Keywords: Organisation, role, vanguard, revolution.

a Workers Solidarity Movement position paper

The role of the Anarchist organisation

General Principles

1. The role of the Anarchist organisation is to 
popularise and fight for the creation of a society based 
on the principles of anarchism, i.e.; individual 
freedom, collective management of society by its 
workers, participatory democracy.

2. We recognise that such a society can only be built by 
a conscious movement of the working class using its 
industrial power.

3. A successful revolutionary transformation is 
dependent on two essential criteria being present in the 
working class:

a) Widespread revolutionary consciousness. This has to 
consist of the following:

i) a rejection of both the exploitation and 
authoritarianism of Capitalism.

ii) an aspiration in the class to reorganise society in 
a new and better way around its own direct needs and 
interests.

iii) recognition in the class of the tenet that only the 
working class itself can make and secure the 
revolutionary transformation of society and that 
following from that only the councils created by the 
class in the workplaces and communities represent any 
authority on these matters in the new society. No other 
power centres in society to be allowable.

b) Industrial organisation and solidarity in the class 
to be sufficiently developed such that physical control 
over the means of production and distribution can be 
achieved and all remnants of the state be abolished.

4. The role of the anarchist organisation and the 
anarchist idea in this is obvious. Anarchist ideas link 
a criticism of Capitalist society with a vision of a new 
way of organising human society. This link involves 
practical understanding of the means necessary and 
acceptable to achieve results but also to help build the 
confidence of the class in its own abilities and 
decision making power. Clearly our role is to spread the 
influence of our ideas as and wide as possible.

The organisation of the class

5. The anarchist organisation sees itself as part of the 
working-class, its anarchist ideas a historical 
development of the experiences of workers who as an 
exploited class seek to create a new world free of 
tyranny and exploitation of any form.

6. We wish to win the most widespread understanding and 
influence for our anarchist ideas and methods in the 
class and in society, primarily because we believe that 
these alone will expedite a successful revolutionary 
transformation of society. In this sense we recognise 
our role within the class as being a "leadership of 
ideas".

7. We reject the notion that the organisation is a 
vanguard in the class because of its "leadership of 
ideas". Such terminology, particularly because of its 
historical associations has anti-anarchist connotations 
which cannot be accommodated by a revolutionary 
organisation. We recognise that a vanguard does exist 
within the class but that its central characteristic is 
that its politics are derived from the concrete 
experience of fighting Capitalism on the shop floor.

8. While recognising the presence of a vanguard within 
the class which most obviously reflects its uneven 
development, our aim as an organisation will always be 
to minimise such unevenness without compromising 
political content. We recognise and will always fight 
against that influence in our class that seeks to 
promote the need for a permanent, unelected leadership 
no matter what context, explanation or excuse is used.

9. We seek influence for our ideas in all class 
organisations. In real terms that means WSM will go 
forward for all positions in the unions and other bodies 
where there is the possibility of mandating and recall. 
We will never accept any position that is not under the 
control of the members of that body. Such positions are 
not ends in themselves. The struggle to win them must be 
bound up with a fight for more democracy, more 
mandating, more control. We are striving for the self-
activity of the many.

10. We have to be able to explain and clarify what is 
happening in society. We have to be capable of combating 
false ideas such as Social democracy and Leninism. We 
aim to be a 'collective memory' for the class, both in 
terms of the above and of keeping alive and developing 
the traditions of the labour movement and anarchism.

11. Unlike a certain tendency within the anarchist 
movement we do not fight against the state as if it were 
some abstraction unrelated to the division of society 
into classes. The state, in itself, is not the real 
enemy - states are the product of this division into 
exploiting and exploited classes. To treat it as 
something that exists independently of society leads 
into a swamp of muddle-headed liberal politics. We stand 
for the "abolition of the state" because we are totally 
opposed to authoritarianism and to any form of society 
that needs a state; i.e... a society where a minority 
rules.

12. Our role is that of educators and instigators. In so 
far as we are leaders it is because we are a 
"leadership" of ideas. We have no time for the 
leadership of personalities or that of a higher 
committee of a party. We have no wish to be what the 
Leninists call "The Revolutionary Leadership". that 
implies their party has reached a stage where it has the 
"right" to take decisions for the class (whether they 
like it or not). We reject this sort of leadership as 
authoritarian and destructive of workers' democracy.

13. History teaches us that organisations like ours can 
experience a rapid growth in membership and support for 
its ideas during a revolutionary situation....but also 
that a certain size is necessary for this to happen. So 
it is important that we recruit but this will be 
worthless unless we ensure that people are joining us 
because they understand and agree with anarchism and 
share our libertarian values.
It is not enough to build an small organisation with 
many sympathisers. Where there is no clear line between 
members and supporters a massive central apparatus is 
needed to hold together a mass of half-politicised 
people in a series of political activities. Political 
discussion gets toned down, a lack of seriousness creeps 
in. This in turn reduces the capacity of members to make 
independent political evaluations and provides the basis 
for a dependence on a central bureaucracy. This would be 
in absolute contradiction to our anarchist values.

14. "Only the truth is revolutionary". Whoever first 
said this was spot on. We do not raise as immediate 
demands those that are impossible at the time because of 
the balance of forces. We do not play at politics. We do 
not fool, intimidate or manipulate workers towards 
anarchism. We aim to win the arguments for change and 
anarchism. It is not part of our programme to try to 
take power "in the name of the workers". Anarchism will 
either be the creation of a free and politically aware 
working class....or it will not be anarchism.

15. We understand the centrality of struggle and 
organisation in the workplace because that is where we 
have real power. But this does not mean that we neglect 
or ignore the struggles that take place in other areas 
of life. We don't. We support all struggles that can 
improve the conditions we live under. At every 
opportunity we seek to bring these struggles into the 
union and workplaces, we try to bring the potential 
strength of organised workers to bear in their 
favour....to link up the different struggles into an 
understanding of their common roots in capitalism, and 
to establish the legitimacy of political issues being 
taken up on the shopfloor.

16. We support all progressive struggles both for their 
own aims and for the increased confidence that 
campaigning can give people.

17. In all modern revolutionary situations workers have 
thrown up their own organs in the form of workers' 
councils. They may have gone under different names - 
revolutionary committees, soviets, etc. - but the 
essential form has remained the same whether it was in 
Russia 1917, Spain 1936, or Hungary 1956.

18. These councils act not just as the best means of 
mobilising the class against the bosses but also lay the 
basis for the administration of the new society. Within 
them revolutionaries have to fight the ideas of 
authoritarian tendencies and continually argue that the 
new workers' democracy must not delegate away its power 
to any elite, or allow any minority to seize that power. 
Within them members of the revolutionary organisation 
must be the "driving force". This means winning the 
battle of ideas. It does NOT mean capturing the leading 
positions, vesting them with undue authority and then 
dishonestly interpreting this as a mandate for giving 
orders.

19. We oppose all ideas of power in the post-
revolutionary period being wielded by "the party of the 
working class". The division of labour between those who 
rule and those who are ruled has lasted too long. It can 
only be ended by the "self-emancipation" of the working-
class. All power must be exercised by the workers 
council.....and by nobody else. Such power shall be 
compatible with the libertarian slogan that individual 
freedom will know no limit except that it does not take 
away the freedom of others.

20. This is not to deny the need for efficient co-
ordination and decision making in all spheres of life. 
The point is that the ultimate authority will be the 
democratic, mass organs of the class. Let there be no 
talk of the state co-existing with the workers 
councils....the councils would be co-existed out of 
existence! Instead of the state there will be the 
federation of workers councils.

21. It is on this issue that our fundamental difference 
with Leninism is made clear. We agree with Lenin that 
authority can only be defeated by authority, that the 
authority of the bosses  will be destroyed by the 
authority of the workers. We agree on the need for a 
lead to be given within the class. but while our 
leadership is one of persuasion and education, the 
Leninist party goes way beyond this and tries to grab 
power through control of the state. It seeks to exercise 
the authority of the party over the workers. In doing 
this it prepares the way for the growth of a new 
oppressive ruling class.

22. After the initial stage of the revolution when the 
ruling class are dispossessed of their wealth and power, 
the revolutionary organisation will continue to grow. 
There will be a massive surge of workers into its ranks 
because its politics will seem all the more concrete and 
realistic. In the transitional period (that time between 
the overthrow of the old order and consolidation of the 
new) the main task will be further anarchist ideas and 
values, and fighting for all power to be taken by 
workers councils. As the revolution consolidates its 
gains and begins the reconstruction of society the task 
is to help the class towards the anarchist ideal. As 
this ideal becomes more and more established and the 
obstacles to its achievement fade away, the 
revolutionary organisation becomes less necessary and 
eventually vanishes completely.

Jan 2 1991

WSM can be contacted at
  WSM
   PO Box 1528
   Dublin 8
   Ireland

