Los Angeles

It was only a few days before the Los Angeles stop, and there wasn't really any information yet on where exactly the stop would be or any publicity out. So, I was starting to get worried that this stop wouldn't happen at all. Luckily, a local member of the Worker Solidarity Alliance saved the day, got it set up, and got some folks out to take part in the conversation.

There were a couple of people there that have been working with the Institute for Anarchist Studies and who were also previously members of Amanecer in the Bay Area. Most of the people in the room belonged to a group called the Free Association of Anarchists. The folks in the FAA claimed after hearing this talk that they have been effectively been acting as an especifist organization without having the language to self-describe in this way. It seems to me that they seem relatively disconnected from the broader class struggle anarchist groupings in the country and that this has created some fairly significant differences with their aims and principles than would be seen today in many other class struggle anarchist organizations in the US. I hope that from this talk that we can keep in better touch with them and possibly begin some conversations about the different approaches to anarchist organization and especifismo that are manifesting around the country.

In this discussion, I again found myself in the increasingly familiar territory of being intimidated by the presence of more informed individuals than myself. But, I'm starting to get more comfortable with the idea that a speaking tour doesn't need to present me as an expert, but as someone brought in to provoke and organize a conversation around.

One of those great conversations that came up was about how similar or different platformism and especifismo are. My answer, as has been my answer in the past, is that in effect I find they are nearly synonymous. As I think about this answer more, I find that I certainly don't think that The Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists is the same as the concepts of especifismo. But, that the practices of people that now call themselves platfomists essentially ends up being identical to especifismo.

In the Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro's recent release "Social Anarchism and Organization" says "The Platform advocates an anarchist organization, at the political level, that acts in the midst of social movements, a social level, and emphasizes the role of active minority of the anarchist organization." And further that "[the Platform] is an important document and has considerable influence in especifismo."

But they do also go on to say: "However, we do not believe that especifismo is the same thing as Platformism".

The details of the platform itself express a form of organization that I think very few platformists today would argue for - likely for many of the same reasons as the FARJ differentiates especifismo from the Platform. The Platform was specifically constructed from the experience of military action in a revolutionary period. Of course, I have met almost no platformists who argue that we should take on the draft organizational structure offered in the Platform as a way to organize. Instead, what I suppose we could call neo-platformists tend to water the ideas in the Platform down to the more essential components of the necessity of an explicitly anarchist organization built on a unity of theory and practice. Especifismo makes the important further arguments about the need for social insertion and the relationship between the revolutionary anarchist organization and the social movements while coming from a perspective of movement building in times that are not militarily revolutionary. All of these are elements that nearly every platformist I've met agrees with.

So, in my experience many of the people that call themselves platfomists are essentially especifista in their orientation while simultaneously being inspired and influenced by the Platform - just like the FARJ say in their experience. Functionally to me, this means that these traditions and terms in the context of the United States have such close similarities and unity that treating them as the same is helpful in an organizing context. However, in an internal process of theory developing and political education, I can certainly see the value in showing the distinctions to help us all have a more developed understanding of the terms that we use.

More than anything, at this stop in Los Angeles (with around 10 people in attendance), I was glad to have a conversation that challenged my admittedly introductory level understanding of especifismo. Most of the conversations at this point have remained at that introductory level, and this one went into conversations that I think any organization of anarchists should be having!