Who we are, what we want, the path we follow
Brazilian Anarcho-Communist Group’s Statement of Purpose

The Coletivo Comunista Anarquista (CCA – Anarchist Communist Collective) is an organizationalist especifist and federalist anarchist political grouping with a horizontal structure that seeks to act as an active minority inside the social movements – without transforming them into “puppet fronts” under the pretext of efficiency, but always seeking to instill into them a combative and revolutionary character.

We are faithful to the principles of direct democracy, self-management, federalism, mutual aid, direct action, revolutionary solidarity, class struggle and self-defence. Our objective is an anarchist communist society, in other words social and economic self-management and political federalism; anarchism therefore has the duty to interfere in the current reality, so as to alter people’s material lives and not only to limit itself to the level of ideas. In order to bring about change within the society in which we live, it is necessary for us to work as an integral part of the various popular struggles, in the neighborhoods, in the factories, in the fields, in the universities, and so on. Because for us “anarchism does not originate in abstract reflections of an intellectual or a philosopher, but in the workers’ direct struggle against capitalism, in the needs of the workers, in their aspirations of freedom and equality, aspirations that become particularly alive in the best heroic period of the life and struggles of the working masses” (the Platform).

So that we can understand the importance of the idea of organization for anarchist political doctrine, it is first of all necessary for us to understand that anarchism originated in the fight of the exploited people to better their condition, as is well stated in the “Platform” above; its highest principle if freedom (which cannot exist unless there is economic and social equality). This same freedom is itself confused with the exacerbation of the “I”, with many individuals calling themselves anarchists who proclaim it when it suits them, in order to whatever they feel like, in order to deny any attempt at anarchist organization for social action. Malatesta says that: “The anarchist knows that the individual cannot live outside society and that he only exists as an individual because he brings with himself the sum total of the work of countless past generations and benefits, throughout his life, from the collaboration of his contemporaries”, a position also shared by Bakunin. There have been in the past, and still go on today, debates among our ranks concerning the need for organization: from the carbonaria organization of Bakunin, passing through Malatesta and P. Monatte in the syndicalist Congress in Amsterdam, from Makhno, Malatesta and Arshinov with the “Platform” to Volin and the organization of “synthesis”, etc.

We identify with the concepts raised by Bakunin, with the need for an organization of the active minority, the need to organize the anarchist “party” promoted by Malatesta and Luigi Fabbri, and the need for an organization that gathers to its ranks what Bakunin called “free bodies”, establishing a general political line and tactics which all its militants should be subordinated to, an organization built from below and on horizontal lines. It is also necessary for there to be collective responsibility and political federalism, which we believe are the most efficient ways to build a Bahian anarchist organization/federation and begin our march towards anarchist communism.

We do not think we have the absolute truth or are exempt from flaws, because to believe that would be to deny our condition as human beings and anarchists. For that reason the Coletivo Comunista Anarquista will seek to build alliances with other anarchist collectives and organizations in order to join forces for a revolutionary break with this society, heading for socialism with freedom. This is the task that we in this state – the first to suffer the conquerors’ oppression over five hundred years ago – have taken on.