6th CONGRESS

Federazione dei comunisti anarchici

Cremona, 19-20 June 2004

 

Motion on MOVEMENTS & LOCAL WORK
 

(approved at the 6th Congress of the FdCA - Cremona, 20 June 2004)

 

"for another achievable society, a libertarian society of solidarity, spreading the social struggles, acting in an anti-authoritarian way"

1. The 21st century opens with the appearance on the scene of a new social movement which is in the frontline of the struggles on an international level. This movement presents itself at every occasion when the institutions of international capitalism meet to decide the future for billions of people.

Millions of women and men all over the planet recognize that they are linked by collective interests and the same slavery, forced into this recognition by the growing acuteness of the contradictions of a capitalism which knows no nation (increasing concentrations of capital with the consequent impoverishment of large areas of the planet, exploitation and plundering of resources, economic enslavement and deportation of the workforce, privatisation and commercialisation of the most basic social and personal rights, leading to the economic and social collapse of entire regions).

2. This movement is characterized by:

• its worldwide scale of intervention, which can be developed into an internationalist consciousness,
• an awareness of the need to frame the various interests within a single front of resistance to liberalism,
• a notable capacity for self-organization and mobilization,
• an attempt to reconcile the different political choices of struggles (i.e. simple ethics and solidarity on the one hand and radical opposition to the capitalist system on the other), in order to allow room for all positions within a horizontal dimension,
• the ability to intervene even on a local and national level, activating a mechanism of social participation in the community, which crosses all sectors, producing interesting examples of convergence on specific campaigns and battles.

These characteristics have led class-struggle anarchism throughout the world and in Italy to participate actively in this movement with the aim of radicalising it on anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian positions.

3. Over the years, the anti-globalization movement has demonstrated certain limitations:

• it has believed that it can oppose capitalism on its own, thereby marginalizing the workers' movement, the historical enemy of international capitalism, and forgetting the class struggle in favour of an ethical, abstract conception of social justice;
• it has considered the institutions of capitalism (the WTO, IMF, etc.) and of the State as being capable of reform and change;
• it has legitimised forms of delegation and protagonism, and bureaucratised representativity at the cost of internal dialectics, thereby prejudicing the already difficult path of uniting the struggles and interests;
• having opted for a policy of compatibility with capitalism, a large part of the movement has given preference to bourgeois forms of political representation in place of self-organization, while another sector of the movement chose the spectacle of clashes, simply for the sake of them.

In Italy, the induced birth of the social forums suffocated the vitality of the debate between the different sectors of the movement which only served to benefit the various political bureaucracies, and led to the development of a new leading class which benefited the political and clerical bureaucracies.

4. With regard to the tragic question of war, the movement apparently showed that despite its internal divisions, it could rise from the ashes through several highly-visible events, though it was unable to regain the richness of action and ideas that characterized its early phase.

5. The international libertarian movement appeared as a credible voice, with its specifically libertarian mass events on the fringes of large events which were gradually strangled by the international social-democratic bureaucracy of a movement which by now seems to be well-established.

6. It is therefore necessary to engage in debate and elaboration, even on the occasion of united events, where we can clearly demonstrate the sterility of the present state of affairs and promote an alternative which is characterized not only by equality and solidarity but which is also self-managed and revolutionary.

7. This will involve guaranteeing autonomous spaces for the self-managed, libertarian movement, regaining its historical practice of participation in the mass struggles and in the creation of a mass sense of opposition. We must ensure that the media myth of the stereotypical anarchist (which suits so many agendas) is destroyed. It is an image which sees in anarchism only individualism and spontaneism, something which unfortunately is promoted even within our own movement.

8. We must continue to make the most of and bring to the attention of the masses our libertarian ideas and analysis, increase the exchange of material at international level and re-launch the libertarian alternative on a worldwide scale as a practical, intelligent and practised alternative.

9. Locally, we must build and participate in debate and struggle on the single issues relevant to local situations, social spaces, the extension of real rights of citizenship for all and consumption, assuming that they come from grassroots demands and demands for emancipation and - once all the contradictions, the power relations, the institutional tendencies and hidden deals inside and outside them have been unmasked - bring them back onto the path of real struggles where class interests can once more find their unity.

10. We must go on a cultural offensive, using it as an instrument of individual and collective liberation, particularly with regard to the issues of secularism and individual liberties, including the freedom of and from religion and against ideological obscurantism from every source and the consequent loss of cultural flexibility.

11. The FdCA's political initiatives within the movements must be aimed at promoting the self-management of the struggles and at fighting for organizational forms, forms of protest and forms of decision making which allow for the active involvement of those in struggle:

1. we must develop struggles in the community using forms of mobilization and mass organization without being elitist or sectarian;
2. we must help to make the struggles and the social opposition more visible through public demonstrations, while avoiding any delegated agreements with political elites, be they old or new;
3. we must build and ensure the functioning of action committees which operate on a mandate and with the consent of assemblies rather than delegate all the responsibility to small groups of leaders;
4. we must build and ensure the functioning of decentralized coalitions which allow for the greatest possible level of grassroots initiative;
5. we must develop the capacity to organize, promoting horizontal links between groups and ensuring that information reaches the grassroots;
6. we must promote struggles and demands which are clearly anti-capitalist and which can reveal the class nature of the economic and political institutions in the community.

 

Approved by the 6th Congress

Cremona, 20th June 2004

FEDERAZIONE DEI COMUNISTI ANARCHICI