A-Infos (en) US, BRRN: The Platform at 100: Voices of Organized Anarchists Around the Globe (Vol. 2) IV. ACG - UK (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

1. Anarchist Communist Group (ACG) was officially formed in 2018, what 
was the process of formalizing the organization? ---- ACG: A significant 
number of Anarchist Federation (AF) members, including all surviving 
founding members, collectively resigned from that organisation in 
December 2017 due to disagreements over the political direction of the 
AF. These disagreements came to a head over the differences in responses 
to events at the London Anarchist Bookfair in October of that year.
We disagreed with the statements put out by Edinburgh AF and the 'Trans 
Action Faction'. We put forward an alternative statement for discussion 
which was received with extreme hostility and uncomradely behaviour from 
a vocal minority. We were no longer able to work in that environment.

The Anarchist Communist Group was established in February 2018. We 
decided to focus less on what passes for an anarchist movement, but, 
rather, oriented towards an outward looking, wider working class 
politics. We were joined by some other former AF members and by some 
experienced militants as well as some comrades newer to anarchist communism.

2. You claim to pull from a relatively broad tradition of socialist 
currents, citing both world historic experiences from anarchism and left 
communism. Could you briefly describe your framework and the important 
lessons you draw from each current here?

ACG: We are firmly in the tradition of anarchist communism, as developed 
by Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Malatesta. We stress the importance of having 
a distinct, specific political organisation that has a clear set of aims 
and principles both in terms of what we think and how we organise 
ourselves. We have been heavily influenced by the Organisational 
Platform of Libertarian Communism with its stress on Theoretical and 
Tactical Unity and Collective Responsibility that distinguishes it from 
other anarchist traditions.  We reject 'Big Tent' anarchism or what 
historically has been called "synthesist" anarchism. However, we have 
certain criticisms of the Platform and therefore have adapted its 
principles accordingly, based on our own analysis and experience.

Our aim is to ensure that there is a balance between guarding against 
authoritarian tendencies and ensuring an effective, committed organisation.

Certainly, we are influenced by Council Communism, particularly in terms 
of our critique of trade unionism and syndicalism, as well as in our 
position on national liberation struggles. However, we would not 
consider ourselves Council Communists or Left Communists. We are opposed 
to knee-jerk anti-Marxism but we are resolutely anti-Bolshevik. In terms 
of the British left we have been influenced by the Solidarity group.

We have also been influenced by struggles against oppression (against 
patriarchy and for liberation of people of colour) and stress that we 
cannot have an anarchist communist society unless all hierarchy is 
abolished. We recognise that these struggles need to be firmly based in 
revolutionary class politics, but they cannot be reduced to class and 
may need their own autonomous organisations.

We have also developed our own ideas of the relationship between the 
anarchist communist organisation and the class struggle. These are set 
out in our pamphlet Role of the Revolutionary Organisation. One of the 
key concepts is 'leadership of ideas' which stresses the importance of 
being embedded in the class struggle and offering political strategies 
and tactics which will further the struggle and develop the 
self-organisation of the working class, without imposing ourselves 
physically as leaders. We also recognise that we are also learning from 
the class, further developing our ideas and practice.

In the past few years we have taken on board many of the ideas of the 
especifismo current, which stresses the importance of members of the 
political organisation being firmly embedded in social struggles whilst 
maintaining the distinct political organisation.

Another area that we have developed, with ideas taken from a variety of 
our experiences, is how to fully engage members in the organisation. 
Members need to fully understand our politics when they join, and also 
be able to contribute to the development of these politics based on 
their experiences. We therefore have regular educationals and a 
mentoring system.

3. Has there been other expressions of organized anarchism or left 
communism in the United Kingdom prior to the creation of your organization?

ACG: Yes, certainly. And there is some continuity with some of the older 
members who are veterans of the early organised anarchist and Platform 
influenced groups such as the Organisation of Revolutionary Anarchists, 
the Anarchist Workers Association, the Libertarian Communist Group and 
the Anarchist Communist Federation. There have been some other short 
lived groups who were contemporaries of the Anarchist 
Federation/Anarchist Federation.

As for Left Communist groups, there have been a two since the 1970s. We 
have fraternal relations with one of them, the Communist Workers 
Organisation. As for groups closer to Council Communism, there were a 
plethora of them in the 1980s and 90s but almost nothing is left of 
them, in great part due to their tendency towards anti-organisational 
positions.

4. Since your organization was founded, the UK has, by all appearances, 
gone through a political crisis, in part stoked by Brexit, in which 
prime ministers from both the ruling parties can't maintain their own 
legitimacy for long. How has this general crisis of legitimacy impacted 
your organization's strategy or political activity?

ACG: The political representatives of capital, left and right, have no 
answers to the problems capitalism's crisis creates and therefore they 
are involved in slightly tweaking various parts of the economy whilst 
continuing to make the working class pay. In these circumstances it 
might be expected to see an upsurge in combativity on the part of the 
working class. Other than a brief period of workplace unrest, which 
never really threatened to go beyond the control of the union 
leaderships, this has not happened. Likewise, a growth in revolutionary 
organisations might have been expected but the opposite has happened and 
the anarchist milieu is probably weaker and more marginal to struggles 
than at any time in the last 50 years or so. The crisis of legitimacy of 
the various bourgeois parties has offered opportunities but the 
organised anarchist forces have not been able to make any significant 
headway in this period.

We are further hampered by the rise of the right, with racist, and even 
fascist ideas taking hold of some members of the working class. We do 
not present a credible alternative at the moment.

We are currently working on developing a Revolutionary Programme, 
inspired by the work done by the Black Rose Federation. We hope this 
could provide a focal point for galvanising class struggle anarchists to 
extend and expand their influence within the working class, offering a 
vision, strategy and tactics.

5. What areas of social movement organizing does ACG strategically 
prioritize? In other words, what areas of work are militants of ACG 
involved in?

We have two main aspects to our work. One is to engage in social 
struggles, and we have a policy of fighting where we are, whether that's 
in the workplace or the community or in a social movement. We have an 
embryonic network of workplace militants in the Trades Union Congress 
unions and also in the IWW, trying to build a libertarian communist 
tendency across the unions in the Health and Education Sectors. We have 
members involved in the Land Justice movement and local 
anti-gentrification activity.

We also stress the importance of propaganda work. We are involved in 
producing a regular bulletin, pamphlets, leaflets, stickers and we do a 
lot of outreach, literature stalls etc. We are the only anarchist 
organisation producing a regular bulletin and a theoretical journal, 
holding public meetings and trying to heighten the profile of anarchist 
communism in the UK.

6. What is your relationship with other revolutionary groups in the UK? 
How about outside your country, in Ireland or in the rest of Europe?

In the UK we have attempted to be open and comradely with other groups. 
We have attempted to develop join activity with other groups in the area 
of anti-militarism with some success. We are involved in the Network of 
Anarchist Internationalists and in the UK that involves the Anarcom 
Network, who we are politically close to, and Organise! the Irish 
section of the IWA. Our London group works with the Rebel City Anarchist 
Group. We have sent observers to the recent 'We are the Eclipse' 
national meeting, which is an attempt by some anarchists to facilitate 
joint activity amongst libertarians nationally.

We are affiliated to the International Coordination of Organised 
Anarchism and the European Coordination of Organised Anarchism.

https://www.blackrosefed.org/platform-interviews-vol-2/#anarchist-communist-group-uk
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en