A-Infos (en) France, La Plateforme CL: The Archinov Platform 3/4 - Construction Section (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The Platform for the Organization of Libertarian Communists is a 
foundational text of libertarian communism. Our activist network has 
decided to publish this century-old text in four parts, with commentary. 
The constructive section begins "  on the first day of the social 
revolution  ." This is no coincidence. This question is at the heart of 
the problems faced by revolutionary anarchists, as opposed to 
individualists.
1. The problem of the first day of the social revolution
Commentary : Asking about the first day of the revolution is a point 
that fundamentally differentiates anarchist theory from Leninism. The 
Platform asserts, in the context of Tsarist Russia, that "the very first 
task of the social revolution is to destroy the statist edifice of 
capitalist society." This presentation may seem reductive today if it is 
isolated from what happened before and what will happen afterward.

The "crucial moment" represented by "the victory of the workers over the 
current capitalist and bourgeois system and its representatives" cannot 
occur without slow preparation, without the gradual construction of 
counter-powers within capitalist society. In times of major capitalist 
crisis, their coordination can lead to a dual power structure. And as 
soon as a collapse of the state is achieved, anarchists propose 
replacing the state with this newly emerged power, and certainly not 
doing what the Bolsheviks did-that is, restoring the machinery of the state.

But we do not know how the revolutionary process will unfold. However, 
we will fight against any authoritarian logic that runs counter to the 
aspirations of the masses for democracy.

The fundamental goal of the world of work in struggle is the foundation, 
by means of revolution, of a free, egalitarian communist society, 
founded on the principle: "  From each according to his ability, to each 
according to his needs  ."

However, this society will not come about on its own, solely through the 
force of social upheaval. Its realization will unfold as a more or less 
prolonged social-revolutionary process, guided by the organized forces 
of victorious labor along a predetermined path.

Our task is to point out this path now, to formulate the positive and 
concrete problems that will confront workers from the very first day of 
the social revolution. The fate of this revolution itself will depend on 
their proper resolution.

It goes without saying that the construction of the new society will 
only be possible after the victory of the workers over the current 
capitalist and bourgeois system and its representatives. It is 
impossible to begin building a new economy and new social relations as 
long as the power of the state defending the system of slavery has not 
been broken, as long as the workers and peasants have not taken control, 
within a revolutionary framework, of the industrial and agricultural 
economy of the country.

Therefore, the very first task of the social revolution is to destroy 
the statist edifice of capitalist society, to deprive the bourgeoisie 
and, in general, all socially privileged elements of the means of power, 
and to establish everywhere the will of the rebellious proletariat, 
expressed in the fundamental principles of the social revolution. This 
destructive and combative aspect of the revolution will only clear the 
way for the positive tasks that constitute the meaning and essence of 
the social revolution.

The tasks are as follows:

The solution, in the libertarian communist sense, to the problem of the 
country's industrial production.
The solution to the agrarian problem lies in the same direction.
The solution to the problem of consumption (supply).
2. Production
Comment : Describing the reorganization of production within libertarian 
communist society in so few words was a daunting task. The result 
schematically corresponds to the core ideas of libertarian communism. 
Obviously, social structures have changed profoundly in a century. 
Obviously, the ecological crisis is reshuffling many cards. Therefore, 
we would not describe the reorganization of production in the same way. 
But the essential points, in the context of writing this text, are 
already present!

Taking into account that the country's industry is the result of the 
efforts of several generations of workers, and that the various branches 
of industry are closely linked together, we regard all current 
production as a single workshop of producers, belonging to all workers 
as a whole, and to no one in particular.

The country's productive mechanism is comprehensive and belongs to the 
entire working class. This principle determines the character and form 
of the new production. It will also be comprehensive and common, in the 
sense that the products made by the workers will belong to everyone. 
These products, of whatever category, will constitute the general supply 
base for the workers, where every participant in the new production will 
receive everything they need, on an equal basis for all.

The new production system will completely eliminate wage labor and 
exploitation in all their forms, and establish in their place the 
principle of fraternal and solidarity-based collaboration among workers.

The middle class, which in modern capitalist society performs 
intermediate and unproductive functions-commerce and the like-as well as 
the bourgeoisie, must participate in the new production under the same 
conditions as all other workers. Otherwise, these classes will exclude 
themselves from the working class.

There will be no bosses, be it the entrepreneur, the landlord, or the 
state-owner (as is the case today in the Bolshevik state). In the new 
production system, the organizing functions will pass to administrative 
bodies created specifically for this purpose by the working masses: 
workers' soviets, factory committees, or workers' administrations of 
enterprises and factories. These bodies, linked together at the commune, 
district, and then nationwide levels, will form communal, district, and 
finally general and federal institutions for managing production. 
Appointed by the masses and constantly under their control and 
influence, all these bodies will be continually renewed and will thus 
realize the idea of genuine mass self-management.

Unified production, whose means and products belong to all, having 
replaced wage labor with the principle of fraternal collaboration and 
having established equal rights for all producers, production carried 
out by workers' management bodies, elected by the masses; this is the 
first step taken on the path to the realization of libertarian communism.

3. Consumption
Comment : This paragraph should be read in light of the economic 
problems faced by the Russian Revolution from its very beginning. The 
Platform sought an alternative to Bolshevik policy, in which the party 
dictated the quantities of agricultural products that peasants were 
required to supply. Such a policy created a profound rift with the rural 
world. However, the peasantry in Western countries has changed 
significantly. The initial solutions proposed here are largely 
irrelevant to contemporary France.

This problem will arise in the revolution in two ways:

the principle of consumer product research
the principle of their distribution
Regarding the distribution of consumer goods, the solutions will depend 
primarily on the quantity of products available, the principle of 
conformity to purpose, etc.

The social revolution, undertaking the reconstruction of the entire 
existing social order, assumes the responsibility of providing for 
everyone's basic needs. The sole exception is the group of 
non-workers-those who refuse to participate in the new production for 
counter-revolutionary reasons. But, generally speaking, and with the 
exception of this latter category, the needs of the entire population 
within the territory of the social revolution are met by the general 
consumption reserve. In cases where the quantity of goods is 
insufficient, it is distributed according to the principle of greatest 
urgency: that is to say, first and foremost to children, the sick, and 
working-class families.

A much more difficult problem will be the organization of the 
consumption fund itself.

Undoubtedly, in the early days of the revolution, the cities will not 
have all the essential goods needed to sustain the entire population. At 
the same time, the peasantry will have an abundance of the goods that 
the cities will lack.

Libertarian communists cannot doubt the mutual nature of the 
relationship between the city and the working countryside. They believe 
that social revolution can only be achieved through the joint efforts of 
workers and peasants. Consequently, the solution to the problem of 
consumption within the social revolution will only be possible through 
close revolutionary collaboration between these two categories of workers.

To establish this collaboration, the urban working class, having taken 
production into its own hands, must immediately consider the vital needs 
of the countryside and strive to provide everyday consumer goods, as 
well as the means and tools for collective agricultural cultivation. The 
acts of solidarity shown by the workers toward the needs of the peasants 
will elicit the same response from the latter, who, in turn, will 
collectively supply the cities with the products of rural labor, first 
and foremost food.

Workers' and peasants' cooperatives will be the first bodies to ensure 
the food and economic supplies needed by towns and villages. Later 
entrusted with more important and consistent functions, notably 
providing everything necessary to ensure and develop the economic and 
social life of workers and peasants, these cooperatives will thereby be 
transformed into permanent bodies for supplying towns and villages.

This solution to the problem of permanent supply will enable the 
proletariat to create a permanent supply fund, which will have a 
favorable and decisive impact on the fate of all new production.

4. The earth
Comment : This point is obviously complementary to the previous one and 
is practically as "  dated  ." We fundamentally recognize ourselves in 
its logic. This logic remains entirely valid. But this text is primarily 
a response adapted to the realities of peasant life within the Russian 
Revolution. It cannot, as it stands, constitute a proposal for the 
Western peasant world. We will need to reinvent a response adapted to 
today's realities.

We consider the working peasants-those who do not exploit the labor of 
others-and the wage-earning proletariat of the countryside to be the 
principal revolutionary and creative forces in the solution to the 
agrarian question. Their task will be to carry out the new land 
reorganization, in order to establish the use and exploitation of the 
land on communist principles.

Like industry, the land, worked and cultivated by successive generations 
of workers, is the product of their collective efforts. It belongs to 
the entire working population as a whole and to no one in particular. As 
the common and inalienable property of the workers, the land cannot be 
bought, sold, or leased; it cannot, therefore, be used as a means of 
exploitation by others.

The land is also a kind of communal, people's workshop where the working 
class produces the means of subsistence. But it is a kind of workshop 
where each worker (peasant) has, thanks to certain historical 
conditions, become accustomed to doing their own work, to carrying it 
out independently of other producers. While in industry, the collective 
method of work is essentially necessary and the only possible one, in 
agriculture, it is not the only one in our time. Most peasants cultivate 
the land using their own resources.

Consequently, when the land and the means of its cultivation pass to the 
peasants, without the possibility of sale or leasing, the question of 
the forms of their usufruct and the means of its exploitation 
(communally or within the family) will not immediately have a complete 
and definitive solution, as will be the case in the industrial sector. 
Initially, recourse will most likely be made to both of these methods.

It will be the revolutionary peasants themselves who establish the 
definitive form of land use and usufruct. No external pressure is 
possible on this matter.

However, since we believe that only the communist society, in whose name 
the social revolution will be made, will liberate the workers from their 
situation of slavery and exploitation, and give them complete freedom 
and equality; since the peasants constitute the overwhelming majority of 
the population (about 85% in Russia) and that, consequently, the 
agrarian system established by the peasants will be the decisive factor 
in the destinies of the revolution; since, finally, the private economy 
in agriculture, as well as private industry, commerce, accumulation, 
private property and the restoration of capital, our duty will be to do, 
from now on, everything necessary to facilitate the solution of the 
agrarian question in a collective sense.

To this end we must now conduct a strong propaganda campaign among the 
peasants in favor of the collective agrarian economy.

The establishment of a specific Peasant Union with a libertarian 
tendency will greatly facilitate this task.

In this sense, technological progress will be of enormous importance, 
facilitating the evolution of agriculture, and also the realization of 
communism in the cities, especially in industry. If, in their relations 
with the peasantry, workers act not individually or in separate groups, 
but as a vast communist collective, encompassing entire branches of 
industry; if, moreover, they consider the vital needs of the countryside 
and provide each village with tools and machines for the collective 
cultivation of the land, along with everyday objects, this will 
certainly give the peasantry an impetus towards communism in agriculture.

5. The defense of the revolution
Comment : Here again, the context of the Russian Revolution is crucial 
to the thinking of the Platform's authors. Will a similar situation 
unfold during a revolution stemming from a profound ecological crisis, 
one that could fundamentally fracture the very idea of capitalism? We 
are unable to answer this question. At most, we can observe that this 
question is not currently a pressing issue. But when it becomes so, we 
can reread this text and draw inspiration from the proposed solutions, 
adapting them to the new situation.

The question of defending the revolution also relates to the problem of 
the "  first day  ." Essentially, the most powerful means of defending 
the revolution is the successful resolution of its positive problems: 
those of production, consumption, and land. Once these problems are 
justly resolved, no counter-revolutionary force will be able to alter or 
undermine the free regime of the workers. Nevertheless, the workers will 
still have to endure a severe struggle against the enemies of the 
revolution in order to defend and maintain its concrete existence.

The social revolution, which threatens the privileges and the very 
existence of the non-working classes of present-day society, will 
inevitably provoke, on the part of these classes, a desperate resistance 
which will take the form of a fierce civil war.

As the Russian experience has shown, such a civil war will last not a 
few months, but several years.

However welcome the workers' initial steps at the start of the 
revolution, the ruling classes would nevertheless retain a tremendous 
capacity for resistance for a long time to come. For several years, they 
would launch offensives against the revolution, attempting to regain the 
power and privileges they had been deprived of.

A large army, military technology and strategy - capital - everything 
will be launched against the victorious workers.

In order to preserve the gains of the revolution, they will need to 
create organs of defense for the revolution, to oppose the offensive of 
reaction with a fighting force commensurate with the magnitude of the 
task. In the first days of the revolution, this fighting force will be 
formed by all armed workers and peasants. However, this spontaneous 
armed force will only be effective in the initial days, before the civil 
war has reached its peak and the two warring sides have yet established 
formally organized military structures.

In a social revolution, the most critical moment is not the suppression 
of authority, but the one that follows, that is, when the forces of the 
overthrown regime launch a general offensive against the workers and 
when it is a matter of safeguarding the gains achieved.

The nature of this offensive, as well as the techniques and development 
of the civil war, will compel the workers to create determined 
revolutionary military contingents. The essence and fundamental 
principles of these formations must be determined in advance. By 
rejecting statist and authoritarian methods of governing the masses, we 
thereby reject the statist means of organizing the workers' military 
force-in other words, the principle of a statist army based on 
compulsory military service. It is the principle of volunteerism, in 
accordance with the fundamental tenets of libertarian communism, that 
must form the basis of the workers' military formations. The detachments 
of insurgent partisans, workers and peasants, who led the action in the 
Russian Revolution, can be cited as examples of such formations.

However, volunteering and partisan action should not be understood in 
the narrow sense of these words, that is, as a struggle of worker and 
peasant detachments against the local enemy, uncoordinated by a general 
operational plan and each acting under its own responsibility, at its 
own risk and peril. The actions and tactics of the peasants must be 
guided, in the period of their full development, by a common 
revolutionary strategy.

Like any war, civil war could only be successfully waged by the workers 
by applying the two fundamental principles of all military action: unity 
of plan of operations and unity of common command. The most critical 
moment of the revolution will be when the bourgeoisie marches against 
the revolution in organized forces. This critical moment will compel the 
workers to resort to these principles of military strategy.

In this way, given the necessities of military strategy, and also of 
counter-revolutionary strategy, the armed forces of the revolution will 
inevitably have to merge into a general revolutionary army with a common 
command and a common plan of operations.

The following principles will be the foundation of this army:

the class character of the army.
volunteering (any coercion will be absolutely excluded from the work of 
defending the revolution).
Revolutionary free discipline (self-discipline): revolutionary 
volunteering and self-discipline will harmonize completely together, and 
make the army of the revolution morally stronger than any state army.
the complete submission of the revolutionary army to the working and 
peasant masses, in the period of common working and peasant 
organizations for the whole country, placed by the masses in the leading 
positions of economic and social life.
In other words: the organ of defense of the revolution charged with 
fighting the counter-revolution, both on the open military fronts and on 
those of the internal civil war (the plots of the bourgeoisie, the 
preparations of counter-revolutionary actions, etc.), will be entirely 
within the jurisdiction of the productive workers' and peasant 
organizations, to which it will be subject, and by which it will be 
politically oriented.

Note . While the army itself must be built in accordance with definite 
libertarian communist principles, it should not be considered a 
principled element. It is merely a consequence of military strategy in 
the revolution, a strategic measure to which the workers will inevitably 
be led by the very process of civil war. But this measure must be 
addressed now. It must be carefully considered so as to avoid any 
irreparable setbacks in the work of protecting and defending the 
revolution, for delays during the days of civil war could prove 
detrimental to the outcome of the entire social revolution.

https://plateformecl.org/la-plateforme-darchinov-partie-constructive/
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