By The Blast
19 February 2022
Few anarchists in the USA are aware of a growing conflict in the international anarcho-syndicalist movement, perhaps because Workers Solidarity Alliance (WSA)[1], the USA link to the anarchist International Workers’ Association (AIT-IWA)[2] does not have the kind of vitality needed for such dissemination of information to happen. By no means do we mean or imply any disrespect to the WSA; we understand how difficult it is to create authentic anarcho-syndicalism in our communities. Another factor is that the conflict has perhaps been best reported in Spanish, which many anarchists in the USA do not speak.
The earliest that some of us were made aware of the conflict was in 2016 when the Libertarian Youth of Madrid, Spain[3] published what they called a “censored letter” denouncing the development of a hierarchy in the Spanish CNT[4] that was beginning to corrupt the international anarcho-syndicalist movement in its orientation to the AIT-IWA. (A translation of this “censored letter”, a really great read for anarchists in general, was lightly shared in 2016 and shall be published in full below.)
A more recent article on the matter was published on the AIT-IWA’s site called “Against All Odds: Statement about the Legal Actions against CNT-AIT”[5]. Though this was published on the AIT-IWA’s site in February 2021, it’s a highly recommended read for 2022 for those who know nothing of the shocking situation of anarcho-syndicalism in Spain that may grow throughout the world in a new international syndicalist organization, the International Labor Confederation (ILC)[6], which, it has been argued, the hierarchy in the Spanish CNT has helped to spearhead as a corrupting and reformatory pathogen on the international plane. One could say the Libertarian Youth predicted its development in that censored letter.
Many anarcho-syndicalists tend to gravitate to the Industrial Workers of the World, which has developed more relations with the ILC.
That being the case, all anarcho-syndicalists should definitely read up something on the matter and at least ensure that whatever syndicalist group(s) they are in is not corrupted by any reaction, homegrown or imported.
Notes
[1] https://workersolidarity.org
[3] https://juventudeslibertariasmadrid.wordpress.com/
Libertarian Youth-Madrid
Censored Letter at the 11th Congress of the CNT[1]
Last December 2015 in Zaragoza[, Spain], the 11th congress of the National Confederation of Labor took place.
We, the Libertarian Youth of Madrid, wrote a letter to the union, which we sent, so that it could be read to Congress.
Nevertheless, although letters from other organizations were read, ours couldn’t bypass bureaucratic censorship and barriers—so it was not read at all.
It’s because of this that we’ve decided to publicize our letter, so that we can make it available and at the same time let others know our position in respect to the current state of the CNT.
In the course of the congress, they censored our letter (which confirms much of what we state in the letter), so here we have made it public.
Greetings,
Before the imminent CNT congress, the Libertarian Youth of Madrid did not want to let the occasion pass without denouncing the current situation that exists in the organization.
Before beginning an analysis of the grand and numerous problems that affect the organization, we must address the easy accusation that “we don’t know what we’re talking about”. Therefore, we would like to clarify that many members of the LY of Madrid are also CNT members and militants and have been so for many years.
LY of Madrid militants have assisted the Local Federation of Madrid (CNT) in its conflicts and social actions. We’ve distributed its propaganda, taking it to neighborhoods where they didn’t have a presence before, etc.
Without a doubt, our organization has spent many years sacrificing itself for the CNT.
Nevertheless, this collaboration hasn’t been one-way.
Many unions from all over the peninsula have helped our own federation in general and have specifically helped the LY of Madrid.
It’s a shame that the great majority of these unions have either
-been expelled from the CNT through ideological purges similar to what happened in the USSR at the end of the 1930s, or
-they have abandoned the CNT on their own.
Since anarchism’s origins as a political and social movement, anarchists have sought to function and organize themselves around its basic principles, conscious that in order to create the world we want it’s necessary that we practice these principles today, right now.
This is not an option—as many appear to believe these days.
The complexity of the change we want to carry out—the abysmal difference between today’s world and the world we want to create—makes it absolutely necessary for us to seriously apply these principles with full commitment to them.
This necessity comes from two basic premises:
1) having been born in an authoritarian world and being living participants in it, we are all infected by its practices and influences. In the world we’re trying to build there isn’t room for both tendencies—we must uproot them by daily practice.
2) To accept authoritarian structures and methods as a valid, systemic tool to destroy them is the most tempting thing we can do to dig our own graves.
The confederation—as an anarchist organization—should organize itself around a series of basic principles such as direct action, horizontality, workers’ self-management, mutual aid, and federalism.
It hurts us that confederates are beginning to interpret these principles in a relaxed manner, treating them as useless dogmas, to the point where today they’re being completely abandoned in practice.
These principles are not options for anarchists. They are what define us as anarchists.
To abandon them means to give up any possibility of victory (as we’ve explained above).
Speaking concretely, we shall talk about the CNT’s system of decision-making.
In the CNT, agreements between unions are made by voting.
These votes are bought with union dues that each union can buy from its regional union according to the amount of members they have.
This results in regional union meetings that aren’t anything more than a fraud, in which big unions impose their will on smaller unions.
The only thing these meetings care about are how much money unions have. They are forgetting that having more members doesn’t mean anything.
What really matters is daily militancy, the ability to spread anarchist ideas, the capacity to take them into the streets and make them a daily reality.
Many times these small unions have more capacity to successfully carry this out than unions with lots of made-up membership numbers that often function as bodies to control the working classes.
Another problem with big unions that have lots of votes—that stem from lots of money and members—is that they are often controlled by their committees that are a self-appointed leadership when it’s time to make decisions.
There are cases in which these committees limit their militants’ access to the organization’s regulations. In this way, they’re able to misinform the membership and monopolize the decision-making process.
It seems that it’s been forgotten that committees aren’t supposed to be anything more than work bodies that carry out the assembly’s agreements. It seems it’s been forgotten that the assembly is the only legitimate decision-making body.
There are also cases where unions buy more votes than what matches their actual membership numbers.
Unions have denounced this. And for this they’ve become casualties in the struggle—expelled from the CNT for speaking up.
We don’t accept the argument that the CNT has always been like this, that there have always been unions that have more weight than others.
To be unable to criticize our organization’s traditions is nothing more than to accept Authority in another form.
Anarchism—staying true to its basic principles—should always revise itself because its own nature means “to question everything”.
To accept that the CNT has always done everything correctly is absurd and anti-anarchist. We should be of the opinion that since the beginning of the 20th century the CNT has been correct and wrong in many ways.
This entire situation got worse with the organization’s regulations that the 10th congress approved. This was a decisive hour in which the CNT’s decision-making processes became vertical.
It’s argued that we must adapt the CNT to today’s situation, in which the working classes’ victories are being destroyed by leaps and bounds, where horizontal decision-making has become a burden to avoid.
Debate has disappeared. Idea sharing and the practice of searching and making common agreements are gone. Everything is imposed by voting.
Anarchist decision-making is slower, yes. But this should not embarrass us—no, to the contrary.
We should be proud of reflecting, of debating, of hearing different opinions.
With our heads held up high, we should defend this way of making decisions.
Yes, we take more time to decide, but in the end our decisions are better.
Nevertheless, our dear committees don’t understand this.
Being a leadership, they impose their decisions on the rest of our militants because there’s no time for us to participate in decision-making processes that affect us—that’s supposing that our final objective is to be able to decide our own fate.
Or perhaps we’re too stupid and we’re incapable of understanding the all-knowing wisdom of our dear leaders.
On other occasions they use their positions to make independent decisions, carrying out functions appropriate to democratic centralism and not anarchist federalism.
Special attention must be drawn to the corruption of individuals that make up these committees: years and years in which finances are not presented, fiscal imbalances of astronomical sums, absurd and vague justifications for expenses, squandering, etc.
What should be the key tools for the emancipation of all the oppressed have become a feeding trough for the few, from which they derive economic benefits.
All vices from all authoritarian systems are being openly reproduced among our ranks down to the smallest scale. This is the fruit of a persistent “re-education”.
This “re-education” is apparent in the editorial line that the CNT followed in the last administration, in which
-space was given to social democrats, which should make any decent anarchist vomit, and
-in which they silenced or disempowered unions because of their ideological position.
Even more outrageous is direct collaboration with civic and social democratic organizations, many cases where CNT unions are endorsing to its members political party and government agendas.
It’s also necessary to talk about the Confederal Technical Bureau, another step away from anarchist principles and a step toward the professionalization of revolutionary unionism—something which we should confront head on because only workers, horizontally self-organized, have the capacity to defend their own interests.
This bureau consists of a group of lawyers in the CNT’s pay who depend on the Permanent Confederal Secretariat.
In practice, this results in reformist unions that have all the flaws that reformists unions can have, according to an anarchist point-of-view. These unions’ interests are opposed to ours and being what they are, they refuse to carry out practical work.
Finally, we would like to talk about how there is an attempt to transfer this model of decision-making from the CNT to the International Workers’ Association.
The CNT leadership is constantly trying to increase the amount of members necessary to form an IWA section—or that this must depend on a number of votes—in order to silence all the small sections and leave decision-making in the hands of two or three sections that casually follow the same reformist ideology.
The continued boycott of the IWA on behalf of the Permanent Confederal Secretariat—the latest being a refusal to pay dues to the IWA—are in line with a well-defined strategy, worthy of any politician.
The drift taking place today in the CNT worries the Libertarian Youth of Madrid very much.
During its entire existence, the CNT has been one of its references of organized anarchism, at the national and international level.
It’s sad to think about any person who comes in contact with anarchist ideas and wants to begin to organize themselves in the CNT in order to put them into practice. It’s sad to know that they’re going to encounter the above-described panorama—corruption, ideological censorship, vanguardism, vertical decision-making, etc.
In this situation, it will be difficult to be able to build a strong movement capable of changing the world we live in.
As a farewell, we would like to send a fraternal and solidaric salute to all unions struggling against this current drift in the CNT, who are trying to ensure that the CNT becomes the right tool for the social emancipation of all the oppressed.
From here we offer them all of our help.
We also honor the memory of all unions that have been expelled from the confederation or that have marched off on their own accord and intend to create a real anarchounionist alternative.
Without anything else to add,
The Libertarian Youth of Madrid
Note
[1] https://juventudeslibertariasmadrid.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/salutacion-censurada-en-el-xi-congreso-de-la-cnt/