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51-498: First developed by Peter Arshinov in response to the perceived disorganization of the Russian anarchist movement , platformism proposes that a "general union of anarchists" be established to agitate, educate and organize the working classes . It advocates working within existing mass organizations , such as trade unions , in order to transform them into vehicles for a social revolution . The roots of platformism go back as far as

102-682: A Bolshevik . After years of defending the ideas of Platformism, in the early 1930s, Arshinov joined the Communist Party and defected to the Soviet Union , where he would disappear during the Great Purge . Nestor Makhno himself died in 1934, leaving the Platform without any prominent defenders. Nevertheless, both the opponents and remaining supporters of the Platform managed to reconcile at Makhno's funeral. Volin himself took up

153-745: A mass movement , with the eventual aim of dissolving itself into the movement and achieving a social revolution. In the years that followed, the FCL united together with the North African Libertarian Movement (MLNA) to establish the Libertarian Communist International (ICL), but their suppression by the French state forced the organization's dissolution in 1957. Platformism was revived in France during

204-568: A General Union of Anarchists to educate the working class and raise class consciousness . This General Union was to be organised according to the principles of theoretical unity , tactical unity and collective responsibility , and would be governed by an executive committee that coordinated collective action and political policy. The Platform was first presented at a meeting of the Delo Truda group, with attendees also including Bulgarian , Chinese , French and Italian anarchists . At

255-529: A failure to establish either political or military control over left-bank Ukraine , which he blamed on the outbreak of epidemic typhus within the ranks of the Makhnovshchina. The Red Army took the opportunity to attack the Makhnovshchina, which Arshinov estimated to have eventually resulted in the execution of almost 200,000 Ukrainian peasants by the Bolsheviks. After months of fighting between

306-669: A leading ideologue within the Cultural-Educational Department. The following month, Arshinov began editing the movement's newspaper The Road to Freedom , which published 50 issues in the Katerynoslav region until November 1920. During this period, Arshinov observed the nascent Makhnovist movement establishing agricultural communes , organised according to the communist principle of " from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs ". The anarchist region soon came under attack by

357-478: A loose-knit organization, developed into a tightly organized structure with a unified policy and an executive committee, in what a member would later describe as a precursor to platformism. After their flight into exile, Russian and Ukrainian anarchists began to call for the reorganization of the anarchist movement, considering that chronic disorganization had led to their defeat during the Revolution . Among

408-614: A machinist. With the outbreak of the 1905 Revolution , he joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party and edited its underground newspaper Molot (English: The Hammer ). When Arshinov caught the attention of the police for his revolutionary activity, he moved to the Ukrainian city of Katerynoslav , where he split with the Bolsheviks over ideological disagreements and became

459-588: A member of the anarchist movement . In December 1906, following the repression of revolutionary elements, Arshinov led the formation of an anarchist terrorist cell in Katerynoslav and organised a series of attacks, including the bombing of a police station and the assassination of a government official. On 7 March 1907, Arshinov publicly assassinated a railway boss in Oleksandrivsk . He was quickly arrested and sentenced to be hanged, but his sentence

510-475: A principal proponent of synthesis anarchism . Before becoming a free-thinker , Faure was a seminarist . He engaged in politics as a socialist before turning to anarchism in 1888. In 1894, he was prosecuted in "The Trial of the thirty " ("Procès des trente"), but was acquitted. That same year, he became the guardian of Sidonie Vaillant after the execution of her father, Auguste Vaillant . In 1895, he cofounded "Le Libertaire" with Louise Michel , taking

561-436: A retrial. Though he would claim to have been falsely persecuted, he was viewed with suspicion in anarchist circles and avoided political activity until December 1919. However, on 15 March 1921 he was again arrested along with two accomplices, accused of sexually abusing two girls aged 11 and 12. Through the investigation it was revealed that he was known to local children as "Monsieur Fontaine", and had abused five more victims. He

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612-551: A social revolution. In 1953, the French anarchist Georges Fontenis published his Manifesto of Libertarian Communism , which attacked the prevailing synthesist orientation of the French anarchist movement, becoming the founding document for the Libertarian Communist Federation (FCL). Drawing from aspects of the Platform , Fontenis' Manifesto called for an anarchist revolutionary vanguard to work within existing mass organizations in order to develop

663-540: The Organisational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists , which lay out a framework for how anarcho-communists could politically organise, through theoretical and tactical unity, collective responsibility and federalism . This caused an immediate controversy within the anarchist movement, with Arshinov being accused of Bolshevism by anarchists such as Alexander Berkman and Volin ,

714-511: The 1917 Revolution , he was released from prison and returned to Ukraine to join Makhno's partisan movement. Arshinov became a leading intellectual figure within the Makhnovist movement, as editor of its main newspaper, and chronicled the development of events as the movement's official historian. When the movement was suppressed by the Bolsheviks, he went into exile, where he participated in

765-1014: The Anarchist encyclopedia , as well as the namesake of the Sébastien Faure Century , the French-speaking contingent of the Durruti Column during the civil war in Spain . 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. Two texts made as responses to

816-697: The Libertarian Communist Union (UCL). Especifismo (English: Specifism ) was first developed in 1972 by the Uruguayan Anarchist Federation (FAU), with the publication of its text Huerta Grande , which proposed the creation of a unified political policy directly applicable to the material conditions in Uruguay. The collapse of the ruling right-wing dictatorships towards the end of the Cold War resulted in

867-404: The Soviet Union , where he found work as a proofreader. Only three years later, Arshinov was arrested and shot during the Great Purge , on charges of having allegedly propagandised for anarchism upon his return to Russia. Sebastien Faure Sébastien Faure (6 January 1858 – 14 July 1942) was a French anarchist , convicted sex offender, freethought and secularist activist and

918-624: The White movement , which forced them to negotiate an alliance with the Red Army , which had also invaded Ukraine . While on their way to meet the Bolshevik delegate Lev Kamenev in Huliaipole , Arshinov witnessed Makhno execute one of his own followers for antisemitism . He then observed Makhno and Kamenev's meeting, which initially seemed amicable, but which Arshinov later came to question

969-646: The local Anarchist Federation , spending most of his time in Moscow publishing the works of Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin . Following the October Revolution , he quickly became demoralised by the direction of events and lost interest in himself returning to Ukraine. As a consequence of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk , Ukraine was invaded and occupied by the Central Powers , with support from

1020-405: The 1917 case the anarchist Second Casteu wrote a letter reporting the testimony of his daughter-in-law Marguerite, who had lived at La Ruche, accusing Faure of molesting the children there. After 1921 there are no further documented cases of sexual predation by Faure. He is recognized for his pedagogy and his qualities as a speaker, and is the author of several books: He was also the founder of

1071-771: 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). Sébastien 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 "Anarchist synthesis" he exposes

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1122-487: The Makhnovist Movement . He then moved on to Paris in 1925, where he established the anarchist journal Delo Truda (English: The Cause of Labor ). Meanwhile, he earned a living by making handmade shoes, as part of a scheme for Russian refugees, which lasted until competition from a French industrial manufacturer made it no longer profitable. On 20 June 1926, Arshinov participated in the publication of

1173-537: The Makhnovists and Bolsheviks, a White offensive into Taurida forced them into an agreement , which brought about the brief cessation of hostilities between the two factions. Arshinov himself justified the pact as a way of bringing them closer together with the mass base that the Bolsheviks had in the proletariat . But following their combined victory over the Whites in the siege of Perekop , Arshinov witnessed

1224-600: The Makhnovists in their westward retreat, during which he witnessed large numbers of people joining the newly constituted Insurgent Army , was present for the assassination of Nykyfor Hryhoriv , and at the battle of Peregonovka . There the Insurgent Army defeated the Volunteer Army and subsequently captured most of southern Ukraine , to which Arshinov himself attributed the defeat of the entire White movement. Arshinov then observed what he considered to be

1275-544: The Platform, each proposing a different organizational model, became the basis for what is known as the organisation of synthesis, or simply "synthesism". Volin published in 1924 a paper calling for "the anarchist synthesis" and was also the author of the article in Sébastien Faure's Encyclopedie Anarchiste on the same topic. The main purpose behind the synthesis was that the anarchist movement in most countries

1326-406: The Ukrainian nobility. The peasants reacted by carrying out a campaign of guerrilla warfare against the occupation forces and their Ukrainian collaborators, as part of a war of independence that spread throughout the country. One of these peasant insurgent bands was led by Nestor Makhno, who defeated the occupation forces at the battle of Dibrivka and captured much of his home region, becoming

1377-549: The anarcho-communists, Peter Arshinov was the most vocal advocate of reorganization. On 20 June 1926, the Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft) was published in Delo Truda , with an introduction penned by Arshinov. Considering the goal of anarchism to be a social revolution that would create a stateless and classless society , the Platform proposed the establishment of

1428-704: The emergence of many other especifista groups throughout Latin America, in a process spearheaded by the FAU. In 2003, the Anarkismo.net website was established by an international network of anarcho-communist organizations, including both Latin American especifistas and European platformists, which publishes news and analysis in a variety of different languages. Peter Arshinov Peter Andreyevich Arshinov ( Russian : Пётр Андре́евич Арши́нов ; 1887– c. 1937),

1479-816: The events of May 68 , when the Revolutionary Anarchist Organization (ORA) was founded, although it would remain the minority tendency within the anarchist movement. The formation of the ORA accelerated the establishment of other anarchist federations throughout Europe, such as the Anarchist Federation (AF) in Britain and the Federation of Anarchist Communists (FdCA) in Italy, while the ORA itself would eventually be succeeded by

1530-427: The formation of a police state . Arshinov responded by claiming his Platform actually abided by anarchist principles, as it consciously avoided coercion and preserved decentralization . The debate also took a more personal turn as Makhno and Arshinov attacked Volin, which attracted denunciations from other critics of the Platform , including Alexander Berkman , who denounced Makhno as a militarist and Arshinov as

1581-524: The intent of. By May 1919, relations between the Bolsheviks and anarchists had become strained by political divisions and by the collapse of the Donbas front , which Arshinov blamed on Red Army commanders, who he claimed had deliberately deprived the insurgents of weaponry. Makhno soon resigned his command and, now under attack by both the Reds and the Whites, resolved to retreat into the west. Arshinov joined

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1632-636: The latter of whom claimed Arshinov intended to establish an anarchist political party along bureaucratic and centralist lines. By 1931, Arshinov had broken with the anarchist movement and began openly expressing support for the Soviet government of Joseph Stalin . By this time, Arshinov's wife grown weary of life in exile and wanted their family to return to Russia, which the Bolshevik politician Sergo Ordzhonikidze offered to sponsor. Despite warnings by Volin, who predicted that he would be executed for his anarchist past, in 1934, Arshinov finally returned to

1683-496: The leader of a mass movement of the Ukrainian peasantry which declared him their Bat'ko (English: Father ). In the wake of the anarchist victory, Arshinov joined a number of other Russian anarchist intellectuals in emigrating to Ukraine, where they established the Nabat , a confederation of anarchist organisations. In April 1919, Arshinov arrived in Huliaipole , where he was reunited with Makhno and joined his movement, becoming

1734-404: The meeting, Arshinov introduced the document as a way forward for the international anarchist movement to "marshal its forces". Although supported by Nestor Makhno , Arshinov's Platform was opposed by most prominent anarchists at the time. French anarchists in attendance, led by Sebastien Faure , criticised it as Russocentric, considering it unapplicable to the material conditions in France. In

1785-538: The militias and bring the economy back under the control of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), which would effectively have dissolved the government of Spain . In the wake of the 1944 Bulgarian coup d'état , the Federation of Anarchist Communists of Bulgaria (FAKB) issued its own Platform , which argued for a specifically anarcho-communist federation, coordinated by a central secretariat, which would participate in trade unions and prepare for

1836-597: The name of the earlier journal by Joseph Déjacque . At the time of the Dreyfus affair , he was one of the leading supporters of Alfred Dreyfus . In 1904, he created a libertarian school, La Ruche ("The Hive"), close to Rambouillet , which closed in February 1917. In 1916, he launched the periodical "Ce qu'il faut dire" . Faure also co-founded (with Volin ) the Synthesis , or also known as synthesis anarchism which

1887-522: The nucleus of this revolution, where the organization's entire membership would carry out the decision-making process. In 1921, the Makhnovists published another Declaration that proclaimed a dictatorship of the proletariat in the form of an anarchist-led trade union system, for which Nestor Makhno himself was accused of Bonapartism . Meanwhile, the Nabat Confederation of Anarchist Organizations , which had originally been established as

1938-418: The organizational principles of Mikhail Bakunin , particularly in his theory of "organisational dualism". Bakunin proposed that anarchists form their own revolutionary organisations that would encourage workers to rebel against the state and capitalism, and once a social revolution had replaced the state with a federation of voluntary associations , it would then agitate against any attempted reconstitution of

1989-613: The publication of Makhno's memoirs, which were published in the years after his death. During the Spanish Revolution of 1936 , a number of revolutionary anarchist hard-liners formed the Friends of Durruti Group in opposition to the state's militarisation of the confederal militias . After the Revolution was suppressed , the group published Towards a Fresh Revolution , which called for a revolutionary council to reform

2040-563: The publication of the Organisational Platform and the debates surrounding it. By the 1930s, he had moved back towards Bolshevism and decided to return to the Soviet Union , where he was executed during the Great Purge . In 1887, Peter Andreyevich Arshinov was born into a working-class family, in a village in Penza Governorate of the Russian Empire . At the age of 17, Arshinov moved to Turkestan , where he worked as

2091-811: The state by political parties. The Platform's most direct predecessor was the Draft Declaration of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine , adopted in 1919 by the Military Revolutionary Council of the Makhnovshchina . The Draft Declaration called for a " Third Revolution " against the Bolshevik government, in order to establish a regime of free soviets . It centred the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine as

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2142-638: The subsequent Bolshevik offensive against the Makhnovshchina on 26 November, in what Arshinov insisted to have been a premeditated attack. He then witnessed the subsequent period of guerrilla warfare against the Red Army, documenting their pursuit across the country. Despite the danger, Arshinov remained with Makhno until the spring of 1921, when he and his wife clandestinely crossed the border into Poland and then went on to Germany . In 1922, Arshinov arrived in Berlin , where he completed his History of

2193-425: 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; anarcho-individualism as a negation of oppression and affirming

2244-434: The years that followed, Faure's Anarchist Synthesis , which rejected platformism in favor of a more loose-knit organization, contributed to dividing the anarchist movement into "synthesists" and "platformists". The Platform's harshest critics included Volin , Senya Fleshin and Mollie Steimer , who denounced the Platform as an attempt to create an anarchist political party , which they feared would inevitably result in

2295-474: The young Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Makhno , who he took under his wing as a pupil, teaching him Russian language and literature , mathematics , geography , history , economics and politics . Following the February Revolution , they were released from prison as part of a general amnesty. While Makhno returned home to Ukraine, Arshinov remained behind in Moscow and began organising with

2346-520: Was a Russian anarchist revolutionary and intellectual who chronicled the history of the Makhnovshchina . Initially a Bolshevik , during the 1905 Revolution , he became active within the Ukrainian anarchist movement , taking part in a number of terrorist attacks against Tsarist officials. He was arrested for his activities and imprisoned in Butyrka prison , where he met Nestor Makhno . Following

2397-544: Was again convicted of public indecency and sentenced to eight months in prison. He again claimed to have been falsely accused and was able to convince his contemporaries, and subsequent analyses of his life tended to dismiss the charges. The case files for his 1917 conviction were not released to the public until 2018, which led to a comprehensive compilation of documents and testimonies published in 2021. This evidence disproved allegations of police manipulation and also revealed previously unknown earlier cases. On 9 September 1903 he

2448-513: Was an influential form of conceiving anarchist federations. On 23 September 1917 Faure was caught sexually assaulting young girls in a Parisian flea market. Accused by multiple witnesses in the crowd, he evaded the police and was sentenced to two years of prison time for public indecency . Discovered and arrested in Marseille in January 1918, his sentenced was reduced to six months following

2499-628: Was caught molesting three young girls, but released as the parents did not press charges. On 19 November 1907 he was identified as the client of a 14-year old prostitute, but no action was taken. He was again caught on 28 September 1916 while molesting two young girls, but the police commissioner opted to use the case as blackmail to curb his pacifist activism amidst the First World War . It is also likely that he used his school La Ruche for his sexual predation, where he had taken in 20 to 30 orphaned children throughout its 13 years of operation. During

2550-417: Was commuted and he used this time to plan an escape. He broke out of prison on Easter Sunday , and fled first to France then to Austria-Hungary , where he engaged in arms trafficking and the smuggling of anarchist propaganda into the Russian Empire . In 1911, he was arrested again and extradited to Russia, where he was sentenced to 20 years in Butyrka prison . In prison, Arshinov was acquainted with

2601-556: Was divided into three main tendencies: communist anarchism , anarcho-syndicalism , and individualist anarchism and so such an organization could contain anarchists of these three tendencies very well. The platformists wanted to push their ideas forward through organizing an international anarchist congress on 12 February 1927. Shortly later in the National Congress of the French Anarchist Union (UAF),

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