In Detroit, on October 24-25, the organized North American anarchist movement met at the 2009 Class Struggle Anarchist Conference. The second annual conference brought together 9 different anarchist organizations that work to engage within mass movements to help provide a revolutionary anarchist perspective. In part, the conference was a space for these organizations to talk about the possibilities of a future unified anarchist organization throughout North America that could help to broaden a struggle against capitalism and for a world where every day people control the resources in their community and workers control their workplaces.
Members from Buffalo’s local anarchist-communist organization, Buffalo Class Action, participated in the conversations. They attended with an interest in learning from some of the longer-lasting anarchist organizations, their successes and challenges. These local anarchists also went with the purpose of spreading the idea of City Wide Tenants’ Unions beyond their efforts to organize such a group here in Buffalo.
At the conference they met members of many other anarchist organizations. Those organizations involved in planning the conference were: Solidarity and Defense (Michigan), Common Action (Pacific Northwest), Common Cause (Ontario), Four Star Anarchist Organization (Chicago), Miami Autonomy and Solidarity, Michigan-Minnesota Group, Northeast Federation of Anarchist Communists, and the Worker Solidarity Alliance.
There were many discussions about the future of movements of marginalized peoples in North America, and how anarchists can constructively work within those movements to help develop genuine, long-term peoples’ power. Some of the specific workshops were: Anarchists in the Struggle for Housing Justice, Worker Center Movements, Building Anarchist Groups, Intersectional Class Struggle Anarchism, Anarchists & the Workplace, Queer Anarchism, Internal Education, and the questions of Re-grouping the North American anarchist movement.
After the conference, it has become clear that there are now great ties growing between these different organizations and their efforts. There was great hope at the conference that this type of gathering can really help to bring together the organized, class struggle-oriented anarchist movement to spread their ideas, increase the influence of anarchist ideas within North American social movements, and develop a solid alternative to the regular injustices poor and marginalized people face in today’s world.
