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+2 votes
Tradition? Current practice? Analysis of capitalism?
by (160 points)
Why "non-platformist anarchists"? Are you under the impression that neo-platformists are somehow indiscernible from the ultra-left?
"Tradition" seems a funny word to use in relation to anarchists.
why do you say that enkidu? you think there aren't traditions that anarchists have/follow?
Two reasons: 1) @ seems to have less continuity than a lot of comparable movements/ ideas (not that its necessarily a bad thing, leading to continual re-invention), 2) "tradition" seems an almost inherently conservative notion, often serving propertied interests. As I recall the term is derived from a Latin word for "inheritance," the original meaning referring to tangible items but later being generalized to more abstract things we get from previous generations. The Invention of Tradition is a collection of articles on "traditions" such as the kilt, not really of Scottish origin, rather created by an English owner of an early factory that employed Scots.

Nevertheless, there seems to be something of value in the idea of "tradition" worth salvaging, as with many received concepts.

2 Answers

0 votes
platformists secretly like anti-state communists a lot, other anarchists do not.

;)
by (670 points)
+4 votes
I know this both from political activist experience and from reading a lot.

Council Communism and Left Communism were currents of marxist thought that emphasized spontaneist and libertarian aspects of marxism. Rosa Luxembourg in particular even proposed a theory of mass action which could be said in anarchist terms of an almost "insurrectionist" nature. Council Communism in particular emphasizes workers self organization, mass direct action and are very critical of syndicalism.

Because of this situation I think some sectors of insurrectionary anarchists and symphathisers have come close to theories of the so called "ultra left" currents of french left communism of the Gilles Dauve and the book "The Coming Insurrection" type.

That as far as "collaboration" or close understanding between insurrectionary anarchists and marxist left communism. But one thing is to say "insurrectionary anarchism" and another is "non-platformist anarchism".

Non-platformist anarchism includes within itself not only insurrectionary anarchism but much more. And so you have anarchists linked more with recent new social movements like feminism (anarcha-feminists), ecology (green anarchists or eco-anarchists of which there exists mainly two types social ecologists and similar and anarcho-primitivists). These kins of anarchists do not fit well within the "class socialistic" overemphasis and "one strategic line" tendency of platformism. And so they can exist within radical ecologist, GLBT or feminist groups or if they belong to a large specific anarchist organization more likely within pluralistic Synthesis Anarchism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesis_anarchism ) Federations of the kind who belong to the worldwide International of Anarchist Federations. And so within an organization like the Italian Anarchist Federation you can have green anarchists, anarcha-feminists and GLBT Queer anarchists as well as other things like atheistic anti-clerical free-thought minded anarchists, naturist nudist anarchists, anarcho-syndicalists trade unionists, individualist anarchists, and anarcho-pacifists. In the similar french Federation Anarchiste you had all of this as well as members of the André breton surrealist movement who after the war abandoned marxism and embraced openly anarchism. The same situation existed in the pre-Spanish Civil War Iberian Anarchist Federation.  

But now both all non-insurrectionist and all non-plaformist do not  always exist only within large synthesist federations. They can also exist within smaller "anarchism without adjectives" collectives such as in the US Crimeth. Inc. In post-world war II France, the individualist anarchists more close to Emile armand and Emile Armand himself didn´t join the recently created Federation Anarchiste while other individualist anarchists like Charles Auguste Bontemps did join the Federation Anarchiste. Even though both insurrectionary anarchism and Emile armand and Charles-Auguste Bontemps were more or less Stirnerists, Armand and Bontemps were anarcho-pacifists while insurrectionary anarchists are well known to be for "violence".

In my view I think you have a over simplistic dual dilemma between "insurretionarism" and "platfomism". Anarchism is much more diverse and complex than that.
by (3.3k points)
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