A-Infos (en) Italy, FDCA, Cantiere #43 - Italy and the Platform - Italian involvement in the debate on the Organizing Platform - Nestor McNab (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The debate that accompanied the publication of the Organizational 
Platform of the General Union of Anarchists between June and October 
1926 was lively and widespread, involving large numbers of anarchists 
both in France, where it was published, and abroad. However, since Paris 
at that time was something of a magnet for anarchists forced to flee 
their home countries or attracted by the widespread activity of others 
already present, much of the debate over the proposals of the Group of 
Russian Anarchists Abroad (GRAZ)[1]concentrated on Paris.

The publication of the Platform was preceded by a series of articles on 
anarchist organization in Delo Truda, particularly Graz's article " The 
Problem of Organization and the Notion of Synthesis" from March 1926. 
The idea of a synthesis of the three main strands of anarchism 
(anarchist communism, anarcho-syndicalism, and individualism) had been 
proposed by Sébastien Faure and supported by figures such as Volin. A 
controversial idea in itself, "synthesisism" would prove, in subsequent 
years, to be the counterpart to the "platformist" idea of organization, 
and the organized movement was destined to polarize over the years into 
federations based on synthesis and those based on tendency.

The debate accompanied the fragmentary publication of the Platform and 
took place in the pages of several anarchist journals, including the 
Russian-language newspaper of the initiating group, Delo Truda, and the 
French daily Le Libertaire. Following comments from some comrades, GRAZ 
published a Supplement to the Organizational Platform in November 1926 , 
which addressed some of the points raised by Maria Korn Isidine.

A series of meetings and conferences were also held. The meeting of 
February 12, 1927, chaired by the Italian anarchist Ugo Fedeli, who had 
collaborated with Makhno and had initially supported the project, 
concluded with the decision to establish a Provisional Secretariat that 
would convene an International Conference, which would lead to the 
founding of a Revolutionary Anarchist Communist International.

The International Conference was held on 20 March 1927 in Paris and 
discussed the proposal presented by the Provisional Secretariat, which 
briefly summarized the debate of the previous months:

As a basis for the union of homogeneous forces and as a minimum logical 
and tactical ideal on which the comrades should agree, we propose the 
following points:

Recognition of class struggle as the most important factor in the 
anarchist system.

Recognition of communist anarchism as the basis of our movement.

Recognition of syndicalism as one of the main methods of struggle of 
communist anarchism.

The need for a General Union of Anarchists in every country, based on 
ideological and tactical unity and collective responsibility.

The need for a positive program that can create social revolution.
The conference, however, was interrupted by the French police, who 
arrested the participants and subsequently expelled many of them from 
the country. However, before the meeting adjourned, one of the two 
Italian groups present, the "Thought and Will" Group (represented by 
Luigi Fabbri, Camillo Berneri, and Ugo Fedeli), managed to have the 
first point changed to:

Recognition of the struggle of all the exploited and oppressed against 
the authority of the state and capital as the most important factor in 
the anarchist system.

This group had also prepared alternative versions of three of the other 
four points, which due to police action were not decided:

Recognition of workers' and trade union struggle as one of the important 
methods of anarchists' revolutionary action.

The need for the most general union possible of anarchists in every 
country, with the same final goal and the same practical tactics, also 
based on collective responsibility.

The need for a positive program of action with which anarchists can 
bring about the social revolution.

In the following months, debate over the Platform raged. In April, Volin 
and a group of other Russian anarchist exiles, including Mollie Steimer 
and her husband Senya Fleshin, published a scathing, lengthy attack on 
the Platform .[2]This prompted a stinging collective response in August 
of that year from the GRAZ,[3]which accused Volin and his group of 
deliberately misrepresenting the spirit of the draft Organizational 
Platform . In May 1927, the Provisional Secretariat, consisting of 
Nestor Makhno, Maxim Ranko, and Chen (Yen-Nian?), issued invitations to 
join the new Revolutionary Anarchist Communist International, or 
International Anarchist Communist Federation, on the basis of the 
original five points above (but excluding the Italians' 
counterproposals, a fact that certainly would not have been appreciated 
by Fabbri's group).

The meetings and articles continued, with contributions from Faure, 
Volin, Linsky, Ranko, Isidine, Grave and Chernjakov among others, not 
forgetting Arshinov and Makhno. In October of that year, Errico 
Malatesta, the eminence grise of Italian anarchism who was living in 
forced isolation in Italy, responded to the Platform proposal in a 
letter,[4]to which both Petr Arshinov[5]and Makhno replied several 
months later.[6]Meanwhile, there had also been important interventions 
by Luigi Fabbri[7]and Maria Korn Isidine,[8]to which Arshinov responded 
with another article.[9]Only a year later, at the end of 1929, Malatesta 
was able to respond to Makhno's letter[10]and it must be said that many 
of his doubts about the project had by then been clarified, although 
serious problems remained regarding the concept of collective 
responsibility. Malatesta would, in fact, write once again on this 
subject in the pages of the French journal Le Libertaire as late as 
April 1930,[11]stating, however, that he was quite willing to believe 
that the difficulty might simply be the result of linguistic 
differences. (At this point it should be remembered that the version of 
the text used as the basis for consideration by non-Russians was Volin's 
French translation, and, indeed, Alexandre Skirda has since drawn 
attention to the somewhat partial nature of this translation. Indeed, 
there was an exchange of articles on the question of the fidelity of the 
translation in Le Libertaire in the spring of 1927.) By then, however, 
the momentum had evaporated, and support for the Platform was limited to 
only a few groups such as the Union Anarchiste Communiste 
Révolutionnaire. Arshinov had been expelled to Belgium in January, and 
one of Makhno's last public acts was his speech to the UACR Congress.

The two Italian groups present at the 1927 meetings went their separate 
ways. The group represented by Giuseppe Bifolchi, "had already begun its 
own process of criticism in search of a new revolutionary 
strategy,[and]lent its support to the program of the Platform[...]. 
Believing that the concept of internationalism was the true basis for 
the existence of every anarchist organization, they joined the 
International Anarchist Communist Federation as its First Italian 
Section."[12]This group's Manifesto has now been translated into English 
for the first time.[13]Bifolchi was forced to leave France in April 1928 
and went to Belgium. There he founded the monthly Bandiera Nera before 
moving to Spain during the years of the Spanish Revolution, where he 
fought as a commander in the Italian Column. Fedeli had edited the 
Italian version of the trilingual journal International Anarchist Review 
from November 1924 to June 1925, when it merged with two other journals 
into La Tempra. He was expelled from France in 1929 and repatriated to 
Italy in 1933, where he faced prison and confinement after spending 
periods in Belgium, Argentina and Uruguay.

Naturally, the strong anti-organizational component of Italian anarchism 
was not interested in the Platform project . Nor were the Italian 
comrades who had chosen to remain in fascist Italy (with all the 
difficulties that entailed). Those imprisoned were struggling to 
survive, while the few who remained free were engaged in anti-fascist 
activities and tried to keep anarchist ideas alive among Italian workers.

If the short-lived First Italian Section of the Anarchist Communist 
International was not very successful, this was partly due to fascist 
repression in Italy, but also to the fact that both Malatesta and the 
prestigious "Thought and Will" Group eventually distanced themselves 
from the Platform . Despite apparent disagreements within the latter 
group, they eventually sent a reply to the invitation of the Provisional 
Secretariat in which they politely refused the offer to join the 
initiative, believing that for the moment "the best path to follow is 
the one that, in four years of public life, the UAI has traced for 
itself."[14]

Interestingly, while Malatesta's reluctance to endorse the Platform 
stems primarily from his doubts about "collective responsibility," the 
letter from the "Thought and Will" Group appears to indicate 
reservations about the principles of theoretical and tactical unity 
("exclusivism"), while their proposals to the International Conference 
actually endorsed the need for both unity of tactics and collective 
responsibility.

But the Italian Anarchist Union was already dead. The fascist regime in 
Italy, which in the preceding years had forced anarchist groups, 
newspapers (such as Umanità Nova), and the anarchist-dominated 
revolutionary trade union USI[15]to dissolve, made public life so 
impossible for Italian anarchists that the UAI's January 1926 congress 
would be its last.

The UAI, founded in 1919 as the Italian Anarchist Communist Union 
(UCAI),[16]had been a rather inefficient organization, and indeed for 
several years before its demise there had been attempts to form a 
federation that did not include the individualist and 
anti-organizational elements that were considered by many, Malatesta and 
Fabbri included, to be responsible for much of the organization's 
failure to achieve concrete results. In the years following the 
fascists' rise to power, Italian anarchists became deeply divided: some 
militants remained in Italy (most of whom would be kept confined to 
remote areas of the country for over a decade), while many others would 
emigrate, often first to other European countries, then to the Americas. 
It was from this point on that the anti-organizational element would 
become dominant among Italian anarchists, both in Italy and abroad (also 
thanks to the influence and hegemony exercised by strongly 
anti-organizational magazines, such as Adunata dei Refrattari, published 
in New York).

In 1930, the Anarchist Communist Union of Italian Refugees, a 
progressive organization, was founded in Paris. However, three years 
later, it was renamed the Anarchist Federation of Italian Refugees, and 
in November 1935, it completed the process of transformation into a 
federation of synthesis, becoming the Anarchist Committee for 
Revolutionary Action.

Things went somewhat better (for a time) for the Platform in France and 
Bulgaria, where the Bulgarian Anarchist Communist Federation actually 
adopted the Platform as its constitution. The principles of the Platform 
were accepted (albeit in an overly strict manner) by the French 
federation, the Union Anarchiste (founded in 1920 by Faure as a 
synthesist organization) at its November 1927 congress, when it changed 
its name to the Union Anarchiste Communiste Révolutionnaire,[17]harking 
back to the name of the proposed International. Members who were opposed 
to the change left to found the Association des Fédéralistes 
Anarchistes,[18]whose theoretical and organizational ethos was 
epitomized by Faure's La Synthèse Anarchiste .

In 1930, however, a group of trade unionists who voluntarily remained 
within the UACR managed to gain a majority within the federation, which 
led to the change of name to Union Anarchiste and a return to a more 
synthesist approach. Finally, the Fédération Communiste 
Libertaire[19]was founded by supporters of the Platform in 1935, but 
this too would disappear during the war years.

Note

[1]Group of Russian Anarchists Abroad.

[2]Some Russian anarchists (Sobol, Schwartz, Steimer, Volin, Lia, Roman, 
Ervantian, Fleshin), Response to the Platform , April 1927.

[3]GRAZ, Reply to the Confusionists of Anarchism: A Reply to the "Reply 
to the Platform" of Some Russian Anarchists , 18 August 1927.

[4]A project of anarchist organization , «Il Risveglio», October 1927.

[5]The old and the new in anarchism , «Delo Truda», n. 30, May 1928.

[6]On the organizational platform , «Il Risveglio», December 1929.

[7]On a project of anarchist organization , «Il Martello», 17-24 
September 1927.

[8]Organization and party , «Plus Loin» nn. 36-37, March/April 1928.

[9]Old and new elements in anarchism , «Delo Truda», nn. 30-31, 
November/December 1928.

[10]Reply to Nestor Makhno , «The Awakening», December 1929.

[11]On Collective Responsibility , «Le Libertaire», n. 252, 19 April 
1930. English translation under the title On Collective Responsibility 
available at the Nestor Makhno Archive ( 
https://www.nestormakhno.info/english/mal_rep3.htm ).

[12]Adriana Dadà, Anarchism in Italy: between movement and party: 
History and documents of Italian anarchism , Teti publisher, Milan, 1984.

[13]Manifesto of the First Section of the International Anarchist 
Communist Federation . The original Italian version of the manifesto is 
in IISG, Fondo U. Fedeli, b. 175, and now also in Dadà, op. cit.

[14]Letter from the "Thought and Will" Group to the Provisional 
Secretariat of the International Anarchist Communist Federation. See 
Adriana Dadà, Ugo Fedeli from Russia to France: An Italian anarchist in 
the debate of international anarchism (1921-1927) , in Annals of the 
Institute of History , vol. III, University of Florence, Faculty of 
Education, Florence, 1985.

[15]Italian Trade Union.

[16]The UCAI Congress in Bologna in 1921 had decided to eliminate the 
term "communist" from the name to avoid confusion with the Bolsheviks.

[17]Revolutionary Anarchist Communist Union.

[18]Association of Anarchist Federalists.

[19]Libertarian Communist Federation.

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