CITY BABY
Well-Known Member
WARNING - POLITICAL NERD ALERT!!!
The platform referred to is not a general idea of having an organisation and a set of principles but a specific document - the Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists (Proposed) by Makhno, Arshinov, Mett, Valevsky and Linsky, written in 1926 by a group of exiles from Russia who had lost the civil war against the Bolsheviks and were trying to figure out ways to stop it from happening again in the future. Not necessarily a bad idea, but their proposal was the formation of a monolithic General Union of Anarchists, a centralized member based organization to try and out-Bolshevikize the Bolsheviks. It demands that members adhere to the discipline of the organizationa and not think or act for themselves, thus gaining a centralized unity of ideas and tactics.
"The practice of operating on one’s individual responsibility must be strictly condemned and rejected within the ranks of the anarchist movement."
As opposed to the far more succesful FAI (Federation of Iberian Anarchists) in Spain in the 30's which was organized from the bottom up, by already existing collectives of friends, neighbours, co-workers etc. forming a federation of free association, the General Union of Anarchists idea would require that all anarchists work towards the building of the GUA and undertake no revolutionary action not authorized by the organisation, ie the creation of a super-structure from the inside outwards (not quite from the top downwards if you get what I'm saying).
"The platform’s task is to assemble all of the healthy elements of the anarchist movement into a single active and continually operating organization, the General Union of Anarchists. All of anarchism's active militants must direct their resources into the creation of this organization."
Imho the platform was written by a group of disillusioned bitter exiles who abandoned all their anarchist principles in an attempt to formulate a revenge on the commies that killed their dreams. It was immediately rejected by almost all the anarchist luminaries of the time including Malatesta, Berkman, Voline and Nettlau among others.
The problem is that whenever i try to have this conversation with people who identify themselves as platformists they repeatedly claim that it isn't like that, that everyone thinks for themselves, has their own opinions on things and position papers and the like are just general ideas on stuff and not party policies or whatever. If that is the case, which i would expect from any people identifying themselves as anarchists, i don't understand the idea behind calling yourself or your group Platformist. The whole document would seem to run counter to any claims of free-thinking, free-acting individuals, which is surely the basis for all anarchist ideas? Is it simply a case that you are not actually basing your ideas on this document, but just using the idea behind it in a totally different way to the authors? Why would you want to identify yourself with a set of ideas that you have fundamental disagreements with? If that is the case, why bother identifying yourself as a platformist at all?
thats it sean get it all out of yer system before ya get in the van ,cause if i hear one word of that egghead shite