A-Infos (en) Australia, AnComFed, Picket Line: 100 Years of The Platform (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

A century later, what can we learn from the Russian and Ukrainian 
anarchists? --- The early 1920s were a dark period for the anarchist 
movement in Eastern Europe. The Russian Revolution had transformed from 
a genuine workers' uprising into a dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party. 
--- Anarchist groups and newspapers were banned, and their members 
either thrown into prison or killed. Others were forced into exile. Some 
of these refugees-including the Ukrainian militia leader Nestor Makhno, 
the Belarusian Ida Mett, and the Russian Peter Arshinov-ended up in 
France. There, they gathered themselves together, reflected on their 
experiences, and prepared to launch a new publication named Delo Truda 
("the Cause of Labour").

Before the revolution, the Russian anarchist movement was relatively 
small. But over the course of 1917, groups and newspapers sprung up all 
over the place, gaining a foothold among both workers and peasants.

But this anarchist movement was still deeply disorganised. It was 
divided not just by ideological disagreements, but by radically 
different tactics.  Anarchism in Russia had no clear sense of direction 
or ability to challenge the hegemony of the Bolsheviks (who, before 
taking power, embraced slogans close to the better organised anarchists).

Today, the anarchist movement still faces many of these problems. So 
what can we learn from the Delo Truda group?

Better disunited than misunited
Delo Truda believed that if the anarchist movement across the world 
didn't take organisation seriously, it would be doomed forever. They had 
seen first-hand how the disorganised and erratic nature of the Russian 
movement had led to defeat.

At the same time, they knew that this couldn't be fixed by simply trying 
to unite all those who called themselves anarchists. Papering over 
divisions wouldn't solve the problem that 'anarchism' meant different 
things to different people, and that many of their ideas contradicted 
each other.

To Delo Truda, an anarchist organisation needed to be based firmly in 
the politics of class struggle and have a clear, shared strategy. It was 
better to have fewer members, dedicated to common goals, than a larger 
group pulling in different directions.

Unity and collective responsibility
On the 20th of June, 1926, the Delo Truda group published a draft 
"Organisational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists"-now known 
as 'the Platform'.

The Platform contains three sections. The first gives a  general 
overview of anarchism, class, and strategy. The second deals with how 
society should be managed during a revolution. Though all of the 
Platform is valuable, it's the third and final section that is best 
known. Here, the authors outline four principles for a proposed 
anarchist organisation.

The first principle is unity of theory. Anarchist organisations need to 
be grounded in a solid foundation of anarchist theory, shared by all 
members.

The second is unity of tactics. Groups don't work when members are just 
doing their own thing. To be effective, and to have real democratic 
accountability, groups need to plan, coordinate and implement agreed 
decisions together.

The third principle is collective responsibility. This follows from the 
first two points. The political activity of individual members is guided 
by the organisation as a whole. When members engage in their unions or 
social movements, they're not just doing it as random individuals, but 
as members of a political organisation. Members have to be accountable 
to each other and the shared project of the group.

Organisation from below
The Platform's fourth and final principle is federalism, a key ideain 
anarchism, and central to the Platform's proposed structure for an 
anarchist federation.

A revolutionary organisation can't be based on authoritarian, top-down 
structures. It can only be built through free agreement and the autonomy 
of members, branches, and groups.

Crucially, federalism doesn't mean disorganisation. For a federation to 
work, and to reap the benefits of high-level coordination, groups need 
to honour their agreements and implement collective decisions.

To facilitate all of this, the Platform proposes that anarchist 
organisations have "Executive Committees". This wording can lead modern 
readers to think of some kind of corporate board of directors, or a 
centralised party leadership. But if you read the Platform, this clearly 
isn't the intended meaning.

The committee would, instead, facilitate coordination between the 
different groups, study the overall state of the movement, and implement 
decisions made by congresses. An 'Executive Committee' of this kind has 
no authority of its own-power remains in the hands of members and their 
respective groups.

The Platforms legacy
100 years on, there are elements of the Platform that are outdated. For 
instance, we don't need to worry so much about building links between 
workers and peasants- particularly in a country like Australia.

Other sections are lacking, too. The authors are internationalists, but 
they don't give internationalism the central role it deserves. 
Considerably more attention is given to armed struggle. But even the 
most effective defence is doomed if a revolution doesn't spread.

The Platform was only a draft, though, and was seen by its authors as a 
living document. Its central argument-that anarchists should be 
organised and intervening in the class struggle- is as important today 
as it ever was.

Because the past hundred years have shown just how right a lot of the 
Platform is. The anarchist movement is still hampered by 
disorganisation. The connections between the anarchist movement and the 
wider working class are more frayed now than they were in the early 20th 
century. All of this has been to the disadvantage of anarchism and the 
working class movement.

Meanwhile, the most effective anarchist organisations have been those 
like the Uruguayan Anarchist Federation (FAU) in the 1950s-70s. The FAU 
was effective precisely because it followed ideas similar to those of 
the Platformists, under the label of 'especifism' (referring to the need 
for a 'specific anarchist organisation').

Platformism and the ACF
The Anarchist Communist Federation has been influenced by the Platform, 
but we don't call ourselves "platformist". This is for the same reason 
that we don't call ourselves "especifist". The Platform and especifism 
are part of a much longer tradition of organised anarchist communism.

The authors of the Platform recognised that they weren't making any big 
innovations. Their basic ideas have been part of the anarchist movement 
since the beginning, and had informed organisations in countries like 
Italy and Spain.

Still, we would argue that the Platform is an essential contribution to 
this tradition. It should be studied by anyone who believes that, to 
actually overthrow capitalism and the government, we need a realistic 
plan to win.

https://ancomfed.org/2026/08/100-years-of-the-platform/
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