« When I cook for the Occupy the City move­ment in London I contri­bute to change the world. » A guy inter­vie­wed on RFI radio

The fol­lo­wing is an exten­ded ver­sion of my brief inter­ven­tion at the AWL’s congress.

I would like first to thank the AWL for its invi­ta­tion. As far as I know, the AWL is the only orga­ni­sa­tion in the European Far Left which is trying to seriously debate with other refor­mist or revo­lu­tio­nary cur­rents. I don’t share the AWL’s dog­ma­tic reve­rence toward Leninism and Trotskyism but at least we have some­thing impor­tant in common : the belief that dis­cus­sions can be useful and fruit­ful as long as they are not led along sec­ta­rian and slan­de­rous lines. So I ack­now­ledge your effort to deal with other cur­rents of thought, even when I disa­gree totally with you.

Anarchist com­ra­des should remem­ber the vir­tues of poli­ti­cal deba­tes as Emma Goldman and Voltairine de Cleyre, to quote only two famous exam­ples, par­ti­ci­pa­ted in deba­tes with socia­lists (marxists) and were won over… anar­chism through such deba­tes !

So this is not where our disa­gree­ment regar­ding today’s « anar­chism » lies. It seems to me that your arti­cles in Workers Liberty were too much cen­te­red on « old-style » 19th-cen­tury anar­chism and not on today’s diverse, confu­sed, liber­ta­rian and anar­chist cur­rents. (A tra­di­tio­nal anar­chist told me once that liber­ta­rians – « liber­tai­res » in French is a broadly accep­ted term among the left­wing intel­li­gent­sia – were soft-core anar­chists, gene­rally in their 40’s or 50’s, almost refor­mist, and anar­chists were young hard­core revo­lu­tio­na­ries…)

Publishing in France a jour­nal (Ni patrie ni fron­tières) which, for almost 10 years, has publi­shed many anar­chist and Marxist texts toge­ther in the same issue and on the same theme to sti­mu­late debate and poli­ti­cal reflec­tion, I have had the occa­sion to meet many young « anar­chists » in book fairs, confe­ren­ces, etc. What struck me is how much (gene­rally) they ignore « their » clas­sics : Proudhon, Bakounine, Stirner or Kropotkine. There are cer­tainly much more points to be dis­cus­sed but I would like in this arti­cle to under­line only five.

1. Trotskyists when they dis­cuss with young « anar­chists » today should rea­lize that they did not receive, and dont value, the same « trai­ning ».

Trotskyists gene­rally are trai­ned in « Party schools » where they learn about the his­tory of the wor­kers move­ment and learn the basic laws of Marxist « science ». At least that was the tra­di­tion until the 70’s and 80’s in France in Trotskyist groups. And in gene­ral the Trotskyist press still puts the stress on the impor­tance of a his­to­ri­cal culture – wha­te­ver biased it is. That has also hap­pe­ned (among anar­chist lines, obviously) in the Spanish CNT before World War II, or in some tra­di­tio­nal anar­chist groups before the 1960s, but this is no more true as far as I know in Europe. Young European « anar­chists »’ poli­ti­cal culture is much more diverse : it deri­ves from all sorts of radi­cal or mar­gi­nal films or docu­men­ta­ries, semi-poli­ti­cal comics and music, from the no global move­ment lit­te­ra­ture, from all sorts of tiny book­lets repro­du­ced in « info­kiosks », etc.

I must also say that for those anar­chists with a solid back­ground in revo­lu­tio­nary his­tory, there is abso­lu­tely no for­get­ting nor is there is the sligh­test wish to mini­mize the deeds and thoughts of the his­to­ri­cal figure known as Leon Trotsky. You are not going to per­suade these anar­chists about any­thing concer­ning Kronstadt 1921 or Nestor Makhno, because the role of Trotsky in sup­pres­sing these revo­lu­tio­nary move­ments is both well known and well docu­men­ted. The Trotskyists’ lies, slan­ders, and dis­tor­tions about these his­to­ri­cal epi­so­des mean that anar­chists with a grasp of the his­to­ri­cal record will be immune to your over­tu­res, and with good reason. They see clas­si­cal Trotskyism as part of the pro­blem, and in no way part of the solu­tion.

2. Trotskyists should rea­lize that young « anar­chists » today want ACTION NOW.

And by « action now » they don’t mean a long « pri­mi­tive accu­mu­la­tion » of mili­tants (or cadres) to build the Party, a pro­cess tra­di­tio­nal Trotskyists fancy so much. The most « phy­si­cal » and some­ti­mes « macho » anar­chists want to confront phy­si­cally the cops, to throw Molotov cock­tails, to smash the face of fas­cists, to des­troy the head­quar­ters of some bour­geois party, etc. The more « pea­ce­ful » ones (but it can also be the same as the first ones) want to build new human rela­tion­ships here and now. That means orga­ni­zing squats or com­mu­nes ; ques­tio­ning the gender rela­tion­ships now and not in a dis­tant future, under com­mu­nism ; culti­va­ting vege­ta­bles to have a heal­thy food and build col­lec­tive links ; recu­pe­ra­ting good food in super­mar­kets dust­bins to dis­tri­bute it and/or cook it ; coo­king food for home­less or poor people ; sup­por­ting ille­gal wor­kers strug­gles concre­tely ; occu­pying unem­ploy­ment agen­cies ; orga­ni­zing unem­ployed or pre­ca­rious wor­kers ; crea­ting coo­pe­ra­ti­ves ; dis­cus­sing all sorts of ways of chan­ging their daily life here and now.

3. Trotskyists should rea­lize that young « anar­chists » are not loo­king for an explai­ning-eve­ry­thing science as Trotskyists are.

They have a spon­ta­neous dis­trust of « Marxist-Leninist » Stalinism (which is a rather good thing) but they also think Marx, Lenin and Trotsky are boring guys who lived 70, 100 or 150 years ago and can’t deal with today’s rea­li­ties. They obviously hate Lenin and Trotsky for Cronstadt, the repres­sion of anar­chists in Russia, etc., but more than eve­ry­thing they are not loo­king for a cohe­rent, scien­ti­fic point of view as Trotskyists loudly claim to be. They are ins­pi­red by dif­fe­rent, hete­ro­ge­neous, eco­no­mic, socio­lo­gi­cal ideas, which seem to you, Marxists, totally inco­he­rent and some­ti­mes even reac­tio­nary. They can be ins­pi­red by post­mo­dern, confu­sed mul­ti­cultu­ra­list, trendy intel­lec­tuals, as well as by obs­cure vegan or pre-eco­lo­gist thin­kers. But you can be often fooled because when they write about « eco­nomy » (which every Marxist knows is not a sepa­rate rea­lity but inter­lin­ked with human social rela­tions) they often use a vague Marxist voca­bu­lary which may lead you to think they are easy to « win » to your belo­ved Marxist Science. A total illu­sion.

Generally, the anar­chist press values much more « anec­do­tes » about pri­vate life, small-scale expe­rien­ces, than most Trotskyist news­pa­pers. Young anar­chists value more crea­tive forms of pro­pa­ganda : street thea­ter, humo­rous videos on the Net, large cultu­ral events, which they think are as effec­tive as tra­di­tio­nal mee­tings, news­pa­pers, or lea­flets. This is linked with the tra­di­tion of the « ate­neos » (sorts of cultu­ral cen­ters-libra­ries, etc.) in the Spanish CNT.

4. Trotskyists should rea­lize young « anar­chists » want to be active in their own milieu, own dis­trict, own living place or work place and see concrete results of their action now.

That means they dont give a damn about sel­ling papers or dis­tri­bu­ting lea­flets if it’s not linked to a concrete change in people’s life. It means that they dont fancy going miles away from their home to dis­tri­bute lea­flets to people they have never met. Or if they do go far away, it’s much more to learn about unk­nown rea­li­ties than to pro­pa­gate a spe­ci­fic ideo­logy to sup­po­sedly igno­rant wor­kers, pea­sants or oppres­sed people.

What they do and pro­pose, even on the base of confu­sed slo­gans and poli­tics, reso­na­tes among young pre­ca­rious wor­kers or stu­dents, influen­ced by the no global ideo­logy (the « Indignados » is a good exam­ple) and they are like a fish in water in these social move­ments because they dont want to impose an ideo­logy (even if in fact they have a confu­sed one).

5. Trotskyists should also know that young anar­chists have a dif­fe­rent view of mili­tancy as regards their pro­fes­sio­nal status.

Trotskyists tra­di­tion­naly tried to get jobs in big fac­to­ries and big com­pa­nies. And they have suc­cee­ded some­ti­mes to get posi­tions inside the trade unions bureau­cracy in the public sector or less often in the pri­vate sector. Young anar­chists are often very pre­ca­rious as all the mem­bers of their gene­ra­tion, work in call cen­ters, tem­po­rary jobs, and not so keen to work in big fac­to­ries or com­pa­nies which anyway are down­si­zed eve­ryw­here at least in Europe. That may also explain why they are not inte­res­ted in long-term stra­te­gies in buil­ding ten­den­cies inside trade unions, in trade union rou­tine, and much more in direct action in their neigh­bo­rhood, more than at their work­place which is always chan­ging. There also some anar­chists (not all of them of course, because some anar­chists have… Trotskyist tac­tics of infil­tra­ting the trade union bureau­cracy) who think that trade unions repre­sent bar­riers and breaks on forms of self-orga­ni­za­tion among wor­kers, and in many cases are overtly hos­tile to any auto­no­mous cur­rents that have emer­ged among radi­cal wor­kers.

This little arti­cle may give you the impres­sion that young « anar­chists » are hot-blood, hyper sen­si­tive, empa­thic and funny indi­vi­duals, while Trotskyst are cold blood, insen­si­tive, indif­fe­rent and boring per­sons.

Well there is a bit a truth in these mutually shared cli­chés. So if Trotkyists want to dis­cuss seriously with today’s young anar­chists they (as well as their orga­ni­sa­tions) should start by ques­tio­ning them­sel­ves a bit…. Well a lot in fact, along the lines I have just des­cri­bed. Who knows, some­thing inte­res­ting may happen…

Y.C., Ni patrie ni fron­tières

P.S. Thanks to David for his ins­pi­ring com­men­ta­ries.