To mark the 100 year anniversary of the publication of the Platform of Libertarian Communists (Draft), we are excited to present the second in a three volume series of interviews discussing the document’s lasting legacy with anarchist organizations around the world.
The Platform, as it is often called by shorthand, was written by a group of Russian and Ukranian anarchists exiled in the wake of the Bolshevik seizure of state power during the 1917 October Revolution. The document was meant to be a corrective to the prevailing anarchist orthodoxy of the time, which its authors—including Nestor Makhno and other active participants in the revolution—believed had led to their defeat.
Note: Originally we had planned to release all of the interviews in two volumes. However, the number of organizations who requested to participate and the length of the content requires us to break the interviews up into three volumes.
The first volume covered organizations in the Americas, this second volume covers organizations in Europe, and the third will cover organizations in Asia and Oceania.
This project is a collaboration between the External Education and International Relations Committees of Black Rose/Rosa Negra (BRRN).
Introduction
2026 marks 100 years since the publication of the Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists (Draft) by the Dielo Truda (Workers’ Cause) group. The document, written by Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian anarchists exiled in the wake of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, is known for the sharp revisions it applied to the contemporary anarchist orthodoxy. Though criticized by some of the most prominent anarchist thinkers of the period, the Platform (as it has come to be known by shorthand) represents a first serious attempt to grapple with organizational and strategic shortcomings in the anarchist movement, exposed by its direct involvement in a large-scale revolutionary upheaval.
While it is true that the Dielo Truda group set a course distinct from many of their anarchist contemporaries, the novelty of the principles put forward in the Platform is often overstated. The central concern of the Platform’s authors was a more effective coordination of anarchist militants aiming to intervene in social movements. The Dielo Truda group arrived at the conclusion that this could only be achieved through the construction of a revolutionary political organization. Indeed, this same insight was achieved by Mikhail Bakunin more than half a century earlier as he helped to found the Alliance of Socialist Democracy, which was later dissolved into the International Workingmen’s Association (also known as the First International). In other words, far from being a recent invention, the anarchist embrace of formal revolutionary political organization can be traced back to the movement’s origins.
Today we recognize this insight as ‘organizational dualism,’ a phrase that refers to the necessity of, and reciprocal relationship between, revolutionary political organization and mass organization. While organizations interviewed in this survey may identify to a greater or lesser extent with a particular historical framework—most commonly platformism or especifismo—all hold the organizational dualist principle as a central tenet.
Union Communiste Libertaire (France)
1. UCL was formed in 2019 as a fusion of two existing organizations, Coordination des Groupes Anarchistes (CGA) and Alternative Libertaire (AL). Can you briefly explain what brought these two groups together and what the process of becoming one organization involved?
UCL: AL and CGA were two relatively small organisations. They didn’t have the exact same background but they shared theoretical references and a similar intervention into the global struggle of the people.
The growth of both organizations was slowing. Both organizations got used to working together, and the election of Emmanuel Macron meant a strengthening of attacks against the working class. For our political tradition, the organization isn’t the be-all and end-all of our political activity but a tool in the service of our movement. It felt natural to attempt a fusion.
AL being itself a fusion, there was some experience in the process. During the fusion, there was a constant attention to focus on the base level. Therefore, there was a year-long back-and-forth to democratically prepare a congress. This congress adopted our new organizational status and the Manifesto you can find (in English) on the website.
2. France has a special relationship with the history of the Dielo Truda Group and The Platform. Peter Arshinov, Nestor Makhno, and others members of the group took up residence in Paris—following their exile from Russia and Ukraine in the wake of the Bolshevik consolidation of power—where they reflected on the experience of the Russian Revolution and produced the Platform. In brief, what impact have the ideas of Dielo Truda’s Platform had on the anarchist movement in France historically? What does UCL take from this history?
UCL: The debate between the people who supported “the platform,” who advocate for a very coordinated anarcho-communist movement, and those who supported “the synthesis,” who seek to gather all anarchists in a unique organisation, has shaped the political landscape of organized anarchism in France.
Just to give a few examples, after the second world war, young worker-oriented members took control of the Federation Anarchiste (FA) to build the Federation Communiste Libertaire (FCL), and the issue of “how to organise at a federal level” has been the main reason of the creation of the CGA, who rejected the FA for its inability to take decisive action at the federal level.
For the libertarian communist current, the platform has been a compass for decades, but has been put into practice to varying degrees by successive organisations. Today, direct references to the platform are mostly done to discuss our legacy. The content has been updated throughout the years at a theoretical level, for example by the publishing of the book “un projet de société communiste libertaire,” but it’s in our praxis that its spirit shines the brightest. We debate different tactics to use but we maintain a strategic unity in our action. UCL is firmly committed to having a strong federation with a shared theoretical background. The “ethic” between us is a centerpiece of our organization and a key part of our mandatory first formation alongside materialism.
3. How is UCL organized? How are decisions made at the branch level and at the national level?
UCL: UCL is a federation built on Local Groups (“GL” in French) in cities or areas all around France (and even in Belgium and Switzerland). The GL is the basis of the Federation. A GL starts with at least 3 persons. It is responsible for becoming involved in social movements within its territory, following our federal guidelines. The organization within a GL is pretty free, whether in terms of frequency of meeting or way to take decisions, with some big GLs having subcommissions and many mandates. But not all GLs have this exact structure.
The GLs discuss politics internally and express themselves at the federal level as an entity, but they can express different points of view, reflecting the full view of its members. Therefore, political discussion within a Local Group is the basis of the democratic process.
In addition to the congress, where the global political orientations are voted every 3 years, there is a need to take political decisions. They are taken during Federal Coordinations (CF) that happen every 3 months where more “low level” political or administrative motions are discussed. The votes are not individual but proportional to the number of members in each local group.
At the federal level, we have two types of commissions:
- Functional Commissions (Finance, Internal Relations, Newspaper, International Relations, Exterior Relations, Security, Communication, etc…) that are more “administrative” and “less political” in the sense that they don’t elaborate positions (as they do in International Relations). To enter a Functional commission, you need to be voted in by the federation.
- Intervention Commissions (Antipatriarchy, Labour, Ecology, Antifascism, Antiracism, Youth, etc…) that are free to enter for any member of the UCL. They elaborate positions to be proposed in Federal Coordination or congress, create material (leaflets, statements,…) and formations and coordinate our implication in this front. Members of those commissions can give their personal opinion and not necessarily their GLs although it is recommended to do both.
The Federal Secretariat is made of members from both types of commissions that have been voted in by the federation in Congress, or sometimes by a CF. They have a role to make the federation function, helping when needed, and making statements (or endorsing them). They implement decisions made at the CF or Congress level (along with the commissions) and do not have the power to decide the direction of the organization.
4. What areas of mass organizing are members of UCL engaged in?
UCL: Mainly in unions. We have a significant history of mass organizing in unions and as a vast majority of our members are also union members. Unions do not all function the same way in France. There are two main general class-struggle unions in France, Solidaires and CGT. The CGT is one of the two strongest unions in France, though its power is declining. As it is still the theater of political struggle among different left-wing organizations, we try to influence it by seeking to implement our practice at a local level. We put an emphasis on building industry unions instead of company unions and bring life to “union locale” (local chapters) in order to adapt the CGT to the ever greater precarity of the working class.
Solidaires is a smaller union that was created by the union left (gauche syndicale), which regrouped diverse anti-authoritarian communist currents into the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (Cfdt). During the 1980s, the Cfdt expelled its left-wing elements and they went to create the Solidarity, Unity, Democracy (SUD) unions, which became Solidaires. The libertarian communist movement had a deep influence in some federations. As the principle of industrial unionism and self-management are better implemented, the task at hand for our members is to continue building the union.
All of our union members try to build working-class unity through alliances when possible between class-struggle unions at the local level.
We are also present in some collectives, associations, and other struggle organisations, but it is not uniform and depends on what is relevant in members’ territory and according to each member’s ability.
There is a strong tradition of militant and autonomous sections of Planning Familial in France. Some of our comrades are invested in those organizations that organize women and the feminist struggle. Sometimes local Planning Familial groups are too bureaucratic and our members act through their union or more local organisations.
A UCL campaign called “for a trans counter-offensive” was launched in 2023 so some of our comrades have been taking part in the effort to build a federal trans mass organization.
While some comrades are part of antifascist local organizations, some others have been very active in the building of Vigilance et Initiative Syndicale Antifasciste (VISA) which is a union-based coordination across different unions against fascism.
5. UCL works closely with other European platformist/especifista organizations via the European Coordination of Organized Anarchism (ECOA). Can you describe the joint campaigns you have undertaken together?
UCL: For now, there are few. There was a mutual campaign with Die Plattform and Embat about the European Election with a common poster in 2024. Other campaigns have been at a more local level or between only a few organizations, but we are gearing toward more. Cross-border relations exist between local groups and this year a common formation took place in Strasbourg, at the border between France and Germany.
We try to attend each other’s summer camps and to coordinate during big European demonstrations, most notably during the yearly demonstration with the Kurdish left in Paris.
6. What is UCL’s Summer Days camp? What purpose does it serve?
UCL: The Summer Camp (JE in French) is a week each year in which all members of UCL, sympathizers, and subscribers of our newspaper are invited to participate. In general, a third of the organisation participates. It is a camp site where all-day workshops, conferences, etc. are held. At night activities (like militant karaoke, game nights, parties or others) are held.
The week is a time when people from all around the country can see each other and discuss politics, but also learn through the workshops and conferences. No organizational decisions are made there, as no mandate is given to participants. It is also seen as a sort of holiday, with many breaks between activities to engage in communal life. We try to apply self-management all week, with 95% of the work (kitchen, cleaning, administration, etc.) done by participants. The purpose is to apply self-management in a controlled place without too much outside interaction, to strengthen our bonds, to learn on new topics, to take a break and have fun.
7. Organized anarchism appears to be a quickly growing tendency in Europe and around the world. Why do you believe this is?
We all feel the need for a coordinated response against the ever stronger attacks of the bourgeoisie and the rise of fascism. There is a real need to regroup, act, and build alliances at a larger scale.
In France, the creation of the UCL was a big boost to our current but there was also a big turnover in membership. It has been decades since our current didn’t face those problems of rapid growth and we definitely made some mistakes. Our organization is trying to develop itself at a steadier pace now.
We welcome the formation of new libertarian communist organisations in Spain and Germany, where it has been decades since our current has tried to build there. Some comrades are starting to organize in other countries like the Netherlands and Greece as well.
In some other places in Europe, there is a lack of generational renewal and we have yet to build our current in Northern Europe. UCL has some role to play as one of the biggest organizations of our current globally. We try to share our experiences, our successes, and the mistakes we have made. But each organisation has to find its own answers through practice, as the material conditions are different from one country to another. There is still an enormous amount of work to be done. ■
Die Plattform (Germany)
1. What is the history of Die Plattform? How, when, and under what circumstances was your organization formed?
Die Plattform: Die Plattform was founded as an initiative in 2019 after long discussions between comrades who have been active in a broader anarchist organization and felt the need for an organization composed of more committed militants around a shared strategy.
The “Organizational Platform of Libertarian Communists” was just translated a few years earlier into German and had a great influence on what they perceived as an alternative form of organization. Originally and still today, the critique of the broader anarchist milieu and movement in Germany is something we think is needed. It took a lot of space in our first publication. But limiting the formation of Die Plattform to solely disagreements inside the anarchist movement would be shortsighted.
Many socialists realized after the crisis of 2008/2009 that there is a need to get more rooted in the working and popular classes and build organizations that are actually able to build toward a social revolution while also having a practical impact in daily life. This is what we today call “power from below.”
We also felt the need for a more coherent anarchist organization that connects us as revolutionaries and helps us stay true to our ideals and values. There have been many debates, congresses, organizations and initiatives that have influenced our organization and work today.
2. Historically speaking, what have been the most visible expressions of organized anarchism in Germany? Did there exist any groups inspired by Dielo Truda’s Platform before the establishment of your organization?
Die Plattform: As far as we know, there hasn’t been any organization in Germany inspired by Dielo Truda’s Platform before us, but there had been similar experiments in the 1920s, with the Federation of Anarchist Communists of Germany and around some newspapers, but they never gained any real influence. At the same time, especially during the revolutionary phase between 1918 and 1923, we see the most visible expression of anarchism as a social revolutionary movement in Germany, composed around the Free Workers Union of Germany (FAUD), which grew out of a localist union culture in contrast to the central unions close to the social democrats. They adopted an anarcho-syndicalist programme and at one point had organized more than 150,000 revolutionary workers. After the fascist purges, the shoah and the second world war, the anarchist movement never really grew bigger or more influential again.
Still, anarchist ideas always came back, and they influenced the autonomous movement, social movements and other political groups after the revolt in 1968, but anarchists were not able to build a coherent revolutionary organization. But we do find some autonomous housing projects, publishers and newspapers connected to the anarchist movement, as well as the FAU anarchosyndicalist union, which has grown over the last 10 years.
3. The Platform document is now 100 years old, is it still relevant for the year 2026? How does platformism inform the practical activity of your organization?
Die Plattform: If we do understand the original document not as a finished programme for an anarchist organization, but as a self-critique, a reflection, an attempt to keep true to anarchism as an ideology rooted in the workers and peasant movements of their time after losing in a revolution, there is still relevance. First of all, we think that their reflection of their experiences, gains and losses are important tools and aspects of revolutionary organizing in general, which we admire. Secondly, we still agree with their conclusions about the need for a coherent anarchist organization based on a common theory and strategy, collective responsibility for our work, and a federalist structure.
From our own experiences in various social movements in the last ten years, we recognize the limits and boundaries inside them to form structures coherent enough to be both practically and ideologically strong. In our practical activities, this influences us in the separation of political organization with the discussion we have around a common programme, as well as our work in the social movements. But we are less about tying our strategy to a specific historical document: rather, it helps inform our historical and present experiences in broader social and libertarian movements. We have to try and figure out what strategy works best for our current times.
4. Your organization sometimes uses phrases and concepts borrowed from Especifismo, such as ‘social insertion’. To what extent do you believe there is similarity or difference between Especifismo and Platformism?
Die Plattform: We consider both as parts of an older anarchist tradition, called organizational dualism. In this tradition, we find common ground in the specific anarchist organization and the work to be done within the working classes. As there are sadly not many translations from the especifist tradition into German, it is difficult to say where exactly we can find similarities or differences, but we are eager to find out more about it. While it is interesting to study the details, we think it is more important to be practical about it and not to make up unnecessary differences, which distance us more from each other than bring us closer together in political discourse.
5. What areas of social or mass organizing are members of Die Plattform engaged in?
Die Plattform: Since our foundation, our view of which movements our members should engage in has changed, which is why we gained experiences first in the climate justice movement and feminist organizing as well as in antifascist groups. Right now, we are mostly engaged in neighborhood and tenant organizing, while some members are also active in the union movement and feminist organizations.
6. What relationship do you have with other Platformist or Especifista anarchist organizations in Europe and beyond?
Die Plattform: Together with many other organizations of our tendency, we founded the International Coordination of Organized Anarchism (ICOA), in which we participate. In Europe, we do have close ties to the Swiss organisation Midada and the Union Communiste Libertaire in France. We try to keep in regular exchange and when possible participate in each other’s events.
7. How has Die Plattform changed in its seven years of existence? What are the main obstacles you have faced and how have you overcome them?
Die Plattform: Die Plattform is constantly changing. From an initiative inside of a synthesist anarchist organization, we became a federation with local groups. In these seven years as a federation, we struggled with internal disagreements, patriarchal and racist behavior that required correcting, as well as with confusion about what terms like “social insertion” mean exactly to us in our reality in Germany, and how to adapt concepts from different places and put them into practice.
Beyond that, we gained a lot of experience organizing as anarchists. We are part of an ongoing process to find out what it means to be an anarchist organization and what our internal processes and structures should look like. Over the last two years, there has been increasing interest in our organization. We have also realized that for real unity, it takes more than just declaring it: it must be created through education, common practice, and long discussions to understand the conditions of our struggle. ■
Anarchist Communist Group (UK)
1. Anarchist Communist Group (ACG) was officially formed in 2018, what was the process of formalizing the organization?
ACG: A significant number of Anarchist Federation (AF) members, including all surviving founding members, collectively resigned from that organisation in December 2017 due to disagreements over the political direction of the AF. These disagreements came to a head over the differences in responses to events at the London Anarchist Bookfair in October of that year.
We disagreed with the statements put out by Edinburgh AF and the ‘Trans Action Faction’. We put forward an alternative statement for discussion which was received with extreme hostility and uncomradely behaviour from a vocal minority. We were no longer able to work in that environment.
The Anarchist Communist Group was established in February 2018. We decided to focus less on what passes for an anarchist movement, but, rather, oriented towards an outward looking, wider working class politics. We were joined by some other former AF members and by some experienced militants as well as some comrades newer to anarchist communism.
2. You claim to pull from a relatively broad tradition of socialist currents, citing both world historic experiences from anarchism and left communism. Could you briefly describe your framework and the important lessons you draw from each current here?
ACG: We are firmly in the tradition of anarchist communism, as developed by Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Malatesta. We stress the importance of having a distinct, specific political organisation that has a clear set of aims and principles both in terms of what we think and how we organise ourselves. We have been heavily influenced by the Organisational Platform of Libertarian Communism with its stress on Theoretical and Tactical Unity and Collective Responsibility that distinguishes it from other anarchist traditions. We reject ‘Big Tent’ anarchism or what historically has been called “synthesist” anarchism. However, we have certain criticisms of the Platform and therefore have adapted its principles accordingly, based on our own analysis and experience.
Our aim is to ensure that there is a balance between guarding against authoritarian tendencies and ensuring an effective, committed organisation.
Certainly, we are influenced by Council Communism, particularly in terms of our critique of trade unionism and syndicalism, as well as in our position on national liberation struggles. However, we would not consider ourselves Council Communists or Left Communists. We are opposed to knee-jerk anti-Marxism but we are resolutely anti-Bolshevik. In terms of the British left we have been influenced by the Solidarity group.
We have also been influenced by struggles against oppression (against patriarchy and for liberation of people of colour) and stress that we cannot have an anarchist communist society unless all hierarchy is abolished. We recognise that these struggles need to be firmly based in revolutionary class politics, but they cannot be reduced to class and may need their own autonomous organisations.
We have also developed our own ideas of the relationship between the anarchist communist organisation and the class struggle. These are set out in our pamphlet Role of the Revolutionary Organisation. One of the key concepts is ‘leadership of ideas’ which stresses the importance of being embedded in the class struggle and offering political strategies and tactics which will further the struggle and develop the self-organisation of the working class, without imposing ourselves physically as leaders. We also recognise that we are also learning from the class, further developing our ideas and practice.
In the past few years we have taken on board many of the ideas of the especifismo current, which stresses the importance of members of the political organisation being firmly embedded in social struggles whilst maintaining the distinct political organisation.
Another area that we have developed, with ideas taken from a variety of our experiences, is how to fully engage members in the organisation. Members need to fully understand our politics when they join, and also be able to contribute to the development of these politics based on their experiences. We therefore have regular educationals and a mentoring system.
3. Has there been other expressions of organized anarchism or left communism in the United Kingdom prior to the creation of your organization?
ACG: Yes, certainly. And there is some continuity with some of the older members who are veterans of the early organised anarchist and Platform influenced groups such as the Organisation of Revolutionary Anarchists, the Anarchist Workers Association, the Libertarian Communist Group and the Anarchist Communist Federation. There have been some other short lived groups who were contemporaries of the Anarchist Federation/Anarchist Federation.
As for Left Communist groups, there have been a two since the 1970s. We have fraternal relations with one of them, the Communist Workers Organisation. As for groups closer to Council Communism, there were a plethora of them in the 1980s and 90s but almost nothing is left of them, in great part due to their tendency towards anti-organisational positions.
4. Since your organization was founded, the UK has, by all appearances, gone through a political crisis, in part stoked by Brexit, in which prime ministers from both the ruling parties can’t maintain their own legitimacy for long. How has this general crisis of legitimacy impacted your organization’s strategy or political activity?
ACG: The political representatives of capital, left and right, have no answers to the problems capitalism’s crisis creates and therefore they are involved in slightly tweaking various parts of the economy whilst continuing to make the working class pay. In these circumstances it might be expected to see an upsurge in combativity on the part of the working class. Other than a brief period of workplace unrest, which never really threatened to go beyond the control of the union leaderships, this has not happened. Likewise, a growth in revolutionary organisations might have been expected but the opposite has happened and the anarchist milieu is probably weaker and more marginal to struggles than at any time in the last 50 years or so. The crisis of legitimacy of the various bourgeois parties has offered opportunities but the organised anarchist forces have not been able to make any significant headway in this period.
We are further hampered by the rise of the right, with racist, and even fascist ideas taking hold of some members of the working class. We do not present a credible alternative at the moment.
We are currently working on developing a Revolutionary Programme, inspired by the work done by the Black Rose Federation. We hope this could provide a focal point for galvanising class struggle anarchists to extend and expand their influence within the working class, offering a vision, strategy and tactics.
5. What areas of social movement organizing does ACG strategically prioritize? In other words, what areas of work are militants of ACG involved in?
We have two main aspects to our work. One is to engage in social struggles, and we have a policy of fighting where we are, whether that’s in the workplace or the community or in a social movement. We have an embryonic network of workplace militants in the Trades Union Congress unions and also in the IWW, trying to build a libertarian communist tendency across the unions in the Health and Education Sectors. We have members involved in the Land Justice movement and local anti-gentrification activity.
We also stress the importance of propaganda work. We are involved in producing a regular bulletin, pamphlets, leaflets, stickers and we do a lot of outreach, literature stalls etc. We are the only anarchist organisation producing a regular bulletin and a theoretical journal, holding public meetings and trying to heighten the profile of anarchist communism in the UK.
6. What is your relationship with other revolutionary groups in the UK? How about outside your country, in Ireland or in the rest of Europe?
In the UK we have attempted to be open and comradely with other groups. We have attempted to develop join activity with other groups in the area of anti-militarism with some success. We are involved in the Network of Anarchist Internationalists and in the UK that involves the Anarcom Network, who we are politically close to, and Organise! the Irish section of the IWA. Our London group works with the Rebel City Anarchist Group. We have sent observers to the recent ‘We are the Eclipse‘ national meeting, which is an attempt by some anarchists to facilitate joint activity amongst libertarians nationally.
We are affiliated to the International Coordination of Organised Anarchism and the European Coordination of Organised Anarchism. ■
Midada (Switzerland)
1. First, what is the meaning of your organization’s name?
Midada: Midada means “Change“ in Romansh, which is a Romance language spoken only by around 60,000 People in a distinct Region in the far East of Switzerland. Nevertheless it is one of the four official languages in our country, beside German, French and Italian. For us, our name signals our fight for an overall change in society while honoring the cultural diversity we encounter in Switzerland.
2. You are one of the newest anarchist communist organizations in the organizational dualist tradition to emerge in Europe in recent years. Can you briefly discuss the process of founding Midada?
Midada: We emerged out of a shared sense of disappointment with the existing anarchist structures in our region (Bern and German-speaking Switzerland in general). Many of us felt that the predominant forms of organization were not adequate for building a serious, lasting movement.
After receiving the founding document of Die Plattform in Germany we became increasingly interested in the Platformist tradition of organization, which offered a framework for unity of theory, tactics, and collective responsibility which we had found lacking in our previous experiences of anarchist organization. At this point, we started an extensive process of discussions and debates about what we wanted to build and how. In this process we got increasingly influenced by the ideas of especifismo, which is why we started engaging in concrete social work in our respective areas already before officially founding the organization.
In looking back now, that practice was not secondary but far more central to how we developed politically. With these experiences behind us, we felt ready in 2024 to hold our founding congress and officially launch our organization. Upon going public we laid the groundwork for our collective work going forward, which remains our biggest focus to date: Coordinating our social work while developing a political school for new militants so that our ideas can spread and our movement can grow.
3. Switzerland has a special place in the history of the anarchist movement: the first congresses of the International Workingmen’s Association (IWA), also called the ‘1st International’, were held in the country. As well, it is where the international split into its state socialist and libertarian socialist factions. All of this in addition to Switzerland being the final resting place of Bakunin himself. How does this local history inform the DNA of your organization?
Midada: We do notice that Anarchism has a big influence on the radical left in Bern compared to other cities in German-speaking Switzerland. In Romandie (French-speaking region) remains a group of Organisation Socialiste Libertaire (OSL), founded in 1983, that was once a federation with a bilingual agitation journal. In the region of Zürich there was also until not so long ago another group from Platformist tradition called Libertäre Aktion Winterthur. Both had an influence early on in our process. Our pre-foundation organization form was called Libertäre Aktion and we used texts translated by this organization too. As for OSL, despite the language barrier, we rapidly found ourselves working together within the grassroots union movement.
On the international level, we benefit today from decades of extensive work from part of OSL since the 80’s (together with other organizations from broader organized anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism like the french AL, the Italian FdCA, the Uruguayan fAu, the Spanish CGT amongst others), which placed Swiss organized anarchism (especially from our current) into a sort of “privileged” position. And of course, Bakunin’s ideas remain very important for us and our political education. This is why we try to uphold the anarchist tradition here in the city as we feel some international responsibility to honor our predecessors.
4. How does the Platform inform the organizational structures and strategy of Midada?
Midada: As already mentioned, our organization is rooted in the Platformist ideas and we still feel deeply connected to the Platformist tradition. The main reason for shifting towards Especifismo was the joining of a comrade who arrived during the discussions on our future program. At that point, Especifismo gave us many new Ideas and it seemed more compelling to us. On one hand we wanted to acknowledge and pay some kind of tribute to the extensive work of our comrades in South America, their practice, their history of course, but also the effort to develop the formulation on the ideological and theoretical levels. And on the other hand, we felt particularly inspired by the trajectory of Especifismo in Latin America in recent decades and fAu’s history since its foundation.
But to be perfectly clear on the matter: we are influenced both by Platformism and by Especifismo and we consider them both different expressions of the same Bakuninist core. But it makes our task somehow easier to adapt Especifismo to our reality because it comes from a more “recent” historical experience than the Platform. To conclude, we are also perfectly aware that our task is to develop an organization and a strategy which are suited for the challenges we encounter in in the region and the times we live in.
5. What areas of mass organizing are members of Midada involved in?
Midada: Most of our members do their social work in grassroots syndicalism. Not out of principle, but as a consequence of our analysis regarding labor and syndicalism in our country, where bureaucracy has developed to such an extent that any combative strategy at mass level is, in our view, impossible to develop within the so-called “main unions”. Our grassroots union might be modest in scale for now, but it offers room to develop a syndicalist practice and strategy. In our region, the movement has existed since the late 90s. Maybe we played a part in the renewal of interest toward syndicalism in recent years, but it is in particular all the day-to-day work and dedication from tens and tens — at the national level hundreds and hundreds — of syndicalists, old, less old and new, that made grassroots syndicalism grow quite spectacularly (or at least well beyond our expectations) in recent years, especially in the German-speaking region. We live in challenging but also quite promising times.
Other militants of Midada are active in the climate/environmental front, embedded in one of the biggest climate justice movements in Switzerland, with local chapters in different regions of the country. It has strong grassroots characteristics and emerged in the international context of ‘Fridays for Future’ in the late 2010s. Our militants in this movement focus their work on connecting the fight for climate justice with the syndicalist movement, out of the analysis that at this convergence lies one of the biggest potentials to build a long-lasting revolutionary influence on society.
6. What is your relationship to other revolutionary groups in Switzerland, whether anarchist or not? What about outside of the country?
Midada: At the beginning of our work we had some formal meetings with other revolutionary organizations which are not part of our tendency. But while educating ourselves and doing social work, we noticed that most of the revolutionary organizations in Switzerland are not attractive for us to work with because they have a different approach in their militant practice. Mostly, it would be contradictory to our goals if we were to work with them publicly or share, to some extent, their style of militancy. That said, there is one organization in Bern called Plattformistische Jugend (Platformist Youth) with which we have a very strong connection. With them we share social fronts and coordinate our work in these spaces through regular joint meetings as well as educational events.
We are also, as already mentioned, quite close to the OSL in Lausanne (French-speaking region). But in general, where we work best with other currents of the broader left is in the social spheres. The experience and practice we accumulated over the last years showed and confirmed that healthy unity, common work, and alliance are strongly rooted in practice and social insertion. Of course, we still have a lot to experience and to learn, but for now this is what we can conclude on the question of relationships with other organizations.
On the international level we are member of the International Coordination of Organized Anarchism (ICOA) and the ECOA at the European level, where we have been collaborating with sister organizations already before publicly founding our organization. This allowed us to learn a lot from our sister organizations all around the world and managed to establish strong connections to the especifist organizations of Latin America as well as our platformist sister organizations in the rest of the world and in our neighboring countries.
7. What have you learned from your early days as a formal political organization? If you were beginning again, would you do anything differently? What are you most proud of related to this process?
Midada: We think our biggest insights regarding organization in a dualist mode have come from our work in the social sphere, which some of us developed only a few years after starting to organize together. This leads us to the conclusion that right from the beginning it is very important that everybody interested in building an Especifista/Platformist organization should be involved in social work, organized and with mass-level orientations (not to be mistaken with the reproduction of disarticulated activism within “class struggle topics”). Otherwise, the theoretical “understanding” risks being misunderstood. It is practice that informs ideology and theory. This knowledge can be gained only by doing the actual work and being present in the social sphere.
Furthermore, we learned that taking small steps together as a collective is much more important than advancing rapidly as an individual and eventually leaving the rest of the organization behind. This brings us to what we are most proud of: being patient in the development of our political organization and thus building something steady and stable. Because while we built our theoretical and tactical unity in a slow and patient process, we observed other organizations and currents come and go, advancing and growing quickly, but then struggling and imploding just as fast. Finally, we hope that with our approach we are able to grow in a healthy way and move forward in the tradition of our Especifista role models in Latin America. ■
Liza (Spain)
1. Liza is a recent addition to the landscape of organized revolutionary forces in Spain. What motivated the formation of the organization? Were you in contact with other anarchist communist organizations already established in your area, such as Batzac and Embat in the region of Catalonia?
Liza: Liza was founded in 2023 as the result of a collective process of reflection and self-criticism regarding the limitations of the previous political cycle. Many of us had participated in various spaces of struggle—the student movement, the labor movement, the housing movement, cultural collectives, or autonomous initiatives—and we shared the feeling that, despite the enormous capacity for mobilization that existed, anarchism had not managed to establish itself within our generation as an organized political force capable of gaining social influence and sustaining a long-term strategy.
Following the cycle initiated by the 15M Movement, we observed how many struggles ended up being absorbed by reformist projects or petering out as the mobilization faded. We also identified recurring problems within the anarchist movement itself: fragmentation, localism, a rejection of political organization, a lack of strategic planning, and, at times, a gap that was too wide between theory and practice. We did not view these limitations as individual failures, but rather as historical problems that had to be addressed collectively.
At the same time, the political context had changed profoundly. The consequences of the crisis from the previous cycle, the international rise of the far right, the worsening living conditions of the working class, and the relative “social peace” prevailing in Europe convinced us that it was necessary to rebuild a revolutionary organization capable of intervening consistently in social conflicts and preparing for future scenarios of greater confrontation.
In this quest, we found in the European platformist tradition a strategic reference point of particular interest to our process of debate. Not because we consider Dielo Truda’s Organizational Platform to be a closed model or a text that must be applied mechanically a century later, but because it addresses some of the fundamental problems that continue to plague anarchism: the need for a specific political organization, theoretical and strategic unity, collective responsibility, and a militant practice capable of intervening continuously in mass movements without supplanting their leading role.
From the outset, we understood that this process could not unfold in isolation. Very soon, we established contact with Embat, whose experience was fundamental during our early stages. Their contributions helped us debate organizational issues, draft our first documents, and better understand the political tradition we were drawing closer to.
Over time, that relationship expanded into a much broader process of coordination with other organized anarchist organizations on the Iberian Peninsula—some that already existed and others that emerged almost alongside our own process—including Batzac, Xesta, and Hedra. Today we maintain stable spaces for joint work, shared political analyses, common campaigns, regular meetings, and projects such as the publication Regeneración and the Teima publishing house, convinced that the reconstruction of organized anarchism also requires rebuilding a shared political culture.
We do not view platformism as an identity or as a movement closed in on itself. We understand it as a strategy for building revolutionary organization, accumulating social power, and contributing to the development of class power capable of challenging capitalism’s hegemony. In this sense, Liza does not aspire merely to build yet another organization, but to be part of a collective process of rebuilding social, class-based, and revolutionary anarchism in our region, learning both from our own history and from the international experiences of our current.
2. As a relatively new organization, what lessons can you share from your early days?
Liza: The main lesson we’ve learned is that building a revolutionary organization requires embracing a timeframe different from that of immediate action; we wanted to break away from acting just for the sake of acting. In a context marked by constant urgency and a militant culture heavily focused on the immediate, it’s tempting to measure political activity solely by the number of mobilizations or initiatives launched in the short term. However, our experience has confirmed that without a solid organization—one with shared goals and the capacity to sustain itself over time—even the most intense struggles end up weakening when the political situation changes, unless we share the tools to analyze reality and chart tactical courses that are useful for the emancipation of our class.
That is why we decided to devote a significant portion of our early efforts to building a firm foundation. Rather than growing rapidly, we preferred to consolidate a common political culture based on theoretical education, strategic debate, and collective responsibility. We have invested a great deal of time in studying the history of the labor movement and anarchism, political economy, philosophy, and the revolutionary experiences of the past, contrasting them with the current political context. We understand that theory is not an academic exercise, but an essential tool for interpreting reality and guiding effective political practice. For this reason, from the very beginning, we sought to engage socially across various political fronts and movements of different orientations.
Another important lesson has been understanding that strategic unity does not mean uniformity or the absence of debate. On the contrary, we believe that a strong organization needs open spaces for discussion, where differences can be resolved collectively until agreements are reached that are then embraced by the entire membership. This combination of democratic deliberation and shared responsibility strengthens internal trust and allows us to act with greater coherence on the various fronts of struggle.
We have also paid special attention to building a healthy organizational culture. Criticism and self-criticism, the rotation of responsibilities, nurturing relationships among members, and the development of internal protocols are not secondary issues, but rather necessary conditions for developing an organization capable of enduring and facing political challenges without reproducing authoritarian or personality-driven dynamics.
Finally, we have learned the importance of not walking this path alone. In fact, it has been almost a year since Liza expanded beyond Madrid, and we now also have a core group in Granada, with contacts and outreach to other cities in Andalusia. Constant exchange with sister organizations, both within our region and in other countries, has allowed us to learn from experiences accumulated over decades, avoid well-known mistakes, and understand that the reconstruction of organized anarchism can only be understood as a collective and internationalist task. No organization starts from scratch; we are all part of a tradition that is enriched by sharing assessments, debates, and lessons learned. That conviction continues to guide our development and is, probably, one of the most valuable lessons we can pass on.
3. There is no doubt that the history of the anarchist movement in Spain is revered, above all, for its expression through the CNT’s anarcho-syndicalism in the early 20th century. Platformism, by comparison, had a relatively minor presence in the country until recently. Why do you think this is, and what drew Liza’s activists to the Platform’s theoretical and organizational framework?
Liza: The history of organized anarchism in Spain was deeply shaped by the development of anarcho-syndicalism. The CNT became one of the largest workers’ organizations in Europe and, for decades, channeled much of the anarchist movement’s organizational, theoretical, and activist efforts. That immense strength meant that many debates about the need for a specifically anarchist political organization took a back seat—either because the union fulfilled that dual function or because forms of “synthesis anarchism” were established.
Anarchism had reached Spain thanks to the IWA, particularly through Giuseppe Fanelli. Fanelli was Bakunin’s delegate to the IWA and conveyed Bakuninist ideas to many activists here. He forged the first networks of anarchist activists and thinkers within the Spanish state.
Anarchism found it easier to take root here than in northern Europe due to the relative weakness of the state. It was a very weak state that, out of necessity, could not concentrate power to the same extent as in the more industrialized countries of Europe. The concept of the state was more diffuse; the peasantry was much more receptive to notions of land collectivization and non-participation in politics than to Marxist ideas such as the industrial army or the conquest of the state.
All of this led anarchism to establish cultural centers, associations, and the like over a period of sixty or more years prior to 1936.
The experience of the FAI is probably the best example of this. Although it shared the concern for giving anarchism greater political cohesion, it did not adhere to the organizational model proposed by the Platform. The FAI was, above all, an umbrella organization that brought together very diverse sensibilities under a common anarchist identity, prioritizing ideological affinity over a fully developed theoretical and strategic unity. That formula responded to specific historical conditions and played a fundamental role, but it also left open many of the debates regarding how to structure a revolutionary organization with a shared strategy and sustained political intervention.
Furthermore, the experiences that inspired platformism also failed to fully take root. Both the revolutionary movement led by Nestor Makhno in Ukraine and the Mexican Magonism spearheaded by Ricardo Flores Magón were defeated before they could realize their full organizational potential. The Platform itself emerged, to a large extent, as a response to those defeats and as an attempt to draw lessons for the future. However, repression, the rise of fascism, and later the Cold War greatly hindered the international continuity of this current, with the exception of the Communist Anarchist Federation of Bulgaria.
Following the Spanish Transition, anarchism began to develop once again in a very different context. During the 1980s and 1990s, currents such as autonomism, insurrectionism, and certain expressions of anarchist counterculture gained significant influence. All of them made important contributions to keeping the resistance alive during a period of retreat for the labor movement and a neoliberal offensive. However, we believe that these trends eventually became the dominant mindset within much of anarchism, prioritizing forms of resistance, experimentation, and local intervention, but pushing the development of an offensive strategy capable of challenging capitalism’s social power into the background. Specific political organization, the accumulation of social power, and strategic planning were issues that were, to a large extent, relegated to the background.
Meanwhile, this line of thought continued to develop with much greater force in Latin America, especially drawing on the experience of the Uruguayan Anarchist Federation and the subsequent development of “especifismo” in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. Paradoxically, many of these ideas were rooted in issues raised by the Platform itself, but they reached Spain several decades later.
What drew Liza to this tradition was not a desire to revive a historical document for the sake of identity, but the fact that many of the questions posed a hundred years ago remain extraordinarily relevant today. How can we build a revolutionary organization capable of enduring beyond cycles of mobilization? How can we combine strategic unity with internal democracy? How can we engage with popular movements without supplanting their leading role? How can we prevent anarchism from fragmenting into a collection of disconnected initiatives?
We do not view platformism as a closed doctrine or as a political identity. We understand it as a strategic tradition that must be constantly updated in light of new historical experiences and a rigorous analysis of contemporary society. Our point of reference is not only the Dielo Truda Platform, but also a century of subsequent revolutionary experiences, from the Spanish Revolution to Latin American especifismo, including debates on hegemony, social reproduction, feminism, political ecology, and popular organizations. We believe that remaining faithful to the spirit of the Platform does not mean literally repeating its formulations, but rather continuing the same exercise undertaken by its authors: critically analyzing the defeats of the revolutionary movement in order to build militant organizations capable of confronting the challenges of the present.
4. Liza has participated, along with other groups, in organizing the “Encuentro Especifista” in 2024 and 2025. What are the objectives of these gatherings? What kinds of topics do they address?
Liza: These meetings stem from a process of rapprochement that several libertarian organizations had been developing for some time. We shared similar assessments of the state of anarchism and social movements in Spain; we wanted to maintain stable bilateral relationships; and we collaborated on joint projects such as Regeneración Libertaria. However, we understood that it was necessary to take a step further and create a regular forum where we could debate collectively, share experiences, and move toward greater political coordination.
The first meeting, held in 2024, had precisely this foundational character. Its main objective was to bring together organizations and activists who shared the same strategic outlook so that we could get to know one another, compare our analyses, and assess the extent to which a common political foundation existed upon which to continue building. It also sought to create a space for training, the exchange of experiences, and the strengthening of personal bonds—something essential for any organizational project that aspires to endure.
A year later, the second meeting reflected the progress made. It was not merely a repeat of the previous one, but rather a confirmation that this process of coordination had matured. During that year, new organizations emerged, permanent spaces for coordination were consolidated, common tools were promoted, and deeper strategic debates began to take shape. For this reason, we moved beyond the name “Encuentro Especifista”, and now refer to it as the “Meeting of Social and Organized Anarchism”—an expression we believe better describes the broad political space we are trying to build and that allows for dialogue with a libertarian tradition broader than organizational labels.
The content of these meetings combines different levels of work. On the one hand, we assess the current situation and analyze the political moment, both at the national and international levels. We also debate strategic issues related to revolutionary organization, the accumulation of social force, engagement with popular movements, political education, communication, internationalism, and the development of new shared tools. In addition, there are spaces for exchanging experiences among the various fronts of action—labor, housing, student, neighborhood, feminist, and anti-fascist—which allow us to learn from the practices developed in each region and enrich our collective work.
This summer we will hold our third meeting in the Basque Country, to which we have invited other organizations to continue our tradition of meeting annually to further weave this cohesion—as organizations, we advance through our joint and coordinated work each political year. We do not view these gatherings as conferences intended to unify organizations, nor as closed spaces for reaffirming identity. Their purpose is much more modest and, at the same time, more ambitious: to build a shared political culture based on fraternal debate, self-criticism, theoretical development, and mutual trust. We understand that the reconstruction of organized anarchism does not depend solely on creating new organizations, but also on generating stable spaces where common strategies, assessments, and perspectives can be developed collectively. In that sense, these meetings represent another step in a much broader process of reconstructing revolutionary anarchism in our region.
5. Which sectors or areas of mass organizing does Liza strategically prioritize?
Liza: Our approach is based on the idea that capitalism organizes exploitation and domination across multiple spheres of social life as a unified whole; therefore, the accumulation of social power must also be built across different fronts of struggle, understood as a unified whole. Our task as a political organization is not to replace these movements, but to strengthen their capacity for self-organization, facilitate their coordination, and help them develop a strategic perspective capable of transcending immediate demands.
Currently, the front to which we devote the most effort is the housing movement. We understand that housing has become one of the main contradictions of Spanish capitalism. The financialization of land, the concentration of property in the hands of large investment funds and real estate companies, rising rents, and the displacement of broad sectors of the working class from their neighborhoods have made this conflict a central issue for the working class.
Our members actively participate in various housing unions and neighborhood organizations in Madrid and Granada. In addition to our day-to-day work addressing evictions, negotiations, and specific conflicts, we have sought to develop our own program rooted in libertarian socialism to strengthen the housing movement. We believe that one of the main challenges is to overcome territorial fragmentation and move toward confederal forms of organization that allow us to strategically confront large landlords and real estate companies. We believe that only through stable coordination will it be possible to build sufficient social force to challenge the current housing model and question the very system of private home ownership.
At the same time, we believe that the limits of the current political cycle have become particularly evident in this area. The so-called progressive government has proven incapable of challenging the interests of large property owners. While it negotiates with the financial sector and keeps private home ownership as a commodity intact, it continues to send police forces to carry out evictions against working-class families. This contradiction reinforces our conviction that lasting solutions will not come from institutional agreements, but from strengthening grassroots organization.
The labor union front constitutes another strategic priority. Our members actively participate in the CNT in Madrid and Granada, while also maintaining a fraternal relationship with Solidaridad Obrera, with whom we have promoted educational initiatives such as a course on political economy from a libertarian socialist perspective. We view unionism as an essential tool for rebuilding the working class’s capacity for organization, although we are aware of the difficulties it faces in the current context. In this regard, one of the projects of which we are most proud has been the consolidation of a united May Day in Madrid, capable of bringing together class-based unionism, social movements, and intersectional groups in a single mobilization. We believe that these kinds of experiences help rebuild a broader political subject and strengthen the possibilities for collective action.
Finally, we are devoting increasing attention to the anti-imperialist and internationalist front. We believe that the current global scenario—marked by rearmament, wars, and competition between imperialist blocs—requires us to reclaim a clear internationalist position from within revolutionary anarchism. We actively participated in the general strike called in solidarity with Palestine—a mobilization that required a significant organizational effort and for which several comrades were disciplined due to their participation in picket lines and demonstrations. We are also part of ongoing initiatives to denounce imperialism and build an anti-imperialist front in Madrid alongside other organizations and unions.
Our position in this area seeks to avoid the two extremes that typically dominate the debate. We unequivocally reject imperialism led by the United States, NATO, and the Western powers, but we also believe that libertarian internationalism cannot translate into uncritical support for other states simply because they are in opposition to those powers. We advocate a third position based on solidarity among peoples, self-determination, and the political autonomy of the working classes in the face of any imperialist bloc.
Alongside these three strategic areas, we are also active in other spaces that we consider fundamental for building social power, such as the movement against Foreigners’ Detention Centers (CIE), where we have helped organize demonstrations in recent years. In the face of the rise of the far right, the tightening of European immigration policies, and the normalization of institutional racism, we believe that the defense of migrants is an inseparable part of any revolutionary and class-based project.
Overall, our approach is to connect these different fronts through a common strategy. We do not view each conflict as an isolated struggle, but rather as expressions of the same system of domination. The goal is for the grassroots organization built in neighborhoods, in the workplace, in the defense of housing, or through internationalist solidarity to converge into a social force capable of challenging capitalism’s hegemony and opening up a horizon for revolutionary transformation.
6. We’re conducting this interview to mark the Platform’s centennial. Are the document and its recommendations still relevant today?
Liza: We believe the best way to answer this question is to avoid both idealizing it and completely dismissing it simply because of the passage of time. The Organizational Platform is neither a sacred text nor a document whose validity must be accepted in its entirety a century after its publication. Nor is it a mere historical anecdote. Its importance lies in having formulated with great clarity a set of strategic problems that the anarchist movement continues to face a hundred years later.
The activists of Dielo Truda wrote from an experience marked by the defeat of the Russian Revolution and by a fundamental question: Why had a movement with such capacity for sacrifice, creativity, and presence in the class struggle been unable to become a decisive political actor? Their answer was to highlight the need to build anarchist organizations with theoretical and strategic unity, collective responsibility, and the capacity to intervene continuously in popular struggles. We believe these questions remain fully relevant today. We, too, continue to debate how to avoid fragmentation, how to build a common strategy, how to relate political organization to mass movements, and how to build social power without ever supplanting the initiative of the oppressed class.
At the same time, it would be a mistake to turn the Platform into a finished program. It is a document written under very specific historical circumstances, prior to the Spanish Revolution, the development of Latin American “especifismo,” the anti-colonial struggles, contemporary feminism, the ecological crisis, and the transformations capitalism has undergone over the last century. Its authors could not address problems that did not yet exist or were only just beginning to emerge. If we wish to keep that tradition alive, we must also take on the obligation to constantly expand and revise it in light of the practice of these struggles.
We also believe that the Platform itself has certain limitations. It was drafted at a time of enormous political urgency, which explains why certain issues are only briefly touched upon. It forcefully articulates organizational principles but offers fewer tools for understanding the workings of capitalism, the construction of hegemony, social reproduction, or the complex relationship between revolutionary organization and various political subjects. A century of subsequent experiences allows us today to address these issues with much greater depth.
That is why we understand platformism more as a tradition of strategic research than as a closed doctrinal body. The history of libertarian communism itself has greatly enriched that starting point. The Uruguayan Anarchist Federation and Latin American “especifismo” developed concepts such as social insertion and popular power; other experiences contributed reflections on colonialism, patriarchy, ecology, and the transformations of labor. Even the defeats of the labor movement and the new forms of organization that have emerged in recent decades are part of that collective heritage from which we continue to learn. Our task is not to choose between the Platform and subsequent contributions, but to critically integrate them into a revolutionary strategy adapted to our times.
Here in Europe, too, we believe it is necessary to engage in an exercise in historical humility. For far too long, the European anarchist movement tended to view itself as the center of anarchist theoretical development. However, many of the most fruitful contributions of recent decades have emerged from Latin America, where “especifista” organizations kept strategic reflection alive while other concerns predominated in much of Europe. Similarly, the experiences of Kurdistan, various African struggles, and other processes of popular and labor resistance in Southeast Asia have much to contribute to a truly internationalist tradition.
Commemorating the centennial of the Platform should serve precisely to strengthen that international dialogue—not to construct a new orthodoxy, but to continue doing what its authors did a hundred years ago: critically analyzing our defeats, learning from the experiences of diverse struggles, and equipping anarchism with the organizational tools it needs to intervene in the conflicts of our time. Remaining faithful to Dielo Truda does not mean repeating its answers, but rather keeping alive the will to formulate our own collectively. ■
Embat (Catalonia)
1. Embat emerged as a preliminary project in 2013 and took a number of years to cohere as a formal organization. What can you tell us about this process? Was it a deliberate choice to move slowly?
Embat: The Procés Embat (‘Embat’ means the wave of the sea crashing against the rock) was born in 2013 as a discussion and debate process aimed at the libertarian movement of Catalonia. We did not consider ourselves an organization until 2015. During those two years we worked on the militant culture necessary to form the organization. We also worked on spreading social and organized anarchism as a necessary concept to shape that kind of organization. Therefore, we can say it was a deliberate choice.
The Process consisted of various conferences and meetings in several spaces of the anarchist movement. In these places we connected with those people who sympathized with our ideas or organizational proposals, and some joined our organization.
Given the lack of a specifically anarchist organizational tradition in our land, we also needed some time to learn how organizations work.
Paradoxically, Catalonia, one of the territories in the world with the largest number of anarchists, almost completely lacked libertarian organizations, beyond anarcho-syndicalism. In the period 2007–2011, the limits of informal and anti-organization anarchism became apparent, and anarchist militants were looking for other references. We found them in previous organizational attempts (such as Alternativa Libertaria of 1999 and Red Libertaria Apoyo Mutuo of 2002) and in Latin American anarchism of the especifista type, or in the anarkismo.net network.
2. The anarchist movement in Catalonia is most famous historically for its expression through the anarcho-syndicalism of the CNT in the early 20th century. Though a kind of rudimentary organizational dualism existed with the FAI, the specific tenets of Dielo Truda’s Platform did not seem to have an impact on the anarchist movement in Catalonia, or elsewhere in territories claimed by the Spanish state, until recently. What accounts for this?
That’s right. Organizational dualism in Catalonia has always revolved around the FAI. However, as a synthesis anarchist organization, within the FAI there have been groups or currents favorable to our tendency. The exception to this lack of interest towards our tendency was the Agrupación Los Amigos de Durruti (Friends of Durruti), born in 1937 amid the revolutionary struggle, in response to the predominance of the collaborationist stance within the FAI. But they appeared too late and their organizational work didn’t last.
In the 1970s, there were various very diffuse organizational expressions of anarcho-communist tendencies: the Organización Libertaria de Trabajadores (Libertarian Workers’ Organization), the Movimiento Comunista Libertario (Libertarian Communist Movement), the Grupos Obreros Autónomos (Autonomous Workers’ Groups) and some others, or the Comunas Revolucionarias de Acción Socialista (Revolutionary Communes for Socialist Action) in Asturias, and Askatasuna in the Basque Country. These kind of groups oscillated between anarchosyndicalism and libertarian Marxism or autonomism, as they were likely unaware of the theoretical foundations of anarcho-communism, which at that time was developing with some strenght in France or Italy, for example.
The first organization that fell within our current was the Federació Anarquista Comunista Catalana (FACC – Anarcho-Communist Federation of Catalonia), born in 1981. Some of its members came to know the Platform and spread it in our territory, but that organization did not survived the 80s and some created the short-lived Federació Anarquista-Comunista Llibertària (FACL). The following attempts (Alternativa Libertaria and Apoyo Mutuo) could be considered within anarcho-communism, but still in a very loose way.
Until our founding, all federations, networks, and libertarian coordinating bodies were synthesis-based. Even the libertarian groups, collectives, or anarchist squats and athenaeums were synthesis-based. No particular tendency predominated beyond ‘anarchism’. In most cases it was social anarchism or libertarian socialism, but in others individualist and anti-organization tendencies were evident, which made any lasting organizational effort impossible.
It took years for Embat to be accepted in the libertarian movement, because there were people who did not find it “normal” for anarcho-communist organizations to exist, let alone for them to advocate for popular power, as we did.
3. What areas of mass organizing does Embat participate in? Why are these strategically prioritized?
At this moment we are mainly participating in the housing movement and the union/syndicalist movement. In both cases we have struggle fronts dedicated to coordinating these tasks. At other times we have also been working on other issues, such as the ecosocial transition, the neighborhood movement, the remunicipalization of public services, or the self-determination of Catalonia.
Our fronts are work areas of the organization that try to bring the organization’s program and strategies to other mass struggles and organizations, connecting with those people closest to our ideas who are already working in them. However, in our case, we do not start any struggle in which we do not already have militants working there. We consider that the social insertion of our membership is very important. But this insertion must be real and verifiable. We do not accept people who are not already active somewhere.
4. How does Dielo Truda’s Platform inform your organizational structures, strategy, or approach?
The Dielo Truda Platform was one of the documents we had as references. We do not consider ourselves a “platformist” organization, but rather we identify with the debates that gave rise to the Platform and that derived from the document. Therefore we are in the same political tradition. We define ourselves as a cadre organization of libertarian socialists, whose goal is libertarian communism, and we have especifismo as our method of revolutionary organization. And so that people outside the movement understand us, we define ourselves within the tendency of “social and organized anarchism.”
We use the Platform as the theoretical basis to emphasize the need for theoretical unity, strategic unity, collective responsibility, and federalism, which were the essential organizational points of Dielo Truda’s program.
5. What relations do you maintain with anarchist communist organizations in your region, continent, and on a global scale?
Embat: Our goal is to relate to all anarcho-communist organizations that emerge in our region. For example, we maintain relations and coordination with Batzac, Joventut Llibertària de Catalunya; Liza, Plataforma Anarquista Organizativa (Madrid and Granada); Hedra, anarchist organization of Alicante; Xesta, Organización Anarquista Galega; and all others that arise in our state.
Embat is part of the International Coordination of Organized Anarchism (ICOA) and within it also of the European coordination. Therefore we share tendency with many anarcho-communist or platformist organizations and hope that soon there will be many more in new places.
We encourage all people who want to see a free and socialist world to join this type of organization or to form them in their cities and territories. We understand that anarchism is one of the best forms of liberation for humanity and the planet, but for it to grow and triumph, organization is necessary.
Enjoying this series? Stay tuned for the final volume covering groups in Asia and Oceania.