A-Infos (en) Spaine, Regeneration: Platformism and Specifism By Liza (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Two Traditions for the Same Strategic Problem. ---- In the contemporary 
debate of organized anarchism, two terms often appear that are sometimes 
presented as opposing currents: platformism and specifism. However, a 
closer historical look shows that both stem from a common concern: how 
to provide anarchism with political organization, strategic coherence, 
and real engagement in the struggles of the exploited classes. More than 
two opposing worlds, they are two distinct responses-situated in 
different historical contexts-to the same problem.

The Platform and the Problem of Organization

The so-called "Organizational Platform of Libertarian Communists" was 
drafted in 1926 by the Dielo Truda group, formed by Russian anarchist 
militants exiled after the revolutionary defeat and the consolidation of 
Bolshevik power following the Russian Revolution. The text aimed to 
answer a question the authors themselves considered central: why 
anarchism had been unable to intervene effectively in a revolutionary 
process of enormous magnitude.

The answer they proposed was not doctrinal but organizational. The 
Platform advocated the construction of a General Union of Anarchists 
based on several clear principles: theoretical unity, tactical unity, 
collective responsibility, and federalism. For its authors, the main 
problem of anarchism in their time was not a lack of militants or ideas, 
but rather its organizational and strategic fragmentation.

The document immediately sparked intense debate within the international 
anarchist movement. Figures like Volin and Sébastien Faure responded by 
proposing the so-called anarchist synthesis, which sought to unite the 
various currents of anarchism-libertarian communists, 
anarcho-syndicalists, and individualists-within a single organization, 
without demanding a common political line.

The confrontation was bitter, and the attempt to create an international 
network around the Platform ultimately failed. But the debate left a 
lasting mark: it clearly established the problem of a specific anarchist 
political organization, a theme that would reappear decades later in 
other contexts.

The Latin American Experience of Especifismo

Thirty years later, in a very different historical context, the 
Uruguayan Anarchist Federation (FAU) emerged in Uruguay, founded in 
1956. Although it was not born with prior knowledge of the Plataforma's 
experience, the FAU developed an organizational conception with 
important points of contact: the need for a coherent anarchist political 
organization, with a strategy and program, capable of intervening in an 
organized way in social movements.

Based on its experience in the labor, student, and territorial 
movements, the FAU developed a strategic conception that would later be 
known as Especifismo. This tradition subsequently spread to other Latin 
American countries and had a decisive influence on the development of 
organized anarchism in Brazil.

Researchers like Felipe Corrêa, affiliated with the Institute of 
Anarchist Theory and History, have pointed out that both platformism and 
specifism can be understood within the same historical family of 
anarchism: the tradition that defends organizational dualism, that is, 
the existence of a specific anarchist political organization that 
intervenes in social movements without replacing them.

In Brazil, this tradition crystallized in contemporary organizations 
like the Organização Socialismo Libertário (Libertarian Socialism 
Organization), which simultaneously claim the legacy of Latin American 
specifism and classical platformism.

Two experiences that were born without knowing each other

This historical overview allows us to understand something important: 
platformism and specifism did not emerge as rival currents. They arose 
in different eras, on different continents, and in profoundly different 
social contexts. Their similarities lie in the problem they sought to 
solve-the need for political organization-while their differences 
largely stem from the historical conditions in which they developed.

The Platform was a reflection born from the failure of European 
revolutions between the wars. Uruguayan specificism was formed within 
the Latin American context of the second half of the 20th century, 
marked by different social configurations, different traditions of 
struggle, and different political scenarios.

Understanding this is important to avoid a common mistake in the history 
of the left: turning strategies into universal recipes.

Our use of the term platformism

In the case of La Liza, the adoption of the term "platformism" partly 
stems from this concern. On the one hand, there was an intuition that it 
was necessary to recover the experience of the Dielo Truda group and its 
critique of the disorganization within anarchism. On the other hand, it 
seemed problematic to simply adopt the term "specificism"-born in Latin 
America and linked to a specific tradition-and directly apply it to the 
European context.

Over time, a deeper understanding of the Latin American experience has 
reinforced this initial caution. It is not a matter of denying the 
affinities between the two traditions, but rather of recognizing that 
each responds to specific contexts.

Mechoso's Warning

At this point, a reflection by Juan Carlos Mechoso, a long-time member 
of the FAU (Argentine Union Front), is particularly relevant. In an 
interview, he noted that attempts to transfer political models from 
other contexts "in a more or less mechanical way" had been frequent 
within the Latin American left, substituting imported frameworks for 
concrete analysis.

The warning is simple yet profound: there is nothing less strategic than 
copying strategies. Ideas can travel, but they only make sense when 
reinterpreted in relation to the specific social and political 
conditions of each place.

The Problem of People's Power in Europe

One of the clearest examples of these differences appears in the concept 
of People's Power, which occupies a central place in much of Latin 
American sociology.

Generally speaking, People's Power refers to the construction of a 
social power alternative to that of capital and the State, based on the 
self-organization of the exploited and oppressed sectors. In Latin 
America, this idea is often linked to the articulation of different 
social actors: urban workers, peasants, informal workers, indigenous 
communities, residents of working-class neighborhoods, and other 
subaltern sectors.

Under these conditions, the concept can function as a strategic tool to 
guide processes of popular organization and build social blocs capable 
of contesting power.

But the European context is different. In much of Western Europe, the 
social transformations of the last century have produced a much greater 
homogenization of social classes. The peasantry has practically 
disappeared as an autonomous political actor, Indigenous sectors do not 
exist as a social category, and large segments of the population have 
been integrated into the institutions of the welfare state for decades.

In this scenario, the strategic problem is usually something else: 
reminding the working class that it is still the working class, even 
when it perceives itself as middle class.

Social Fragmentation and Hegemony

Another important factor is added to this. In Europe, many contemporary 
interpretations of the concept of People's Power have been influenced by 
autonomist currents or by certain readings of intersectionality applied 
to social movements. The result has often been a proliferation of 
sectoral struggles, fragmented by themes or identities, frequently 
multi-class, and without a clear socialist horizon.

In this context, the concept of People's Power risks functioning not as 
a tool for building revolutionary hegemony, but as a justification for 
heterogeneous and politically indeterminate social fronts.

When the question of class ceases to be central to the analysis, 
struggles tend to be limited to the program of the most integrated or 
privileged sectors within those movements.

It is interesting to note that this question of the limits of People's 
Power in Western contexts is currently an open debate within our 
tradition. Australian Platformist comrades criticize the positions, or 
rather the effects of those positions, of Specifism in the US. And we 
fully share their argument: the use of People's Power in societies like 
those in the West, far from allowing us to build a revolutionary 
subject, condemns us to multi-class fronts where the program is closed 
off by the interests of the most privileged sectors, thus shifting from 
demands for the redistribution of the means of decision-making and 
production to the recognition of difference within the margins of the 
bourgeois system.

Recovering the tradition of struggle in our context

From this perspective, the recovery of the Platform can have a specific 
meaning in Europe today. It is not about literally repeating a document 
written almost a century ago, but about recovering a political tradition 
that placed three fundamental issues at the center: organization, 
strategy and class struggle.

The critique that the militants of Dielo Truda leveled at the anarchism 
of their time-its organizational fragmentation, its lack of strategic 
coherence, and its difficulty in intervening sustainably in the class 
struggle-remains surprisingly relevant today.

Recovering this tradition also allows us to reframe the strategic 
problem in terms of Class Power: the construction of a revolutionary 
hegemony based on the self-organization of the working class and 
oriented toward an anti-capitalist and libertarian communist horizon.

Two traditions, one shared intuition

Platformism and specifism ultimately share a fundamental intuition: 
without specific political organization, no revolutionary strategy is 
possible.

The differences between the two traditions are primarily related to the 
contexts in which they developed and the strategic tools each created to 
intervene within them. Recognizing this should not be a source of 
sterile debate, but rather an opportunity to learn from both experiences.

Ultimately, the strategic question remains the same as that posed by the 
militants of Dielo Truda a century ago and later taken up by Latin 
American anarchists: how to build a revolutionary force today capable of 
intervening in the real struggles of our class.

Liza Political Secretariat

https://regeneracionlibertaria.org/2026/05/08/plataformismo-y-especifismo/
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