A-Infos (en) Italy, FDCA, Cantiere #45 - Response to the Anarchist Confusionists and to the "Reply to the Platform" signed by some Russian anarchists Group of Russian Anarchists Abroad with a preface by Petr Arshinov* (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Preface: The crux of the matter ---- The debate sparked by the 
publication of the "Organizing Platform" has so far focused primarily on 
its various theses or on the proposed organizational draft. In 
appreciating the Platform, neither most of the negative reviews nor many 
of the positive ones have ever shed light on its premises: they have 
never attempted to uncover the factors that led to its emergence or the 
starting point adopted by its authors. Yet these very factors are of the 
greatest importance to those seeking to understand the spirit and 
significance of the Platform. The text recently published by Volin and 
other anarchists, entitled "Reply to the Platform," purporting to 
constitute a broad-based critique of the Platform, has failed-despite 
its best efforts and its claim to read "between the lines"-to elevate 
the debate beyond the level of a banal dispute between arguments 
isolated from their context, ineffective in addressing the true heart of 
the matter. Given that this "Reply" reveals a complete misunderstanding 
of the Platform's theses, distorting their meaning and contradicting 
them with sophistries, the Group of Russian Anarchists Abroad, having 
acknowledged this alleged rejection, has once again identified a series 
of points for criticism. At the same time, the Group has highlighted the 
political and theoretical inadequacies contained in the "Reply." The 
following comments constitute an examination of the content of the 
"Reply." They therefore do not constitute a complement or an appendix to 
the Platform. They are intended simply to clarify some of our theses. 
Nevertheless, we would like to take this opportunity to highlight some 
aspects worthy of consideration by comrades who may be interested in the 
Platform for the Organization of Anarchism. We believe that in this way 
we can better grasp both the spirit and meaning of the Platform. We 
often attribute the defeat of the anarchist movement in Russia between 
1917 and 1919 to the statist repression of the Bolshevik Party, but this 
is a grave error. Bolshevik repression hindered the spread of the 
anarchist movement during the revolution, but it was only an impediment. 
Instead, the internal ineffectiveness of the anarchist movement itself 
was one of the main causes of the defeat, an ineffectiveness resulting 
from the vagueness and indecision that characterized its political 
positions on the organizational and tactical levels. Russian anarchism 
was unable to develop any firm, decisive, and practicable proposal 
capable of addressing the main problems of the social revolution.No 
proposal aimed at providing answers to the masses who were waging the 
revolution. The anarchists were in favor of taking over the factories, 
but they didn't have the slightest, albeit definite, idea about the new 
production and its structures. The anarchists extolled the communist 
principle "from each according to his ability, to each according to his 
need ", but they never hesitated to apply it in practice. In doing so, 
they allowed unreliable elements to transform this great principle into 
a caricature of anarchism. (It is worth remembering how many swindlers 
used this principle as a tool to grab the resources of the community for 
their own personal gain during the revolution.) The anarchists discussed 
a lot about self-managed revolutionary activity by the workers, but they 
were unable to orient the masses, even approximately, towards the forms 
that self-management could take: they proved incapable of establishing 
reciprocal relations between the masses and the ideological core of 
anarchism. The anarchists incited the masses to throw off the yoke of 
authority, but they were never able to show them how to consolidate and 
defend the revolutionary gains. There was an absence of clear and 
incisive ideas as well as specific policies for action on a whole series 
of other issues. problems. This is what distanced them from the activity 
of the masses and condemned them to historical and social impotence. 
This is where we must look to understand the causes of the anarchists' 
defeat in the Russian Revolution. We, Russian anarchists, who lived 
through the harsh trials of the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, have not 
the slightest doubt about this. The obvious evidence of anarchism's 
internal ineffectiveness forced us to seek ways to win. We have behind 
us twenty years of experience, of revolutionary activity, twenty years 
of efforts within anarchist ranks, efforts that have seen nothing but 
the defeat of anarchism as an organizing movement: well, all this has 
convinced us of the need for a new and meaningful anarchist party, an 
organization founded on a homogeneous theory, policy, and tactics. These 
are the premises of the "Organizing Platform." If anarchists in other 
countries, who, despite not having personally experienced the Russian 
Revolution, have even a limited knowledge of it, If they were to 
carefully examine the climate within the anarchist movement in their 
country, they would inevitably realize that even within their own ranks, 
the same internal ineffectiveness that caused the defeat of the Russian 
Revolution and that represents a mortal threat to the movement 
everywhere, especially in times of revolution, is equally prevalent. And 
then they will understand the significance of the step forward that the 
"Organizing Platform" represents for anarchism, both in terms of ideas 
and in terms of organization and revolutionary construction.

* For the full text, please refer to the text " The Organizational 
Platform of Anarchist Communists - origin, debate and meaning" being 
published one hundred years after its elaboration by the Group of 
Russian Anarchists Abroad (DIELO TRUDA), Paris 1926.

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