Anarkismo Network: Statement of the general meeting

European sections of the platformist international have issued a joint declaration on the state of the movement following last month’s gathering in Genoa. Launched in 2005, Anarkismo consists of groups which agree with an editorial statement and tends to promote organised engagement with existing mass movements such as large trade unions, in an attempt to push them towards more syndicalist and anarchist methodologies. The 2017 statement is as follows:

Delegations from Wales, France, Italy, Switzerland and Ireland — with a warm solidarity statement from our Catalan comrades of Embat — expressed the need to clarify and deepen our common work.

Where are we?

The phase that we are currently living in is without doubt one of systemic crisis and strategical transformation. Capitalism in crisis is looking for a new model of regulation while the political left is stuck in its own heavy crisis — a lack of any clear perspective or will.

Social-liberalism is an active part of the State and of the European management of capital. It has evolved as an instrument of domination and exploitation. Another section of the political left claims a reformist ambition which is based on a pro-State strategy but to date hasn’t managed to formulate an alternative along the lines of genuine social emancipation. There is also a relatively large milieu which struggles to bring to life meaningful resistance at grassroots level, but nonetheless refuses to abide by institutional frameworks.

Through the process of Fordist-type liquidation sales, capitalism brings us back to forms of exploitation which are reminiscent of the beginning of the 20th century. The traditional proletariat is being transformed and enlarged — it is re-produced through new forms of exploitation like autonomous work and new structures of wage labour in a push towards generalised precarious conditions of life.

The world, and particularly the EU, is facing new contradictions, with relative potentialities for them to explode, such as Brexit or the rise of the far-right movements towards national power. With huge internal tensions, the geostrategic European bloc is on the edge, and in the near future it may either become a coherent imperialist pole, or risk facing the pressure of other centres of power throughout the world.

The lack of a social movement able to check the dominant bloc’s offensive must be redressed to better depict the situation. No movement amongst the oppressed is able to go forward to new social conquests and organise a combative working class under the current dominant social conditions.

This in a situation when the far right is everyday more aggressive and the bourgeoisie is leading an offensive against every right and social conquest that was accumulated through struggles in the last 150 years.

Where do we want to go to and what should we do?

In the present phase and the one yet to come, we must and will have to deal with a hard and difficult situation to build our intervention, but we won’t be afraid and we will not step back.

The end of capitalism and the self-management of the whole of society are needs that cannot and should not wait any longer. As such, they are historical objectives. They are the goals that lie at the heart of our practice within the organisations of the exploited. We learn and prepare tomorrow’s values in today’s struggles.

We do not believe there is any shortcut to that. Our daily duty is to build step by step the struggles and social conflicts in our neighbourhoods and our workplaces. We must accumulate the strength in order to gather and mobilise the whole part of the society which resists and creates dissent, refuses to comply with capitalism and defends the only possible alternative: organization from below and the destruction of every form of domination and exploitation. Our politics are one of emancipation, direct grassroots action and the construction of popular power.

We’ve seen that Europe, despite its contradictions and internal conflicts, is not only a supranational union of States, but also a system of transnational power which has a proper capacity to intervene to guarantee the fundamental interests of the dominant bloc.

We believe in, and therefore we work to build, a common culture and strategy within our respective organizations and our network, in order to reinforce social struggles and strengthen class-struggle and emancipatory organised anarchism. We aim at building an international network in the common area that will be able to fight back against the processes we are facing. By identifying the potentialities of struggle, we plan to generate an alternative and a balance of power that is more favourable to us.

We are determined for as long as necessary to bring our collective contribution to the movement of social struggles in Europe and throughout the world.

Go forward, fight, build popular power!
We carry a new world in our hearts.

Alternativa Libertaria/FdCA – Italy
Alternative Libertaire – France
Coordination des Groupes Anarchistes – France
Libertarian Socialist Federation – Britain
Organisation Socialiste Libertaire – Switzerland
Workers Solidarity Movement – Ireland