, a forerunner of the anarchist synthesis and a leading figure in the
Italian anarchist movement. Since the 1890s, there had been a drive within the anarchist movement to foster cooperation between the various
anarchist schools of thought and to unite them across ideological lines. During the dispute between the
collectivists and
communists, the Italian anarchist
Errico Malatesta and the Spanish anarchist
Fernando Tarrida del Mármol advocated for anarchists of both tendencies to unite, according to the principle of "
anarchism without adjectives". Over the subsequent decades,
Max Nettlau developed this principle into a call for anarchists to unite into a single organisation, which would preserve individual
autonomy and encourage
mutual aid between its members. The principle of individual autonomy was particularly central to the organisational ideas of
Sébastien Faure and
Emma Goldman, as well as to the Japanese "pure anarchists" that advocated for a more loosely organised grouping. The Russian anarchist
Volin considered all anarchist schools of thought to be valid, advocating for a pluralistic organisation that unites anarchists of different tendencies behind a set of common principles and goals. While Goldman considered the best path to be a loose framework that extended autonomy to each tendency, Volin and Faure would go on to develop a "synthesis" of the different tendencies, with the aim of creating an organisational platform that would be acceptable to the entire anarchist movement.
Revolution in Ukraine Following the
October Revolution, many Russian anarchists attempted to escape the
Red Terror by fleeing to
Ukraine. They established their headquarters in
Kharkiv, which became the center for their campaign to unify the disorganised anarchist movement into a coordinated revolutionary organisation, which they hoped would be able to combat the rise of
Bolshevism. This campaign resulted in the establishment of the
Nabat Confederation of Anarchist Organizations, which quickly spread throughout all of Ukraine's major cities. , one of the early proponents of the anarchist synthesis and a leading figure in the
Nabat. The statutes of the Nabat were drawn up by
Volin, who established it according to the principles of "united anarchism" (). The organization was designed to extend a great deal of autonomy to its membership and be open to members from all of the major
anarchist schools of thought:
anarcho-communism,
anarcho-syndicalism and
individualist anarchism. This "united anarchism" was immediately criticised by Volin's former anarcho-syndicalist comrades, who regarded it as an ineffective way to unify the anarchist movement and feared the dominance of anarcho-communists in such an organization. Despite its establishment according to the principles of "united anarchism", as the
Ukrainian Revolution progressed, the Nabat developed into a more tightly organised federation with its own unitary
policy. The Nabat's secretariat acted as the organisation's executive, directing the organisation's membership and overseeing its resources. It quickly threw its support behind the
Makhnovist movement and the
Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine, which it hoped would spearhead the organisation of the Ukrainian anarchist movement.
Synthesis versus the Platform After the Russian and Ukrainian anarchist movements were forced into exile, they experienced a split over organisational principles. Inspired by the model of the Nabat, Volin had proposed the organisation of an anarchist federation, which would account for discipline and collective responsibility by means of "natural, free and technical centralisation", while also accounting for a diversity of anarchist tendencies within the organisation. But members of
Delo Truda quickly rejected Volin's "synthesis" as incoherent and out of step with anarchist theory. Within the
Soviet Union itself, former members of the Nabat had also since gravitated away from Volin's organisational principles. In June 1926,
Peter Arshinov,
Nestor Makhno and
Ida Mett collaborated on the drafting of
The Organisational Platform, which called for the establishment of a specific anarchist organisation according to the principles of ideological and tactical unity, in order to combat chronic disorganisation within the anarchist movement. In April 1927, Volin penned a reply to the
Platform, which was co-signed by other exiled anarchists such as
Senya Fleshin and
Mollie Steimer. The
Reply criticised the
Platform as running counter to anarchist ideology, accusing the platformists of desiring to establish a centralised anarchist political party and eventually a
state, which Volin directly compared to
Bolshevism. Volin, Fleshin and Steimer went on to accuse the
Delo Truda group of
anti-intellectualism and even
antisemitism. , one of the early proponents of the anarchist synthesis and a leading figure in the
French anarchist movement. In the autumn of 1927, at a congress of the French Anarchist Union, the platformist majority within the organisation overruled the synthesist minority. The French Synthesists, led by
Sébastien Faure, split from the Union and established their own Federal Association of Anarchists (AFA). Faure himself desired to create a powerful organisation that could unite disparate revolutionary groupings and be capable of leading an insurrection. Although Faure had rejected the
Platform as
sectarian and ideologically homogeneous, preferring instead to cultivate
good faith and
mutual aid between anarchists, he set his own conception of synthesis apart from Volin's "dilettantism". In 1928,
Sebastien Faure published
The Anarchist Synthesis, arguing for looser organisational principles that allowed ideological diversity.
Formation of synthesis federations In 1927, the
Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI) was established along synthesist lines, in order to act as a counterweight to the
reformism expressed within the
Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT). In the wake of the FAI, synthesis federations were also formed in other countries, including the
Francophone Anarchist Federation (FAF) in 1937 and the
Italian Anarchist Federation (FAIt) in 1945. Following the
defeat of imperial Japan, the Korean anarchist movement reorganised into the Federation of Free Society Builders (FFSB), which was formed along synthesist lines and continued to function in the
South Korea until the
October Restoration, when
martial law was declared in the
Republic of Korea. In 1968, the
International of Anarchist Federations (IAF) was established at a congress in Italy, building on the previously established international network at the initiative of the FAF. Established along synthesist lines, the IAF brought together anarchist federations from
Argentina,
Australia,
Britain,
Bulgaria,
Cuba,
France,
Germany,
Greece,
Iberia,
Italy,
Japan,
the Netherlands,
Norway and
Switzerland. The IAF affirmed its commitment to the principles of
libertarian communism at its second congress in 1971, but soon lost its Cuban section due to its soft line on the
Castro government. Nevertheless, the IAF managed to develop further links in
Hong Kong and
Vietnam and made contact with other anarchist federations in Europe and South America. == References ==