in the 1917 Russian revolution. They had 
taken part in the overthrow of the old ruling class, had 
been part of the blossoming of workers' and peasants' self-
management, had shared the widespread optimism about 
a new world of socialism and freedom . . . and had seen its 
bloody replacement by State Capitalism and the Bolshevik. 
Party dictatorship.

The Russian anarchist movement had played a far from 
negligible part in the revolution. At the time there were 
about 10,000 active anarchists in Russia, not including the 
movement in the Ukraine led by Nestor Makhno. There 
were at least four anarchists on the Bolshevik dominated 
Military Revolutionary Committee which engineered the 
seizure of power in October. More importantly, anarchists 
were involved in the factory committees which had sprung 
up after the February revolution. These were based in 
workplaces, elected by mass assemblies of the workers and 
given the role of overseeing the running of the factory and 
co-ordinating with other workplaces in the same industry 
or region. Anarchists were particularly influential among 
the miners, dockers, postal workers, bakers and played an 
important role in the All-Russian Conference of Factory 
Committees which met in Petrograd on the eve of the 
revolution. It was to these committees that the anarchists 
looked as a basis for a new self-management which would 
be ushered in after the revolution.

However the revolutionary spirit and unity of October 
1917 did not last long. The Bolsheviks were eager to 
suppress all those forces on the left that they saw as 
obstacles blocking their way to "one party" power. The 
anarchists and some others on the left believed that the 
working class were capable of exercising power through 
their own committees and soviets (councils of elected 
delegates). The Bolsheviks did not. They put forward the 
proposition that the workers were not yet able to take 
control of their destiny and therefore the Bolsheviks would 
take power themselves as an "interim measure" during the 
"transitional period". This lack of confidence in the abilities 
of ordinary people and the authoritarian seizure of power 
was to lead to the betrayal of the interests of the working 
class, and all its hopes and dreams.

In April 1918 the anarchist centres in Moscow were 
attacked, 600 anarchists jailed and dozens killed. The 
excuse was that the anarchists were "uncontrollable", 
whatever that may have meant unless it was simply that 
they refused to obey the Bolshevik leaders. The real reason 
was the formation of the Black Guards which had been set 
up to fight the brutal provocation's and abuses of the 
Cheka (the forerunners of today's KGB).

Anarchists had to decide where they stood. One section 
worked with the Bolsheviks, and went on to join them, 
though a concern for efficiency and unity against reaction - 
Another section fought hard to defend the gains of the 
revolution against what they correctly saw would develop 
into a new ruling class. The Makhnovist movement in the 
Ukraine and the Kronstadt uprising were the last 
important battles. By 1921 the anti-authoritarian revolution 
was dead. This defeat has had deep and lasting effects on 
the international workers' movement.

It was the hope of the authors that such a disaster would 
not happen again. As a contribution they wrote what has 
become known as "The Platform". It looks at the lessons of 
the Russian anarchist movement, its failure to build up a 
presence within the working class movement big enough 
and effective enough to counteract the tendency of the 
Bolsheviks and other political groups to substitute 
themselves for the working class. It sets out a rough guide 
suggesting how anarchists should organise, in short how 
we can be effective.

 It stated very simple truths such as it being ludicrous to 
have an organisation which contains groups that have 
mutually antagonistic and contradictory definitions of 
anarchism. It pointed out that we need formal agreed 
structures covering written policies, the role of officers, the 
need for membership dues and so on; the sort of structures 
that allow for large and effective democratic organisation.

 When first published it came under attack from some of 
the best known anarchist personalities of the time such as 
Errico Malatesta and Alexander Berkman. They accused it 
of being "Just one step away from Bolshevism" and an 
attempt to "Bolshevise anarchism". This reaction was over 
the top but may have partly resulted from the proposal for 
a General Union of Anarchists. The authors did not spell 
out clearly what the relationship would be between this 
organisation and other groups of anarchists outside it. It 
goes without saying that there should be no problem about 
separate anarchist organisations working together on 
issues where they share a common outlook and strategy.

 Neither, as has been said by both its detractors and some 
of its latter day supporters, is it a programme for "moving 
away from anarchism towards libertarian communism". 
The two terms are completely interchangeable. It was 
written to pinpoint the failure of the Russian anarchists in 
their theoretical confusion; and thus lack of national co-
ordination, disorganisation and political uncertainty. In 
other words, ineffectiveness. It was written to open a 
debate within the anarchist movement. It points, not 
towards any compromise with authoritarian politics, but to 
the vital necessity to create an organisation that will 
combine effective revolutionary activity with fundamental 
anarchist principles.

 It is not a perfect programme now, and neither was it back 
in 1926. It has its weaknesses. It does not explain some of 
its ideas in enough depth, it may be argued that it does not 
cover some important issues at all. But remember that it is 
a small pamphlet and not a 26 volume encyclopaedia. The 
authors make it very clear in their own introduction that it 
is not any kind of `bible'. It is not a completed analysis or 
programme, it is a contribution to necessary debate - a 
good starting point.

Lest anyone doubt its relevance today, it must be said that 
the basic ideas of "The Platform" are still in advance of the 
prevailing ideas in the anarchist movement internationally. 
Anarchists seek to change the world for the better, this 
pamphlet points us in the direction of some of the tools we 
need for that task.

Alan MacSimoin, 1989

Historical Introduction

NESTER MAKHNO and PIOTR ARSHINOV with other 
exiled Russian and Ukrainian anarchists in Paris, launched 
the excellent bimonthly Dielo Trouda in 1925. It was an 
anarchist communist theoretical review of a high quality. 
Years before, when they had both been imprisoned in the 
Butirky prison in Moscow, they had hatched the idea of 
such a review. Now it was to be put into practice. Makhno 
wrote an article for nearly every issue during the course of 
three years. In 1926 the group was joined by IDA METT 
(author of the expose of Bolshevism, "The Kronstadt 
Commune"), who had recently fled from Russia. That year 
also saw the publication of the 'Organisational Platform'.

The, publication of the `Platform' was met with ferocity 
and indignation by many in the international anarchist 
movement. First to attack it was the Russian anarchist 
Voline, now also in France, and founder with Sebastian 
Faure of the `Synthesis' which sought to justify a mish-
mash of anarchist-communism, anarcho-syndicalism and 
individualist anarchism. Together with Molly Steirner, 
Fleshin, and others, he wrote a reply stating that to 
"maintain that anarchism is only a theory of classes is to 
limit it to a single viewpoint".

Not to be deterred, the Dielo Trouda group issued, on 5 
February 1927 an invitation to an 'international conference' 
before which a preliminary meeting was to be held on the 
12th of the same month. Present at this meeting, apart from 
the Dielo Trouda group, was a delegate from the French 
Anarchist Youth, Odeon; a Bulgarian, Pavel, in an 
individual capacity; a delegate of the Polish anarchist 
group, Ranko, and another Pole in an individual capacity; 
several Spanish militants, among them Orobon Fernandez, 
Carbo, and Gibanel; an Italian, Ugo Fedeli; a Chinese, 
Chen; and a Frenchman, Dauphlin-Meunier; all in 
individual capacities. This first meeting was held in the 
small backroom of a Parisian cafe.

A provisional Commission was set up, composed of 
Makhno, Chen and Ranko. A circular was sent out to all 
anarchist groups on 22 February. An international 
conference was called and took place on 20 April 1927, at 
Hay-les-Roses near Paris, in the cinema Les Roses.

As well as those who attended the first meeting was one 
Italian delegate who supported the 'Platform', Bifolchi, and 
another Italian delegation from the magazine 'Pensiero e 
Volonta', Luigi Fabbri, Camillo Berneri, and Ugo Fedeli. 
The French had two delegations, one of Odeon, favourable 
to the 'Platform' and another with Severin Ferandel.

A proposal was put forward to:

1 Recognise the class struggle as the most important facet 
of the anarchist idea;

2 Recognise Anarchist-Communism as the basis of the 
movement;

3 Recognise syndicalism as a principal method of struggle;

4 Recognise the need for a 'General Union of Anarchists' 
based on ideological and tactical unity and collective 
responsibility;

5 Recognise the need for a positive programme to realise 
the social revolution.

After a long discussion some modifications of the original 
proposal were put forward. However nothing was 
achieved as the police broke up the meeting and arrested 
all those present. Makhno risked being deported and only 
a campaign led by the French anarchists stopped this. But 
the proposal to set up an 'International Federation of 
Revolutionary Anarchist Communists' had been thwarted, 
and some of those who had participated in the conference 
refused to sanction it any further.

Other attacks on the 'Platform' from Fabbri, Berneri, the 
anarchist historian Max Nettlau, and the famed Italian 
anarchist Malatesta followed. The Dielo Trouda group 
replied with 'A Reply to the Confusionists of Anarchism' 
and then a further statement by Arshniov on the 'Platform' 
in 1929. Arshinov was soured by the reaction to the 
'Platform' and returned to the USSR in 1933. He was 
charged with 'attempting to restore Anarchism in Russia' 
and executed in 1937, during Stalin's purges.

The 'Platform' failed to establish itself on an international 
level, but it did have an effect on several movements. In 
France, the situation was marked by a series of splits and 
fusion's, the `Platformists' sometimes controlling the main 
anarchist organisation, at other times forced to leave and 
set up their own groupings. In Italy the supporters of the 
'Platform' set up a small 'Unione Anarco Comunista 
Italiana' which soon collapsed. In Bulgaria, the discussion 
over organisation caused the reconstitution of the 
Anarchist Communist Federation of Bulgaria (F.A.C.B.) on 
a "concrete platform" "for a permanent and structured 
anarchist specific organisation" "built on the principles and 
tactics of libertarian communism". However, the hard-line 
'Platformists' refused to recognise the new organisation 
and denounced it in their weekly `Prouboujdane', before 
collapsing shortly afterwards.

Similarly in Poland, the Anarchist Federation of Poland 
(AFP) recognised the overthrow of capitalism and the state 
through class struggle and social revolution, and the 
creation of a new society based on workers and peasants 
councils and a specific organisation built on theoretical 
unity but rejected the 'Platform' saying it had authoritarian 
tendencies. In Spain, as Juan Gomez Casas in his 
'Anarchist Organisation - The History of the F.A.I.' says 
"Spanish anarchism was concerned with how to retain and 
increase the influence that it had since the International 
first arrived in Spain". The Spanish anarchists did not at 
that time have to worry about breaking out of isolation, 
and of competing with the Bolsheviks. In Spain the 
Bolshevik influence was still small. The 'Platform' hardly 
affected the Spanish movement. When the anarchist 
organisation the 'Federacion Anarquista Iberica' was set up 
in 1927, the 'Platform' could not be discussed, though it 
was on the agenda, because it had not yet been translated. 
As J. Manuel Molinas, Secretary at the time of the Spanish-
language Anarchist Groups in France - later wrote to Casas 
'The platform of Arshinov and other Russian anarchists 
had very little influence on the movement in exile or 
within the country... 'The Platform' was an attempt to 
renew, to give greater character and capacity to the 
international anarchist movement in light of the Russian 
Revolution  . Today, after our own experience, it seems to 
me that their effort was not fully appreciated."

The World War interrupted the development of the 
anarchist organisations, but the controversy over the 
'Platform' re-emerged with the founding of the Federation 
Comuniste Libertaire in France, and the Gruppi Anarchici 
di Azione Proletaria in Italy in the early 50's. Both used the 
'Platform' as a reference point (there was also a small 
Federacion Communista Libertaria of Spanish exiles). This 
was to be followed in the late 60s - early 70s by the 
founding of such groups as the Organisation of 
Revolutionary Anarchists in Britain and the Organisation 
Revolutionnaire Anarchiste in France.

The 'Platform' continues to be a valuable historical 
reference when class-struggle anarchists, seeking greater 
effectiveness and a way out of political isolation, 
stagnation and confusion, look around for answers to the 
problems they face.

Nick Heath, 1989

Introduction

It is very significant that, in spite of the strength and 
incontestably positive character of libertarian ideas, and in 
spite of the forthrightness and integrity of anarchist 
positions in the facing up to the social revolution, and 
finally the heroism and innumerable sacrifices borne by 
the anarchists in the struggle for libertarian communism, 
the anarchist movement remains weak despite everything, 
and has appeared, very often, in the history of working 
class struggles as a small event, an episode, and not an 
important factor.

This contradiction between the positive and incontestable 
substance of libertarian ideas, and the miserable state in 
which the anarchist movement vegetates, has its 
explanation in a number of causes, of which the most 
important, the principal, is the absence of organisational 
principles and practices in the anarchist movement.

In all countries. the anarchist movement is represented by 
several local organisations advocating contradictory 
theories and practices. having no perspectives for the 
future, nor of a continuity in militant work, and habitually 
disappearing. hardly leaving the slightest trace behind 
them.

Taken as a whole, such a state of revolutionary anarchism 
can only be described as 'chronic general disorganisation'.

Like yellow fever, this disease of disorganisation 
introduced itself into the organism of the anarchist 
movement and has shaken it for dozens of years.

It is nevertheless beyond doubt that this disorganisation 
derives from from some defects of theory: notably from a 
false interpretation of the principle of individuality in 
anarchism: this theory being too often confused with the 
absence of all responsibility. The lovers of assertion of 
'self', solely with a view to personal pleasure. obstinately 
cling to the chaotic state of the anarchist movement. and 
refer in its defence to the immutable principles of 
anarchism and its teachers.

But the immutable principles and teachers have shown 
exactly the opposite.

Dispersion and scattering are ruinous: a close-knit union is 
a sign of life and development. This lax of social struggle 
applies as much to classes as to organisations.

Anarchism is not a beautiful utopia, nor an abstract 
philosophical idea, it is a social movement of the labouring 
masses. For this reason it must gather its forces in one 
organisation, constantly agitating, as demanded by reality 
and the strategy of class struggle.

"We are persuaded", said Kropotkin, "that the formation of 
an anarchist organisation in Russia, far from being 
prejudicial to the common revolutionary task, on the 
contrary it is desirable and useful to the very greatest 
degree." (Preface to The Paris Commune by Bakunin, 1892 
edition.)

Nor did Bakunin ever oppose himself to the concept of a 
general anarchist organisation. On the contrary, his 
aspirations concerning organisations, as well as his activity 
in the 1st IWMA, give us every right to view him as an 
active partisan of just such an organisation.

In general, practically all active anarchist militants fought 
against all dispersed activity, and desired an anarchist 
movement welded by unity of ends and means.

It was during the Russian revolution of 1917 that the need 
for a general organisation was felt most deeply and most 
urgently. It was during this revolution that the libertarian 
movement showed the greatest decree of sectionalism and 
confusion. The absence of a general organisation led many 
active anarchist militants into the ranks of the Bolsheviks. 
This absence is also the cause of many other present day 
militants remaining passive, impeding all use of their 
strength, which is often quite considerable.

We have an immense need for an organisation which, 
having gathered the majority of the participants of the 
anarchist movement, establishes in anarchism a general 
and tactical political line which would serve as a guide to 
the whole movement.

It is time for anarchism to leave the swamp of 
disorganisation, to put an end to endless vacillations on 
the most important tactical and theoretical questions, to 
resolutely move towards a clearly recognised goal, and to 
operate an organised collective practice.

It is not enough, however, to establish the vital need of 
such an organisation: it is also necessary to establish the 
method of, its creation.

We reject as theoretically and practically inept the idea of 
creating an organisation after the recipe of the 'synthesis', 
that is to say re-uniting the representatives of different 
tendencies of anarchism. Such an organisation, having 
incorporated heterogeneous theoretical and practical 
elements, would only be a mechanical assembly of 
individuals each having a different conception of all the 
questions of the anarchist movement, an assembly which 
would inevitably disintegrate on encountering reality.

The anarcho-syndicalist method does not resolve the 
problem of anarchist organisation, for it does not give 
priority to this problem, interesting itself solely in 
penetrating and gaining strength in the industrial 
proletariat.

However, a great deal cannot be achieved in this area, even 
in gaining a footing, unless there is a general anarchist 
organisation.

The only method leading to the solution of the problem of 
general organisation is, in our view, to rally active 
anarchist militants to a base of precise positions: 
theoretical, tactical and organisational, i.e. the more or less 
perfect base of a homogeneous programme.

The elaboration of such a programme is one of the 
principal tasks imposed on anarchists by the social 
struggle of recent years. It is to this task that the group of 
Russian anarchists in exile dedicates an important part of 
its efforts.

The Organisational Platform published below represents 
the outlines, the skeleton of such a programme. It must 
serve as the first step towards rallying libertarian forces 
into a single, active revolutionary collective capable of 
struggle: the General Union of Anarchists.

We have no doubts that there are gaps in the present 
platform. It has gaps, as do all new, practical steps of any 
importance. It is possible that certain important positions 
have been missed, or that others are inadequately treated, 
or that still others are too detailed or repetitive. All this is 
possible, but not of vital importance. What is important is 
to lay the foundations of a general organisation, and it is 
this end which is attained, to a necessary degree, by the 
present platform.

 It is up to the entire collective, the General Union of 
Anarchists, to enlarge it, to later give it depth, to make of it 
a definite platform for the whole anarchist movement.

On another level also we have doubts. We foresee that 
several representatives of self-styled individualism and 
chaotic anarchism will attack us, foaming at the mouth, 
and accuse us of breaking anarchist principles. However, 
we know that the individualist and chaotic elements 
understand by the title 'anarchist principles' political 
indifference, negligence and absence of all responsibility, 
which have caused in our movement almost incurable 
splits, and against which we are struggling with all our 
energy and passion. This is why we can calmly ignore the 
attacks from this camp.

We base our hope on other militants: on those who remain 
faithful to anarchism, having experienced and suffered the 
tragedy of the anarchist movement, and are painfully 
searching for a solution.

Further. we place great hopes on the young anarchists 
who, born in the breath of the Russian revolution, and 
placed from the start in the midst of constructive problems, 
will certainly demand the realisation of positive and 
organisational principles in anarchism.

We invite all the Russian anarchist organisations dispersed 
in various countries of the world, and also isolated 
militants, to unite on the basis of a common organisational 
platform.

Let this platform serve as the revolutionary backbone, the 
rallying point of all the militants of the Russian anarchist 
movement! Let it form the foundations for the General 
Union of Anarchists!

Long Live the Social Revolution of the Workers of the 
World!

The DIELO TROUDA GROUP Paris. 20.6.1926.

General Section

1. Class struggle, its role and meaning

     There is no one single humanity
     There is a humanity of classes
     Slaves and Masters

Like all those which have preceded it, the bourgeois 
capitalist society of our times is not 'one humanity'. It is 
divided into two very distinct camps, differentiated 
socially by their situations and their functions, the 
proletariat (in the wider sense of the word), and the 
bourgeoisie.

The lot of the proletariat is, and has been for centuries, to 
carry the burden of physical, painful work from which the 
fruits come, not to them, however, but to another, 
privileged class which owns property, authority, and the 
products of culture (science, education, art): the 
bourgeoisie. The social enslavement and exploitation of the 
working masses form the base on which modern society 
stands, without which this society could not exist.

This generated a class struggle, at one point taking on an 
open, violent character, at others a semblance of slow and 
intangible progress, which reflects needs, necessities, and 
the concept of the justice of workers.

In the social domain all human history represents an 
uninterrupted chain of struggles waged by the working 
masses for their rights, liberty, and a better life - In the 
history of human society this class struggle has always 
been the primary factor which determined the form and 
structure of these societies.

The social and political regime of all states is above all the 
product of class struggle. The fundamental structure of 
any society shows us the stage at which the class struggle 
has gravitated and is to be found. The slightest change in 
the course of the battle of classes, in the relative locations 
of the forces of the class struggle, produces continuous 
modifications in the fabric and structure of society.

Such is the general, universal scope and meaning of class 
struggle in the life of class societies.

2. The necessity of a violent social revolution

The principle of enslavement and exploitation of the 
masses by violence constitutes the basis of modern society. 
All the manifestations of its existence: the economy, 
politics, social relations, rest on class violence, of which the 
servicing organs are: authority, the police, the army, the 
judiciary. Everything in this society: each enterprise taken 
separately, likewise the whole State system, is nothing but 
the rampart of capitalism, from where they keep a constant 
eye on the workers, where they always have ready the 
forces intended to repress all movements by the workers 
which threaten the foundation or even the tranquillity of 
that society.

At the same time the system of this society deliberately 
maintains the working masses in a state of ignorance and 
mental stagnation; it prevents by force the raising of their 
moral and intellectual level, in order to more easily get the 
better of them.

The progress of modern society: the technical evolution of 
capital and the perfection of its political system, fortifies 
the power of the ruling classes, and makes the struggle 
against them more difficult, thus postponing the decisive 
moment of the emancipation of labour.

 Analysis of modern society leads us to the conclusion that 
the only way to transform capitalist society into a society 
of free workers is the way of violent social revolution.

3. Anarchists and libertarian communism

The class struggle created by the enslavement of workers 
and their aspirations to liberty gave birth, in the 
oppression, to the idea of anarchism: the idea of the total 
negation of a social system based on the principles of 
classes and the State, and its replacement by a free non-
statist society of workers under self-management.

So anarchism does not derive from the abstract reflections 
of an intellectual or a philosopher, but from the direct 
struggle of workers against capitalism, from the needs and 
necessities of the workers, from their aspirations to liberty 
and equality, aspirations which become particularly alive 
in the best heroic period of the life and struggle of the 
working masses.

The outstanding anarchist thinkers, Bakunin, Kropotkin 
and others, did not invent the idea of anarchism, but, 
having discovered it in the masses, simply helped by the 
strength of their thought and knowledge to specify and 
spread it.

Anarchism is not the result of personal efforts nor the 
object of individual researches.

Similarly, anarchism is not the product of humanitarian 
aspirations. A single humanity does not exist. Any attempt 
to make of anarchism an attribute of all present day 
humanity, to attribute to it a general humanitarian 
character would be a historical and social lie which would 
lead inevitably to the justification of the status quo and of a 
new exploitation.

Anarchism is generally humanitarian only in the sense that 
the ideas of the masses tend to improve the lives of all 
men, and that the fate of today's or tomorrow's humanity 
is inseparable from that of exploited labour. If the working 
masses are victorious, all humanity will be reborn; if they 
are not, violence, exploitation, slavery and oppression will 
reign as before in the world.

The birth, the blossoming, and the realisation of anarchist 
ideas have their roots in the life and life and the struggle of 
the working masses and are inseparably bound to their 
fate.

Anarchism wants to transform the present bourgeois 
capitalist society into a society which assures the workers 
the products of their labours, their liberty, independence, 
and social and political equality. This other society will be 
libertarian communism, in which social solidarity and free 
individuality find their full expression, and in which these 
two ideas develop in perfect harmony.

Libertarian communism believes that the only creator of 
social value is labour, physical or intellectual, and 
consequently only labour has the right to manage social 
and economic life. Because of this, it neither defends nor 
allows, in any measure, the existence of non-working 
classes.

Insofar as these classes exist at the same time as libertarian 
communism the latter will recognise no duty towards 
them. This will cease when the non-working classes decide 
to become productive and want to live in a communist 
society under the same conditions as everyone else, which 
is that of free members of the society, enjoying the same 
rights and duties as all other productive members.

Libertarian communism wants to end all exploitation and 
violence whether it be against individuals or the masses of 
the people. To this end, it will establish an economic and 
social base which will unite all sections of the community, 
assuring each individual an equal place among the rest, 
and allowing each the maximum well-being. The base is 
the common ownership of all the means and instruments 
of production (industry, transport, land, raw materials, 
etc.) and the building of economic organisations on the 
principles of equality and self-management of the working 
classes.

Within the limits of this self-managing society of workers, 
libertarian communism establishes the principle of the 
equality of value and rights of each individual (not 
individuality "in general", nor of `"mystic individuality", 
nor the concept of individuality, but each real, living, 
individual).

4 The negation of democracy   Democracy is one of the 
forms of bourgeois capitalist society.

The basis of democracy is the maintenance of the two 
antagonistic classes of modern society: the working class, 
and the capitalist class and their collaboration on the basis 
of private capitalist property. The expression of this 
collaboration is parliament and the national representative 
government.

Formally, democracy proclaims freedom of speech, of the 
press, of association, and the equality of all before the law.

In reality all these liberties are of a very relative character: 
they are tolerated only as long as they do not contest the 
interests of the dominant class i.e. the bourgeoisie.   
Democracy preserves intact the principle of private 
capitalist property. Thus it (democracy) gives the 
bourgeoisie the right to control the whole economy of the 
country, the entire press, education, science, art - which in 
fact make the bourgeoisie absolute master of the whole 
country. Having a monopoly in the sphere of economic 
life, the bourgeoisie can also establish its unlimited power 
in the political sphere. In effect parliament and 
representative government in the democracies are but the 
executive organs of the bourgeoisie.

Consequently democracy is but one of the aspects of 
bourgeois dictatorship, veiled behind deceptive formulae 
of political liberties and fictitious democratic guarantees.

5. The negation of the state and authority

The ideologies of the bourgeoisie define the State as the 
organ which regularises the complex political, civil and 
social relations between men in modern society, and 
protecting the order and laws of the latter. Anarchists are 
in perfect agreement with this definition, but they 
complete it by affirming that the basis of this order and 
these laws is the enslavement of the vast majority of the 
people by an insignificant minority, and that it is precisely 
this purpose which is served by the State.

The State is simultaneously the organised violence of the 
bourgeoisie against the workers and the system of its 
executive organs.

The left socialists, and in particular the bolsheviks, also 
consider the bourgeois State and Authority to be the 
servants of capital. But they hold that Authority and the 
State can become, in the hands of socialist parties, a 
powerful weapon in the struggle for the emancipation of 
the proletariat. For this reason these parties are for a 
socialist Authority and a proletarian State. Some want to 
conquer power by peaceful, parliamentarian means (the 
social democratic), others by revolutionary means (the 
bolsheviks, the left social revolutionaries).

Anarchism considers these two to be fundamentally 
wrong, disastrous in the work of the emancipation of 
labour.

Authority is always dependent on the exploitation and 
enslavement of the mass of the people. It is born of this 
exploitation, or it is created in the interests of this 
exploitation. Authority without violence and without 
exploitation loses all raison d'etre.

The State and Authority take from the masses all initiative, 
kill the spirit of creation and free activity, cultivates in 
them the servile psychology of submission, of expectation, 
of the hope of climbing the social ladder, of blind 
confidence in their leaders, of the illusion of sharing in 
authority.

Thus the emancipation of labour is only possible in the 
direct revolutionary struggle of the vast working masses 
and of their class organisations against the capitalist 
system.

The conquest of power by the social democratic parties by 
peaceful means under the conditions of the present order 
will not advance by one single step the task of 
emancipation of labour, for the simple reason that real 
power, consequently real authority, will remain with the 
bourgeoisie which controls the economy and politics of the 
country. The role of socialist authority is reduced in this 
case of reforms: to the amelioration of this same regime. 
(Examples: Ramsay MacDonald, the social democratic 
parties of Germany, Sweden, Belgium, which have come to 
power in a capitalist society.)

Further, seizing power by means of a social upheaval and 
organising a so called "proletarian State" cannot serve the 
cause of the authentic emancipation of labour. The State, 
immediately and supposedly constructed for the defence 
of the revolution, invariably ends up distorted by needs 
and characteristics peculiar to itself, itself becoming the 
goal, produces specific, privileged castes, and 
consequently re-establishes the basis of capitalist Authority 
and State; the usual enslavement and exploitation of the 
masses by violence. (Example: "the worker-peasant State" 
of the bolsheviks.)

 6. The role of the masses and the role of the anarchists in 
the social struggle and the social revolution

The principal forces of the social revolution are the urban 
working class, the peasant masses and a section of the 
working intelligentia.

Note: while being an exploited and oppressed class in the 
same way as the urban and rural proletariats, the working 
intelligentia is relatively disunited compared with the 
workers and peasants, thanks to the economic privileges 
conceded by the bourgeoisie to certain of its elements. That 
is why, during the early days of the social revolution, only 
the less comfort able strata of the intelligentia take an 
active part in it.

The anarchist conception of the role of the masses in the 
social revolution and the construction of socialism differs, 
in a typical way, from that of the statist parties. While 
bolshevism and its related tendencies consider that the 
masses assess only destructionary revolutionary instincts, 
being incapable of creative and constructive activity - the 
principle reason why the latter activity should be 
concentrated in the hands of the men forming the 
government of the State of the Central Committee of the 
party - anarchists on the contrary think that the labouring 
masses have inherent creative and constructive 
possibilities which are enormous, and anarchists aspire to 
suppress the obstacles impeding the manifestation of these 
possibilities.

Anarchists consider the State to be the principle obstacle, 
usurping the rights of the masses and taking from them all 
the functions of economic and social life. The State must 
perish, not "one day" in the future society, but 
immediately. It must be destroyed by the workers on the 
first day of their victory, and must not be reconstituted 
under any guise whatsoever. It will be replaced by a 
federalist system of workers organisations of production 
and consumption. united federatively and self-
administrating. This system excludes just as much 
authoritarian organisations as the dictatorship of a party, 
whichever it might be.

The Russian revolution of 1917 displays precisely this 
orientation of the process of social emancipation in the 
creation of the system of worker and peasant soviets and 
factory committees. Its sad error was not to have 
liquidated, at an opportune moment, the organisation of 
state power: initially of the provisional government, and 
subsequently of bolshevik power. The bolsheviks, profiting 
from the trust of the workers and peasants, reorganised the 
bourgeois state according to the circumstances of the 
moment and consequently killed the creative activity of the 
masses, in supporting and maintaining the state: choking 
the free regime of soviets and factory committees which 
represented the first step towards building a non-statist 
socialist society.

Action by anarchists can be divided into two periods, that 
before the revolution, and that during the revolution. In 
both, anarchists can only fulfil their role as an organised 
force if they have a clear conception of the objectives of 
their struggle and the roads leading to the realisation of 
these objectives.

The fundamental task of the General Union of Anarchists 
in the pre-revolutionary period must be the preparation of 
the workers and peasants for the social revolution.

In denying formal (bourgeois) democracy, authority and 
State, in proclaiming the complete emancipation of labour, 
anarchism emphasises to the full the rigorous principles of 
class struggle. It alerts and develops in the masses class 
consciousness and the revolutionary intransigence of the 
class.

It is precisely towards the class intransigence, anti-
democratism, anti-statism of the ideas of anarcho-
communism. that the libertarian education of the masses 
must be directed. but education alone is not sufficient - 
What is also necessary is a certain mass anarchist 
organisation - To realise this, it is necessary to work in two 
directions: on the one hand towards the selection and 
grouping of revolutionary worker and peasant forces on a 
libertarian communist theoretical basis (a specifically 
libertarian communist organisation); on the other, towards 
regrouping revolutionary workers and peasants on an 
economic base of production and consumption 
(revolutionary workers and peasants organised around 
production: workers and free peasants co-operatives). The 
worker and peasant class, organised on the basis of 
production and consumption, penetrated by revolutionary 
anarchist positions, will be the first strong point of the 
social revolution.

The more these organisations are conscious and organised 
in an anarchist way, as from the present, the more they 
will manifest an intransigent and creative will at the 
moment of the revolution.

As for the working class in Russia: it is clear that after eight 
years of bolshevik dictatorship, which enchains the natural 
needs of the masses for free activity, the true nature of all 
power is demonstrated better than ever; this class conceals 
within itself enormous possibilities for the formation of a 
mass anarchist movement. Organised anarchist militants 
should go immediately with all the force at their disposal 
to meet these needs and possibilities, in order that they do 
not degenerate into reformism (menshevism).

With the same urgency, anarchists should apply 
themselves to the organisation of the poor peasantry, who 
are crushed by state power, seeking a way out and 
concealing enormous revolutionary potential.

The role of the anarchists in the revolutionary period 
cannot be restricted solely to the propagation of the 
keynotes of libertarian ideas. Life is not only an arena for 
the propagation of this or that conception, but also, to the 
same degree, as the arena of struggle, the strategy, and the 
aspirations of these conceptions in the management of 
economic and social life.

More than any other concept, anarchism should become 
the leading concept of revolution, for it is only on the 
theoretical base of anarchism that the social revolution can 
succeed in the complete emancipation of. labour.

The leading position of anarchist ideas in the revolution 
suggests an orientation of events after anarchist theory. 
However, this theoretical driving force should not be 
confused with the political leadership of the statist parties 
which leads finally to State Power.

Anarchism aspires neither to political power nor to 
dictatorship. Its principal aspiration is to help the masses 
to take the authentic road to the social revolution and the 
construction of socialism. But it is not sufficient that the 
masses take up the way of the social revolution. It is also 
necessary to maintain this orientation of the revolution and 
its objectives: the suppression of capitalist society in the 
name of that of free workers. As the experience of the 
Russian revolution in 1917 has shown us, this last task is 
far from being easy, above all because of the numerous 
parties which try to orientate the movement in a direction 
opposed to the social revolution.

Although the masses express themselves profoundly in 
social movement in terms of anarchist tendencies and 
tenets, these tendencies and tenets do however remain 
dispersed, being unco-ordinated, and consequently do not 
lead to the organisation of the driving power of libertarian 
ideas which is necessary for preserving the anarchist 
orientation and objectives of the social revolution. This 
theoretical driving force can only be expressed by a 
collective especially created by the masses for this purpose. 
The organised anarchist elements constitute exactly this 
collective.

The theoretical and practical duties of this collective are 
considerable at the time of the revolution.

It must manifest its initiative and display total 
participation in all the domains of the social revolution: in 
the orientation and general character of the revolution; in 
the positive tasks of the revolution, in new production, 
consumption, the agrarian question etc.

On all these questions, and on numbers of others, the 
masses demand a clear and precise response from the 
anarchists. And from the moment when anarchists declare 
a conception of the revolution and the structure of society, 
they are obliged to give all these questions a clear 
response, to relate the solution of these problems to the 
general conception of libertarian communism, and to 
devote all their forces to the realisation of these.

Only in this way do the General Union of Anarchists and 
the anarchist movement completely assure their function 
as a theoretical driving force in the social revolution.

7. The transition period

By the expression 'transition period' the socialist parties 
understand a definite phase in the life of a people of which 
the characteristic traits are: a rupture with the old order of 
things and the installation of a new economic and social 
system - a system which however does not yet represent 
the complete emancipation of workers. In this sense, all the 
minimum programmes* (A minimum programme is one 
whose objective is not the complete transformation of 
capitalism. but the solution of certain of the immediate 
problems facing the working class under capitalism.) of the 
socialist political parties, for example, the democratic 
programme of the socialist opportunists or the 
communists' programme for the 'dictatorship of the 
proletariat', are programmes of the transition period.

The essential trait of all these is that they regard as 
impossible, for the moment, the complete realisation of the 
workers' ideals: their independence, their liberty and 
equality - and consequently preserve a whole series of the 
institutions of the capitalist system: the principle of statist 
compulsion, private ownership of the means and 
instruments of production, the bureaucracy, and several 
others, according to the goals of the particular party 
programme.

On principle anarchists have always been the enemies of 
such programmes, considering that the construction of 
transitional systems which maintain the principles of 
exploitation and compulsion of the masses leads inevitably 
to a new growth of slavery.

Instead of establishing political minimum programmes , 
anarchists have always defended the idea of an immediate 
social revolution, which deprives the capitalist class of its 
economic and social privileges, and place the means and 
instruments of production and all the functions of 
economic and social life in the hands of the workers.

Up to now, it has been the anarchists who have preserved 
this position.

The idea of the transition period, according to which the 
social revolution should lead not to a communist society, 
but to a system X retaining elements of the old system, is 
anti-social in essence. It threatens to result in the 
reinforcement and development of these elements to their 
previous dimensions, and to run events backwards.

A flagrant example of this is the regime of the 'dictatorship 
of the proletariat' established by the bolsheviks in Russia.

According to them, the regime should be but a transitory 
step towards total communism. In reality, this step has 
resulted in the restoration of class society, at the bottom of 
which are, as before, the workers and peasants.

The centre of gravity of the construction of a communist 
society does consist in the possibility of assuring each 
individual unlimited liberty to satisfy his needs from the 
first day of the revolution; but consists in the conquest of 
the social base of this society, and establishes the principles 
of egalitarian relationships between individuals: As for the 
question of the the abundance, greater or lesser, this is not 
posed at the level of principle, but is a technical problem.

The fundamental principle upon which the new society 
will be erected and rest, and which must in no way be 
restricted, is that of the equality of relationships, of the 
liberty and independence of the workers. This principle 
represents the first fundamental demand of the masses, for 
which they rise up in social revolution.

Either the social revolution will terminate in the defeat of 
the workers, in which case we must start again to prepare 
the struggle, a new offensive against the capitalist system; 
or it will lead to the victory of the workers, and in this case, 
having seized the means which permit self-administration 
- the land, production, and social functions, the workers 
will commence the construction of a free society.

This is what characterises the beginning of the building of 
a communist society which, once begun, then follows the 
course of its development without interruption, 
strengthening itself and perfecting itself continuously.

In this way the take-over of the productive and social 
functions by the workers will trace an exact demarcation 
line between the statist and non-statist eras.

If it wishes to become the mouthpiece of the struggling 
masses, the banner of a whole era of social revolution, 
anarchism must not assimilate in its programme traces of 
the old order, the opportunist tendencies of transitional 
systems and periods, nor hide its fundamental principles, 
but on the contrary develop and apply them to the utmost.

8. Anarchism and syndicalism

We consider the tendency to oppose libertarian 
communism to syndicalism and vice versa to be artificial, 
and devoid of all foundation and meaning.

The ideas of anarchism and syndicalism belong on two 
different planes. Whereas communism, that is to say a 
society of free workers, is the goal of the anarchist struggle 
- syndicalism, that is the movement of revolutionary 
workers in their occupations, is only one of the forms of 
revolutionary class struggle. In uniting workers on a basis 
of production, revolutionary syndicalism, like all groups 
based on professions, has no determining theory, it does 
not have a conception of the world which answers all the 
complicated social and political questions of contemporary 
reality. It always reflects the ideologies of diverse political 
groupings notably of those who work most intensely in its 
ranks.

Our attitude to revolutionary syndicalism derives from 
what is about to be said. Without trying here to resolve in 
advance the question of the role of the revolutionary 
syndicates after the revolution, whether they will be the 
organisers of all new production, or whether they will 
leave this role to workers' soviets or factory committees - 
we judge that anarchists must take part in revolutionary 
syndicalism as one of the forms of the revolutionary 
workers' movement.

However, the question which is posed today is not 
whether anarchists should or should not participate in 
revolutionary syndicalism, but rather how and to what 
end they must take part.

We consider the period up to the present day, when 
anarchists entered the syndicalist movement as individuals 
and propagandists, as a period of artisan relationships 
towards the professional workers movement.

Anarcho-syndicalism, trying to forcefully introduce 
libertarian ideas into the left wing of revolutionary 
syndicalism as a means of creating anarchist-type unions, 
represents a step forward, but it does not, as yet, go 
beyond the empirical method, for anarcho-syndicalism 
does not necessarily interweave the 'anarchisation' of the 
trade union movement with that of the anarchists 
organised outside the movement. For it is only on this 
basis, of such a liaison, that revolutionary trade unionism 
could be 'anarchised' and prevented from moving towards 
opportunism and reformism.

In regarding syndicalism only as a professional body of 
workers without a coherent social and political theory, and 
consequently, being powerless to resolve the social 
question on its own, we consider that the tasks of 
anarchists in the ranks of the movement consist of 
developing libertarian theory, and point it in a libertarian 
direction, in order to transform it into an active arm of the 
social revolution. It is necessary to never forget that if trade 
unionism does not find in anarchist theory a support in 
opportune times it will turn, whether we like it or not, to 
the ideology of a political statist party.

The tasks of anarchists in the ranks of the revolutionary 
workers' movement could only be fulfilled on conditions 
that their work was closely interwoven and linked with the 
activity of the anarchist organisation outside the union. In 
other words, we must enter into revolutionary trade 
unions as an organised force, responsible to accomplish 
work in the union before the general anarchist 
organisation and orientated by the latter.

Without restricting ourselves to the creation of anarchist 
unions, we must seek to exercise our theoretical influence 
on all trade unions, and in all its forms (the lWW, Russian 
TU's). We can only achieve this end by working in 
rigorously organised anarchist collectives; but never in 
small empirical groups, having between them neither 
organisational liaison nor theoretical agreement.

Groups of anarchists in companies, factories and 
workshops, preoccupied in creating anarchist unions, 
leading the struggle in revolutionary unions for the 
domination of libertarian ideas in unionism, groups 
organised in their action by a general anarchist 
organisation: these are the ways and means of anarchists' 
attitudes vis a vis trade unionism.


Constructive Section

The fundamental aim of the world of labour in struggle is 
the foundation, by means of revolution, of a free and equal 
communist society founded on the principle "from each 
according to his ability, to each according to his needs".

However, this society will not come about of its own, only 
by the power of social upheaval. Its realisation will come 
about by a social revolutionary process, more or less 
drawn out, orientated by the organised forces of victorious 
labour in a determined path.

It is our task to indicate this path from this moment on, 
and to formulate positive, concrete problems that will 
occur to workers from the first day of the social revolution, 
the outcome of which depends upon their correct solution.

It is self evident that the building of the new society will 
only be possible after the victory of the workers over the 
bourgeois-capitalist system and over its representatives. It 
is impossible to begin the building of a new economy and 
new social relations while the power of the state defending 
the regime of enslavement has not been smashed, while 
workers and peasants have not ceased, as the object of the 
revolution, the industrial and agricultural economy.

Consequently, the very first social revolutionary task is to 
smash the statist edifice of the capitalist system, to 
expropriate the bourgeoisie and in general all privileged 
elements of the means of power, and establish overall the 
will of the workers in revolt, as expressed by fundamental 
principles of the social revolution. This aggressive and 
destructive aspect of the revolution can only serve to clear 
the road for the positive tasks which form the meaning and 
essence of the social revolution-

These tasks are as follows:

1. The solution, in the libertarian communist sense, of the 
problem of industrial production of the country.

2. The solution similarly of the agrarian problem.

3. The solution of the problem of consumption.

             Production

Taking note of the fact that the country's industry is the 
result of the result of the efforts of several generations of 
workers, and that the diverse branches of industry are 
tightly bound together, we consider all actual production 
as a single workshop of producers, belonging totally to all 
workers together, and to no one in particular.

The productive mechanism of the country is global and 
belongs to the whole working class. This thesis determines 
the character and the forms of the new production. It will 
also be global, common in the sense that the products 
produced by the workers will belong to all. These 
products, of whatever category, the general fund of 
provisions for the workers, where each who participates in 
production will receive that which he needs, on an equal 
basis for everybody.

The new system of production will totally supplant the 
bureaucracy and exploitation in all their forms and 
establish in their place the principle of brotherly co-
operation and workers solidarity.

The middle class, which in a modem capitalist society 
exercises intermediary functions - commerce etc., as well 
as the bourgeoisie, must take part in the new mode of 
production on the same conditions as all other workers. If 
not, these classes place themselves outside the society of 
labour.

There will be no bosses, neither entrepreneur, owner or 
state-appointed owner (as is the case today in the 
bolshevik state). Management will pass on this new 
production to the administration especially created by the 
workers: workers' soviets, factory committees or workers' 
management of works and factories. These organs, 
interlinked at the level of commune, district and finally 
general and federal management of production. Built by 
the masses and always under their control and influence, 
all these organs constantly renewed and realise the idea of 
self-management, real self- management, by the masses of 
the people.

Unified production, in which the means and products 
belong to all, having replaced bureaucracy by the principle 
of brotherly co-operation and and having established equal 
rights for all work, production managed by the organs of 
workers' control, elected by the masses, that is the first 
practical step on the road to the realisation of libertarian 
communism.

Consumption

This problem will appear during the revolution in two 
ways:

1: The principle of the search for products and 
consumption.

2. The principle of their distribution.

In that which concerns the distribution of consumer goods, 
the solution depends above all on the quantity of products 
available and on the principle of the agreement of targets.

The social revolution concerning itself with the 
reconstruction of the whole social order, takes on itself as 
well, the obligation to satisfy everyone's necessities of life. 
The sole exception is the group of non-workers - those who 
refuse to take part in the new production for counter-
revolutionary reasons. But in general, excepting the last 
category of people, the satisfaction of the needs of 
everyone in the area of the revolution is assured by the 
general reserve of consumer goods. In the case of 
insufficient goods, they are divided according to the 
principle of the greatest urgency, that is to say in the first 
case to children, invalids and working families.

A far more difficult problem is that of organising the basis 
of consumption itself.

Without doubt, from the first day of the revolution, the 
farms will not provide all the products vital to the life of 
the population. At the same time, peasants have an 
abundance which the towns lack.

The libertarian communists have no doubt about the 
mutualist relationship which exists between the workers of 
the town and countryside. They judge that the social 
revolution can only be realised by the common efforts of 
workers and peasants. In consequence, the solution to the 
problem of consumption in the revolution can only be 
possible by means of close revolutionary collaboration 
between these two categories of workers.

To establish this collaboration, the urban working class 
having seized production must immediately supply the 
living needs of the country and strive to furnish the 
everyday products the means and implements for 
collective agriculture.  The measures of solidarity 
manifested by the workers as regards the needs of the 
peasants, will provoke from them in return the same 
gesture, to provide the produce of their collective labour 
for the towns.

Worker and peasant co-operatives will be the primary 
organs assuring the towns and countryside their 
requirements in food and economic materials. later, 
responsible for more important and permanent functions, 
notably for supplying everything necessary for 
guaranteeing and developing the economic and social life 
of the workers and peasants, these co-operatives will be 
transformed into permanent organs for provisioning towns 
and countryside.

This solution to the problem of provisioning permits the 
proletariat to create a permanent stock of provision, which 
will have a favourable and decisive effect on the outcome 
of all new production.

             The land

In the solution of the agrarian question, we regard the 
principle revolutionary and creative forces to be the 
working peasants who do not exploit the labour of others-
and the wage earning proletariat of the countryside. Their 
task will be to accomplish the redistribution of land in the 
countryside in order to establish the use and exploitation 
of the land on communist principles.

Like industry, the land, exploited and cultivated by 
successive generations of labourers, is the product of their 
common effort. It also belongs to all working people and to 
none in particular inasmuch as it is the inalienable and 
common property of the labourers, the land can never 
again be bought, nor sold, nor rented: it can therefore not 
serve as a means of the exploitation of others' labour.

The land is also a sort of popular and communal 
workshop, where the common people produce the means 
by which they live. But it is the kind of workshop where 
each labourer (peasant) has, thanks to certain historical 
conditions, become accustomed to carrying out his work 
alone, independent of other producers. Whereas, in 
industry the collective method of work is essential and the 
only possible way in our times, the majority of peasants 
cultivate the land on their own account.

Consequently, when the land and the means of its 
exploitation are taken over by the peasants, with no 
possibility of selling or renting, the question of the forms of 
the utilisation of it and the methods of its exploitation 
(communal or by family) will not immediately find a 
complete and definite solution, as it will in the industrial 
sector. Initially both of these methods will probably be 
used.

It will be the revolutionary peasants who themselves will 
establish the definitive term of exploitation and utilisation 
of the land. No outside pressure is possible in this 
question.

However, since we consider that only a communist society, 
in whose name after all the social revolution. will be made, 
delivers labourers from their position of slavery and 
exploitation and gives them complete liberty and equality; 
since the peasants constitute the vast majority of the 
population (almost 85% in Russia in the period under 
discussion) and consequently the agrarian regime which 
they establish will be the decisive factor in the destiny of 
the revolution; and since', lastly, a private economy in 
agriculture leads, as in private industry, to commerce, 
accumulation, private property and the restoration of 
capital - our duty will be to do everything necessary, as 
from now, to facilitate the solution of the agrarian question 
in a collective way.

To this end we must, as from now, engage in strenuous 
propaganda among the peasants in favour of collective 
agrarian economy.

The founding of a specifically libertarian peasant union 
will considerably facilitate this task.

In this respect, technical progress will be of enormous 
importance, facilitating the evolution of agriculture and 
also the realisation of communism in the towns, above all 
in industry. If, in their relations with the peasants, the 
industrial workers act, not individually or in separate 
groups, but as an immense communist collective 
embracing all the branches of industry; if, in addition, they 
bear in mind the vital needs of the countryside and if at the 
same time they supply each village with things for 
everyday use, tools and machines for the collective 
exploitation of the lands, this will impel the peasants 
towards communism in agriculture.

The defence of the revolution:

The question of the defence of the revolution is also linked 
to the problem of 'the first day'. Basically, the most 
powerful means for the defence of the revolution is the 
happy solution of its positive problems: production, 
consumption, and the land. Once these problems are 
correctly solved, no counter-revolutionary will be able to 
alter or unbalance the free society of workers. Nevertheless 
the workers will have to sustain a severe struggle against 
the enemies of the revolution, in order to maintain its 
concrete existence.

The social revolution, which threatens the privileges and 
the very existence of the non-working classes of society, 
will inevitably provoke a desperate resistance on behalf of 
these classes, which will take the form of a fierce civil war.

As the Russian experience showed, such a civil war will 
not be a matter of a few months, but of several years.

However joyful the first steps of the labourers at the 
beginning of the revolution, the ruling classes will retain 
an enormous capacity to resist for a long time. For several 
years they will launch offensives against the revolution, 
trying to reconquer the power and privileges of which they 
were deprived.

A large army, military techniques and strategy, capital - 
will all be thrown against the victorious labourers.

In order to preserve the conquests of the revolution, the 
labourers should create organs for the defence of the 
revolution, so as to oppose the reactionary offensive with a 
fighting force corresponding to the magnitude of the task. 
In the first days of the revolution, this fighting force will be 
formed by all armed workers and peasants. But this 
spontaneous armed force will only be valuable during the 
first days, before the civil war reaches its highest point and 
the two parties in struggle have created regularly 
constituted military organisations.

In the social revolution the most critical moment is not 
during the suppression of Authority, but following, that is, 
when the forces of the defeated regime launch a general 
offensive against the labourers, and when it is a question 
of safeguarding the conquests under attack.
   The very character of this offensive, just as the technique 
and development of the civil war, will oblige the labourers 
to create determined revolutionary military contingents. 
The essence and fundamental principles of these 
formations must be decided in advance. Denying the 
statist and authoritarian methods of government, we also 
deny the statist method of organising the military forces of 
the labourers, in other words the principles of a statist 
army based on obligatory military service. Consistent with 
the fundamental positions of libertarian communism, the 
principle of voluntary service must be the basis of the 
military formations of labourers. The detachments of 
insurgent partisans, workers and peasants, which led the 
military action in the Russian revolution, can be cited as 
examples of such formations.

However, "voluntary service" and the action of partisans 
should not be understood in the narrow sense of the word, 
that is as a struggle of worker and peasant detachments 
against the local enemy, unco-ordinated by a general plan 
of operation and each acting on its own responsibility, at 
its own risk. The action and tactics of the partisans in the 
period of their complete development should be guided by 
a common revolutionary strategy.

As in all wars, the civil war cannot be waged by the 
labourers with success unless they apply the two 
fundamental principles of all military action: unity in the 
plan of operations and unity of common command. The 
most critical moment of the revolution will come when the 
bourgeoisie march against the revolution in organised 
force. This critical moment obliges the labourers to adopt 
these principles of military strategy.

Thus, in view of the necessities imposed by military 
strategy and also the strategy of the counter-revolution the 
armed forces of the revolution should inevitably be based 
on a general revolutionary army with a common command 
and plan of operations. The following principles form the 
basis of this army'.

(a) the class character of the army;

(b) voluntary service (all coercion will be completely 
excluded from the work of defending the revolution);

C) free revolutionary discipline (self-discipline) (voluntary 
service and revolutionary self-discipline are perfectly 
compatible, and give the revolutionary army greater 
morale than any army of the state);

(d) the total submission of the revolutionary army to the 
masses of the workers and peasants as represented by the 
worker and peasant organisations common throughout the 
country, established by the masses in the controlling 
sectors of economic and social life.

In other words, the organ of the defence of the revolution, 
responsible for combating the counter-revolution. on major 
military fronts as well as on an internal front (bourgeois 
plots, preparation for counter-revolutionary action). will 
be entirely under the jurisdiction of the productive 
organisations of workers and peasants. to which it will 
submit, and by which it will receive its political direction.

Note: while it should be conducted in conformity with 
definite libertarian communist principles, the army itself 
should not he considered a point of principle. It is but the 
consequence of military strategy in the revolution, a 
strategic measure to which the labourers are fatally forced 
by the very process of the civil war. But this measure must 
attract attention as from now. It must he carefully studied 
in order to avoid any irreparable set-backs in the work of 
protecting and defending the revolution, for set-backs in 
the civil war could prove disastrous to the outcome of the 
whole social revolution.

Organisational Section

The general, constructive positions expressed above 
constitute the organisational platform of the revolutionary 
forces of anarchism.

This platform, containing a definite tactical and theoretical 
orientation, appears to be the minimum to which it is 
necessary and urgent to rally all the militants of the 
organised anarchist movement.

Its task is to group around itself all the healthy elements of 
the anarchist movement into one general organisation, 
active and agitating on a permanent basis: the General 
Union of Anarchists. The forces of all anarchist militants 
should be orientated towards the creation of this 
organisation.

The fundamental principles of organisation of a General 
Union of anarchists should be as follows:

1- Theoretical Unity:

Theory represents the force which directs the activity of 
persons and organisations along a defined path towards a 
determined goal. Naturally it should be common to all the 
persons and organisations adhering to the General Union. 
All activity by the General Union, both overall and in its 
details, should be in perfect concord with the theoretical 
principles professed by the union.

2. Tactical Unity or the Collective Method of Action:

In the same way the tactical methods employed by 
separate members and groups within the Union should be 
unitary, that is, be in rigorous concord both with each 
other and with the general theory and tactic of the Union.

A common tactical line in the movement is of decisive 
importance for the existence of the organisation and the 
whole movement: it removes the disastrous effect of 
several tactics in opposition to one another, it concentrates 
all the forces of the movement, gives them a common 
direction leading to a fixed objective.

3. Collective Responsibility:

The practice of acting on one's personal responsibility 
should be decisively condemned and rejected in the ranks 
of the anarchist movement. The areas of revolutionary life, 
social and political, are above all profoundly collective by 
nature. Social revolutionary activity in these areas cannot 
be based on the personal responsibility of individual 
militants.

The executive organ of the general anarchist movement, 
the Anarchist Union, taking a firm line against the tactic of 
irresponsible individualism, introduces in its ranks the 
principle of collective responsibility: the entire Union will 
be responsible for the political and revolutionary activity 
of each member; in the same way, each member will be 
responsible for the political and revolutionary activity of 
the Union as a whole.

4. Federalism:

Anarchism has always denied centralised organisation, 
both in the area of the social life of the masses and in its 
political action. The centralised system relies on the 
diminution of the critical spirit, initiative and 
independence of each individual and on the blind 
submission of the masses to the 'centre'. The natural and 
inevitable consequences of this system are the enslavement 
and mechanisation of social life and the life of the 
organisation.

Against centralism, anarchism has always professed and 
defended the principle of federalism, which reconciles the 
independence and initiative of individuals and the 
organisation with service to the common cause.

In reconciling the idea of the independence and high 
degree of rights of each individual with the service of 
social needs and necessities, federalism opens the doors to 
every healthy manifestation of the faculties of every 
individual.

But quite often, the federalist principle has been deformed 
in anarchist ranks: it has too often been understood as the 
right, above all, to manifest one's 'ego':, without obligation 
to account for duties as regards the organisation.

This false interpretation disorganised our movement in the 
past. It is time to put an end to it in a firm and irreversible 
manner.

Federation signifies the free agreement of individuals and 
organisations to work collectively towards common 
objective.

However, such an agreement and the federal union based 
on it, will only become reality, rather than fiction or 
illusion, on the conditions sine qua non that all the 
participants in the agreement and the Union fulfil most 
completely the duties undertaken, and conform to 
communal decisions. In a social project, however vast the 
federalist basis on which it is built, there can be no 
decisions without their execution. It is even less admissible 
in an anarchist organisation, which exclusively takes on 
obligations with regard to the workers and their social 
revolution. Consequently, the federalist type of anarchist 
organisation, while recognising each member's rights to 
independence, free opinion, individual liberty and 
initiative, requires each member to undertake fixed 
organisation duties, and demands execution of communal 
decisions.

On this condition alone will the federalist principle find 
life, and the anarchist organisation function correctly, and 
steer itself towards the defined objective.

The idea of the General Union of Anarchists poses the 
problem of the co-ordination and concurrence of the 
activities of all the forces of the anarchist movement.

Every organisation adhering to the Union represents a 
vital cell of the common organism. Every cell should have 
its secretariat, executing and guiding theoretically the 
political and technical work of the organisation.

With a view to the co-ordination of the activity of all the 
Union's adherent organisation, a special organ will be 
created: the executive committee of the Union. The 
committee will be in charge of the following functions: the 
execution of decisions taken by the Union with which it is 
entrusted; the theoretical and organisational orientation of 
the activity of isolated organisations consistent with the 
theoretical positions and the general tactical line of the 
Union; the monitoring of the general state of the 
movement; the maintenance of working and organisational 
links between all the organisations in the Union; and with 
other organisations.

The rights, responsibilities and practical tasks of the 
executive committee are fixed by the congress of the 
Union.

The General Union of Anarchists has a concrete and 
determined goal. In the name of the success of the social 
revolution it must above all attract and absorb the most 
revolutionary and strongly critical elements among the 
workers and peasants.

Extolling the social revolution, and further, being an anti-
authoritarian organisation which aspires to the abolition of 
class society, the General Union of Anarchists depends 
equally on the two fundamental classes of society: the 
workers and the peasants. It lays equal stress on the work 
of emancipating these two classes.

As regards the workers trade unions and revolutionary 
organisations in the towns, the General Union of 
Anarchists will have to devote all its efforts to becoming 
their pioneer and their theoretical guide.

It adopts the same tasks with regard to the exploited 
peasant masses. As bases playing the same role as the 
revolutionary workers' trade unions, the Union strives to 
realise a network of revolutionary peasant economic 
organisations, furthermore, a specific peasants' union, 
founded on anti-authoritarian principles.

Born out of the mass of the labour people, the General 
Union must take part in all the manifestations of their life, 
bringing to them on every occasion the spirit of 
organisation, perseverance and offensive. Only in this way 
can it fulfil its task, its theoretical and historical mission in 
the social revolution of labour, and become the organised 
vanguard of their emancipating process.

Nestor Mhakno, Ida Mett, Piotr Archinov, Valevsky, 
Linsky 

Andrew Flood

anflood@macollamh.ucd.ie
Phone: 706(2389)

