The aim of these groups and federations is to spread anarchist ideas within society and within social movements. They aim to convince people of the validity of anarchist ideas and analysis, of the need for a libertarian transformation of society and of themselves. They do so by working with others as equals and "through advice and example, leaving people . . . to adopt our methods and solutions if these are, or seem to be, better than those suggested and carried out by others." [Errico Malatesta, The Anarchist Revolution, p. 108]

The role of "affinity groups" and their federations play a key role in anarchist theory. This is because anarchists are well aware that there are different levels of knowledge and consciousness in society. While it is a basic element of anarchism that people learn through struggle and their own experiences, it is also a fact that different people develop at different speeds, that each individual is unique and subject to different influences. As one anarchist pamphlet puts it, the "experiences of working class life constantly lead to the development of ideas and actions which question the established order . . . At the same time, different sections of the working class reach different degrees of consciousness." [The Role of the Revolutionary Organisation, p.3] This can easily be seen from any group of individuals of the same class or even community. Some are anarchists, others Marxists, some social democrats/labourites, others conservatives, other liberals, most "apolitical," some support trade unions, others are against and so on.

Because they are aware that they are one tendency among many, anarchists organise as anarchists to influence social struggle. Only when anarchists ideas are accepted by the vast majority will an anarchist society be possible. We wish, in other words, to win the most widespread understanding and influence for anarchist ideas and methods in the working class and in society, primarily because we believe that these alone will ensure a successful revolutionary transformation of society. Hence Malatesta's argument that anarchists "must strive to acquire overwhelming influence in order to draw the movement towards the realisation of our ideals. But such influence must be won by doing more and better than others, and will be useful of won in that way . . . [therefore] we must deepen, develop and propagate our ideas and co-ordinate our forces in a common action. We must act within the labour movement to prevent it being limited to and corrupted by the exclusive pursuit of small improvements compatible with the capitalist system. . . We must work with . . . [all the] masses to awaken the spirit of revolt and the desire for a free and happy life. We must initiate and support all movements that tend to weaken the forces of the State and of capitalism and to raise the mental level and material conditions of the workers." [Life and Ideas, p. 109]

Anarchist organisation exists to help the process by which people come to anarchist conclusions. It aims to make explicit the feelings and thoughts that people have (such as, wage slavery is hell, that the state exists to rip people off and so on) by exposing as wrong common justifications for existing society and social relationships by a process of debate and providing a vision of something better. In other words, anarchist organisations seek to explain and clarify what is happening in society and show why anarchism is the only real solution to social problems. As part of this, we also have combat false ideas such as Liberalism, Social Democracy, right-wing Libertarianism, Leninism and so on, indicating why these proposed solutions are not real ones. In addition, an anarchist organisation must also be a 'collective memory' for the oppressed, keeping alive and developing the traditions of the labour movement and anarchism so that new generations of anarchists have a body of experience to build upon and use in their struggles.

Anarchist organisations see themselves in the role of aiders, not leaders. As Voline argued, the minority which is politically aware minority "should intervene. But, in every place and under all circumstances, . . . [they] should freely participate in the common work, as true collaborators, not as dictators. It is necessary that they especially create an example, and employ themselves. . . without dominating, subjugating, or oppressing anyone. . . Accordingly to the libertarian thesis, it is the labouring masses themselves, who, by means of the various class organisations, factory committees, industrial and agricultural unions, co-operatives, et cetera, federated. . . should apply themselves everywhere, to solving the problems of waging the Revolution. . . As for the 'elite' [i.e. the politically aware], their role, according to the libertarians, is to help the masses, enlighten them, teach them, give them necessary advice, impel them to take initiative, provide them with an example, and support them in their action — but not to direct them governmentally." [The Unknown Revolution, pp. 177-8]

This role is usually called providing a "leadership of ideas" (Bakunin used the unfortunate term "invisible dictatorship" to express approximately the same idea — see section J.3.7 for details).

Anarchists stress the difference of this concept with authoritarian notions of "leadership" such as Leninist ideas about party leadership where in members of the vanguard party are elected to positions of power or responsibility within an organisation. While both anarchist and Leninist organisations exist to overcome the problem of "uneven development" within the working class (i.e. the existence of many different political opinions within it), the aims, role and structure of these groups could not be more different. Essentially, Leninist parties (as well as reproducing hierarchical structures within the so-called "revolutionary" organisation) see socialist politics as arising outside the working class, in the radical intelligentsia (see Lenin's What is to be Done for details) rather than as the product of working class experience (in this, we must add, Lenin was following standard Social Democratic theory and the ideas of Karl Kautsky — the "Pope of Marxism" — in particular).

Anarchists, on the other hand, argue that rather than being the product of "outside" influence, (libertarian) socialist ideas are the natural product of working class life. In other words, (libertarian) socialist ideas come from within the working class. Bakunin, for example, constantly referred to the "socialist instinct" of the working classes and argued that the socialist ideal was "necessarily the product of the people's historical experience" and that workers "most basic instinct and their social situation makes them . . . socialists. They are socialists because of all the conditions of their material existence."[quoted by Richard B. Saltman, The Social and Political Thought of Michael Bakunin, p. 100, The Basic Bakunin, pp. 101-2]

Needless to say, instinct in itself is not enough (if it was, we would be living in an anarchist society!) and so Bakunin, like all anarchists, stressed the importance of self-liberation and self-education through struggle in order to change "instinct" into "thought." He argued that there was "but a single path, that of emancipation through practical action . . . [by] workers' solidarity in their struggle against the bosses. It means trade unions, organisation, and the federation of resistance funds . . . [Once the worker] begins to fight, in association with his comrades, for the reduction of his working hours and for an increase in his salary. . .and become[s] increasingly accustomed to relying on the collective strength of the workers . . . The worker thus enlisted in the struggle will necessarily . . . recognise himself [or herself] to be a revolutionary socialist." [The Basic Bakunin, p. 103]

In addition to recognising the importance of popular organisations (such as trade unions) and of direct action in developing libertarian socialist thought, Bakunin also stressed the need for anarchist groups to work with these organisations and on the mass of the population in general. These groups would play an important role in helping to clarify the ideas of those in struggle and undermining the internal and external barriers against these ideas. The first of these are what Emma Goldman termed the "internal tyrants," the "ethical and social conventions" of existing, hierarchical society which accustom people to authoritarian social relationships, injustice, lack of freedom and so on. External barriers are what Chomsky terms "the Manufacture of Consent," the process by which the population at large are influenced to accept the status quo and the dominant elites viewpoint via the education system and media. It is this "manufacture of consent" which helps explain why, relatively speaking, there are so few anarchists even though we argue that anarchism is the natural product of working class life. While, objectively, the experiences of life drives working class people to resist domination and oppression, they enter that struggle with a history behind them, a history of education in capitalist schools, of reading pro-capitalist papers, and so on.

This means that while social struggle is radicalising, it also has to combat years of pro-state and pro-capitalist influences. So even if an anarchist consciousness springs from the real conditions of working class life, because we life in a class society there are numerous counter-tendencies that inhibit the development of that consciousness (such as religion, current morality the media, pro-business and pro-state propaganda, state and business repression and so on). This explains the differences in political opinion within the working class, as people develop at different speeds and are subject to different influences and experiences. However, the numerous internal and external barriers to the development of anarchist opinions created our "internal tyrants" and by the process of "manufacturing consent" can be, and are, weaken by rational discussion as well as social struggle and self-activity. Indeed, until such time as we "learned to defy them all [the internal tyrants], to stand firmly on [our] own ground and to insist upon [our] own unrestricted freedom" we can never be free or successfully combat the "manufacture of consent." [Emma Goldman, Red Emma Speaks, p. 140] And this is where the anarchist group can play a part, for there is an important role to be played by those who have been through this process already, namely to aid those going through it.

Of course the activity of an anarchist group does not occur in a vacuum. In periods of low class struggle, where there is little collective action, anarchist ideas will seem to be utopian and so dismissed by most. In these situations, only a few will become anarchists simply because the experiences of working people do not bred confidence that an alternative is possible to the current system. In addition, if anarchist groups are small, many who are looking for an alternative may join other groups which are more visible and express a libertarian sounding rhetoric (such as Leninist groups, who often talk about workers' control, workers' councils and so on while meaning something distinctly different from what anarchists mean by these terms). However, as the class struggle increases and people become more inclined to take collective action, they can become empowered and radicalised by their own activity and be more open to anarchist ideas and the possibility of changing society. In these situations, anarchist groups grow and the influence in anarchist ideas increases. This also explains why anarchist ideas are not as widespread as they could be. It also indicates another important role for the anarchist group, namely to provide an environment and space where those drawn to anarchist ideas can meet and share experiences and ideas during periods of reaction.

The role of the anarchist group, therefore, is not to import a foreign ideology into the working class, but rather to help develop and clarify the ideas of those working class people who are moving from "instinct" to the "ideal" and so aid those undergoing that development. They would aid this development by providing propaganda which exposes the current social system (and the rationales for it) as bankrupt as well as encouraging resistance to oppression and exploitation. The former, for Bakunin, allowed the "bringing [of] a more just general expression, a new and more congenial form to the existent instincts of the proletariat . . . [which] can sometimes facilitate and precipitate development . . . [and] give them an awareness of what they have, of what they feel, of what they already instinctively desire, but never can it give to them what they don't have." The latter "is the most popular, the most potent, and the most irresistible form of propaganda" and "awake[s] in the masses all the social-revolutionary instincts which reside deeply in the heart of every worker" so allowing instinct to become transformed into "reflected socialist thought." [cited by Richard B. Saltman, The Social and Political Thought of Michael Bakunin, p. 107, p. 108 and p. 141]

In other words, "the [anarchist] organisation cannot see itself solely as a propaganda group. Above all it is an assembly of activists. It must actively work in all the grassroots organisations of the working class such as rank and file [trade union] groups, tenants associations, squatters and unemployed groups as well as women's, black and gay groups . . . It does not try to make these movements into an appendage of the revolutionary organisation just as it respects the autonomy and self-organisation of the rank and file workers movement that may develop. . . [while] spread[ing] its ideas in these movements." [The Role of the Revolutionary Organisation, p. 5] Such an organisation is not vanguardist in the Leninist sense as it recognises that socialist politics derive from working class experience, rather than "science" (as Lenin and Kautsky argued), and that it does not aim to dominate popular movements but rather work within them as equals.

Indeed, Bakunin (in his discussion of the evils of the idea of god) presents an excellent summary of why Leninist ideas of vanguardism always end up created the dictatorship of the party rather than socialism. As he put it:

"[F]rom the moment that the natural inferiority of man and his fundamental incapacity to rise by his own effort, unaided by any divine inspiration, to the comprehension of just and true ideas, are admitted. it becomes necessary to admit also all the theological, political, and social consequences of the positive religions. From the moment that God, the perfect supreme being, is posited face to face with humanity, divine mediators, the elect, the inspired of God spring from the earth to enlighten, direct, and govern in his name the human race." [God and the State, p. 37]

In What is to be Done?, Lenin argued that socialist "consciousness could only be brought to [the workers] from without. . . the working class, exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop only trade union consciousness" and that the "theory of socialism" was developed by "the educated representatives of the propertied classes, the intellectuals" and, in so doing, replaced God with Marxism [The Essential Works of Lenin, p. 74] Hence Trotsky's comments at the Communist Party's 1921 congress that "the Party [is] entitled to assert its dictatorship even if that dictatorship temporarily clashed with the passing moods of the workers' democracy!" and that it is "obliged to maintain its dictatorship . . . regardless of temporary vacillations even in the working class" come as no surprise [quoted by M. Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, p. 78]. They are just the logical, evil consequences of vanguardism (and, of course, it is the Party — upholders of the correct ideology , of "scientific" socialism— which determines what is a "passing mood" or a "temporary vacillation" and so dictatorship is the logical consequence of Leninism). The validity of Bakunin's argument can easily be recognised. Little wonder anarchists reject the concept of vanguardism totally.

So while we recognise that "advanced" sections do exist within the working class and that anarchists are one such section, we also recognise that central characteristic of anarchism is that its politics are derived from the concrete experience of fighting capitalism and statism directly — that is, from the realities of working class life. This means that anarchists must also learn from working class people in struggle. If we recognise that anarchist ideas are the product of working class experience and self-activity and that these constantly change and develop in light of new experiences and struggles then anarchist theory must be open to change by learning from non-anarchists. Not to recognise this fact is to open the door to vanguardism and dogma. Because of this fact, anarchists argue that the relationship between anarchists and non-anarchists must be an egalitarian one, based on mutual interaction and the recognition that no one is infallible or have all the answers — particularly anarchists! With this in mind, while we recognise the presence of "advanced" groups within the working class (which obviously reflects the uneven development within it), anarchists aim to minimise such unevenness by the way anarchist organisations intervene in social struggle, intervention based on involving all in the decision making process (as we discuss below).

Thus the general aim of anarchist groups is to spread ideas — such as general anarchist analysis of society and current events, libertarian forms of organisation, direct action and solidarity and so forth — and win people over to anarchism (i.e. to "make" anarchists). This involves both propaganda and participate as equals in social struggle and popular organisation. Anarchists do not think that changing leaders is a solution to the problem of (bad) leadership. Rather, it is a question of making leaders redundant by empowering all. As Malatesta argued, we "do not want to emancipate the people; we want the people to emancipate themselves." [Op. Cit., p. 90] Thus anarchists "advocate and practise direct action, decentralisation, autonomy and individual initiative; they should make special efforts to help members [of popular organisations] learn to participate directly in the life of the organisation and to dispense with leaders and full-time functionaries." [Op. Cit., p. 125]

This means that anarchists reject the idea that anarchist groups and federations must become the "leaders" of organisations. Rather, we desire anarchist ideas to be commonplace in society and in popular organisations, so that leadership by people from positions of power is replaced by the "natural influence" (to use Bakunin's term) of activists within the rank and file on the decisions made by the rank and file. While we will discuss Bakunin's ideas in more detail in section J.3.7, the concept of "natural influence" can be gathered from this comment of Francisco Ascaso (friend of Durruti and an influential anarchist militant in the CNT and FAI in his own right):

"There is not a single militant who as a 'FAIista' intervenes in union meetings. I work, therefore I am an exploited person. I pay my dues to the workers' union and when I intervene at union meetings I do it as someone who us exploited, and with the right which is granted me by the card in my possession, as do the other militants, whether they belong to the FAI or not." [cited by Abel Paz, Durruti: The People Armed, p. 137]

This shows the nature of the "leadership of ideas." Rather than be elected to a position of power or responsibility, the anarchist presents their ideas at mass meetings and argues his or her case. This means obviously implies a two-way learning process, as the anarchist learns from the experiences of others and the others come in contact with anarchist ideas. Moreover, it is an egalitarian relationship, based upon discussion between equals rather than urging people to place someone into power above them. And it ensures that everyone in the organisation participants in making, understands and agrees with the decisions reached. This obviously helps the political development of all involved (including, we must stress, the anarchists). As Durruti argued, "the man [or woman] who alienates his will, can never be free to express himself and follow his own ideas at a union meeting if he feel dominated by the feeblest orator. . . As long as a man doesn't think for himself and doesn't assume his own responsibilities, there will be no complete liberation of human beings." [Op. Cit., p. 184]

Because of our support for the "leadership of ideas", anarchists think that all popular organisations must be open, fully self-managed and free from authoritarianism. Only in this way can ideas and discussion play an important role in the life of the organisation. Since anarchists "do not believe in the good that comes from above and imposed by force. . .[and] want the new way of life to emerge from the body of the people and advance as they advance. It matters to use therefore that all interests and opinions find their expression in a conscious organisation and should influence communal life in proportion to their importance." [Errico Malatesta, Op. Cit., p. 90] Bakunin's words with regards the first International Workers Association indicate this clearly:

"It must be a people's movement, organised from the bottom up by the free, spontaneous action of the masses. There must be no secret governmentalism, the masses must be informed of everything . . . All the affairs of the International must be thoroughly and openly discussed without evasions and circumlocutions." [Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 408]

(Such a assertion by Bakunin may come as a surprise to some readers who are aware — usually via Marxist sources — that Bakunin argued for a "invisible dictatorship" in some of his letters. As we discuss in section J.3.7, the claims that Bakunin was a closest authoritarian are simply wrong.)

Equally as important as how anarchists intervene in social struggles and popular organisations and the organisation of those struggles and organisations, there is the question of the nature of that intervention. We would like to quote the following by the British libertarian socialist group Solidarity as it sums up the underlying nature of anarchist action and the importance of a libertarian perspective on social struggle and change and how politically aware minorities work within them:

"Meaningful action, for revolutionaries, is whatever increases the confidence, the autonomy, the initiative, the participation, the solidarity, the egalitarian tendencies and the self-activity of the masses and whatever assists in their demystification. Sterile and harmful action is whatever reinforces the passivity of the masses, their apathy, their cynicism, their differentiation through hierarchy, their alienation, their reliance on others to do things for them and the degree to which they can therefore be manipulated by others - even by those allegedly acting on their behalf." [As We See it]

Part of this "meaningful action" involves encouraging people to "act for yourselves" (to use Kropotkin's words). As we noted in section A.2.7, anarchism is based on self-liberation and self-activity is key aspect of this. Hence Malatesta's argument:

"Our task is that of 'pushing' the people to demand and to seize all the freedom they can and to make themselves responsible for providing their own needs without waiting for orders from any kind of authority. Our task is that of demonstrating the uselessness and harmfulness of government, provoking and encouraging by propaganda and action, all kinds of individual and collective activities.

"It is in fact a question of education for freedom, of making people who are accustomed to obedience and passivity consciously aware of their real power and capabilities. One must encourage people to do things for themselves. . . " [Op. Cit., pp. 178-9]

This "pushing" people to "do it themselves" is another key role for any anarchist organisation. The encouragement of direct action is just as important as anarchist propaganda and popular participation within social struggle and popular organisations.

As such social struggle developments, the possibility of revolution becomes closer and closer. While we discuss anarchists ideas on social revolution in section J.7, we must note here that the role of the anarchist organisation does not change. As Murray Bookchin argues, anarchists "seek to persuade the factory committees, assemblies [and other organisations created by people in struggle] . . . to make themselves into genuine organs of popular self-management, not to dominate them, manipulate them, or hitch them to an all-knowing political party." [Post-Scarcity Anarchism, p. 217] In this way, by encouraging self-management in struggle, anarchist lay the foundations of a self-managed society.