Synthesis anarchism, synthesist anarchism,
synthesism or synthesis federations is a form
of anarchist organization which tries to join
anarchists of different tendencies under the
principles of anarchism without adjectives.
In the 1920s, this form found as its main
proponents the anarcho-communists Voline and
Sébastien Faure, bringing together anarchists
of three main tendencies: individualist anarchism,
anarchist communism, and anarcho-syndicalism.
It is the main principle behind the anarchist
federations grouped around the contemporary
global International of Anarchist Federations.
== History ==
=== Debates between anarchist schools of thought
and "anarchism without adjectives" ===
The originators of the expression "anarchism
without adjectives" were Cuban-born Fernando
Tarrida del Mármol and Ricardo Mella, who
were troubled by the bitter debates between
mutualist, individualists and communist anarchists
in the 1880s.
Their use of the phrase "anarchism without
adjectives" was an attempt to show greater
tolerance between anarchist tendencies and
to be clear that anarchists should not impose
a preconceived economic plan on anyone—even
in theory.
Anarchists without adjectives tended either
to reject all particular anarchist economic
models as faulty, or take a pluralist position
of embracing them all to a limited degree
in order that they may keep one another in
check.
Regardless, to these anarchists the economic
preferences are considered to be of "secondary
importance" to abolishing all coercive authority,
with free experimentation the one rule of
a free society.
This conflict soon spread outside of Spain
and the discussion found its way into the
pages of La Revolte in Paris.
This provoked many anarchists to agree with
Errico Malatesta's argument that "[i]t is
not right for us, to say the least, to fall
into strife over mere hypotheses".
Over time, most anarchists agreed (to use
Max Nettlau's words) that "we cannot foresee
the economic development of the future" and
so started to stress what they had in common,
rather than the different visions of how a
free society would operate.
As time progressed, most anarcho-communists
saw that ignoring the labour movement ensured
that their ideas did not reach the working
class while most anarcho-syndicalists stressed
their commitment to communist ideals and their
arrival sooner, rather than later, after a
revolution.
Similarly, in the United States there was
an intense debate at the same time between
individualist and communist anarchists.
Anarchists like Voltairine de Cleyre "came
to label herself simply 'Anarchist,' and called
like Malatesta for an 'Anarchism without Adjectives,'
since in the absence of government many different
experiments would probably be tried in various
localities in order to determine the most
appropriate form".
Voltarine sought conciliation between the
various schools and said in her essay Anarchism:
"There is nothing un-Anarchistic about any
of [these systems] until the element of compulsion
enters and obliges unwilling persons to remain
in a community whose economic arrangements
they do not agree to.
(When I say 'do not agree to' I do not mean
that they have a mere distaste for...I mean
serious differences which in their opinion
threaten their essential liberties...)...Therefore
I say that each group of persons acting socially
in freedom may choose any of the proposed
systems, and be just as thorough-going Anarchists
as those who select another".
=== Ukraine and Russia ===
Volin was a prolific writer and anarchist
intellectual who played an important part
in the organization and leadership of Nabat.
The Nabat Confederation of Anarchist Organizations,
better known simply as Nabat (Набат),
was an anarchist organization that came to
prominence in Ukraine during the years 1918
to 1920.
The area where it held the most influence
is sometimes referred to as the Free Territory,
though Nabat had branches in all of the major
cities in southern Ukraine.
Volin was charged with writing a platform
for Nabat that could be agreeable to all the
major branches of anarchism, most importantly
anarcho-syndicalism, anarcho-collectivism,
anarcho-communism, and anarcho-individualism.
The uniform platform for Nabat was never truly
decided upon, but Volin used what he had written
and the inspiration from Nabat to create his
Anarchist Synthesis.
The proposed platform for Nabat included the
following sentence which anticipated synthesis
anarchism: "These three elements (syndicalism,
communism and individualism) are three aspects
of a single process, the building, of the
organization of the working class (syndicalism),
of the anarcho-communist society which is
nothing more than the material base necessary
for the complete fullness of the free individual".The
discussion about the anarchist synthesis arises
in the context of the discussion on the Organisational
Platform of the Libertarian Communists, written
by the Dielo Truda group of Russian exiles
in 1926.
The Platform attracted strong criticism from
many sectors on the anarchist movement of
the time including some of the most influential
anarchists such as Voline, Errico Malatesta,
Luigi Fabbri, Camillo Berneri, Max Nettlau,
Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman and Gregori
Maximoff.
Voline along with Mollie Steimer, Senya Fleshin
and others wrote a reply stating that "to
maintain that anarchism is only a theory of
classes is to limit it to a single viewpoint.
Anarchism is more complex and pluralistic,
like life itself.
Its class element is above all its means of
fighting for liberation; its humanitarian
character is its ethical aspect, the foundation
of society; its individualism is the goal
of mankind".
=== International synthesist response to the
Dielo Truda Platform ===
Two texts made as responses to the Platform,
each proposing a different organizational
model, became the basis for what is known
as the organisation of synthesis, or simply
"synthesism".
Voline published in 1924 a paper calling for
"the anarchist synthesis" and was also the
author of the article in Sébastian Faure's
Encyclopedie Anarchiste on the same topic.
The main purpose behind the synthesis was
that the anarchist movement in most countries
was divided into three main tendencies: communist
anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism and individualist
anarchism and so such an organization could
contain anarchists of these 3 tendencies very
well.
The platformists wanted to push their ideas
forward through organizing an international
anarchist congress on February 12, 1927.
Shortly later at the National Congress of
the French Anarchist Union (UAF), the Dielo
Truda Group achieved making their platform
more popular and so they made the UAF change
its name into Revolutionary Anarcho-Communist
Union (UACR).
Sébastian Faure led a faction within the
UACR that decided to separate themselves from
this organization and form outside it the
Association of Federalist Anarchists (AFA),
thinking that traditional anarchist ideas
were being threatened by the Dielo Truda platform.
Shortly later in his text The Anarchist Synthesis,
he exposes the view that "these currents were
not contradictory but complementary, each
having a role within anarchism: anarcho-syndicalism
as the strength of the mass organisations
and the best way for the practice of anarchism;
libertarian communism as a proposed future
society based on the distribution of the fruits
of labour according to the needs of each one;
and anarcho-individualism as a negation of
oppression and affirming the individual right
to development of the individual, seeking
to please them in every way.
=== Italy and Spain ===
In Italy, the synthesis anarchism federation
Unione Anarchica Italiana emerged from the
Unione Comunista Anarchica Italiana in 1920.
The Unione Anarchica Italiana emerged just
after the biennio rosso events and lasted
until 1929 when it was banned by the Fascist
regime.
The Programma anarchico (Anarchist Program)
of the Unione Anarchica Italiana was written
by Errico Malatesta.The Dielo Truda platform
in Spain also met with strong criticism.
Miguel Jimenez, a founding member of the Iberian
Anarchist Federation (FAI), summarized this
as follows: too much influence in it of Marxism,
it erroneously divided and reduced anarchists
between individualist anarchists and anarcho-communist
sections and it wanted to unify the anarchist
movement along the lines of the anarcho-communists.
He saw anarchism as more complex than that,
i.e. that anarchist tendencies are not mutually
exclusive as the platformists saw it and that
both individualist and communist views could
accommodate anarchosyndicalism.
Sébastian Faure had strong contacts in Spain
and so his proposal had more impact in Spanish
anarchists than the Dielo Truda platform even
though individualist anarchist influence in
Spain was less strong than it was in France.
The main goal there was conciling anarcho-communism
with anarcho-syndicalism.J. Elizalde was a
founding member and first secretary of the
Iberian Anarchist Federation as well as a
prominent local individualist anarchist.
=== Post-war synthesis federations ===
In 1945, the synthesist Italian Anarchist
Federation (Federazione Anarchica Italiana
or FAI) was founded in Carrara.
In it, the individualist anarchist Cesare
Zaccaria played an important role in conciling
conflicting factions.
The Italian FAI adopted an Associative Pact
and the Anarchist Program of Errico Malatesta.
During its history, it included individualist
anarchists such as the important group who
in 1965 decided to split off from this organization
and created Gruppi di Iniziativa Anarchica
as well as the groups who in the seventies
split off to form a platformist group.
The Fédération Anarchiste (FA) was founded
in Paris, France on December 2, 1945.
It was composed of a majority of activists
from the former FA (which supported Voline's
synthesis) and some members of the former
Union anarchiste, which supported the CNT-FAI
support to the Republican government during
the Spanish Civil War, as well as some young
Resistants.
After a neo-platformist faction led by George
Fontenis achieved changing the name of the
organization into Libertarian Communist Federation
(FCL) along with centralization and unanimous
vote internal procedures, a new FA was reestablished
on December, 1953 while the FCL broke up shortly
after.
The new base principles of the FA were written
by the individualist anarchist Charles-Auguste
Bontemps and the anarcho-communist Maurice
Joyeux which established an organization with
a plurality of tendencies and autonomy of
federated groups organized around synthesist
principles.The International of Anarchist
Federations (IAF/IFA) was founded during an
international anarchist conference in Carrara
in 1968 by the three existing European anarchist
federations of France (Fédération Anarchiste),
Italy (Federazione Anarchica Italiana) and
Spain (Federación Anarquista Ibérica) as
well as the Bulgarian federation in French
exile.
These organizations were also inspired on
synthesist principles.
Currently alongside the previously mentioned
federations, the IAF includes the Argentine
Libertarian Federation, the Anarchist Federation
of Belarus, the Federation of Anarchists in
Bulgaria, the Czech-Slovak Anarchist Federation,
the Federation of German speaking Anarchists
in Germany and Switzerland and the Anarchist
Federation in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
== References ==
== External links ==
"Anarchist Synthesis" by Volin.
"The Anarchist Synthesis" by Sébastien Faure.
"Synthesis Anarchism / Anarchism Without Adjectives"
(an archive with texts related to synthesis
anarchism as well as anarchism without adjectives).
