From Workers Solidarity Newspaper of the Workers

Solidarity Movementwww.wsm.ie/c/workers-solidarity-34-1992

www.wsm.ie

The Alternatives No. 1- Parliament -

No other political groups organise in this way. Any par-liamentary party is run on a hierarchical structure. Thehigher you are the more control you have. Real deci-sions are made by the elected TD’s over the heads ofthe members and the most important decision are madeby the leader of the party and a couple of cronies.

Their way of organising reflects their politics of “leaveit all to us” They encourage people to allow the biggerdecisions that effect their lives to be made by the smallelite of the ruling class. We are told to have faith in peo-ple who we are told know better than us.

The Alternatives No. 2- Lenin -

A similar method of organisation is used by Leninistorganisations. Based on their failed tactic of “leading”the working class to socialism they develop a ruling elitewithin their organisations. Leninists do not believe thatthe working class can develop political ideas. So, in-stead, a Leninist party must provide the leadership andthe working class will follow. They see themselves as‘shepherds leading the sheep’.

Within a Leninist party the future leaders of the work-ing class are bred. Central and Political Committees areelected who are then given the right to make decisionsfor the whole organisation. The ideas and orders there-fore come from the top down.

Central control can go to absurd lengths. One Leninistorganisation in Ireland is controlled from the USA. It hasto have everything checked and agreed by the centralcommittee across the Atlantic. This includes simplepamphlets which have to be printed in the states andmailed over.

This formal leadership does the “intellectual” side ofthe business while the majority are left to selling thepaper and going to branch meetings for their weekly or-ders. In these organisations a leader can be a leader forlife. Look at Lenin, Stalin or Gerry Healey (English Lenin-ist leader) for example.

As far as education goes, most members are broughtup on a diet of their own party literature which limitsthem to a low level of disinformation about other

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people’s ideas. Unless you are being trained for lead-ership there will be very little effort to develop debat-ing or writing skills.

This ties in nicely with their elitist and cynical view ofpolitics. Namely the gaining control of the working classsometime in the future!

Workers’ ControlAs anarchists we are committed to our democratic

ideals. We are members of the WSM because we wantto win the battle of ideas and fight for the control andself-management of society by the working class. Weare in an organisation because we agree on our politics,have more resources as an organisation, are better ableto put across our views and can combine our forces inthe struggle to build an anarchist society.

If you like our ideas we want you to find out moreabout us, and think seriously about joining us. We en-courage everybody to find out more about anarchism,its ideas and its actions.

Thinking about Anarchism

AnarchistOrganisation

The business of the organisation would be decidedat regular conferences of all members. Perspectives onthe future, long and short term, further policies andtactics would be decided and all members bound tothem. The representatives of regions and nationalareas would also be elected and mandated to followthe conference decisions.

In an anarchist organisation all representatives wouldbe mandated and recallable. This means that if theystart doing their own thing as people in positions of re-sponsibility tend to do, they can be removed from thatposition. And nobody would be allowed to remain in animportant position for more than a few years.

For us the position should never become a status sym-bol or a position reserved for ‘senior’ activists. It shouldbetter be seen as a temporary position that everyonecould be expected to do at some time.

But the most crucial aspect of an organisation of an-archists is the internal life of the branch. In order for anorganisation to be truly democratic, education and de-velopment of all members must be encouraged. Peoplemust develop the confidence to speak at packed publicmeetings. The ability to question someone else’s ideasonly comes if you know enough about the subject beingtalked about.

Books must be circulated and read, a library of leftwing books used, articles and policies written by all. Onthe more physical side, all must be willing to do their fairshare of the donkey work. Paper selling and postering,leafletting and picketing. The day to day running of theorganisation must also be well organised; branch meet-ings must be attended, membership dues paid, etc.

The best way to avoid an informal elite is to get every-one stuck in and knowing what is going on. The situationwhere some people do the “intellectual” stuff like writ-ing articles and others do the “manual” stuff like givingout leaflets and yet another section are burnt out anddon’t do anything, must never be allowed. If that doeshappen you can be fairly sure that there is somethingwrong, politically, with such an organisation.

As anarchists we do not believe that we are the PARTYwith the TRUTH. We are quite happy to work with otheranarchist groups as long as there is a basic level ofagreement. So in the “organisation” of anarchists we ex-pect that there would be many ideas, groups and fac-tions, the only condition necessary would be agreementon the aims and policies of the organisation. Factionswould have to support the majority position but wouldhave full access to the internal bulletin and the organi-sation’s journals to argue their ideas.

looks at the lessons of the Russian anarchist movement,its failure to build up a presence within the working classmovement big enough and effective enough to counter-act the tendency of the Bolsheviks and other politicalgroups to substitute themselves for the working class.

The Platform states for example that it is ludicrous tohave an organisation which contains groups that havemutually antagonistic and contradictory definitions ofanarchism. It also says that we need formal agreedstructure covering written policies, the role of officers,the need for membership dues and so on; the sort ofstructures that allow for effective and at the same timelarge democratic organisation. And it says that we musthave fully worked out and agreed policies that we canargue for as an organisation. We need to become a“leadership of ideas”.

These views are in contrast to the anarcho-syndicalistview which is that all that is needed is one massive rev-olutionary union. The problem with this is that peoplewith widely differing views are in the union and so whena crucial decision comes up there will be a split or atleast confusion as to what way to go.

The best example of this is the action of the NationalConfederation of Labour (CNT) in the Spanish revolutionwho, while supporting the revolution of the workingclass of Spain had no plan of what to do. They ended upjoining the government instead of smashing the state,and they did not have any worked out policy of how theworkers could defend themselves from the backstab-bing attacks of the Bolsheviks directed by Stalin.

We call any group that agrees with the basic outlinesof the Platform a “Platformist” organisation.

Structure of an“Anarchist Organisation”

Following the ideas of the platform, we want to buildan anarchist organisation. An “anarchist organisation”would be organised on a branch level. There would be aregional committee composed of delegates from thebranches and there would be a national committee. Theimportant thing about this structure is that control wouldcome from the bottom up and not from the top down.

To join, an individual or group must agree with thepolicies and aims of the “organisation” but once insideall members would be encouraged in a free atmosphereto question and develop these policies.

One of the greatest myths that hasbeen fostered about anarchists is

that we are disorganised. Since the anarchist move-ment first emerged in the International Working Mens’Association in the 1870’s it has developed many trends.Each with its own method of organisation.

From the mass unions of the anarcho-syndicalistswhich today include important unions like the GeneralWorkers Confederation (CGT) and the National Confed-eration of Workers (CNT-AIT) in Spain and the Central Or-ganisation of Swedish Workers (SAC) to the anarchistcommunists in tighter, more closely knit organisations.

In Ireland, the Workers Solidarity Movement is ananarchist communist organisation. The structure of ourorganisation is based on the way we would like to seesociety structured, and the structure of any organisationreflects the politics that that organisation holds.

Firstly, democracy. Any anarchist organisation mustbe based on the principle of true workers’ democracy.

Secondly, the WSM is a platformist organisation.

What is the “Platform”?The Platform or “The Organisational Platform for a

General Union of Anarchists (Draft)” was written by fa-mous anarchists Nestor Makhno, Peter Arshinov, IdaMett and others in 1926, following their experiences inthe Russian and Ukrainian Revolutions.

Despite the fact that there were over 10,000 activeanarchists in Russia in 1917, they were quickly wipedout by the Bolshevik Red Terror. As early as April 1918the anarchist centres in Moscow were attacked. 600 an-archists were arrested and dozens killed.

Not all anarchists were clear about what needed to bedone. A few even went over to the Bolsheviks but othersfought on to defend the gains of the revolution againstwhat they saw was a new developing ruling class. TheMakhnovist movement in the Ukraine and the Kronstadtuprising were the last important battles. By 1921 theanti-authoritarian revolution was dead. This defeat hashad deep and lasting effects on the international work-ers’ movement.

It was the hope of the authors of the platform thatsuch a disaster would not happen again. The platform