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Especifismo

Started reading [[Especifismo: The Anarchist Praxis of Building Popular Movements and Revolutionary Organization]] as [[Especifismo]] is [[node club]] node this week.

Sounds really good so far. Seems very adjacent to [[Anarchist Cybernetics]] in it’s push towards organisational structures within anarchism.

Sounds related to [[Platformism]] too.

born out of nearly 50 years of anarchist experiences in South America

– [[Especifismo: The Anarchist Praxis of Building Popular Movements and Revolutionary Organization]]

Three key points

• The need for specifically anarchist organization built around a unity of ideas and [[praxis]]
• The use of the specifically anarchist organization to theorize and develop strategic political and organizing work.
• Active involvement in and building of autonomous and popular social movements, which is described as the process of "[[social insertion]]"

What does ‘specifically anarchist’ actually mean?

Specifically anarchist

Especifists inherently state their objection to the idea of a synthesis organization of revolutionaries or multiple currents of anarchists loosely united

– [[Especifismo: The Anarchist Praxis of Building Popular Movements and Revolutionary Organization]]

Interesting. What (specifically) is a synthesis organisation? Ah OK - [[Synthesis anarchism]].

North American anarchists have also offered their experiences of synthesis organization as lacking any cohesiveness due to multiple, contradictory political tendencies

– [[Especifismo: The Anarchist Praxis of Building Popular Movements and Revolutionary Organization]]

the Especifists criticize these tendencies for being driven by spontaneity and individualism and for not leading to the serious, systematic work needed to build revolutionary movements

– [[Especifismo: The Anarchist Praxis of Building Popular Movements and Revolutionary Organization]]

A particular stress of the Especifismo praxis is the role of anarchist organization, formed on the basis of shared politics, as a space for the development of common strategy and reflection on the group’s organizing work

– [[Especifismo: The Anarchist Praxis of Building Popular Movements and Revolutionary Organization]]

All sounds a bit like some of the critiques of [[Occupy]] - in that it failed because there was no organisational structure. See e.g. [[Horizontalism vs verticalism]], [[Anarchist Cybernetics]].

On organization, the Especifists call for a far deeper basis of anarchist organization than the Platform’s “theoretical and tactical unity,” but a strategic program based on analysis that guides the actions of revolutionaries

– [[Especifismo: The Anarchist Praxis of Building Popular Movements and Revolutionary Organization]]

Social insertion

[[social insertion]].

Especifismo’s conception of the relation of ideas to the popular movement is that they should not be imposed through a leadership, through “mass line,” or by intellectuals

– [[Especifismo: The Anarchist Praxis of Building Popular Movements and Revolutionary Organization]]

• Especifismo is considered to have come to broadly similar conclusions to the Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft) and may be considered to be very similar to [[platformism]][citation needed], which in turn claims its roots lie in the organisational work of figures like Mikhail Bakunin, Errico Malatesta and [[Nestor Makhno]].
• [[social insertion]]
  • the oppressed are the most revolutionary sector of society, and that the seed of the future revolutionary transformation of society lies already in these classes and social groupings
  • anarchist involvement in the [[daily fights of the oppressed]] and working classes
• https://blackrosefed.org/especifismo-weaver
• key concepts
  • The need for specifically anarchist organization built around a unity of ideas and praxis.
  • The use of the specifically anarchist organization to theorize and develop strategic political and organizing work.
  • Active involvement in and building of autonomous and popular social movements, which is described as the process of “social insertion.”
• The Especifists put forward three main thrusts to their politics, the first two being on the level of organization. By raising the need for a specifically anarchist organization built around a unity of ideas and praxis, the Especifists inherently state their objection to the idea of a synthesis organization of revolutionaries or multiple currents of anarchists loosely united.
  • The result of these types of union are libertarian collectives without much more in common than considering themselves anarchists
  • North American anarchists have also offered their experiences of synthesis organization as lacking any cohesiveness due to multiple, contradictory political tendencies
• Without a strategy that stems from common political agreement, revolutionary organizations are bound to be an affair of reactivism against the continual manifestations of oppression and injustice and a cycle of fruitless actions to be repeated over and over
• Especifists criticize these tendencies for being driven by spontaneity and individualism and for not leading to the serious, systematic work needed to build revolutionary movements
• trust within the members and groups is built that allows for a deep, high-level discussion of their action.
  • might lead to interesting discussions on federated [[trust]] and [[identity]]
• It must have as a foundation the experience of the [[struggle of the oppressed]] and their aspirations, and from those elements it must set the goals and the tasks to be followed by the [[revolutionary organization]] in order to succeed not only in the final objective but also in the immediate ones.
• [[the platform]]
  • The authors of the Platform were veteran partisans of the Russian Revolution. They helped lead a peasant guerilla war against Western European armies and later the Bolsheviks in the Ukraine, whose people had a history independent of the Russian Empire
  • In comparison, the praxis of Especifismo is a living, developed practice, and arguably a much more relevant and contemporary theory, emerging as it does out of 50 years of anarchist organizing
  • Whereas the Platform can be easily read as seeing anarchists’ role as narrowly and most centrally within labor unions, Especifismo gives us a living example that we can look towards and which speaks more meaningfully to our work in building a revolutionary movement today.

[Nestor Makhno]: Nestor Makhno.md "Nestor Makhno" [social insertion]: social insertion.md "social insertion" [//end]: # "Autogenerated link references"

Backlinks

• • [[especifismo]]

• • [[especifismo]]

Backlinks last generated 2022-01-28 07:55:20

Great node already, thank you for submitting it to the [[node club]]. I’m eager to learn more about especifismo. Vera’s subnode is a great recap of the key points, could be used to improve the [[wp]] article?