PARTISAN!

Brunhilda Olding reports on the Melbourne Anarchist Communist Forum which was hosted concurrently to unity talks by anarchists to form an Anarchist Federation at the federal level.

It has been nearly exactly fifty years since the collapse of the Federation of Australian Anarchists. While various other attempts at forming a nation-wide anarchist federation have arisen, none have been solidly based on the traditions and politics of class struggle, and none have lasted. Whilst small groups such as the Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation-International Workers Association and the Industrial Workers of the World do exist, they remain minuscule sects and groupings. This newly emerging Anarchist Communist Federation represents a major step forward in the development of Australian anarchism and the class struggle in this country.

The opening day of the conference was a public event with a series of roughly hour long talks on a variety of topics across a wide range of theoretical and practical topics. The most important of all the panels was ‘Why we need an Anarchist Federation’, serving as a mechanism for the political soft launch of the new federation. Another roughly half-an-hour talk de-facto served as a stump speech for the model of Anarchism serving as the ideological point of unity for this new group. Whilst influenced by the Federación Anarquista Uruguaya (Uruguayan Anarchist Federation/FAU), the group does not claim to adhere to platformism nor especifismo. But the works of FAU do wield a strong influence on their methods of analysis and understanding. Instead, they claim to be ‘organisational dualists’, taking inspiration from a myriad of Specific Anarchist Organisations (SAOs) dating back to Bakunin’s Alliance for Socialist Democracy.

The actual events and discussion for the formation of the federation was left to a closed event on the second day. The event itself had roughly a hundred attendees. Attendees from outside of Melbourne were members of either the Geelong Anarchist Communists (GAC), or Anarchist Communists Meanjin (ACM, based in Brisbane), as well as public non-members.

One of the most interesting talks of the day was a discussion on the buildup of a rank-and-file group in the Queensland CFMEU which recently started publishing the bulletin Hard Hat with the unsubtle masthead of ‘protecting you from those above’. In the current level of class struggle and the disunity amongst the socialist and workers movement, rank and file groupings play an important role in building up class consciousness, self-understanding of the class, and the ability of the workers to wield power in society. Of course, the question of how to bridge that and the necessity for workers power is a major one.

The Anarchist answer is through the unity of means and ends, and the building of mass struggles for non-revolutionary or intermediary demands. The Anarchist strategy is building and combining unions, mass organisations, and social movements until they come together to create the “Popular Organisation” which smashes the state and abolishes capitalism. The Marxist answer however is the building of a mass workers party, of merging political and economic demands until the question of workers power is posed point blank, and the choice is either socialism or barbarism.

An undercurrent running through the events of the day was the viewpoint that since the class and political organisations must be separated, that the “Specific Anarchist Organisation” (SAO) would be one based around strict unity to certain theoretical and tactical positions as opposed to the mass movement of the class. A particularly memorable interjection from one of the GAC members discussed how the focus of self-organisation and the development of localised tactics and strategies allowed for new groups to form organically and democratically.

Criticism of anarchism needs to be more than just sterile repetitions of the dogma brought out and pontificated for the past hundred years. It needs to be based in a sober analysis of the strengths and weakness of this formation of the workers struggle for self-emancipation.

During opening session ‘Basics of Anarchist Communism’, MACG’s Matt Crossin argued that anarchist communists agree with much of Marx’s analysis, but disagree on his practical politics. The works put out by MACG, ACM, and GAC on capitalism and communism are fairly weak, however, with little discussions of perhaps the most important pillar of capitalism, the commodity-money-commodity circuit.

This is a semi-intentional choice with these pamphlets actively designed to be easy to read and understand by workers. But this weakens the understanding of the system as it is, and the world as it will be. The fight must be waged against the entirety of the capitalist world system. This choice of leaving things unsaid leaves MACG’s vision of communism slightly abstract, though one that would easily be cleared up by talking to a member. The weakness of the written material is something in which them and the entire communist movement could benefit from focusing on.

It is here that Anarchism crashes against the ramparts which the majority of the left no matter which philosophical thinker they claim to derive themselves from. Their understanding of what communism is and how to achieve it are often quite low. This stems from Marx’s refusal to draw out a ‘blueprint for communism’, it would take the most resolutely Marxist tendency of the workers movement to develop this blueprint. Communism above all else as outlined by Marx is an association of free and equal producers.

Two of the most important things for any understanding of communism as a mode of production are: 1. It can only be a world system, and 2. Producers must have the right of disposal.

One arena for debate between Marxists and Anarchists is around political economy and their analysis of Imperialism. The definition of imperialism laid out in the MACG Anarchist Political school is:

“Imperialism is the extension of a State’s power across borders for the purposes of domination and exploitation by the ruling class. In the conflicts between modern States, nationalistic narratives and moral arguments are invented by all sides, justifying policies of intervention, war, and exploitation”.

There is little discussion around the role of sub-imperialist powers, or the nature of the labour aristocracy. These are questions which need solid analysis and critique.

Other questions raised by the Anarchist program should include the debate on the trade union question. While they aren’t labourists and aren’t giving into economism, their relationship with trade unionism is one that should be analysed and debated. Marxists should also take up critiques of their sometimes-surface level analysis of specific oppression.

If this federation is successful, hopefully it will lead to an uptick in the class struggle and aid in the draining of the “swamp” (the so-called Anarchists or Anarchist-adjacent activists who are, in fact, liberals). As Marxists, we need to be able to criticise our comrades under the black flag. We must be able to approach the world dialectically and understand the honest contradictions driving the politics of class struggle forward.

Currently the politics of the working class in Australia is in a historic low state. This conference was a step forward, one that should be welcomed by all genuine militants fighting for class emancipation. That does not mean it should be met with uncritical support, nor should it be met with uncritical denunciation. It should be met with solidarity and critique.