Congress of Carrara

The Congress of Carrara, held from 31 August to 5 September 1968, in the eponymous city, is one of the major anarchist congresses of the 20th century. Led by anarchist federations from 31 countries—primarily European—the congress aimed to coordinate anarchists on an international scale and founded the International of Anarchist Federations (IAF), one of the main anarchist organizations to this day.

40 delegates and around 120 participants attended the congress, which took place shortly after the Prague Spring and May '68, events marking the rebirth of the anarchist movement. Numerous topics were debated and discussed, such as the economic systems favored by anarchists, how to carry out the revolution, relations between anarchists and Marxists, and the reception of the Cuban Revolution. The delegates decided that their new organization would act in concert with the Anarcho-Syndicalist International (IWA-AIT/ICT) and that their actions would be coordinated and complementary.

Although the congress succeeded in founding the IAF as intended, it was also criticized by many anarchists for its legalistic, bureaucratic, and even reformist aspects—particularly because it only gave voice to delegates pre-selected by national anarchist federations and excluded more radical voices. The fact that the congress was overwhelmingly composed of European anarchists, despite the existence of significant non-European anarchist federations, was also a point of criticism. Some congress participants, such as Daniel Cohn-Bendit, actively worked to marginalize the positions of non-European anarchists—for example, by downplaying the repression of Cuban anarchists in response to Domingo Rojas, the delegate from the Mexican Anarchist Federation—though his positions were not adopted by the congress.