O artigo de debate “De onde viemos e para onde vamos”, escrito pelo camarada Jiren e publicado originalmente na 10ª edição do Jornal O Amigo do Povo, foi traduzido ao inglês pelos camaradas da editora “Freedom” (da Grã-Bretanha) e publicado em seu site, podendo ser lido no link: https://freedomnews.org.uk/2024/11/15/the-ruptures-of-militant-anarchism-in-brazil/ . Agradecemos a colaboração! Avante o socialismo revolucionário!
Brazilian anarchism lost influence over the masses with the decline and later, the end of revolutionary syndicalism in Brazil between the 1920s and 1930s. This syndicalism already had certain limitations when compared to the model of the historical AIT and its relationship with Mikhail Bakunin’s Alliance. The limitations can be summarised as purism, a-politicism and lack of understanding of the reality of Brazil, in addition to the centrality of anarchist organisation. What remained of anarchism in Brazil for more than half a century were small initiatives of propagandists, educationists and memorialists of anarcho-communist groups, composed of a mix of the old generation of anarchists in contact with young university students and punks, mostly from the petite bourgeoisie.
Between 1995 and 1996, through contacts between anarchist activists in Brazil and the Uruguayan Anarchist Federation (FAU), a new era emerged for anarchism in Brazil, culminating in the creation of the Libertarian Socialist Organization (OSL) in 1997 and, later, the Forum of Organised Anarchism in 2000. Despite the limitations and lack of theoretical and strategic unity of some local groups, it was in this context that Brazilian anarchism once again gained a small presence in the class struggle. Of note were the actions of the Gaucho Anarchist Federation (FAG) and, later, the Collective of Pro-organisation Anarchist of Goiás (COPOAG), with its work among waste pickers in the National Movement of Waste Pickers (MNCR), and the Libertarian Socialist Organization OSL-RJ (future UNIPA), with its urban occupations and secondary school movements in the outskirts.
Of the initiatives that stood out in the class struggle in the early 2000s, FAG’s activities lost traction among waste pickers and other social movements, adopting a shift towards post-structuralism. The Colective Anarchist Pro-organisation of Goiás, which was Bakuninist, ended in 2008. The only organisation that continued to advance, both in theory and in practice, was the group from Rio de Janeiro, which became the Popular Anarchist Union. At that time, the Popular Anarchist Union had already been debating the importance of building a revolutionary theory through Bakunin’s thought, criticising individualism and highlighting the importance of strategic action, as in the debate between CONLUTAS and INTERSINDICAL that existed within the Forum of Organised Anarchism. In this sense, the Popular Anarchist Union broke with Forum of Organised Anarchism and launched itself as a national organisation, criticising revisionism and eclecticism.
The Popular Anarchist Union, which was a local group in Rio de Janeiro until 2007, due to its more successful performance in the national context of degeneration of the left with the Worker’s Party governments, such as in the revolutionary bloc in Conlutas and in the promotion of a combative tendency in the student movement with the Class-Based and Combative Student Network, experienced relatively large quantitative and qualitative growth in the 2010s building centres in the Federal District, Ceará, Center South, Goiás, Mato Grosso, among others. Meanwhile the Forum of Organised Anarchism, which became the Brazilian Anarchist Coordination (CAB), despite its growth, changed little in terms of strategic unity and mass line, often acting as an auxiliary line of reformism or practicing welfare in social movements, resulting in less influence in the class struggle.
In 2013, with the June uprising and the growth of its influence in several cities, the Popular Anarchist Union contributed to the call for the National Meeting of Popular, Student and Revolutionary Trade Union Organisations and the national reconstruction of Federation of Revolutionary Syndicalist Organisations of Brazil, becoming a reference for class-based tendencies in Brazil, mainly in the student movement with the Class-Based and Combative Student Network and in basic education with the Class Resistance Opposition group. There was a significant increase in the participation of Bakuninists in the class struggle, such as in the high school occupations of 2015 and in universities in 2016.
The Popular Anarchist Union, which established itself as the only bastion of revolutionary class-based anarchism in Brazil during the Worker’s Party governments (2003-2016), began to make its first mistakes after Dilma’s impeachment, by adhering to the coup narrative and, consequently, favouring the fight against the Worker’s Party “coup-mongering” and the defence of bourgeois democracy. This can be explained, in part, by the contradiction of its growth having occurred in intermediate sectors, such as the student movement of federal universities and the civil service. Meanwhile, the Brazilian Anarchist Coordination lost itself in social-democratic and identity-based narratives, having little influence in the class struggle.
After losing its way in the conceptual dispute with the reformists following Dilma’s impeachment, the only Bakuninist organisation in the world also failed to fully understand the changing context and the decline in struggles after 2016. Even in a new context of right-wing governments and a decline in struggles, it helped to convene the second National Meeting of Popular, Student and Revolutionary Trade Union Organisations, with a proposal de-contextualised from Western Europe by the anarcho-syndicalists of the International Confederation of Labor (CIT) with the creation of the SIGAs, parallel unions, breaking with the only model that was working: the class-based and disciplined tendencies. Thus, they created free unions aimed mainly at libertarians and doctrinaire revolutionaries, focusing only on agitation and propaganda, like the outdated models of the factory-gate unions of the 20th century.
The Popular Anarchist Union/ Federation of Revolutionary Syndicalist Organisations of Brazil continued to present errors in reading the context and promoting hasty and misguided structural changes, and as a result, several internal disagreements arose, mainly on issues such as the “Coup”, “Bolsonaro Out”, “identitarianism” and the “stay at home” policy. In this context, between 2021-2023, there were many ruptures in The Popular Anarchist Union/ Federation of Revolutionary Syndicalist Organisations of Brazil, some public, others not. In the Brazilian Anarchist Coordination, there were also disagreements on two main issues: the advancement of the national organisation with political and strategic unity and the criticism of liberalism/identitarianism, which culminated in a split, mainly of the southeastern organisations of the Brazilian Anarchist Coordination, which formed the new Libertarian Socialist Organization (OSL) in 2023.
With all these changes in the situation in recent years – right-wing governments, the pandemic and the return of the Lula government, even more bourgeois – splits were created that today divide militant anarchism in Brazil into four main lines: Brazilian Anarchist Coordination, Libertarian Socialist Organization, Popular Anarchist Union/ Federation of Revolutionary Syndicalist Organisations of Brazil and its dissidents, such as GLP/Jornal Amigo do Povo, Ofensiva Revolucionária, among others.
Our humble position, the result of these ruptures and more than 20 years of activism even though we are not an anarchist group today, but rather a group of class-based activists, is summarised in advancing where the historical Popular Anarchist Union (2003-2016) was unable to do so. We want to make a quantitative and qualitative leap not only with intermediate sectors, but mainly with strategic sectors and the marginal proletariat, continuing with disciplined activism and theoretical and strategic unity as a legacy of Bakunin and Makhno. We must go to the people and continue fighting for the social revolution.
