Rough draft

A New Movement

Through out its history one of anarchism’s greatest challenges has been to build a cohesive and effective movement. We have seen many anarchist movements that were once tens of thousands strong, all but die off because of a lack of organization. For example one only has to look at one of the most famous social revolutions of all time; the Russian revolution.
In the early 1900’s the anarchists rivaled the Bolsheviks in numbers but were unsuccessful at generating a real movement due to “Marx Syndrome”. The Bolshevik party (and other Marxist organizations) being so keen on organization and discipline, pushed many anarchists to the other side of the organizational spectrum. After the first attempted revolution of 1905, anarchist groups sprung up like wild flowers but experienced the same problems that some anarchist groups are still facing today; poor coordination between groups and an excess amount of Illegalists#1 within the movement. This of course made for a very ineffective movement. Many of the anarchists that wished to organize ended up working with the Bolsheviks, and then were eventually weeded out of the Soviet Union.
The United States pacific northwest region has posed another organizational challenge. Post leftist ideology runs rampant and the popular anarchism in the PNW seems to regard formal organization as being synonymous with government, party, and hierarchy. There is only but a ghost of Class Struggle Anarchist organizations in the cities of the Pacific Northwest. There are a few isolated collectives in the larger cities, but the PNW is seriously lacking an effective anarchist organization.
A few years back an organization by the name of the Northwest Anarchist Federation (NAF) was founded on the anarchist specific tradition, but due to infighting and differences in tactics the organization collapsed but they left behind hope. A new group called Class Action Alliance (CAA) was just recently founded on June 7th 2008 in Olympia Washington. The group alleys themselves with the Anakismo publishing group and accepts the following as the four main tenets of their anarchist organization:

Theoretical Unity
Tactical Unity
Collective Action and Discipline
Federalism

Class struggle anarchists now have a medium to organize with! But not recruit; specific organizations are not mass organizations. They aren’t trying to recruit everyone into their organization. A specific organization aims at having a group of dedicated politically aligned activists working in mass struggles to put forth an anarchist influence.
If Class Action Alliance is as successful as their sibling organizations#2 have been then I believe that here in the next decade we will see an increasing amount and a different kind of anarchist activity. CAA is aiming to be focused in local struggles such as gentrification issues and the rising cost of public transit for example. The days of summit hopping are over, it’s time to build real connections with the people by helping
change the things that effect them most through direct action, direct democracy and solidarity!

By Brandon Feld

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#1 Illegalism is an anarchist philosophy the developed primarily in France, Italy, Belgium and Switzerland during the early 1900’s as an outgrowth of individualism. The Illegalists openly embraced criminality as a lifestyle. (From www.reference.com/)

#2 Other Anakismo allied groups: Worker Solidarity Movement, North Eastern Federation Of Anarcho- Communists, Common Cause and many others.