Building an anarchist international

ireland / britain | anarchist movement | policy statement

Wednesday November 09, 2005 19:52

by National Conference - WSM

WSM position paper

This is the WSM position paper on 'Building an anarchist international' agreed at the Oct 2005 WSM National Conference. Note the explicit reference to Anarkismo.net at the end

Building an anarchist international

1. Capitalism is an international system. It can not contain itself within national borders. It is organised on an international basis. This is seen in the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, the European Community, the North American Free Trade Agreement and many other organisations and treaties. It is also seen in co-operation between governments in the interests of capitalism as a whole, or of a bloc within capitalism (e.g. the Gulf War).

2. To combat it anarchists need international organisation. There can be no 'anarchism in one country'. Anarchists believe the only way for a revolution to survive is to push it as far as possible. This means not just within the geographical location the revolution started in but internationally as well.

3.While a single country may be the first to move to anarchism it will not be able to survive for long if it remains isolated. The idea of socialism in one country as applied to Ireland would be laughable. The ruling class, both native and foreign, are not democrats who will stand by and allow people to take control of their own lives. They will not only object to losing profits but will also fear the living example of anarchism in action. Trade boycotts, embargos on supplying raw materials, economic sabotage, sealing of borders and outright war will be their answer. An isolated revolution will eventually degenerate both economically due to isolation and politically. The success of anarchism is dependant on it spreading across borders.

4.We aim to form an anarchist international of organisations that hold the same political positions as ourselves. An international where resources can be freely transferred between the constituent organisations. This is a major task but it is vital to making an international revolution.

5. Such an organisation would have agreed policies on major issues such as the role of anarchist organisations, activity within the trade unions and relations with the syndicalists, how to combat racism and fascism, the type of struggle needed to advance the movement for womens' freedom, anti-imperialist conflicts. It would also have an agreed international strategy, the capability of fostering international debate among anarchists and the capability of giving aid to weaker sections or to those engaged in mass struggle.

6. Such an international organisation is more than a loose network of like-minded groups. It is not a paper body. It only has a purpose if it can contribute to the anarchist movement. Therefore it only becomes real when based on a number of sizable organisations. Anything less would need finance, administration, translation, publications, and conferences but would not be capable of making the return necessary to justify this expenditure of resources.

7. In order to reach a situation where an international anarchist-communist organisation can be formed we must start preparing the way now. Our tasks are to:

(1) Establish and maintain contact with other anarchist-communist groups, and tendencies within other organisations moving in the direction of our politics.

(2) Making the politics of both the Workers Solidarity Movement and the 'Platformist' tradition more widely known within the anarchist movement abroad.

(3) Take part in debates within the international anarchist movement with an aim of explaining the policies of the Workers Solidarity Movement, and of getting the various groupings to clarify their political positions. In particular these are the need for theoretical and tactical unity, imperialism and trade unions.

(4) Proposing concrete international co-operation on specific issues where there is agreement between ourselves and other organisations.

8. As we grow we will set up working groups on each country that has an organisation we are in contact with. These groups will be responsible for co-ordinating activity directed at these groups, translating their material and preparing regular reports for conferences and IB's. The international secretary will co-ordinate such work.

9. We will maintain an international solidarity fund to aid anarchist and libertarian communist groups in '3rd world' countries. It will be funded from 5% of members subs, 25% of publication profits and fund-raising activities. Donations of 10% or less of this fund shall be decided on by the International Secretary. Donations above this amount shall be decided on by Delegate Council

Short term section

S1. At a moment we have and will continue to maintain paper exchanges with class struggle anarchists groups around the world. this is a good point to start from but it is not enough.

S2 We will maintain contact with all members who emigrate and encourage them to keep in contact for us.

S3. As none of the current anarchist groups in Britain are moving in our direction or seem likely do so in the future we should have a medium term objective of encouraging contacts in Britain towards setting up an organisation along similar lines to ourselves. When resources permit, this will involve producing a bulletin for Britain and organising meetings over there..

S4. The WSM is in agreement with the Editorial statement of Anarkismo.net which developed out of a previous initiative we took with the South African WSF. The WSM will have a delegate on the Anarkismo.net editorial group who will also be responsible for making sure all relevant WSM material appears on the site. We will contribute 5 euro per member per year to Anarkismo.net from out international solidarity fund.

[Oct 2005 - to be confirmed by Nov 2005 Delegate council meeting]

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Comments (4 of 4)

In Italian

by Andrew - Anarkismo

Tue Nov 15, 2005 17:20

This postion paper is in Italian at

Is there a political element?

by blackgadfly - acephalous society

Tue Dec 06, 2005 21:00

I am concerned with the way that "politics" is being used in the defining characteristics of an international organization of anarcho-communist collectives. One of the most critical factors to anarchist social organizations is that it refrains from popular notions of political struggle. From my understanding, political struggle is of no use to anarchists because for the most part our struggles are socio-economic in origin and practice. Engaging in political struggle is a parliamentary socialist (Marxian-impossibilist) praxis that defines the contending and conflictual relationships within society as a method for the peasant/worker/proletarian collective conscience and insurrectionary action to bequeath political power from the beourgeosie and capitalist classes. Anarchist working class struggle is rooted in the provocation of a social revolution that brings about the disintegration of classes and establishes an apolitical social theory of direct democracy, mutual aid, voluntary association, etc. which repudiates the hierarchical notion of bureaucratic and representative leadership altogether. So, I am struggling with this idea of "sharing politics" among international anarchist organizations. Is our efforts, essentially,a "political" or a "socio-economic" struggle? Isn't the outcome of the First International an example of how anarchists refuted the idea of political struggle and engaging in political discourse to encourage a working class revolution?

In solidarity,

blackgadfly

Very 19thC

by Andrew

Tue Dec 06, 2005 21:43

The anarchist movement in the late 19th and early 20th century did use politics to mean parliamentary politics. However they also called themselves vanguardists and talked of building anarchist parties.

In particular when communicating across the globe it is important to realise that words can mean somewhat different things in different times and places. Discussion that are based on 'this word means blah blah blah' are therefore pretty fruitless and are often a failure of communication. All the more so when you consider many of the articles on this site are translations from on language to another by volunteers.

Rather than addressing the concepts in this paper your worrying about the exact words used. This is pretty pointless as the WSM obviously don't use 'politics' in the way you define it. You'd be better off addressing the concepts.

That is interesting considering...

Wed Dec 07, 2005 05:14

I did not mean to stress importance on the semantics of "this word means blah, blah, blah", rather, I wanted to find out precisely what was meant by the term "sharing politics"-- because within the historical trajectory of socialism the two contending camps of authoritarian and libertarian socialists have never come to agreement on what class struggle is essentially about (whether politico-economic or socio-economic), and that this is a basis for the division among class struggle socialists and class struggle anarchists. I'm not sure why you responded in the manner that you did, when all I was attempting to do is establish some clarity on the concepts and context in which WSM uses the term "sharing politics" Also, the concepts constructed in this article is nothing new to international anarcho-communist organization. In fact, much of it is modeled after the original "Platform" introduced by disillusioned "workers cause" revolutionaries following the Bolshevik take-over of the 1917 Russian revolution. Are there any new contributions to be shared that would introduce a tactical construction on how we plan to reorganize the capitalist dominated international political economy once the abolition of the wage system, capitalism, the state and all other social and cultural hierarchies has taken place? These are the concepts that should be debated upon in deliberative discourse, not the reiteration of concepts decided upon nearly a century ago!!

Respectfully,

blackgadfly

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