A-Infos (en) France, UCL AL #363 - International - Since 2000, the Anarkismo Network: Coordinating Libertarian Communism Worldwide (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

In May 2025, Anarkismo.net celebrated its twentieth anniversary as a 
global platform for organized anarchism. This is an opportunity to look 
back at the history of this coordination tool in Europe and around the 
world. This article is taken from a text originally published on the 
Anarkismo.net website and available on our website 
Unioncommunistelibertaire.org. ---- In the 1990s, there were several 
anarcho-communist organizations: the Libertarian Socialist Organization 
(OSL, Switzerland), the OSL (Argentina), Alternative Libertaire (AL, 
France), the Federation of Anarchist Communists (FdCA, Italy), the 
Uruguayan Anarchist Federation (FAU, Uruguay), etc. In Europe, they 
included activists in "alternative syndicalism." At that time, the 
CGT-Spain's goal was to build an international. In 1995, an 
international syndicalist and libertarian meeting was held in Ruesta 
(Spain). From then on, ties grew stronger. On May 1, 2000, the French 
CNT organized the "Another Future" conference. This event, supported by 
AL and the Anarchist Federation, helped unite French anarchism. Some of 
these activists then envisioned the creation of an alternative 
syndicalist international and a libertarian international: this led to 
the creation of Libertarian International Solidarity (SIL). Its first 
meeting was held in Madrid on April 1, 2001, at the initiative of the 
CGT-E[1].

Through this, several projects were funded, such as the "Aragón" 
printing press, travel, and conferences. However, this internationalist 
solidarity initiative was short-lived, as the SIL was created during the 
decline of the anti-globalization movement.

Porto Alegre Anarchist Conference
Meetings between the Uruguayan FAU, the Brazilian Gaucha Anarchist 
Federation (FAG), and Argentine groups were frequent in the 1990s. It 
was then time to articulate them. In Brazil, the Forum of Organized 
Anarchism (FAO) was created in 2002, and in Chile, the Anarcho-Communist 
Unification Congress (CUAC) was created in 1999. Within the framework of 
the World Social Forum (WSF), held in Porto Alegre in 2003, the Latin 
American Meeting of Autonomous Popular Organizations (ELAOPA) emerged. 
ELAOPA subsequently dissociated itself from the WSF. Its creation 
nevertheless provided an opportunity for meetings between libertarian 
activists: the Jornadas Anarquistas (Anarchist Days). In the wake of 
this, in 2007-2008, several new libertarian communist organizations 
emerged, some with the ambition of having a national reach (such as the 
Organización Comunista Libertaria in Argentina or the Organización Poder 
Popular Libertario in Bolivia). Alongside this multitude of groups, 
larger-scale coordination initiatives naturally emerged: the Latin 
American Anarchist Coordination (CALA), created in 2004 by the FAU, AUCA 
("rebel" in Mapuche, Argentina), FAG, Lucha Libertaria (Uruguay), and 
UNIPA (Brazil).

The Creation of the Anarkismo.net Website
Several anarchist-oriented websites emerged in the 1990s: A-infos, 
Infoshop, Spunk, etc. Shortly before 2000, the Workers Solidarity 
Movement (WSM, Ireland) and the Workers Solidarity Front (WSF) created 
the Anarchist Platform mailing list. This list was used to convene a 
face-to-face meeting of platformist organizations held in Genoa, Italy, 
in 2001, during the alter-globalization counter-summit, at the 
initiative of the FdCA. The demise of the SIL network left an 
organizational void that Anarkismo.net would fill. After much work, the 
website was launched on May 1, 2005, a highly symbolic date. Among the 
founding organizations of Anarkismo.net were FAU, FAG, FdCA, and AL. 
Each organization had its own website from which it disseminated its 
strategy, and these websites contributed significantly to spreading the 
movement.

A Coordination, Not an International
Anarkismo.net did not aspire to become an international organization, 
but rather a tool for sharing information on local struggles, theory, 
and strategies. It functioned through a collective of delegates and an 
editorial collective. And this collaborative effort bore fruit. In 
November 2008, the network published the "Anarcho-Communist Declaration 
on the Global Economic Crisis and the G20 Meeting" at the first G20 
summit in Washington. Then, in February 2010, six organizations met in 
Paris: FdCA, L&S (Great Britain), WSM, OSL (Switzerland), Motmakt 
("Counterpower," Norway), and AL. Their objective was to assess the 
state of the libertarian communist movement in Europe and promote 
continental coordination.

For May 1, 2023, the member organizations of the European Coordination 
signed a statement affirming that rights are won through popular 
mobilization in the face of exploitation and current crises.
Maturity of the Network
Between 2010 and 2013, the network consolidated. The movement took shape 
globally and capitalized on the Arab Spring, the Indignados movement, 
the occupations of public squares, and the Rojava revolution. 
Anarcho-communist organizations emerged in Egypt (the Libertarian 
Socialist Movement, MSL), Israel (Unity), and Tunisia, as well as new 
efforts in Iran, Lebanon, and Jordan.

In 2012, eight European organizations met again in London[2]. In 
addition to discussing improved coordination, they launched a campaign 
against sovereign debt. That same year, the Jornadas Anarquistas 
(Anarchist Days) took place in São Paulo, organized by the FAU and the 
FAO to develop specificist anarchism on the continent. In August 2012, 
the movement's largest physical meeting took place in Saint-Imier, 
Switzerland. About half of the 30 organizations that were in contact 
with Anarkismo.net at the time sent delegates to the International 
Meeting. In 2014, a joint communiqué for May Day and one in support of 
the Kurdish resistance were signed.

The Anarkismo network was present at the St-Imier Meetings in 
Switzerland in 2012.
ANDREWNFLOOD
On November 18 and 19, 2017, several European organizations met in Genoa 
to exchange analyses and establish a European action plan: Alternativa 
Libertaria/FdCA, Alternative Libertaire, the Coordination of Anarchist 
Groups (CGA), the Libertarian Socialist Federation (Wales, Great 
Britain), OSL (Switzerland), and WSM. In 2020, the Libertarian Communist 
Union (UCL) conducted a comprehensive mapping of the movement. Over the 
years, a tradition developed of sending greetings to each organization 
of the current that held a congress. This helped make all activists 
aware that they belonged to a much larger movement.

A Phase of Decline
Between 2018 and 2021, WSM and Zabalaza dissolved, along with other 
local and regional groups in North America, due to generational shifts. 
In addition, other organizations also experienced crises, without 
disappearing, such as Motmakt, with which contact was lost. Several 
European organizations disappeared (in Denmark, Portugal, the Czech 
Republic, and Turkey) or their movements failed to stabilize (in Great 
Britain or Russia). In the Americas, organizations in Bolivia and Peru 
were lost, and splits occurred in Argentina, Chile, and the United 
States. Another split during this period was that of the Anarchist 
Federation (Great Britain), which led to the creation of the Anarchist 
Communist Group (ACG) in 2018. The ACG suffered an even worse fate, 
losing two comrades in just four months of 2018. Finally, the case of 
Michael Schmidt and his expulsion from Anarkismo.net and the Institute 
for Anarchist Theory and History (ITHA) was not without consequences[3].

The Chilean Case
In 1999, a movement began in Chile with the celebration of the CUAC, 
which gave rise to the Organización Comunista Libertaria in 2002. The 
following year, a Libertarian Student Front (FEL) was launched, and in 
2006, following the "Penguin Revolt" (of high school students), the FEL 
experienced exponential growth.

Some time later, this entire political space merged to form the 
Izquierda Libertaria (Libertarian Left). It reached a scale never before 
seen for a libertarian organization. In this context, a majority of the 
movement led discussions that shaped the political approach known as the 
"Democratic Rupture." Chilean libertarian communist sectors began 
supporting left-wing electoral options in 2013. Then, in the 2018 
elections, the Izquierda Libertaria supported the Frente Amplio (Broad 
Front, a coalition spanning the far left and social liberals), which was 
running in the legislative elections. Thanks to its participation, 
libertarian activist Gael Yeomans was elected to the National Assembly.

Since then, the Izquierda Libertaria has grown in membership with 
regional and national deputies, as well as senators, and has abandoned 
traditional libertarian communist premises. As a result, it has 
undergone several splits, such as Solidaridad FCL, some of which have in 
turn followed the parliamentary route, leading to further splits. At the 
Latin American level, the specificist movement distanced itself from all 
these Chilean groups until the emergence of the Anarchist Federation of 
Santiago (FAS) in 2019.

Between 2015 and 2019, the movement suffered a setback caused by the 
problems mentioned above. Not everything was disappointing, of course. 
After ACG in 2018, Die Plattform was founded in Germany in 2019. During 
the Jornadas Anarquistas of that same year, Latin American organizations 
discussed the need to revive the movement. Following this initiative, 
the foundations for a new international effort began to be laid. In 
December 2019, CALA was reestablished, formed by CAB (Brazil), FAR 
(Argentina), and FAU. These organizations served as a focal point for 
the movement and took over from the European organizations that had 
previously played a leading role.

With CALA, the entire international libertarian communist movement 
experienced an extraordinary revival of energy. In 2020, the year of the 
global pandemic, the foundations for more coordinated international 
coordination were laid. One of the projects aimed to support anarchist 
comrades in Sudan[4]who needed financial assistance to leave the 
country. There are also summer camps, set up independently by each 
organization, such as those of Embat (Catalonia) and UCL since 2018 and 
2021 respectively. Die Plattform also organized such summer camps, while 
an anarchist political school was created in Australia, which 
contributed to the formation of an anarchist federation there. Finally, 
this summer, the first British ACG camp took place. This has been a 
winning formula, since since 2020, there has been a clear increase in 
the number of groups and activists worldwide.

As usual, Die Plattform attended our 2025 Summer Conference.
UCL Alsace
Towards the International Coordination of Organized Anarchism
The result of this growth was the official creation of the Coordination 
at the end of 2024. It has continental sections in Europe and the 
Americas, and something similar could be established in the medium term 
in Asia-Pacific.

Since then, a South Korean organization and the Black Rose Federation of 
the United States have joined the Coordination. Several other 
organizations have emerged, creating an increasingly complex and 
difficult-to-follow map[5].

There are currently other libertarian communist groups and organizations 
in the United States, Canada, Brazil (the new OSL being particularly 
notable for its size), Italy, Spain, Great Britain, France, the 
Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, 
Indonesia, and New Zealand. These groups do not belong to the 
International Coordination but maintain contact with one or more of the 
current's organizations, which now number several dozen in total. Of 
course, they also actively participate in the movement as a whole, as 
the Coordination in no way represents the entire movement and does not 
claim to do so. In any case, these hundreds (or even thousands) of 
international activists are building a solid libertarian alternative 
that has already positioned itself within the broader anarchist movement.

Text by Miguel G. Gómez (Embat), summarized and translated by Alexis 
(UCL International Relations Commission)

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[1]Birth of an international libertarian network, June 11, 2001, on the 
Ainfos.ca website.

[2]"WSM takes part in Conference of European Anarchist Organizations in 
London," March 31, 2011, Struggle.ws.

[3]Statement on the Michael Schmidt Affair, 2017, on 
Ithanarquista.wordpress.com.

[4]"Update on the Campaign for the Sudanese Anarchists," Anarkismo.net, 
April 18, 2024.

[5]We'll spare you the list here, but you can find this article in its 
entirety on our website Unioncommunistelibertaire.org or in its original 
version on Anarkismo.net.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Depuis-2000-le-reseau-Anarkismo-Coordonner-mondialement-le-communisme
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