A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #19-25 - The Mass Organization. An Anarchist Battle in Defense of Trade Union Autonomy (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The London Congress of the Second International, held in London in 1896, 
marked a definitive break between the authoritarian socialist component, 
represented by the social democratic parties organized in the 
International, and the socialist-anarchist component. The meeting was 
organized as an international socialist workers and trade union congress 
and was held from July 26 to August 2, 1896; it was intended by the 
organizers to be the definitive consecration of the social democratic 
parties as the political guide of the workers' movement, and the trade 
union movement was to be only a transmission belt for the political line 
of these parties. The socialist-anarchist component, as socialists and 
as delegates of trade union organizations, decided to participate, but 
was definitively excluded from the Second International as it was 
against parliamentarism.

The Second International

To understand the importance of the London Congress and its 
repercussions on the history of the international labor movement, it is 
important to understand what the Second International was.

Founded in Paris in 1889, it was an organization that brought together 
socialist and workers' parties from various countries, with the aim of 
coordinating the struggle for the improvement of working conditions and 
for social transformation through parliamentary action and control of 
unions. The internal debate within the Second International was 
dominated by the attempt by the strongest socialist party in Europe, the 
German Social Democratic Party (SPD), to impose its doctrines and 
tactics on other parties, doctrines and tactics inspired, until his 
death, by Frederick Engels.

In fact, the political doctrine of Marx and Engels offered arguments to 
the leaders of the SPD and to the social democratic exponents of various 
nationalities who connected with them, seeing in parliamentary action 
and in the organization of reformist unions an opportunity for a career. 
In their writings, the two German thinkers often stated that the various 
political currents are an expression of the various classes, or 
fractions of classes, that compete for political domination. The rise 
and fall of the various parties is determined by the rise or fall of the 
various social groups they represent.

Like other social classes, the proletariat also had to constitute itself 
as a class in itself, it had to therefore give life to its own political 
party and, since the class had to be united, the party had to be only 
one: that of Marx and Engels, the German Social Democrats who embodied 
the word, those linked in the Second International, who were its 
projection abroad.

As James Joll writes in the introduction to "The Second International 
1899-1914": "Just as the First International had collapsed because of 
Marx's attempts to dominate it, and just as the Third International 
would end up as an instrument of the government of the Soviet Union, so 
the Second International eventually succumbed to the efforts, however 
well-intentioned, of the German socialists to impose their theories and 
rules of action (or inaction) on the other member parties."

The Socialist-Anarchist Tendency

The socialist-anarchist tendency owes its definition to Errico 
Malatesta, who adopted it and popularized it within the movement to 
distinguish that tendency from the individualist, anti-organizational, 
class-negating components that, following sensational acts that had 
received wide coverage in the media, appeared to be the sole expression 
of the anarchist movement. This trend was encouraged by the growth of 
the international labor movement, as demonstrated by the great dockers' 
strike in London (1889), the international strikes for the 8-hour 
workday on May Day, and the general strike in Belgium in 1893. In truth, 
many anarchist groups had continued their commitment to the labor 
movement and the unions, following Mikhail Bakunin's instructions, even 
in the years in which government repression had pushed the majority of 
the international movement to withdraw into small sectarian groups and 
to avoid any public activity that could lead to disorganization of the 
movement's ranks. In Spain and France above all, following the 
principles already affirmed in the First International: that the 
emancipation of the working class had to be the work of the working 
class itself, not of governments or parliaments, and that every 
political movement had to be subordinated to the great cause of the 
emancipation of the working class, not that this emancipation had to 
serve as a pedestal for someone's ambitions.

Libertarian unionism offered a valid alternative to the wait-and-see 
attitude of the social democrats. In addition to Spain, where the 
workers' unions remained consistent with the teachings of Mikhail 
Bakunin, in France too the unions were moving away from social 
democracy. Already in 1888 a congress of unions in Bordeaux had 
condemned political action and expressed itself in favor of direct 
action through the general strike. Thus in France the energies of the 
anarchist movement were absorbed by the syndicalist movement.

In the following years it was the socialist-anarchist tendency, together 
with the most combative components of social democracy and the unions, 
that prevented the SPD's attempt to move the day of struggle for the 
eight hours from May Day to the first Sunday in May. The social 
democrats had the objectives of taking away from this day the energy 
that came from the strike and reducing it to a series of rallies in 
support of the initiatives of the social democratic parliamentary groups.

In step with the growth of the mass movement, socialist-anarchist 
exponents of various nationalities met in London. At that time, the 
English metropolis was the capital of international anarchism, given the 
persecution that the movement suffered in other European states. The 
periodical The Torch therefore represented the meeting and exchange 
place between French, Spanish, British and Italian anarchists, including 
Errico Malatesta.

The periodical began its publication in 1891, the first issues were 
printed with a duplicator in the basement of William Rossetti's London 
house, by his sons. The periodical occupies a very specific position due 
to the coexistence, in its pages and among its editors, on the one hand 
of anarchist activism aimed at the workers' movement and, on the other, 
of the intellectual and artistic avant-garde: artists and writers more 
or less passively interested in anarchism (starting with the creators of 
the publication, Rossetti's sons). The international composition of the 
network of contributors, marked by the strong participation of eminent 
non-English speaking anarchists, is one of the most striking 
characteristics of The Torch. The magazine hosted Emile Pouget, Luise 
Michel, Lucien Pissarro, the Russians Petr Kropotkin and Sergius 
Stepniak, the Italians Pietro Gori, Antonio Agresti and Errico 
Malatesta. The August 1894 issue contains articles by Pouget and 
Malatesta, while Malatesta's dealt with the theme of the general strike 
as a revolutionary weapon.

In October 1894, a declaration of principles in "The Torch" stated: "We 
know that the Revolution will be accomplished by the workers themselves 
and, consequently, we believe in the entry of anarchists into workers' 
associations and if comrades belonging to trade unions, etc., wish to 
correspond with us, we will gladly open the columns of our paper to 
them. The workers' movement will interest us as much as the 
revolutionary movement, because the triumph of the one depends on the 
triumph of the other."

A vast debate was underway and led to some key statements, which still 
characterize the relationship between what is now called social 
anarchism and the workers' movement. Contrary to what was stated by 
Malatesta, Cafiero and Costa at the congresses of the anti-authoritarian 
International, this tendency recognizes that the economic struggle has a 
fundamental role in the process that will lead to the emancipation of 
the exploited classes; in this perspective it is a good thing that the 
exploited are organized in the unions and the anarchists must fight for 
the autonomy of the unions from political parties, otherwise there would 
be as many as there are parties. For this reason, social anarchism must 
engage in the unions, to give them a libertarian organization, to 
stimulate direct action and to spread the anarchist ideal of social 
reconstruction. Anarchism must also organize itself autonomously to 
develop its own political action. These concepts will be discussed in 
detail by Luigi Fabbri in "L'organizzazione operaia e l'anarchia". Once 
again we are faced with the coherence between means and ends and 
propaganda with the deed, with the difference that now these principles 
are applied to vast mass movements rather than small groups.

The London Congress

The choice of London was particularly unfortunate for the Social 
Democratic International. The leaders of the German party hoped to 
involve the English Trade Unions and their political representatives in 
the organization. Wilhelm Liebknecht had stated during a rally in 1893 
"If the English had our political organization and if we had the English 
trade union organization, in England and in Germany we would have 
obtained the victory and we would have the power in our hands". But the 
Trade Unions and the organizations that a few years later would give 
life to the Labour Party would not enter the Second International, with 
the exception of minorities such as the Social Democratic Federation and 
its subsequent branches that had, perhaps for this reason, an 
exaggerated importance in the eyes of militants in other countries. 
Furthermore, as we have seen previously, London was then a crossroads of 
international anarchism, and the socialist-anarchist tendency took 
advantage of the opportunity; as Davide Turcato says, speaking of Errico 
Malatesta's action: "Demanding the admission of anarchists to the 
congress meant reaffirming socialism and the workers' movement as 
central elements of anarchism." (The Laboratory of Anarchy). Inspired by 
Errico Malatesta, numerous meetings were held to organize the presence 
of anarchist delegates at the Congress, obtaining delegations from both 
anarchist circles and workers' organizations, so when the time came to 
decide whether anarchists should be admitted or not, the Congress split, 
as the French delegation had already split. The socialist-anarchist 
tendency was definitively expelled from the Congresses of the Second 
International, but the German Social Democratic Party and its satellites 
were forced to recognize that these congresses did not bring together 
the entire workers' movement and the socialist movement, but only that 
tendency which recognized parliamentary action as the only instrument of 
struggle. The claim to represent the working class on a world scale 
failed because of the authoritarian and doctrinal spirit that informed 
the German Social Democrats, which led them to exclude anyone who did 
not share their theoretical premises, their tactics and their strategy, 
whether the British Trade Unions or the international 
socialist-anarchist tendency.

Tiziano Antonelli

https://umanitanova.org/lorganizzazione-di-massa-una-battaglia-anarchica-in-difesa-dellautonomia-sindacale/
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