The FdCA are a Platformist group from Italy. A while ago Todd put me onto the FdCA, I believe via our friend Adam. I’ve been reading a bit of their stuff. These are my questions on two of their documents, “The Political Organization” and “Anarchist Communists and the Mass Organization,” both of which I generally am favorable toward but don’t feel in lock-step with.
I agree with the FdCA when they write (in “the Political Organization”) that “The organization of the proletariat is (…) an essential premise for its emancipation (…) because in any situation of struggle, the tasks of class-struggle militants (…) must be designed to reach the same result, both at the level of immediate objectives and on a more general and comprehensive level” if they are to be effective.
The FdCA specify that the class struggle is not “a collection of organizations for struggle produced by the situation of the class which work towards a common goal by reason of need” and they warn again “confusing the proletariat’s immediate needs (which are the basis of every struggle) and its real needs, which are the basis of the class struggle.”
I’m not sure about this, as I tend to see the class struggle as precisely this collection. I can see good reasons for making this point, though. First, if the class struggle is not just organizations then pre- and proto-organizational activity (individual and small group actions as well as so-called spontaneity - I agree with Sergio Bologna that spontaneity is just micro-organization, occurring very rapidly) are part of the class struggle. Second, the immediate organs of struggle - the union, the unemployed group, the tenant organization, etc - aren’t sufficient to take the struggle beyond the immediate concerns. That’s the real heart of the matter. That sounds reasonable to me, but it also sounds reasonable to me to say that these organizations can go beyond the immediate issues and struggles. I’m out to lunch on this. That may be my current disagreement with platformism insofar as I (mis?)understand it. I’m not convinced that a specific political organization is necessary. I do think it’s useful and can do some good, so this is not a major disagreement. I think that so-called ‘mass work’ should be prioritized and I worry that overemphasis on political organization can take time from mass work.
That is, I think the following makes a good deal of sense but I’m not sure it’s necessary as opposed to merely useful:
“[T]here are two levels of organization, which correspond faithfully to two levels of consciousness and of struggle: the “specific” organization and the “mass” organization. The specific organization, or party, unites those class-struggle militants whose consciousness requires a complete, definite vision of all the difficulties of the class struggle, that is to say a precise theory and an articulated, concrete historical plan. The members of this organization already exist before the organization comes into being, and do so even without there being an organization. Their coming together to develop and agree their theory represents the first essential step towards the advancement of the class struggle. The specific organization is truly anarchist. It is made up only of Anarchists and is distinguishable from other specific organizations by its characteristic theory, organizational form, historical plan and practices.”
This is true:
“The mass organization, or labour union, unites various categories of workers on the immediate basis of survival and on the basis of the need to improve their living conditions.”
I like this:
“The labour union does not require a complete vision of the more general class struggle, only a practical capacity and a desire to fight capital.”
But I think that vision can exist within the mass organization and can be useful to the mass organization. I don’t think the FdCA disagree.
I’m not sure about this:
“Within the union, ideology is a factor in the struggles but only to the extent that class-struggle militants, who are members of the specific organizations and (being proletarians) also of the mass organization, bring their with them into the union. The members of the mass organization are all those among the proletariat who understand that it is only by force and not through prayer that improved living conditions can be obtained.”
There are workers who are self-educated and who are collectively informally (self-)educated into a class struggle perspective, the specific organization are not the only source for this. Presumably pushing correct perspectives within the mass organization is a goal worth having and improves the mass organization.
I don’t know about this either:
“the mass organization is not, and cannot be, Anarchist”. First, there might be anarchist mass organizations. Second, this seems to be posed as a limit to the mass organization. I don’t know that it is even if it were true. The mass organization might be indifferent to or pluralist about ideology (with different ranges, admitting people without a class struggle perspective or admitting different class struggle perspectives etc). Also, it’s not clear to me what role the particular consciousness and ideological affiliation has. Being self-consciously anarchist doesn’t ensure good practice and lack of said self conscious perspective doesn’t ensure bad practice. The goal should always be correct practice, first, and correct consciousness second. The latter should follow from the former if proper structures and processes exist, and the latter without the former isn’t worth much anyway. (The former without the latter is worth more.)
The FdCA write that “The specific organization, or party, unites those class-struggle militants whose consciousness requires a complete, definite vision of all the difficulties of the class struggle, that is to say a precise theory and an articulated, concrete historical plan.” That’s a fair description. It seems to me that that need, though, of those people who need the complete vision, might be a limit on the part of those people rather than a strength. Some people begin to act as members of the class (for the class?) without this comprehensive vision. That seems to me as much a strength as a weakness, or more.
Also, I have a knee-jerk reaction to the term ‘party’ and am surprised to see anarchists use it. “[T]he Anarchist concept (…) considers the party as an integral part of the class, that part of the class which is conscious of the historical role of the proletariat.”
*
“Mass organizations” lack “clarity regarding the final goal that the political organization can have, though they potentially have the same goal as the political organization.” This isn’t clear to me. Is mass organization any large organization of struggle which lacks this clarity, such that organization X might attain this clarity and therefore cease to be a mass organization? Or is it that if organization X is a mass organization then organization X will not and can not attain this clarity? It seems to me that mass organizations often lack this clarity and don’t need it for their tasks, at least their immediate ones, but I don’t see why this clarity is barred from being achieved. Building this clarity is an important task.
The FdCA reject what they call inter-classism and Leninism. “Inter-classism is the belief that mass organizations [should] recognize the State as being unbiased and representing the entire people, the essence of the (purely economic) categories which distinguish one citizen from another. This means that the mass organizations exist for the economic defence of any category of citizens, and therefore can participate in the economic planning of society but without questioning the State or its decisions - the workers and the proletariat can only defend themselves, they cannot change the current economic situation or engage in political practices which alter the politics of the State. Consequently, this type of union is excluded from all political decisions and thereby implies acceptance of the system. The clearest examples of this are the unions which are inspired by political forces close to the dominant classes in countries with classical capitalist systems.
Lenininist-inspired political theories, on the other hand, cannot conceive of the existence of mass organizations which are not explicitly political - thereby seemingly the opposite of inter-classism. In fact, not only do these theories impose politics on the mass organizations, they impose the politics of the dominant class or its party. It derives that the masses can only engage in political activity within the political organization and that the mass organization must follow this political line. This characteristic is also known as “trade-unionism”. Both inter-classism and Leninism converge on one point: the fate of the mass organization is decided and, if necessary, imposed from without.
The result is economicism: the forcing of the historical interests of the proletariat which is only allowed to occupy itself with economic maters. But since it is patently absurd for someone to be concerned with the money they receive without also being concerned with the why’s and wherefore’s that money exists and how it is shared around, there exists behind economicism an explicit or implicit political imposition. In its turn, this fact makes a mockery of any autonomy in purely economic interests by limiting it politically. The circle is closed: by being forcefully separated from politics, economics simply means political subservience and results in economic subservience.”
Fair enough.
“The proletariat’s mass organizations are, and will continue to be, important historical entities which cannot be ignored. They are different from political organizations and we must not deny this difference, nor relegate them to the role of second-class revolutionary organizations and seek to dominate them. Neither must we reduce our own role to second-class status and submit to the mass organizations. The relationship that we have with mass organizations must be one of a continuous dialectic, representing a real interchange and not limited to a one-way flow. The first essential, but not unique, condition for there to be a real interchange is that both entities be truly autonomous.”
“Many comrades and organizations have in the past committed and continue to commit errors where mass organizations are concerned, even though they may be sincerely libertarian and revolutionary in their outlook. We can divide these errors into two basic types: the first, “spontaneism”, the second “ideologism”. The former includes those ideas where the mass organizations have an automatic ability to completely sustain the revolutionary process. The basis of this idea is that the very capitalist contradictions of any given period can spark off a process of struggle which will be able to create for itself the very political bases upon which a social revolution can be built.”
Why can’t this happen? It seems to me that spontaneism is not a claim that this can happen, but a claim that this will happen. It seems to me that this could well happen but we shouldn’t count on it. That is, we should be methodologically voluntarist (voluntarist in practice) and opposed to methodological spontaneism (which is impractical and quietist) without assuming that the spontaneist simply must be wrong. Spontaneism may end up proving true. If so, voluntarists have wasted their time but the revolution will be much comfort. The thing is that spontaneism is an inadequate guide to practice.
“the second type of error (…) is in effect the opposite of the first and (…) states that only anarchists can fight as revolutionary proletarians and that therefore the only correct form of union is one which is made up of people who are fully conscious of the libertarian social revolution.
This conception generates isolationist positions and sterile vanguardism. The isolation derives from the pure and simple fact that it has never been the case that the proletariat has first become communist anarchist before it can move against capital and weaken it, attack it and (at times) propose a libertarian alternative. To wait for this situation, therefore, means condemning oneself to isolation. Clearly, in this way there is a great risk of becoming vanguardist: the logical reaction of those who have isolated themselves from the masses, expecting to model them in their image. It is not by chance that “spontaneism” and “ideologism”, though declaring an enormous interest in mass organizations, both end up crushing the life out of these very same mass organizations by forcing them into roles which are imposed on them from without. Spontaneism holds that all manifestations and events which are fundamental for the revolutionary process (ie. which are naturally connected to the problem of revolution) are revolutionary in themselves. Ideologism on the other hand expects these manifestations and events to proclaim themselves revolutionary even before the need for them is autonomously established, gradually and through practice. Spontaneism stops the problem of the consolidation of the revolutionary consciousness of the mass organizations from being confronted in a serious way. Ideologism stops the mass organizations from carrying out the work of uniting the proletariat as exploited, and of their gradual growth through struggle, something which is necessary for the transition to anarchist communism.”
“Many comrades have tried to demonstrate that unions are in themselves reformist or revolutionary” when neither is the case. Fair point.
“Contrary to political organizations, mass organizations are not based on an acquired consciousness nor do they explicitly seek to promote consciousness. They are based on immediate and objective material bases which arouse undeniable physical needs. Consequently, the members of the mass organizations live through the situation they organize themselves for. Their economic role is the basis on which they can come together and, given that exploitation gives rise to all manner of unsatisfied needs (alienation), they come together to satisfy these needs as best they can. ”
I’m not sure. I think that struggle changes people. That is, mass organizations are the site where people acquire class consciousness. Second, this consciousness helps an organization be better at what it does. Therefore it is in the interest of mass organizations (and/or of the members whose interests the organization is an expression of) that its members acquire this consciousness and use it practically. There are contradictions that can exist, a sort of unevenness of interest leading to contradictory interests - leaders who have an interest in preventing consciousness in the ranks which might challenge the leaders etc (monopolists of class consciousness and those who aim to prevent class consciousness lose if the membership gains class consciousness).
“The economic struggle concerns all actions designed to obtain better material conditions for the workers and to manage the economic apparatus after the destruction of central power. Political growth is required to make the workers conscious through the economic struggle, the class struggle”. It seems to me that these are more like functions as they are organizations, and I don’t see why one organization couldn’t have both functions inside it (as part of an internal distribution of functions among members and officers etc, either formal or informal or both, since “economic struggle and political growth are so closely connected that, following the first actions of economic defence which are born from the needs of the current situation united with even a minimum will to defend oneself, they can support and sustain each other reciprocally.” And “we are obliged to consider mass organizations also and above all as a place where the political consciousness of the proletariat can grow. How does this political consciousness grow? We know that there is no automatic device for moving from the defence of labour to a consciousness of the libertarian social revolution. We know too that if one does not suffer exploitation, then it is not possible to begin that process which (starting with the defence of labour) can reach that of revolutionary struggle.”
It seems to me that political organization is a function which could exist within mass organization either formally or informally. (Again not to say a separate formal organization can’t be useful, but I don’t know that it’s a requirement.)
i posted my reply here
Comment by todd — July 17, 2007 @ 11:21 am
hey Todd,
Thanks. I’m posting my reply here for the sake of keeping my notes in one place.
You wrote that
“A mass organization is inherently pluralistic, dynamic, and multifarious. For this reason, mass organizations are not adequate for (i) coordinating activity amongst those of a libertarian creed, (ii) defending against authoritarianism within mass organizations, (iii) and [a certain kind of] conscious political development.”
I’m not sure about this. I mean, in the one sense, yes definitely. On the other hand… a mass organization to be effective must have differentiated structures or functions or organs. The organization will need things like strategizing, formulation of tactics, execution of tactics, administrative planning, administrative execution, etc. Just banal examples - someone might write leaflet text cuz they’re good at and/or excited about that, someone else might do the leaflet layout, and both of them plus others (or just others) would distribute the leaflet. These all count as things done by ‘the mass organization’ just like how the digestion performed in my gastro-intestinal tract and the respiration of my lungs etc etc all count as things done by my body. But the functions are distributed to different sites or actors. I’m not suggesting specialization, just noting that concrete tasks of an organization are almost never done by the organization so much as by subsets of the membership.
I don’t see why the functions you mention couldn’t be carried out by people internal to the mass organization as well. These people could work together informally, analogous to ad hoc leaflet production committees, or more formally like standing newsletter production committees, or somewhere in between like regular ongoing meetings within informal work groups in organizing which do not have a formal (organizationally codified) existence but which are the heart of much workplace activity. All of those functions are internal to a mass organization, I think the defense and development functions - your (ii) and (iii) - could be done the same way. Of course there may be conflicts in this process, not ‘may be’, rather ‘will be.’ But there are conflicts in the workings of other functions too - people fight over leafleft text and layout on up to bigger questions and a specific organization isn’t needed for all of those (though one might still be useful - having the leaflet layout people be part of graphic designer networks or the text writers be part of writing groups could all be very useful, whether these groups are internal to the mass organization or separate). I don’t see why the conflict of the type involved in (ii) and (iii) is of a different order such that another group is _necessary_. (I don’t deny that it could be useful.)
On (iii), I agree with you when you write “that consciousness develops in struggle. But not only in struggle, but also from conscious deliberations with like-minded comrades who you trust, have history with, and share a common framework and work with. I think that this dynamic between consciousness through group reflection and mass struggle is one that is jointly necessary. That being said in the end the struggles must be prioritized and the political organization and work is subordinate to that work.”
This too I think could be done inside a mass organization and are good for the organization. This activity shouldn’t be the main focus of the mass organization, of course. But the same could be said of socials and so on - they can be coordinated internally and are useful for the organization and shouldn’t be it’s main focus. I think political education and reflection is the same way.
Your (i) could be done that way as well if it means ‘coordination within the organization’. Cross organizational coordination may be more complicated but I’m not totally convinced even of that - mass organizations can carry out collaborative campaigns on occasions, like tenant organizations working with workplace organizations, or when two different unions collaborate to organize workers at a large job site or company which involves workers that are in one union’s jurisdiction and workers in another union’s jurisdiction. I do think this point (i) is probably the strongest argument for the utility of an organization which isn’t wholly internal to a mass organization. I don’t know what level of formality is needed for this, though, I think informal networks of relationships might be able to at least some of the same work despite my being partial to formalization.
I agree completely that “specifically anarchist organization” should “be subordinate to the mass organization that it is oriented towards.” That’s all I really mean by ‘internal to’.
As you know, I like this idea: “the anarchist organization ought to be independent from any particular movement, but a federation of collectives that work within movements.” That would be like an organization of individuals or groups that are internal or subordinate to other groups. Like the graphic designers group or writers group. The organization’s first priority would to be to support the work of its members in their different locations, like a workshop for formulating ideas and improving practices and making decisions within different locations. And perhaps a common line or propaganda or other activities could emerge out of that, especially if there were common problems coming up.
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — July 17, 2007 @ 12:49 pm
bring on the semantics! if you mean by internal to, is subordinate to, then I agree. But I think what you are calling mass organization is actually a mass organ + political tendencies. So if you have these groups of similar ideology working together on stuff within the mass organ, they are essentially poorly organized (or maybe well organized) political organizations. I would say that is external to but oriented towards (and subordinate to) the mass organ.
Basically I’m making an argument for a form of organizing which is distinct from undifferentiated mass organizing, which has politics that transcends the present state of the mass organ, and which proceeds with tasks distinct from that of the mass organ. That to me is a political organization, though maybe unconventionally so? I know it gets fuzzy because the mass organ then might move with the political organization and the question of how distinct they are is reasonable, but i think i distinguished them enough?
oh man. that was some analytic philosophy. conceptual analysis is definitely in the house.
Comment by todd — July 17, 2007 @ 10:00 pm
heya Todd,
The platform was what I thinking about with this. If the FdCA means some group which is totally inside of/subordinate to another mass organization then I have no disagreement. I don’t see why that should be called another separate or external organization, though, any more than I think the leaflet production committee is a separate aesthetic and production organization, or the member education committee is a separate pedagogical organization, etc.
I don’t think undifferentiated mass organizations really exist. I think that’s a platformist fiction.
The FdCA stuff though seems pretty clearly to NOT mean just a group inside one mass organization, they mean a group which spans more than one mass organization. I’m for that, but I don’t find some of their argument for it convincing. They sound to me like they’re saying that without a link to this type of organization, the political organization with ties to more than one mass organization, then mass organizations have insuperable limits. I find the idea plausible that one mass organization with a group (whatever it’s called I’m talking about here) operating inside it - subordinated to it, with their first loyalty being the mass organization - could be totally sufficient, as opposed to the FdCA stuff which sounds to me like that kind of situation would always be deficient.
later,
Nate
Comment by Nate — July 17, 2007 @ 10:20 pm
here is the malatesta stuff on syndicalism. he’s normally good, but this is the fosterism of anarchism.
i was arguing my own position not the fdca or platform’s.
true mass organizations aren’t undifferentiated. what they are tends to eb pluralistic, diffuse, etc., but with essentially poorly organized political tendencies, networks, and cliques. that’s what i mean by the things you are calling inside actually being political organizations. they are just undefined and not as useful as they could be. i suggest making them more organize, and expanding their scope. does that make sense? i’m struggling with language.
Comment by todd — July 17, 2007 @ 10:45 pm
i thought of another way to put this. So floaties in the IWW could be said to represent a proto-political organization. They have informal phone trees, publish sometimes, coordinate loosely, develop each other, group outside union events, etc.
ASR represents a more well formed group that is similar, just better organized. They have existences constituted by their mother organization, but have some degree of externality and, this is the important point, their work membership and foundations are distinct from the mother organization.
in this sense i’d say the affinity groups that existed in the CNT could also be called political organizations. If they federated even more so. Otherwise I think we couldn’t call the FAI a political organization which it clearly was, and departs from the logic and function of the CNT in isolation.
Comment by todd — July 17, 2007 @ 11:24 pm
I think there’s two issues here. One is how well organized the internal bodies are (the political or proto-political organizations). The other is the character of those bodies in relation to the mass org and other orgs. Re: the first, I don’t see why groups inside mass organizations have to be disorganized. Caucuses or rank and file groups can be highly well organized, just like the other bodies that perform functions (leaflet group etc). The second thing is whether or not the group is just made up of members of the mass organization (and has no other agenda, so not entryist and not dual card etc). I think two factors are independent of each other.
g’nite,
Nate
Comment by Nate — July 18, 2007 @ 2:25 am