The Organisational Platform itself insisted that its approach drew directly on the views of Bakunin and Kropotkin, and was a restatement of classical anarchist thought. Bakunin and Kropotkin had been partisans of organisational dualism: the view that a specific, anarchist, political organisation was required to supplement popular movements like unions. Some would strongly argue that some of Bakunin’s writings on revolutionary organisation should also be included in any account of Platformism, notably his The Program of the International Brotherhood (1869) and The Rules and Program of the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy (1868)

In the post war period many include documents like the Georges Fontenis pamphlet Manifesto of Libertarian Communism. This is somewhat controversial: different Platformists would have different amount of agreement and disagreement with each of these documents, particularly reservations about including the Manifesto at all. The Federation of Anarchist Communists of Bulgaria’s 1945 manifesto, on the other hand, is not well-known, but has a strong claim to be included in the Platformist tradition. The Especifismo conception of anarchist organisation, coined by the Uruguayan Anarchist Federation or FAU, and important in Latin America, has many similarities with Platformism. Like Bakunin, and the Platform itself, it advocates theoretical and tactical unity, collective responsibility, and federalism.