A-Infos (en) The Old and New in Anarchism (fr)

[Platformist Anarchism <platform@geocities.com>]

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The Old and New in Anarchism was written as part of the 
debate around the Organisational Platform of the 
Libertarian Communists between Malatesta and the 
authors of this document.  This article has just been 
translated into English for the first time, its also on 
the web with other historical articles at
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/history_texts.html

The Platform and Malatesta's response to it can be found at
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/debate.html

The Old and New in Anarchism
(Reply to comrade Malatesta)
    by Piotr Arshinov

Translators introduction

Malatesta wrote a reply to the Organisational Platform 
of the Libertarian Communists whilst under house arrest 
in fascist Italy. It appeared in the Swiss anarchist 
paper Le Reveil and then as a pamphlet in Paris. One of 
the authors of the Platform, Piotr Arshinov, replied to 
Malatesta's criticisms in the paper set up by him and 
Nestor Makhno in Paris, Dielo Trouda. Equally, Makhno 
sent a long letter to Malatesta , stating that a 
misunderstanding of the text by Malatesta must have led 
to their disagreement. Malatesta did not get this 
letter for over a year, and replied as soon as he 
could. He still expressed disagreement with the 
Platform, opposing moral responsibility to collective 
responsibility, and criticising the Executive Committee 
mentioned in the Platform as "a government in good and 
due form". Makhno replied a second time (see my 
translation of excerpts of this letter in 
correspondence in Freedom 18 November 1995). Malatesta 
appears to have conceded that it was a question of 
words, because if it collective responsibility meant " 
the accord and solidarity which must exist between the 
members of an association... we will be close to 
understanding each other". Isolation due to house 
arrest and a problem of language may have contributed 
to these disagreements between Malatesta and the 
Platformists. Arshinov's reply to Malatesta which I 
have translated from the French, is its first 
appearance in the English language.

I have taken the liberty of translating "masses 
ouvrieres" as " working masses". In the past this 
phrase has often been translated as "toiling masses", 
which I feel to be somewhat passe. Whatever, Russian 
anarchists meant by this the industrial working class 
and the majority of the peasantry which they felt must 
have unity of action and aims.

Nick Heath

--------------

The Old and New in Anarchism

In the anarchist organ Le Reveil of Geneva, in the form 
of a leaflet, comrade Errico Malatesta has published a 
critical article on the project of the Organisational 
platform edited by the Group of Russian Anarchists 
Abroad.

This article has provoked perplexity and regret in us. 
We very much expected, and we still expect, that the 
idea of organised anarchism would meet an obstinate 
resistance among the partisans of chaos, so numerous in 
the anarchist milieu, because that idea obliges all 
anarchists who participate in the movement to be 
responsible and poses the notions of duty and 
constancy. For up to now the favourite principle in 
which most anarchists are educated can be explained by 
the following axiom: "I do what I want, I take account 
of nothing". It is very natural that anarchists of this 
species, impregnated by such principles, are violently 
hostile to all ideas of organised anarchism and of 
collective responsibility.

Comrade Malatesta is foreign to this principle, and it 
is for this reason that his text provokes this reaction 
in us. Perplexity, because he is a veteran of 
international anarchism, and if he has not grasped the 
spirit of the Platform, its vital character and its 
topicality, which derives from the requirements of our 
revolutionary epoch. Regret, because, to be faithful to 
the dogma inherent in the cult of individuality, he has 
put himself against (let us hope this is only 
temporary) the work which appears as an indispensable 
stage in the extension and external development of the 
anarchist movement.

Right at the start of his article, Malatesta says that 
he shares a number of theses of the Platform or even 
backs them up by the ideas he expounds. He would agree 
in noting that the anarchists did not and do not have 
influence on social and political events, because of a 
lack of serious and active organisation.

The principles taken up by comrade Malatesta correspond 
to the principal positions of the Platform. One would 
have expected that he would have as equally examined, 
understood and accepted a number of other principles 
developed in our project, because there is a link of 
coherence and logic between all the theses of the 
Platform. However, Malatesta goes on to explain in a 
trenchant manner his difference of opinion with the 
Platform. He asks whether the General Union of 
Anarchists projected by the Platform can resolve the 
problem of the education of the working masses. He 
replies in the negative. He gives as reason the 
pretended authoritarian character of the Union, which 
according to him, would develop the idea of submission 
to directors and leaders.

On what basis can such a serious accusation repose? It 
is in the idea of collective responsibility, 
recommended by the Platform,that he sees the principal 
reason for formulating such an accusation. He cannot 
admit the principle that the entire Union would be 
responsible for every member, and that inversely each 
member would be responsible for the political line of 
all the Union. This signifies that Malatesta does not 
precisely accept the principle of organisation which 
appears to us to be the most essential, in order that 
the anarchist movement can continue to develop.

Nowhere up to here has the anarchist movement attained 
the stage of a popular organised movement as such. Not 
in the least does the cause of this reside in objective 
conditions, for example because the working masses do 
not understand anarchism or are not interested in it 
outside of revolutionary periods;no, the cause of the 
weakness of the anarchist movement resides essentially 
in the anarchists themselves. Not one time yet have 
they attempted to carry on in an organised manner 
either the propaganda of their ideas or their practical 
activity among the working masses.

If that appears strange to comrade Malatesta, we 
strongly affirm that the activity of the most active 
anarchists-which includes himself-assume, by necessity, 
an individualist character; even if this activity is 
distinguished by a high personal responsibility, it 
concerns only an individual and not an organisation. In 
the past, when our movement was just being born as a 
national or international movement, it could not be 
otherwise; the first stones of the mass anarchist 
movement had to be laid; an appeal had to be launched 
to the working masses to invite them to engage in the 
anarchist way of struggle. That was necessary, even if 
it was only the work of isolated individuals with 
limited means. These militants of anarchism fulfilled 
their mission; they attracted the most active workers 
towards anarchist ideas. However, that was only half of 
the job.. At the moment where the number of anarchist 
elements coming from the working masses increased 
considerably, it became impossible to restrict oneself 
to carrying on an isolated propaganda and practice, 
individually or in scattered groups. To continue this 
would be like running on the spot. We have to go beyond 
so as not to be left behind. The general decadence of 
the anarchist movement is exactly explained thus: we 
have accomplished the first step without going further.

This second step consisted and still consists in the 
grouping of anarchist elements, coming from the working 
masses, in an active collective capable of leading the 
organised struggle of the workers with the aim of 
realising the anarchist ideas.

The question for anarchists of all countries is the 
following: can our movement content itself with 
subsisting on the base of old forms of organisation, of 
local groups having no organic link between them, and 
each acting on their side according to its particular 
ideology and particular practice? Or, just fancy, must 
our movement have recourse to new forms of organisation 
which will help it develop and root it amongst the 
broad masses of workers?

The experience of the last 20 years, and more 
particularly that of the two Russian revolutions-1905 
and 1917-19- suggests to us the reply to this question 
better than all the "theoretical considerations".

During the Russian Revolution, the working masses were 
won to anarchist ideas; nevertheless anarchism, as an 
organised movement suffered a complete setback .whilst 
from the beginning of the revolution, we were at the 
most advanced positions of struggle, from the beginning 
of the constructive phase we found ourselves 
irremediably apart from the said constructive phase, 
and consequently outside the masses. This was not pure 
chance: such an attitude inevitably flowed from our own 
impotence, as much from an organisational point of view 
as from our ideological confusion.

This setback was caused by the fact that, throughout 
the revolution,the anarchists did not know how to put 
over their social and political programme and only 
approached the masses with a fragmented and 
contradictory propaganda; we had no stable 
organisation. Our movement was represented by 
organisations of encounter, springing up here, 
springing up there, not seeking what they wanted in a 
firm fashion, and which most often vanished at the end 
of a little time without leaving a trace. It would be 
desperately naive and stupid to believe that workers 
could support and participate in such "organisations", 
from the moment of the social struggle and communist 
construction.

We have taken the habit of attributing the defeat of 
the anarchist movement of 1917-19 in Russia to the 
statist repression of the Bolshevik Party; this is a 
big mistake. The Bolshevik repression impeded the 
extension of the anarchist movement during the 
revolutionbut it wasn't the only obstacle. It's rather 
the internal impotence of the movement itself which was 
one of the principal causes of this defeat, an 
impotence proceeding from the vagueness and indecision 
which characterised different political affirmations 
concerning organisation and tactics.

Anarchism had no firm and concrete opinion on the 
essential problems of the social revolution; an opinion 
indispensable to satisfy the seeking after of the 
masses who created the revolution. The anarchists 
praised the communist principle of:" From each 
according to his abilities, to each according to his 
needs" but they never concerned themselves with 
applying this principle to reality, although they 
allowed certain suspect elements to transform this 
great principle into a caricature of anarchism-just 
remember how many con-men benefitted by seizing for 
their personal profit the assets of the collectivity. 
The anarchists talked a lot about revolutionary 
activity of the workers, but they could not help them, 
even in indicating approximately the forms that this 
activity should take; they did not know how to sort out 
the reciprocal relations between the masses and their 
centre of ideological inspiration. They pushed the 
workers to shake off the yoke of Authority, but they 
did not indicate the means of consolidating and 
defending the conquests of the Revolution. They lacked 
clear and precise conceptions , of a programme of 
action on many other problems. It was this that 
distanced them from the activity of the masses and 
condemned them to social and historical impotence. It 
is in this that we must seek the primordial cause of 
their defeat in the Russian revolution.

And we do not doubt that, if the revolution broke out 
in several European countries, anarchists would suffer 
the same defeat because they are no less-if not even 
more so-divided on the plan of ideas and organisation.

The present epoch, when, by millions, workers engaged 
on the battlefield of social struggle, demanded direct 
and precise responses from the anarchists concerning 
this struggle and the communist construction which must 
follow it; it demanded of the same, the , the 
collective responsibility of the anarchists regarding 
these responses and anarchist propaganda in general.If 
they did not assume this responsibility the anarchists 
like anyone else in this case, do not have the right to 
propagandise in an inconsequent manner among the 
working masses, who struggled in agreeing to heavy 
sacrifices and lost numberless victims.

At this level, it it not a question of a game or the 
object of an experiment. That is how, if we do not have 
a General Union of Anarchists, we cannot furnish common 
responses on all those vital questions.

At the start of his article, comrade Malatesta appears 
to salute the idea of the creation of a vast anarchist 
organisation, however, in categorically repudiating 
collective responsibility, he renders impossible the 
realisation of such an organisation. For that will not 
only not be possible if there exists no theoretical and 
organisational agreement, constituting a common 
platform where numerous militants can meet. In the 
measure to which they accept this platform, that must 
be obligatory for all. Those who do not recognise these 
basic principles, cannot become, and besides would 
themselves not want to,become a member of the 
organisation.

In this fashion, this organisation will be the union of 
those who will have a common conception of a 
theoretical, tactical and political line to be 
realised.

Consequently, the practical activity of a member of the 
organisation will be naturally in full harmony with the 
general activity, and inversely the activity of all the 
organisation will not know how to be in contradiction 
with the conscience and activity of each of its 
members, if they accept the programme on which the 
organisation is founded.

It is this that characterises collective 
responsibility: the entire Union is responsible for the 
activity of each member, knowing that they will 
accomplish their political and revolutionary work in 
the political spirit of the Union. At the same time, 
each member is fully responsible for the entire Union, 
seeing that his activity will not be contrary to that 
elaborated by all its members. This does not signify in 
the least any authoritarianism, as comrade Malatesta 
wrongly affirms, it is the expression of a 
conscientious and responsible understanding of militant 
work.

It is obvious that in calling on anarchists to organise 
on the basis of a definite programme, we are not taking 
away as such the right of anarchists of other 
tendencies to organise as they think fit. However, we 
are persuaded that, from the moment that anarchists 
create an important organisation, the hollowness and 
vanity of the traditional organisations will be 
revealed.

The principle of responsibility is understood by 
comrade Malatesta in the sense of a moral 
responsibility of individuals and of groups.This is why 
he only grants to conferences and their resolutions the 
role of a sort of conversation between friends, which 
in sum pronounce only platonic wishes.

This traditional manner of representing the role of 
conferences does not stand up to the test of life. In 
effect, what would be the value of a conference if it 
only had "opinions" and did not charge itself with 
realising them in life? None. In a vast movement, a 
uniquely moral and non-organisational responsibility 
loses all its value.

Let us come to the question concerning majority and 
minority. we think that all discussion on this subject 
is superfluous. In practice, it has been resolved a 
long time ago. Always and everywhere among us, 
practical problems have been resolved by a majority of 
votes. It is completely understandable, because there 
is no other way of resolving these problems inside an 
organisation that wants to act.

in all the objections raised against the Platform, 
there is lacking up to the moment the understanding of 
the most important thesis that it contains; the 
understanding of our approach to the organisational 
problem and to the method of its resolution. In effect, 
an understanding of these is extremely important and 
possesses a decisive significance with the idea of a 
precise appreciation of the Platform and all the 
organisational activity of the Dielo Trouda group.

The only way to move away from chaos and revive the 
anarchist movement is a theoretical and organisational 
clarification of our milieu, leading to a 
differentiation and to the selection of an active core 
of militants, on the basis of a homogeneous theoretical 
and practical programme. It is in this that resides one 
of the principle objectives of our text.

What does our clarification represent and what must it 
lead to ? The absence of a homogeneous general 
programme has always been a very noticeable failing in 
the anarchist movement, and has contributed to making 
it very often very vulnerable, its propaganda not ever 
having been coherent and consistent in relation to the 
ideas professed and the practical principles defended. 
Very much to the contrary, it often happens that what 
is propagated by one group is elsewhere denigrated by 
another group. And that not solely in tactical 
applications, but also in fundamental theses.

Certain people defend such a state of play in saying 
that in such a way is explained the variety of 
anarchist ideas. Well, let us admit it, but what 
interest can this variety represent to the workers?

They struggle and suffer today and now and immediately 
need a precise conception of the revolution, which can 
lead them to their emancipation right away; they don't 
need an abstract conception, but a living conception, 
real , elaborated and responding to their demands. 
Whilst the anarchists often proposed, in practice, 
numerous contradictory ideas, systems and programmes, 
where the most important was neighbour to the 
insignificant, or just as much again, contradicted each 
other. In such conditions, it is easily understandable 
that anarchism cannot and will not ever in the future, 
impregnate the masses and be one with them, so as to 
inspire its emancipatory movement.

For the masses sense the futility of contradictory 
notions and avoid them instinctively; in spite of this, 
in a revolutionary period, they act and live in a 
libertarian fashion.

To conclude, comrade Malatesta thinks that the success 
of the Bolsheviks in their country stops Russian 
anarchists who have edited the Platform from getting a 
good night's sleep. The error of Malatesta is that he 
does not take account of the extremely important 
circumstances of which the Organisational Platform is 
the product, not solely of the Russian revolution but 
equally of the anarchist movement in this revolution. 
Now, it is impossible not to take account of this 
circumstance so that one can resolve the problem of 
anarchist organisation, of its form and its theoretical 
basis. It is indispensable to look at the place 
occupied by anarchism in the great social upheaval in 
1917. What was the attitude of the insurgent masses 
with regard to anarchism and the anarchists? What did 
they appreciate in them? Why, despite this, did 
anarchism receive a setback in this revolution? What 
lessons are to be drawn? All these questions, and many 
others still, must inevitably put themselves to those 
who tackle the questions raised by the Platform. 
Comrade Malatesta has not done this. He has taken up 
the current problem of organisation in dogmatic 
abstraction.It is pretty incomprehensible for us, who 
have got used to seeing in him, not an ideologue but a 
practician of real and active anarchism. He is content 
to examine in what measure this or that thesis of the 
Platform is or is not in agreement with traditional 
points of view of anarchism, then he refutes them, in 
finding them opposed to those old conceptions. Hecannot 
bring himself to thinking that this might be the 
opposite, that it is precisely these that could be 
erroneous, and that this has necessitated the 
appearance of the Platform. It is thus that can be 
explained all the series of errors and contradictions 
raised above.

Let us note in him a grave neglect; he does not deal at 
all with the theoretical basis, nor with the 
constructive section of the Platform, but uniquely with 
the project of organisation. Our text has not solely 
refuted the idea of the Synthesis, as well as that of 
anarcho-syndicalism as inapplicable and bankrupt, it 
has also advanced the project of a grouping of active 
militants of anarchism on the basis of a more or less 
homogeneous programme. Comrade Malatesta should have 
dwelt with precision on this method; however,he has 
passed over it in silence, as well as the constructive 
section, although his conclusions apparently apply to 
the entirety of the Platform. This gives his article a 
contradictory and unstable character.

Libertarian communism cannot linger in the impasse of 
the past, it must go beyond it, in combatting and 
surmounting its faults. The original aspect of the 
Platform and of the Dielo Trouda group consists 
precisely in that they are strangers to out of date 
dogmas, to ready made ideas, and that, quite the 
contrary, they endeavour to carry on their activity 
starting from real and present facts.This approach 
constitutes the first attempt to fuse anarchism with 
real life and to create an anarchist activity on this 
basis. It is only thus that libertarian communism can 
tear itself free of a superannuated dogma and boost the 
living movement of the masses.

Dielo Trouda No.30 May 1928 pages 4-11.

Translated by Nick Heath (Anarchist Communist 
Federation)

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