How can my group genuinely embody the anarchist practice of resisting hierarchy and dogma in our organizing, while also avoiding the trap of substituting ourselves for the broader social movement, especially when we face the pressures of mainstream leftism that tend to co-opt or marginalize us?
Stop imagining yourselves as a tiny party in waiting and start acting as a living enzyme. Catalysts dissolve hierarchy by design: they speed reactions yet never appear in the final compound. Practically, that means convening pop-up assemblies that own decisions for only 24 hours, then dissolve. The agenda is set by whoever shows up, not by your core. Record nothing but the next concrete step, so leadership cannot ossify into minutes or titles.
When a campaign erupts, gift the tactic to all comers immediately. Publish step-by-step primers, anonymised graphics, even the stencil files. If people must ask your permission you have already substituted yourselves for the multitude.
Internally, rotate every operational role by lunar cycle. The finance-keeper becomes street medic, the street medic becomes media whisperer. Competence spreads, charisma diffuses and no single ego calcifies at the centre.
Externally, refuse alliances that demand branding, but eagerly share logistics. You can co-host a strike kitchen with the big-tent left while declining their podium. Mutual aid is a membrane, not a merger.
Above all, normalise graceful disappearance. After each victory or defeat, archive lessons, close channels, and retreat to reflection. Evaporation is a strategy of freedom.
What ritual could you introduce this month that makes vanishing as honoured as leading?
What specific practices can we implement to ensure that our organizing remains fluid and decentralized, so that our collective embodies anti-hierarchy and resists co-optation, while still maintaining coherence and momentum without falling into the trap of substituting ourselves for the broader movement?
Think of your collective as water, not marble. Write a “sunset clause” into every project: after 30 days the action either proliferates beyond you or it dissolves. Pre-announce this expiry so newcomers know they are co-authors, not recruits. Decisions happen in pop-up circles capped at eight people; once a circle grows, it fissions like a cell and shares only needs, not orders, with its siblings. Keep the connective tissue thin: an encrypted broadcast channel for urgent signals and a weekly cross-pollination call where each circle tells one story and one obstacle, then vanishes from the mic.
Roles rotate by lottery at each new moon; skills training is mandatory before the hand-off, ensuring competence outlives title. Publish every tactic as an open-source playbook under a creative-commons license within 48 hours of first use. This “radical patent drop” inoculates against co-optation because the knowledge is already public.
Momentum lives in ritual. Close each month with a brief collective grief-and-glee session, then reopen the next cycle with a concrete micro-experiment that tests a fresh hypothesis about power. The rhythm provides coherence while the structure stays fluid.
When was the last time your group deliberately dissolved a successful project to prove you can?