For anarchists to effectively intervene in, influence, and contribute to the class struggle requires specific anarchist organisation alongside organisations of the working class. The purpose of such a specific anarchist organisation is not to substitute for or represent “the will” of the working-class, but to act as a vehicle for coordinated and strategic anarchist intervention in working-class struggles. The aim of this intervention is to build workers' power and spread anarchist ideas.
The outlook of building specific anarchist organisation alongside that of the mass of the working-class is termed organisational dualism and traces its lineage to the emergence of anarchism in the First International. Organisational dualism can be further clarified by discussing what we consider to be three interrelated organisational levels. These are termed the mass, political, and intermediate levels.
The Mass Level
The working-class holds massive latent power to overturn capitalism and the State and usher in a socialist revolution. To hold a latent power and capacity to destroy capitalism is different to saying that there is currently a concrete power to do so. Today the capitalists hold much more real power than the working-class and so maintains its hold on society. It is through overcoming the disorganisation of the working-class that class power transforms from latent to concrete. To build the organisation of the working-class requires bringing in increasing numbers of workers into active participation in the class-struggle. The terrain in which this occurs is the mass level.
The mass level is the level in which the class struggle is waged directly by the working-class. This level encompasses the range of mass organisations and social movements through which the working-class fights for its immediate needs. We maintain that it is only through this mass level - that is to say, the level of the class as a whole - that organs of workers power and socialism can emerge. From this, organisational forms on the mass level should seek to encompass as much of the working class as feasible based on shared class interest, solidarity, and a willingness to engage in collective struggle. By doing so the working class is drawn into active struggle and participation with rudimentary organs of workers’ power.
Mass Organisations and Social Movements
The mass level can be made up of a variety of forms. The two most predominant are mass organisations and social movements. Mass organisations should represent formal organisational structures open to all relevant members of the working class regardless of political ideology. The basis for mass organisations should not be agreement with a set of political theories, but shared interests and solidarity. The trade unions currently represent the largest mass organisations in Australia, however, other examples include but are not limited to tenant unions and unemployed worker organisations, with new mass organisations developing through the revolutionary process. Social movements are more nebulous and represent various and diverse movements of people who come together outside of an organisational structure in defence or promotion of a broad shared aim. Examples in Australia today include the climate and LGBTQI movements and the frequent rallies which they manifest around.
Both mass organisations and social movements play essential roles in the struggle against capitalism and they cannot be neatly separated. Many social movements for example include involvement by mass organisations. Yet of the two it is mass organisations that maintain the greatest capacity to exert force against capital and which lay the basis for future organs of workers’ power.
Social movements generally lack a distinct class character and engage participants as citizens or “the people” rather than as workers. Consequently, they operate in a terrain that is ill-suited to accumulating the power necessary to disrupt and ultimately overturn capital. Social movements rely on spontaneity for strength, which may manifest rapid bursts of social force, but this force inevitably dissipates without concretization into mass organisations capable of sustaining and building power over time. Because of this, social movements on their own are unable to build the infrastructure needed to fully confront and overcome capital; for this, mass organisations are essential.
Neither do social movements allow for workers to easily engage in and take ownership of their direction. Social movements can mobilise many thousands of people for rallies or actions, but they lack the organisational structures that allow those being mobilised to directly engage in the directions taken. Social movements then often leave the working-class as passive actors waiting to be mobilised. Instead, through mass organisation, the working class can be drawn in as active protagonists, able to directly engage and self-manage the organs of struggle.
The Need for Class Independence on the Mass Level
Whether taking the form of social movements or mass organisations, we maintain that the mass level should resist attaching itself to specific political organisations or ideologies. The great strength of the mass level is its ability to bring in the widest sectors of the working class as possible into active struggle and to unite them on class interests beyond political ideology. By creating for example anarchist trade unions, we would accomplish little more than justifying the creation of Marxist or Greens unions. The result is the division of the working class along political lines, rather than uniting it on its shared material basis.
This is not to argue that the mass level should or ever could be free of political ideology or debate. At any given time, the working class is made up of a wide diversity in political opinions - liberal, social democratic, Marxist, anarchist, etc. - and it is natural that political tendencies will organise to influence and win over increasing layers of the class to their ideas. Rather it is to argue that agreement with or support of a specific political tendency should not be a defining characteristic of organisations within the mass level or the basis of membership.
Anarchist Intervention in the Mass Level
The characteristics we fight for on the mass level include direct democracy, solidarity, militancy, a commitment to direct struggle, political independence, struggle outside of rather than within the state and an anti-capitalist orientation. Ultimately our aim is to develop within the mass level a revolutionary vision and consciousness which can take the class beyond the struggle for immediate gains towards the struggle for socialism.
We noted earlier in this document that the working-class holds the capacity to overthrow capitalism and transform the world. Yet a capacity is meaningless without the will to utilise it. At present, the working-class lacks either the strength or the will to bring about socialism. As anarchists, we act within the working-class to build its strength, to encourage the workers towards greater levels of class militancy and through struggle and popular education to develop within the working-class the drive to bring about a new world.
This is why, alongside the mass level, we conceptualise the political.
The Political Level
The political level is made up of a variety of political tendencies that seek to win over and influence the working-class. While the basis of the mass level should be shared class interests, the basis of the political is a commitment to a shared politics. Examples of organisations within the political level include political parties such as the ALP and the Greens, the variety of socialist organisations active in Australia and informal political groupings such as affinity groups.
United by a specific politics and vision it is natural that tendencies within the political level will compete to win over and influence the wider class. Yet many of these tendencies are reformist, authoritarian, collaborationist and opposed to genuine workers’ power. We maintain that anarchists must organise within the mass level to spread anarchist ideas and to counter the political tendencies whose politics and practices hamper rather than nurture the development of workers’ power. To ignore the struggle of ideas at the mass level is to cede the political terrain in which there is never a vacuum.
The Need for Anarchist Political Organisation
To win over mass organisations and social movements to anarchist ideas requires more than the efforts of individual anarchists or small and loosely organised networks. To effectively intervene in and win over layers of the mass level requires a level of coordination, strategy and coherency that can best be achieved through a specifically anarchist political organisation.
Anarchists should not shy away from attempting to become leaders in their workplaces, mass organisations and across the class. When we speak of leadership here, we do not refer to the ability to control and command, but the natural influence which develops through principled engagement in the class struggle, commitment to furthering the aims of the mass level and principled debate and education. Such leadership may result in anarchists taking on formal leadership positions and it may not. The important point is not to hold onto positions of authority, but to through our efforts be able to freely influence those around us.
The Role of the Anarchist Political Organisation
This defines our approach to winning anarchist influence on the mass level. We do not seek to do so through authoritarian means such as the stacking of meetings, bureaucratic manoeuvring, or sectarianism, but rather coordinated, long-term and principled involvement at the mass level as members of the working class ourselves. As we maintain that it is with the working class on the mass level that the ability for revolutionary transformation exists, we do not seek to place our organisation above the mass level. Rather we always seek to act in a manner that furthers the strength, and revolutionary consciousness of the working-class as a whole.
The most fundamental task of the anarchist organisation then is to coordinate direct and strategic anarchist involvement in the class struggle at the mass level. This intervention is directed at building the strength and militancy of the class and spurring increasing levels of self-managed direct struggle. Through this intervention the anarchist organisation can expand the influence of anarchist ideas amongst the mass level and engage in popular education orientated towards the growth of revolutionary consciousness.
To acknowledge that different political tendencies and organisations compete within the mass level for influence is not to argue that a position of conflict should be taken at all times. No political organisation will always hold the correct ideas and the best militants. There always remains space for collaboration and alliances, and where competition does arise it must be fought in a non-sectarian and principled manner that prioritises the interests of the mass level first and foremost. A mature approach to revolutionary politics neither fetishes collaboration for collaboration's sake nor makes a principle out of sectarianism. Rather it is essential to develop a sophisticated analysis and approach to collaborative work that can identify when and where collaboration is appropriate, and the parameters through which it can be most effective.
The Intermediate Level
The reality of mass-level intervention is that militants from a variety of political tendencies are brought together often with shared aims and approaches. Where appropriate, the more these militants can work across organisational lines the better the result for the mass level. We understand this shared work to exist on what is termed the intermediate level of organisation.
This level can be either informal or formal. For example, militants may informally coordinate together to pass motions within their trade union regarding solidarity with Palestine. A more formal route could also be taken, such as the development of a Palestinian solidarity committee within the union.
The intermediate level may also exist outside of mass organisations, such as in the form of a coalition between political organisations to confront the far-right, or to organise a movement on a specific issue.
Intermediate level organisation is not based upon class interests like the mass level, nor on political unity such as in the political. Yet to be able to collaborate, groupings of militants from different tendencies still require some level of unity to be effective. We argue that this collaboration should be based on agreement regarding the aims which are worked towards, and an agreement on the tactical and strategic approach taken in doing so.
Intermediate-level organising then could involve militants with vastly different political outlooks such as Marxists, Greens and anarchists who are united in building for example increased rank and file control of a union and how they will approach achieving this.
Neither Mass nor Political - Distorted Intermediate Organisations
It is important to understand that the analysis outlined above is premised on a necessary level of theoretical abstraction that will not always perfectly reflect reality. For example, mass organisations may at times take on characteristics of political organisations and vice versa. Often organisations will exist in a limbo between both which can be termed distorted intermediate organisations.
Examples of distorted intermediate organisations may include political organisations lacking any real coherency with their politics to appeal to the broadest number of people at the expense of a clear programme. Alternatively, mass organisations may develop stricter membership policies and standards, requiring a high level of political coherency or agreement thereby alienating those not already committed to a specific politics. Whatever the factors that contribute to such an outcome, distorted intermediate organisations fail to function effectively as mass, political or intermediate organisations but instead poorly perform the functions of all three.
This is why despite the level of abstraction present we believe a mass-political analysis of organisation is essential. Such an analysis allows us to navigate the pitfalls that emerge from conflating the mass and political levels and more effectively build up each.