anarchistnews.org
Feb 11, 2025
From https://www.blackrosefed.org/clarifying-especifismo-lsc-response/
This is a response to an article titled ‘A Letter to the Libertarian Left’, published by the Libertarian Socialist Caucus of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA-LSC) in August of 2024.
Over the course of several months, members of Black Rose/Rosa Negra (BRRN) devoted time to discussing and debating this letter internally, as well as with our comrades abroad. After arriving at shared conclusions, some members of BRRN were tasked with penning a response. The final draft, which you see below, was endorsed as a federation statement via membership referendum.
We appreciate the patience of the comrades in DSA-LSC and as we state below, welcome the opportunity for further dialogue on these topics.
Introduction
We’d like to thank the comrades of the Democratic Socialists of America – Libertarian Socialist Caucus (DSA-LSC) for their statement, ‘A Letter to the Libertarian Left.‘ We want to briefly respond to LSC’s “Letter” (as we’ll refer to it) while also addressing the wider anarchist and libertarian socialist left to invite deeper dialogue and debate. We hope to clarify some shared terminology as well as aspects of Black Rose/Rosa Negra’s (BRRN) general strategic orientation.
We’re happy to see wider engagement with the politics and strategy of especifismo. At the same time, we feel that LSC’s Letter tends to misunderstand or misrepresent core concepts of this growing current. Social insertion and the mass, intermediate, and political levels are frameworks for understanding our relationship to mass movements and informing our practical activity as part of them. They also shape how we strategically build popular power and forge political alliances to form a front of dominated classes as the basis for our ultimate objectives: social revolution and libertarian socialism. To misunderstand or misapply these concepts has real consequences for our work.
Understanding Especifismo: On Social Insertion, Mass, Intermediate, and Political Levels
“The level of the social, popular or mass organizations … This level is characterized by those organizations who bring together a single actor of struggle, regardless of their political leanings (trade unions, student unions, community associations, etc.).”
The Problems Posed by the Concrete Class Struggle and Popular Organization, José Antonio Gutiérrez Danton, 2005.
“[The] intermediate level, brings together members of a single popular subject with a certain political leaning: this is what makes it different from the above level. This leaning, though, cannot be as defined as of one of a political group or party. Certain activists or militants that share outlook … come together to form a certain tendency inside of a bigger movement or organization. A good example can be a tendency in a trade union…”
The Problems Posed by the Concrete Class Struggle and Popular Organization, José Antonio Gutiérrez Danton, 2005.
“The political level of organization brings together anarchist militants who share a common ideological perspective and political program. This level requires a high degree of political and tactical unity and is aimed at cultivating a ‘militant minority’ of revolutionaries to engage in collective analysis and strategy, active involvement in movements, and political education in and outside of the organization.”
Tipping the Scales: Popular Power in an Age of Protest and Pandemic, Enrique Guerrero-López and Cameron Pádraig, 2021.
LSC’s Letter advocates “applying the strategy of social insertion to the context of organizing within DSA.” The idea of social insertion has generated a lot of interest on the libertarian left in the US recently. This has been accompanied by both misunderstandings and conceptual contortions. Social insertion doesn’t refer to just any political activity or involvement within a larger organization. It refers to the practice of anarchist militants, who are members of a political organization, collectively implementing a strategy within mass organizations and movements, e.g. unions and the workers’ movement or tenant unions and the tenants’ movement, to “influence their everyday practice and orientation in an anarchist direction.”1
On the surface, this might seem to apply to LSC. On a deeper level, though, it begins to warp especifismo’s conceptual tools, undermining the political practices they inform. While the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is by far the largest left organization in the US, it should not be mistaken for a social movement. In especifist terms, it is a political organization.2 It may be, as the LSC Letter observes, a political expression of a “variety of socialist tendencies […] under the banner of democratic socialism.” It may allow for a “big tent” of ideas and contain within it a number of more unified competing political poles (i.e. caucuses), but above all DSA is a political organization with its own political program rooted in the tradition of democratic socialism.3
The fact that a party or organization has caucuses and factions doesn’t change that it is a single political organization. BRRN itself has the rights of caucuses, minority positions, and factions written into our constitution. Caucuses within political organizations are just that—groupings of like-minded members that try to influence the analysis and strategy of the political organization and how it, in turn, relates to mass movements. Calling these caucuses “political organizations” within the “mass movement” of DSA or BRRN can only breed confusion.
We need to clarify the term “mass movement” as well. The concept is not defined by mere numbers. From the point of view of the conceptions of especifismo, it’s a question of clear content and character based on social sectors. Sectors are defined by identifiable “actors of struggle” who are shaped by: “1. Problems that affect them immediately and their immediate interests; 2. Traditions of struggle and organization sprouting out from these sets of problems and interests; [and] 3. A common place or activity in society.”4 Mass movements (or social movements) “bring together particular actors of the dominated classes—workers, tenants, students, immigrants, indigenous peoples, etc.—on the basis of defending or improving their immediate conditions.”5 In other words, mass movements are made up of ordinary people, independent of political affiliation, organizing where they live, work, study, and so on. Democratic socialists—like anarchists—are not themselves a mass movement. Instead, they are political organizers who try to create and/or influence mass movements.
To be fair, LSC’s Letter suggests that DSA is not so much a mass movement as “an intermediate organization, also known […] as a grouping of tendency.” But this only moves the conceptual problems down a level and multiplies the confusion. For especifismo, a grouping of tendency or intermediate organization exists in between the mass and the political levels. Intermediate organization typically exists within a mass organization or in the context of a larger movement. They bring together people who share certain affinities around methods and goals but who aren’t united ideologically in the way members of a political organization would be.6 Examples include caucuses within labor unions, or formations that begin with dedicated activists organizing wider layers on the basis of a shared strategy, such as the Labor for Palestine network of union organizers, as well as the Koreatown Popular Assembly and East Boston for Palestine neighborhood groups.
On the Front of Dominated Classes
“[The] Front of Dominated Classes seeks to unite the broad base of the dominated classes in all their diversity, in all their organizational expressions and demands. While the organized working class remains a critical component of this front, our fundamental task is to build bridges between the full range of organized social forces fighting against the system of domination”
Turning the Tide: An Anarchist Program for Popular Power, Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation, 2023, p. 47.
“We understand the popular organisation [the front of oppressed classes] as the result of a process of convergence of diverse social organisations and different grassroots movements, which are fruit of the class struggle.”
Social Anarchism and Organisation, Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro, 2008, p. 34.
LSC’s Letter argues that “DSA has the potential to be an organization which can unite the socialist tendency of the entire struggle and produce a force great enough to topple capitalism—what Black Rose Anarchist Federation describes as the front of dominated classes.”
Like other terms so far discussed, we feel that the concept of the “front of dominated/oppressed classes” is being misapplied here.7 That the LSC Letter posits that DSA—a political organization in especifist terms—is, variously, a social/mass movement, an intermediate organization, and now a possible “front of dominated classes” suggests that we all need to be more grounded in our terminology. The latter concept is borrowed from a Latin American context and could use greater theoretical elaboration in English but nonetheless, at a basic level, it refers to a coordination of independent social movement forces.8
Although political organizations may work towards the common end of helping to create a front of dominated classes, neither Black Rose/Rosa Negra nor any other political organization that works with this concept should aspire to bring such a front under their own organization’s discipline and banner. The front of dominated classes is a coordination of independent social movement forces—brought together by their common social relationship to domination and united by a shared strategic program. Crucially, by virtue of its democratic and federalist structure, the front of dominated classes is fortified against centralization under the solitary authority or leadership of one group or organization.
On Popular Power and Dual Power
Much of the left (including anarchists) spends its energy caught in rudderless cycles of protest mobilization, isolated spectacular actions, inward-facing activist projects, and electoral efforts (either cynical or sincere) that lead to predictable deadends. As BRRN we’re attempting to carve out an alternative path, focused on building and revitalizing a certain kind of class power through mass movements, what we call popular power. As we state in our program, “our general strategy stems from the recognition that only social movements have the potential for revolutionary transformation, for sowing the seeds of a new society.”9
We are surprised and heartened to see references to popular power in LSC’s Letter. Surprised, because historically LSC has embraced the notion of dual power—a concept that, while nominally similar, is distinct from what BRRN and other especifista organizations mean by popular power.10,11 While both strategies recognize the necessity of accumulating the social force required to transform society, proponents of dual power tend to emphasize counter-institutions like worker cooperatives, community gardens, mutual aid groups, and even credit unions as the means to achieve this transformation.12 These tactics have their roots in mutualism, which can be traced back to Pierre Joseph-Proudhon’s vision for social transformation, one that does not involve a violent revolutionary confrontation between contending classes, but instead a gradual process of counter-institutions subsuming and replacing existing state and capitalist structures.13
LSC makes clear in their caucus’s founding documents that their own understanding of dual power does not reject fighting organizations such as militant labor or tenant unions, but that these mass organizations are simply part of a wider tapestry that can generate a situation of so-called dual power.
BRRN diverges from LSC on this strategic question in two ways. First, we view strategies that center on counter-institutions like worker cooperatives and credit unions as ineffective. These efforts are far too tied to—and deformed by—capitalist social and economic relations, do not build independent combative class power, and fail to confront the power of capitalism and the state.14 Second, we think an “anything and everything” approach that incorporates all manner of projects—from tenant unions to alternative banking—forgos an analysis of conditions that can clarify which tactics best serve a strategy aimed at building and leveraging our power, instead placing qualitatively different modes of struggle on an equal footing in a way that makes it difficult for us to develop a clear and actionable strategy.
To be clear, we don’t on the whole view projects like worker cooperatives negatively, as they can serve discrete tactical goals. But we also contend they are no substitute for fighting class organizations that attend to the most immediate tasks of organizing the unorganized and engaging in everyday conflicts that increase the confidence and leverage of the dominated classes. Therefore, we disagree that such counter-institution projects should be strategically prioritized by revolutionary organizations. Instead, strategically concentrating our efforts in specific sectors—workplaces, neighborhoods, schools, and sites of incarceration/policing—where we are building or participating in fighting mass organizations, allows for a deliberate and calibrated approach to focus our limited time and energy to advance and grow a combative, and one day revolutionary, popular power.15
On Forging Alliances With Other Political Actors and Organizations
“The policy of alliances of an anarchist organization, of a tendency, or of a social movement basically responds to two questions: with whom and how we are going to unite to achieve a certain objective, be it short (tactical objective), medium or long term (strategic line). […] The discussion of the program precedes the discussion of alliances.”
Un Debate sobre la Política de Alianzas, Rafael V. da Silva, Anarkismo.net, 2012, [Translated from the Spanish, original in Portuguese; emphasis our own].
It’s common for those on the left to form groups and organizations based on ideological labels rather than political practices. This creates fairly heterogeneous organizations under very broad banners, often with little concrete agreement about practical details. In contrast, the organizational dualist approach to which BRRN adheres doesn’t seek unity based solely on shared political ideology (much less shared labels), but considers unity of strategy and tactics to be just as important.16
While we welcome the opportunity to dialogue with groups who share similar principles, our approach to deeper collaboration is based primarily on shared organizing work and strategic alignment. We tend to concentrate, as our political program says, on “developing relationships and alliances with individuals, organizations, and institutions that are broadly in line with our general strategy.”17 This means that we forge alliances with groups who share an overlapping strategy in common sites of struggle—i.e. where we are in the same workplace fights, tenant and neighborhood struggles, anti-carceral campaigns, and beyond. In many cases, this leads us to work with groups and members of political organizations who do not emerge from the libertarian socialist tradition, but who do share or have strong overlaps with our short-term strategic priorities.
Conclusion
Again, we want to thank the comrades of the Libertarian Socialist Caucus for opening this dialogue. Although there are differences in principles, approach, and ideology between our organizations, we are encouraged by the significant steps that LSC has taken recently to grapple with important political and strategic questions.
Our above reflections are not meant to be pedantic or sectarian. LSC is a unique historical formation: a libertarian socialist caucus within a larger political organization. This being the case, we think that this unique formation deserves its own novel theoretical and strategic apparatus. Trying to shoehorn it into pre-existing especifista concepts does both a disservice to the particularity of LSC’s struggle within DSA as well as confuses and dilutes the concepts of especifismo to a point that renders them vague and imprecise.
Political debate and dialogue are critical for any robust revolutionary movement. We hope to continue this discussion both in public and in private, and we think LSC has usefully honed in on questions that are crucial to organized anarchism and to a wider audience.
Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation
February 2025
Notes“Turning the Tide: An Anarchist Program for Popular Power,” Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation, 2023, p. 42. ↩︎
For a discussion of the levels of organization framework which informs our perspective, see: “The Problems Posed by the Concrete Struggle and Popular Organization,” José Antonio Gutiérrez Danton, 2005; “Tipping the Scales: Popular Power in an Age of Protest and Pandemic,” Enrique Guerrero-López and Cameron Pádraig, Perspectives on Anarchist Theory Journal no. 32, 2021. ↩︎
“2024 DSA Program: Workers Deserve More,” 2024.dsausa.org. ↩︎
“The Problems Posed by the Concrete Class Struggle and Popular Organization,” José Antonio Gutiérrez Danton, 2005. ↩︎
“Turning the Tide,” p. 40.; See also the definition for ‘social movement’ offered on p. 34 of FARJ’s “Social Anarchism and Organisation”. ↩︎
“Tendency Groups,” Felipe Corrêa, 2010. ↩︎
Black Rose/Rosa Negra refers to this formation as the “front of dominated classes”. Other organizations, such as the Federación Anarquista Uruguaya (FAU) and Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF) have used the phrase “front of oppressed classes” to refer to the same concept. ↩︎
For the concept’s historical roots see “The Strategy of Especifismo,” Juan Carlos Mechoso and Felipe Corrêa, Anarkismo.net, 2009. For a historical example of the Front of Dominated Classes, see Anarchist Popular Power, Dissident Labor and Armed Struggle in Uruguay, 1956–76, Troy Andreas Araiza Kokinis, AK Press 2023. ↩︎
“Turning the Tide,” p. 36. ↩︎
It is important to note that the use of ‘dual power’ by anarchists, particularly in North America, extends back at least three decades. Now dissolved anarchist and other libertarian socialist formations—including those which Black Rose/Rosa Negra directly descends from—such as Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation, Bring the Ruckus, and North Eastern Federation of Anarchist Communists deployed the concept of ‘dual power’ at points in their history. Confusingly, each organization used the concept somewhat differently, with some hewing closer to the original definition as articulated by Lenin and others incorporating the gradualism described in the body of this writing. ↩︎
For more on the concept of popular power specifically, see: “Create a Strong People: Discussions on Popular Power,” Felipe Corrêa, 2010; “The Strategy of Especifismo,” Juan Carlos Mechoso and Felipe Corrêa, Anarkismo.net, 2009. ↩︎
“Our Principles,” dsa-lsc.org. ↩︎
See “The Third Revolution: Popular Movements in the Revolutionary Era”, Vol. 2, Murray Bookchin, 1998, pp. 39-43; “What, if Anything, is a Dual Power Strategy?,” Wayne Price, The Northeastern Anarchist no. 5, 2002; and “Anarchists and Dual Power: Situation or Strategy?,” Matt Crossin, Red and Black Notes, 2022. ↩︎
For a more in depth discussion on dual power and the evolutionary strategy of building alternative institutions, we would refer readers to Overcoming Capitalism, Strategy for the Working Class in the 21st Century, Tom Wetzel, 2022, pp. 214-221. Available online here. ↩︎
“Going on the Offensive: Movements, Multisectorality, and Political Strategy,” Lusbert Garcia, Regeneración Libertaria, 2015. ↩︎
For a discussion of organizational dualism, see: “Organizational Issues within Anarchism,” Felipe Corrêa, Institute for Anarchist Theory and History, 2022; Anarchist Communist: A Question of Class, Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici, 2003. ↩︎
“Turning the Tide,” p. 46. ↩︎
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