Platformism
"Burn their laws and destroy their prisons, kill the hangmen, the bane of mankind. Smash authority!"
Platformism is an ideology that seeks unity from its participants, having, as a defining characteristic, the idea that each platformist organization should include only people that are fully in agreement with core group ideas, rejecting people who disagree. It stresses the need for tightly organized anarchist organizations that are able to influence working class and peasant movements.
Platformism rejects the model of the Leninist Vanguard and instead uses class consciousness to unite people with anarchist ideas so that they could lead the class struggle, there are four main principles by which an anarchist organization should operate, Tactical unity, Theoretical unity, Collective responsibility and Federalism
Platformism is seen as one of the earliest examples of anarchist praxis and was developed further as theory by the Dielo Truda in Paris, them being composed of Nestor Makhno and other anarchist exiles from Russia and Ukraine based on the results of anarchist movements during the Russian Revolution such as the Free Territory (also known as Makhnovshchyna) and its Black Army.
Platformism has been critiqued to be merely a stepping stone for anarchist movements and should be used to develop other anarchist movements forward, but is also seen as the least ideologically centered anarchist concept and some say that it might be one of the only ways to effectively create an anarchist society.
History
Ukraine
Platformism has its roots in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War where Ukraine ended up divided among many different factions, among this chaos Nestor Makhno would enter into the picture as a charismatic leader that would rally Ukrainian peasants to the anarchist cause. Anarchism in Ukraine would be largely
agrarian and was largely a movement of the peasants exerting control from
oppressive landlords and
Russian elites
, this free territory would be a string of villages and communities that would function under a direct democracy and self-governance around the local committee and its confederation with other committes, even having an unionized army command.
Free Territory would fight off Petliura and
Skoropadskyy forces, the
White Army, and then the
Red Army, which, led by
Trotsky, betrayed the anarchists and centered its forces to fight them off after defeating the Whites.
By the end of January 1920, the territory of the Makhnovshchina had been overrun by the Red Army. The
Cheka set about disarming the local populace, taking villagers hostage while their troops set about searching homes, killing the hostages if they found any unreported weaponry. Petro Grigorenko would later state that "there was no end of bloodshed", drawing attention to reports of one massacre in the Makhnovist town of Novospasivka, where the Cheka had
"shot down one in every two able-bodied men". In what Alexandre Skirda described as an act of
"outright genocide", an estimated 200000 Ukrainian peasants were killed during the
Red Terror.
Makhno himself, however, along with many other anarchists, had managed to escape after their defeat in Ukraine, and developed the ideology of
Platformism itself, focusing especially on fixing what went wrong there.
South America
In South America, Platformism is known as Especifismo ('Specifism'), which can be summarized as:
- The need for a specifically anarchist organization built around a unity of ideas and praxis.
- The use of the specifically anarchist organization to theorize and develop strategic political and organizing work.
- Active involvement in and building of autonomous and popular social movements via social insertion.
How to Draw
- Draw a ball
- Draw a diagonal black line across the ball
- Fill the bottom half in black
- Fill the top half in dark red
- Draw a star in opposing colors along the middle
- Add the eyes and you're done!
Color Name | HEX | RGB | |
---|---|---|---|
Red | #FF0000 | rgb(255, 0, 0) | |
Black | #141414 | rgb(20, 20, 20) |
Relations
Friends
Anarcho-Communism - I love you so much dad.
Kropotkin is so based.
Anarchism - Mother Anarchy loves her sons, Mother Anarchy will not sell us, with lead rain she will greet the enemy, Mother Anarchy is with us!!!
Agrarian Socialism - The peasants must be liberated!
Council Communism - All power to the free Soviets!
Anarcho-Syndicalism - Fellow far-left anarchist. Different structure but compatible praxis and economy. That being said, why do I have a weird feeling that I have worked with you before while in France against Germany and Canada?
Combat Organisation of Anarcho-Communists - My beloved successors who also believe in armed struggle and liberation from the
parasites
.
Revolutionary Action (Belarus) - I love you too, kids! May you prevail in your noble fight against the
parasites
!
Autonomous Action (Russia) - I didn't forget about you either! I love you also.
Frenemies
Bombaccism - Bro why do you like me so much?
Synthesis Anarchism - You are also an anarchist, but we are organisationally opposites, and Volin gave me my scar.
Stratocracy - We both want a platform with people who agree with each other and are able to organize themselves to combat enemies with the use of firepower, but at the end of the day you are just another authoritarian parasite who will use that same firepower to take away our freedom!
Post-Leftism - I would usually just think of you as
my dad's weird distant son, but calling me a "structural authoritarian"? Really, brother?
Hoppeanism - Reactionary and Capitalist, but you value order within Anarchy, like I do. You will be spared if I take your advice and decide to physically remove the Soviets and Capitalists
Enemies
Capitalism - Ah, little apple, with the blueberry, come over here, bourgeois, I'll take your eye out! I'll take an eye out, another one will remain, so that you know, you shit, who to bow to!
Leninism - Ah, little apple, it fell from the mountain, the Commissar screams - his belly burst! We will feed the fish with Komsomol members!! We will feed the fish with Bolshevists!!!
Tsarism and
Russian White Movement - Ah, little apple, you are not ripe, the Black Baron rides, his ass is white!
Trotskyism - DAMNED BUTCHER! YOU SLAUGHTERED THE FREE TERRITORY!
Marxism-Leninism and
Stalinism - This is what B*lshevism leads to... Go to hell for starving millions of my people, genocidal fascist scoundrels.
Timocracy - Fucking landlords...
Counter-Enlightenment,
Reactionaryism and
Orthodox Theocracy - Counterrevolutionary obscurantist parasites and hypocrites that oppress the people!
Conservatism - Silly superstitious counterrevolutionaries.
Authoritarian Conservatism and
Aristocracy - Literally
Skoropadskyi!
National Reformist Marxism - Literally
Petliura!
Black Hundredism - You disgust me.
Melnykism and
Banderism - Petliura 2.0, except this time even more horrid and even more genocidal. I wish
modern day Ukrainians stopped glorifying and associating with bloody fascist pigdogs.
Anarcho-Nihilism - You don't know what anarchy means.
Putinism - UKRAINE WILL NEVER BOW TO YOU, FASCIST IMPERIALIST SCUM! AND FUCK YOU FOR DESTROYING MY MONUMENT!
Further Information
Literature
- About the Platform by Errico Malatesta and Nestor Makhno
- The Struggle Against the State and Other Essays by Nestor Makhno
- The Manifesto of The Makhnovists by Nestor Makhno
- Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists by Dielo Truda
- History of the Makhnovist Movement (1918–1921) by Peter Arshinov
Wikipedia
Videos
- Nestor Makhno and the Ukrainian Black Army | Russian Civil War | Polandball/Countryball history by CallMeEzekiel
- A Political History of Ukrainian Anarchism by Ravignon
Gallery
-
Credit: Man from the future's drawing
-
Especifismo
- ↑ In the territory controlled by the Makhnovshchina, a system of market socialism was implemented, to the particular benefit of the peasantry and workers that produced consumer goods, while social welfare was introduced through the redistribution of income and wealth.