A-Infos (en) France, UCL AL #373 - International Contributions - Black Rose/Rosa Negra (BRRN): On the Usefulness of Anarchist Dualism (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Faced with the dead ends of reformism and avant-garde authoritarian 
tendencies, Black Rose/Rosa Negra (BRRN) reaffirms in the United States 
the relevance of organized anarchism, rooted in the daily struggles of 
the exploited and oppressed. Heir to Bakunin, platformism, and 
specificism, the organization advocates a strategy that combines 
libertarian political intervention with the building of popular power 
capable of preparing the revolutionary transformation of society.

Black Rose/Rosa Negra is a national anarchist political organization 
with local groups (chapters) in cities and regions across the so-called 
United States. We are an organization rooted in the tradition of 
organizational dualism, which originates from the writings of Mikhail 
Bakunin during his participation in the First International.

Modern expressions of organizational dualism can be found both in 
platformism, referring to the recommendations set forth in the 
Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists, published in 
1926 by the Diélo Trouda group, and in specificism, which draws similar 
lessons from the history and activities of the Uruguayan Anarchist 
Federation (fAu).

Organization as a Weapon
Organizational dualism approaches the question of revolutionary strategy 
by invoking the necessity of two levels of organization. The level of 
popular organization brings together individuals based on their location 
within the social or economic structures where they are positioned, with 
the sole aim of generating pressure against capital and the state in 
order to extract concessions; the classic example of this level is the 
trade union.

BRRN's organizing work aims to build mass movements: tenants' unions, 
neighborhood assemblies, workplace campaigns, student organizations, 
prisoner mobilization, and advocacy for criminalized communities.

Credits: BRRN
The dualistic organizational understanding of popular organizing stems 
from the analysis that posits that capitalist and statist society-whose 
functioning and reproduction rely on exploitation and 
domination-generates conflicting class interests and, consequently, 
class struggle. This struggle is generally oriented toward defending 
small gains rather than toward a complete transformation of the 
fundamental relations and structures of society. In the case of unions, 
it is widely understood that almost all of them (particularly in the 
United States) aim to secure wage increases and better working 
conditions rather than the abolition of capitalism. There are many 
reasons for this economic stance, ranging from a lack of 
self-organization among activists to the often reactionary obstacles 
created by bureaucracy within grassroots organizations themselves.

Engaging in the Class Struggle
Despite these obstacles, revolutionary anarchists understand that social 
revolution can only be achieved with and within grassroots 
organizations. BRRN strategically prioritizes four "sectors" of activity 
within the social or grassroots movement: the world of work, tenants and 
the territorial question, the student question, and prisoners. Each of 
these sectors contains numerous organizations with different structures, 
goals, and strategies. We are looking for these grassroots organizations 
that build springboards to mobilize the dominated classes in each of 
these sectors. This consequently excludes organizations such as NGOs, 
which generally aim to address social problems on behalf of the 
oppressed classes. As we have already noted, popular organizations in 
themselves do not automatically embody our principles as revolutionary 
anarchists. What is important is that they succeed in organizing members 
of the oppressed classes, thus creating a potential for transformation 
into fighting organizations oriented toward the horizon of social 
revolution and self-management.

Toward People's Power
The political level of organization brings together activists based on 
shared ideological, strategic, and tactical commitment. For anarchists, 
this level refers to the political organization of revolutionary 
anarchists-BRRN or UCL in our respective cases. Activists within the 
revolutionary organization operate at the grassroots level, where we 
constitute an "active minority" whose goal is the adoption of our 
principles: direct action, class struggle, militant democracy, 
self-management, internationalism, and so on. Distancing itself from the 
Leninist conception of the vanguard, the libertarian active minority 
does not prioritize seizing power or the bureaucracy through grassroots 
organization in order to artificially impose our principles from above. 
Instead, the libertarian active minority aims to perpetuate itself at 
the grassroots level by encouraging, organizing, and catalyzing the 
struggles that our values set in motion.

Drawing inspiration from the work of anarchist thinkers such as José 
Antonio Gutiérrez Danton, Scott N. Nappalos, and Pablo Barbanegra 
Avendaño, BRRN attempts to adopt a third level-the so-called 
"intermediate" level-of analysis and activity. The grassroots level of 
action brings together actors based on their shared structural position, 
whereas the political level unites through convictions and a shared 
ideological vision. The intermediate level operates between the two, 
acknowledging that groups and networks develop through grassroots 
organizations or play a leading role in their creation where they do not 
yet exist.

Turning the Tide is a revolutionary program developed by Black Rose/Rosa 
Negra to analyze current social structures, define a strategy toward 
social revolution and libertarian socialism, while remaining open to 
revisions and critiques. Intermediate-level groups are primarily linked 
by a short-term strategy. This level can involve activists from a 
variety of divergent ideological perspectives but sharing the same 
immediate goals.

The analysis and strategic framework described above emerge as a 
distillation of the concrete activity undertaken by revolutionaries and 
organizations that preceded us, whether it be Bakunin's work within the 
International Workingmen's Association, the lessons learned from Nestor 
Makhno, Piotr Arshinov, and other exiled authors of the Platform through 
their experiences of the Russian and Ukrainian revolutions; or the 
Uruguayan Anarchist Federation and its engagement in mass movements, 
including during periods of dictatorship. While anarchist 
revolutionaries in the so-called United States-as everywhere-face 
challenges and contradictions unique to our context, BRRN firmly 
believes that the organizational dualism approach is suitable for our 
objective both practically and in terms of values.

Black Rose/Rosa Negra

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Black-Rose-Rosa-Negra-BRRN-De-l-utilite-du-dualisme-anarchiste
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