Syndicalist Republican Alliance
| Syndicalist Republican Alliance | |
| Կաօնսիլիկ Ռէսպաբլիկա Գռօպհե (Kaunsilik Respablika Gruphe) | |
Emblem | |
| Political party | |
| Ideological doctrine: | Anarchism, Syndicalism, Republicanism, Anti-monarchism, Revolutionary politics |
| Notable members: | Jorge Proud, Perrie Josephson, Anthone Harkēn, Mark Nowe, Eduard Golder |
| Operation | |
| Based in: | St. Engelkea, Virassia |
| Political position: | Far-left |
| Colour(s): | Grey and black |
| Status & Relations | |
| Status: | Active |
| Members: | 910,200 (estimate) |
| Internal factions: | - Anarchist Syndicalist Party (30%) - Revolutionary Syndicalist Party (20%) |
| Enemies: |  Virassia
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| Rivals: |  People's Revolutionary Front
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| Flag | |
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| [Source] | |
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Work in progress
This article is currently still being written. The author(s) apologise for the inconvenience.
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History[edit | edit source]
The Virassian Republican Party was for years a decisive force in Virassian anti-monarchy politics, however their inaction around and even dismissal of the growing revolutionary consciousness of the masses - due to their thoroughly reformist and parliamentary politics - alienated them from the working class and opened the door for other political organisations to be heard. Amongst the most radical of these parties was the right-wing People's Revolutionary Front, which tapped into the decades-old ideas of anti-Visserism and Astralist-phobia long cultivated by the Virassian ruling class, and with their extreme populist rhetoric, successfully gained traction with the revolutionary spirit of the masses, earning themselves significant influence across the country. Any alternative to the right that were more fundamentally aligned to workers interests (beyond opportunist populism), outside of the reformists, were either too small and irrelevant, or were anarchists handicapped from the start due to their obsession with not organising a political party, i.e. a coherent and centralised revolutionary vanguard. Although problematic, the left has still managed to gain influence equal to - if not greater than - that of the right, with the foremost group amongst this disparate and scattered left-wing being the Syndicalist Republican Alliance, which in in the tumultuous years of the Virassian Civil War has gained a massive following of many hundreds of thousands.
Ideology[edit | edit source]
The Syndicalist Republican Alliance has no coherent, official ideology. Factions within the alliance, including its two major factions of the Anarchist Syndicalist Party and the Revolutionary Syndicalist Party, do have general "party lines" that are either published by party leaders or are formed from the general consensus of party members. In general, SRA ideology centralises around a clear rejection of capitalism as an ethical and rewarding economic system for all people, a belief that capitalism is a fundamentally exploitative system that derives its profit from underpaying workers in comparison to the true value of the products they produce, as well as obscene taxes on goods produced by peasantry. The SRA also clearly rejects reformist politics, seeing capitalism as incapable of reformation, and views the working class, peasantry, and the unions that cohere their struggle as the only force in society that has an interest in overthrowing capitalism and the greater class society, and is the only force capable of doing such.
As for the factions and their beliefs, the dominant Anarchist Syndicalist Party (ASP) is dominated by the following trends:
- A complete rejection of leadership or authority of any kind, viewing the complete autonomy of all individuals involved in a struggle as the only reliable method of preventing corrupt leaders from hijacking the movement to suit their own ends.
- A rejection of elections involving ballots, with decision making instead reliant on convincing as many people as possible through discussion, a practice referred to as "absolute democracy", rather than the "pseudo-democracy" provided by elections, which commonly result in the "rule of a majority over a minority", which they claim as being authoritarian and undemocratic.
- A hostility to unions and union members not affiliated with the SRA.
- A lack of clarity on the importance of class struggle and strike action, with terrorism tactics and guerrilla warfare - regardless of the present state of class struggle - seen as equally important to strike action in challenging the capitalist system.
- A hostility to other workers and peasants - even if they are anarchists - who stray away from the politics of the ASP.
- A lack of clarity on the importance of rhetoric and relating it to the current political climate, with the rhetoric of ASP members often being very ultra-left, and thus frequently isolated from the opinions and demands of most workers and peasants.
- A hostility to any non-worker or non-peasant members of the SRA, even those who are thoroughly revolutionary and convinced of its politics, labeling them as "class enemies" or "future traitors when the revolution comes".
The second most dominant faction within the party, the Revolutionary Syndicalist Party (RSP), has a much more organised structure to its membership and leadership. Its key characteristics include:
- A formal leadership, comprised of elected branch committees for regional branches, and an elected national committee. Committee members are elected yearly, and are re-callable at any time.
- A capacity to discipline its members in the event that they stray too far away from the party line, maintaining the discipline and organisation needed for an effective revolutionary party.
- A clear recognition of the power of the working class to fundamentally challenge and ultimately overthrow capitalism to a greater degree than that of any other class, as well as an understanding of workers' material interest in collective struggle due to the collective nature of their work and treatment by employers, as opposed the individual material interests of the peasantry which can hinder their capacity for collective action.
- An understanding of the important of solidarity with all peasants and workers involved in the struggle against capitalism regardless of their political level or affiliation. In addition to this, the party is aware of the tendency for workers and peasants to enter struggles with their actions and consciousness in contradiction with one another, and their capacity to both be pushed into and to learn from struggle to a degree that rhetoric alone cannot achieve.
Organisation[edit | edit source]
Membership[edit | edit source]
The Syndicalist Republican Alliance keeps few accurate records of its membership, however enlistment requires all members to be working class or peasant (with some degree of leniency for convinced revolutionaries who are part of the middle classes, e.g. intellectuals, students, etc.) and to be part of an applicable trade union, which combined with their virulent opposition to authority and capitalism generally filters out most bourgeoisie, landlords or general reactionaries of any breed. According to Signis Pale, a journalist and thoroughly reliable witness to the Civil War:
| “ | The Alliance is everywhere and nowhere at the same time, as if it were the ghost of the everyman's bitterness and militancy. Practically every worker or peasant regardless of their true affiliation with an SRA-controlled trade union or SRA branch identifies with the Alliance. They're so decentralised and at one with the whole of the masses that they are almost impossible to accurately target and stamp out by police, with the state instead acting on mere rumour and allegation of anarchist affiliation... | ” |
–Signis Pale | ||
Leadership[edit | edit source]
Mark Nowe, a member of the Virassian National Miners Union and well-known militant member of the SRA, mentions this regarding the alliance's leadership structure in his Recounts of the Civil War:
| “ | The Alliance is a powerful and agitating but disorganised and unaccountable blob of peasants and workers fed up to no end with the system, and with enough human decency to recognise that Vissers or Astralists aren't the cause of Virassia's problems, but rather see the whole damn capitalist system as the seed of all the world's woes. My comrades in the unions and in the Alliance make me proud, no doubt, but in these years of war all I have seen is defeat after defeat on the back of what could only be comrades' unfliching obsession with horizontalism. | ” |
–Mark Nowe | ||
