Anarchists are well aware of the importance of building organisations. Organisations allow those within them to multiply their strength and activity, becoming the means by which an individual can see their ideas, hopes and dreams realised. This is as true for getting the anarchist message across as for building a home, running a hospital or creating some useful product like food. Anarchists support two types of organisation — organisations of anarchists and popular organisations which are not made up exclusively of anarchists such as industrial unions, co-operatives and community assemblies. In this section of the FAQ we will discuss the kinds, nature and role of the first type of organisation, namely explicitly anarchist organisations. In addition, we discuss anarcho-syndicalism, a revolutionary unionism which aims to create an anarchist society by anarchist tactics, as well as why many anarchists are not anarcho-syndicalists. The second type of organisations, popular organisations, are discussed in detail in section J.5 which gives specific examples of the kinds of social alternatives anarchists support and create under capitalism (community and industrial unions, mutual banks, co-operatives and so on).

Both forms of organisation, however, share the anarchist commitment to confederalism, decentralisation, self-management and decision making from the bottom up. In such organisations the membership play the decisive role in running them and ensuring that power remains in their hands. They express the anarchist vision of the power and creative efficacy people have when they are self-reliant, when they act for themselves and manage their own lives directly. Anarchists insist that people must manage their own affairs (individually and collectively) and have both the right and the ability to do so. Only by organising in this way can we create a new world, a world worthy of human beings and unique individuals.

Anarchist organisation in all its forms reflects the anarchist desire to "build the new world in the shell of the old" and to empower the individual. We reject the notion that it does not really matter how we organise to change society. Indeed, nothing could be further from the truth. We are all the products of the influences and social relationships in our lives, this is a basic idea of (philosophical) materialism. Thus the way our organisations are structured has an impact on us. If the organisation is centralised and hierarchical (no matter how "democratically" controlled any officials or leaders are) then those subject to it will, as in any hierarchical organisation, see their abilities to manage their own lives, their creative thought and imagination eroded under the constant stream of orders from above. This in turn justifies the pretensions to power of those at the top, as the capacity of self-management of the rank and file is weakened by authoritarian social relationships.

This means anarchist organisations are so structured so that they allow everyone the maximum potential to participate. Such participation is the key for a free organisation. As Malatesta argued:

"The real being is man, the individual. Society or the collectivity. . . if it is not a hollow abstraction, must be made up of individuals. And it is in the organism of every individual that all thoughts and human actions inevitably have their origin, and from being individual they become collective thoughts and acts when they are or become accepted by many individuals. Social action, therefore, is neither the negation nor the complement of individual initiative, but is the resultant of initiatives, thoughts and actions of all individuals who make up society."[Anarchy, p. 36]

Anarchist organisations exist to allow this development and expression of individual initiatives. This empowering of the individual is an important aspect of creating viable solidarity for sheep cannot express solidarity, they only follow the shepherd. Therefore, "to achieve their ends, anarchist organisations must, in their constitution and operation, remain in harmony with the principles of anarchism; that is, they must know how to blend the free action of individuals with the necessity and the joy of co-operation which serve to develop the awareness and initiative of their members and a means of education for the environment in which they operate and of a moral and material preparation for the future we desire." [Errico Malatesta, The Anarchist Revolution, p. 95]

As such, anarchist organisations reflect the sort of society anarchists desire. We reject as ridiculous the claim of Marxists and Leninists that the form of organisation we build is irrelevant and therefore we must create highly centralised parties which aim to become the leadership of the working class. No matter how "democratic" such organisations are, they just reflect the capitalist division of labour between brain and manual work and the Liberal ideology of surrendering our ability to govern ourselves to an elected elite. In other words, they just mirror the very society we are opposed to and so will soon produce the very problems within so-called anti-capitalist organisations which originally motivated us to oppose capitalism in the first place. Because of this, anarchists regard "the Marxist party as another statist form that, if it succeeded in 'seizing power,' would preserve the power of one human being over another, the authority of the leader over the led. The Marxist party. . . was a mirror image of the very society it professed to oppose, an invasion of the camp of revolutionaries by bourgeois values, methods, and structures." [The Spanish Anarchists, pp. 179-80] As can be seen from the history of the Russian Revolution, this was the case with the Bolsheviks soon taking the lead in undermining workers' self-management, soviet democracy and, finally, democracy within the ruling party itself. Of course, from an anarchist (i.e. materialist) point of view, this was highly predictable — after all, "facts are before ideas; yes, the ideal, as Proudhon said, is but a flower whose root lies in the material conditions of existence." [Bakunin, God and the State, p.9] — and so it is unsurprising that hierarchical parties helped to maintain a hierarchical society. In the words of the famous Sonvillier Circular (issued by the libertarian sections of the First International):

"How could one want an egalitarian and free society to issue from an authoritarian organisation? It is impossible."

We must stress here that anarchists are not opposed to organisation and are not opposed to organisations of anarchists (i.e. political organisations, although anarchists generally reject the term "party" due to its statist and hierarchical associations). Murray Bookchin makes the issues clear when he wrote that the "real question at issue here is not 0organisation versus non-organisation, but rather what kind of organisation . . . [anarchist] organisations . . . [are] organic developments from below . . . They are social movements, combing a creative revolutionary lifestyle with a creative revolutionary theory . . . As much as is humanly possibly, they try to reflect the liberated society they seek to achieve . . . [and] are built around intimate groups of brothers and sisters - affinity groups . . . [with] co-ordination between groups . . . discipline, planning, and unity in action. . . achieved voluntarily, by means of a self-discipline nourished by conviction and understanding." [Post-Scarcity Anarchism, pp. 214-215]

In the sections that follow, we discuss the nature and role of anarchist organisation. Anarchists would agree totally with these words of the Situationist Guy Debord that a "revolutionary organisation must always remember that its objective is not getting people to listen to speeches by expert leaders, but getting them to speak for themselves" and organise their groups accordingly. Section J.3.1 discusses the basic building block of specifically anarchist organisations, the "affinity group." Sections J.3.2, J.3.3, J.3.4 and J.3.5, we discuss the main types of federations of "affinity groups" anarchist create to help spread our message and influence. Then section J.3.6 highlights the role these organisations play in our struggles to create an anarchist society. Many Marxists fail to understand the nature of anarchist organisation and, because of this, misunderstand Bakunin's expression "Invisible Dictatorship" and paint a picture of him (and, by implication, all anarchists)as a hierarchical would-be dictator. Section J.3.7 analyses these claims and shows why they are wrong. Finally, in section J.3.8 and J.3.9 we discuss anarcho-syndicalism and other anarchists attitudes to it.

The power of ideas cannot be under estimated, for "if you have an idea you can communicate it to a million people and lose nothing in the process, and the more the idea is propagated the more it acquires in power and effectiveness" [The Anarchist Revolution, p. 46]. The right idea at the right time, one that reflects the needs of individuals and of required social change, can have a transforming effect on those who hold the idea and the society they live in. That is why organisations that anarchists create to spread their message are so important and why we devote a whole section to them.

Anarchist organisations, therefore, aim to enrich social struggle by their ideas and suggestions but also, far more importantly, enrich the idea by practical experience and activity. In other words, a two way process by which life informs theory and theory aids life. The means by which this social dynamic is created and developed is the underlying aim of anarchist organisation and is reflected in its theoretical role we highlight in the following sections.