Platformism

Anarchists organizing a protest

The Platform describes four key organisational features which distinguish platformism:

• Tactical unity — "A common tactical line in the movement is of decisive importance for the existence of the organisation and the whole movement: it avoids the disastrous effect of several tactics opposing each other; it concentrates the forces of the movement; and gives them a common direction leading to a fixed objective".[8]
• Theoretical unity — "Theory represents the force which directs the activity of persons and organisations along a defined path towards a determined goal. Naturally it should be common to all the persons and organisations adhering to the General Union. All activity by the General Union, both overall and in its details, should be in perfect concord with the theoretical principles professed by the union".[9]
• Collective responsibility — "The practice of acting on one's personal responsibility should be decisively condemned and rejected in the ranks of the anarchist movement. The areas of revolutionary life, social and political, are above all profoundly collective by nature. Social revolutionary activity in these areas cannot be based on the personal responsibility of individual militants".[10]
• Federalism — "Against centralism, anarchism has always professed and defended the principle of federalism, which reconciles the independence and initiative of individuals and the organisation with service to the common cause".[11]

Anarchists organizing

The Platform argues that "[w]e have vital need of an organisation which, having attracted most of the participants in the anarchist movement, would establish a common tactical and political line for anarchism and thereby serve as a guide for the whole movement". In short, unity means unity of ideas and actions as opposed to unity on the basis of the anarchist label.

The authors of the Platform insisted that its basic ideas were not new, but had a long anarchist pedigree. Platformism is not therefore a revision away from classical anarchism, or a new approach, but a "restatement" of existing positions.[5]

They cited Peter Kropotkin arguing that "the formation of an anarchist organisation in Russia, far from being prejudicial to the common revolutionary task, on the contrary it is desirable and useful to the very greatest degree" and argued that Mikhail Bakunin's "aspirations concerning organisations, as well as his activity" in the First International, "give us every right to view him as an active partisan of just such an organisation". Indeed, "practically all active anarchist militants fought against all dispersed activity, and desired an anarchist movement welded by unity of ends and means".[12]

The Platform used to be known in English as the Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists, a result of its having been translated from the French edition popularized in the early 1970s. In his book Facing the Enemy: A history of Anarchist Organization from Proudhon to May 1968 (p. 131), Alexandre Skirda attributes much of the controversy about the Platform to the original 1926 French translation made by its opponent Voline. Later translations to French have corrected some of the mistranslations and the latest English translation, made directly from the Russian original, reflects this.

Some platformist organisations today are unhappy with the designation, often preferring to use descriptions such as "anarchist communist", "social anarchist", "libertarian communist/socialist" or even especifist. Most agree that the 1926 Platform was sorely lacking in certain areas and point out that it was a draft document, never intended to be adopted in its original form. The Italian Federation of Anarchist Communists (FdCA), for example, do not insist on the principle of "tactical unity", which according to them is impossible to achieve over a large area, preferring instead "tactical homogeneity".[13]

Part of a series on
Libertarian socialism
Political concepts Anti-authoritarianism Anti-Leninism Anti-Stalinist left Anti-statism Class conflict Classless society Community centre Consensus democracy Commune Decentralization Direct democracy Dual power Egalitarian community Free association Free love Free school General strike Libertarian possibilism Mutual aid Post-leftism Prefigurative politics Proletarian internationalism Refusal of work State capitalism Stateless society Squatting Ultra-leftism Wage slavery Workers' control Workers' council
Economics Anarchist economics Anti-capitalism Anti-consumerism Cooperative Common ownership Common-pool resource Cost the limit of price Decentralized planning Economic democracy Free market Freed market Gift economy Give-away shop Guilds Inclusive Democracy Industrial democracy Laissez-faire Market abolitionism Really Really Free Market Social economy Social enterprise Socialization Socialist economics Use value Worker cooperative
People Albert Andrews Avrich Bakunin Berkman Boggs Bonanno Bookchin Breton Camus Castoriadis Chomsky Czolgosz Dauvé Day Debord Dunayevskaya Durruti Fanelli Federici Ferrer Fotopoulos Fourier Godwin Goldman Goodman Graeber Greene Gorz Guattari Guérin Herzen Heywood (Angela) Heywood (Ezra) Hodgskin Hoffman Holloway James Korsch Kropotkin Landauer Lefort Liebknecht Lorenzo Lubbe Luxemburg Magón Makhno Malatesta Marcos Marcuse Margall Marx Mattick Michel Montseny Morris Negri Öcalan Pallis Pankhurst Pannekoek Parsons (Albert) Parsons (Lucy) Perlman Petrichenko Proudhon Reich Rocker Rühle Sacco Santillán Sartre Spooner Tolstoy Thompson Tucker Vaneigem Vanzetti Varoufakis Ward Warrem Wilde Zerzan Zinn
Philosophies and tendencies Anarchist tendencies Green Primitivism Individualism Egoism Free-market Organisational Insurrectionism Platformism Mutualism Syndicalism Synthesism Philosophical Social Collectivism Communism Magonism Pacifism Religious Christian Muslim Jewish Marxist tendencies Classical Marxism Libertarian Marxism Autonomism Chaulieu–Montal tendency De Leonism Johnson–Forest tendency Left communism Bordigism Communization Council communism Lettrism Situationism Marxist humanism Western Marxism Frankfurt School Freudo-Marxism Other tendencies Cantonalism Communalism Democratic confederalism Dialectical naturalism Libertarian municipalism Social ecology Democratic socialism Eco-socialism Guild socialism Inclusive Democracy Market socialism Left-wing laissez-faire Left-wing market anarchism Neozapatismo New Left Participism Utopian socialism Fourierism
Significant events Diggers Enragés Paris Commune Haymarket affair Assassination of William McKinley Strandzha Commune Russian Revolution Bavarian Soviet Republic German Revolution of 1918–1919 Biennio Rosso Ukrainian War of Independence Left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks (Kronstadt rebellion) Escuela moderna Mexican Revolution Reichstag fire Spanish Revolution of 1936 Uprising of 1953 in East Germany Hungarian Revolution of 1956 May 1968 events in France Prague Spring Left communism in China Hippie movement Autonomia Operaia Chiapas conflict 1999 Seattle WTO protests Argentinazo Occupy movement Kurdish–Turkish conflict (2015 rebellion) Iran–PJAK conflict Rojava conflict
Related topics Anarchism Anarchism and socialism Communism Left-libertarianism Libertarianism Marxism Social democracy Socialism Syndicalism
Anarchism portal  Socialism portal  Politics portal

Today, there are organisations inspired by the Platform in many countries, including:

Country	Name	Acronym	Affiliation	Ref
Argentina	Federación Anarco-Comunista de Argentina	FACA		[14]
Australia	Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group	MACG	Anarkismo
Belarus	Revolutionary Action	RA		[15]
Brazil	Coordenação Anarquista Brasileira	CAB	Anarkismo
Colombia	Grupo Anarquista Bifurcación & Grupo Libertario Via Libre	GAB & GLVL	Anarkismo
France	Union communiste libertaire	UCL	Anarkismo	[16]
Germany	Die Plattform	DP
Greece	Anarchist Federation	AF
Italy	Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici	FdCA	Anarkismo
Ireland	Workers Solidarity Movement	WSM	Anarkismo
New Zealand	Aotearoa Workers’ Solidarity Movement	AWSM
Norway	Motmakt	M	Anarkismo	[17]
Russia	Autonomous Action	AA		[18]
South Africa	Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front	ZACF	Anarkismo	[19]
Switzerland	Libertäre Aktion Winterthur & Organisation Socialiste Libertaire	LAW & OSL	Anarkismo
United Kingdom	Anarchist Communist Group	ACG		[20]
United States	Black Rose Anarchist Federation / Federación Anarquista Rosa Negra & Humboldt Grassroots	BRRN & HG	Anarkismo	[21]
Uruguay	Federación Anarquista Uruguaya	FAU	Anarkismo

Organisations inspired by the Platform were also among the founders of the now-defunct International Libertarian Solidarity network and its successor, the Anarkismo network, which is run collaboratively by roughly 30 platformist and especifista organisations around the world.

As an alternative to platformism Voline and Sébastien Faure proposed synthesist anarchist federations,[23] which they envisioned to form under the principles of anarchism without adjectives.[24]

In place of the Platform's stress on tight political and organisational unity, the "synthesist" approach argued for a far looser organization that would maximise numbers i.e. a big tent approach. Platformists view such organisations as weak despite their numbers as the lack of common views means an inability to undertake common actions—defeating the purpose of a common organisation.[5]

While such criticisms indicated a direct rejection of the Platform's proposals, others seem to have arisen from misunderstandings.

Notably, Malatesta initially believed that the Platform was "typically authoritarian" and "far from helping to bring about the victory of anarchist communism, to which they aspire, could only falsify the anarchist spirit and lead to consequences that go against their intentions".[25]

However, after further correspondence with Makhno—and after seeing a platformist group in formation—Malatesta concluded that he was actually in agreement with the positions of the Platform, but had been confused by the language they had used:

But all this is perhaps only a question of words.

In my reply to Makhno I already said: "It may be that, by the term collective responsibility, you mean the agreement and solidarity that must exist among the members of an association. And if that is so, your expression would, in my opinion, amount to an improper use of language, and therefore, being only a question of words, we would be closer to understanding each other."

And now, reading what the comrades of the 18e say, I find myself more or less in agreement with their way of conceiving the anarchist organisation (being very far from the authoritarian spirit which the "Platform" seemed to reveal) and I confirm my belief that behind the linguistic differences really lie identical positions.[26]