In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) chats with two anarchist comrades Tommy (@correnterosso ) and Charlie about Tommy’s recent article Anarchy and Its Allies: The United Front and the Groupings of Tendency and the related rise in anarcho-communist organisations in Australia. We chat about how anarchism is developing and the current appeal of Platformism and Especifismo . Topics of discussion include the role a theoretical framework plays and where it comes from, class composition and the history of organisations, and the relationship of revolutionaries to class struggle.
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A key text mentioned is Social Anarchism and Organisation
Tommy is a member of Geelong Anarcho-Communists and says sorry for how they pronounced the group TMA
Charlie is a member of Black Flag Sydney
They recommend reading Red and Black Notes
You used to be able to find the archives of the Mutiny Zine at Jura but their website is having issues.
Music by Ernst Busch
Interesting discussion, I definitely appreciate the article more for knowing a bit more context behind it. Would be interested to read more about the development of contemporary Aussie A-C/platformism/especifismo, like what were the particular experiences in the “swampy” organisations or projects that led people to adopting this form?
As far as the article goes, suppose this is related to your point about different historical moments, but one thing that comes to mind is the decline in formal membership organisations – of course anarchists still take part in struggle alongside different political tendencies, but just as today’s anarcho groups are not the historical CNT or FAI or whatever, other lefty groups today are not the UGT or Tupamaros or whatever. I suppose what I mean is that the other ideologies we encounter within antiracist or queer struggles or whatever area of work are less likely to be expressed as formal membership orgs that we can officially invite into a united front, dunno how that affects the article’s conclusions?