The International Union of Anarchists (IAU)
is a group of international anarcho-communist
organisations.
The IAU has national organisations in Ukraine,
Russia, Israel, Latvia, Belarus and Spain,
individual members in Germany and Sweden,
and links to anarchists in Bulgaria, Kazakhstan,
Lithuania, France, Tunisia and Syria.The IUA's
main objective is coordinating the efforts
of various anarchist organizations to reorganize
society according to the principles of federative
self-governance.
== 
Background ==
IUA was founded at a conference on 21 November
2011, attended by representatives from Ukraine,
Israel, Germany, Latvia, and Russia.
They agreed on a memorandum of association
and cooperation, which was the basis upon
which later programming, structure, and basic
rules of activity were established.
Most of IUA’s members before November 2011
were part of RKAS and separated into autonomous
structures because of differences in the goals
and methods of anarchist organizations, such
as the prefiguration of future free society.
Several months after the conference, a significant
number of people joined the IUA.
Locally elected councils were then formed.
Local councils assign the duties of determining
solutions to the problems of both temporary
and permanent group coordination.
All positions are not constant in the local
councils.
Therefore, at the local council level, there
is a constant reshuffling of posts either
by the Board, or upon the personal initiative
of the party.
At the beginning of 2012, organizations in
Spain and Sweden requested and were granted
entry into the IUA.
== Approach and philosophy ==
The common goal of IUA members is the elimination
of the state, hired labor, inequality, and
private property, along with the widespread
replacement of commodity-money relations with
relations based upon principles of mutual
equality and fraternity.
This is to be achieved through the collaborative
planning of self-managing teams of workers,
tenants and consumers, along with the implementation
of business activities in accordance with
the principle of "from each according to his
ability, to each according to his needs in
the economic empowerment of society ... ."
The IUA also strives toward the following:
the widespread introduction of direct democracy
the transfer of full key decisions about the
public life of assemblies of workers, students,
pensioners and other groups (regarded as "oppressed
people") to themselves
the creation of coordinating councils for
the social control over production, housing,
education and all other spheres of life, strictly
subordinated to elected assemblies (via binding
mandates and the right of withdrawal)
the autonomy of any ethnic and religious communities,
provided they reject authoritarian institutions,
hierarchies, values of capitalism, and xenophobia.
== See also ==
=== 
Other anarchist internationals and international
networks ===
Anarchist St. Imier International (1872–1877)
International Working People's Association
(1881–1887)
International Workers Association (1922–)
International of Anarchist Federations (1968–)
Black Bridge International (2001–2004)
International Libertarian Solidarity (2001–2005)
Anarkismo.net (2005
