ideology that answered past problems.[6]

Platformism was one such ideological contribution of Ukrainian, Russian, and later French revolutionaries based on experiences in the anarchist stronghold of Ukraine during the Russian revolution[7]. The platformists emphasized the development of revolutionary organization rooted in and building mass organization, but with a unity of theory, strategy, and tactics. Unlike democratic centralism, platformist organization lacked the top-down higher bodies that could dictate organizational line to the base[8]. Platformism shows promise for rectifying the bureaucratizing tendencies in the Bolsheviks, and the at-times chaotic hamstringing disunity of the revolutionary mass movements and synthesist revolutionary organizations.

The Platformists were dealing with a particular problem in history however. At that time there were mass Bolshevik, Socialist, and Anarchist revolutionary organizations and putting into practice anti-capitalist organization of society. Platformismespecifista organizations today are aware of, draw from, and are in dialogue with the platformist current. Especifismo is somewhat of a complicated affair due to conflicting histories in existence. Especifismo means simply specific-ism, or the idea of believing in the need for specific (political) organization. In Uruguay (birth of especifismo) there was a traditional division between anarchists who only believed in mass anarcho-syndicalist organization, and those who believed a political organization was also necessary. Many if not most in North America trace especifismo to the Federacion Anarquista Uruguay founded in the 1950s. The real birth of especifismo as an explicit position of the FAU was in post-dictatorship Uruguay during the 1980s, when the FAU was re-founded, anarchism re-proclaimed, and especifismo put forward as a lesson of the struggle.[11]

Especifismo